I’m here to tell you a story. Not one story but many. It is a story both of conquests and of doubt, of revelation and of struggle. It is a personal tale, and has no real meaning.
It is summer. We leave for the blasted hills of Arizona on some fool’s errand. The hills are red, and classic rock of some kind or another is blaring over the radio. But the ride back will be a bitter one, with regret showering over the flower-capped peaks and ruddy rivers as we meander back to the source. The journey brings to mind an old song, too, one which might lay in the gulf of history for a while:
“In the long, long trip of growing,
There are stops along the way
For thoughts of all the soft things
And a look at yesterday.”
The hotel is wide, old people cheerful or pathetic are milling about. The technology is above all weak. I felt sad, then. Sad for so many things, and a little belligerent too. So I cast my mind in the direction of games.
It is 12:00 at night. I am playing Actraiser, for the first time. My mother and sister have settled down to sleep, in the creaking, cramped bed of a miserable resort room. Hell’s vacation.
I am playing Actraiser, and I am the lord striking vengeance upon the legions of damned souls. I bring light to cities, build a simple civilization toward greatness. The people love me when I rid them of gorgons. I attack dread naga, volcano demons and desert birds. The desert in the game is barren, a blasted asphalt ruin for me to run, a crusading antelope in the garden of wicked spite.
It runs late into the night.
And There Was Light
After awhile I began to dread. Some beast. The pools were painted with murals, warped storybook effigies in purple and pink. They were demon woozles, gnashing jagtoothed. But then I turned my attention to Gods, and conquests and other things.
The next day, milling about the lobby, an endless line of people envision screens, all too real. I check Penny-Arcade.
The first and greatest gaming webcomic.
And Tycho wrote something that I will not soon forget, concerning games chiefly, of many kinds:
“I can remember when it started, truly started. Chits were no longer sufficient to really encompass the hitpoints of his most powerful Pokémon cards, so he began using a d10 for the first digit.
After that, it was only a matter of time.
Perhaps the dice themselves evoke something, that their shape refracts the structures of life into their numerical girders. At two o’clock in the morning, he began to argue (with much heat and light) about the possible interpretations of a particular card and its grave implications. I saw the rules lawyer well up in him, a hunger for the bright, certain shapes of clean systems and the dark shadows they cast.
Eventually, even these wide realms will no longer contain him. He’ll want to do something those iconic mechanisms could never describe. When that happens, I will unfold my DM’s screen, fix my clasp, and tell him that he can feel the wind from the northeast.”
There is so much wisdom in those lines. So much knowledge, escapism. That is what games evoke, most of all.
A wise man once said this:
“Only the skilled may live. The rest will die.”
There is truth in this too, so much truth. Too much, in fact. What I want are lies. Glorious lies, crafted like glazed confections in the diamond sun of a candy shop. I want to dream, at least a little. Sometimes, Power beckons. But all too often, Power is too much. Earning power is daunting. Tycho said it right. We don’t crave the good, the powerful, so much as we crave the interesting. As long as I’m interested in a game, I’ll play it without much chagrin. But after aeons of wear, tatters and scars on this old frame, I want simplicity.
Games are my calling, then. Games so interesting, but not so challenging. Games both complex and accessible. Civilization, Metal Slug, Zork. These are the games that will be with me forever. Those which allow power, but allow freedom. Those which encourage mastery, but do not demand it. Games that look nice, control fluidly, sound fresh.
Tycho narrated it, then. He’s lain down the hallowed tabletop, stretched maps and numbers across it. He’s called the armies, and the warrior vagrants, and the wizards to their prime. And in that moment, I see it all.
“The Wind From The Northeast”
Some of us were made to be kings, and live alone, in the empty towers, without women, without friends, above reality. Some of us were made to be deadbeats, and live below, with the earth and the men who know nothing.
I know whose side I’m on.
Life On Monkey Island: A Dionysian Overture
Monkey Island 2 burst back onto the scene recently. We’re going to discuss that.
