I Am Terrible At Video Games

I enjoy gaming. I think gaming at its best is a cooperative experience. Even with single-player games, video games are like alcohol -- best when shared with others. Being able to tell your friends how you beat the boss, racked up the highest score, overcame the puzzle, or beat the entire game, all those things are worthwhile when you can cheer or chagrin your activities.

It's a good thing, because I'm really terrible at video games.

Modern video games are foam padded rooms. You bounce off of objectives and keep coming back for more, because it's hilarious to just jump around and never get hurt. I'm playing inFamous, and I must have failed a hundred times already, but the game is kind, and I pick right back up from a checkpoint maybe 30 seconds back in the game. One of my favorite modern series, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and the new Prince of Persia actually had plot points integrated with gameplay that could save you from death or literally rewind time to avoid that character death. Other games have saves that you can reload, whatever. I enjoy that, because it lets you create moments of fun without catastrophically failing and starting over from the beginning of the game.

So, like a fool, I decided to harken back into a dark time where game designers didn't allow such kindnesses. I downloaded Super Mario Brothers 3 on the Wii Virtual Console. Big mistake. Try as I might, I just can't get past world 2-4. I just get crushed. I don't know what it is, if I've lost my edge, if I'm not used to the platforming, what. I don't remember this game being that hard. I mean, it was about fifteen years ago that I played it, but I'm not a newbie!

I think the last ten years of gaming have softened me. The good life and easy games with checkpoints and rewind buttons have spoiled me, until I am terrible at video games.

Back to inFamous, I guess. It's more fun, anyway. No leaping off of skyscrapers and landing in an electric cloudburst in stupid Mario Brothers!