Current Events > Video games are a unique problem.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just beat Pro Wrestling on NES.

It's not even a new game. It's not even one that's relevant. But here it is, I've put more than 30 hours over the course of the past week into beating this wrestling game. 15 of which was in a single day: Saturday. Eat. Piss. Wrestle. Sleep. That's virtually all I did. And my obsession with beating the game hadn't diminished since then. For the past two days, I've thought of little beyond avenging myself against an 8-bit wrestling champion in a 35 year old video game.

And now that I've beaten the game, I feel like I've watched a movie. I can say, "Oh, yeah. I've beaten that game," in the same breath which one would say, "Oh, yeah. I've seen that movie." Nobody forces you to play video games. Nobody forces you to obsess with beating them. You haven't won or lost anything material. I'm not an actual champion. And this character, Great Puma, I've obsessed over is now just another name on the Bowser pile of video game final bosses I've defeated. My legs ache from the stress of that final battle.

On the plus side, I know for a fact that WWE's John Cena played this game as a kid and I'm pretty sure he didn't nerd it up enough to make it to the final boss fight. So, yeah, I've beaten one wrestling champion that John Cena never did. <_<

You have no control. Learn temperance

But I've gots to win.

Skye Reynolds posted...

But I've gots to win.

You must win in life, my friend. These video games are just side quests.

I make a list of video games I beat each year and that does incentivise me to actually complete them.

But yeah I get nothing out of it lol
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Darmik posted...

I make a list of video games I beat each year and that does incentivise me to actually complete them.

But yeah I get nothing out of it lol

Just like with movies, after completing the story you gain the pleasure of having something to talk about with people who shared the same experiences as you.

Seek them out and your life will be that much more fulfilled.

sLaCkEr408___RJ posted...

Darmik posted...

I make a list of video games I beat each year and that does incentivise me to actually complete them.

But yeah I get nothing out of it lol

Just like with movies, after completing the story you gain the pleasure of having something to talk about with people who shared the same experiences as you.

Seek them out and your life will be that much more fulfilled.

Yeah I overall love video games as a hobby and wouldn't change a thing. I wish I could play more! There's so much stuff I want to play it's insane.
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I agree with TC. A videogame can literally take you years to beat, and your own unbridled obsession to complete the game is the driving force that possesses you to finish it .

Ok.
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On this particular game, I'm not sure how to feel.

For close to a decade, I'd held that Friday the 13th on NES begrudged the player winning more than any game I'd ever played. There were times when I'd genuinely felt that someone at Paramount -- who didn't understand how video games work -- gave instructions that the game should be virtually impossible because they feared Jason might appear weak if games could beat him.

But Pro Wrestling takes the cake. The game literally bribes you to get you to get you to not complete the game. One hand, you have eleven consecutive matches you must win to get a title shot; the last two of which are impossible. On the other hand, if you do lose (which you will), the game gift wraps the man who beat you by placing you in an instant rematch with them at a lesser difficulty. Anyone who loses on the road to the championship is likely to avenge their loss and turn the game off. And that's what I bet 90% of people who played this game for any length of time had done.

But you know something? I'd been playing the game wrong. Up until a few days ago, I didn't realize that wrestlers recovered. I'd been fighting conservatively and they'd been recovering on me; making it appear as if they were invincible. Second, victory in the later matches requires spamming your signature moves. My character was Fighter Hayabusa and his only signature move is a kick which requires precise timing. I'd made one of the oldest mistakes in gaming: aiming for where the opponent was instead of where they were going. I learned to pull off the kick by luring people into walking strait down. If they approached me from an angle, I missed them because I didn't compensate for the fact that they were at an angle. Once I realized my mistake, I ate the penultimate opponent alive. The final boss was still a challenge though.



I'd probably have beaten the game multiple times over were it not for that simple mistake. So now I don't know whether to blame the troubles I've had on the game's difficulty or my own folly.

Yeah, every couple weeks Ill binge play a video game for most of my weekend.

Its releasing a lot of dopamine Im guessing.
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