By Cy Kosis
Sunburnt Mis-adventurer
Chasing after my Wii-mote—flung dramatically across the room after a particularly passionate combo in “Super Smash Brothers”—I discovered something: a strange door. This door didn’t belong to my dorm, the bathroom, or my closet stuffed full of Doritos so needless to say I had never opened it before. What caught my eye was a brilliant glow around the edges, especially the side that was cracked open. My friend cautiously opened the door, bathing the room with a light more powerful than I had ever experienced before, burning where photon met skin. I slithered away, watching as my friend took a step through the door to this colorful realm, looked around in awe for a moment, and then immediately exploded in a cloud of dust. Through this doorway I witnessed a ceiling-less blue and green room, one both fantastic and alien to me. At that moment I decided to risk life and limb to write this review for you, dear readers, a review for this fantastic land I cleverly name: “Outdoors.”
I quickly and systematically prepared for this dangerous quest, making protective gear out of a heavy jacket, two pillows tied to my torso with a jump rope, and oven mitts. On my head was a metal pot. With quiet reluctance, I stepped through the doorway, marveling at the graphics. The attention to detail—every square inch—put even current open-world titles to shame. Alert for impending dragon attacks, I picked up a few flowerpots I found lying around and smashed them. I was awarded with sandwich wrappers and cigarette butts which I immediately stored in my inventory in case they were quest items. I spent the next 20 minutes chasing around squirrels for experience points with no luck.
The developers made a gutsy move by not including a music track in the background, but it paid off due to the well-implemented ambient noise, like chirping birds and distraught gardeners. My attempts to pickpocket bystanders received realistic reactions such as death threats and attempts to drive me to a hospital “to get the help I need.” Luckily, I chose an acrobatics proficiency back in fifth grade and received only minor injuries jumping out of a moving vehicle.
Around the hub-world, I puzzled at the genre of this land, until I decided to run a few tests. Thinking that maybe it was an indie building game, I started to dig holes in the ground and tried to make a fort out of them. Unfortunately I only had a plastic shovel, and the creepers in this game are extremely different, albeit much more friendly.
After I finished all my candy, I switched tactics and tested to see if this was a platformer. I started by attempting to climb trees and buildings to get a good vantage point of the world. This usually resulted in me jumping at a wall and bouncing off due to my fluffy armored exterior. Thirty minutes in a man asked me to stop standing on his car. His challenge was met by me jumping on his head, and I was delighted to find that that had the desired effect. Satisfied that I was in fact in a platformer, I witnessed the fireball above sink into the ground. I calmly sat upon my fallen foe, crickets chirping merrily to my gleefully off-key tunes played on my pocket ocarina.
I re-entered the safety of my dorm basement with a new appreciation as a gamer, and happy to finally be home once again. The adventures I had experienced were interesting indeed, and the vastness of “Outdoors” was staggering, but in the end the safety of my concrete walls was too inviting to keep away for long. Perhaps one day the time may come where I miss the frightening dangers and captivating mysteries I experienced and muster up the courage to visit an old door and the beautiful journey that lay beyond. Until then though, I will keep on working on my combos in “Super Smash Brothers,” and remember to always wear a wrist strap.