The Wii's Virtual Console and You

So you've got your Wii. You've got Twilight Princess, maybe Excite Truck for a cheap thrill, Rayman for the wild drunken Thursday all-nigh- (ahem). Anyway, you without a doubt have Wii Sports, too, and you've been plunking more time into that than you likely imagined, repeatedly booting Bowling or Tennis up like you're an addicted ten year old dropping quarters into an arcade cabinet ten minutes before mom is coming to pick you up and pull you away (and it's the '80s, so you've got something really weird going on with your clothes and your hair is all Flock of Seagulls, but that's another matter).

All of this though and you're buying up Virtual Console games like mad, dashing through Ristar, Super Star Soldier and Gunstar Heroes and cackling with glee at multiplayer Bomberman '93. You're scouring news every Monday for the new VC releases - and next week's releases - and you're imagining that you're head butting your withered, cantankerous professor Bonk-style during class. You can't get enough of these retro games.

Why the hell not?

The answer is simple though, right? It's that nostalgia-factor. You miss that Flock of Seagulls hair, those stylish pink sweatshirts, those wicked electronic synthesizers (if you were a 90s kid, those acid-washed jeans). You miss everything that came with those times... your innocence, your lack of responsibility, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lunchboxes (rock on), and of course those classic games. Plus, hey, a lot of these titles hold up pretty darn well over the years, right? They're still fun to play, sans any nostalgic considerations. But is that really all that is at work here?

Many readers may think so, but I'd like to think not. How many of us have a nostalgic connection with a book after a movie-based adaptation is made? Not many. Do we fancy the fun times we once had flipping those pages "back in the day"? I seriously doubt it (in case you were wondering, those "picture books" under your bed are not being discussed here). Something else is at work there, keeping the importance of those novels alive in our minds. The reason these old-fashioned books and that little 'ole phenomenon known as "reading for entertainment" are still in vogue is not strictly because of any nostalgia factor, but because of what a written text can do that a flashy cinema tour-de-force of special bullet-time magical CG effects often cannot.

It can suck you in and simply not let you go.

It's all about immersion. While good movies can and do offer great immersion on a regular basis, the viewer of film is passive while the reader of a text is active. You're interacting with those words on the page because you're using the faculty of imagination, the ability to construct within your mind an illusion, a fanciful representation of something that is not actually there. Imagination is among the foremost aspects of what separates man from beast (just a little aside there). This is all relevant because it is the lack of available visual detail and the demand on our imaginations which makes the act of reading a book timeless. Books simply aren't going out of style anytime soon - more of them might become "e-books" or uploaded to some kind of fanciful holographic projector that can cook your dinner and tell ya how good ya look at the same time, but all the same the only item being projected will be the written word. The written word will remain and stand the grueling, unforgiving tests of time.

And so will classic games.

Okay, so maybe not to the same extent as books, but you get what I'm throwin' out. It is the precise lack of visual detail in these games, the lack of a projection of "reality" that makes them special because they too call upon our imaginations. They're making us more active participants in the experience than newer, flashy games, and all the while remaining oh-so-much-more charming because they're leaving us to fill in the blanks with our own interpretations of the on-screen world. I'll tell you right now that few games have ever mesmerized me and sucked me in like the original Legend of Zelda - not Halo, not Metroid Prime, not Resident Evil 4 - and the ones that have or have come close were retro games from before the days of 3D. It's all about the capacity to draw upon our unique whimsical fantasies and promote the application of them to the experience at hand, and because of this these games with their simple presentations stand strong through the years. The presentation of reality is overrated in entertainment - the name of the game is escapism. I have reality all around me: dishes in the sink, exams to take, an ugly-ass mug in the mirror. I don't need the reminder of pure "reality" in my entertainment, and neither does anyone else. Reality, nor the presentation of it, can ever live up to our imaginative expectations - much like imagining the figure of that pretty dame we pass every day on our walk to class, the reality of hooking up with her has a good chance of not living up to our wildest fantasies.

I love realistic 3D games too, but I say make room for the classics as well, take it way on back to the better times. The rest of the world has spoken in accordance, as the Virtual Console is being embraced by millions.

Most of those millions just don't know why.