Game Mechanics: Sometimes Realism is Unrealistic

Huh? – I think that, in some cases, trying to make game mechanics more realistic actually makes them less realistic, and that many ostensibly unrealistic mechanics of video games actually enhance a game's over all realism. This is because games are fundamentally imperfect approximations of reality. Perhaps unblemished virtual reality will be possible in the future, but it is not currently possible. Consequently, just like other art and entertainment, video games must work within the limits of their medium to simulate reality in a way that is specifically suitable to those limits. I do not think this is radically different from painting, for example. Many paintings seek to display three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional canvas. This is accomplished through a variety of perspectival tricks, including the placement of distant objects closer together to simulate distance. It is, in a certain sense, not realistic to do this. After all, distant objects are not really closer together, but this is the best way in which a two-dimensional representation can capture distance. Similarly, I think that games can sometimes compensate for the unrealism inherent in their medium by including mechanics which, taken in isolation, seem unrealistic.

What are Game Mechanics? – They are not, as might be thought, clever folk who tinker with the under-bellies of video games. Those are game developers or perhaps coders. “Game mechanics” are the rules of a video game. More precisely, the mechanics are the ways in which the game's simulated reality responds to the player's input. It is a common game mechanic that when you press 'a,' your character will jump. It is a mechanic in Halo that when a player positions her character near a number of moving enemies, those enemies show up as dots in a 'radar' image on the heads-up display. When a player casts as a spell in Guild Wars, a certain period of time must elapse before another spell is cast; this is also a game mechanic.

“Mechanics” refers specifically to the functional ways in which the game responds to input, which lead the player to execute commands in one way or another in order to more effectively manipulate the simulated reality. So, the appearance of a shadow cast by the character when the player jumps would normally not be considered a mechanic, but an aspect of the game's graphics. Other aspects of a game are the story, dialogue, themes, world, and so on. The distinctions may sometimes be blurry. If the appearance of the player's jumping shadow indicated something about the player-character's functional status, then the shadow would be part of both mechanics and graphics. However, I think the definition of “game mechanics” I have given is sufficiently serviceable to continue with.

Realism – Some mechanics will lead a game to resemble the real world, while others will not. If your character jumps up a foot when you press 'a,' that is an ostensibly realistic game mechanic. If your character jumps five hundred yards, it is unrealistic. If, as is rather common, eating food causes your character to instantly  recover from injuries, this is also not realistic. Conversely, if the game requires you to feed your character regularly lest the character die, this is realistic.

I am not discussing, in the main, whether it is good or bad for a game to be realistic. There are obvious reasons why most games are not realistic with regard to food. It would be boring to spend an hour cooking dinner for your character, making sure the meal contains an adequate balance of calories, fiber, fats, and protein. Perhaps if your character ate too much cheese and steak, she would suffer indigestion. This is not fun, or at least it is not the kind of fun most players are looking for when they play a video game. But I am not primarily interested in whether it is fun to play realistic games. I am interested in what makes them realistic.

Unrealism mitigates Unrealism – I think there are some cases in video games where ostensibly unrealistic mechanics actually enhance the realism of the game by accounting for problems of realism that inhere in the medium. Again, I do not find this dissimilar to perspectival techniques used in painting, such as the simulation of distance. For another example from the traditional arts, when a stage-actor is struck with a blunt sword, the stage actor simulates death. In a certain sense, this response is unrealistic, since a blunt sword cannot cause death (at least not in the same way as a real sword). Yet, given the conventions and limitations of stage-acting, the realism of the scene is maintained by the actor's response to the blunt sword as if it were sharp.

Let me examine a couple of examples in detail. I contend that both enhanced jumping and the possession of HUD radar ultimately enhances, rather than detracts from, the realism of some games in which they appear.

Mario Jumpman Master Chief – In many games the characters' jumping ability far exceeds that of a normal human. In Mario platformers, the titular red plumber is able to vault many time his own height. Of course, the Mario series is is not particularly striving for realism. Halo's Master Chief, while not as impressive a jumper as Mario, can jump a good deal higher than you or I. However, Master Chief's enhanced strength and agility are explained in the plot; he is a super-soldier in cyborgized armor.

