A to Z - evolution under the right thumb

When we discuss the development of the standard video game console controller we tend to concentrate on significant additions to the basic pad. Things like shoulder buttons and analogue sticks and rumble. We less often talk about the arrangement of the buttons that have come to be standard. Why A, B, X and Y? What’s wrong with 1, 2, 3 and 4? Here, I'll take a brief look at the evolution of the buttons under your right thumb…

Before the arrival of the NES, the success of Pong and its associated clones meant dials were prevalent on home console controllers. Number pads were also common. The Atari 2600’s joystick controller had a single red button on it. The Vectrex was one of the first consoles to feature a layout resembling a pad as we now know it, with a micro joystick on the left and four circular buttons in a horizontal line on the right (labelled 1-2-3-4). The 1983 release of the Famicom in Japan introduced the home console audience to the D-pad, a cardinal direction input borrowed from Nintendo’s Game & Watch line of portable LCD games. It also introduced Select and Start, and labelled its two primary input buttons (initially square, though quickly replaced with circular versions) B and A. The outer button was where the player’s right thumb would naturally fall and therefore became A. Primary actions like jumping would usually be mapped to this, with B assuming secondary duties such as firing. Returning to games from this period often throws up anomalies for modern players. It feels peculiar to use Select to toggle between menu options now that we’re all accustomed to using the D-pad and hitting A to confirm, B to cancel. The NES kept the Famicom’s basic design, though changing the B and A buttons from black to red. Sega’s Master System used an 8-directional input on the left and two buttons on the right, labelled 1 and 2. Nintendo and Sega’s handheld consoles would ape the control schemes of their home-based brethren, though positioned at a more natural and comfortable angle. The Turbografx/PC Engine would reverse Sega’s numbers and make them Roman numerals.

The Vectrex and its pad
(Source: Evan Amos)

With the increased processing power of fourth generation home consoles, devs needed more inputs for more complex games. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive ditched numbers in favour of A-B-C slanted on a chunky pad with a pellet-shaped Start hovering above. The SNES, while also gaining shoulder buttons (L=Left, R=Right), took B and A from the NES and added two buttons above in a diamond formation. D and C would seem the most natural choice (the Neo Geo went with these) but Nintendo chose instead Y and X. Perhaps it helped separate the pair in function from B and A, as evidenced by the lozenge-shaped border surrounding each pair, though why they didn’t choose Y and Z is puzzling. Nintendo also gave these buttons colours. A retained the glossy red from the NES, while B turned yellow. X picked up the third primary colour, blue, leaving Y with green. The curved shape of the pad coupled with the new diamond formation meant that B became the default position for the right thumb and Mario’s jump moved there. The US version of the SNES received a makeover that removed the primary colours (presumably a marketing strategy to make the console appear less toy-like), making B-A purple and Y-X lilac.

While the Mega Drive pad would grow to accommodate three extra X-Y-Z buttons above A-B-C, the Saturn had six buttons as standard at the start of the fifth generation. The three-pronged N64 pad was perplexing until you realised you only held two of them. Nintendo moved the diamond buttons further up the pad, made them yellow and rechristened them C-buttons (Cardinal buttons, perhaps?) above B and A (now occupying the spaces left by Y and B respectively). Once again, A became the principal input, now blue, while the central Start button inherited the glossy red colour from before. B was, obviously…, erm, green.

As confusing as this may seem, Sony were about to turn everything on its head with the PlayStation. Letters, numbers – who needs ‘em? Sony’s shapes became icons, surpassing even the SNES’ colourful diamond formation. Triangle pointed upwards so it took the top of the diamond. The SNES’ A button became Circle (which Japanese players use to confirm) and primary B became Cross (which Westerners use to confirm). Square took the remaining space, originally intended as a 'page' button for sub-menus or inventory functions. The design was slick, easily identifiable and it endures (as does the East/West confirm/cancel confusion). Less durable examples include: SNK’s Neo Geo CD, which borrowed the SNES’ colours and diamond formation with (clockwise from the top) D-B-A-C labelling from the AES’ joystick controller; Philip’s CD-i, which used the familiar diamond with an array of ‘dots’ (·, ··, ·, and, of course, ·/··); and Atari’s Jaguar, which took Sega’s layout and flipped it horizontally.

Press  ·  to delete save file  (Source: Evan Amos)

Following 'A' around Nintendo's pads...

