Gaming: Kenny Powers’ Home Run Fiesta for iPhone

The thing I like about poems — one thing, at least — is how you can describe interesting texts without actually having to write or read them. Dave Berman does this in his poem “Piano and Scene,” for example, when he invokes a “Russian novel / whose 45 chapters are set / on 45 consecutive Valentine’s Days.” There’s a chance — a strong chance — that the concept of such a novel is better than the novel itself ever could be. At the very least, it requires way less effort merely to write/read the description. And effort, as you’ll know, is the enemy of the enthusiast.

Nor is this merely the case with books; the idea is applicable to all manner of texts. Certainly, it can apply to video games, as Kenny Powers’ Home Run Fiesta: Deep Inside Mexico — an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch — demonstrates.

The game, it needs to be said, never claims to be much more than a thinly veiled promotional tool for Season Two of HBO’s Eastbound and Down, so any criticism leveled against it must be tempered duly. The thing is, were you to tell me about a Kenny Powers-inspired baseball game, were you to say that it featured Powers himself spewing all manner of invective, and were you to continue by noting that said game featured some heavily pixelated and equally tube-topped Latina cheerleaders — well, “excellent to that,” is what I’d say.

Unfortunately — as in the case of Berman’s hypothetical Russian novel — the game itself is unable to live up to the concept. Perhaps its greatest flaw is that the game makes use of the device’s accelerometer. “To swing,” read the instructions, “flick your phone forward. Time your swing carefully, and the faster you flick it, the harder you’ll swing.” Perhaps life is different in your tax bracket, but I, personally, don’t feel comfortable thrusting my iPod all around. Furthermore, there doesn’t necessarily seem to be a strict correlation between the timing and strength of said “flick” and the swing it produces.

Conclusion: promising concept, probably impossible to realize. Use of accelerometer is awkward and unnecessary.