The statistic screen is the personal story of a player's journey through a game, traditionally retold using the ancient language of numbers. How many miles travelled. How many enemies killed. How many missions failed. How many hats worn. It's all there. One big list of ultimately pointless numerical minutiae that is irresistible to the gamer psyche.
As a lover of these geek-pleasing data repositories, I was overcome with happiness when I visited the statistical menu screen of Twisted Pixel's recently released XBLA side-scrolling shooter, Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley. Not only was it full of accurately recorded information presented in a succinct and easy-to-digest format, but it also had its very own dedicated statistical menu screen song. A song all about the statistics I was looking at. If this isn't the best stats menu in the history of video games, well, I'll be pretty darned surprised. This is it:
I should point out that those stats aren't mine. They're the stats of whoever uploaded the vid to YouTube. But the tune's the same.
If anyone knows of a better screen of statistics in a game, please tell me. I want to know about it.
I'm figuring the statistics song is by Twisted Pixel's Matt 'Chainsaw' Chaney, who basically won me over forever when I picked up a fat scientist in last year's excellent Splosion Man and this song started playing:
It's these little touches that make me love Twisted Pixel and will keep me playing Comic Jumper, despite the fact it flounders disappointingly between hit-and-miss. Full review here.
October 18, 2010
