ENTRY TWELVE: It ain't over Till the Fat Plumber sings.
Everybody needs closure. Whether it’s at the end of a relationship, a friendship, or a job, you need that little something that lets you know it’s ok to move on. Usually people are pretty good about closure aside from the John Cusack wannabes because everyone wants to move onto bigger and better things. If you graduate you get a diploma, if you break up with a significant other you return your stuff, etc. But there’s one area where closure is never possible: video games.
I consider myself an experienced gamer in all genres on most major consoles. But somethings you’re never ready for. I swear to God I still dream about the horrible ending in Sonic the Hedgehog and what might have been as I cry myself to sleep. I can think of countless wretched endings: Donkey Kong Country, Zombies ate my Neighbors, every single beat em up ever created, Soul Calibur, more recently Splinter Cell, and the mother of them all...Super Mario 64. In case you’re not familiar with the crappiness of this ending, I will enlighten you. The object of the game is to beat Bowser and free the Princess and once you get 80 stars you can challenge him for the final time. So after you beat him you get the ending. You see a cut-scene where Mario gets a kiss from the Princess on the cheek and they leave to bake a cake. The End. Nintendo...my blood boils in your general direction. God dammit, I didn’t spend all this time playing the game to see Mario pop a polygon woody and watch them walk off to make a few confectioneries. So I decided to totally beat the game. This meant getting all the 120 stars. I literally had my game on pause for 2 whole days as I tried to prepare myself physically and mentally to get the final 15 coins of 100 in the level Rainbow Ride. I got myself into the zone by strengthening my thumbs in countless hours of thumbwars, and I mentally prepared myself by downloading and listening to Charles Martinet’s (voice of Mario) silky lustrous voice saying, “IT’S A ME, MARIO!? until I actually believed I was the chunky chosen one himself. And I got those last 15 coins with a vengeance. I had beaten Super Mario 64 completely and what did I get? 100 lives and a super jump. Fuck you Nintendo. Why would you give someone 100 lives and a super jump when they’re already beaten the game?
Nintendo: To give the gamer the ultimate gaming experience so he can roam free in Mario’s world and explore without restrictions.
Dr. Delicious: Shit, if you wanted me to have no restrictions give me a tank or a way to hack into the game to make Mario and the Princess do the nasty. Don’t give me 100 lives and a super jump. That’s like giving Snoop Dogg a bag of weed. What the fuck does he need it for? Snoop and me have already been there and done that.
But the worst part of this whole dilemma is the aftermath because there’s no closure. I found myself second guessing decisions I made during the game like a lonely ex-boyfriend, “If I didn’t squish the goombah in Tall Tall Mountain, would things be different?? So I went back and tried to correct it with tons of ridiculous scenarios, but no matter how hard I tried...it never worked. It simply wasn’t meant to be. You see, videogames are a lot like love. Some of them are just made for the gamer, like they’re soul-mates. Even though I hated the ending to Super Mario 64, I’m sure there’s some fat virgin kid in Kentucky who loved the ending cuz all he wants is a slice of pound cake and a peck on the cheek. But that’s not me. I need a little more substance than that; I need something more mature. Now, if Mario had gotten a steak dinner and a ride from Kylie Minogue we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But we are, and that means there is SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH VIDEOGAMES TODAY.
You see, if a kid goes out and shoots 25 kids at his school it’s not cuz he thought it was cool from playing Goldeneye, it’s because the ending was the worst thing ever used to end anything. That’s why he was so damn pissed off. He wasted a good 20 something hours of his life playing that game to get a crappy ending when he could have been doing something more constructive like beating up his little brother or masturbating.
Video Game Industry Cocknocker: If you want a good ending, play an RPG.
Dr. Delicious: Hey, ok. If you want to lose your virginity move out of your mom’s basement. I shouldn’t have to play a boring RPG like Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts to get a good ending. It should be a given. Movies always give you an ending that satisfies, unless they’re avant-garde. And no matter how hard the French try there will never be avant-garde videogames.
Some of this stuff is so easy to correct too. Like sports games. You win the Super Bowl, hooray, huzzah! Here’s a floating Vince Lombardi trophy, play again! Wouldn’t it be cool if they showed the players in post-game interviews, the players spraying each other with champagne in the locker room, the players fucking a prostitute in a motel and Ray Lewis murdering someone? Hot Diggity that’s an ending to play for.
So until that one day, I guess I’ll just lay here in bed, clutching my cartridges, reading instruction booklets and remembering better times until that perfect ending comes along and sweeps me off my feet onto a horse on the beach. I’m looking for you oh-so-perfect ending, and I hope you’re looking for me too.
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged, get back Jojo...