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When Joystick Divisioner Gus Mastrapa talks about gamers who believe they can "see the Matrix" - i.e., see past all the shiny graphics and 5.1 surround sound, all the cutscenes and contrivances to behold only pure gameplay in its naked form - I know he's talking about me. Maybe not me specifically, or even with me in mind; only that I'd count myself among that type of gamer. I was first conscious of it a few years ago, first articulated it more recently, and today it's a deliberate critical approach I take with games (especially ones I'm reviewing): trying to not just look past all the non-gameplay bullshit that's swirling around, but tune it out. It's like going on a first date and - while she's ordering dinner or talking about her job or fidgeting with her napkin - trying to see her without the makeup, the hair products, the Wonderbra and the mood lighting.  

That being said, I'm not a devout fanatic about this approach. I don't claim it to be Truth, only a useful exercise. And I recognize it can be taken to absurd extremes. For example, let's say we reduce one of my favorite games, Street Fighter II, to a pure gameplay experience without any "fluff" whatsoever - not even graphics - the game unfolding via a series of austere, Zorkesque descriptions:

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You respond by inputting a Dragon Punch motion. Then:

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Is the interactivity still there? Yes, in fact it's identical - you're still punishing people who leap in with a Dragon Punch, and performing a Dragon Punch the same way. Is it the same experience? No, of course not. But keep in mind: I'm not arguing a game's non-interactive content is meaningless; I'm arguing it's immaterial. That might be a fine distinction, but it's one I believe exists.

Let's say I go to the ballpark, it's a beautiful day out, and I have a couple beers and a chilidog while I take in the game. Does the nice weather and cheat meal make the experience better? You bet. Does that affect whether the ballgame is any good? No.

If I'm writing a recap of a ballgame for a sports blog, is the game better because I found a twenty under my seat? Is it worse because my hands got splashed at the stadium's trough-style urinal? Do I even need to answer these rhetorical questions?

These examples illustrate how I think about a game's non-interactive elements. Resident Evil 5's cutscenes are a chilidog; Metal Gear Solid's splashed urine. They affect my experience, sure, but I don't recognize them as game or gameplay. They're just there.

Not that these peripheral experiences are without merit. Take Uncharted 2, a game I recently described to some friends as "the most boring game I couldn't put down" and one I still scratch my head over months later. I was tired of Drake as a character 20 minutes in; distracted by everyone's dark, cloudy doll eyes; frustrated from regularly mistaking non-climbable surfaces as climbable (and vice versa), and exhausted to the point of irritation by the too-frequent manufactured peril I was being put in. But most of all, I felt it was full of hot dogs and found twenties: pretty graphics, big set pieces and a story that never takes a player's attention for granted - all admirable qualities that have nothing to do with What The Player Actually Does, which is climb things, shoot things, and push or pull things, also known as Game Activities I Was Mostly Bored With A Decade Before Uncharted Even Came Out.

And yet I played it to the end.

What's especially ironic about this is: there are games I've liked more but played less. I played Bayonetta a couple hours and found its gameplay bizarre, charming, and intriguing... and haven't touched it since. Yet I made the time to finish Uncharted 2, disinterested every step of the way. Why?

It could just be that Uncharted 2 never gives you a moment to think better of it. It's like getting stuck in a conversation with a hyperactive little kid, who breathlessly goes on and on without giving you a break to say "Okay then, I guess I should get going." So you sit there and listen, not really having fun but not sure how to extricate yourself.

Or maybe the game's just that adept at giving you a steady drip of carrots. As long as you still feel you're getting somewhere and accomplishing something, it's hard to walk away from a game, even a meh one.

But really it was the chilidogs and beer, tasty and plentiful enough for me to sit through the boring ballgame. And Bayonetta, a more interesting game but with the gaudiness of a sexually repressed Catholic runway model's feverdream, was like watching a great game from a splintery wooden bench on a 115-degree day... and the only beer on tap was Bud.

Comparing my experience with Uncharted 2 (a game I didn't like but played) with Bayonetta (a game I enjoyed but abandoned), I feel like I've more or less undermined my own argument and validated what I take to be Mastrapa's position: that there is no distinction between a game's interactive and non-interactive elements, as each colors the other. The lines are too blurry.

But I still find myself circling back to the sportswriter analogy, and how it'd feel wrong to let the players' uniforms or the smell of the grass or the color commentary affect my impression of the ballgame. So for now, I'm going to continue hunting for the Matrix. And continue assuming that there's a Matrix to see.

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