Following the addition of dual analogue sticks, Sony’s pad changed little for the sixth generation. The DualShock 2 featured pressure-sensitive face buttons but nobody really noticed. The organic GameCube controller continued Nintendo’s esoteric journey by transforming the C-buttons into a C-stick, returning B (now red) to its alignment from the SNES days and rotating Y and X (now kidney-shaped and grey) almost 90° around a big green A button. Sega took their six button layout and lopped off Z and C for the broad Dreamcast pad, leaving Y-B-A-X. They borrowed the primary SNES colours, reassigning them seemingly at random.

...and following Sony's shapes.

But a new challenger approached - and a big’un, too. Microsoft constructed their monstrous Duke by carefully examining the competition. They borrowed the Saturn/Dreamcast letter configuration, though with smaller White and Black buttons in place of the now-deceased Z and C (these would shift below the diamond on the smaller ‘S’ revision and disappear entirely next generation). Xbox borrowed the colours but once again they were reassigned: Y=yellow, B=red, A=green, X=blue. ‘Green for go, red for no’ makes sense seeing how these buttons had evolved with use and Microsoft have stuck with them ever since.

Both Sony and Microsoft kept the same basic configurations for the seventh generation. Nintendo, however, unveiled a TV remote. After initial confusion, it became clear that they’d simply split the standard pad in two and augmented it with some accelerometers and an IR pointer, providing a non-threatening and familiar form factor for wary non-gamers put off by increasingly complex conventional pads. It retained the GameCube’s chunky, satisfying A button, planted the D-pad above it and added '-' and '+' (playing the roles of Select and Start respectively) and a Home menu button. Relegating B to the underside, it brought back numbers for ancillary functions at the bottom (1 and 2) which served as ‘B and A’ when the pad was rotated and assumed the ‘classic’ NES-like configuration. The whole thing, buttons and all, was finished in a benign glossy white. While continually trying new things in the home, Nintendo finally bid farewell to the trusty Select-Start-B-A combo of the Game Boy and dusted off the classic SNES X-A-B-Y diamond for their new portable, the DS (sans the sexy colours).

And thus we arrive at current-gen (eighth if you’re still counting). Nintendo threw the kitchen sink at the Wii U Gamepad, including the SNES diamond (again, without the sexy colours, although they have reappeared on the beautiful New 3DS). Sony and Microsoft have refined their pads but retain the same basic layout they’ve had for a decade. Those face buttons under your hovering right thumb have settled down in their middle age into something comforting and familiar, with little inherited idiosyncrasies from the past. Valve's Steam controller sticks with Microsoft's colours/labelling. Configurable touchscreen buttons with individual haptic feedback have yet to appear beyond fantastical artists' imaginings. VR's particular requirements deny players a view of their hands, let alone their gamepad, but although motion controls often augment the experience, traditional analogue inputs continue to play a crucial role in the interface. With NX on the horizon, it’ll be fascinating to see where buttons go next.

Welling up at Williams

I remember distinctly watching Superman Returns one afternoon, perhaps 7 or 8 years ago. I am a Burton Batman kid - Superman’s primary colours and goofy Donner-films never interested me. But this soft sequel was on the telly so I watched to see a more modern take on the character. A plane containing Lois Lane plummets to the ground and the Man of Steel saves it, plonking it down in the middle of a baseball game. After heading inside to check on Lois, he emerges to see the roaring stadium and John Williams’ theme starts up. Superman has returned.

At this moment an unusual thing happened. As he stood in the hatch, the crowd cheering, the percussive strings building to the fanfare, a shiver went down my neck and my eyes filled with tears. To be clear, I have no particular affection or history with Superman in any medium. Of course I know the icon and the premise, but I never read the comics and never paid much attention to the films. But there I was, blubbing on the sofa. Why?

This isn’t an isolated incident. Hearing the Star Trek: The Next Generation fanfare has had a similar effect on me. I remember several years ago loading Raiders of the Lost Ark into the DVD tray and being set off by the music on the menu screen. Only the other day I was blinking tears back at the end of Back to the Future part II when Marty receives the letter from Doc – that wasn’t even the theme tune, simply the mysterious ‘diddlo-diddloo’ prelude flourish (listen to the first seconds of ‘Western Union’ on the soundtrack if you’re unsure.) However, those are things I DO feel a childhood attachment to. Again, Superman doesn’t figure with those examples.

‘diddlo-diddloo’ 

I do not usually cry, and certainly not in public. I’m not comfortable displaying myself in that state. I’m pretty cynical about attempts in TV and film to elicit tears through sentimentality and rousing string sections. That is not to say I’m immune to crying in the cinema – Toy Story 3 destroyed me – but a film really has to EARN an emotional response. The Superman plane sequence above was competently put together, but wasn’t designed to elicit tears – it’s simply a public reintroduction of the character in the fiction. A character I don’t particularly care for. SO again, what happened?

