The Utility of Computer Games

Years ago, when I still wanted to become a computer games journalist, I wrote a couple short essays about the utility of computer games. Tonight I want to write my final conclusions, now that I only use games to socialize and maintain my Spanish comprehension.

First then -- what are computer games definitely good for?

1) Maintaining comprehension of a foreign language (especially for the taciturn). Many of today's big budget games come with full voice work in a language you're probably studying; and in the future, this fact will probably be even more so, as budgets and audiences get bigger. 

Computer game characters often give you hints and directions; if you're playing the game in a different language, and you want to win, chances are you'll listen carefully to what those computer people say.

2) Socializing. As they are games. This may be hard for many to believe (especially considering the 80+ hour, single-player, role-playing game), but games which have or often produce dramatic stories can be fun to watch & share. 

Games have such a long history of promoting solidarity that I'll end this self-evident point here.

3) A novel experience. If you've never played a first-person shooter, then, if you want to see all that life has to offer, you should check out a good one if you can. Play Portal. Play Left 4 Dead 2 on your PC or Mac or Linux-based computer, and make sure you have Skype, a mic, and a few good friends. And I could list other genres and their games, but I won't because the point's simple: some computer games offer something vivid and unique; they are an amalgamation of film, music, sculpture, architecture, literature, painting, drawing, game design, and simulation. With exposure to the best of this fairly new art form, you'll be a more rounded person (unless you play too many of them, of course). Also, remember that most sequels exist only to please shareholders and make corporations richer.

And that's basically it. Everything else that it's purportedly good for are petty. 

Let's go through them.

For example: mapping a space (or to be more precise, being able to map an environment efficiently and accurately, and thus navigate it well without help). There's been plenty of research over the years showing this; but really, who cares? You're going to develop this skill simply by doing it in real life, starting when you're a child. And although I'm sure there are people with special needs for whom games can give them that extra skill-boost, that special needs group is minuscule.

What about fun? Sure, some games are fun, a lot of fun, even. But fun isn't a good argument because a lot of things that are even funner and cheaper than computer games are fun, such as friends. Indeed, my experience has shown that friends generally are the funnest part of a game experience, and in life in general. Plus life for many was quite fun (game experience-wise) before computer games took off. 

Not to say the fun argument is totally empty. Rather, I think that THAT they can be fun is a quality that embeds itself into those first three things above that games are definitely good for.

What about problem-solving skills? The argument against this is the same as the space-mapping one. Chances are you'll take many math classes, up through calculus if you expect to get into or through a good four-year university/college. Also in school, you'll do extra-curricular activities and whatnot (if you expect to compete with your peers). Plus you'll play (non-computer game) games that practice your problem-solving. Plus most days you solve manifold problems while not playing games. So, no. Problem solving doesn't cut it.

Concomitant to problem solving: creativity and intelligence? To the creativity argument: if you can't make a living by playing computer games (which is most of us), then you're better off becoming more creative by creating something for which people will pay you a living wage. And as for intelligence? Well, reading, exercise, socializing, and being healthy in general are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better at boosting your intelligence than computer games are (and, statistically-speaking, are lacking in most people's lives, especially those of most computer gamers'). Not to say that computer games can't boost these things (or that there aren't people with special needs for whom computer games aren't especially useful), but, if you look at the most important 20-30 somethings in the world, you'll notice that they've spent way more time reading and being-healthy-in-general than they have playing computer games; in fact, chances are you'll find that computer games have composed little (if any) of their spare time.

Also, I should mention: simulation. Computer games can simulate things that are too expensive or dangerous to practice in the real world. But currently this only affects a very small portion of us, so I don't include this as an apology for gaming as a hobby.

AAAAAAAND that's pretty much it. In short, computer games DO have a place. It's just important (if we actually value our lives) that we accept what those places are. Too often I hear gamers say that "It's just my personal preference and....I play computer games therefore I am," and similar nonsense that science refuted decades ago. 

In the meantime, I'm excited about the indie game Mewgenics, and today I'll play a little bit of the indie game Surgeon Simulator 2013.

