Games are onslaughts of sight and sound, and with rumbling controllers, even touch. But have you ever wondered what all 1,000+ Pokémon smell like? Because we have. With the news of a weird device called GameScent, we’ve rounded up a list of which game worlds we’re most curious to get a whiff of – for better or worse.
With its hexagonal shape and gaudy lights, the GameScent itself looks right at home among other gaming peripherals. It’s basically a diffuser that puffs out different smell canisters based on what’s happening on screen – whether that’s games, or even just TV and movies. Scents vary from pleasant, like Forest, Ocean and Storm, to questionable, like Gunfire, Explosions and yes, Blood. The idea is to help immerse you in the game (or movie) world, apparently thanks to AI that figures out what smell is needed by listening to the audio.
The whole stunt reminds us of Smell-O-Vision, a technology to pump scents into theaters that was used for exactly one movie before being abandoned. The idea was later sent-up by John Waters with Polyester, which plied audiences with the scent of roses to get them breathing nice and deeply, after which they quickly found themselves huffing farts and stinky shoes.
Whether it’s a good idea or not, it got us wondering which video game series we’d want to play with a perfect-world version of GameScent – that is, one that actually works, packs an unlimited range of smells, and knows when to let 'er rip to match the onscreen action.
Pokémon
One of the most comprehensive worlds in all of gaming, it’s hard to imagine a place with a more varied scentscape than Pokémon. Even just among the critters themselves – half of them are literally flowers, after all, and sometimes you just have to stop and smell the Roselias. Mr. Mime, meanwhile, looks like he gives off a pleasant cotton candy waft.
Others might have us busting out the nose pegs. Machamp – a gym junkie with four armpits – would surely have a bit of a locker-room stank to him. And then there’s Trubbish, literally just a sentient bag of trash. Battling these guys would have a bit more of a sense of urgency with a GameScent in the room.
Would Fidough smell like baking bread or wet dog? These are the questions that keep us up at night.
Minecraft
Another world with a rich olfactory potential, for better or worse. A stroll through Minecraft’s pointy pine forests or jagged jungles would be made all the sweeter with the piped-in scents of grass and trees and oceans. Even being met with the damp, earthy smell when you venture into a cave could be surprisingly nice. If you cop a whiff of gunpowder though, you better be on the lookout – one of those stealthy Creeper bastards is probably nearby.
Resident Evil
This one is more of a challenge than anything. Those musty old mansions would have a characteristic smell that would only heighten the creep factor, and being ambushed by zombies would be way scarier if you were gagging on the taste of rotten flesh at the same time.
And let’s not forget that later games have you strolling through sewers, filthy villages, and the black mold-coated Baker house. Just imagine that infamous dinner scene from Resident Evil 7 (above) with perfectly-timed blasts of “eau de entrails.” This is one game we can just about smell without the GameScent.
Overcooked
Okay, we need a palate cleanser after that. Depending on who you ask, Overcooked is either a casual, couch co-op game or a chaotic friendship tester, so it’s hard to tell which way the pendulum would swing with the addition of smells. Maybe the aroma of baking pizza would be calming. Or maybe the acrid stench of your idiot kitchen hand burning the burgers AGAIN would launch you into a Gordon Ramsey rant.
The Last of Us
There’s probably only one word to describe the smell of a world overrun by fungi – damp. Not one indoor location in either the Last of Us game (or the TV series) looks like somewhere we want to be sticking our noses. Maybe at best, it’ll have notes of truffles, but honestly, those kind of still smell like expensive farts anyway.
And look, we’re just gonna say it – personal hygiene is not gonna be a priority in any post-apocalyptic world. If the GameScent has an “Unwashed” canister, it’s gonna drain pretty quick. And that's not just for Joel and Ellie, but for an awful lot of games. We've never seen Master Chief squat by a river and scrub his undies, the pong coming up through the neck hole of his helmet must be eye-watering by now.
If you actually want to buy a GameScent and try it out, they’re currently US$149.99 on Amazon, and include the scents of gunfire, explosion, racing, storm, forest and an odor neutralizer. Ocean, grass, zombie, blood, city and other scents will apparently release later. Jolly good!
What games would you like to see enhanced with this technology?
Source: GameScent