My Favourite Video Game Featuring: Novacrow

My Favourite Video Game is a guest feature from bands and artists where we set them a simple task… tell us about your favourite video game. In this feature, bassist Federico ‘Freddy’ Spera of alternative metal band band, Novacrow took up the mantle, and you can read all about the choice below.

When I think of my favourite games, they all have many things in common. They have great plots, with fascinating and well-constructed characters. The gameplay is very smooth and immersive, and most of them have great world building – truly making you feel like a part of another reality. They’re usually rich in emotions tell fascinating stories, and will make you feel like you truly accomplished something once the credits start to roll.

My all-time favourite game, however, has none of these things. My favourite game is one I’ve sunk over 500 hours of my life into. It’s the only game that regularly makes me yell in excitement, much to the displeasure of my neighbours. It’s the only game that has made me punch a wall out of anger with such ferocity that I seriously injured myself for about two weeks. It’s a game that makes you feel like you’re the greatest human to ever exist in one second, and it’ll make you feel like you’re not deserving of consuming precious oxygen the other. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so vitriolically towards another human if not for this game. And yet, I’ve also made some great, lifelong friends in playing it.

That game is Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.

For those of you who are still miraculously clinging on to their sanity and therefore have never heard of this game, it’s a fighting game with some 65+ characters from Nintendo’s catalogue of intellectual property as well as some third-party characters that have weaselled their way into the game. At first glance, it’s an incredibly hectic game with things constantly happening on screen and it seems like the only way to actually play is by button mashing.

But once you come to grips with the controls, it becomes very intuitive. And when you’re first getting into it, it can seem like a perfect party game to play with your friends – you get to play as one of your favourite characters bashing your friends around. Random items will spawn and fuck with the battlefield, you’ll accidentally discover new moves as you play along, all sorts of whacky stuff will happen and everyone has a good time!

But then you start to really get into the game. And you start playing online with no items. And you start playing with friends that play competitively. You learn about local tournaments, and the incredibly toxic Smash Brothers community. AND YOU GET INVESTED.

Eventually, you’ll lose yourself in the game. Whenever you lose to someone online, your low self-esteem and sense of self-loathing take hold and you picture the person behind the screen – and they’re laughing at you. Mocking you. Tapping in to your most profound insecurity. It’s the most intense emotion you’ve felt in years. And when you beat someone online, you feel like an elite – a member of some kind of higher club where only the strongest survive. You feel powerful, and in control. And you’re constantly chasing that high.

I hate Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. I love Super Smash Brother Ultimate. It has consumed me; it has shaped my emotional capacity for every day life. It is my all-time favourite game, and I would highly advise anyone against playing it.

Novacrow’s debut album ‘Look at Me Now’ will be released on September 30th, 2022. You can read our review here.

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