Not Going to be a Games Critic

I just realized that I can't become a games journalist because my opinions on games are too unorthodox and I don't have anything sexy to offer the gaming readership. So it makes no sense, in every sense, to become a games critic.

This also means I cannot become a professional games journalist, as reviewing takes up a good third (or more) of their work.

So goodbye again.

Extra Note to "I Might Return"

There might be better work out there for me that I'm just unaware of. This sounds terrible, of course. I'm 25 and should know about all the things I can do and what of those I'd care about. But I admit that I might not.

And so I'll pursue this other thing for now, and in my spare time (of which there'll be little) I will do curious things.

If I fail at what I'm doing, or if I can't find anything else, I might return.

I'm trying to become an occupational therapist. I will look into playing piano, singing, acting, maybe even dancing, and definitely humor writing.

I Might Return

I can't stop thinking about computer games, and I can't stop wanting to talk about them.

I don't like reviewing most games because I don't care about most games. But isn't that natural? Can anyone find a games journalist who cares about most games?

Now I'm starting to think that I abandoned games journalism because, and really only because, I was afraid that I'd never get a job in it.

That's not a small thing. The pragmatic person in me says I should take time to make sure I can do something else, something I enjoy, even if I don't care about it nearly as much as I do computer gaming. At least I'll have an enjoyable job, and I'll be able to pay my bills.

But I do have TO CARE about the bill-payer, otherwise I'm just waiting to die, experiencing, now and then, some of the cool works of games-makers.

I will pursue these other things for now. If time permits, or if I simply fail at this other thing, I might return to games journalism.

The Binding of Isaac (Wrath of the Lamb) is better than Super Meat Boy

I found out why The Binding of Isaac (TWoTL) felt repetive: it was because I was playing it tooooo muuuch.

And now to the main topic. Why's  The BoI (TWoTL) better than Super Meat Boy?

Simple: The Binding of Isaac gives you a lot more interesting stuff to see and do. There are thousands of combinations of items (and looks for your naked Bible children); there are many different bosses (which ones will you fight this round? Who knows?); there's even a more interesting story (for an arcade-style computer game, that is).

Super Meat Boy, meanwhile, has this for its story: rescue your girlfriend. And many of the levels feature, basically, the same exact stuff, just arranged differently.

This isn't to say that SMB isn't worth 15 dollars. But having said that, there's no need to finish the game because once you've played enough of it, you've played enough of it; there's really nothing more to see. And based on my experience I'm not even sure if it gets more challenging near the end, if that's what you're into.

The Binding of Isaac (with The Wrath of the Lamb DLC), on the otherhand, is nine dollars.

The Binding of Isaac Gets Repetitive

Eeeeh, I didn't see this coming. With the same monsters and bosses fought many times, those enemies, a great portion of the personality of their game, become uninteresting, and thus their game uninteresting. It is a case of the "familiarity breeds contempt."...Minus the "contempt" part...More like "boredom," then.

(Some humans say that people even get kinda bored of having sex with the same, admittedly super hot person, after having had them enough times. Well - maybe not "bored"; although the proverbial person would most certainly prefer someone new eventually; preferably someone experienced and in their young-twenties and STD-less.)

What were we discussing? Oh yeah. The Binding.

So, will I finish it?

Maaay-be.

A decade from now.

What I really want to write here, though, is why I decided not to become a games journalist. I've already written a two-page long essay on the subject to a friend, so to you -- dear, maybe-reading-this, reader -- I say: I decided not to be a journalist because I don't give a damn about journalisming.

I know that many other writer types opine that not giving a damn shouldn't deter one from seeking whatever it was those writers were talking about; I didn't really listen. All I know is that I don't care about providing people the news and analyses and facts and other whatever-who-cares.

And there's also the "now it's nearly impossible to obtain employment in games journalism" thing.

This post is boring.

A POST!

I have something games-related! So, I shall write about it on this blog that no one reads!

Yesterday I watched most of a StarCraft II tournament. The kind with a live audience of 1000+ people, with shoutcasters (live sports commentators) and giant screens for the audience to watch the game.

I watched the tournament to see if watching the most exciting sport was fun.

