Recently I've been playing a lot of solo video games competitively. You know, trying to beat my own score. Over and over again. It's hardly the most exciting sounding of activities, especially as I am indulging in it not with Gears of War or Metal Gear Solid 4, but rather with three of the Missions bundled into the Nintendo DS budget release 42 All-Time Classics. Blimey, last of the hardcore gamers.
The three games in question are all card games, which is odd as I never play card games - heck, I can't even play Poker without having my LCD Yahtzee game to hand for reference. The first mission, I Doubt It, is the family version of Bullshit!, or 'Cheat' as it is sometimes called. The mission requires you to accuse your opponents of cheating five times without getting it wrong. At the time of writing, my record is 27 times - at which point I was beaten by a computer player more interested in actually winning the game than fulfilling the dumb requirements of some mission mode.
There’s Memory next, or ‘Pairs’ as the human world knows it. This sets you three minutes to clear the whole damn table. I can do it it with 1:09 still left on the clock, although that did require some tactical pausing. Finally, we have the biggest bitch of them all – a game called Spit. And this, my friends, is where the heart of this blog entry lies.
You see, reader, I can’t complete all 30 of the missions. I have a difficult time with Backgammon and Mahjong. I can admit it. Due to the heartbreak that my failure causes, I have given up on these two goals and have instead decided to prove my worth by setting high scores in games that I can do. And Spit is one of them. A fast-paced game of strategy and luck, Spit gives you a mere 90 seconds to clear your deck of cards. It’s one of those games where every second counts, and the slightest slip up can lead you to stabbing yourself in the head out of self-loathing and shame.
Playing it one night, I received a respectable score of 25 seconds remaining. Not bad, I guessed. I played a little more and managed to hit 30, and then I never came close again for the rest of the day. I guessed 30 seconds must have been good. I was proud, so I took it into work the next morning to show my friend, who also had a copy of the game. “I’ve been playing Spit, and I’ve got 30 seconds left!” I declared to all of my co-workers.
What disgusting pride. What stubborn foolishness. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was a declaration of war that I had just made. My friend was incensed at the challenge. He went home, and he played Spit, and he fought his corner.
He failed to beat me.
The next day, I was cocky, but I had inhaled the scent of the scratch ‘n’ sniff of power. I played on, and I scored 31 seconds. I swaggered into work, sixty feet tall, and I turned to my friend and scoffed “I’ve got a two digit number that’ll make you cough up blood in disgust – Thirty-one.” I smiled.
He shuffled in his seat. There was something wrong. My eyebrows arched. “What?” my expression asked. “I’ve got thirty-two,” he whispered. He was very reserved about telling me, knowing it would break my heart. I was filled with feelings. Overwhelmed. I felt a tear grow.
There is a happy ending to this tale. I worked hard for the next two evenings and snagged a higher score. It was a game sent from heaven, all the cards were rolling out in my favour and the force was strong. With 37 seconds on the clock, I was on my last couple of cards. 8 goes there, Ace goes there, yes… One left. The 6 of Clubs. 35 seconds left. What, what, what do I do? My mind goes blank. If I couldn’t use the card anywhere, the DS would have told me by now. There had to be somewhere for this 6 to go. it to go… THERE! Whack, it lands straight on the 5 of Hearts. I both curse and congratulate myself. My speed playing had paid off, as my new high score was a bombastic 33 seconds. But if I had been completely on form, totally in the zone, I could have ditched that 6 with a quickness and, well, who knows what I could have achieved? Maybe even 35.
I rolled into work the next day, confident with my 32-beating score of 33. My friend? He greeted me with yet more bad news. “I got 33 last night. It’s annoying though, because I could have got 35.”
It seems that, deep down inside, the core element of video gaming, the chase for the high score, still survives and still beats very strongly in our collective gamer heart. It might take different forms, not always the simple, traditional 1P Vs. 2P, but it’s still there. As long as there is testosterone, as long as there is pride, as long as there is the sense of competition, there will always be the high score war.
I suggest you embrace it. Next time you pick up a game that allows you to set and beat your own records, why not treat a friend to a copy? I guarantee you, you will have a lot more fun playing it alongside (and, subsequently, against) each other than you would on your own.
But that’s not a legally binding guarantee. After all, you might pick up a wack game.
- Ray Whitney, 22/07/08
Digital Update - 18/12/08: I'm currently on 39 seconds, he's on 42. The war rages on. I have beaten Mahjong however, but Backgammon still mocks me.