But there are other games which do not explain the ludicrous leaping laurels earned by their characters. Borderlands and its sequels are like this. All of player-characters are able to jump Olympic distances. This might be explained by the gonzo and cartoonish style of the series. But I think that the enhanced jumping mechanics actually contribute more to the games' realism than to the games' (deliberate) absurdity.

This is because, as with numerous other titles, Borderlands's characters can be blocked by fairly modest physical barriers and are unable to climb. It is possible for a shin-high rock or a waist-high fence to block one's path, and the obstacles cannot be scaled. There are, I think, at least two good reasons why such obstacles are not climbable.

(1) I gather that it is fairly difficult and time-intensive to program a simulated environment to make climbing possible. The majority of games that include climbing at all allow it only in very specific, controlled circumstances. Games which include many climbable surfaces, such as Assassin's Creed, usually make climbing and maneuvering in three dimensions into a major component of gameplay. Developers for games that do not require climbing as a central aspect of gameplay simply do not put in the resources to develop a climbing system. They presumably have more important systems to fine-tune for realism and entertainment, given their limited timed and budget. 

(2) Another reason why climbing mechanics are often not included, I suspect, is to allow the game-designers to control the environment. If the player could climb anywhere, it would be possible to climb out of the levels and areas created by the game developers, so the designers would then be obligated to introduce some other game mechanic which would allow the player to climb most places but which would prevent her from climbing out of the intended play-areas.

For these reasons, and perhaps for others, most games do not enable the player to surmount obstacles by climbing them. This has the potential to become quite silly, immersion-breaking, and unrealistic. If a three foot fence or medium-sized boulder can stop your character in her tracks, you are reminded suddenly that you are in a simulation which differs from reality in some fairly basic ways. I think this is why so many games include enhanced jumping abilities for player-characters. Other normal actions, such as climbing, scrambling, and gently hopping, which would otherwise have to be laboriously programmed, can be folded into this one action (jumping). The player is not forced into silly scenarios where she is trapped by a two-foot fence. It is true that a normal person would have difficulty jumping over a fence from a standstill, but video game characters are not normal people and currently cannot be, given the practical limitations of the medium.

Hunt for the Red Lekgolo – I think that radar, which alerts the player to the approximate location of nearby enemies, also enhances the realism of the games it appears in, all things considered. If you are unfamiliar with “radar” in combat-oriented games, you can take a look at this footage from the Halo series; the circle in the bottom left, dotted with red and yellow, is the player's HUD radar. It indicates the relative locations of both enemies and allies.

Human beings do not have radar (in case you were unaware). Halo's radar-system, like it's super-jumping, is explained via sci-fi macguffins. Other games, however, do not attempt to explain why the player possesses radar. (N64's GoldenEye comes to mind.) I am not bothered, however, by this lack of explanation. In the same way as enhanced jumping compensates for the inability to climb, HUD radar compensates for normal human abilities that are more difficult to simulate in contemporary video games. I'll focus on two abilities that most people possess when they navigate their daily lives, but not when they play games.

(1) We can detect nearby objects and movements using senses other than sight. If a monstrous alien walked up behind you in real life, you might well hear it or smell it. It's tromping might shake the floor. At present, video games do not simulate smell, and they simulate tactile and audio information only to a degree. Rumble packs built into controllers convey certain information, but not all platforms use controllers like this, and the information conveyed by the controller's vibrations isn't always clear. There have been cases where an enemy was standing behind my character hitting her, and it wasn't clear that this was happening. This seemed quite silly, and it was an immersion-breaking way to have my character die. It's true that, if a game has very good sound design and the player has a very good stereo or surround-sound system, some audio information will be available. But even if both of these criteria are met, the amount of information will still be limited when compared with real life.

