By Katie Ngo
From adventure games to first person shooters, video games allow players to immerse themselves in whatever world they want to be in. They allow players to imagine themselves as different people in a separate universe. This often blurs or even erases the lines between fantasy and reality, as games allow players to perform impossible feats or survive unlivable situations.
I am rating five different games based on my survivability, and if I could win. Both the standard of survival and the win conditions will be decided on a case-by-base basis for each game.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
In “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” the player moves to a deserted island and receives essentials for living. The win condition that I have set—given that it is a more open-ended game—is accomplished by paying off all of the debt the player receives in the course of the game.
Looking at just my chances at surviving, I would thrive here. On the island, there’s plenty of food from fish and fruit, as well as fresh water in lakes and rivers. In addition, the player starts off with a basic shelter in the form of a tent, and is surrounded by wood and other natural resources. Surviving seems achievable.
Hitting the win condition doesn’t seem too difficult either. The player can complete various tasks and sell goods in order to earn bells, the currency in Animal Crossing. One of the quickest and easiest ways to earn bells is to sell items, such as fish or bugs. The bells can then be used to pay off the debt in the game. This sounds very doable, especially considering that there is no interest on the debts.
Given the high likelihood of survival and my ability to win the game, I would rate Animal Crossing: New Horizons a 10/10.
Minecraft
In the world of Minecraft, players spawn at a random location within a world entirely composed of squares. From the dirt to the sun, everything is made up of blocks, with each block generally a cubic meter in size. While Minecraft can be endlessly played, the common consensus for what it means to win is to slay the Ender Dragon. This can only be done by gathering the necessary supplies to get to the dragon, traveling across two different dimensions and beating it in a battle.
Starting with just my likelihood of surviving, as long as I can make it past the first few nights in the game, I should be fine for a while. There’s plenty of ways to gather food, find water and make a shelter. Players are able to easily break blocks with their bare hands, allowing them to collect the basic necessities to survive. The biggest dangers are the various monsters or mobs that populate the world at night. This can be overcome by building an adequate shelter and waiting it out until the morning, when most hostile mobs will burn from the sun.
Winning the game poses a much greater challenge. Even if I could revive myself through the respawn feature, making it all of the way across multiple dimensions to defeat a dragon would be a monumental task for any normal person. However, if I take my time and play things very safely, using all of the best items I can get my hands on over the course of the game, I think I could do it.
While surviving doesn’t seem too difficult, winning the game does. I would rate Minecraft a 6/10, with one point off for my survival chances against the monsters and three points docked off for just the sheer enormity of the task to win.
Tamagotchi
For a fun little curveball, I think I have decent odds as a Tamagotchi. Tamagotchi are traditionally a kids toy, allowing them to simulate taking care of a little pet. A Tamagotchi will typically grow in stages, from a baby to an adult, with how a child cares for it affecting its growth.
Tamagotchi, born from eggs, can only die once it completes its baby stage. After that, they can die from neglect if the user doesn’t care for it. Depending on the kid that would purchase the toy, I could have a high chance of surviving or a low one. The win condition for this is dying from old age, rather than neglect or lack of care. This arrives after surviving past the stages of baby, child, teenager, adult and occasionally senior. If I make it past the child stage, I think I could have a decent chance at winning.
Since this is highly dependent on a child’s sense of responsibility and care, it’s fair to give my chances a 4/10 rating. While it’s not too difficult, it does lean more towards the improbable side.
Fallout: New Vegas
For “Fallout: New Vegas,” players take on the role of a courier in a world that experienced a nuclear war over 200 years ago. In the opening scene the player is attacked by a gunman, and through a series of tasks must find their attacker.
Focusing on just the opening cutscene, I would not have the luck to survive the way the courier did. It’s later revealed in the game that the gunman had shot the player twice in the head. There is no world in which I could survive that. In the world of Fallout, everything is incredibly dangerous. Even if I miraculously figure out how to use all of the tools and weaponry, there is a very high chance that I will not survive until the end.
Although it is possible to win the game without dying, it takes a lot of practice and caution. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to practice not dying when you’ve only got one shot for things. I would rate my chances in Fallout: New Vegas a 1/10, given that I have a very slim chance of making it to the end, but still a chance.
Call of Duty
While Call of Duty is technically a video game series, I think it’s safe to say that I would rate my survivability and win chances the same for all of them: absolutely zero. Being a first-person shooter game, there is no way that I can make it through a game of Call of Duty alive. Even if I consider the win condition as winning only one game after a few practice rounds, it would be practically impossible for me to win.
I would rate my chances a 0/10 for—it seems to me—very obvious reasons.
Conclusion
The variety in video games is apparent in the easy-going lifestyle presented in simulator games to the casual violence in shooter games. This diversity in games allows players to imagine, even for the briefest moments, what it would be like to live in the worlds they play in. For me, I would take a chance in the world of Animal Crossing over Call of Duty any day.
