They function as a preface to fun, which makes them seem weirder than they are-as though every novel opened with a family tree, or every TV show employed a warm-up comic to remind the audience how to laugh and clap. Video game tutorials, as a category, are neither good nor bad they are wholly case-specific. Sure, you need to know which button to push, but also when to push it. Maybe you’re playing a hospital sim and you just want to hire a nurse, no quick attacks necessary. (Brilliant or not, Souls games offer the same allure as hot wax-on-nip.) Quick attack is not always. I’m dead without it, and whatever game I’m playing is decidedly less fun if I have to die a dozen times for the knowledge. Whenever I face down an unforeseen attack, whenever my enemies reveal themselves, the sage advice of my betters bubbles up from my deepest brain fold, reminding me to press to perform a quick attack. Their words-always measured-tend to echo at critical junctures. Learned men and women: Buddhists, dissidents, Jedi. In my time on this earth I’ve pledged allegiance to many masters.
