There are things while playing games that all gamer do, even without thinking. Stupid things, needless things. We know we'll be burned in the process, but we do them anyway. Here's an article that, in all honesty, was written right after breaking one of those cardinal rules of gaming.

“Player 1 is ALWAYS better than Player 2.”

Think back. Way back. No, even further. Pong, folks. The original fight over who got to be first player, “I want to be player one!” “You got to be LAST TIME!” There is something special about that first player spot. Something that even developers recognize. You don’t get to pick the game mode with a player 2 controller. In Mario 3, you can screw up player 2’s entire game if you’re player 1, simply because you’re the only one who can pause the game! In the original Super Mario Brothers, if you didn’t get to play as Mario, there was always a chance that you wouldn’t get to play AT ALL, if player 1 was really good at the game. I can think of only one instance where being player 2 brought some satisfaction, and that is Duck Hunt, where if you plug in a controller in Port 2 you can control the ducks and clay pigeons, making it harder for player 1 to shoot. How lame is that?! And if player 2 is such a bad position to have, then being players 3 and 4 must be devastating. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be player 256 in a game of MAG.

psxmeup via gameobserver.com »