Indie Rock: GAME OF THE YEAR 420BLAZEIT

Montage clips are an modern art form. If displayed in a gallery setting a nearby placard would list materials used as “skill-based gameplay footage, dub-heavy drum and bass, slogans plastered all over the fucking screen like I’m campaigning for re-election as mayor of the viewer’s monitor”. Produced unironically they’re a way of obnoxiously revelling in your perceived successes. Produced ironically they mock the total mundanity of what’s achieved in the former.

I have a hangover. This isn’t my worst hangover. It’s just the kind Sinatra talked about. As I hear it, Frank pitied non-drinkers: when they woke up, that was as good as they’d feel all day.

Play Montage Clip Simulator “GOTY: 420BLAZEIT” first thing in the morning, hangover recommended but not responsibly encouraged. Don’t have coffee yet. Wear headphones and crank them up like you’re expecting to discover a secret whisper in a Beatles B-side. Expect flashing lights, otherwise expect nothing. GOTY is a sensory overload and your body might make room for it by emptying your stomach. Thankfully, you’ve got the rest of the day to feel better.

GOTY was made for this year’s 7DayFPS jam. Killing an enemy in this strictly linear first-person shooter produces a random .gif cluttering up the HUD or a shitty #hashtag, accompanied by a fitting sound effect. Your goal is to invade the Illuminati headquarters and finally take them down. Along the way, enjoy your fill of Mountain Dew and Doritos. The true combat snack of all highly-trained military forces.

Fucking around with montage parody appeals to me as I’m not particularly bold, nor do I feel comfortable in any of my achievements. I’m not very good at games either, but the joke is, neither is anyone who’d actually make one of these videos legitimately. Maybe you might actually pull off the fabled 360 no-scope, but producing a montage vid is turning a show of skill into “boorish yawnfest 2014, special guest: who gives a shit”.

GOTY creates a game where every moment is special and therefore no moment is special. Everything is worthy of praise and it makes the entire concept meaningless. There’s some limited critique of the genre here too; the perceived lack of narrative substance, settling for grand adventure and spectacle over any real structure, purpose or message. An attempt at emotion right at the end purposefully falls flat and still makes me feel the same way I might about important character deaths in, really, any video game ever made. Similarly, the ending reveal is some great video game bullshit.

The placement of Doritos and Mountain Dew as tools for survival is a clear admonishment of co-branding practices, the game’s aesthetic feeding on perceived consumer identity: thinking guns and gold and memes are cool. Assets grabbed from anywhere, stuff placed around haphazardly. When I think punk game design I think of a kid at home typing “fuck you, the man” into Unity and shit like this popping out the other end.

I like it. It’s a high-stakes go-big-or-go-home Stanley Parable with a shorter message and it’s twice as silly. Maybe you’ll feel sick too.