First I thought it must be nostalgia. I’m pining for a lost past, a childhood forever gone, lamenting our frail mortality, yadda-yadda-yadda. But I’m not nostalgic for Superman.

Then I thought maybe it’s a musical trick that Williams and co. are pulling on me. Say what you like about the Star Wars prequels, but JW absolutely NAILED it every time. I remember listening to the Phantom Menace soundtrack album back in 1999 and replaying Anakin’s Theme. It hits everything about the child – it's hopeful, fearful, with the delicate suggestion at the end of what’s ahead for the character. It’s masterful. Regardless how well JJ Abrams manages Episode VII, there’s zero doubt the score will be anything but perfect. Dinosaurs, archaeologists, aliens; he does it all the time. Maybe he's just deftly cracking out the leitmotif and playing me like a pipe with an algorithmic sequence that always produces results. Maybe I’m just getting trolled by the master.

Or perhaps I’m just getting sentimental with advancing years. You hear it all the time. It’s conceivable that seeing the pure goodness of the character through the lens of experienced cynicism has a profound emotional impact after the injustice and incompetence so readily visible in the adult world. I’ve heard of middle aged men overwhelmed while watching Secret Millionaire. Perhaps such acts of generosity and selflessness make sentimental fools of us all in our dotage. And maybe I’m weeping for optimism and enthusiasm of youth when I hear those melodies. Though that's a tad melodramatic for a 31-year old, no?

So I return to nostalgia – can you be nostalgic for things you didn’t experience? For a time when you weren’t alive? I get melancholic when I hear certain songs on the radio. The Doobie Brothers’ 1979 hit ‘What a Fool Believes’, for example. I’ve never known the lyrics, which turn out to explore differing perceptions of events and constructed memories - the tale of a man meeting a woman he remembers as an old flame and the subsequent awkwardness when she remembers no such flirtation and it’s been built up over the years in the mind of the ‘fool’. For me the song simply brings back memories of Radio 2 morning shows (the playlists of which seem to have changed little since the mid-‘80s) and working with my dad in the school holidays for some extra cash. Again, childhood. Loads of songs from the ‘70s and ‘80s make me melancholic, regardless of the genre. Could that be why I’m weeping at a guy onscreen in blue spandex?

While writing this, the rousing Thunderbirds theme came on iTunes. I smiled, and my vision went blurry. Damn it. I excitedly await the day when I break down publicly to the Antiques Roadshow theme and the R. Whites Lemonade advert.

A happy fate: Masquerading in Majora's Mask

There are many things Majora's Mask is not. It is not the prettiest Zelda game. Despite Grezzo's excellent work on the 3DS update, the rudimentary polygons of the N64 entries locate them squarely in the fifth console generation. It is not the most original Zelda either, reusing engine, assets and music from its predecessor and doing very little to update its base mechanics. And neither are those mechanics best-in-series. Hugely influential, they have been iterated on many times since and returning to their second-ever outing only highlights the enhancements made over the years, particularly to Z-targeting and swimming. Yes, Majora's Mask can be frustrating.

So why then is it considered the 'hidden' best of the series? All the cool kids claim it's their favourite, but why when it's so obviously flawed? For me, it's simply the most interesting Zelda has ever been.

Moody PAL.

Visually, Termina is a mash-up of Ocarina's locations, snow and ocean additions notwithstanding. Although it feels darker, the actual world is pieced together with the same earth tones as Hyrule, plus some luminous highlights in the dungeons. That wonderful impression of rich purple and forest-green really comes from the art that accompanied its release. The development teams' recycling also extends to the inhabitants themselves. Many of the characters are duplicates from Hyrule, here assigned new identities (or sometimes multiple identities as with the Gormon Brothers or the Romani sisters). These doppelgangers exist as archetypes across dimensions and as satisfying touchstones for returning players to recognise. Our familiarity allows the makers to subvert expectations of these characters and perhaps reconsider the originals too. The player's memories of the egotistical Ingo from Ocarina (himself already an analogue for Luigi, the under-appreciated Mario Brother) colour our impression of Gorman the Troupe Leader, and give him a more textured personality when we discover his real story of entering showbusiness with youthful idealism and his anger at his failure to succeed.

