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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 3636
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 Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:40 am Post subject: "What the heck am I doing?" |
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From an article in the Globe and Mail:
| Quote: | But an hour into actually playing Twilight Princess, I had a crisis of sorts: I was controlling Link, the elfin hero, and to get him a slingshot I had to round up goats on a horse named Epona, retrieve a stolen cradle from a hopping monkey and catch a fish for the shopkeeper’s cat. And I thought, what the heck am I doing?
This is what past generations must have called adulthood: the moment you stop caring about whether Link saves Zelda. |
Now I will say basically what that guy said in about 5 times as many words:
The other day, I was playing Mario 64 for the first time in a long while. I don't often play games for their own sake- most First Person Shooters I give up playing after about 10 minutes. A game has to be pretty special for me to keep coming back to it, and Mario 64 is well-crafted to the point where I'll still dig it out to this day.
I found myself playing in a way only possible through an intimate over-familiarity with the game and all its nuances. I took short cuts that hopped, skipped and jumped over steep slopes that led into bottomless pits. I stood on King Whomp's head as he frantically span around trying to find me, and I did a breakdance. Without really thinking about it, I was playing with a fluidity that treated the game not as a series of goals to be achieved but as a playground over which I had complete mastery. You could say I was playing this masterpiece to its full potential, since Miyamoto always said he wanted people to see his games as little worlds that you can dig out every now and again to revisit and roam around in, and Mario 64 has certainly become that, for me. And I suddenly felt a strange sensation I hadn't felt before;
I'm 23 years old. I shouldn't be leaping around a playground pretending to be a baby with a moustache.
It was liked I reached gaming nirvana and found myself too big for it. I'm not just talking about the game's subject matter- Gears of War doesn't excite me for the same reason I stopped reading Judge Dredd comics. I mean there was a gnawing sensation that soon, there will be nothing there for me in these games.
Has anyone else felt like this? |
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kirkjerk
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Joined: 12 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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As a 32 year old, I'm in some of the same boat, perhaps even moreso.
It's a fairly slipperly slope to existential question of what are the big things you want out of life, and what are the small things you're wiling to give up to achieve those goals, and even that age old "what's the point of it all".
I'm less enthused about games than in my past, even with nifty stuff like the Wii coming out. Maybe some of that is that, proportionally, there's less change in games. The decade between the N64 and the Wii seem less important, in terms of what games can do than the 8 between the Atari 2600 and the NES, or the 12 between the NES and the N64. Or maybe I'm just getting older, more time constrained, and surrounded by fewer gaming buddies.
I'm going to repeat myself a bit here, but I find it helpful to figure out what drives my interest in games. For some people its challenge, for other its involvement in an intriguing story... it can be lots of things. For me I've determined, it's mostly seeking novel interactions, virtual or otherwise (like in the case of the Wii) I want to interact with a world in a way that seems new and interesting. And in the case of a game in a non-abstract setting, I find it cooler if it's less blatantly contrived to be a game world...
And that's where the new Zelda stumbles a bit... the wolf factor does bring something new to the table, and the new controls shake things up a bit, but so far it still seems like a carefully contructed series of puzzles to get through, a long with (so far at least) variations on a previous theme story telling. |
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Lestrade
Bug Fister
Joined: 24 Mar 2005
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Location: Toronto
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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I just read that article a few hours ago here at the office. Then I thought, "fuck that, all I can think about is playing Zelda!"
What's worse, being an elf or pretending to be a womanizing gangsta?
I have similar moments of apathy towards games, but they are never absolute. Some days you don't want to save the princes, some days you do. |
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helicopterp
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Joined: 13 May 2006
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Location: Philadelphia
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Lestrade wrote: | | Some days you don't want to save the princes |
Those silly boys are always getting into trouble.
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chompers po pable
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Joined: 10 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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i hear you harvey. sometimes i think that videogames are like a hamsters wheel, like a pointless insult to my meager existence. and my front door is like the door of the hamsters cage.
i think that moderation is important in life, although i rarely practice moderation, so. i usually go through cycles of interest/obsession with music, art, videogames, books, love (what is love...). the constants in my life are work, school, and to a lesser degree (mainly due to the internet, videogames, and me being slovenly) friends.
anyways, yes, sometimes i just escape my head for a moment and look at what i'm doing and wonder why i do it. because silly, really.
in conclusion, we should get together and make a short film about your epiphany. there's a lot of humor in the whole relization process you had with mario 64, as well as being an experience/message worth relating. |
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Lestrade wrote: | | What's worse, being an elf or pretending to be a womanizing gangsta? |
Lump being a womanizing gangsta in with Gears of War in my original post. Being an Elf or a baby with a moustache don't trade on the same adolescent power fantasies and so is actually more mature, in a way. It's not like the problem is that the protagonists aren't masculine enough.
