Gex: A ReRun of Fallen Glory - Chapter 8

Gex: A ReRun of Fallen Glory
Chapter 8: What is Gex the gecko?

Entering the New World Hub once again, I didn’t have to go too far to find the next set…but it was not something I was looking forward to. It was another one of those fancy curved screens, meaning that it was definitely something of ReRun’s creation. The title of it: Game Show Extravaganza.

A game-show based world? Really? You thought that this was a good idea? Geez…

Well, I wasn’t going to get anything done by just standing around, so I leapt in head first and waited to see what ridiculous obstacles were going to be thrown at me next.

As I came to and took a look around me, I was already putt-off at a level of awkwardness that I had not experienced before. I looked like I was in the set of a run-down Wheel of Fortune, but the wheel was covered in blood and other strange substances and at my sides were a pair of dummies that looked eerily similar to Rez. Me? I was wearing a banana costume, so the level of weirdness had already exceeded normal safety levels.

-Hello Gex, and welcome to…Wheel…of…Misfortune! Game shows are popular games of luck and skill that are televised across the world for the entertainment of others and the benefit of a lucky few. But too often we forget that being on a game show can be a hard life, as so much can be riding on getting something right when everyone else doesn’t have a clue as to what to do. I know that this might not be to your tastes, but hey, that’s show business. Alright, let’s get this first game started and see if you can manage to get past this first puzzle! Simply deduce the phrase on the board, and you’ll be on your way. Provided that you don’t mind a few death traps being thrown at you for not guessing correctly.-

Well, if the price is right…

As the room remained quiet, I figured that it wanted me to spin the wheel, which I did; it landed on a space with arrows printed on it, and as I reached down to tug at the bottom of this suit (as it was riding up on me a bit), an arrow zoomed right over my head. Lovely. The phrase on the board was relatively short, consisting of seventeen letters and four words. I guessed ‘R’, and four of them came up. As I spun the wheel again, my fellow game show contestants just sort of stood there, looking at me like I was some deranged lunatic.  I guess they had never seen a gecko in a banana costume before…then again, neither had I, so I could understand their confusion. I had swords, safes and all manner of objects thrown at me during the show, but I at least was given a fair warning of where they would be coming from. Slowly, I accumulated letters until I finally had enough to reveal the message:

ReRun is your Savior.

Forget the part about him not having an ego; this was decently up there. There were flashing lights and buzzers everywhere, and while I felt like celebrating, I didn’t have long to do so as the dummy contestants got up and started firing rockets out of their mouths at me. Yeah, I didn’t expect that one either, but it didn’t take many hits to reduce them to a pile of scrap.

The moment I finished them off, a hook came up and grabbed me by the head of my costume, and flung me far away into a completely different television show altogether. I was on a moving platform, and there was a small obstacle course right before me. Before I could take a step, though, that maniac’s voice came out from the loudspeaker above:

-On to part two of this marvelous world. This slime obstacle course should prove to be quite fun for you Gex, as I know that you are fond of using those paws of yours to climb around things…and people. Just be careful not to get slimed too much, or you may find yourself unable to move at all.

The conveyer belt I was standing on started to move in a backwards direction relative to my front, and a giant, spiked grinding wheel settled down immediately behind me. I got on the move immediately and found myself being drenched in buckets of slime from above. The slime was really sticky and made it very hard to move, just as ReRun had said. But I was still fast for my age, and I was able to avoid them for a little while. Things got a little hairy when I started to see spike traps moving down my way alongside artificial walls and other contraptions aiming to halt my progress. Playing this little rat maze wasn’t exactly something I enjoyed, but I had been warmed up enough by some of my more recent excursions to avoid the traps rather easily, though there were a couple of moments where I almost got flattened by a giant rolling pin.

