If I could pick any video game to come to life, I might go with Crazy Taxi. The ability to drive like an absolute maniac and not have anyone care while also doing no damage to the car or (I think) people, would be incredibly fun.

I was thinking about that after reading Ernest Cline’s “Armada,” which stars a teenager who finds out that the alien-battling computer game he loves is actually real life.

Sure, those kinds of games would be fun too, but they have the inconvenient possible consequences of large-scale death and destruction. In the case of “Armada,” the risk is the destruction of our entire planet. So, not great.

The aliens involved are pretty intense, as main character Zack finds out from a government briefing video describing their reaction to a probe sent to the Jupiter moon Europa.

“‘You have desecrated our most sacred temple,’ the child’s voice intoned in a flat, inflectionless tone. ‘For this there can be no forgiveness. We are coming to kill you all.'”

Imagine that in the voice of a young girl, on a continuous loop. Slightly ominous.

I won’t go any further with things involving the plot since this is a fun story I would recommend if you like sci-fi video games and movies and such. Though I would recommend Cline’s “Ready Player One” a little more.

By the way, that Crazy Taxi video has been playing in the background the entire time I was writing this and the sound effects/music are oddly soothing. This only cements my decision to live in that world.