I don't think that guy was having a pop at Zelda specifically. He chose to talk about Zelda because he sees it as representing the state of the art. Like he says, ' Set it next to 99.9 per cent of video games and it shines'.
We should definitely make a short film about this because there aren't enough films about the existential crisises of moneyed white 20-somethings regarding how they spend their leisure time! |
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chompers po pable
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Joined: 10 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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you're right, i mean whites lol. we should instead do a neorealistic look into peoples lives that actually matter.
edit--maybe show the disillusioned young urban white professional dropping everything to do volunteer work in Africa or something. still, if all films dealt with universally relevant issues, we wouldn't have many films left. i still like the original idea better.
Last edited by chompers po pable on Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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| I can imagine it being pretty funny actually. I can't say I wasn't sitting there thinking about how I would make that movie. |
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chompers po pable
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Joined: 10 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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| right, some of the absurdity would be lost with a real issue, so. |
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GSL
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Joined: 16 Nov 2005
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Location: Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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The Gamer's Quarter
Some days, you just don't want to save the princess. |
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Lockeownzj00
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Joined: 16 Aug 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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I understand what you're saying. I think, considering how much time we've all spent with videogames, that they will forever be a part of our identity in some capacity. But I don't think you should be afraid of this...growing lack of interest.
Sure, it might be disappointing to some, but you shouldn't feel the need to justify it. You can't be "hardcore" forever. Maybe you're morphing into another kind of gamer. These phases are natural.
| Quote: | | sometimes i think that videogames are like a hamsters wheel, like a pointless insult to my meager existence. |
I guess, but that's all art, isn't it? A movie or a book or anything, really. When you boil it down, it really is prostitution of the mind, but...it's great, isn't it? It's gratifying. And if I have to prostitute my mind to get it to feel gratified over and over again...well. I think I will.
Prostitution is probably a bad analogy, though, since it implies art as kind of perfunctory, when it leaves a much more lasting effect on you as a person. Whatevs. |
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chompers po pable
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Joined: 10 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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right, though what kind of lasting impression is gained from breakdancing on king whomps back? i mean, comparing (most) videogames to film, literature, music, seems like a wierd analogy to me.
| Greatsaintlouis wrote: | The Gamer's Quarter
Some days, you just don't want to save the princes. |
fixed. |
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Nana Komatsu
weak sauce
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Posts: 1293
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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| I loved that Final Fantasy Twelve had a joke about sending you on a fetch quest in the beginning of the game. |
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| What was it? |
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Lockeownzj00
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Joined: 16 Aug 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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I disagree. Compare "most" films with "most" literature and "most" music and it's the same across the board--there's a lot of trite, pointless crap. Would you deny that playing games as a whole having made a lasting impact on you? I'm sure you could name specific instances.
Besides, I didn't say "edifying," I said "lasting impact." |
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
Posts: 420
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 6:18 pm Post subject: Re: "What the heck am I doing?" |
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| GlobeandMail wrote: | ], and to get him a slingshot I had to round up goats on a horse named Epona, retrieve a stolen cradle from a hopping monkey and catch a fish for the shopkeeper’s cat. And I thought, what the heck am I doing?
. |
I wonder what the GlobeandMail writer would make of Earthbound? (or on the otherhand Shadow of the Colossus). |
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dessgeega
loves your favorite videogame
Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 6563
Location: bohan
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 6:24 pm Post subject: Re: "What the heck am I doing?" |
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| GlobeandMail wrote: | | to get him a slingshot I had to round up goats on a horse named Epona, retrieve a stolen cradle from a hopping monkey and catch a fish for the shopkeeper’s cat. |
this kind of irrelevent fetchquestery is actually why i avoid most rpgs and adventure games.
| zarf, writing about the longest journey, wrote: | And yet -- I can always sense the pull of Grandpa Same-Old-Same-Old, pulling the designers back into the rut. In between the clever puzzles -- and outnumbering them -- are acres of tedious hoops to jump through. Talk to the character to learn the clue. Listen to the blatant pointer on what to do next. Collect the arbitrary piece of junk. Use your inventory to rig the incredibly contrived scenario which just happens to divert/satisfy/scare the utterly implausible NPC. Watch the sense of realism dribble down the tubes, as you follow the designers' monkey dance of plot contrivance.
