The Art of Button Mashing

There are no better games to play when you are young than those that require no skill or cognitive reasoning. Those are the games in which everyone is on the same level and even a person who has never played the game before can beat a seasoned veteran by simply slamming a random pattern of buttons. Hence “button mashing.”

My point and case lies within Mortal Kombat 4. I loved that game. As age inappropriate as it was, Nintendo had almost the perfect platform for it. They took the simplified Super Nintendo controller -which is made for button mashing- and slapped a control stick on there and added two extra buttons to the right. Don’t ask me about the shape because it baffles me to this day, but I think it may have insprired the Naboo cruisers from Star Wars. With the six buttons and a control pad sitting under your right hand, the special combos become natural by simply running your thumb over the buttons repeatedly. Even the small "wings" to the side allow for those gamers with smaller hands to compete. Don’t get me wrong, skill can be present if you practice the combos a lot you may even win the match nine out of ten times; but when you’re beat by a seven year old that tenth time you can see my point.

Button Mashing games have evolved and become almost synonymous with fighting games (Super Smach Bros.) or so called “party games” (Fusion Frenzy or Mario Party). There are even some button mashers in disguise such as Pokemon (You can’t tell me when your level 90 Charizard is facing that level 2 Pidgey you aren’t slamming A just to run away). Its legacy is a great one, allowing the button mashers of yesterday to teach those of the future our art.