I Wanna Be The Guy (But Is It Really Worth It?)

In choosing games to write up for this blog, I've generally stuck to a few self-imposed rules. Use mainly freeware games that don't take lots of effort to find and download (while this does sadly exclude pretty much every console game ever made, it's a lot easier on me and on readers to stick to a college-student budget of zero dollars). Only post about games I've actually played and beaten at some point. And, most importantly: talk about GOOD GAMES. I don't want to waste my time or your time on something that's just plain bad, even if it's kinda fun to mock for a while.

But sometimes, being a bad game just isn't important. And sometimes, I just can't push myself through a whole game. And, every once in a while, there comes along a game where both of these are the whole point.

Which brings me to I Wanna Be The Guy.

The Movie: The Game.

The game opens with a very brief text scroll detailing the life of "The Kid" and his eponymous quest to become "The Guy"; this is pretty much as far as story goes in this game. Experienced gamers (read: nerds) may find that the whole sequence looks a little familiar. Yes, I Wanna Be The Guy is jam-packed with references and elements directly lifted from other games, primarily from ye olden days of the NES. But if you're expecting an ordinary, cute retro platform game, you're in for some surprises, which I'm now going to proceed to ruin for you. Behold one of the earliest areas of the game:

The Kid is down near the bottom there.

Even armed with nothing but a tiny pea-shooter, a double-jump, and a big ol' smile, this doesn't look like much of a challenge, right? Just walk through those trees and...watch as one of the red fruits falls from above and crushes the Kid, turning him into a ludicrously massive pile of pixelated blood. (If you don't like ludicrously massive piles of pixelated blood, this is not the game for you.) It's possible to rush past a few fruits, but players will quickly find it's much easier to just jump over the fruit, thus avoiding delicious death from above.

At which point the fruit flies upward to kill the Kid mid-jump.

Get used to this.

I Wanna Be The Guy is a game won not through skill or reflexes, but through perseverance and pure trial and error. Eventually, a persistent player will be able to pick their way through the fruity minefield and make their way to the next screen, where even more tricks and traps await. It's as much a puzzle game as a platformer, and "solving" the many death chambers sometimes requires totally counterintuitive moves, upending everything you thought you knew about playing video games. There's a lot that must be memorized and pulled off flawlessly, and save points are often scarce. One wrong move, and it's back through the same gauntlet of fruit, spikes, malevolent platforms, and giant airplanes. To make matters worse, there's bosses to fight as well, and commiting their attack patterns to memory often isn't enough to best their challenges.

Bosses are generally familiar characters from familiar games, with unexpected twists. Case in point: Giant Mike Tyson.

Is this fun? The average gamer would say, "Heck no." But the game isn't supposed to be fun, in the conventional sense. Its appeal is to players who seek to pit themselves against the toughest challenges available, overcoming obstacles for no other reason than because they can, and eventually being able to brag to their friends that "I am the Guy!" (Neeerds.)

Of course, anyone outside that particular group will quickly grow bored and/or irritated, especially as the game's presentation suffers from issues similar to Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. It's a mishmash of graphics and sound either created originally or pulled from other games, and as such it tends to clash with itself. A lot of humor is derived from referencing other games (would you have guessed that was Mike Tyson, specifically?) or it's just offensive (the game's idea of mocking you for playing on the easiest difficulty is giving the Kid a big pink bow, as if the worst possible insult is comparing him to a girl). It also contains gratituous blood, swearing, and slurs that are there for no other reason than to seem Cool and Edgy. And obviously, some people just don't want to play a game where they do nothing but die

over

and over

and over again.

But hey, if you are the kind of person whose idea of a good time is ramming headlong into the same spike wall ten times in a row, then I Wanna Be The Guy is right up your alley. It's by no means a good game, but it doesn't try to be a good game; it tries to be a hard game, and in that area, it certainly delivers.