The three-day cycle, maligned as the primary cause of player confusion and fatigue, rather than being a restrictive device, actually provides context for the characters' endlessly repeating paths and gives us a far more detailed view of their lives than would otherwise be possible. In this short cycle, every cause has an effect. If the bomb lady is mugged on the first night, the Bomb Shop will lose its stock. If Anju isn't on reception at the Inn, she'll be cooking lunch or taking a walk in the rain. In those 72 hours we become intimately familiar with these people: their hopes and fears; the risks they take; the secrets they keep.

The real draw to Majora's Mask is the universal questions it poses about mortality, acceptance, attachment, friendship and failure. It asks the biggest of all questions: what is our purpose here? The four moon children at the end of the game ask the player the questions in the textboxes throughout this page. I've written before about the effect of meeting these masked characters, and their questions impacted my impressionable teenage mind. The game concerns itself with giving the player tasks and experiences that directly relate to these questions. It's impossible to please everybody all of the time, but we still empathise with them because we have witnessed their potential - their best self - in another time. The game can often be a gloomy proposition with the enemy-filled map and the looming lunatic face in the sky. No, I don't have time to save the Gorons today, so their winter will not end. The shambling mummies of Ikana must be ignored today because I'm needed elsewhere. My power to affect the world is great but so are the demands on my resources. And, just as in the real world, time is my most precious commodity.

Perhaps this is one reason why so many take umbrage with the time limit. It denies the player the escapism of other games and forces self-reflection. From a company that habitually prizes mechanics and game feel over story, the moments when Nintendo do explore narrative ideas and deeper questions seem all the more profound in a catalogue of work featuring a deluge of kidnapped princesses.

The Happy Mask Salesman instructs us to work to improve the world and create happiness through the use of masks. The essential duality presented, mirrored throughout the game by the recurrence of doubles, twins and alter egos, demonstrates through masks that pretence and play are very necessary components of the human condition. This ties into the very nature of games themselves, video or otherwise. Nintendo are experts at enabling play - Majora's Mask asks us to consider why that is so important.

The T2 Family Model 101 - Brothers, Mothers & Significant Others

Time-travelling body-building cyborgs on motorcycles - that's what the Terminator is about, right? That's why Salvation was boring - too much worthiness from Christian Bale and not enough Arnie on a Harley.

Well, no. You could argue that James Cameron's films explore free will versus determinism or our morbid paranoia with nuclear apocalypse or the amorality of technology and unchecked scientific endeavour. But their prevailing concern, most notably in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, is that of family.

Or more specifically, broken family. The traditional harmonious family unit doesn't really exist, but from the intimate mother-father-son model to the desperate brothers-in-arms Resistance fighters to the Skynet production line, the world is full of familial connections. The 1984 original gave us the premise of a machine sent back in time to eliminate the human enemy, striking their leader at his most vulnerable, before his conception. Though convoluted, there is a certain logic to this conceit - destroy your enemy by terminating the family line. That leader, the future John Connor, sends back a protector for his mother, who (spoiler!) turns out to be his father. Leaving aside the paradox, by the end of the first film we are left with Sarah Connor, alone after a one-night-stand with a burden unimaginable to the carefree scooter-riding girl who couldn't balance her chequebook at the beginning of the movie. She alone carries the knowledge of the coming war and drives prophetically into the storm, the lone 'mother of the future'.

John's bee-in-a-bottle Honda is juxtaposed with the

deep throatiness of the Terminator's V-twin, and

while the former quickly succumbs beneath the

wheels of the T-1000's pursuing truck, the Harley

carries them to safety.

T2 picks up the story a decade later with Sarah incarcerated and John living in suburbia with foster parents Todd and Janelle Voight. The house and neighbourhood seem idyllic  - sun streams through the windows onto the piano, children play in the street, Janelle collects the newspaper from the front lawn while avoiding the sprinkler. A secure environment for a developing child then, though we quickly see John rebelling against it. He counters Todd's demand that he listen to his mother with a defiant "She's not my mother, Todd" before taking off on his whining motorcycle. Father figures are doomed in this universe - the best they can hope for is a heroic or redemptive death. Unfortunately neither awaits Todd - his lack of paternal sympathy or urgency ("What? What? Wow, it's an emergency - hang on! I'll get right on it!") provides justification for his shocking demise at the hands (or, more accurately, the stabby metal hand) of the T-1000.