As soon as I made it to the end of the conveyor belt, I breathed a sigh of relief as I entered an enclosed room. Immediately after that, however, something punched a hole through the wall, and slime started to poor into the room. The stuff was pouring in faster than I could get it off of my body, and within a few seconds, I was practically swimming in it. I didn’t know what exactly I was doing, but in a last attempt to get myself out of this deathtrap, I dove into the thick liquid and swam through the hole in the wall. I almost ran out of breath before I emerged in a dark cavern, next to a large machine that had been the source of the slime. I smashed the living daylights out of it and traveled toward a bright light at the end of the pathway before me.

As I stepped into the light, I found myself in what can only be described as a giant hamster ball. The doorway slammed shut the moment I stepped through it, only to hear my instructions for whatever this gizmo was.

-Now, Gex, you must face a lottery ball challenge. The goal is simple: survive until time runs out. You have to last at least two minutes in there as the sphere rolls around, and your sticky paws are not going to be of much use here. Keep watch over some of your fellow contestants, however, as they are keener on winning the prize than yourself, and they will gladly flatten you if you don’t pay them heed.-

The ball immediately started moving around, and I found myself in the company of dwarves rolling around on what looked to be giant lottery balls. They were ramming one another at top speed and kept knocking each other off of their balls, but I found it strangely amusing because they kept apologizing to each other for their actions. Their apologies seemed pretty genuine to me, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk and just let them squash me by accident. As the ball rolled, I tried my best to keep ahold of my footing, but that wasn’t happening; the surface was just too smooth and glassy for me to get a good grip. My fellow ‘contestants’ seemed to be enjoying themselves as they rolled about, several of them nearly missing me just by a few inches. I think I ended up dizzy more than anything else here, but after the two minutes were up, I was expecting some sort of trap or a quick exit, but it seemed someone had other ideas…

-Well done, but this is just the beginning. You have at least two more minigames you are doing to have complete in here before I can let you out.-

Really? More of this junk?

-Of course, if you want to leave right now, you are free to do so. You’ll just end up missing out on a nice little prize if you do so. So, what do you say? Do you want to continue, or keep going on?-

“What do you think!?”

-The quick exit it is, then. Boys, take care of him!-

Part of the giant sphere opened up, and in poured my previous contestants, riding giant spiked steamrollers that were looking to make mulch out of me. I didn’t have the time to deal with this nonsense, so I made my way over to the hole and I tried to leave. A driver caught me off-guard and smacked me back inside the ball, which then sealed shut. It looked like I was going to have to play dirty, and that’s exactly what I did.

I found a death machine considerably larger than the others and used my tail to flip up and punch the driver out of the way, giving me control of the giant deathtrap. I had no trouble piloting the things around the sphere and ran over every single one of those little dwarves until they were noting but static stains.

After I managed to destroy all of them, I put my paw to the gas on the machine I was driving and careened straight into the side of the vessel near a crack, shattering the ball and breaking my way out of this strange place.

When I got off the device, I saw a small light at the edge of a cliff; it was a remote! I ran over to it as fast as I could, but it dashed down the side of the cliff, forcing me to take another leap of faith and follow it down to the depths of whatever pit this was.

When I landed, I was blinded by lights once again, and I found myself sitting next to another pair of Rez dummies, their eyes blank and completely motionless.

-Not bad, Gex, not too bad. I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll let the last incident slide and give you the chance to get out of here. This final test is quite simple; simply answer the trivia questions correctly, and don’ let your points go into the red. Hopefully your brain is still as functional as your tail.-

Great, a trivia game. Well, this was not going to turn out too well. I had 1,000 R points (his ego showing itself again), and was expected to keep them above zero the entire time. I’ll be the first to say that, while I don’t mind game shows that much, this is the one type that I really would never try if given the chance. The questions that were asked of me were surprisingly easy at first, all pertaining towards my personal life and some of the events that had occurred nearly two decades ago. As time went on, however, the questions became increasingly difficult, and my point value dropped dangerously close to death a few times. I was still holding my own, though, when I was asked a question that was not only personal but was a memory that I didn’t want to ever here someone ask me ever again.

My question? ‘What happened to Agent Xtra?’

I froze.

I wasn’t willing to say that out loud. No, I would not answer that question. Not under any circumstances. I was finished with that line of questioning. It stopped there.