Yes - StarCraft II is the most exciting sport. Proof - In your typical non-computer game sport, the "ball will be in play." In StarCraft II, "the mothership, the Zerg, and nukes are in play."

But back to the real question: was watching a tournament (online) fun?

No, not really.

The shout casters, including the usually fun Day9, spoke as if in chains, never swearing or telling creative jokes. [Was it one of the sponser's (Red Bull's) rules? No colorful commentary?] And too many of the games weren't close ones. StarCraft II, like any other sport, doesn't actually provide many unique shows. But now and then it shows intense, close matches. Close matches involving alien races killing each other in space.

But the unfortunate thing about a tournament is that there's no promise the next X number of matches will be close. And when the matches aren't close, the drama doesn't hold up, and the show ends up mostly boring, a boringness exacerbated by that lack of colorful dialogue from the leashed shoutcasters.

So, unless you're emotionally attached to a team or a player, don't watch StarCraft II tournaments. It doesn't give you enough for your time.

(Funday Monday on the Day9 Daily is fun, though)

Done

Changed my mind. I'm done with games journalism. All I really want to write are poo poo jokes.

Good bye.

Three More Games

"I won't be a games journalist." Yeah, that might be too strong. I suspect that there may be non-review jobs.

"I suspect"? Well...that probably means that there aren't.

OK. I'm going to review three more games and make a final decision over that question: Do I care about writing reviews?

Right now I think the answer is no. And if that answer is "no," I will just write humor, satire, and short stories, and submit the humor to games sites that want them.

A Good Review

Okay, I'm postponing the end of serious posts.

I have decided not to stop trying to be a games journalist, for now.

Again, my issue is the reviews. So far I have not enjoyed writing them. I feel like my reviews of games have been a waste of the hypothetical readers' time, that they've been either unfunny or too long. And there's nothing I can do about the funny part; the average game (that I have played) has been too good to review humorously. [Yatzhee can review even good games humorously because of his drawings which double opportunities for humor.]

I'm not ready to abandon games journalism yet because I think I've found a structure for the typical game review, one which will at least make the "boring" reviews concise and thus useful to the reader.

The structure goes like this:

1) A hook to entice the reader for the coming luscious parts.
2) An explanation of what the game's about: what type of game it is and what the player's role is and what makes the game unique.
3) The things that make the game not as good as it should be.
4) Conclusion; overall opinion of the game and a sexy last sentence.

The better the game, the shorter the review. The worse the game, the longer and funnier the review.

If I can master this format, I think I can grow to like review-writing. But if that doesn't happen, then I'm done with games journalism. And if this divorce occurs, I'm going 100% for humor-writing.

Hold My Horses!

You know what? Before I abandon serious writing (i.e. games reviews), I should do some writing for an actual website. 

Not to say that the amazing Stage-Zer0 is not an actual website. It is! You have to find it on the Internet.

But no one reads Stage-Zer0 (no offense).

Perhaps the reason I'm losing feelings for reviews-writing is that no one reads my reviews.

So, I'm going to fix that. I'm going to write for websites. Starting when I get back from Denmark.

Until then, I'll be here.

DayZ Coop Day Last and Final

NO MOAR!

Upon joining a server, my friend told me that he had been murdered (back on the southern coast, of all places). So he respawned (on the east coast of all places), and agreed to meet me in Berezino, the big city on that coast.

Long story short, he got there first, climbed a ladder to snipe zombies, got hit by a zombie that climbed that ladder, fell through the railing, and broke his legs and died (again). I uninstalled the game.

THE END

DayZ Conclusions

Message to my friend:

Dale! I deleted Arma II (AKA DayZ). I couldn't stand how broken it was and how there was no end game. All you do in DayZ is spawn, sneak around zombies to collect items to not die, and work with your friends to hunt other players. Maybe helicopter-restoring occurs. 

The length of time you survive and the people and zombies you kill do not get saved anywhere. DayZ's creator Dean Hall says, in a future game (which won't be the mod) he would like to add base-building. Until that game comes out, I feel like DayZ mostly wastes the player's time. And it's buggy as hell. My friend kept getting knocked through railings (which is physically impossible) and thus falling to his leg-breaking deaths. My ammo mysteriously disappeared upon joining another server once. Bugs like these are bad.

