In the beginning, video games were about 1 thing: Survival.

You have your Asteroids, your Centipede, your Galaga, your Mappy, your Mr, Mrs, and Pacman Jr, all of which played along the absurd notion that you are stuck in boxes and areas that were infinitely large, with no way of escaping, and for no specific purpose. All you had to do was get them out of harm's way, with no sense of context, and do it better than the guy who played before you. Sure, some of these games had a tacked on story, but when you walk up to an arcade cabinet for the first time you don't know anything except to jump, dodge, or generally get-the-fuck out of the way. And you survived. You survived hard.

But, it had to change. Whether it was the consumer's thirst for a 'reason,' or just the lack of fresh pixels that would either fall, break apart, or explode, the games had to expand into something worthwhile, and it had to be original.

Then along came Pauline.



Donkey Kong was, to the best of my knowledge, the first memorable video game with a real goal: save this chick from a [damn dirty] ape. No one had to tell you either; she was up there, she was hot, and only you could save her. Who knows, if you save her she might even show you a whole boob! Fuck. Yes. Sure, the mechanic was the same (ohno barelz), but there was some degree of purpose, and due to this, popularity grew. In it's first day, Donkey Kong made over 7 billion dollars in the United States alone*.

Although it wasn't immediate, the next change was coming - the video game narrative. Regardless if it was explained via instruction manual, from the occasional NPC, or simply knowing that the princess was in at least ONE of these castles, gamers wanted their virtual warriors (yes, euphemisms) to have purpose! Fuck yeah! Purpose! Story!! HAPPY!!! MOUTH NOISES!!!!

What followed next was a series of fantastic games that had your peni... er virtual warrior going from port to port, rising above all challenges, with the hope that you would have the skills to get the girl at the climax and finally roll over and sleep. Platforming was at it's best, and nothing could get any better!

But then, something happened.

Super Mario 64 happened.

Now this is the point when you say, "but itemforty! (you can call me Touchdown btw) Super Mario 64 was freakin' awesome, dude! It's my favorite game in the whole world of sports!"

Fine fine, whatever, I would be lying if I said I didn't have a blast playing it the first time. New levels, enemies, attacks, puzzles, all in spectacular 3-D vision! New new new! It really was super awesome and amazing fantastic++.

But surely you remember those stars, right? Millions* of them, all over the place, just waiting to be collected. Instead of simply going from point A to point B using only your skill, it became an easter egg hunt that encompassed the entire game, forcing you to back track to earlier levels, all in the hopes of getting enough stars to open the door to a brand new area with even more stars, etc etc. For me, this backtracking was terribly annoying, and just felt like a way to squeeze the life out of preexisting levels. Compare this to, say, Super Mario World, where backtracking was optional (albeit helpful), where you could get anywhere by simply being awesome enough, and there was millions of unique levels. Surely you can all agree that a game with 100% unique levels is a good thing?

Obviously not, because THEN it was Banjo Kazooie.

Again, the shouts of "SHUT UP THAT GAME RULES!!!!!" deafen me, but I would be lying if I said I hated Banjo Kazooie. No, that's not the real asshole here.

The real asshole is Donkey Kong 64.



HOLY FUCK I hated that game. There were 5 fucking characters, and each one had their own bullshit mini-game to play, had to be selected in specific areas, and had their own bullshit thing to collect, ALL FOR THOSE FUCKING BANANAS.

The main plot of the game is to collect the "Golden Bananas". There are 200 golden bananas with a "Nintendo" tag and an extra special one with a "Rareware" tag, which makes 201 Golden Bananas altogether. They are used for gaining access to various levels, which is blocked by B. Locker, who has the number of Golden Bananas needed labeled on him for unblocking the level's entrance. There are 25 Golden Bananas in each level, but each Kong is only able to find 5. One of the 5 they find is from Snide after a Kong gives him a special blueprint found in a Kasplat (40 total). The other 15 are in various hidden places, such as mini-games. -wikipedia.org

JESUS WALKS that is RETARDED! I hated that game so much, I wrote a long email to Nintendo of Japan (and CC'd NoA and NoE as well) that looked like this:

Dear Nintendo,

Please fuck right off.

Thanks,

item "touchdown" forty

Alas, it was no use... it was popular because it had "depth." Just like it's predecessor's, there was "a lot to explore," and "was totally tubular, doogie!"

But that's the thing, isn't it? It wasn't deep at all. There was a very simple plot with a complex mechanic; I don't even remember the point of collecting all those goddamn Bananas except to open up NEW BANANA LEVELS SQUEEEE! That's not a game, THAT'S A MOTHER FUCKING MMO!

SO WHAT'S THE POINT?

We need more God Hand.



Yeah, that's right, I said God Hand.

God Hand was a game that honestly didn't give a fuck if you existed or not. It was there, it was angry, and you had to fucking TAME it. It had everything you would want in a bad ass, take no prisoners game... and it was lauded as a total failure.

Those of you who played it and enjoyed it: HATS OFF MOTHER FUCKER! You know how badass it was to play, and you knew how GOOD it felt to actually be GOOD at something: Survival!

N+, Ninja Gaiden, Geometry Wars, Space Giraffe... these are games that need to exist! These are games that absolutely expect you to fail, and you have to prove your worth!

Ugh, you know what? I've been trying to write this blog for the longest fucking time and everytime I get to this point I get so damn angry that this should even be a conversation I just give up. I'm just going to leave it to you, fine people to comment. Or not. What do I know, I'm just a doctor*.





*pulled out of ass.