Unspectacular Wreck Brethren
So, you’re watching your favorite TV show and the cast is huddled together on a nondescript couch with equally nondescript game controllers in their hands. From that information, you can probably deduce that they’re playing a video game, although these days, the prevalence of the Wii-mote might make that judgement a little more difficult (four-player channel changing, anyone?), but I digress.
Everything’s fine thus far, but suddenly your ears are wracked with pain, as though someone had run their nails down a chalkboard or told a Chuck Norris joke — it’s those insidious stereotypical bleeps and bloops that characterize mainstream television’s apparent grasp on video games. “Blasphemy!” you bellow, arms akimbo in a show of disgust — how can they portray gaming in a such a backward manner? In response, you do what any responsible gamer would do; you jiggle your mouse, rouse your computer from sleep mode, and surf over to your favorite gaming forum to complain. Now, here’s the clincher: would you be shocked if your fellow gamers held an opinion of gaming nearly as backward as the good people at ABC, or even Fox? Well, in a way, many of them do.
In a semi-recent post on her blog at Sexy Videogameland, Leigh Alexander had a few choice words about the appeal of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. “If I had to review Smash Bros., in other words, would you as an audience rather I factor in my emotional response to Nintendo iconography, or should I discard it as personal?” she asked. “Does your answer depend on your own opinion of the iconography?”
Leigh eloquently ponders a question that’s been surging through the gaming community as of late, mostly as a result of Smash Bros’ recent release: should character content influence reviews of a game, or should it be based solely on gameplay? Now, let’s complete Leigh’s little experiment by not only removing Nintendo characters from the equation, but the entire game altogether. And let’s replace it with, say, Portal. Should we judge Portal, a triumph of character and storytelling in games, based solely on its gameplay? Of course not.
Look at it this way: without GLaDOS’ frosting-coated morbid personality, would Valve have dedicated half of its staff to adding a trophy room to their building?* Sure, portals were a novel gameplay concept, but objectively, a two hour pack of portal puzzles hardly sounds like Game of the Year material.
And so, I believe we absolutely shouldn’t disregard characters when reviewing a game. The very idea is as antiquated as Pac Man’s ubiquitous death knell and other such sound effects. Back in the day, we could’ve flung a bucket of black paint on the original Pitfall’s main character and there probably wouldn’t have been much of a difference — outside of the inevitable comparisons to Nintendo’s Game and Watch character, anyway. Nowadays, however, characters are inextricably tied to our gameplay experiences — Portal, Bioshock, and especially Smash Bros. are excellent examples of this. In Smash Bros’ case, does this mean a portion of the audience won’t derive full, Nintendo nostalg-tastic enjoyment out of the game? Yes, but then, someone with only a passing interest in fighting games is unlikely to ever derive full masochistic pleasure from Virtua Fighter 5, so it just comes down to different strokes for different folks.
As gaming continues to stretch its wings as a storytelling medium, the importance of characters will only grow. It’s simply a matter of time before the question asked by Leigh and like-minded gamers won’t even be a question anymore.
*I’m kidding. They’re actually constructing a new building from the ground-up.