(2) Real people also have an intuitive sense of the direction in which they are facing and of the motions of their body. This is called kinesthesis, and from what I understand of the relevant science, it is not reducible to the five senses. If you were to cover your eyes thoroughly and spin in a circle, it would take quite a lot of spinning before you could no longer tell which direction you were facing. (If you don't believe me, go try it. Don't fall over.) This extra sense is absent completely in video games. Relative to real life, it is quite easy to become disoriented when turning your character. Now, this may be a desirable challenge; it may be a mark of skill at a particular game if one is able to avoid such disorientation. But I am not talking about whether the feature is fun, challenging, or desirable. My point is that this added challenge subtracts from the game's realism.

Adding some kind of radar to a game fixes both of these realism problems. The information normally garnered through one's senses of hearing, smell, touch, and kinesthesis is simulated with visual information. Although it would be unrealistic for a work in some other medium (such as painting or film) to display radar, radar often adds to the realism of a video game by allowing the player to respond to the interactive, simulated world in a way that better resembles how the player interacts with the real world.

Wrapping Up – So, I think what actually enhances realism is particular to the medium of video games, and may indeed be peculiar to specific games. This is why I am skeptical of some games which claim to feature realistic gameplay. I am not convinced that the absence of radar and high-jumping in, for example, Call of Duty adds to the realism of the game. Playing without these features may make for a worthwhile challenge, but I'm not sure it is correct to call the game more realistic on this basis.

Mount and Blade also touts its own realism. It provides an option, when you start a new game, to make it impossible to quite the game without saving. This feature prevents the player from saving before a battle, then re-loading and replaying if the fight doesn't go well. I don't dislike M&B; in fact, it's one of my favorite games, but I have found that this particular feature often generates results that strike me as unrealistic. I have seen my character captured or my army wiped out for reasons including: clicked the wrong part of the map; cat jumped on my keyboard; clicked the wrong menu option. These kinds of results are not realistic. It is not possible to accidentally sneak into a hostile castle because you hit the wrong button. Being able to re-load the game after losing because of that kind of silliness strikes me as preserving realism, over all. 

With all this in mind, I think it is worth considering not just whether realism is an especially important feature in games, but also what mechanics actually function to enhance realism, because it is not a simple as imposing on the player-character the same limitations that nature imposes on human bodies.  

Nerdy Month in Review: August 2015

This August was perhaps the craziest month ever in my life. Between taking care of two kids, preparing for the school year, and taking the family out to Chicago and back, I had little time for my usual nerdy endeavors. I did fit a few things in, though, and I'll sum them up here.

TV
I cannot remember the last time the little lady and I watched Avengers, but the last episode we saw was from the aftermath of the Skull invasion. It was a really fun episode in which we are introduced to Spiderman and the "web" of lies concocted by J. Jonah Jameson at his expense. Spiderman and Captain America were able to relate for most of the episode, since most of the world has no idea that Captain America was being impersonated by a Skull and did not actually want the entire population of the Earth to bow down to them. The headline for The Daily Bugle at the end of the episode, though, as read by Spiderman, really put the episode over the top: "Captain America defeats Spiderman and the Serpent Society!?!?" Comic gold.

I have continued to watch Dexter, but I am still on season 2. Getting in Dexter is tough because there are two young 'uns that cannot watch it, or even walk through the same room while I watch it. So, I need to tuck myself into our breakfast nook in the kitchen with my headphones and laptop while they are playing outside or off doing something else. I had forgotten how great the relationship between Dexter and Doakes is in that season - the writers really did a great job of building up that tension throughout the entire season. I am about to watch the episode in which (spoiler alert!) Doakes ends up discovering Dexter for what he really is, and the episode that follows that is, if I remember correctly, one of the best. I am looking forward to it, but not looking forward to seeing more of Lila at the end of the season.

Season 2 is not my favorite season, but seasons 3 through 5 mark what I believe is the best ark in the entire series, and I bet I'll get some writing in on that.

Video Games
Remember last time, when I said I would play more Legend of Zelda, and more Mario, and more games in general? Yeah, no.

The only game I play regularly is Candy Crush Saga because it's the only game I have time to play, in between being a dad. It's a fun game, and only recently have I found that there is actually a little bit of skill required to get the three star rank for which I always aim. I mean, you don't need much skill - it's still mostly luck - but I have started to develop strategy for levels instead of just mindlessly playing it and hoping for some of the good pieces.

