Video games are designed to give joy, tell a story, or take a break from daily life to care for your city. They should be relaxing and enjoyable. Struggle and challenge levels are expected more or less, but FUN overall. I Wanna Be The Guy is not easy at best. You might have forgotten the legend or never played it (bless you, pure soul). We sat down and played it for a long time. It was as good as we remembered it. Let’s review the hardest game ever developed: I Wanna Be The Guy!
I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game is a freeware platform game created by Michael “Kayin” O’Reilly. The game was created using Multimedia Fusion 2 for Microsoft Windows. It was released on October 5, 2007. The game also has a remastered version, which was made in 2020. You can find I Wanna Be The Guy on itch.io for free. But it would be great to support the developer of the game.
But for this review, we’ll be talking about the original. For 15 years, it still holds the title of being one of the hardest, most frustrating games of all time. Unorthodox level design, difficult platforming elements, and ruthless traps give the player an existential crisis at some points. Well, all we’ve said to this point doesn’t sound very appealing. You might be asking, why would a person play this game? Honestly, we are not so sure either, but from what we experienced and saw during the years, here’s all:
I Wanna Be The Guy Review
The core gameplay is simple. Direction controls, forward and backward, jumping, with shift, and shooting, with z. At the start, it can be dazzling because comparing games in current years, controls aren’t very familiar. But getting used to them will be your last worry. Every level you reach you will face countless traps. This is what we love about the game and its designer. It just uses the main mechanics and gameplay aspects of the other games (nearly all of them) and uses your adapted mind against you.
Usually, you won’t think of an apple attacking you from above. After you die, you think: “Alright, don’t walk under an apple then,” but later, an apple strikes you from below when you try to jump over it (obviously, another apple). Now you are like, “What? What am I supposed to do then? ”
There is nothing you are supposed to do. You just learn how that trap works and figure out another one (presumably dying again). Also, every single time you die, you will hear an awesome guitar soundtrack that will haunt and eventually make you crazy. The game also has a ton of references to other games, like Tetris, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Kirby, and Mega Man.
Finally, why would you or anyone else play this game? We thought of two things: First, the rage gaming montage/content. You can remember the era of Rage Gaming on Youtube. People would record themselves in a rage and get crazy while playing (even breaking their gaming equipment). The views and attention that they got, good or bad, were nothing alike. It was entertaining in general and usually harmless (we mean psychologically or mostly mentally). The second one is the feeling of achievement and speedrunning. Being The Guy (see what I did there) who finished or even speed ran the game is pretty cool and kind of scary. We can totally understand and respect that. Everybody has their own way of having fun.
That’s it, the legend. There have been so many memories of frustration, sadness, and satisfaction (when you get to the checkpoint). Writing this review was painful, but nostalgic as well. The game is nostalgic on its own (the references in it and the gameplay itself) but also remembers the old games from the rage era of the internet. Our final thoughts can be summarized as: I Don’t Wanna Be The Guy.
