It's been a while since I've been able to tap into my Gaming B.I. (Before Internet) series, but I struck a little bit of pay dirt recently when my local import shop had a small stack of gaming publications for me to sink my teeth into. Most of this stack was filled with old strategy guides (hey, old strategy guides make for great toilet reading material) but the first book out of the bunch I dove into was Random House's Official SEGA Genesis & Game Gear Strategies, more specifically, the 1994 edition by Corey Sandler and Tom Badgett.
This publication is decent enough and it falls within the same perimeters I've talked about with vague descriptions of each game and such great pointers as not having Pac-Man eat power pellets when he doesn't need to, but this book is one of the more solid entries I've read recently, devoting a lot of space to passwords, cheats and Game Genie codes, which would have been a godsend before the Internet made all of this commonly-accessible knowledge. What blew me away, though, was this comment, made in regard to the Electronic Arts' SEGA Genesis title Mutant League Football and I quote it word for word:
"Looks like the real thing to us."
Now I won't pretend to know what the authors are thinking here and they may just be referring to the football itself and the passing and running plays contained within, but I can think of numerous other comments that would be far more suitable to describe Mutant League Football. In fact, that is perhaps the worst comment you could make in reflection to the game's target demographic. The reason I still pick up the game every now and again is because it wasn't just some cookie cutter football game. Sure, it hasn't aged well at all, but it can be mindless fun for about fifteen minutes until you decide to move on to something like Streets of Rage 2.
Do you remember during Super Bowl XLIV when the Indianapolis Colts bribed the referee and the New Orleans Saints had to kill him so he would stop calling five-yard penalties for nose picking? Or how about in Super Bowl XIX where Joe Montana lobbed a horrible pass, but in reality, it was actually a live explosive that he purposely threw at a Miami Dolphin defender? Evidently, we're supposed to believe the events of this game are rooted in reality. Perhaps in the future, we will be playing football on distant planets with aliens and skeletons, but to claim Mutant League Football has any resemblance of reality is a bit of a stretch, especially considering the obvious cartoon artwork used in the game.
It's been at least 15 years since I've been asked the awkward question of "how many bits would be real life?" as if reality was governed by something out of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream or The Matrix, but it appears the answer is 16. Watching Mutant League Football is identical to turning on a television on Sunday afternoon during football season according to this statement, but I will ease off of this soap box for now as, of course, this publication is far from the first to ever call reality into play in regard to video gaming. Even though advertising tried to lead me to believe 8-bit graphics were realistic, I knew better, especially since arcade games would be running at double to triple the power. People can believe what they want about what is and isn't reality, but being based on reality doesn't necessitate a claim something is, in fact, realistic. Even as technology progresses to this day, there is a strive to be "real," but, I have to ask, how real can video games become before they are not even games anymore and, more importantly, they aren't fun?
I always seem to be on that opposing end of the spectrum where I want my games to be fantasy, an escape from what I live through from 8-6 p.m. The never-ending push for realism has cut away a little bit of this creativity, but, thankfully, it still exists. We're definitely catching up to realistic looks, which is a far cry from the sprites and jagged polygons we used to be fed as real. As a matter of fact, the title of this Gaming B.I. comes from this legendary gem of an advertisement:
You can still be rooted in reality and present a fantasy as well; take Madden for example. The aspect of football is a reality, however, for a majority of people, assuming the role of their favorite player/team, playing in the big leagues, being in front of a roaring crowd, being in full control of the league and more are fantasy elements. There becomes a point where reality is no longer video game material: Do you want a game where you have to spend half the year not even playing during the offseason? Do you want to do full-scale workouts, training and deal with personal matters on a real-time daily schedule?
Of course, this is all subjective in nature. The boundaries of reality are going to differ from person to person and their tolerance for it will be dynamic as well. How far are you willing to go with realism in video games? What is the point where you feel realism would ruin the video gaming experience?
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