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November 16, 2005
The Best Games Make No Sense
If you've been reading some of the various game sites around the Internet you've probably heard of the Blue Sky In Games campaign. The campaign calls for a return to tradition fantasy worlds in video games instead of gangster ghetto adventures. A sample of the campaign's wise words:
Games need BLUE SKIES! Games need BRIGHT YELLOW SUNS! Games need RED AND BLUE THINGS in them! We want to play in a HAPPY PRETEND LAND, not a shit version of an American slum full of mixed-race gangsters wearing licensed sportswear! We want to COLLECT BANANAS FROM MAGIC CASTLES not earn respect from fictional gang leaders! We want to stun enemies with BOUNCE ATTACKS, not shoot them in unrealistic and shoddy drive-bys!
You know what? They're right. The best video games of all time make no fucking sense. A spiked fire-breathing turtle kidnaps a mushroom princess and only a plumber from Brooklyn that can grow a raccoon tail can rescue her. The fastest hedgehog on Earth must race to collect seven magic emeralds in order to defeat the plans of a crazed genius mechanical developer. A cosmic prince has to roll up a giant adhesive ball of garbage. A dinosaur with a long tongue and a bottomless stomach must reunite a baby that fell from the sky with the stork so that he can be born while avoiding the turtle sorcerer who seeks to kidnap the child. We encounter giant apes that throw barrels, yellow rats with a mean electric bite, and little blue robots that steal weapons from other robots in a specific order. The best video games of all time make no fucking sense, and you know what? I like it that way.
Posted by MattG on November 16, 2005 at 09:45 PM in General | Permalink
Comments
I've always seen games as a way to escape from reality, not emulate it. I've never liked those hyper realistic games, and it's good to know I'm not alone :)
Posted by: Andrew Herron | Nov 17, 2005 12:21:46 AM
Yeah, i never thought about it that way, now i get it, thats the reason i like mario and nintendo games so much, they are not fucking real life simulators.
Posted by: ViRuS-T | Nov 17, 2005 2:56:09 AM
I'm all for the more realistic games, but speaking as someone who's never quite managed to get over Bubble Bobble, it's important that there is variety out there. I'm not saying there shoudl only be Blue Sky in Games, but I'm all for more of it.
More to the point, when did you start swearing so much, Matt?
Posted by: -al | Nov 17, 2005 10:06:55 PM
It's a perfectly valid word, -al. I don't bring it out often though. I save it for when I want to severely emphasize a point. The profanity goes back into the box for a long rest now.
Posted by: MattG | Nov 17, 2005 10:15:01 PM
Ah, we certainly need the variety - though my biggest gripe is that those 'fantasy' games of today are usually dumbed down. They're not fun and well put together, they're pretty and usually childish these days.
Posted by: Freaky Lynx | Sep 12, 2006 11:36:16 PM
This is truly interesting stuff and i agree that the best games are the far from reality type stuff like donkey kong, mario, sonic, earthworm jim, toejam & earl etc these games are completely unrealistic however they are extremely fun to play and that's coming from a computer games programming student.
Posted by: Lee | Nov 26, 2006 6:21:54 PM
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