I did sit down and play a depressingly bad game called Chicken Shoot. Seriously, it's bad, and racist, and not well tested, and racist. I would say it's so bad it's good, but it's also racist. Like, really racist, and pointless. I think I might start a series of posts titled "Game You Never Knew Existed," and Chicken Shoot will face my wrath in a much more extended entry, perhaps with some video!

Movies
I spent a rather lengthy blog post on it, so I won't elaborate here, but we did watch Return of the Jedi with the little lady. Please reference my incredibly long rant about the movie from the previous blog post if you are curious as to how I feel about the experience.

We have also been watching the Marvel movies with the little lady, making sure to have good conversations about the violence in them so that we continue to be good parents as well. We watched Iron Man, which continues to age better than I thought it might. Robert Downey Jr. has the role down so well from the get-go that I can't help but feel like it was written for him in the first place. I also constantly forget that Terrence Howard played Rhodes in the first movie. I always get annoyed at switched like that in the middle of a franchise, but really, Don Cheadle has way more fun being a superhero than Howard would have had.

We also watched The Incredible Hulk, the forgotten Marvel movie that, as far as I know, remains canon even though most people pretend like it never happened. I believe there is a Marvel One-Shot that takes care of the loose ends (the fate of Abomination, the tease about The Leader), but I haven't read much because I want to see it, but I also haven't gotten a chance to see it. They should just put them all out on one DVD, or put them on Netflix.

Anyway, that movie isn't great, but it isn't bad. The humor seems ill-placed in it for some reason that I cannot quite identify, even though I feel like each moment succeeds in and of itself. I am glad Edward Norton was recast - Mark Ruffalo plays The Hulk perfectly, with his mannerisms and attitude. I am looking forward to the return of General Ross in Captain America: Civil War - he seemed like such a caricature in this movie that it wasted William Hurt's talents. I hope he's got some good things to work with in the new film.

Books
Reading is tough, since it takes me considerable mental energy to do it and do it well. I enjoy reading, though, and have managed to work my way through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and am almost done (I think) with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I really hate that there is hardly any narrative thread - I like stories that are clever, not clever (and, I will admit, often humorous) little tidbits that are attempted to be thrown together into a story. It's the same sort of problem I had with Stephen King's It - make a collection of short stories and lose the need to connect it all, since the connection kind of sucks. I am enjoying the books, to a certain extent, but after reading It and Faithful and now this, I am really longing for a story.

(Hopefully) Coming Up in September...
Well, there will be more Dexter, damn it. I will have to wait until at least the little one goes to bed, and even then still sit somewhere all on my own to get through it without interruption, but it will happen. I think getting all of the way through season 3 is an overly-ambitious goal, but getting into season 3 should be doable.

The little lady and I should also continue getting through Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. She'll want to do it - I just need to remember to remind her.

I will read more - I have consistently read every night before going to sleep for about a week and it will continue. I hope to start Stephen King's Joyland by the end of the month.

Video games? Look for a post that describes a regular Twitch playing time, hopefully every Saturday morning (since it's the only uninterrupted time I can get the TV). Also, as I mentioned, I want to start the new series of posts called Games You Never Knew Existed. I hope I can make it happen, at least once a month, as well as continue going through My Collection of Unfinished Games.

My Separation Anxiety from Nerdiness

This August has been, without a doubt, the craziest August I have ever experienced, as well as one of the craziest months I have ever experienced. Whether I was preparing for the school year (which is now in full-swing), taking care of kids (which has only gotten more exhausting, if possible, as the school year has begun), or driving the family out to Chicago for vacation (I think I came back more tired than when I left), I have been incredibly busy. I have had fun, no doubt, because I am continually thankful that I am surrounded by truly wonderful people. I have found so much of these experiences rewarding, watching the girls continue to grow and being able to share in their happiness and new experiences. I am felt pride at all of the hard work I have been putting in to so many things. There's been positive and negative, of course, but overall, it's been worth it.

I just haven't been able to be a nerd.

