Why Do Modern Games Have So Many Menus?

Last Updated on January 24, 2023

Things come, move along and in the process gain attributes that those involved deem sensible, but which leave those that have left the table befuddled should they return. It is (so-called) progress, I’m told.

It is in this regard I recently settled in with one of my brothers for a two-player game of Pro Evolution Football/Soccer/whatever, edition number… take your pick but we’ll say “44” to move us along, which is ironic considering where we are headed.

One recalls a time with video games when all you had to do to was slam a cartridge into the player and paw at the On switch. You might well remember this too. Well that was then and I don’t mind that things change but that said, I do mind the incursion of what is effectively paperwork into a virtual game of football/soccer/I am not doing this again.

“In the old days, all you had to do to was slam a cartridge into the player
and paw at the On switch.”

It started reasonably enough once I’d remembered how to turn my control pad on (you have to switch on control pads!?!) and sat back while my brother and I decided on which international team we were going to team up to play as; Brazil, same as we always used to, with my brother going for the glory and me for the cards. It has always been thus going back to the days of the original Fifa International on the Mega Drive. Goodness, we put some time in on that game.

It seemed to come from nowhere and to my mind was a great deal more playable than Sensible Soccer, a game that was neither sensible nor soccer (I think they meant football). It was pinball on crack, which was fine if you like those things, which lots of people did; Fifa was just a little more measured and paced. Then came Pro Evolution Soccer (there we go again) on the original PlayStation and my brother and me fell into an easy patter with each successive release. Cosy and regular as a Hobbit hole at breakfast, we knew where we were.

Cut back to Pro Evo-whatever on the PS4 and already there is a problem; my controller could not be identified by the console because the machine was not connected to an internet. Incredible, but no matter, I was sure that the answer would be found with but a trifling press of a button. We’re just here to play a football game after all. But no, soon there were sub-menus with lava lamp graphics.

Oh, dear. We should have been on the pitch by now. I could have already been two yellow cards deep but instead it was all connection time-outs and pitiable excuses laced with a tone from the machine that the problem was actually at our end.

Words of bafflement drifted through my mind in response (a sanitised version follows): “Pardon me? You appear to be getting yourself confused with something that isn’t an entertainment projector.”

I’m pretty sure that I am not exaggerating to say that to go any further we had to book an appointment inside the internet. I asked my brother if we had to download some sort of lubricant and just jump into the fibres but he shook his head and told me that the internet does not work like that. Gaming was not supposed to be like this, I thought, and we turned the machine off and left the room for ten seconds, then returned and booted it up again only to find that nothing had changed.

Perhaps a booting of another kind was in order we thought simultaneously, our eyes recognising the sentiment in the other. But we kept trying, albeit less so myself because… because, I was there and experiencing all the glory of the infinite sub-menus, each crashing into the next and on its way to that which would follow. And there at the end of infinity were the two of us.

“I think it might want to know your email address to let you use the controller,” my brother said, aware of who he was saying this to.
“That’s the end of that then,” I said.
“Yup.”
A pause.
“Not like the old days is it?”
“Not so much.”
And that was that.

To any that it may practically behove, video game entertainment is not akin to classic car ownership. You should not be tinkering for a morning before the action. I do not mean to sound old and embittered but since I already do I’ll ask what is it that the makers of these things want? Money, like an arcade?

“Video game entertainment is not akin to classic car ownership.
You should not be tinkering for a morning before the action.”

If that’s the case then, here: take my 50 pence pieces. I’ll cram you a whole fistful. At least then I can get on with business.

Arcades understood things. If you had the pocket money then it was game if you were but if not it was the cold shoulder of the attract sequence over and over again. That sounds a shade close to prostitution, and to be fair my first brush with prostitution did arise as a consequence of needing to gather arcade money from around the back of a bowling alley, but that is an entirely different story (and one equally as made up).

I think the point is, if I have to try and round this up, that menus are not fun. Not in coffee shops, nor in overly ambitious pub restaurants, and are certainly not to be sniffed within a league of video games. It is bad enough that when I go to watch a DVD I must first be presented with a menu before the film plays as if it has shown me to my seat or something.

Good grief, if I am going to do something as light entertainment as play games then it follows that I have not the mind-to-menu faculties that you are looking for. Just tell me where you want the money and let’s get on with it.