By Michelle Perez
Every so often, a news article will pop up telling you people lie 6 to 20 or so times a day, and that a dude (dude meaning male, in the clinical sense) will lie more. The Tim Roth show about lying tells me everything I need to know. It really drives it home with those pictures of Saddam Hussein or Bill O’ Reilly grimacing with stupor or disgust. We are blessed with this knowledge imparted to us in such small doses — and from menacing UK residents no less! On Fox! This is an age of miracles and wonders.
Sometimes even the television will lie to you, or the Wikipedia, but not the individual video-game wikis. You have to see it to believe it. I’d liken the experience of browsing a video game wiki to the scene from the first Matrix film. Keanu’s purple tube empties and all the jello is gone. He is connected to hoses and drags his fingers alongside the rims of this snot-tea pot and looks down into the abyss. His mind is made to acknowledge his true existence looking at so many other snot-tea pots, and a robot grabs his throat. The same is said of looking up table-top MMO games lore/character class information via a wiki.
As of this writing, it is composed of 6,263 pages of information relating to Warhammer Online, an MMO wherein you pretend you are in the past of Warhammer 40K and lament how much cooler everything would be if you had a chainsaw sword, or at the very least a cannon that shot hammers.
While I played the game as a witch hunter, I had no clue how it’d be for say, an elf. Elves are sometimes the worst fantasy creature, but at least don’t get the annoying amount of favor Dwarves do. Listen up, dwarves will become the bacon meme of fantasy in three years. Set your watches.
Bang up job, weird people who wrote this! The whole time I was reading through the wiki I was looking for something NOT UNLIKE a space marine, and here we go! This Chosen guy is huge and foreboding! He serves Tzeentch! At no point should anyone oppose The Notorious T.Z.E., unless they wish to encounter, (as the author so eloquently puts): “… the backbone of any action and can act as both brick walls in defense stand-offs as well as wrecking balls in offensive charges.”
This article also informed me that the developers opted against a female variant of The Chosen, as they felt it wouldn’t be as imposing. I err towards the school of thought that if someone, whatever their gender, can forsake their barbarian soul to some hellish elder god entity of violence that perhaps they too can look horrifying. I’m progressive like that. Or, you know, we can stick to the Soul Calibur School of female character design. Either way.
USEFUL YOUTUBE VIDEOS FOR COMPLETING A LEVEL OF ORCS MUST DIE:
“If yeh orrable at ‘itll bits uhf a defanhse gehm leh parthing or rilleh learnen nae lattle nuance of a genh, whemen dowt watch a vidyo eff ehren’t espechshulleh beholwden tae ideeh uh bein a pureust. Mus’ve tried everythun, until aye broke down and ga’e wee look en forse em tae orc bottleneck.” (Seriously though thanks, so helpful. I was stuck)
Sometimes I want to really sink my teeth into a game and never once cite a video-game site for information pertinent to 100% completion of the game. Other times I slam my head off a wall trying to collect and complete every task because that game has a multiplayer component, and damned if I’m going to do all that on my own. Red Dead Redemption is an excellent example of this. You had to put in work to get every outfit, and more often than not you were better served by having a visual point of reference from a walkthrough video, as opposed to trying to find the vague areas described in FAQS, written as fever dreams from the blood-flecked lips of now-dead men. I suppose your own mileage may vary. Personally, it was a little rough getting an exact idea of locations due to the immense locales the game has you running through. Sure, a little magic of discovery is lost in the viewing, but the pleasure of actual participation and knocking a task out still holds true. I wouldn’t feel bad if somebody walked me up to a bank truck and started handing me money, so I appreciate the effort of guys who show me that the gold is under two bent palms. These videos exist for EVERY GAME.
I SEE A LEVEL OF A VIDEO GAME, A WIKI EDITOR SEES WORLD WAR II:
When you want to see dedication in information gathering for the purpose of relating story and perhaps garnering community involvement in the storytelling side of the Halo series, Halo Nation is a clearinghouse of supplemental information (and often, conjecture) wherein people who dug further into the fiction got together with others. They meticulously categorize story events of the series in chronological order, and create investment not entirely intended by the creators of the series. Don’t want to buy all the comic books, novels and read all of 42 Entertainment’s Alternate Reality Game information? Briefly peruse a few pages and you’re for the most part caught up! They also employ creativity in relaying the events of the game, as though they’re telling you of some long ago battle from the perspective of a war historian. A good example would be a synopsis of the final level of Halo 3. Or as the Wiki refers to it: THE BATTLE OF INSTALLATION 00 . Here’s a brief excerpt:
“The High Prophet of Truth, having successfully activated the artifact in Voi , left Earth through a Slipspace portal to the Ark, a Forerunner structure that can be used to fire all of the Halo installations at once. Despite Lord Hood’s urging, Commander Keyes took the Forward Unto Dawn with a small fleet of Separatist Cruisers led by the Assault Carrier Shadow of Intent and proceeded through the Slipspace portal, arriving at the Ark. The Separatists immediately engaged the Brute fleet stationed to protect the Prophet while the Dawn deployed John-117 and Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in six Pelicans to locate Truth. Despite being outnumbered three-to-one in space, the UNSC and the Separatist fleet made short work of the Loyalist space forces, likely due to the Elites remarkable “tactical adeptness” . The Brute’s “tactical helplessness” can be heard in a radio transmission, saying “No! Shoot the Carrier!” The Covenant Loyalist Fleet had been destroyed and the only Loyalists left alive were Truth and his forces on the Ark. Also, presumably Truth landed the Forerunner Dreadnought on the Ark although it was never seen again and was specifically said not to take part in the battle above the Ark.”
I remember it as a level where I drove around and killed some gross lookin’ fellas, but these cats see it as part of a bigger and greater body of fiction where Master Chief has a name and number designation, and it is in addition to many other actions he has taken as a soldier in this space opera. I wonder if writing staff in these games, as well as the people in charge of novelizations, take the mindsets of these wiki types into account. To the average player of Halo, Master Chief is pretty much an empty character, aside from Being Dude Killer, The Hero Strongly. Throughout the experience of the game he speaks very little, and only takes action. Throughout the fiction he is apparently a martyr of a man forced into being the greatest soldier alive by means of kidnapping, and great physical torture. To the wiki editor, it’s a moment where their previously attained knowledge is applied to a character that cannot meet their storytelling needs, or their want for exposition.
In the future I want the dense storytelling in video games to actually impart and inform gameplay. The supplement works only so far as giving you contextual investment in a character. What’s the point of knowledge you can’t practically apply? We saw bits of this in Alpha Protocol. I want those dumb Codex entries in Mass Effect to give me a bonus when shoot that Turian guy in the kneecap on account of his “old grilling accident”. If I buy an Assassin’s Creed Comic Book, I want a Russian Assassin Guy. The Future, You Asshole, You Will Give Me Everything I Cry For Or I’ll Kill You.
Signed, Matthew James Perez
Guy on the Internet
