“Hi, my name is Joe Gamer, and I have a problem. I can’t finish what I start … actually, I can’t start, full stop.”
Five years later, she still sits there. Taunting me. Reminding me of my eternal inability to commit.
You can’t blame her. I’ve had every chance to make a move, but there’s always been a distraction, a far more important obligation in my life. At least, those are the excuses today: university degrees to endure, professional careers to chase. There’s no time for fleeting indulgences when my future is persistently on the line, right? But she doesn’t understand … how could she?
‘She’ is an inanimate object, after all.
To think my relationship with Metroid Prime 2: Echoes actually started on far more amicable terms. I had inadvertently strolled into the local boutique (of electronics), half-mindedly hoping to find a cheap placebo for boredom. Rushing past the numerous items shamelessly pimped off as virgin property, it was there the copy of Samus Aran’s (then) latest endeavour was waiting, at the end of a promiscuously used goods line up no less.
She promised me at least 20 hours of action and adventure for under a hundred bucks. If I played my proverbial cards right, there were also enticing promises of special moves and bonus features to be experienced, extracurricular efforts on my part permitting. Little did my youthful naivety at the time know I was buying into commitments I’d hardly have the stamina to see through, let alone begin.
The second-guessing sunk in just as soon as I had fired her up in my bedroom. Skipping through the formalities and introductions, I was pumped and ready to be exploring the nether regions of a new Metroid. That is, if the seemingly blasé option for group play hadn’t stifled my curiosity. Deathmatch? Multiplayer coin collecting? This wasn’t like Metroid … rather, this shouldn’t have been like Metroid. The pedigree guaranteed quality solo play, and yet the mere repulsive possibility of engaging Samus with three others betrayed my trust and sensibilities. Evidently, Nintendo’s Retro Studios had wanted to try something new, and (if expert opinions are anything to go by) it was completely uncalled for.
Foolishly, my diametrically-opposed inquisitiveness got the better of me, and I spent what little minutes I’ve ever had with MP2 regretfully trawling through the dire multiplayer modes, three hesitant guinea pigs in tow. Beneath the flimsy conviction that “this is the best console multiplayer experience since GoldenEye 007!”, I was nonetheless also assuring myself things would be better tomorrow. ‘Tomorrow’, when I finally got around to starting the singleplayer adventure proper. As it so perplexingly happens, I’m still looking forward to that day.
Of course, blaming the multiplayer is the simpleton’s argument, the same misguided reasoning behind so many disgruntled first-person shooter purchases. Rather, here I was, a hardened Metroid fan and thorough completionist of the first Prime instalment, and yet I couldn’t help but not play what I’ve been looking forward to. Indeed, the type of backwards thinking the game community thrives on.
It’s a bitter-sweet consolation that I’m not alone in my frustrating inadequacy to engage with Samus’ second 3D outing, or indeed tens upon hundreds of forsaken games alike. Such performance anxiety is unsurprisingly an inherent problem among us player types. There wouldn’t be budding social networks, such as The Backloggery, dedicated to helping battle the issue otherwise:
“…there’s always something getting in the way. Work? School? Family? Even those pesky new games…”
While we’re at it, let’s hear it for girlfriends, funerals, the ageing process, and the birth of your first child. Nuisances the lot of ‘em.
‘Backloggery’, ‘pile of shame‘; call it what you will. The cursing is typically aimed at personal obligations seemingly outside of a given player’s control (pun unintended). Apparently, we as consumers are oblivious to the lengths we go to to feed our self-disenchanting compulsions.
I’m sly enough to admit it. All the while I was ignoring Metroid Prime 2, I had games on the side: long ones, short ones, some with flying bits in them, others with unnecessary stealth. The flawed design decisions weren’t turn offs in the slightest however; on the contrary, they were welcome guilt-free respites from an anxiously-anticipated sequel. In fact, looking through my collection, I possess an exhaustive number of untouched franchise follow-ups.
Suddenly, as if channelling the Games of Christmas Past, the haunting words of Silicon Knight’s Denis “Put Up or Shut Up” Dyack come flooding back:
“We’re in a state of performance over supply. We’re making more games than consumers can possibly consume. Marketing is having a disproportionate effect over the success of games because there’s so many out there people are ignoring us.”
It doesn’t take a crazed soothsayer to point out the rate in which games are produced, promoted and consequently bought is completely at odds at the degree they’re actually played; or dare I say, appreciated. Especially in an age of digital distribution. We’ve come a long way, as both a community and society, from the days of overpriced cartridges, and likewise, a paltry disposable income.
Where we once were begging our parents for that four-world-long copy of Super Mario Land, obligated to pretend we were still enjoying it months later, we’re now forever spoiled for choice. As if fearing an oncoming apocalypse that will destroy all semblances of what we fortuitously know as ‘free time’, we stock up on as much canned goods and games alike; not because we necessarily need, or even want them, but rather “just in case”. On the off chance they become collector’s items on eBay, more than likely. The seduction of weekly specials doesn’t help quell this worrying camel-like behaviour either.
