1337speak in games

(Written April 15th, 2006)

In City of Heroes there's a mission boss called "Teh PwNxx0rz!" (spelling mught be off), who has the exceedingly rare (for all I know, unique) trait of saying something when he defeats a hero; namely, "PWN3D!"

Now I'm playing Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, and fairly early on I run into a pair of turtles, evidently mind-controlled by their helmets. One states: "AREA RESTRICTED. ALL NOOB INTRUDERS 2 B HAXOERED BY US L33T HAMM3R BROZ.!", to which the other follows: "WE R TEH SHROOB [shroobs are the bad guys] ALLIES. WE ROXOR U AND THEN ROFL. THEN U AM CRY. WE RECIEVE ORDERS THRU ANTENNAS ON THESE L33T HELMETS. THEY R HOTNESS. WE MUST OBEY ALL ORDERS. WE LIKE 2 PWN NOOBS 4 TEH MASTER SHROOBZORS. U = NOOBS. BROZ. = L33T. PREPARE 4 TOTAL PWNAGE. WOOT! WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!" They then abduct adult-Mario and adult-Luigi with a machine, leaving the babies behind. They move into attack position, and one says: "NOOBZ STILL R NOT PWND. CONTINUE PWNERSHIP UNTIL ALL NOOBZ R PWND." The other recaps the conversation: "TEH ESCAPE IS IMPOSSIBLE. WE R 2 L33T. WE OWNZ JOO. U WILL GET FLATZORED BY R L33T HAMMERS."

Now, besides the fact that one is an MMO and the other is quite possibly the hardest RPG I've ever played, I think they stand as solid examples at the pervasiveness of internet culture; it's one thing for people to know it, it's another to have such confidence in it that you include it in your game in an extremely overt way, to the point that players could be hypothetically befuddled by an entire character introduction, as above.

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