Dear young readers (and those who wish to look back fondly),
Once upon a time, before the prevalence of broadband internet connections (what you know as regular internet) multiplayer gaming (what you now call ‘Fortnite’) was performed by gathering all your friends together to play the game staring at their own divvied up rectangle of you 32″ CRT (google that one yourself). Once we took a single step out of the dark ages we were able to connect multiple consoles together and have even more players engaged.
This is all to say that when playing multiplayer we were able to throw popcorn at any player we were displeased with, or if we thought our mom was out of earshot, hurl insults as loud as we dared.
This proximity allowed one more feature unseen in today’s landscape. The Screen Look. Simply put, the Screen Look is when you peer away from your own segment of the screen onto another quadrant to espy on your competitors segment, possibly on another CRT all together.
Many a time, a player subjected to this practice and possibly feeling as though they have been put at a disadvantage might hurl one of the aforementioned insults at the Screen Looker. ‘Cheater!’ one might say if they were using especially family friendly language. Occasionally this is accompanied by a look of sincere hurt as though you have offered to get them a piece of cake and instead come back with a coiled up snake.
I have another take on this practice.
‘It’s a Legitimate strategy!’ I say.
First, if the game developers didn’t want you to look at more than one screen they wouldn’t have put more than one screen there. Or a screen divider would have been packaged with the game disc.
Secondly, if I can look at more than one screen at a time and still manage to take care of business I say that I am simply putting my innate enhanced cognitive abilities to good use.
Thirdly, listen I know you’re losing but really it’s just because I’m better than you so don’t get so worked up over this one thing. I mean really, I brought pizza and soda. What more do you want?
In conclusion, even though this practice has few applications in today’s gaming I feel that it should be honored. If I were going to have a LAN party version of Dundie Awards there would be one for Best Screen Looker, right after Most Creative Insult, Most Spare Controllers, and Best Sport Even Though They Lost Miserably. It would be the penultimate award.