Words I Never Thought I’d Say about a Video Game

Mephisto Mori/ November 25, 2013/ Video Games/ 0 comments

A game showed up in the featured titles on Steam the other day.  A lowkey survival horror game and pseudo MMO called Nether.

My interest was slightly pique but I decided not to buy the game and soon after forgot it existed.

Poking around on Twitch today I saw it being streamed and decided to check it out.  After approximately 15 minutes of watching it I uttered words, aloud directly at my monitor:

“What the fuck is the point of this game?”

I caught myself off guard with my statement.  I may insult plenty of games that deserve it.  But I understand why people play them.

Every time I asked for a game for Christmas or a Birthday I’d get the same question:  “what’s the point of this one?”  I was being asked to justify my hobby.  I knew the answer.  But telling my family “to save the princess” or “because it’s fun.”  Were rarely good enough reasons.

There’s plenty of games I have no interest in playing but I get them.  An entire genre even – sports games.  Sports games aren’t my thing but I understand why others like them.

Better example: Minecraft.

Minecraft may be the most pointless game on the planet but I understand the appeal.  MMO culture has become so used to farming and grinding that some asshole in his basement realized he could release a game that is exclusively farming and grinding.  Especially if that game lets you build a city where every building is shaped like a penis… that’s basically what the fucking internet was designed for.  Showing off your ePeen.

Is my reaction to Nether a sign of my age?

No it’s not.  Nether is a frivolous piece of shit game.

The low population servers and vacant setting of Nether are fitting metaphors for the vapid experience of the game.  Occasionally a mutant spawns to alleviate the tedium of wandering through uninteresting copy-pasted terrain and generic building ruins.  It’s impressive how crippling MMO spawn timers are to the suspense of horror monsters.  If the game achieves any sort of emotional response it’s from the trolls in the chat window.

Oh right, it’s also a survival horror game with rpg leveling mechanics.

I’m going to give you a moment to digest that for a bit.

Leveling in the sort of game that limits your resources and tries to spawn enemies at a “horror/survival” pace.

I have a type of fun with grinding and leveling up.  It’s the fun I assume an account gets from perfectly balancing a budget.  It’s about efficiency and achievement.  The rewards should reflect the time spent in a directly proportional manner.

But let’s put grinding and leveling in The Mutating Dead MMO.  Instantly not fun.  There’s a negative amount of fun.  It’s like playing a hunter that forgot to buy ammo and can’t craft the ammo.  And can’t buy ammo because all the ammo vendors have long since died and mutated into radiation zombie aliens.

I suddenly get the point of Nether.  It’s a deliberate attempt by developers to, on purpose, combine the least compatible gameplay elements into a generic shooter.

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