Bad is good...

I've noticed a trend in video games lately - well, not lately, but over the past couple of years - toward playing the bad guy.

I used to be an avid video-gamer, but that's faded out to "Madden," WWE and NHL games, plus the "Resident Evil" series and "Gran Turismo" and other assorted racing games, and I don't even play those that often anymore.

But I used to be a die-hard PlayStation guy. And generally speaking, you were usually the good guy.

That started to change, as far as I could tell, with games like "Driver," in which you were the wheelman for a criminal syndicate (and even in that, you were really an undercover cop), which led, of course to the "Grand Theft Auto" series, which I must admit I've never gotten into, having lost some of my gaming fanaticism before it became popular.

And there were always "antiheroes," like "Final Fantasy VII's" Cloud Strife or even the ambivalent mercs of a game like "Dino Crisis," who just wanted to get out of Dodge with all their limbs.

But "GTA's" success opened the door for a wave of you-are-the-bad-guy games, including "Devil May Cry" (another "antihero" game) and even, from what I understand, a "Resident Evil" game where you can actually be a zombie if your character is bitten and turns.

Anyway, I have found the ultimate bad-is-good game: "Jaws Unleashed"!

Yup, you guessed it... you are the shark!

Now, "Jaws" is probably my all-time favorite horror movie (it's that or "Dawn of the Dead"), and it has been freaking me out since the first time I saw it, when I was 10.

And I've developed both a fear of being eaten by some undersea monster, a desire to learn to scuba-dive, and a fascination with the water.

Details, near as I can tell: Coming Aug. 23, from Majesco, a company based here in Jersey, home of the first headline-making shark attacks in North America, available on PC, PS2 (yes!) and Xbox.

I can't wait. I want this. Maybe not quite as much as I want a robot monkey, but I want it bad. And if I have to wait until August, this better be good. That's all I have to say.

That, and, "We're gonna need a bigger PS2."

Links:
• Majesco Entertainment - the pressure's on, guys!
• The "Jaws Unleashed" site
• The "Jaws" DVD site

Are you humming the theme music, too?