Whether you love or hate the Adventure genre, whether you prefer jogging onto the battlefield, guns rattling, or spelunking some dismal ruin in quest of a bizarre cuirass or tinny helm, the gravity this genre bears is striking. Every instant of choice in gaming can be traced sidelong down the history spiral, backward from The Last Express, to Myst, to Monkey Island 2, to Zork. Zork came first, untouchable and byzantine, a monster of a game.
The best thing I can compare it to is Shadow of the Colossus, where the world itself bears down on you, swollen with hostility, but I’d be caramel glazing the apple if I said SOTC had anywhere near the amount of cruelty that Zork once brandished. It’s a fairly player versus environment gambit, but in both cases the level is sort of its own monster, lingering to be gutted.
The labyrinth in the first Zork is perhaps the cruelest lock ever devised, genius but vicious. No wonder quality control overcompensates for puzzle difficulty; if we still had those conundra to deal with, the market would evaporate. We still have roguelikes to suck that kind of joy from, and they do the cartography for us!
A Slightly Flawed Map Of The G.U.E.
Boffo segue, that. Monkey 2 is in the long and short of it, a game about a Map. You get the feeling, with Monkey 1, of being adrift in an aimless sea, bereft of conciousness. It’s the most dreamlike thing. Melee contains its own, goofy ecosystem, channeling a small town vibe. But once the story kicks in, you’re cut loose, and out of port you sail. Rambling around has a dreary, sleepy feel to it, puzzles are scarce and simple, contained more often than not. Like a fish in an ornate tank. But there’s freedom enough for the newcomer.
Monkey 2 pares down that ideology, to a brittle point. There’s a world here, a moist, funky world. A world with dancing jives and undead musicals and slick voodoo smog. There are places to go, and people north of parody and south of reality, content to belt out a razor edged ballad in the blink of firelight, or sling a homely one-liner your way. It’s a magical place. You’re deeper in than Monkey 1; down and out on the shore of a dark nether, swapping stories with vagrants. The choice is overwhelming, and how can I describe? The abodes go further down. Monkey 1 was more about ascension. You scaled the cliffs of the titular isle, the ropes of Melee. Lights all abound.
Monkey 2 is a game of descent. Even breaching the canopy of high trees feels otherworldly. Every environment hides crevices beneath its surface, dim libraries with horn-rimmed Medusa, dank crypts brimming over with bloated cadavers. It’s a game that hides much. Chapter 1 has you dredging the hidden rooms of an old ship town, shadows of what looms. I remember feeling curious, delving for once. Every new room uncovered, a glistening catacomb to be pillaged. Locked kitchens, submerged bars with jangling simian pianos. There is much below the surface, and all of it, ALL of it is crucial.
The Only Limit Is Yourself
Ron Gilbert might not have known what he was getting into with Monkey 1. They threw in injokes, baffling puzzles and strange dialogue choices. It was an excersise in amusement; that it sparked a following was unheard of. Somewhere along the line, they channeled that carefree spirit into genuine intellect. And the greatest of theme parks was spawned.
Now, a word on the Special Edition. Say what you will about coy ending PSAs, they botched the product. The art no longer drips with thick Purcell lines, the music sings but key tracks are slurred, the blare of a trumpet somehow inferior to haunting golden era midi, the crescendo of an electric violin almost wicked in its peal. The dialogue’s been altered, and not for the better, although the ones intact are as a rule poisoned by inept voice acting. Armato is least fitting for MI2’s bum Guybrush, but Phil LaMarr excels as Captain Dread, although I’m biased toward that man as the premiere Jamaican. Boen broke the ending.
But the classic MI2 is one of the few games I will always call art, regardless of discrepancies in definition. It is the best adventure game, one of the best games ever, and whirrs with Zork’s hostility while evading its violence. This is a Caribbean thick with atmosphere, peril is present but restrained. Guybrush’s journey is guided, although loosely. Nobody’s telling you what to do. Chapter 2 drops you in an organic Disneyland and says “Explore.”
The ending ties all this together. But it is not a boon visited on the faint hearted. That is a journey you must undergo alone.
And the reward shall be just as tasty.