Despite the general positivity of my life, I still wish I had time for my video games, my movies, my TV shows and my books. I find myself looking longingly at the abandoned video game consoles that surround my TV which, of course, tends to already be in use when I walk in the room. I stare at my DVD collection, with Dexter staring back, wishing that I had more than 20 minutes to myself at any given time. I read nerdy news at io9 and Kotaku and realize they are discussing movies and shows that I said ages ago I would watch and experience but have been unable to do so. I brought a book with me on vacation - The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide - and read none of it while I was away. None of it.

I had a conversation with a colleague today about the new Star Wars movie. He asked me if I had been reading any of the news coming out about it. Nope.

I looked at movie times at theaters while on vacation and found somewhere Ant-Man was still playing. I thought, "Hey, maybe my wife and I will have some time to go and see it!" Nope.

I got some major inspiration for one of the stories I had been writing, one that involves warring superheroes in an urban environment. I was driving some mindless stretch of highway between Maine and Illinois when I finally figured out where to take the story next. I thought I might have some time to work on it. Nope.

My students asked me if I had spent any time on Twitch this summer, broadcasting my video game prowess for the world to admire. Nope.

I appear to have opened up the flood gates - the bitterness has poured forth for my mass of readers (and by mass, I mean three or four, of course) to consume and bathe in. The space inside me reserved for my nerdy endeavors has been emptied of all that once filled it, cleared of all of the wonderful characters and creatures that help sustain me through many of life's difficulties. Mario's voice feels foreign, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. haven't led me along the periphery of the Marvel Universe in months, and my hands, my glorious gaming hands, haven't felt the gentle touch of a controller for some inhuman, horrible amount of time. "How can he live?" many of you might ask. And I might respond, "I know not how I continue along my path, how I sustain myself without the love of that most tempting of mistresses, the universe of nerdiness."

I am, of course, being just a tad melodramatic. I know exactly how I have sustained myself - I have the love of my beautiful, supportive and talented wife. I have two foster daughters depending on me to help get them through what is easily going to be the hardest part of their lives. I have wonderful family and friends whose company I enjoy quite regularly. I have a job that, despite my frustrations with it at times, feels rewarding in the end. I have a lot of things going for me, and I let them keep me going. I don't "need" my nerdy interests to live - I've got the things in life that I've always wanted.

That doesn't mean I am going to tolerate a complete absence of my nerdy interests - we all need our hobbies to sustain us when other things are stressful or difficult. For that reason, I actually managed to watch an episode of Dexter this evening. Yeah, you heard that right - I watched something! I was quite pleased that I could continue on my quest to rate every episode of Dexter (although being just a little over halfway through season 2 is disheartening). So, there is hope that I can still be a nerd, even if it isn't quite to the same extent as before.

So, as I go to bed (I might be able to read a chapter before sleeping - success!), I am going to do what I have been doing to get through the busiest time in my life - I am going to think about the people and things in my life that make me happy, thank some higher power in which I do not actually believe for all of these wonderful people and things in my life, and spend some of my thoughts on the things I plan on doing when I find myself with time to burn. Those things are one of two things: either I will spend some time with my wife (always a priority), or I'll delve into my long mental list of nerdy things that help me unearth a part of me I find very valuable and reassuring. And yes, even if I am screaming at Super Mario 3D World, or grumbling about a ridiculous side story in Dexter, or trying to figure out how much it bothers me that The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide doesn't really have a consistent plot-thread, I still find myself reassured that I am doing something that brings my mind back to a good place.

How Online Gaming Ruined Gaming

Online gaming, in theory, is a great idea. I like that people from all over the world can compete and see who will reign supreme. I like the idea of a ladder system for those that are serious about the game. I also love the idea of being able to play with my friends that are sometimes hundreds of miles away. Umberto MacJay and I used to play games for hours in college, but now that our adult lives have pulled us apart (what a cruel, cruel world), we need online gaming to continue to be nerds together. Overall, I think online gaming isn't inherently a bad thing, so the title of this post is, perhaps, a bit melodramatic.

