The End As We Know It In Video Games

For me the ending of a game is something to cherish. Mainly because I rarely reach it. One harrowing experience of this was reached in the cartridge days of my N64 and Goldeneye where, despite the fact I [James Bond] am in a soviet tank, was always unable to stop Natalya escape with General Ouramov in his Russian Volvo. No matter what route I took, it always ended up with the same result and left me with the problem of how to further myself in the game (and rescue beloved Natalya).

To gain any “hints” from the film was out of the question as my mum didn’t let me see it at the cinema as I was not 12 at the time. Furthermore GPS had only just been invented for car travel and it certainly was not a standard feature equipped on Russian machinery in a Nintendo game. YouTube was still some geeky pipe dream and the way to find some virtual MultiMap for the game was looking to be my best bet in completing the level.

That is until I stumbled on two other solutions circa 1998. These were either to print off a walkthrough of the game or, if you were lucky enough, to find out some tap-in cheats (invincible + all weapons = win). These quick-fix scenarios are of much importance in an era when it just wasn’t possible to check a speed run of the level that had been uploaded onto YouTube. It left gamers, like myself, torn between two state of minds.

Those desperate to obtain a 100% completion rate of the game would often resort to the help of some Gameshark tomfoolery. Whilst anyone else who had at least a shred of credibility would find themselves trying to navigate a 30 page print out from the internet entitled “How to beat ...”. This is all to ensure that I finish where the developers wanted me to finish and not at the dead end of some street in Moscow stuck on secret agent mode.

My failure in completing a game has not just been restricted to Goldeneye but now, when YouTube, can immediately illuminate a player’s shortcomings then there really is no excuse not to near completing a game. So now am I no longer eternally searching for the iron boots in Zelda: Wind Waker nor am I being KO’d by an angry sun in an emulated copy of Super Mario Bros. 3.

As a result of YouTube being the prime source material to go too when stuck in a game is the carving of internet celebrities out of the dedicated, hardcore nerd types who operate their headquarters from inside their parent’s basement. They are like the unofficial sacred messiahs of gaming where their uploads are part of a lifestyle made out of other people’s ineptness in certain games.