If you’re a discerning consumer like myself who basically stopped reading reviews and previews from enthusiast and mainstream gaming outlets due to a lot of them forgoing the discussion of mechanics, playability, immersion and fun factors in order to talk about academic principles, sociopolitical matters and gender identity topics, then you might find it funny that one gamer made a level in Super Mario Maker that appeals to the sensibilities of the game journalists I just mentioned.
On YouTube, user Alex Ravioli [via Toshe_TNE] posted up the first level in the first world he made for Super Mario Maker titled “World 1-1 For Gaming Journalists And Tumblr”. The level is showcased in a video that clocks in at just under two minutes, featuring Super Mario going through a stage that has no way for the player to die, and every harmful object is locked away or barricaded in a safe space in order to ensure that the player never fails. They win just for participating. Check it out below.
As you can see, there is a safe space for every possible thing that could be dangerous, hazardous, harmful or inimical to the well being of the player-character. You no longer have to worry about dying, or about not being skillful enough, or about having to deal with the challenges of gameplay that requires players to “git gud”.
Some of you might remember that back in May sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Paste ran to the defense of game reviewers who posted up gameplay footage on YouTube where they were gosh-awful at the game. The game in question was Doom and the outlet perpetrating casual-level skill was Polygon.
Keep in mind that the Paste article was done by someone who was previously on the Game Journo Pros.
Niche Gamer wisely did a rebuttal piece calling out game journalists, saying they should “gid gud or die trying”. The takeaway from the piece was that…
“Imagine having a hardcore street racer and “tuner” fanatic being told that they’re being exclusionary and elitist because they won’t let a car-hating, completely untrained and unskilled “wannabe” mechanic work on their automobile. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
“Yet in the gaming hobby, we are now being told the same thing. 30-year old, goony, bearded hipsters are writing articles about games they hate and complaining about their inability to play them, then passing off those who object to their uneducated critiques as entitled men-children.”
I don’t possess the kind of decorum to write something as elegant as that without comparing those 30-year-old goony beard-men to the likes of organic feces with enough monkey brain matter that enabled them to be trained by failed Frankfurt Marxist academics to be little more than typing lemmings that can churn out virtue signaling nonsense in between swiveling their mice around and navigating between MLP fetish sites and the twine games made by whoever gave them that rash they can’t seem to stop scratching at the inseam. So, I’ve wisely avoided talking about game journalists outside of newsworthy events since I don’t have much of anything nice to say.
But, I figure this event is fairly important. Alex Ravioli took time out of his day to make a level for game journalists, and by the grace of that monkey brain matter… I sure do hope they have the intelligence to play and enjoy that level. The least I can do is “virtue signal” this good deed from Ravioli by sharing the video and the level ID code. So for all you game journalists out there in need of safe spaces and levels that don’t require you to “git gud”, you can download the Super Mario Maker using the following ID: 85D3 – 0000 – 0036 – BA0F