At the same time, I'm excited to see the games that this mod will create.

Tribes: Ascend (Review) 2nd Opinion

I, like you, read Paul's review of Tribes: Ascend, downloaded the game, and was convinced Paul is dumb as bricks.

Here's the make-up Stage-Zer0 review:

Tribes: Ascend is a team vs. team, PC shooter (played in the first or third person, depending on your preference) in which you zoom across maps at 100-200+ miles per hour. This speeding is done via the game's unique "skiing" mechanic. At least, that's what the game calls it; I like to think of it more as ice skating with guns. You hold down spacebar and the laws of physics glide you across the ground as if there's no friction. And there's still gravity, so what you'll want to do to go fast is jet pack into the sky or to the top of a hill, and "ski" down the hill. When you're skiing brings you to an incline up a hill, jet pack to the top (maintaining your speed) and ski down the new hill, making you go ever faster than before.

The game is free-to-play, although you can unlock tools and weapons with XP you gain in matches or with cash. This is not what prevents the game from being great.

The problem with the game is the auto-balance. It doesn't occur enough. And I'm not even sure it works. What this failure does is makes most matches one-sided, ski-fests. You might as well play waltz in the background.

And yes, this makes the game a waste of your money and, if you continue to play it after learning the new mechanics, a waste of your time.

DayZ Days 4 and 5

Day 4

My Mormon friend and I decided to meet outside of Cherno. But to make things less suicidal we joined a mostly vacant server. Perhaps it was this that convinced my friend to run through that dangerous capitol city. Or maybe it was because I asked him to and he trusted me for some reason.

Anywho, he got everything he ever wanted in twenty minutes in that city, and finally he liked DayZ. I reminded him that, in the five hours he played before, he didn't get as much as he just did now.

After this we trekked northeast, away from the city, for half an hour, traversing a sixth of the map. In a forest we called it a night. It was nighttime in that server.

Day 5

His friends weren't online today. So we changed plans; instead of heading to the east coast where they were trying to restore a UH-1 helicopter, we decided to head towards the center of the map, where the town Stary Sober lay, where a small military post was, where military stuff been?

During our trek there, I told him about how the military post would almost certainly hide a bandit, just waiting for players.

We stopped at a castle. It was nice.

As we neared Stary Sober, I re-realized how big the town was. For one thing, it had a water tower. Towns with water towers usually mean big towns. And big towns in zombie apocalypses have lots of zombies (See? This game does teach useful things).

We began crawling into the town. And then, for whatever reason, a zombie attacked us. We shot it to death. And then ten zombies attacked my Mormon! I killed them (just the zombies), and my Mormon friend went unconcious (in the game). I revived and bandaged him. Then he said something like, "My blood is at 4,000, and I'm seeing black and white." So I gave him my one blood bag, restoring him to full health (12,000).

We attempted to cross the dirt road. For whatever reason related to us standing straight up in the middle of the day with zombies roaming the place, we got attacked by two zombies stumbling from town. After shooting them, twelve zombies attacked! And I nearly died, my AK-74 (tiny edition) felling most of them. My health was at 1,800. The screen was black and white and blurry and blind.

"So much for sneaking into the town and not raising the suspicion level of nearby players." We said.

We sneaked (and by "sneaked" I mean "attracted the attention of a zombie," which failed to follow us up the stairs) up to the second floor of this giant, rusty, metal warehouse. It was my idea. I forgot my friend's tall-buildings curse.

He fell from the second floor and broke his legs.

He bandaged himself, but he was now unable to walk. Crawling became his way. Not the worst thing really, we didn't want anymore zombie attention. And to make him feel better I lied to him by saying that the military camp might have morphene (lying is important). As we neared the military camp - which comprised fifteen of those half-cylinder-shaped, green tents - we were attacked by a horde of zombies. My health, which was at 1,800, went to -300; so I died. My friend survived, however. "Hey Paul! The zombies are eating your body! Lol!" Not that I felt bad about that, because there was not going to be morphine in that camp. "PAUL! I found morphine! I found morphine! And there's just one!"

