Jamie Antonisse

I only know one other person [besides RJ, of course] who has played Corruption at any length, a gentleman and a scholar who we'll call V (because his name is Victor Piniero). And when I asked him about it he said this:

V: (munches on Three Musketeers bar) I played it for about six hours then I got too angry and I had to stop. (Finishes his candy and pulls out another King-Sized Three Musketeers)

J: (Disgusted by the sheer amount of chocolate this man can consume) Angry? Why?

V: Because I couldn't stand to be in this world where everything was designed EXACTLY for Samus... all these stupid circular holes for morph balls and doors that open when you shoot them... it just got so stupid (crushes the candy bar in his fist, sending a spray of delicious nougat across the table)*

At first this struck me as a somewhat ridiculous thing to fault a game for. But when I actually PLAYED Corruption, I couldn't get it out of my head. Here I was, in an operating galactic space station, and, as Victor wisely noted, I had to shoot doors with my energy gun to open them. Nice design job on that one, I.M. Pei. How many safety regulations does that violate? How many fatal accidents has this door-opening policy caused? Even worse are the various machines whose on/off switches are activated SOLELY BY BOMBS.

But I digress. The point is not that the Metroid universe is an implausible reality. The point that struck me is that in this brave new world, Victor and I reflexively DEMAND some plausibility and consistency in our games.

At first, that demand may seem natural. But think about it... where does that urge come from? Is it not enough that we HAVE a setting, that the graphics are good, the sound is surround? Why does it need to feel authentic, and authentic to what?

This urge for coherence expresses itself in almost every media form. In novels, we want characters that are consistent (though we know these characters are nothing more than fabrications suggested by clusters of words). In serialized television shows like Lost, we hope desperately that the producers have a Plan... we need to know that there's a rational explanation for the televised events (though we know these filmed moments are simulated asynchronously by actors, constructed from scripts). If we don't GET these things from our "serious" media, we will more than likely feel we've been wasting our time. But why? Is a fictional story or setting any more "real" if it can be analyzed "as if" it was emerging from a coherent universe?

The need for authentic-feeling media is, I'd posit, not in the realm of the rational. But irrational as it is, I'd take it as a sign of health that video games are joining the ranks of media we "expect" to feel plausible.

We demand coherence from our media once we engage with them on a deeper level. This engagement is what separates the "experiment", which we know is a construction, and through which we can access only superficial curiosity, excitement and joy, from the "experience", which we ingest as a temporary part of our reality, and which consequently may assume a greater significance.

A desire for a plausible universe means we are expecting more in (and therefore expecting more from) these games, that we feel the time we spend in them must be relatable if it's not mindlessly fun/exciting/tragic/frightening.

Some games and media sidestep the question of plausibility entirely by placing you in fantastic situations with their own logic. Mario games don't follow the rules of this world AT ALL... but they do have their own logic. If you picked up a chainsaw in a Mario game, you'd be upset. Amused, but upset.

Metroid games have, in the past, maintained their own logic very effectively through the fiction. Samus Aran has been a lonely lady, an archaeologist of sorts, excavating ancient and long-lost underground civilizations. If you ever, by chance, questioned an external-combustion-powered turbine or an elaborate and unneccesary morphball maze, you had two possible explanations:

1) It's mysterious

or

2) Of course it's stupid, they're extinct.

But most likely you WOULDN'T worry about this in the first place, because through Samus we were engaging in a simple, primal act: the act of exploration. The strange worlds and objects around you were acceptable because you were making your incontrovertible discoveries alone. Once there's a space marine standing at your side, all that changes.

Some people have claimed Metroid Prime 3 wasn't a big step for the series: I'd disagree completely. It WAS a big step: they brought Samus into a present tense, made her interact with a living society. This game features explicit missions, supporting characters, social involvement in large-scale events. They changed the level of world immersion. But they weren't careful with how they tread into this new territory. They didn't deal with plausibility issues, and therefore the "present" they created feels shallow and tacked-on. You can't care about it the way you could care about your old romps through abandoned caverns.

Do not R.I.P., Metroid. Come back soon. But next time, bring me your trademark: an eerie sense of isolation. Give me an experience that deepens this experience instead of simply broadening it. Don't be a Sonic.

I talk to you, Metroid, because I care.