Cut to Pescadero State Hospital: 'A Criminally Disordered Retention Facility' where we join Sarah doing pull ups in her cell. Sweating and sinewy, she is a different woman from the one we witnessed driving into the storm a decade ago. She has assumed the role of warrior mother since the original film and we are told of her history of violence as the doctors examine her as a prowling, caged beast. We later see her fully assume the militant Terminator role (as discussed by Cameron himself) when she launches a solo pre-emptive strike against Miles Dyson, the computer scientist whose work unwittingly leads to the rise of the machines. Only the sight of Dyson's wife and son running to protect him rouses Sarah's humanity and a realisation of what she has become.

Sarah's transformation from the first film to the second is quite extraordinary. Gone is the bouffant '80s perm and the girlish voice; we see her disdainful eyes through knotted strands of hair as she growls at Dr Silberman through the cell door window.

The family dynamic can be seen even before John and Sarah's respective introductions. Schwarzenegger's arrival mirrors that from the first movie and establishes a familiar continuity - he's the same make, same model and follows the same procedures. Though first-time viewers may have been unaware that Robert Patrick's T-1000 was the villain, we see in him the same methodical approach to his objective. His arrival at the Voight's residence echoes the original Terminator's arrival in suburbia, though this one avoids crushing any toy trucks (don't worry, he wrecks his own later). This, along with his personable discourse with the Voights demonstrates he is the refined son of Skynet, less brutish and with greater social facility. The T-800 acknowledges to John that his counterpart is more advanced, though we constantly see evidence of their similar programming through tactics and behaviour ("The T-1000 would definitely try to reacquire you [at home]." "You sure?" "I would.") The duality between these two 'brothers' creates a sense of family from the very beginning.

Boys will be boys. A little fraternal

competition is healthy, no?

The father-son dynamic between the boy and his bodyguard is obvious and quickly established. However, we also soon witness a role reversal as the child provides the machine with a moral education. Though skilled in the mechanics of protection, we are constantly reminded that the Terminator is uneducated in basic concepts of emotion and language. When John tells him to 'put the gun down' he interprets it literally, placing it on the concrete beside his feet. He responds childlike to being told he mustn't kill people. "Why?" he asks, repeatedly. John's protests are acknowledged and accepted but their reasoning still eludes him, even later as they race to stop Sarah from murdering Dyson. As a species whose nature he identifies is to destroy itself, the benefit of denying that base instinct is not apparent to a machine constructed with one sole purpose - to terminate life.

Although the machine is cast as the paternal figure, John is tasked with teaching him the meaning of that role. As they drive away from the city together, John tries to help him assimilate more successfully socially with some language lessons, providing him with the zinger he later employs against his upstart sibling ("Hasta la vista, baby.") The trio drive not in a carefully product-placed Ford Mondeo but quite explicitly in a clapped-out family wagon. This is significant in a movie that set a new standard for Hollywood tie-in promotion. Despite the high concept sci-fi, discussions take place in the most ordinary and familiar of settings - back streets, telephone boxes, gas stations, cars. They chat while driving into the desert to meet Enrique Salceda, a mercenary and old friend of Sarah's living in the sticks with his family and a secret weapons cache. We see John and the Terminator interacting as Sarah looks on, pondering how this absurd solution to the family dynamic is ironically 'the sanest choice'. The machine's lack of humanity is the very thing that makes him the perfect father, 'the only one who measured up' to her uncompromising expectations.

After their departure Enrique's fate isn't made clear in the finished film, though a planned-but-unfilmed scene would have had him ultimately joining Reese and Dyson in the ranks of absentee fathers after an interrogation from the T-1000.

The crisis meeting between the families Dyson and Connor

takes place appropriately sitting around the dining table.

Following Sarah to the Dyson residence, we encounter the closest thing to the 2.4 architypal family in the entire film. Dyson, unknowing architect of the apocalypse, is a family man whose faults lie in his workaholic tendencies. A scene from the special edition highlights his altuistic motives in developing the computer chip ("Imagine a jet airliner with a pilot that never gets tired, never makes mistakes, never shows up to work with a hangover...") but his work still drives him away from his family and ultimately to destruction. He is redeemed through triggering the explosion that destroys Cyberdyne, but his children are left fatherless.

Having defeated the troublesome younger brother and averted Judgment [sic] Day, the movie ends with John's 'parents' physically wrecked but victorious. Sarah's closing voiceover tells us she believes the Terminator has learned 'the value of human life'. He does come to understand kinship and loss by the end of the film, though acknowledges that he is unable to experience those himself ("I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do.") Whether this signifies that he now knows why killing is wrong is unclear (he is, of course, a terminator) but he recognises why humans value life. He and Sarah share a limp handshake before yet another father figure nobly sacrifices himself for the good of the family.

