The Best Games Make No Sense
November 16, 2005
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 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.