Holy Crap, It’s an REO Speedwagon Hidden Object Game! – UPDATED

Get ready for Find Your Own Way Home, a hidden object game based upon the classic 80s band REO Speedwagon. Let me repeat that so there’s no confusion: It’s a hidden object game based on REO Speedwagon.

I’m no fan of music videogames. I have zero interest in Guitar Hero, Rock Band or any of the bastard offspring they’ve spawned. In my eyes, they’re a lot like sports videogames: I’d rather watch people play them than play them myself and I’d far rather go out and do something else entirely than watch people play them. But Find Your Own Way Home sounds like a twist on the genre I can really get behind.

Players will take on the role of Ruby, a “hip Hollywood reporter” shadowing REO Speedwagon as they tour in advance of the release of their latest CD. But on the day of the release party, singer Kevin Cronin goes missing and it’s up to Ruby to search for clues, track him down and get everyone to the party on time!

The game will include 80 levels adding up to an estimated ten hours of gameplay, along with 12 REO Speedwagon tracks including brand-new recordings of the classics “Keep On Loving You” and “Roll With the Changes.” The game is named after the band’s most recent album, released in 2007, which did not chart but produced two minor hits on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Top 100. (Hey, give ’em a break, it was their first studio album since 1996.)

So why do we care? Because it’s REO freakin’ Speedwagon, that’s why! The concept of an REO Speedwagon hidden object game is so random, so completely without a rational basis and yet so utterly awesome that we have to shout it from the rooftops: You can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish! The Speedwagon cometh!

UPDATE: Find Your Own Way Home won’t include quite as much classic Speedwagon as we’d hoped; aside from “Keep On Loving You” and “Roll With the Changes,” the music in the game will come entirely from the band’s last album, so there’ll be no “Take It On the Run” or “Keep the Fire Burnin'” this time around. Lloyd Melnick of publisher Merscom says the game is set for release on December 2 – it may not be another Rocktober but you better believe I’ve got it marked on my calendar.