As the timer for my answer ticked away, the seconds flowing so slowly, I calmed myself and looked around the set for something to end this charade early with. The set, aside from my seat and the main podium, looked like trash. Actually, it was filled with trash like old computers, video game consoles, television sets…

But one of them was glowing. It was glowing a bright yellow color, and there was something buzzing around inside of it. It was a fly. A yellow fly.

Thinking quickly, I pulled myself out of my seat, ran over to the TV, smashed it, and ate the little critter before he knew what hit him. I instantly felt a surge of power flowing through my body, an electrical charge stimulating my body and mind. Of all the things he could have thrown away, he threw away a Power-Up.

Aiming as best I could, I opened my mouth and let loose, firing streams of electricity straight at the main console in the room. The thing started sparking and screeching until it simply detonated, sending fragments in all directions. The system glitched and gave me infinite points, forcing the remote in my stand to be ejected out.

“See? Cheaters can win after all!”

I got out of there as quickly as possible, leaving behind that stupid banana costume behind me as the place began to destabilize and collapse behind me, electricity arcing even through the edges of the portal itself.

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Game shows are such a big part of modern culture that it seems difficult for any of us to avoid them. They can be games of skill, or just may be depend on luck; the best games usually try to combine the two to create an exciting dynamic that will entice others to come and explore. But watching a game show and playing it can often be very different things. I have come to call this sort of phenomenon “Game Show Syndrome”, and its effects on players can be quite severe.

When we are at home and are watching these shows, we think that we could possibly do much better than the contestant we are actually viewing. They stumble on their words, they make small, stupid decisions, they don’t wait patiently for more information…the list goes on. They say things that might not make sense and risk all of their hard-earned prizes on something that will more than likely cost them everything they have earned. As we watch, we chuckle to ourselves, and claim that we could do better.

But when you are on a game show, things are much different. You are on television for one thing, so you are already nervous and self-conscious. You want to make sure that you look your best, so you focus more on keeping your composure and a healthy image than you do thinking at critical moments. Not all are easily phased by this factor, but there are many other things to consider. When it comes to skill, being nervous about how you will do can upset your game right away and leave you off-kilter. Frustration over not being able to win something and equally being unable to show your frustration disturbs your normal thoughts and sends you into a panic. You can’t simply react as you want to; you must keep up your appearance for the sake of the show, even if your brains are boiling from the inside out.

And then luck comes into play. Random chance is simply that, random, and while we may sit on our couches and yell at these contestants for not picking the right box or door, can we really blame them? How can we realistically blame them for dealing with sheer random chance when they are at the mercy of it? We convince ourselves that there is in fact a trick, that random chance is not actually random at all, and in some cases, that may certainly be so. That does not mean, however, that it should be ignored.

But perhaps the most important factor that differs between these positions of viewing and experiencing is just that, experience; the game show experience, that is. You are on television, you have the chance to win great prizes…yes, this is all great. But when people find themselves on a game show, even when they have to keep themselves stable in order to survive, many find themselves swept up in the atmosphere of the show they are a part of. People that are normally shy and quiet become loud and a source of ruckus when on a game show that encourages such behavior as part of its atmosphere. In the process, we lose ourselves in the game and are taken away from our normal lives, forced to play a part in a game that we may not be comfortable with in other circumstances. It is as if the game show itself is a living, breathing monster, and it has a taste for the minds of its contestants and audience. If we cannot be ourselves, then how do we expect to play like our normal selves?

The Stanford Prison Experiment proves that there is no need for a disturbing background to turn perfectly normal people into monsters. Under that same ideology, it only takes a few factors to take someone who thinks that they could play well in their homes into someone that makes awkward mistakes and actions when part of the real thing. We scoff at our fellow man and their follies, but under the same conditions, would we be any different? Is anyone truly immune to Game Show Syndrome? Or are we merely all pawns waiting to be disturbed and messed with the moment we step out of our normal lives and into a world that we otherwise might not belong in…?