Charlie Sheen: World's Greatest Video Game Designer

By Jared Newman

If Charlie Sheen has any trouble working in showbiz from now on, he still has a promising career ahead of him in video games. With boasts of tiger's blood, warlock instincts and a laser focus on “winning,” Sheen's imagination is the perfect muse for any game studio.

So let's imagine that Sheen is the star of his own video game, based entirely on his quotes to the media in response to CBS putting Two and a Half Men on hiatus and eventually canceling the current season. The result is a visionary, over-the-top experience that could put Bulletstorm and Mortal Kombat to shame. Read on for what could easily become a promising new career for Charlie.

Starting Up: “Bring me a frickin' challenge, because, you know, it just ain't there. Winning.”

While most modern video games present you with a smorgasbord of difficulty options before the game begins, Charlie Sheen only has “one speed, one gear: Go!” In other words, don't expect to be pampered with easy modes and “Super Guides.” If you weren't cut out for Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania, you're not bitchin' enough to roll with Charlie Sheen's video game. Duh, winning.

Prologue: “We work for the Pope, we murder people. We're ... high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks.”

As night falls on Charlie Sheen's mansion, the game begins with a ham-fisted stealth scenario in a nod to the post-Metal Gear Solid Playstation era. Together with your band of “gnarly gnarlingtons,” you're ordered do the dirty work of high priests in what resembles a cross between Assassin's Creed 2 and The Da Vinci Code.

Unfortunately, Sheen's first mission is to trash his hotel room in the nude, and despite your best efforts to keep him undetected, eventually he'll be wheeled off to the hospital for a respawn, Grand Theft Auto-style.  Blaming the episode on a medication allergy or a hernia allows Sheen to avoid arrest, but his threat level is too high to continue as an effective stealth warlock, and his only option is to flee. That's when the real adventure begins.

Chapter One: “It's been a tsunami of media. And I've been riding it on a mercury surfboard.” 

Apparently liberated from drug addiction, Sheen finds himself in hot pursuit by CBS executives. Prepare for a series of quick time events as he bobs and weaves through each appeal to join Alcoholics Anonymous and rehab. Gather bonus points for booking appearances on talk shows, radio programs and live web streams in preparation for the counter-offensive to come. 

Chapter Two: “I'm dealing with fools and trolls. I'm dealing with soft targets, and it's just strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee.”

Back on his feet, Sheen is ready for combat. But if this game is going to work, it needs a plentiful adversary, something akin to the henchmen, robots or alien grunts that fill out your average corridor crawl. Fortunately, Sheen has plenty of haters -- network executives, chiding celebrities and a hostile populace -- along with the utmost confidence that he can mow them down using calculated circle strafes and the sheer power of his mind. That might be incomprehensible for mere mortals, but Sheen has “tiger blood, you know, Adonis DNA.” 

Chapter 3: “Resentments are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my saber.”

As Sheen's critics grow louder, he can't fight without a more affective arsenal. His badass blade is reminiscent of a sword that devours souls, but instead it thrives on perceived jealousy toward his neverending porn star family vacation. And with each enemy encounter, Sheen's saber becomes more powerful, bringing a hint of RPG action to this otherwise straightforward button-masher.

Level-Up: “I am on a drug, it's called 'Charlie Sheen.' It's not available 'cause if you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off, and children will weep over your exploded body.” 

Sheen's armor is kind of like the Acid Burst shield in Borderlands. Attackers who get too close to the Sheen lifestyle are hit with a deadly corrosive blast. But how do Sheen and his harem handle this hostile environment? With a winning combination of Naked Juice and chocolate milk, of course.

Chapter 4: “Sorry, you thought you were just messing with one dude. Winning.”

By now, you've been battling Sheen's doubters for days to no avail. He's becoming overwhelmed. But just when the fight is turning ugly, you can use a battle cry to summon Sheen's “deadly and dangerous and secret and silent soldiers” -- a throwback to his days with the Vatican assassin warlocks. It's unknown whether the allies are actual people or just projections of Sheen's imagination -- kind of like the Smiths in Killer 7 -- but these forces of gnarly strike back at the haters when they least expect it. 

Chapter 5: “You know, I'm an F-18, bro, and I will destroy you in the air and I will deploy my ordinance to the ground.”

Before his foes can regroup, Sheen miraculously transforms into a fighter jet for an aerial attack. It's not just an arbitrary vehicle mission to break up the monotony, it's also a last-ditch effort to draw Sheen's arch-rival, Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre, out into the open. And it works.

Dramatic Final Boss Cutscene: “I fire back once and this contaminated little maggot can't handle my power and can't handle the truth. I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels especially if they wind up in my octagon.”

Sheen's showdown with Chuck Lorre is a tournament fighting mission in an eight-sided arena, UFC-style. It's Sheen and his “fire breathing fists” against Lorre's barrage of tin cans, which during happier days Sheen claims to have converted into pure gold. “Defeat is not an option,” Sheen utters before the last battle begins. “They picked a fight with a warlock.” 

Final Chapter: “Check it, Alex, I embarrassed him front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that his unevolved mind cannot process.”

Charlie Sheen's highly-evolved thought process allows him to retain one skill from his earlier combat missions, and he wisely chooses regenerating health. It's the edge you'll need as the fight against Lorre becomes an endurance match. He brings the full might of his curriculum vitae against Sheen in an epic final battle, featuring the tag teams of Dharma & Greg, Mike and Molly and the dorks from the Big Bang Theory. Only players who can harness the power of Sheen's mind, that which “fires in a way that is perhaps not from this terrestrial realm,” will emerge victorious.

Epilogue: "Dying is for fools. Amateurs." 

With Chuck Lorre vanquished -- that is, resigned to a life of middling sitcoms -- Charlie Sheen reveals a stunning plot twist: Like the meta-story in Assassin's Creed, Sheen's video game adventure is actually part of a larger timeline of events, in which he's carefully orchestrating a transition from dopey sitcom star to edgy actor and budding Twitter celebrity. The tiger's blood, the Adonis DNA, the rocket-fueled saber, the mercury surfboard -- all of it was part of Sheen's master plan for a drastic image overhaul. Sure enough, HBO comes calling, and Sheen's transformation is complete.

Yup, we all just got punked by an elaborate gimmick, but at least it was a fun ride.  

The awesome poster image of Charlie Sheen with tiger stripes and roaring F-18s was submitted by Casey Barteau to the Onion AV Club. It is a work of beauty.