It's weird being a gamer. There you are - the saviour of worlds, the only hope of mankind, the last survivor of your species defying almost impossible odds - until you insert coin, flounder around for a bit and then get shot by the first pathetic alien you encounter. If videogames really were like real-life then humanity would have been fucked several million times over. There is, it seems, a reason why the phrase Game Over is the most commonly found burned in image on arcade monitors.

Most of the time though, it really doesn't matter, you just bung another 10p in the slot, load up the last save game or whatever and you're back in the thick of it without much thought of the millions you condemned to certain death in the last game. Some games, however, go that little bit further to really pile on the humiliation of losing...

Missile Command

The ultimate head-fuck. Born out of the height of early 1980's East/West paranoia, this really was a game where you couldn't win. Slip up (and even the best slip up eventually) and it's goodbye civilization as we know it. The shock of seeing The End appear in the middle of those mushroom clouds was the stuff that cold war nightmares were made of.

Stargate

Not so much a game over screen as a punishment for not protecting the last inhabitants of whatever planet it is that you're supposed to be protecting. Let all the humanoids get captured and watch as the entire world explodes around you. Game Over would, for all but the most skilled, follow soon after. Protect and survive indeed.

Dead Rising

A more recent example. Die and not only do you get treated to the sight of Zombies chomping on your nether regions, but you have to make the choice between loading your last save from six hours back and losing all the character progression or starting the whole damn thing again while retaining your beefed up photographer. Choice and consequence. And zombies. Did we mention those...

Animal Crossing

Yes, that Animal Crossing. The village simulator. What's it doing here? After all, nothing ever dies in Animal Crossing (apart from Cockroaches. Irony eh?) Well, again, for consequences. Fuck up - if selling that delightful Blue Wardrobe really counts as fucking up - and there's no going back. Your decisions are yours alone and they have a pseudo-permanent knock on effect. Really piss one of the villagers off and you will spend weeks of your life sucking up to them in an effort to appease them. Hitler would have loved this game.

Lunar Jetman

The moon, according to legend, is a harsh mistress. I don't really know what that means to be honest, but it could well be referring to this game, mess up your timing, crash into the wrong puce green thing and then you'll really discover the meaning of 'harsh'. 20 minutes of frenetic blasting and literally crippling road laying only for one small lapse in concentration to lead to the destruction of Earth and all it's inhabitants? That's a heavy trip to lay on a pre-pubescent conscience let me tell you.

Paradroid

Okay, maybe not the most apocalyptic of scenarios, but for sheer contemptuous dismissal of your efforts, it's hard to beat the blast of static and the coldly impersonal "TRANSMISSION TERMINATED" ending of Paradroid. We still can't quite shake the feeling that, somewhere out there, unspeakable acts of torture are being perpetuated on our poor defenseless influence droids.

Halo 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah - the fate of the world rests on your genetically enhanced shoulders. Whatever. Included here more for the multiplayer humiliation. This from the WotR archives:

"Big Team Battle. I died. Face up. I see my killer on the screen as he comes and stands over my face. What's he doing I thought? He begins to crouch and then stands up, repeating the process. Intriguing. Is he trying to get a weapon I'm holding? Then he speaks, in what can only be described as a filthy Mexican accent. Do you know what he said? "How do my balls taste - hey? How do my balls taste? HAHAHAHAHA. Bitch"
I've never felt so violated. My corpse being used for what I think is known as tea bagging repulsed me to the point of exiting the game immediately.
I'm not playing Halo 2 for a while now. I need to feel clean again."

Zork

Part one of a series: Bad grammar guaranteed to strike terror into a gamer's heart - "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

Cannon Fodder

It's the eager little look on the two pixel high faces as they line up beside the graves of their fallen predecessors of the new recruits that stays with you...

Gorf

"Hey, that wasn't so bad", you think to yourself as your last life disappears in puff of badly flickering pixels, I gave as good as I got there. And then the machine starts laughing at you. Mocking even. You reach for a new coin, thinking "Right, you Gorfian bastard, I'll fucking show you..."

Shark Hunter

The death scene is bad enough, what with your little eskimo-guy being eaten alive by a shark in full 8-bit glory, but then just as you're getting ready to have another go at those pesky sharks, you are then subjected to the harrowing sight of your wife attempting to bury what little remains of your riven corpse and knowing that you've condemned her and your entire family to a long, slow and, most-of-all, cold death through hunger and exhaustion in the long winter months ahead. I fully accept that I may be reading too much into this.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!

The last scene in this game is evil - not for the slidey, clicky, draggy bastardry of those little circles, but in the implication that, if your choerography isn't up to scratch, then the earth will be destroyed by radioactive meteors from space. Okay, the whole game is a little strange, but that's just messed up. Arse! Indeed.

November 2006

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