John Cusack Likes Videogames

John Cusack Likes Videogames 

Let’s blare our opinions about them at him with from our boombox.

John Cusack has been a famous actor for about 40 years now, blessed with the kind of face that almost every movie fan can recognize. But he seems a little burnt out on Hollywood at the moment, and after a lifetime in the industry, who could blame him? He used a recent interview with Variety not to talk movies but rather to promote Momo, his debut graphic novel, which adapts and embellishes a true story of Jackie Gleeson, Richard Nixon, and aliens. He also used the interview to make the announcement that he has started playing video games, in order “to figure out what happened to film.”

Then, in one of the most painful moments in interviewing history, the entertainment journalist at Variety conducting the discussion didn’t ask him the follow up question of, “So, what happened to film, John? WHAT HAPPENED?!?” And so it is that, exactly as with Nixon and that UFO, the full truth remains a mystery.

You’d think that maybe drilling down on which games he’s played might help unravel the truth, but just as Scoob and the gang couldn’t be sure if that giant green octopus ghost down by the mill was real or just an old grouch in a rubber mask, the clues here don’t reveal enough to paint a picture of Cusack’s inner reality. The games he named in this interview include Dead Island 2, The Callisto Protocol and Control.

These are all great games that taste great together, but if we’re being honest, it feels like a semi-random assortment of relatively recent releases—not exactly tailored to our imaginary ideas of what John Cusack would love the most. So, before Demi Moore’s shoulder pads snatch us from this mortal coil and drag us into whatever exotic, neurotic dreamworld they were born from, let’s run down some games that we think Cusack would get a kick out of, based on our long history of never having met him in person even once.

No More Heroes

We almost started this list with Romeo Is A Deadman, the latest release from legendary director and writer Suda51. But then we read that Judd Nelson plays the role of an alternate reality J. Edgar Hoover (the head of the F.B.I. during the Nixon era) in the game. Given that Nelson beat Cusack for the role of Bender in The Breakfast Club, and Cusack’s new comic is also about an alternative interpretation of Nixon’s involvement in the supernatural, we feared that the game could irritate Cusack on some level, as if Judd Nelson had once again stolen his thunder.

So, while it’s not the newest game from the famed auteur, No More Heroes continues to stand out in Suda’s gameography as the greatest representation of his singular style. And something about Travis Touchdown just feels Cusack-coded. Maybe it’s his history of playing stunted loners and homicidal killers in equal measure.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game

It’s hard to imagine that Cusack’s High Fidelity didn’t have some influence on Scott Pilgrim. Both are about lovable, self-absorbed young men whose obsessions with niche media represent their inability to be normal boyfriends. The key difference, of course, is that Cusack’s Rob Gordon ends up in several psychological showdowns with his own ex-girlfriends, while Pilgrim has to face the former lovers of Ramona Flowers, the girl he aspires to date.

Still, the parallels are strong enough that we’re certain Cusack would feel at home in the world of Scott Pilgrim. If he hooted and hollered enough about it, maybe next up he’d get the ball rolling on a High Fidelity-based beat ’em up from the same developers. Seeing Cusack’s likeness in the “big-head, little body style” pixel art style, teaming up with Jack Black and Todd Louiso (the actors who played Rob’s employees at his record store) as they work to take down new age hippie Tim Robbins would be a real hoot. Even better would be a sunnier, sparkier mid-boss fight against Catherine Zeta Jones as Charlie Nicholson.

Deadly Premonition

Two of the three of the games Cusack named in his Variety interview were about shooting zombies, which let us know we had to include something from the survival horror genre for him here. But given how John seems to revel in how weird games can be, we also couldn’t help but want to shoot for the moon with the strangest, most divisive zombie game ever made.

Deadly Premonition even features in-game commentary about Sixteen Candles, one of Cusack’s first films. In most contexts, we imagine that hearing about a movie you helped make while trying to escape into a virtual world could break the immersion, but given that Agent York is talking directly to the player about the film, the intimacy of the experience actually be heightened due to Cusack’s personal experience with material. Sort of like if York told him that he likes his new comic book. It’s hard to complain about a videogame that gives you direct compliments.

UFO 50

If Cusack is curious about everything that the medium of games has to offer, then we’re sure he’d love UFO 50. While it doesn’t contain any of the large, 3D worlds that he seems drawn to, it does offer up a hefty sample of just about every genre of game outside of the modern, AAA landscape. It feels like the answer to “What happened to film?” could lie here somewhere, as the pure breadth of experiences in UFO 50 stands as a testament to many of the things that games can do that movies can’t.

The game also contains a meta-narrative that examines the fictional lives of the developers of the nonexistent UFO 50 game console. And of course, it has UFOs in it, and per the description of Cusack’s new comic, meta-narratives and UFOs are two of his passions.

To a T

If we’re being honest, Cusack will always be an awkward, lovable teenager to us. And so, it’s our selfish, impossible dream to watch him play To a T, the latest awkward, lovable game from Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi. Sure, it was tempting to cap off this list with something like Silent Hill 4: The Room, which bears more than a slight resemblance to Cusack’s film 1408. Or even something like YIIK, a game that features hipsters that use boom boxes and vinyl records to fight. But in the end, we want to see what John Cusack thinks of games that will touch his gentle, angsty, surrealist heart, and it’s hard to think of a better suggestion for that front than To an T. When it comes to games about being a teenager who struggles to fit in, literally and figuratively, they don’t get much more on the nose than this.