Close Range

The Onion, the foremost internet satirist, takes on the FPS genre ("New Video Game Consists Solely Of Shooting People Point-Blank In The Face") with this gritty tale of A.J., "a man with a mysterious past", whose brother is kidnapped by mysterious malefactors whose sinister plot can only be undone by traveling to varied environments and shooting hundreds of people in the face at close range (hence the name) with an assortment of high-powered firearms.

Though it was the popular and critical reception of the game ("already being hailed as critics as the most important game of the year") that was the subject of the Onion's faux news piece, internet humour enthusiasts were delighted to see that the game wasn't a mere "prop game" mock-up, but a fully interactive piece of software functioning much as depicted in the spoof news clip. In this game, the player is confronted with 24 sequences in which they face off against an opponent who is subsequently shot point-blank in the face by clicking on the screen or pressing the space bar.