The Ballad of the Self-Referential: A Steve Metcalf Column
Posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 by mike regan
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or My Videogame is Talking to Me Videogames have an attitude problem. I don’t know if it’s the unprecedented sales growth of the last two decades, the maturity of the development process, or the depth of the overall game experience but videogames as a whole are starting to get a little bitchy. And it’s starting to piss me off. - I didn’t mind so much that Sonic The Hedgehog started tapping his little red tennis shoe if the player had the balls to stand still for three seconds. I kind of found it humorous. Here was a videogame character who was directly responding to my gaming. Now that I look back on it, it kind of grinds my gears. What? I do believe Sonic just called me a crappy gamer. Well, screw him. Oohhh. I’m gonna run through this level so fast – - – oh wait a minute – - – that’s what he wants. - Sonic gave developers a medium to directly indicate to gamers what they should be doing, or to provide a running commentary on gameplay. Long gone were the subtle lighting cues leading a player down a path. Now, the character could look at the screen and shout, “Hey, go down that path dummy!” Or worse yet, you could be playing Metal Gear and have fourteen cut-scenes showing your motivation for going down the path, how the path came to be, the arguments for not going down the path, and finally finding out that the path is actually a training path programmed by the government. - The one time that I think this method of having games become self-referential occurred in the release of Eat Lead: the Return of Matt Hazard by Vicious Cycle. For those who haven’t played, Eat Lead is the story of a videogame character who knows he’s a videogame character in a videogame. It’s the ultimate expression of referring to oneself. The coolest part of the game, though, is the tutorial. We all know that tutorial levels suck (take Army of Two for instance). The great thing, though, is that Matt Hazard also knows that they suck. And he comments on this suckiness all through the level. Right in the beginning, the tutorial on “Shooting” comes up. Matt actually comments “I think that after 20 years in the industry I’d know how to fire a damn gun!” Classic. If you haven’t played through it, I highly recommend that you do. Just to hear Matt’s comments on the Master Chef, and his diatribe on the fact that RPGs make you read dialogue boxes, rather than listen to actual speech. Take THAT Sephiroth! - What bothers me, though, is a game trying to help the player along with the adventure’s difficulty setting. In the recent Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare and World at War, the menu system specifically demoralized players for choosing the highest difficulty setting, Veteran. As the player highlighted the nasty difficulty, the caption across the menu reads “You will not survive.” Damn skippy I’ll survive, Poindexter. Stop trying to help! - Even worse is the Insult to Injury factor of difficulty settings. The God of War series made it a habit to slap the player in his or her face during a particularly troublesome portion of the game. If the player dies multiple times before the same checkpoint, the continue screen reads something along the lines of: Perhaps you’d like to try this on an easier difficulty. This insult has been ratcheted up a notch or two for the XBLA downloadable game Splosion Man. Again, if the player dies several times before reaching a particular checkpoint, the game’s continue screen offers the “Coward’s Way Out.” Selecting this option lets the player skip that level entirely – - – this is an admission of gamer suckitude. Taking the Coward’s Way Out means that you have admitted defeat. Do not do it! Do not give Twisted Pixel the satisfaction! - Ultimately, I’m sure, that developers are just trying to help . . . to lend a hand . . . to have their game played in the manner they’ve devised. How kind. Keep it to your damn self. That’s the fun in gaming. Failing. Failing. Failing. And finally succeeding. Lest we all forget how incredibly difficult the original Mega Man was. Or the NES game 8 Eyes. Sheesh. The fun, truly, was in succeeding against challenging games. Sure, beating the room in God of War with all of the Medusas and minions was tough, but don’t give me the out of dropping down a difficulty level. Let me keep bashing my head against the wall. Eventually I will get through! UP NEXT: Does fighting in a thong improve your flexibility? Steve Metcalf is the award winning author of RESET: A Videogame Anecdote. His accolades include Best Dressed Avatar of 2009 and Emperor of Halo 3: ODST. If you would like to discuss this article with over 40,000 other registered members feel free to do so by joining the Gamingring.com forums. Its fast, free and easy to do so.
Tags: sonic the hedgehog
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