Why I Hate Level Bosses

It’s time for me to come clean.

Despite being an avid gamer, despite the fact that I’ve been playing video games since Pong, I have always despised level bosses. There, I’ve said it. It’s not something I’m proud of, and it is a rather lonely place to be, because apparently everyone else in the Universe loves them.

Here’s my problem: when I’m playing a game, nine times out of ten I am having a blast exploring, discovering new tools or weapons to use, checking out the cool environments, and solving puzzles. So far so good.

But then it happens.

I walk into a HUGE room, much larger than any other area nearby, and I hear the ssssssss-CLANK as the door I just walked through slams shut behind me. And in that split second, my heart sinks, and the Angels cry, because I know the next 30 minutes of my life are going to be Pure Hell.

It usually goes something like this: 1) Cue the psycho circus music. Yeah, you know the music I’m talkin’ about…doo DAH doo DAH doo DAHHHHHHH deedle-deedle DAHHHHHHHH!!! The stuff that already sends your blood pressure to level Orange before anything’s even happened. 2) You look around, and there the fat bastard is. As big as a city building, with multiple heads/tentacles/wings/gonads, and he is not happy to see you. 3) It’s time to look for the “weak spot”. Every boss has one. It might be a green target on his nose, or one of his heads is closer to you, or maybe his ass is glowing.

Your job now is to shoot him in the ass, in between his deadly, screaming attacks. In the best games, if you get hit by the boss even once, you die. In the very, very best games, you now get respawned 43 miles away from the boss, and you have to fight your way back to him, for the pleasure of dying another 27 times while you’re trying to figure out his “pattern”. What happened to the fun I was having?

There was a university study released two weeks ago, that showed that over 93% of the time that game controllers are hurled across the room in a fit of rage, it involved level bosses. Okay, that’s big lie, I just made that up. But I think you can see where I’m going here.

I HAVE A DREAM

Let me tell you about my dream. It’s not a good dream like Martin Luther King’s, where mankind is getting along better and there’s equal opportunity for all. No, mine is a time travel dream. In this dream I travel back in time, and find myself on a pleasant outdoor hike with the first game designer who thought level bosses would be a good idea. We stop to take in the beautiful view over a high cliff edge. I say “Wow, look at that eagle!” and when the designer looks out towards the horizon saying “Where?” I push him off the cliff.

A wave of guilt spreads over me as what I have just done sinks in, but it was for a worthy cause. I have just saved untold future generations from being subjected to an endless stream of idiotic, lumbering level bosses. Woot! The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I always wake from this dream sweating, and anxious. I am both relieved and saddened…relieved because I didn’t really kill any game designers so I won’t be going to jail anytime soon, but saddened because that first designer survived, and polluted our lives forever.

Besides, even if I had stopped the first one, you and I both know that it would only be a matter of time before some designer would be sitting there staring at a level map and suddenly think “Hey…what if there was a REALLY BIG enemy in this room?” and the shit would hit the fan all over again.

And to all of you out there who think I’m crazy, and who are saying “But…but…but..level bosses make the game more challenging!” or “I <3 teh level bosses!!!1one!” or “Dude, you must suck if level bosses keep killing you” all I can say is, well, PPPFFFFBBBBBBBBTTTTTTT!

Not very meaningful, I know. But it was all I could think of on a moments notice.

I’ll close with another dream, one where I am playing a game and I go to the Options screen and see this:

LEVEL BOSSES: ON/OFF

Hey, I can dream can’t I?

No tags for this post.