It all turned into cliches ten years ago -- and everyone forgot to quit. Most of these games have long since passed into self-parody, right? I only saw bits of the Leisure Suit Larry series, but I remember a lot of mockery of its own genre. Certainly Grim Fandango had plenty of winks and nudges. I missed the first three Monkey Island games, but the fourth one had a terrible fetid air of jokes run into the ground. (For the two hours I managed to play, before flinging it across the room.)
And those are games which are supposed to be funny. The Longest Journey is trying to be serious work -- but half the time, it's buried in the same hackneyed game structures! Escape from Monkey Island foists these puzzle formats on us with a wry, "look how silly it all is" shrug. Now I'm supposed to take them seriously? When I'm buying a flute to play for the superstitious sea captain so he'll sign a delivery slip? When I'm cheating the gambler to win the talking bird to give to the lonely sailor so he'll get me a berth on the ship? I'm sorry. It's bunk. If that's what the audience wants, the audience is not on my planet. |
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dark steve
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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siberia really was the worst game ever
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Nana Komatsu
weak sauce
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Harveyjames wrote: | | What was it? |
An NPC says something like "Oh but I need my tools to open this gate, can you go fetch them for me? *press a* I'm just kidding, I know you hate it when I make you do stuff like that" |
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Nana Komatsu wrote: |
An NPC says something like "Oh but I need my tools to open this gate, can you go fetch them for me? *press a* I'm just kidding, I know you hate it when I make you do stuff like that" |
Does it then send you on a bunch of fetch quests? If so it reminds me of the time in Majora's Mask where you have to find the Bomber-Kids and your evil fairy complains why do we have to waste time doing this rubbish (paraphrased). But you still have to find them (at least the first time). |
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Nana Komatsu
weak sauce
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| No, it doesn't. I mean, there are a couple fetch quests in the game, but not immediately after they did the joke. Most of them are optional, I can only really think of two that happened in the game, one before the joke and another much later in the game. |
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helicopterp
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Location: Philadelphia
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Ketch wrote: | | and your evil fairy complains why do we have to waste time doing this rubbish |
Because if you don't the bomber kids won't tell you the password and then give you their notebook so you can keep track of all the other things you're fetching for people and then let you go into the observatory and talk to the freaky scarecrow and the freakier astronomer and see the moon cry and retrieve its tear-stone-thing that you can trade to the deku plant so you can take his spot to launch yourself up to the door in the clock so you can shoot magic bubbles at a fucked up skull kid and make him drop your ocarina so that you can play the song to go back in time and save the game before the moon crashes into the world and destroys it all, COME ON!
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helicopterp
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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Reading back over that, the analogy of Zelda gameplay being like a run-on sentence occurred to me.
(I actually lovelovelove Majora's Mask, though.)
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Lackey
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dhex
Breeder
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Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 12:26 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | When you boil it down, it really is prostitution of the mind |
hardly.
the transmission of culture is an important thing. games aren't that important in this scheme, however.
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kirkjerk
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 9:51 am Post subject: |
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Heh.
One weird thing is when you think "oh crikey, maybe I'm becoming a 'casual gamer'"
Like back in the day you might scratch your head at a guy who got a N64 with Mario Kart and Mario 64, but never got past a few rooms in Mario 64, but now... I can kind of see that. Every semiserious gamers probably amasses a bunch of games that they'll never get around to playing, but as you get older, it seems like that's the case even with games you might recognize as "important"... |
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:33 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah. You start to realise this is a two way-street, you don't need to put any more into games than you think you're going to get out of them. Sometimes, you should put in less! |
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Rud13
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Joined: 01 Jul 2005
Posts: 130
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Lockeownzj00 wrote: | I disagree. Compare "most" films with "most" literature and "most" music and it's the same across the board--there's a lot of trite, pointless crap. Would you deny that playing games as a whole having made a lasting impact on you? I'm sure you could name specific instances.
Besides, I didn't say "edifying," I said "lasting impact." |
Except great video games have no where reached the caliber that is great films or music.
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grumbel
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Rud13 wrote: | | Except great video games have no where reached the caliber that is great films or music. |
I disagree. Sure in terms of storyline most games are weak and even those that aren't might not be a match against the best films out there, but games are not only about story.
Games such as Mario64 or SuperMarioBros3 still stand out for me due to their pretty much perfect execution and I consider them unmatched even 10 or 15 years later and I doubt that will change any time soon, simply because they did what they do very close to abosolute perfection. Another game, even so a different genre, that stands out as well is Another World/Out of this World, it is probally the work of fiction that has influenced me by far the most, in almost all aspects (technical, story, gameplay, ...). Its just so wastly different from everything else of its time that it is mind blowing and beside maybe ICO and SotC nothing has ever came close to what it achieved.
