I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend in video games. No, I’m not talking about being more violent or sex filled, I am talking about today’s gamers being too lazy to beat a game on their own. Back in the days of the NES no one needed a strategy guide to beat a game, you just played for fun. Then, the SNES and Genesis days came around and the only strategy guides that anyone needed were for games like Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct, to teach you the combos. Nowadays, there’s a strategy guide for nearly every game released and they nearly all sell fairly well. Anyone who needs a strategy guide to beat a game like Mario or Bond shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near video games. I know three year olds who can beat those games without any help. And then there are cheating utilities that sell insanely well, but these have been around since the NES days. Not only do gamers not want to have to think, but they also want unlimited lives, invincibility, and all guns and unlimited ammo right from the start. Someone please explain to me how cheating makes a game more fun.
So, why does this disturb me so much? I am one of those old timey gamers, the ones who played for two reasons. The first and foremost is for fun, but the second reason is for a challenge. Whether this challenge is skill based or mental based doesn’t matter, I just like a good challenge. This second reason is why I simply love games like Resident Evil and Metroid. Not only do they require a decent amount of skill to stay alive, but they also require a lot of thinking and puzzle solving. These games are mature not because of blood and gore, sex and nudity, or language, but because of the fact that they are meant for a mature intelligence to figure them out. Hell, Metroid is rated T, but is the most mature, adult oriented game on the GameCube to date. Not to mention being most likely the game of the year.
It seems as if many of the people playing Metroid are mistaking it for a different kind of game. Instead of buying this game because it’s Metroid, a totally non-linear, puzzle based game where you are told very little, if anything, of what to do, people think it’s just like every other first person shooter. These people don’t want Metroid, they want to kill first and think later, or never as they seem to prefer. Metroid is in no way a first person shooter, nor is it an action game. The only genre that Metroid even remotely fits into is as an adventure game, but even that is hazy. Metroid is a genre all its own, and it has been that way since the very beginning. It plays like a bizarre mix of Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye, with the emphasis on puzzles and the atmosphere of Resident Evil.
I guess in some ways it was Metroid that inspired me to write this little Home Brew. Ever since I got this game I’ve been a few steps farther then most of the people I meet online through forums and chat rooms, along with being ahead of several members of the WiiCafé staff. I am constantly being asked questions on how to beat a certain part of the game, and when I look in forums (especially those at a certain website hell-bent on allowing gamers to become dumber and dumber by the minute, which we’ll just refer to as “The Devil”). It’s not that I don’t like helping people when they are truly stuck, I actually enjoy that because I will never just give out an answer like you’d get in forums or strategy guides, I simply point the gamer in the right direction without just giving them the answer.
However, it is not very often I get a question from someone who has really tried to figure it out on their own and is truly stuck, either that or the person is just a complete moron and couldn’t figure it out if the answer was given to them on a silver platter, but in that case that person shouldn’t pick up such games. Instead I get questions such as “I just got and don’t know what to do. Where should I go?” These are the questions that piss me off. If you’ve ever played Metroid before, you know that you get some power-up for your suit, and then go use it somewhere. Most likely the places you are supposed to use it at will have been showed to you on your way to get the item. How can nobody figure this out? Another type of question I frequently get is “I’m in and I can’t go anywhere in it unless I have . What do I do?” Gee… Let’s think here for a minute… how about… leave the room, go somewhere else, and find the item you need. Yeah, that just might work!
I find it really funny when I go to The Devil’s forums and read some of the topics. Just the other day I saw one that said “I just beat Metroid Prime” and within it the writer mentions that he did so in 11 hours and with 100%, and was wondering why the game was projected to be 20-40 hours long. After a few “OMFG HOW DID YOU DO THAT SO QUICK?!!?” and various posts of the like, it turns out this moron used a guide. This is a great way to waste your money in my opinion. That idiot spent $50 on a game that is supposed to last 20-40 hours depending on your skill, paid $15 for a guide, and is now complaining that it was too short and easy. What is wrong with the world today?
Not that I’ve never been stuck in a game, because I have been several times. However, I don’t ask someone for help the second I get stuck, but instead look around for the answer for a while. So far in Metroid Prime I’ve only asked for help once, and didn’t ask for help until two hours of searching went by. It turns out I forgot to scan a single item and therefore didn’t realize the answer to a puzzle. Now, I wasn’t told that I didn’t scan an item; all that I was told was to search a certain room again. So the puzzle was still solved by me, instead of being told exactly what to do.
Unfortunately, I am of a dieing breed. That breed is the “Hardcore Gamer,” people who are serious about video games, and don’t have a bias for just one system. Hardcore Gamers also don’t ask for help unless they are truly stuck. It seems as if very few of today’s gamers are this way. Today’s gamers don’t want to think, they don’t want a challenge, and it seems like they don’t even want to try. Today’s gamers want eye-popping graphics, sex, nudity, language, violence, blood, and gore. In other words “mature” games such as Grand Theft Auto. Metroid is none of these things, except for the “eye-popping graphics” part of course.
So, what have we learned today? Well for starters, real gamers actually play their games, instead of letting others play for them. And of course there’s the problem of not knowing what type game you are playing and therefore hating it because it isn’t how you expect it, but I guess that should be left for another day’s Home Brew.
Matt Schraeder