Two Little Boys: Reclaiming tainted music

Two little boys had two little toys…

Hang on. No, we can’t sing that anymore. Nor can we wobble a piece of card while panting ridiculously, nor blurt Can you tell what it is yet? in our finest Aussie accent while playing Pictionary. No, those little cultural jokes will be stricken from the collective consciousness over the coming years until they make no sense anymore. It’s really just a hastening of the inevitable. The catchphrases, songs and mannerisms of bygone entertainment giants like George Formby and Norman Wisdom have faded in the many years since they were in vogue. They hang around in spirit through families regurgitating them to each other, but surely mine will be the last generation to recognise a Just like that! accompanied by a shaking hand held mid-air as a Tommy Cooper reference.

Tommy Cooper died the year I was born. I knew him only as an echo through grandparents who adored him. I never quite got him myself. The gradual decline of his legacy is as natural as that of Formby or Wisdom. However, Rolf Harris was present throughout my past 30 years, whether singing songs or presenting Rolf’s Cartoon Club and Animal Hospital or painting the Queen. His legacy is still at the forefront of the cultural mindset and isn’t being slowly forgotten – it’s being disowned, quick smart. Which I feel is saddening and, ultimately, futile.

If you’re really having trouble reconciling that CD single on the shelf, take comfort in the fact that Two Little Boys is not Harris’ song. It was written in 1902, sixty-seven years before his version was released. Many others have been recorded, but his is the most famous, especially in Britain. Following his conviction for child sex abuse, a twinge of guilt and shame now accompanies the hearing of Harris’ endlessly imitable delivery, as if enjoying it or singing along signifies tacit approval of the singer’s crimes. This is ridiculous for several reasons, but such is the seriousness and stigma of the offense that it is deemed socially safer to simply erase all references to the individual rather than confront the issue rationally and divorce the art from the artist.

This mass-disowning has precedent. The music of Gary Glitter was quickly removed from circulation after his child abuse convictions in the late ‘90s. The stomping I’m The Leader Of The Gang simply isn’t heard anymore. Christmas compilation CDs suddenly lost a staple in Another Rock n’Roll Christmas, and people were obliged to delete references to it from their collective memories.

But how can you? I certainly didn’t. Besides the fact that the song is an absolute belter, it’s tied up with too many childhood memories to simply forget. I cannot ostracise the memory of my grandparents’ renditions of Two Little Boys like I can an individual. Likewise, I doubt I’ll be able to stop myself panting out Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport when I see a suitably wobbly piece of board. The spectre of child abuse is a powerful one, but art (or indeed, fluff) becomes independent the moment it is made public. It takes on a life of its own the moment others assign their own meaning to it. We all have songs that we have taken and laid our own lives across, and with that they become ours. The artist does not and cannot control or change or tarnish them once they have been assimilated into memory.

I understand the stigma and the power these particular crimes have over public opinion and perception. With the appropriate level of contrition, talent and PR management, the public will forgive many an appalling act but, perhaps singularly, child abuse convictions represent a point-of-no-return for public figures.  I still remember the Monday night when in Desire (a questionable nightclub opposite Worthing Train Station throughout the ‘00s) the DJ played a Michael Jackson set after announcing the Not Guilty verdict Jackson had received earlier that day. The feeling in the club was of ecstatic relief – it’s OK, it’s OKAY, we haven’t lost the music! And Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough sounded even more joyful that night than ever before. Of course we hadn’t lost it. But even if MJ had been convicted that night, we still wouldn’t have lost that music – how do you erase the soundtrack to a million lives?

Of course you cannot, and to try is futile. Two Little Boys should be heard, its singer’s background explained if needs be, but heard and enjoyed nonetheless. To expunge it from existence would be to lose not only the song, but also to deny and sully our own memories. They are sure to fade on their own - for now, why not just enjoy the damn music?

The Empathy Frag – making connections in video games

Lists are useless but fun. A year or so ago I compiled a personal Top 25 Games list. Picking them was relatively easy, although the order changes every time I look at it. I keep in mind how they hold up today, especially when sequels may have improved the base experience, but ordering is really an exercise in rating memories of my playing them first time around. As an iteration, Animal Crossing New Leaf is more streamlined than Wild World, and I’d certainly prefer it over the older game now, but the DS version was my first and made the first impression.

Rather than worry about an arbitrary order, I look for common themes linking the games. They fall broadly into three groups. The vast majority are favourites because of the worlds they present – I want to revisit those places (and I’ve written at length about those here). The second group could be categorised as ‘single-player narratives’, meaning one-off stories to progress through in a linear manner. Much of the time these two groups overlap.

