What video gaming has taught me...

For most of my life I have played video games. I have achieved many different feats, some of them long before the invention of achievements. I have saved the Yolk folk on numerous occasions, I have defended the world against endless swarms of alien spacecraft with my one ship, I have raided tombs like Indiana Jones, I have stopped bi-pedal nuclear tanks whilst talking on my phone, I have won the iron-fist tournament as a Japanese school girl as well as the FIFA World Cup with Iran and I have discovered that the cake is a lie, to name but a few.

If there is one lesson that I have learnt over the last decade and it is that we, humanity as a species, are screwed should we ever go to war with an alien race. Not because we are easier to kill. Not because they are more technologically advanced than us. We will be exterminated because if video gaming has taught me anything it would be that in the future all of our mobile infantry transport vehicles will suck.

The Warthog

That is right, as a species we will be wiped out because our vehicles will make us sitting ducks during a battle, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Look at these vehicles and tell me that you actually enjoyed using them in the respective games: the Warthog (Halo), the Mako (Mass Effect) and the Junker (Gears of War).

Seriously, these vehicles will be the largest cost of human life during any war in the future, they handle like shit, if you so much as chip the paint they will explode, their weapon systems are useless against anything other than the most basic of enemies and for the most part they have the annoying tendency of flipping over if you hit anything larger than a mole hill.

The Mako

I recently introduced Dash to the Halo series and as the Halo veteran I called dibs and drove whilst he manned the turret. As we drove along Dash commented on my driving, pointing out that he “can’t aim for shit if you keep swinging the car wildly around corners”. I swear to Joe Pesci that I was slowing down to give us a hope in hell of Dash actually hitting what he was aiming at. To make matters worse he found it hysterical when I hit a small rock with the back tyre and almost flipped us both over a cliff. Fair play, I fucked up but I got away with it.

Fast forward several hours to our roles being reversed as Dash and I were ambushed by a series of Jackals, Grunts and Elites and our only way to escape would have been to make a suicidal dash for the Warthog and gun it, both in the driving and the shooting sense, out of danger. In truth what happened was in a highly coordinated effort Dash headed for the Warthog and, whilst he had everyone distracted, I legged it in the opposite direction. I must say that for the few seconds he had the Warthog moving Dash did quite well, until the giant rock jumped in front of him causing him to crash into said rock and get thoroughly ripped a new one.

The Junker

After much laughter, and gloating, from me Dash conceded that whilst yes, I may have nearly killed us both by hurling us over a cliff, it had been a miracle and a true testament to my Warthog driving skills that I had only hit one rock all game given how crap the control system is.

If this affliction had only affected the Halo universe I wouldn’t mind too much because there would still be some hope for humanity in the future. But then Mass Effect and the MAKO screwed the pooch just as badly.

The Mako is Mass Effect equivalent, and a hybrid between Halo’s Scorpion tank (hence forth referred to as Sheila) and the afforementioned Warthog. What it did was take the size and the turret of Sheila, add an extra set of large chunky Warthog tyres and keep the Warthog control system. What this ultimately lead to was my version of Shepard getting blown up, a lot.

Not this one. This Mako kicks ass.

Not even the Junker is immune from this. In the first game Marcus crashed it through a wall and it promptly blew up! OK, it didn't blow up exactly but it may have well as done. they barely scratched the paint and it stopped working

I think a true testament to how crappy these vehicles are when instead of utlilising them as the developers wished I prefer instead to walk. That’s right, walk. It could be a 2 minute drive (providing there are no enemies trying to kill you) versus a 10 minute walk and I shall choose to walk every single time. Better yet, I will be playing co-op and my team mates decide to use the vehicles and I can walk. They take the hammering and draw all the attention whilst I craftily, using the super secret technique of walking, sneak up behind the enemy and destroy them, preferably with a melee attack conserving my ammo.

Seriously, this thing would be better if we go to war with the aliens. Nobody has died by using a Dinky-Dodgem

My friends and colleagues here at InfinityFeed now expect that this is the status quo and that they are to drive off without me. At the end of the day they will get to a check point first, which will teleport me ahead meaning I will get to where they are going at the same time as them without sitting in a death trap, and that if they die there is somebody sensible acting as a mobile spawn point to get them back into the game ASAP. Cheap tactic admittedly, but it works.

I know piggybacking like this is not applicable in a real life war but we as a species had better perfect cloning a fallen soldier and teleporting him to his team mates side PDQ otherwise we are all fucked, our vehicles are certainly going to be useless.

Follow me on twitter at: @iFeed_Shep