When you are a young gaming ingénue, your love over consoles is split between what you want to play and what our parents buy you. Growing up with a closer older siblings, it is easier for said parents to separate gaming havens into categories and make sure one gets the other. Older sibling will have this in their room, young sibling will have this. And those are the rules that you are bound by until you see a sick game trailer in your local shop and whimper until it has been brought. For me, I was happy enough with my betrothed gaming platform and have been fiercely in love with it ever since.
And then the Disney games were brought. I had Aladdin. With a flying carpet and a swishing knife, I could defeat Jafar and the snake-like being that he had become with gusto and a magic genie along the way. My sister had The Lion King, a defiant part of our childhood. The problem is that The Lion King was one of the hardest fucking games you’ll ever play in your entire existence. And as I played, failed. Played, failed. Played and failed again – I retreated further into my Nintendo life and scorned Sega forever.
Problems would start with poison oak and rogue creatures that would ensnare young Simba and seemingly kill him. These were the easier levels, supposedly, and yet they were tinged with difficulty. But when the jovial drum beats echoed out the tune of “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King,” the gates of hell emerged and sent the demon Noah’s Ark into the computer screening, whispering “leap, lion cub, leap.” No soon had you learnt not to fall from branches then you were tasked from jumping from animal to animal, fearing for your furry feline avatar as the monkey’s would launch you into the strastophere and you had to somehow not be skewered by the Rhinos horn.
If you were some sort of gaming wizard, and I assume you sold your soul to Scar for the talents to get over this insanely cursed level then it just got worse – the stampeded, the Elephant Graveyard – it was all much more macabre and traumatizing than when Mufassa snuffed it in the first place. Much like that abhorrent Barbie game, I actually never defeated it. But I watched on as my sister played and failed. Played then failed. And played then failed again – much to our disappointment.
Now every zoo visit, I am saturated in sweat – shaking as we pass jungle creatures who deemed me unfit to ride their computerised noggins. The giraffes with their pissing doe eyes just judge me; “you could never leap from our heads, could you? Could you? Get that delicious foliage away from me, you failure.”
Much like Scar's swan song, you had to "be prepared." And I sorely wasn't.
Hakuna Matata... (It means 'no worries')
Are there any games you have played relentlessly which - despite the difficulty - you loved nonetheless? And you can't say Dark Souls!
Let us know in the comments below!