Written by Jonathan Knight

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Now that Peyton Hillis has stunned the world (and, according to some, inadvertently cold-cocked his own career) by being selected to grace the cover of the 2012 edition of Madden, we’re left to wonder – what took the video-game industry so long to recognize his beastly awesomeness?

There are countless other titles – new and old – that would benefit from putting the Albino Rhino on its covers and thereby modifying the design of the games.

Here are a few suggestions:

 

Super Mario Brothers

Rather than jumping over mushrooms and tossing fireballs at turtles, Peyton Hillis rampages through each screen, obliterating the colorful little brick-and-pipe world into a scorched, apocalyptic landscape. Seeing him coming, the walking mushrooms and bouncing turtles quickly turn around and run away, screaming their pixilated heads off like Clarice Starling’s lambs.

Instead of just making him twice his size, power mushrooms morph Peyton Hillis into a behemoth too large to fit on the screen. The little blue flowers would give him the ability to breath fire from his nose and mouth and immolate everything between him and Princess Toadstool’s castle.

There would be no need for the invincible star, for Peyton Hillis is already invincible.

Frogger

Peyton Hillis has no need to dodge traffic. He simply steps into the path of an oncoming semi truck and stiff-arms it into the median. Similarly, smaller cars that would otherwise turn Frogger into a dark smear on the pavement would bounce off Peyton Hillis and spiral off into oblivion.

Once he reached the demilitarized-zone median strip in the middle of the screen, Peyton Hillis simply reaches into the water, grabs one of the logs floating by, and, in one fell swoop, clears everything out of the river like a lumberjack on prototype amphetamines. He’d then hurdle across the entire river and into one of the designated frog-face areas, then repeat the entire process.

Oregon Trail

Peyton Hillis is capable frontier dad leading his family across the northwest territory toward safe passage in the Willamette Valley in 1848.

Rather than hunting for food, Peyton Hillis simply steps into the wilderness and commands all the elk and deer within earshot to lay down before him and die. If an axle breaks on the wagon, he simply picks up the wagon and carries it. If one of the oxen dies, he eats it.

If one of his children catches dysentery or typhoid, Peyton Hillis wraps his arms around the child until the disease forcibly vacates the body of the child and evaporates in the atmosphere.

Donkey Kong

In a rare reversal, Peyton Hillis plays the antagonist. He stands at the top of the screen – with a miniature Gwenyth Paltrow beside him – and heaves barrels, automobiles, and condominiums down at a squat little man named “Manginio” who quickly realizes he’s in over his head and can’t reach the first ladder before being mutilated by a flying Jacuzzi.

Breakout

Peyton Hillis stomps his foot and the colored bricks all fall away.

Doom

Just as he was the only living man left on the Browns’ offense last fall, Peyton Hillis becomes the only soldier reamining on a moon of Mars after an attack of demonic aliens. And just as his sole mission was to keep the Browns’ franchise from imploding and being sucked into a black hole of wretchedness, in the game he fights his way through a hellish gauntlet to prevent the demons from invading Earth.

So really, this game is really no different than Peyton Hillis’ everyday life.

Burger Time

Peyton Hillis climbs up the ladders and creates the burgers below, then eats them. The obnoxious hot dog, pickle, and egg remain off-screen, knowing better than to rile a hungry Peyton Hillis.

Mortal Kombat

Peyton Hillis stands off to the side, allowing his opponent to jump around and squawk like an alley cat in a microwave, then casually delivers a stiff-arm to the face that severs his opponent’s head from his neck. Peyton Hillis then slides his opponent’s backbone out of his spinal column like a straw out of a to-go cup and holds it up to the Dawg Pound, dripping blood and cerebrospinal fluid all over his uniform.

Mike Tyson’s Punch Out

Peyton Hillis drops each opponent with one punch (except Glass Joe, who dies of a stroke caused by a violent panic attack before the bout begins). When he reaches the final match, Mike Tyson steps into the ring, looks at Peyton Hillis, then calmly leaves the ring.

Pitfall!

The equivalent of training camp for Peyton Hillis. He stiff-arms scorpions and hurdles over crocodiles, then picks them up by their tails, whirls them around, and flings them into tar pits while doing his down-on-one-knee-arm-thrust-post-touchdown thing.

The oscillating ropes over the tar pits are unnecessary, as Peyton Hillis can simply vault over any object or opening in the Earth’s surface in his path.

Double Dragon

Not needing the help of the original character’s twin brother (or homosexual life partner - it’s never quite clear in the game), Peyton Hillis embarks on a quest through a rotted urban gauntlet not unlike the Flats and beats the living hell out of a myriad of thugs (all Steelers fans) who step in his path.

Any muscle-bound missing link from Allegheny County foolish enough to try to swing a metal bat at Peyton Hillis will receive a roundhouse kick to the neck, snapping his jugular vein like a swizzle stick in a garbage disposal, and then have his arms removed.

Space Invaders

Rather than waiting for the aliens to march down in their mind-numbing, lateral Nazi-goose-step fashion, Peyton Hillis plunges into the army of insectile life forms and plows through them until he reaches the top of the screen, gutting them like Swedish Fish along the way. He then captures the circular spaceship that periodically floats across and hurls it into the invaders, causing the entire screen to go nova.

Grand Theft Auto

Peyton Hillis drives a rusted-out but reliable 1991 Buick around Miami as pimps, drug dealers, and hookers swerve off the road and onto the sidewalk to clear a path for him. They then exit their own cars and offer cash and material goods to Peyton Hillis, who politely takes them and donates them to the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Kaboom!

Peyton Hillis stands at the bottom of the screen. The mad bomber appears at the top. He looks down, then begins to cry before dropping a single bomb.

Halo

Without armor or artillery, Peyton Hillis leads humankind in an interstellar war against a foolish alien race whose planet obviously does not have Sunday Ticket. Peyton Hillis leaps over four-wheel vehicles and throws his shoulder into tanks, propelling them into canyon walls soaked with nitroglycerin, causing explosions massive enough to end the war on general principle.

Asteroids

Peyton Hillis abandons the tiny penis-shaped spaceship and steps into outer space with no breathing apparatus or laser cannon. He simply plunges helmet-first into each asteroid until it vaporizes.

The Legend of Zelda

Peyton Hillis appears at the beginning of the game, looks at the little elfin protagonist, laughs, and leaves the game.

NBA Jam

Peyton Hillis plays on his own team, is always on fire, and eviscerates the backboard into shards of broken glass with each triple-axle, four-rotation flip from the opposite end of the court. The first time the announcer says “Boom-Shacka-Lacka,” Peyton Hillis stops the game until he promises to never say it again.

Pac Man

Not unlike trying to decipher a Brian Daboll game plan, Peyton Hillis weaves his way through a nightmarish quadrangled labyrinth at a steady pace, eating giant pellets shaped like iPads without having to chew them. Any ghost coming near him is quickly stiff-armed and is annihilated into granules of ectoplasmic regret.

If enough ghosts are foolish enough to surround Peyton Hillis, he explodes through one of the walls and continues on his way.

If Peyton Hillis reaches one of the power pellets in each corner of the screen...oh dear God, let’s not even think about that.

 

Clearly, the gaming industry is missing out on a huge opportunity, and perhaps this Madden breakthrough is exactly the wake-up call it needs.

Sadly, though, Peyton Hillis will not be able to play any of these games. Each time he holds a video-game controller in his hands, he cracks it into a billion pieces.

As any superhero will tell you, with great power comes great responsibility.