The third category revolves around social experiences or multiplayer and it is the smallest, for several reasons. Hardware and peripheral requirements for multiplayer games haven’t always been easy to come by. Extra pads, link cables, monitors, copies of the game, etc were expensive, and as great as Four Swords Adventure may be, having a GameCube plus four GBAs (let alone the requisite enthusiastic participants) was a pipedream back in 2005.

I’m also only a recent convert to PC gaming, Steam having taken away the tech niggles and issues that had kept me away. Therefore, I have never gone in for MMORPGs or arena FPSs. As someone whose multiplayer experience had always been local, competitive online gaming seemed harsh and impersonal.

Finally, multiplayer modes used to have a pretty poor hit rate when it came to entertainment. Now they have risen to take equal billing with the ‘Campaign’ but 20 years ago they were often thrown in at the end of development, a token gesture and a fluke if it turned out to be fun (see GoldenEye).

Modern Warfare: EXACTLY like modern warfare.

Looking at this smaller third group, Modern Warfare is present for two reasons: Captain Price (with the then-novel, bombastic, scripted-sequence Campaign) and online mutliplayer. I missed the Xbox Halo train, so this became my first real brush with broadband gaming. It took my GoldenEye splitscreen experience and injected next-gen resolution, speed and connectivity. The tension of inching towards a 7-kill streak (which called in a support chopper) made the few times I managed the feat some of the biggest dopamine hits I’ve had in front of a screen. I was never very good, but the comradeship between my small band of bros. kept me coming back and colours my memory of the game. Party voice-chat provided the living room atmosphere. Any dudebro homophobes were quickly muted. The thrill of working together, sharing info, covering corners and flushing out snipers outweighed even the pleasure of a sexy kill-to-death ratio (which often wasn’t so sexy). Communicating and sharing the experience was the real draw.

Left4Dead came next and jettisoned the kill count completely. It presented the zombie apocalypse canvas and blank archetypal characters and then took a back seat to let the group create the real narrative moments while the AI directed the horde. The game demanded cooperation. There was no room for cavalier Rambos – helping fallen comrades was the only way to survive. It was unlike anything I’d ever played and couldn’t be replicated without real companions and real connections. Promoting collaboration over competition between players elevated the experience above the core gameplay loop to something that felt meaningful on a human level. As an exercise in entertainment, the grave consequences of failure in an actual team combat scenario are forgotten but feelings of camaraderie, shared success and the bonds built by that success remain. And is that not a goal of art – to reflect to the receiver an authentic sentiment and encourage empathy? Nobody is suggesting that Bambi’s mum dying communicates the genuine grief of losing a parent, but it carries an echo of that feeling through the artist’s construction. FIFA can't capture the real energy of being on the pitch, nor can Rock Band replicate the full feeling of rocking out with a crowd of thousands, but it provides a window on the experience for those who may never otherwise feel it. Much of this experience relies on cooperative gameplay.

Beatles Rock Band: EXACTLY like being in The Beatles.

Saturo Iwata has described Miiverse, Nintendo’s latecoming take on a social portal, as an ‘empathy’ network, and while the word may seem mawkish, it is absolutely the right choice. It recognises that software encouraging collaboration and sharing leads to a more affecting experience than the endorphin rush of a kill streak. Animal Crossing’s multiplayer is little more than the ability to run around in someone else’s village, trade fruit and perhaps enter some sedate bug-catching contests, but you can learn a lot about a person from their town layout and the gestures they use to communicate. The game’s limited vocabulary becomes an empathetic device in itself that forces you to read between the lines as your silent companion keeps spinning on a certain spot or doing a specific gesture. The ability to draw a doodle and see a person’s handwriting on Miiverse and Swapnote (the latter now sadly neutered by a blanket response to the transfer of ‘inappropriate material’) instantly tells us more about that individual than a Yeah! alone ever could and makes the network social. That word has become synonymous with applications that list people and products and allow for only a very primitive form of self-expression through categorisation. A smiley and a Like are shorthand for a positive response but don’t allow for nuance. A friend loses their job or a loved one – Likes and sadfaces are ineffective in these contexts. Irony, too, is often lost in translation. The rise of the hashtag could be attributed to its effectiveness in explicitly conveying subtext (we’re still waiting for a sarcasm font). Ultimately social networks descend into a mush of inexpressive emoticons, LOLs and RIPs which relegate them to the role of perpetual greeting card, only expressing the vaguest general sentiments. This makes them ideal for marketing purposes but poor at facilitating deep personal connections. Without these connections, online forums of all kinds descend to a depressing level of playground bickering, proclamation and misunderstanding. It has been suggested that social networks are reducing empathetic development in children, and the addictive compulsion to check Facebook certainly tends more towards the ‘just-one-more’ behavioural loop of a CoD deathmatch than breeding flowers or trading turnips.