And yet, when less than half a playerbase manages to surmise the six-hour-long episodic sequel to one of the most popular brands of all time, there’s nary a public eyebrow raised, other than a possibly glib “eh, I only bought it because it was Half-Life“. Short of taking a literal leaf out of the Book of Hart and succumbing to anhedonia, how did our playing methodologies become so apathetic? When did we decide to stop wholeheartedly appreciating a single purchase and started seeing games as piles of unwanted investments? Gordon Gecko would be proud.
The cycle of abandoned play may very well be neverending, but at least there’s always second chances; especially if double-dipping is concerned. Nintendo recently released Metroid Prime Trilogy, and true to its namesake, it includes a dolled up version of a certain unfulfilled sequel. Perhaps I’ll pick up the new model, for old time’s sake. Or first time’s sake, as it were, five years later and counting.
Related posts:
- This is Week – Back to Reality and Away Again Edition
- Hell is other players
- This is Week – Generous Edition
Tags: backlog, consumerism, Metroid
I have to quit games completely every now and then and tell myself ‘it’s all okay, you don’t HAVE to play any of them’. And it feels good to let go. A few weeks (or even months later) the compulsion has died off, and I can enjoy games again.
Doesn’t have to be games either, though I think they are the worst form of media for compulsion because of the commitment required. I wrote this blog post a year ago about it:
http://davesinaneramblings.blogspot.com/2008/11/filling-your-brain-with-stuff.html
Hi David! Good to see you here.
I remember reading that post and more-or-less agreeing with it. For mostly financial reasons I’ve recently become a highly selective gamer: in fact, I haven’t bought a new console game since last year. The ones I have played have been rented or loaned, though I have bought a handful of small PC games.
The fact is that while I miss having the choice, the games that I do get hold of I generally finish and really feel like I get under the skin of. I doubt the same can be said of anyone who burns through game purchases every other weekend.
Cheers for the feedback, David.
Remembering your fondness for all things Metroid, I imagine it wasn’t a game starring Samus that enlightened you to your brain-filling ways!
Well, maybe Metroid Prime Hunters.
I find it appropriately eerie that a commenter on your blog post also referenced Archibald D. Hart’s Thrilled to Death. Definitely a recommended indulgence for overindulgence.
Five years! Wow. There is no way that game – or ANY game – could live up to five years of anticipation. Have you skipped it and gone to the sequel, or is that backed up too?
I have a few games sitting untouched on the shelf/desktop: Thief II and III, Forza 2, Rainbow Six 3, Medieval: Total War, Fall From Heaven II, Beyond Good and Evil. At least most of them were bought this year, so I can say “I’ve been busy!”
Longer and more damning is the list of games I’ve had for ages but only sampled briefly: GalCiv 2, Fallout 2, Morrowind, even Planescape Torment. I’ve given them each at least a couple of hours, but they all feel abandoned in their infancy, and every day I think “I’ll play these as soon as I have time!”
And yet the weekly round of bargains always sings its seductive siren song…
I never leave a game untouched, but I’m a bit of a sampler. The worst case of sampling for me was Oblivion: as soon as I got out of the first dungeon and saw how massive the world was, I freaked out and gave up.
Dan: The same thing happened to me in Fallout 3, at first. I’ve gone back to it a few times, but whenever I play it I’m constantly plagued by doubt.
It’s interesting that the reason we gave up on Oblivion and Fallout is similar to the reason Harry hasn’t started Metroid Prime 2: there’s too much choice. We don’t want to do the wrong thing, so we do nothing.
The experience of playing open-world games, which sounds so utopian in theory, is undermined by the paralysis that comes from being presented with all that choice. Having the choice is fine, but making the choice is more stressful than fun.
I’m not sure about Oblivion, but Fallout 3 is reputed to be weakest in its main quest and strongest in its explorable areas off the beaten track. I wonder if that’s part of the reason Fallout 1 still feels like a better game? A narrowly directed storyline with just a little choice is somehow calming to the anxious, time-poor gamer.
Then again, Crackdown is totally open and free-form and doesn’t come with that anxiety. It might be because it’s not a strongly narrative game, or because you’re never asked to make a permanent decision.
I highly recommend this video on the paradox of choice – it has serious implications for game design:
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
Shamefully enough Frase, I did indeed purchase Metroid Prime 3, in the hopes that it would encourage a playthrough of the first sequel. Nothing doing however!
No surprise then that Metroid Prime 2 has actually evolved into an in-joke of sorts with my younger brother, whenever the topic of “what should I play next?” comes up.
That TED video is great. I’m reminded of two other examples where ‘the paradox of choice’ is prevalent: RSS feeds, and the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books. Seriously, I’d love to meet someone who actually read through those things without a constant bookmark of sorts.
On Crackdown and narrative though, I think that’s precisely the prime (ho ho ho) reason that’s held me back from Prime 2, and other games. As a fan of a series and/or franchise, I more often than not feel begrudgingly obligated to be taking part in canon proceedings, rather than for the gameplay itself. And with the rate sequels/prequels/side stories/etc are made in this industry, well…
It’d be interesting to see if Crackdown stays uninhibitedly fun a couple of ‘story’ iterations from now.