I'm Done Playing: MOTHERGUNSHIP
In which a great game is boring to play
MOTHERGUNSHIP is about as bad as a game can be nowadays. Which is to say: it looks amazing, has a passable story, great progression mechanics, a novel hook that works well, and…it’s incredibly boring.
I’m done playing MOTHERGUNSHIP.
What is this?
MOTHERGUNSHIP is a first person shooter rogue-like-like. You play as a recently reawakened space marine out to blast his way through a series of randomly generated levels, collecting experience and gear along the way, and eventually defeating the titular MOTHERGUNSHIP.
If you’re looking for more detail, check out this review with two very earnest Russian men.
How is it?
It sucks. The most important thing about a shooter is the shooting, and MOTHERGUNSHIP is not great at shooting. It feels, in some ways, like a laser tag simulator: there’s no recoil or weight to any of the guns, the screen is a mess of colors with no pattern, and you can never tell if things are hitting you. If you’ve been banned from the local strip mall for screaming at 12 year olds because they weren’t “following the chain of command,” you may be craving this experience, but I certainly wasn’t.
Say, for the sake of conversation, a reader was banned from one of their local laser tag establishments, and wasn’t willing to pay the exorbitant prices that CombatZone has begun charging under their new ownership. Would MOTHERGUNSHIP really be fun for them to play?
Um, hm. Probably not, really. That was mostly a joke about how weak the guns felt.
Sure, but laser tag, for example, might still be fun even though the guns don’t feel like real guns. It’s less about representing the experience of combat, and more about evoking some of the sensations of combat: physicality, confusion, the need to use one’s environment to one’s advantage.
Huh. I guess, man.
Frankly, one could read the lack of interest in what might be generally termed “combat play” as a sign of American weakness. Laser tag is generally regarded as “kid stuff,” and activities that evoke similar feelings like roughhousing or football are losing popularity, because people are increasingly concerned about “safety”.
That seems like a bit of an overstatement.
How so?
Setting aside the “American weakness” bit, I’m not so sure that “combat play” is even on the decline. Sports like UFC and BJJ are more popular than ever, and “rugged” activities like hiking and backpacking are more popular than ever. People are still finding ways to engage in acceptable violence or difficult physical tasks, they’re just not finding it in…laser tag.
Sure, but these activities are generally solitary. Most so-called combat sports are one-on-one affairs that don’t instill the necessary virtues of reliance on team members and ability to handle time-sensitive shifting variables in a complex and chaotic environment. They’re outlets for competitiveness, maybe, but they don’t train the same sorts of skills in the way something like laser tag does.
Isn’t that a good thing? Organizations that aim to promote martial values are generally a hallmark of fascist governments, as are activities advertised to promote a vague sense of “readiness.” It seems to me that it’s a testament to Americans’ general virtues that those sorts of activities are tolerated but not lionized.
Oh, please. Americans avoid those sorts of things not out of a love of peace, but a hatred of effort. Go on twitter and you’ll see plenty of real people hungry to crush and destroy their political opponents.
Sure, but they’re still trying to crush them with words instead of violence. Truly violent groups are almost universally condemned. Plus, most of the incendiary rhetoric is based around the idea that one’s opponents are trying to do violence in real life—”silence is violence” or the ever-menacing “woke mob”—they’re still fundamentally anti-violent stances even if they’re using incendiary language.
That language still has real effect, though. People are willing to call for violence online because they don’t have experience with violence in real life. Things like laser tag can provide people with a taste of that experience so they can better imagine how terrible violence can truly be.
I don’t understand why laser tag is what you keep coming back to as this wonderful—Wait, are you really into laser tag? Is this not hypothetical at all?
I’m reluctant to divulge personal information in a public forum. I’d prefer my arguments about laser tag succeed or fail on their own merits.
Okay. Well, MOTHERGUNSHIP is not enough like laser tag to give a hypothetical person the same sort of thrill.
Damn. I mean, I see. Let’s move on.
Agreed.
I watched that video with the Russian men, and they said you make your own guns in this one?
You do indeed. And that part of the game is great. Instead of finding full guns, you find parts, and you assemble them to create a multi-barreled monstrosity. It’s a fun puzzle, and it ties so directly into the gameplay you’re always motivated to do it.
It’s an excellent hook: you get to assemble your own guns! But you can spend all this time crafting a masterpiece, and it just feels like you’re shooting a nerf gun, no matter how fast the health bars drop.
Nerf guns, eh?
Just an analogy. Don’t get too excited.
Those Russian men also said the game was worse than DOOM?
Right, and therein lies the problem. I still haven’t finished DOOM (2016), and I liked that game. There’s so many video games nowadays that there’s just no reason to spend time on anything that’s not exemplary.
Why’d you stop playing?
I died a few times on the second level and wondered why the hell I was wasting my time on a game I didn’t really enjoy. And thanks to this column I could put the game down guilt-free.
Does this game pass the Bechdel test?
Yes. If your protagonist is a woman she’ll end up talking to the no-nonsense female officer about the alien invasion.
Would you recommend this game?
If you’re a fan of the shooter genre, you might find something of interest here. Other folks should steer clear. Maybe try out the local laser tag arena.