Mashup Culture Runs into Gaming Culture

By this point, I think most of us are familiar with the mashup. The most notable mashups that come up usually involve music or film.

i.e. Girl Talk:

i.e. Kate’s last post about Buffy and Twilight or, one of my favorites, “40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes:”

But! Check this out. Now, people are mashing together different kinds of video games. Seriously, go play Tuper Tario Tros. This flash game combines Mario Bros. and Tetris (both personal nostalgic favorites) into one game, where it is necessary to switch back and forth between the two in order to win the game. I find this particularly interesting, because instead of the mashup living in the traditional static manner, this forces the consumer to interact with the mashup and to decide when to switch from one to the other. It’s a new era of mashup.

Other video games like DJ Hero have similar vibes, but a player cannot independently decide when to switch over. The challenge there is to follow what is already constructed. Plus, it’s still jazzing off the the same music mash idea, but Tuper Tario Tros doesn’t and it’s totally up to the player to decide when to switch over. If the player thinks that they can get Mario to make a jump, then they can stay in Mario Bros. mode, but if they’d like the extra help of some blocks, then they can switch over to Tetris mode to build up a bridge or something. It gives the player choice.

If we want to analyze this youngerish generation as being a remix culture, then this creation of choice is crazy pertinent. Doesn’t this indicate that in this progressing remix culture, it’s not only important to be able to bring our multiple resources together, but to choose when we do so and to choose how we interact with it. Ooooo, I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

(Tuper Tario Tros link via facebook.)