Fighting Against Muscle Memory

Gamers know of the muscle memory as their friend. It is the term they use when they sit down to play some Mike Tyson's Punch Out after many years and without thought pound their way through several opponents. But there is a negative muscle memory.

We've all had this situation occur; a particular part of a game is kicking our ass, and we play it over and over again. Soon we have a set pattern of which to do things. We know where enemies are going to appear, and we act accordingly.

We start to hit a groove, but then it starts to slowly unravel. The more times we die, the more frustrating it becomes. Soon we are absolutely sick of playing the game up to that point, so we begin to take shortcuts. And we die earlier, and earlier, and earlier. We're over confident, and the game knows it.

I was obsessed with Star Fox 64 in high school. I played the game so much in trying to get all the medals for every stage, that I had enemy patterns memorized. I knew exactly where enemies would appear, how many there would be, and which one I would have to lock onto in order to take them all down with one blast.

Despite those obsessive skills, Aquas was the bane of my existence. I could never get enough hits to get a medal there. It was one of the last 2 or 3 levels I needed to do. I would immediately know prior to reaching the boss whether I would be able to get enough kills to get a medal, and I'd reset the level if I didn't.

It was so frustrating that despite only needing 2 or 3 more medals to unlock whatever it was that you unlocked, I traded the game with someone at school. Obviously I regretted this action a few years later, and bought a new copy when I saw one at the pawn shop.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago. For some reason I made a "Do a barrel roll!" joke to my wife who clearly had no idea what I was referring to. Either way, it gave me the itch and I popped in Star Fox 64.

The copy I now had was completely medal-less, obviously the prior owner was not as obsessed as I was. But I got to work quickly and soon arrived at Aquas. I furiously pounded the torpedo and laser buttons, not remembering the order in which enemies would come.

To my surprise I arrived at the boss with an "Oh shit, this might happen" type of score, and of course it happened. I got the medal on my first attempt in at least 5 years of not having played the game, and without any of my past strategies.

So is muscle memory our friend or our enemy? It could be used to explain how we never lost our skills at a game despite a long absence, or the rut that we get into when trying to accomplish a very difficult task. I won't say for sure as it could be either. Just be forewarned, and be sure to watch your back around this particularly tricky phenomena.