This post is by guest blogger Unlockable Character.
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Categories: Rant
Tags: if
Tom is still too cheap to buy a computer magazine.I hate running. And jumping. And any video game that has me running and jumping is not one that I’m gonna finish. Without cheating.
Right now I’m trying to get through Resident Evil 4, and I’m at a part where this giant statue of the evil foreign dwarf (yes, Salazar, you nerd) comes to life and chases me across a bridge. I’m supposed to pound the A button as fast as I can, then dodge some falling stones, and then cut or shoot the padlock to get to the door and open it.
OK.
Then I’m supposed to run and jump again before I’m safe. And if I screw up, I have to go back and run the course again.
But what if I suck at running and jumping? Where is the option to skip that scene? Or any scene where I happen to suck?
Way back in the day, when I played a game version of the movie Demolition Man, when I chose the easy level, Sylvester Stallone would mumble from my TV, “You Suck.” Well, I suck now. I don’t mind being told I suck if it gets me on the easiest level. Where are you, Sly? Come save me!
Why can’t they design games so I can either skip the hard parts or let me save in mid puzzle? I paid for the game, shouldn’t I be free to decide how I want to play it?
The dictionary doesn’t force me to learn anachronism before I can understand zeitgeist (as if I could understand zeitgeist).
And my TV doesn’t make me we watch Will & Grace before I can see Nip/Tuck. (For your information, mister, I watch Will & Grace because Jack is so out there, and you better deal with it! [snap!]).
But back in 1984, the “golden age” of computer games, I was in the middle of playing Steve Meretzky’s (no, not that Steve Meretzky, a different one) text adventure, Liberace’s Disco Mystery. And I hit this little puzzle snag:
You are standing in an abandoned nuclear fallout shelter. The room is very warm, warm enough to cause sweat to bead on your brow. The faint smell of patchouli and apple sauce lingers in the air.
There is a bird here.
>>get bird
I don’t know how to do that.
And the magic of these games was that I could sit there and think about the puzzle: I didn’t need to run anywhere.
You are standing in an abandoned fallout shelter.
There is a bird here.
>>catch bird
Catch bird with what?
>>birdcage
You do not have the birdcage.
There is a bird here.
>>i
You have:
several LPs from your uncle Jonathan’s apartment
a commemorative Donna Summer rhinestone tiara
a red bandana
a sack of plums>>examine records
This is a small sample of record albums from your uncle’s collection, which includes:
Chaka Khan, Wrath of Khan
Billie Jean King’s Limbo Party
Herb Alpert Blows Your Favorites>>save
So how do I get the damn bird? Well, back in 1984, I wrote a letter to whatever computer game magazine I could find at the computer store. I asked something like, “how do I get the bird in Liberace’s Disco Mystery?” And I put the letter in an envelope and put on a stamp and put that sucker in the mail and waited. And next month I went to the computer store and looked in the magazine to see if there was an answer. And when there wasn’t, I waited another month until finally, I looked in the letters-to-the-editor section and read the answer:
Have you examined the bird?
WTF!!!!! I waited two months and the idiot asks if I’ve examined the bird!?
So I rode my bike home and loaded the game.
>>restore
You are standing in an abandoned nuclear fallout shelter. The room is very warm, warm enough to cause sweat to bead on your brow. The faint smell of patchouli and apple sauce lingers in the air.
There is a bird here.
>>examine bird
It looks like a robin.
That’s it? That’s all I get for my letter and two months wait? Screw you, computer magazine. Screw you, Steve Meretzky. Screw you, Liberace!
I never finished that game.
You know what? There was no golden age of computer games, there was no magic. They were just as hard then as they are now. In my reminiscence, I fooled myself into thinking that running away from some monster was more difficult that pondering some idiot M.I.T. drop-out’s riddles. It’s not. All these damn games are hard!
So get off your ass. Not to save mine, but to save yourself. Run! Run out into the sun. Run like ponies. Run like the wind! And jump!