Have You Played… Olive Wars?

Ah, fickle memory, what nebulous relic have you brought me today? Ah yes, Olive Wars. I remember Olive Wars. You played as an olive, and you fought in a valiant war. Your enemies were the airborne vegetables of contempt. Broccoli, tomato, peppers, avocado. The vegetables of the skies. They must be brought down. Yes, memory, you have brought me a good nugget of pointless wonder this day, excellent work.

You can still play a knock-off flash version but it is of questionable value. You fire pimiento bullets into a torturously blue sky, causing veg to fall and explode. But veggies will also collide in mid-air. If a falling potato hits a mushroom on the way down, then that mushroom will also fall. The most adept strategy is to remain stationary and spit non-stop at the same patch of sky. The top layers of chillies and spud will bring down the rest of the vegetables like culinary dominoes.

Olive Wars was stupid. And yet I have many cloudy associative memories surrounding it. I got the game on a cheap CD I bought in “The More Store” of my hometown, a sordid den for cheap mouthwash and wooden spoons, the kind of place that would be a pound shop if the proprietor would only round all the prices down. The CD was a compilation disc of rubbish games, cheaper than sweets and just as colourful. Olive Wars is the only one I remember.

Honestly, the dumb shit our brains carry around.