It seems quaint but it's surprising what people will do
if you just ask nicely. And moderate them bad apples.

But empathy can be found in the most unforgiving and surprising software. The party teamwork in CoD can turn a spawn-die-spawn-kill cycle into something far more meaningful and pleasurable. Dark Souls has a reputation for inscrutability and bleakness but I was recently surprised to find the lonely slog I had expected in its sequel complimented by a joyful multiplayer baked seamlessly into the main adventure. The desolate world of Drangleic was tempered by the ability to summon other players into your world. Communication is limited to a set of gestures learned throughout the game from NPCs and the pirouetting and waving brought to mind the exact same system to be found in Animal Crossing New Leaf where you learn gestures from the psychologist Dr Shrunk. When summoned, etiquette requires you greet your host appropriately before helping them vanquish the area boss. It’s also possible to invade another world and challenge its host to a duel. The etiquette remains, though some unsporting braggards may use your chivalry as an opportunity to get the first strike in. However, on the whole I found many honourable rivals and companions online. My most heartwarming experience came when invading a chap who immediately prostrated himself at my feet. I praised the sun and sheathed my weapon. He then beckoned me towards a zip line and jumped on. I followed but couldn’t jump on while he occupied the space. He hung motionless and stayed there, watching me flail about in confusion. He jumped down and then back up again. Eventually I fell to a platform below and had to make my way back up to him. He was still there and once again he jumped onto the zip line. I gave him a playful hit to communicate my boredom and he was knocked from the wire, but he hung in midair. When he rose, a glitch meant he was able to float around in the sky as he pleased, frozen in the zip line animation. I then understood – he was sharing a bug with me! He floated about comically as I praised the sun from the platform. When he returned I released a Very Good! phrase effigy, followed by a Thank You!, to which he cheered. I was grinning the entire time. I felt we were gaming the system, not through the glitch, but by mischievously using the invasion mechanic for cooperation and goodwill.

Playtime was over and then came the awkward goodbye. I regretted that the only way to finish was to satisfy the game’s requirements – one of us had to die. As I shuffled, wondering who would be first to draw, my friend waved cheerfully and leapt off the cliff to his death, sacrificing himself and returning me to my world.

Everything is awesome when
you're part of a team.

I felt genuinely touched by those five minutes. The multiplayer component came as a surprise to me, similar to Journey’s. That game is similarly punctuated with periods of companionship (and actually brought to mind Jason Rohrer’s low-fi Passage). The restricted communication mechanics force you to remain close and discover the benefits of cooperation – they encourage empathetic play. In Journey the length of your scarf depends on how much you have explored, therefore conveying your knowledge and expertise, so a more experienced player may assume the role of mentor to a new player. No score means there is no reason to return other than to connect again, with the space or a new companion. The who of it all is largely irrelevant – it’s the connection that matters. Researching after my Dark Souls II encounter, I found this type of interaction isn’t unusual. In fact, I spent a good portion of this brutal game recruiting strangers and merrily cooperating. The social aspect was totally unexpected and wonderful.

The word social (social) carries a stigma in the gaming community (sensitive as it is), probably because it reinforces the layman’s notions that video games are throwaway timesinks. The other day I watched a girl on the bus playing on her phone. Whatever the game was, it involved tapping the screen repeatedly and indiscriminately and she was able to gaze out of the window for the entire journey. It required close to no concentration or investment, but nominally it’s still a video game, like Zelda or The Walking Dead or DOTA. Many evangelists worry that these mobile, social games align the medium with the interactivity and social status of a one-armed bandit. Some feel that the word game itself drags down the medium and therefore wade into the pretentious quagmire of interactive experience. Ergh. It’s understandable, if self-defeating. The sheer variety of experiences available was perhaps the greatest advance of the previous console generation. For every cut-and-paste cover shooter or openworld sandbox there are a dozen experimental curios across multiple platforms. And for every troll there’s a decent human being who just wants to say hi.

Forget the nomenclature - life’s good. Put the halberd down and try giving that hulking great Demon a big ol’ hug. Even if he thinks video games are one word.