Just because games do something else then a movie, doesn't mean that they can't achieve the same level of greatness. |
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Right, no-one judges great albums by the storyline. |
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
Posts: 420
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| grumbel wrote: |
Games such as Mario64 or SuperMarioBros3 still stand out for me due to their pretty much perfect execution and I consider them unmatched even 10 or 15 years later and I doubt that will change any time soon,
well is Another World/Out of this World, it is probally the work of fiction that has influenced me by far the most, in almost all aspects (technical, story, gameplay, ...). Its just so wastly different from everything else of its time that it is mind blowing and beside maybe ICO and SotC nothing has ever came close to what it achieved.
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The idea that occurs to me is that it must be possible to combine the gameplay variety of Super Mario 3/World, with the atmosphere and ('un'gameyness) of Another World/ Ico. So that we would get an evocative world combined with the variety and ingenious arrangement of game elements that we see in Mario.
Indeed, "arrangement" seems to be the right word for Mario games. They are put together almost like a song. |
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kirkjerk
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Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 1227
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Ketch wrote: | | The idea that occurs to me is that it must be possible to combine the gameplay variety of Super Mario 3/World, with the atmosphere and ('un'gameyness) of Another World/ Ico. So that we would get an evocative world combined with the variety and ingenious arrangement of game elements that we see in Mario. |
Yes! And maybe we can have an elf-ish main character, a bit like the lad in Ico, but maybe... I dunno, in green? And to describe the combination of these genres we could call him Link!
(Sorry, that was just my thought, especially when I realized how Ico-influenced the Twilight World of Zelda seems to be)
There's a bit of a contradiction, or at least a creative tension: the more dramatic and storyish your setting, the more awkward goofy Mario-like puzzles and interactions seem. As far as I can tell, Zelda might be the zenith of the overlap. |
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dongle
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Joined: 25 Nov 2006
Posts: 290
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| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:57 am Post subject: |
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| Lackey wrote: | | Doesn't everything become "do this before you can do that" after a point? |
Maybe, in the design documents, but I'll go back to Zelda to differentiate between types of sequence mechanics.
In Zelda 1, it was necessary to fetch a raft to take a trip to an island dungeon. The raft was directly related in the game world to getting across a body of water.
Having to fish to catch a cat to appease an NPC to open an arbitrary block in your progression is irritating and insulting.
Finding a Power Glove is kind of exciting: how can I use this to manipulate or traverse the environment? There's no such thought regarding an NPC making a magical barrier disappear.
Also, I'm only 22, but I also find Mario/Zelda games less immature than GTA and God of War/Gears of War. I think I got in an e-fight with SuperWes on IC about God of War being patronizing. (<3 superwes) But there are times when I am playing Phoenix Wright or Trauma Center and some of the dialogue makes me feel like I'm still 13 and reading Shonen Jump (as much as I love both of those games). |
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Neal
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Joined: 13 Nov 2006
Posts: 36
Location: Tennessee
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| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:28 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Just because games do something else then a movie, doesn't mean that they can't achieve the same level of greatness. |
| Quote: | | Right, no-one judges great albums by the storyline. |
I agree with both these statements but when I think of a really great movie or a really great album, while they are both unique in their own right, the one thing they have in common is their ability to serve as a sense of inspiration, like the perfect song on the radio while I am driving somewhere at night by myself and the way watching a Wes Anderson movie makes me feel.
This is just me, but I have never had a game inspire me in a way that makes me fully aware of the relevancy in the moment.
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| dongle wrote: |
In Zelda 1, it was necessary to fetch a raft to take a trip to an island dungeon. The raft was directly related in the game world to getting across a body of water.
Having to fish to catch a cat to appease an NPC to open an arbitrary block in your progression is irritating and insulting. |
1.Yes, this is an important point. It makes it more obvious that what you are doing is silly and immaterial. I'd like to see a game which integrates all the challenges in a meaningful way as in Shadow of the Colossus.
2. I think that a strong part of the problem is that as Harvey James notes, he was playing at a level where it wasn't about achieving 'challenging goals'. In fact I think this comesdown to the concept of "Flow", which I believe demands that the think you are doing is challenging. If, you have mastered a game and it no longer provides serious challenges (mental, or physical) then what are you doing? You are playing with toys, and mucking about with no real purpose in mind. Therefore, it may be fun. But it won't be particularly satisfying.
3. There is no real spiritual element to games. And what there is, is most often negative. This can be seen either religiously, or just in terms of "not being inspiring". As already mentioned, what do we take from games that really benefits our hearts in real life? |
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