Gaming fun: Run if you can…

They say that before one can walk, one must learn to take the first step. It follows with reason that before one can enter the Olympic 100 metre sprint, one must learn to walk. Sadly, this rather important clause will sometimes be overlooked by the odd participant. In QWOP, the latest Flash game sensation, this clause has been very thoroughly overlooked by our very odd participant, whom we must assist in his Herculean efforts to… well, move forward. By some extraordinary stroke of luck, the tall, dark, well-built fellow from an underdeveloped country has somehow passed for an athlete and ended up on the finals track, without being able to walk a step. The guy simply cannot run. When word of this happy-go-lucky runner reached me, I sought out the famous character without delay, thinking, how hard can this be? A note to the readers here: do not, like me, be fooled by the expert, limber posture of your contestant as he prepares to spring forth across the white line. I guarantee you he's more likely to stumble back and topple head over heels than make it over the starting mark. From the ingenious moves of the runner, I got the impression that he had not stirred a limb before in his entire life. Was he cryogenically frozen, like Austin Powers, from birth? Or was he a puppet who wished on a star to become a little boy? The game is simple: get the guy to run a hundred metres by controlling his arms and legs through the keys Q, W, O and P, hence the name QWOP. QWOP might have been the product of a collection of programming errors, but publishing it can only have one purpose: to keep the players entertained. Hit the keys rapidly and randomly, and watch the poor athlete perform bizarre and ridiculous stunts before coming crashing to the ground. Or try coordinating his arm and leg movement so that he moonwalks in excruciating pain and keels over dead. The hopeless runner is all the more impossible to train because he defies all laws of physics as he slips, trips, and lands (literally) in a confused and intangible heap. What QWOP lacks in graphics and common sense, it makes up for in its originality. With the four letters, you are given an overwhelming sense of freedom and endless possibilities of physical wonders (how endlessly you may endeavour to achieve them is another matter). You can perform any feat because your character is agile, lightweight and has a remarkable tendency of bouncing. The farthest I ever got with QWOP was 5.2 metres, which he completed with one leg dragging behind like a broken prosthetic. However, a girl I know has clearly devised a sequence of key taps that work for her, because she can make him go hop and jump like Alice down the rabbit hole. She made 10 metres before the exhausted fellow tripped over his own ankles, rolled off the track and fell clean out of the screen. QWOP has also been known, among other things, to stand on his head, propel himself forward on his belly, and do a split that a cheerleader would envy. With these impossible moves mastered, our hero QWOP would fare better in the gymnastic event than on the race track. However, till he's there, you must tap away and he must stumble around on bended knees till he's relieved himself of the humiliating ordeal. So go ahead and give QWOP a try; remember, in this flash game world of flailing arms and legs, "Everyone is a winner". — V. R. F.