Harvester

Harvester was a crap FMW game about High Scores released in the late 1990's that was meant to troll the concerned American public following the ESRB scapegoat taking fire at the time. It was created to spark drama following the recent speculation in American culture that violence in video games causes violence irl. Instead, it gleaned a cult following by gamers who recognized its unseen potential as being the greatest game ever made to parody VG violence.

Gameplay

You play the role of Steve Mason in the fictional town of Harvest, whose sole job is to embark on a few GTAesque missions to gain entry into the Masonic lodge. (Get it? Haha? Mason, Masonic?) Anyway the people in Harvest range from borderline personality disorder to schizophrenia, and the ones who aren't clearly out of touch are meant to be even more creepy because no one else in town seems to notice their clear insanity.

The game usually takes most people one week to complete blind because some of the traps are completely retarded with no indication on how to solve them. You can probably expect to die quite a few times after stumbling across some NPC who would've drawn their weapon on you simply because you'd chosen the wrong answer to an impossible to answer question. Great gameplay.

Harvester's Main Message

Incredibly awesome violence and gore aside, there's actually a message hidden within Harvester. The message is not so subtly divided equally between both endings, so either one you choose will leave you with the game's main aesop.

GOOD ENDING: Roadrunner Cartoons

• "Don't you know that people who watch violence become violent themselves?"
• "That's bullshit Mom."

BAD ENDING: Getting Married (Lulz)

There's the alternate ending: where the game's message STILL can't be escaped: The Harvester scientists stand over your freshly dead corpse in an examination room discussing just how useless it is to use video games to create serial killers. Instead, they hint that genetics may play a bigger role in crime. This hypothesis, obvious though it is, has the backing of science. Not, in fact, based on fridge brilliance created by politicians and overly concerned parents quickly looking for something easy to blame instead of noting it to America's shit school systems and even shittier society.

If you're a SJW without the humor to see the message then you would've probably played your way through to find an ending fork that would leave a bad taste in your mouth either way. Otherwise, if you're like the rest of us with common sense, then you'd see that if you truly believe that video games create criminals, then you're a fucking idiot.

High Score: The Game

Even Retsupurae thinks this game is fucked up

The game itself lives on as a Top 100 for the most nerdy of gamers. Though it was largely ignored at its release and failed as the potential drama bomb that the developers meant for it to be (they complained that the programming took quite some time), decades later we can only speculate at just how much trolling it could have done had the compile time not taken a few months longer than the anticipated release date. Harvester uses hilariously obscene amounts of full motion video to test the very idea that video games cause individuals to become serial killers. Attacking innocent NPCs in-game with something as weak as a pitchfork will lead to the death animation of the NPC to instantly explode to a gory shred of intestines, blood, piss, shit, semen and other vitreous entrails.

This heavy overuse of gore pushes Harvester's main point to the test-- if Harvester's final message isn't obvious enough for you because you're a concerned parent, then later on in the game at the pre-ending ultimatum, it's directly stated in the dialogue that video game monsters don't fucking exist... yet somehow after violently battling through a tower of them, you're somehow expected to instantly become a real life killer from fighting them.. amirite? This kind of logic would make perfect sense to someone who clearly hadn't ever touched a game before in their life.

In any case, the game was featured a few years after its release in some obscure gaming magazines only to hear common complaints like "tighten up the graphics" and "horrible gameplay" while the American public was too busy crying about the later 90's issues like anthrax scares, grumpy jihadists, Timmy Mcyay and Y2K.

Some scenes were banned in Europe for being too violent though.

Gallery

• 
  Holy shit, Another hidden message? The ingame Masonic Lodge had been designed from a real life mosque.
• 
  Justin Bieber's debut as a wop
• 
  If you squint, you'll see the legions of naked black inmates crawling around Kurt while he survives a Texas Supermax prison facility.

You Always were a Kidder, Steve

His arrest and release prison selfies. Coincidentally he's wearing the same shirt he wears during the electric chair scene of Harvester, proving a good actor never breaks form. No duckface? Lulz.

Texan Steve Mason (powerword: Kurt Kistler) was eventually arrested after Harvester for possession of child porn. Guess violent video games don't turn you into a serial killer but rather into a career pedophile.

Kurt is currently free and searching for a job following his arrest-- he perks up at the offer of any available work opportunity.

Forward your friendly fan mail to:

Original Info:

• 5303 Bryan Street
• Dallas, TX 75206
• (214) 490-8034
• [email protected] (He'll respond in minutes if the email is about a job offer, he ignores all other emails)

Changed: He recently moved due to his offender status

• 10326 Finnell St 102
• Dallas, TX 75220
• (214) 490-8034 (This is his cell, it still seems to be the same)

Kurt quickly answers when you call, he has a hilariously stereotypical Texan accent. Try not to ask him about his arrest, he'll hang up.

Harvester is part of a series on Gaming Visit the Gaming Portal for complete coverage.

Harvester is part of a series on Trolls Visit the Trolls Portal for complete coverage.

Featured article January 2 & 3, 2015
Preceded by Best Korea	Harvester	Succeeded by TBA