E4′s Great British Summer of Games #7: Janey Thomson’s Marathon
Rarely does a game have the ability to render its player speechless. There does, however, come those few moments in everyone’s lifetime when an interactive experience proves so deep or immersive as to actually render the player incapable of cognitive thought for a few fleeting moments. Having just struggled (and dear God, do we mean struggled) through a mere ten minutes of Janey Thompson’s Marathon, this… running sim left us speechless.
That’s right, all it took was ten minutes, about the same time needed to clear Call of Duty’s tutorial, or watch Snake smoking as Metal Gear Solid 4 is installed. Usually being rendered speechless by a game is seen as a positive thing, with it containing something which elevates a game from a mere piece of interactive entertainment to a worthwhile piece of art. Janey Thompson’s Marathon is not a work of art: it’s not even one of those terrible pictures you drew and your mum pretended to like when you were in primary school. This ‘game’ is a monstrosity.
Alright, perhaps we’re being harsh; it is after all a satire on the kind of endurance game it parodies. The objective is quite simply to tap the left and right keys one after the other to make Janey run. The better your rhythm and faster your fingers, the more successful she’ll be. It makes quick time events look like the height of game design artistry. The problem is you’ll last about five minutes before you’ll either A) get bored, B) get cramp, or C) realise that you’re squandering the precious gift of life making a poorly animated 8-bit woman run past generic backgrounds for as long as it takes to actually finish the virtual marathon. If you finish this (which should take about two hours plus of constant finger tapping) without breaking your keyboard or suffering from massive haemorrhaging in your digits, then you’re either some kind of zen gaming master or the most useless meat-bag to ever have existed.
Yes, it’s free, but so is drowning and you don’t see people queuing up for a quick lung baptism. We forced outselves to endure ten minutes of this, but by the time our tendons felt like they had been to the Lemon, Salt and Razor Blades festival and our minds had wandered onto the topic of which cheese goes best with vintage Champagne (it’s Chevre, by the way), it was time to jump ship and end our virtual marathon-running career with some of our dignity left intact. You should give it a go, especially if you’re the kind of person who revels in self-flagellation.
Janey Thomson’s Marathon opens up the potential for a range of other dull, obscure sports games; John Brzenk Arm Wrestling? Philip Rush Channel Swimming? Pat ‘Deep Dish’ Bertoletti Competitive Eating? God forbid.
