[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Late again, but no less great! When in doubt, use a gun. If that doesn’t work, use more gun. Many video games take this idea to heart, giving the player increasingly powerful and elaborate weapons. The most famous example is the BFG from Doom, but games from Ratchet & Clank to Command & Conquer embrace the ideals of More Dakka.

The term comes from Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop strategy game that has seen several video game ports of varying success. “Dakka” is the sound that guns make, and when Orks say they need more dakka, they mean they need more guns. Many more guns. And bigger guns. Many more, bigger guns that go dakka dakka dakka. And no, you can never have enuf dakka.

Examples of More Dakka include:

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Sometimes we don’t get any choices in video games. And sometimes we get choices, but unless we make the “right” one the game stops us in our tracks. If you’re asked whether you want to save the world and you say “No,” odds are the game will respond, “But thou must!”

This is particularly popular in old-school console RPGs, when you’re given an obvious objective and any choice is just a formality. Still, it can appear in nearly any game with a storyline.

Examples of But Thou Must include:

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Dammit, why can’t I quit Nintendo? Just when I think they’ve all but abandoned the dedicated gamers who have been with them since the beginning, they dump a pile of sequels and remakes on my lap that beg for my money and attention. Kid Icarus? Star Fox? Pilotwings? I know Nintendo will hurt me again when it turns back to Mii-pimping casual games, but for now I’m genuinely excited.

I’m not alone. News like this hits every gamer with the smallest glimmer of fanboy in them. No matter how much you’ve been spurned, no matter how disappointed you’ve been by your favorite company or studio, there’s always something they can show off that makes you hope there’s some of that magic left. When that happens, as it is written in the Great Strategy Guide, And The Fandom Rejoiced.

Examples include:

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Sequels would be so easy if you got to keep all the neat toys and abilities you got in the previous game. Unfortunately, that almost never happens. When a new, evil force threatens the world, you’re inevitably stripped down to your skivvies and forced to fight at level 1 with a stick and a pillow your only equipment. Sometimes video games explain it and sometimes they don’t.

This is called the Bag of Spilling, when you lose all the deadly weapons and godlike powers of the last game and have to start over. Link deals with it. Samus deals with it. Mega Man deals with it all the freaking time. It usually doesn’t make much sense plot-wise, but it keeps games interesting and prevents them from getting too easy.

Examples of the Bag of Spilling include:



[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Apologies for the tardiness of this week’s Tuesday’s Trope. It’s a good one, so the wait is worth it.

Video game universes tend to be unnervingly fair to the player. When you leave your first town or fight through your first level, the universe usually throws its weakest and most pathetic monsters at you. You don’t face invincible fire-breathing dragons or giant killer robots on the very first level (unless you’re playing Mega Man X, in which case the giant killer robot will still be easier than every other boss you fight). The enemies always scale up to match your equipment and skill level.

This is the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, the method in which video games ensure a steady and smooth difficulty curve. It doesn’t really make sense, but it keeps the game flowing and accessible, and that’s what matters.

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Some video game levels are so fun that you have to play them over and over again. In every installment of the game’s series. They’re classic environments, so emblematic of the franchise that developers love to reference or outright recreate them in new games. These are Nostalgia Levels, the levels that you keep coming back to whether you want to or not.

Examples of nostalgia levels include:

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

There’s “bad,” and then there’s “so bad it never happened.” The world is full of terrible video games, but when those terrible video games are part of popular franchises, they’re pretty hard to ignore. When a game is so bad it has to be intentionally ignored to enjoy the rest of the series, it’s considered to be discontinuity.

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes a cute pink creature nailed to a cross is just a cute pink creature nailed to a cross. Video games can be a great way to convey a message, but that doesn’t mean every pixel, polygon, and sacrilegious image means something deep. Biblical and other religious references in video games are often just passing shout-outs, with little to no further meaning. When this happens, gamers usually ask just one question: What Do You Mean It’s Not Symbolic?

This is especially popular among Japanese RPGs, because Japanese developers don’t take Judeo-Christian religious references quite as seriously as we do, and go to the Bible for story ideas just like they would go to Norse or Greek mythology. This also pops up in Western games, because everybody likes a little religious or literary reference in their narrative. It doesn’t have to be a Biblical reference, either. Overt symbolism can appear anywhere and come from anything, and sometimes it doesn’t have any additional meaning beyond what it shows. A main character’s mother naked and turning into a demon? That’s just a bonus boss!

Some examples of What Do You Mean It’s Not Symbolic? are:

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Video games don’t reflect reality. That’s a plainly obvious truth, and if you don’t realize it then you really need to get away from the console for a bit. The interactivity of video games gives players a chance to exert incredible powers, perform incredible stunts, and experience incredible events directly, with the results based on their performance.

Still, most games need at least some story, and you can’t always be sure the player will follow the intended path. When this happens, rules have to be bent or broken to let the plot proceed as planned. This is called Gameplay and Story Segregation. You might have just destroyed a hundred minions in combat, but if the cutscene says you get captured by a few weak guards or knocked out by a single punch, that’s what’s going to happen. It doesn’t make sense in the mechanics of the game, but at least it lets the story continue.

Some examples of gameplay and story segregation include:

[Tuesday's Trope is a weekly department highlighting an amusing video game trope from TVTropes. Aggrogate is not affiliated with TVTropes.org in any way. All trope examples come from TVTropes and are shared via the Creative Commons license.]

Someone set up us the bomb! What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets! I am error. You spoony bard! I feel asleep!

Ridiculous dialogue has been a mainstay of video games since the days of the NES. It doesn’t come out of thin air, though. Nearly every instance of truly ridiculous text in a video game is the result of a poor translation job. In tropespeak, it’s a Blind Idiot Translation. It can be as simple as mixing up an L for an R (Japanese treats both as the same phonetic sound), or as complicated as utterly messing up a main character’s name and lines.

Blind Idiot Translations aren’t so big a problem today, but before video game companies actually started to make an effort in translating their games into English, you couldn’t walk past an NES without tripping over a cartridge filled with insane ramblings.

Notable Blind Idiot Translations include: