Read an Excerpt
[ CHAPTER ONE ]
I’M SORRY, OKAY?
On the Saturday morning that I almost triggered the end of the world, I woke up early. I was excited for three reasons:
1) No school.
2) Mom and Dad would be at Dad’s company softball game, which meant that I would have the house to myself all day.
3) BRAWL-A-THON 3000 XL!!!!
The original Brawl-A-Thon 3000 is my favorite video game of all time. If you asked me to rank my top ten games, it would go something like this:
1) Brawl-A-Thon 3000
2) Santa’s Go-Kart Apocalypse
3) Galactic Sheep-Sheep
4) Galactic Sheep-Sheep Returns
5) Maynard GermQuake’s Return to ToxiCity
6) Ninja Geeks: Fist of Algebra
7) Doctor Dragon’s Dojo of Doom
8) Unicorn Zombies
9) Tomb of the Penguin Warlord
10) Mr. Thumb Goes to Market (it’s better than it sounds)
The exact order might change based on how I’m feeling that day, but trust me, Brawl-A-Thon 3000 is always at the top of the list.
Now I know there’s more to life than video games. You have to have laptops and iPhones too, so you can download apps and watch videos and take pictures and write books like this one, which I couldn’t even type up without my mom’s laptop. I’m also going to use the drawing program, because a picture is worth a thousand words, and I want this book to be at least fifty thousand words long, so I figure fifty pictures ought to do it.
The point is, I’m not one of those guys who’s just going to sit here and tell you that video games are the only things that matter.
[ CHAPTER TWO ]
VIDEO GAMES: THE ONLY THINGS THAT MATTER
The original Brawl-A-Thon 3000 is the single greatest video game in history. In fact, the experts all agree that it’s pretty much the reason that video games were invented in the first place. Yes, it’s that good.
First of all, imagine parachuting down onto this half-destroyed island where packs of vicious half-mechanical animals have taken over. You have to build a character out of all these leftover machines and animal parts and fight an army of mutant machine beasts called MechReatures.
Also, on this island time flows backwards and forward so that one minute you might be tearing a MechReature apart and the next minute you’re accidentally building it up again. There are all kinds of mini games along the way where you have to shoot poison weeds and play speed chess against superintelligent monkey MechReatures. At the end of every level you have to battle a Mega-MechReature who is made up of all the worst parts of the guys you just fought. And that’s just the beginning.
Dad says there’s more to life than video games and nobody ever made the world a better place by battling mechanical wolves and laser-eyed hyenas all day, and I guess everybody’s entitled to their opinion.
But I have been playing Brawl-A-Thon 3000 for three years and I have gotten farther than anybody else I know, except for Wesley Midwood, who used to be my best friend.
What happened?
It’s a long and tragic story.