He fixed his bones and then entered a forest and left the server.

I restarted on the southern coast, determined to go back to that town and get my avatar as loaded as his.

My respawn was near the southern airport. I sneaked into a medical military camp, which was surrounded by barbwire and filled with zombie soldiers. They attacked me, of course, so I climbed a tower. When they got bored of me I climbed down and found the bodies of two players, which were loaded. I took an AK-47 and some ammo. I got out of the camp and ran across the airfield. There was an unarmed player on the runway, running away from me in jubilant fear. I told him he didn't need to fear me but that if he followed me I would kill him.

Once in the forest north of the airfield, I sneaked along the airport to where the control tower was, knowing there would be military loot in it. The tower was surrounded by someone's barbwire. But they didn't barbwire off the ladder. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Halfway to Stary Sober the server crashed. I joined another server and discovered that all my ammo was gone. "Servers" they're called. Ha.

So I sneaked into Stary Sober and attracted NO ZOMBIES (I now suspect that Mormons are zombie magnets). I even got a new gun (an AK-74), with ammo. I went to some bushes in an open field, lay down, and logged out.

The End of My Games Journalism "Career"

This, I hope, is the last serious post I post.

I am tired of treating games seriously. Games are not serious. Even so-called serious games are not serious. They ask you to play with them. Only the e-sports community proclaims playing computer games is serious, and they come off as silly.

Although games' inner workings sure are interesting, I don't find game rules and game theory exciting. Rather I find the experiences games create exciting.

I see myself aging. Twenty-four is not young. I, am quite done spending my creative time making unexciting things.

So this is the end of my game reviewing career, which is to say I am not going to be a games journalist; I'm pretty sure games journalists are supposed to focus on disseminating information - tell the truth, entertainingly if possible.

All I really want to do with my life is hang out with my friends and make poo poo jokes. I want to make great poo poo jokes.

Tribes: Ascend Review

The Olympics are boring.

The fastest man in the world cannot outrun a cheetah. Sharks swim faster than Micheal Phelps. Team sports are mere sports. And athletes winning and not winning medals do not show how awesome their countries are. 

Tribes: Ascend, however, is awesome.

Imagine a first-person shooter. Good. Now imagine one in which you're zooming around a large map at one to three hundred miles per hour using a "skiing" mechanic (going down slopes speeds you up). Imagine you have a jet pack that quickly recharges whenever you don't use it. Now imagine this as a red vs. blue game. That's Tribes: Ascend. And it's free to play. Why even read this review? Just try it! There's nothing like it. If you don't like it, then at least you'll have done something new.

"But game critic! Everyone knows Free-To-Play isn't REALLY free-to-play."
.....What?
"We mean that in free-to-play games, if you're willing to spend money, you can buy perks that make your whatevers stronger than those of non-spenders?"
.....And?
"That's not fair!"
Okay, yeah, you do level up certain bad-assifiers faster by spending some cash. But why care? The game is fun and free. It's not to be taken seriously. And it's so fun being in a close match, while shooting and skiing at 200 miles per hour.
".....Wow, that sounds awesome!"
Penis.

Ah, I have one complaint: when you're on a team that's really losing , the buzz gets killed. But even then, if you play well, you'll still get XP, which you can use to purchase stuff that, if you wanted sooner, you would have paid cash for; it's unfair; but, well, this isn't exactly the world's elites stealing from us we're talking about.....Or maybe it is. Maybe this game was created specifically to distract our children from studying enough to compete with the prep school-prepped inheritors of the control of the human race.

Erm. I mean - it's just Tribes: Ascend.

Tribes: Ascend features capture the flag, team death match, domination (think Unreal Tournament, where the idea is to hold parts of the map, and the more parts you hold the faster your team's score goes up); there's also a mode called "Arena," which I didn't get to because one has to reach level 8 to unlock it. 

Is Diablo III Worth Playing Knowing That Expansions Are Coming?

Uh. I don't know. Just remember to play Diablo III, over skype, with friends. And only play the Hardcore mode.

