Cobain Rolling in His Flannel-clad Grave

You may have heard that "Guitar Hero 5," the latest installment of the yes-tiny-plastic-guitars-ARE-awesome series, features Kurt Cobain as an unlockable avatar and led to a fun little legal rights quagmire. Sure, it's great to get to play through "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with him fronting your band, but what took his estate and friends by surprise is the fact that you can then use him to sing the Cardigans or "Push It" or some shit.

His friends & bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic have decried the situation and let everyone know they had nothing to do with it. That falls on his estate, which is controlled by widow Courtney Love. Unfortunately this is a woman who introduces herself to the person in the mirror every morning. Love scholars have deciphered her tweets (including gems like "ucking nmegafraud and youve got to show for it Kurt LUNCHBOXES CONVERESE SNEAKERS AND ACTIVISION SMUGLY BOASTING OF RAPE") and told us that she is very unhappy about the situation and never thought Activision would use Cobain's image as they have.

Of course, Kurt isn't the only icon to have his reputation dragged through video game mud.

• In the Da Vinci Code tie-in game, players can unlock and use James Joyce in place of Robert Langdon. Joyce is then forced to say lines like "I need to get to a library, now!" and "I've never met a cryptogram I couldn't crack" and "Any idiot knows that Mediterranean cultures at the turn of the millenium had mastered the use of bronze as a ritual vessel, as discovered by Riehausen in 1874. That's why my best friend is really the killer, and why you're going to sleep with me, hot foreign woman."


• In the 1992 Super Nintendo game "Mario Paint," players could unlock Vincent Van Gogh and force him to draw shaky, rudimentary spray-paint images of Mario having sex with Princess Peach and Yoshi.


• After beating Grand Theft Auto IV, players have the option to turn every civilian into Heidi Montag. Now I literally cannot stop running down and shooting civilians. This one's actually pretty awesome.
  
  Share on Facebook