My Game Can Beat Up Your Game

Crossovers and guest stars seem to be all the rage in video games these days, with the recently announced Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, the Star Wars characters in Soul Calibur IV, and the dream match that was once thought to be impossible but finally happened, Mario vs. Sonic in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. And while some quibble over the details and inconsistencies that some match-ups present (why can’t Darth Vader’s lightsaber slice right through a sword, for example), I think ultimately most of us are just giddy to see characters out of their elements and interacting with characters from other universes. That is, those of us who don’t think we are just too good and too passionate about our games to have a little nonsense fun. Get over yourselves.  

What I’m reminded of when I see something ridiculous like Solid Snake fighting Jiggly Puff or a Daytona 500 car boxing with a ninja (and no I’m not explaining that one; you’ll either know it or you won’t) is playing with my action figures as a kid. Although I tended to take my toy playing rather seriously, with ongoing story lines, wars that lasted for weeks, and characters that only “died” when they actually broke, I still mixed toys from a myriad of sources. It wasn’t uncommon for Gambit to work his cajun charms on April O’Neal, or He-Man to be locked in an epic struggle with Lion-O. It didn’t matter that the proportional sizes of the various toys sometimes made things look a little ridiculous. And in the case of battles, it also didn’t matter too much that certain characters just could never actually fight each other “realistically”. Sometimes you just had to go with it for the sake of fun. After all, as seriously as I took the continuity of it all and the politics that caused the wars and the feuds that ripped teams apart (yes, even as an 8 year old), they were still toys, and they were still supposed to be fun.

So when I tell someone about MK Vs. DC, and the first thing out of their mouth is “Come on, none of the MK characters could even put a dent in Superman, nor could a lot of the DC characters, that is so lame”, it kind of annoys me. I mean obviously I’m a pretty big geek, and I’ve had my share of intense discussions and heated debates about things of that nature. But not so much that it would affect my enjoyment of a game with these sorts of inconsistencies, or that I’d refuse to even play them. I remember being in a chat room talking about the platform-specific guest stars in each version of Soul Caliber II, and we were debating which one we thought was the coolest. Well, just about everyone at least agreed that Heihachi was the lamest of the three and barely even warranted consideration. Except for one guy, one of these really hardcore fighting game guys, the kind of guy who could go into ridiculous detail about the fundamental differences between Ryu in Super Street Fighter II and Ryu in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. He said Heihachi was the best of the cameos by default, simply because it made the most sense within the Soul Caliber universe. Yawn. I don’t care that there was no good reason for Link to be there, it’s freakin’ Link in a Soul Caliber game! Who cares “why”?! Maybe it’s me, but I just don’t need a “reason” or an “explanation” for it, and I don’t need it to make sense. Even though it wasn’t my style of game, I put in a lot more time than I normally would have with Marvel Vs. Capcom just because it was a smorgasbord of ridiculously awesome characters and match-ups. I just eat that stuff up.

I know we all want games to be taken as seriously as other forms of media, and many of us even want games to be considered art. But if a 2-on-2 basketball dunkfest pitting Bill and Hillary Clinton against DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince isn’t considered art, then I guess I’ll truly never understand what “art” is.