In review, to make playings of Diablo III worth it, you'll need:

1) VoIP conversation
2) With Friends
3) In Hardcore Mode

If you're missing even just one of these, don't play Diablo III, it's a fucking waste of time!

Driver: San Francisco (Singleplayer) Review

 DON'T GET THE PC VERSIONS OF THIS GAME AND ANY OTHER GAME BY UBISOFT. HERE'S WHY.

Driver: San Francisco is another big-publisher, actually-good game that not enough people played.

Don't let its obvious driving-based gameplay make you think, "Oh, another run-away from the police and racing game, yay whatever." This one's not derivative! How exactly? Well, for one thing, it features not-shit writing. It also has a silly story. It's about an actually-original protagonist who is a driver and in coma; most of the game you play in his coma dreams. In those dreams he gets the power to possess almost any other driver in his imagined San Francisco. The conversations he has with people riding shotgun are wonderfully awkward.


Contrast this plot scenario with that of most other racing games:

Illiterate Protagonist Male With Sexy Body: "I'm a special, underground car-driver who races on tracks and/or in the streets, yo!"

Antagonist: "I have stolen your fake money and your hot ass virtual woman!"

Protagonist: "I'm going to win at least twelve hours of races and maybe escape from police a bunch of times, eventually getting my stuff back in order to promote materialism; and then I'll be famous to imaginary people! Or, if there is no antagonist and nothing has been taken from me, I'm still going to become the best racer and promote materialism and narcissism!"

Driver: San Francisco promotes saving San Francisco from criminals, via vehicles, whilst in a coma. And the dialogue is quite good.

[Note: I played Driver: San Francisco in Spanish, and the characters spoke really fast, so don't take my word on the good-dialogue-ing without a grain of salt; in fact, don't take my review without a grain of salt.]

[Note: What does that even mean? "Take X with a grain of salt." I mean, salt is....salt. Seriously, I don't understand what I wrote.]

"How does the protagonist, named John, save S.F. whilst in a coma?" You ask. Well, that would mostly involve spoilers, but part of the answer lies in the game's not-famous "shift" mechanic. Basically how the mechanic works is, you zoom the camera out from your car with the right stick, you find another vehicle, and you press the "possess driver" button. You can zoom out really far to get an airplane's view of the city, and of course you can zoom back in so that you can actually see vehicles. It's fun dropping into vehicles and crashing them into others.

Just ignore the sidequests. They are basically more of what you'll be playing in the main story line. They are useless fat, and despite being that the game encourages you to play them. It encourages you in two ways: one, by not letting you listen to most of the game's fun, independent music while driving in the main quests; two, by rewarding you with fake money and new vehicles that you don't care about.

You can get the song list here and listen to them on YouTube.

And, unless you just feel that there's not enough DRM in your life, don't get the PC version (See first paragraph). The PC version lowers the frame rate after each CGI cinematic on my computer. This automatically means it will slow down on your computer, forcing you to restart the game now and then. It is Ubisoft's way of encouraging PC gamers not to play games too long in our bad-for-our-backs seating position, and it's annoying.

Day Z Not-Coop, Between Days 2 and 3

In days 1 and 2 we spent five hours getting killed. So today (yesterday) I decided I'd accumulate items by myself, so that when we co-oped again we could begin a long, danger-less, forest-filled trek to the east coast. Over there we'll meet my friend's friends.

Upon joining a server I appeared west of the capitol. I got shot at once at a military airfield, but he missed and lost track of me. I then sneaked into the eastern part of the capitol and raided a supermarket, an apartment complex, a fire station, and some player's (virtual) corpse.

Here's what I collected: enough food for two people to survive for five hours; enough soda for two people to survive for four hours; a new, camouflaged rucksack, a canteen, two injectors that revive unconscious people, two hunting knives, a hatchet, a compass, a watch, a makarov pistol with lots of ammo, an AK-74 SU and 90 of its bullets, and a tent. I got more stuff in less than an hour than my friend and I did in five hours.

The lesson: If you spawn next to Cherno, loot Cherno and escape before you get eaten and/or shot.

I sneaked out of the city to a forested hill next to some power lines. There we'll re-meet.