Me and my friend wanted to go get Call of Duty: Ghosts on release, seeing all the promotional material and gameplay got us hyped; we went to our local game store, but somehow they had a used copy that was really damaged, but only cost 29.99; so we bit the bullet and took it anyway. We rushed back to my place and inserted the disk into the Xbox, but we didn't know what we were going to get into.
I boot it up and notice that the menu looks different, it's all in sepia, but I pass this up as a graphical error that would later be patched, we decide to try out some extinction and see what all the fuss is about... And here's where things get weird. We both started on the map and ran around, and got an objective marker to go kill some aliens, we run over and we don't see any aliens... Instead we see ILLEGAL MEXICAN ALIENS; my friend giggled, getting the reference, I however was more confused at why the game was acting like this, and not playing the regular-ass extinction shown in the trailers. We shoot some, but they start crying when shot and bleed ULTRA-REALISTIC BLOOD all over their clothes, everytime we killed one we were treated to a flashback of what their life was like before that point, how they wanted to come to America to pursue a better life for their family and two kids, to experience true democracy and live the American dream.
My friend was laughing his ass off at all of this, and I was just really annoyed at how fucking heavy-handed this goddamn message was, I mean like "OKAY, WE GET IT, GAME. WE'RE PLAYING AMERICA, FORCING AND IMPRISONING ILLEGALS WHO JUST WANT A BETTER LIFE, YADDA YADDA", like holy shit get to the game part already. The game's music suddenly went away, and we were just treated to ambient noise while still mowing down all of these illegals, watching the same six or so copy and pasted cutscenes in random order, at this point I was pretty much lying down on the bed, staring at the ceiling just holding RT not giving a fuck, because it took like 10 seconds for each goddamn flashback to come and go.
After like 20 minutes of this shit we run over to the objective, "Guard the border" it says, and we were standing at a big highway while some trucks came up looking very friendly and not like bad guys at all, however the game still marked them as bad guys; so to fuck with the flow of things I convinced my friend to put away our guns and let them pass into the state of California without violence. The men and women in the truck gave me a wave and a smile, which I gave right back.
Suddenly something I didn't expect happened, my superior officer came out of his desk office and started yelling at me, about how we let the illegals through without even trying to stop them in any way. He goes on this long rant in an un-skippable cutscene for what seemed like forever and he fired us.
From then on it was really weird, the game faded to black and we woke up in our shitty four room apartment, both of us on separate bunk beds; I looked out the window and I was in California, alright. My character indicated that he needed to take a piss and so I walked over to the bathroom and held X, afterward playing a little thumbstick balancing act to make him not piss all over the seat, which he did, so I had to manually take some toilet paper and wipe it off, afterward putting it in the toilet and flushing it. My character washed his hands and sighed, walking over to the dining table I notice a newspaper, I flip over to the classifieds and look for a job, scrolling down I see that there's an opening at the local police station for an 'Armory technician', that sounds simple, I've already passed the bar and I know the basics of firearm management, it shouldn't be too hard.
I grab my keys, put on a jacket and tell my friend that I'm going out because ONE OF US has to go and get rent money, I don't think he hears me, he's too busy focusing on how accurate the breakfast creation in the game is, and is starting intently at his box of Chocorox, dumping it into a bowl.
In the bus I try and make myself invisible to the others onboard, looking out the window hoping nobody's going to come over and try and chat me up, I'm getting on and I'm getting off the bus, there's nothing in between, in my mind.
Walking into the police station I try and look for the secretary, but to my best efforts I cannot; I garner quite a few odd looks my way, but I manage to ask someone where she or he might be, the officer tells me that it's a hallway down and to the right, I say my thanks and leave, putting my head down to try and not get any other funny looks, they probably think I'm here for interrogation or something, the way I'm dressed; I make a sigh of relief seeing the secretary, and I explain that I'm here for the job application, she nods and hands me the application and I sit in the waiting room, answering all the questions. This part was a tricky one, since I had virtually no background on my character's life, and just sort of pretended I knew what I was talking about, hopefully it was enough to interest a higher up. I walk outside and realize that the bus isn't going to be back again for another half hour "Fuck." I say under my breath and walk a trek back to my complex, finally back I see that my friend completely emptied the fridge, and was filling his fat self up with every food he could find; "There goes a third of our current finances" I say to him, walking into my room. I open up an internet browser in-game and start checking out my character's social media accounts, seeing what they have going on in their lives; I unfortunately don't learn much, and get to thinking... Could I?
Like, really?
I slowly sneak to my door and lock it as quietly as possible, then go back to the desktop; I search up 'porn' and find loads of websites, and slowly lower my pants, grabbing the crotch, tugging it.
It was twelve minutes later, and I unloaded into the toilet. It was only after literally after whacking off inside this game did I snap out of it, realizing how surreal this whole experience is, and shove my friend off the controller, walk over the the console and pull out the disc. A glow went around the disc, screaming "NO, YOU CANNOT DO THIS; YOU WILL PLAY, FOREVER."
I immediately run the fuck out of the house, yelling "NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE" as I burst out the door, I whip out my cellphone and call a university, asking for their Informational Technologies wing to come over immediately to see this miracle of science and goddamn magic sitting in my console right now.