It would be an understatement to say that online gaming has changed the gaming landscape. Much like improved visuals in a game have changed the general gaming audience since we got much more realistic visuals in the late 90's, online gaming has brought in a wide variety of gamers from different backgrounds, some of whom might not have been interested in gaming back in the 80's or early 90's. Several gamers I have spoken to aren't crazy about the classic Mario games, which are exactly the games that sucked me into gaming, never to let me escape again (although really, saying Super Mario World, the first game that really sucked me in, is "classic Mario" is probably heresy to some gamers). There is something about this ability to play against real people that draws gamers in, the chance to up the challenge as long as there is another experienced player out there with whom to compete. I don't blame people for wanting that opportunity - I have known plenty of gamers for whom the computer players in a video game are much too easy to defeat. Some people need that extra challenge, that extra kick.

But not everyone, which brings me to my beef with online gaming.

I am a gamer, but don't exactly have tons of time at my disposal that I can devote to gaming. As a result, I end up playing a single game maybe 5 or 6 hours out of a month, an amount of time that does not lend itself to becoming particularly skilled at that game. Take Starcraft 2, for example, the game that Umberto and I play together online when we get the chance (which is maybe once a week). I am serviceable against the computer players in the campaign mode ... on normal difficulty. I can beat the computer in a custom game if they are at hard difficulty, but not reliably. Because of this, I would probably get destroyed playing online - at least, when the original Starcraft came out, that's what happened. Even playing with someone that the game determines is right on level with me (because yes, in an effort to rope in people like me, most games have at least made an attempt to make sure people of similar skill level get matched up to play each other) is not often reliable - I do not have the time to devote to a game in order to gain the type of skill needed to adapt to the behaviors of human players.

So B. T. (you might say), why do you care about playing online? Why not just play offline and not worry about anything else? I can do that, as I do regularly, but the truth is that the gaming market is no longer made for people like me. It isn't designed to serve people that are simply looking for a fun game, a fun challenge, to play in my spare time. Most popular games, as I see it lately, are geared towards one of two audiences: the online audience (League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, etc.) and those that are looking for realistic visuals and/or a story (the Uncharted series, the more recent Final Fantasy installments, The Last of Us). Sure, those two things overlap sometimes (such as in Halo games, Destiny), but overall, that is what gets people going. Me? Give me a game that gives me a fun experience, whether that experience is alone or with my friends.

When I mention gaming with my friends, mind you, I mean gaming with my friends in the same room. You know, so that I can actually see them and hear them and interact with them. The fact that I am in an increasingly shrinking minority on how I enjoy games with my friends continues to amaze and appall me. So many of my greatest memories of gaming with friends centers around all of us hanging out in my living room (or in my friend's basement, way back in the day) playing games together. Whether we were all experienced gamers or not, we had a blast, which, as far as I am concerned, is what gaming is all about. That doesn't mean I am not interested in games with good stories, or the occasional realistic-looking game, or even those games that have some significant online portions (I am pretty good at Mario Kart 8 when playing online, perhaps the only game ever where that has occurred). There are so many games that are more than just fun that I consider excellent games (most Legend of Zelda games come to mind, as well as the Metroid Prime series), but overall, when I think of what makes a game memorable, it is the fun-factor, and my ability to play it with the people I love.

And this, more than anything, brings me to why I think the popularity of online gaming has ruined much of what makes gaming so enjoyable. I could probably write a post (and still might, at some point) about why this need for ultra-realistic graphics has ruined gaming so much, but it hasn't done nearly the damage the need for online gaming has done. Now that online gaming is so popular, unless a game has a significant amount of online content, too few people want it, and we get fewer and fewer games that don't rely on some sort of online aspect. I think that's the primary reason that Nintendo is not doing as well as it once was - it caters to people like me that enjoy unique, interactive gaming experiences. I love Nintendo games, and I cannot think of a truly bad title that they have made in recent memory without thinking really hard about it. All I get are wonderful memories of Super Smash Bros., Mario Golf, Mario Party, Wii Party, Mario Kart and Perfect Dark, all played with my friends for hours and hours on end. I feel like gaming was once a party-thing, even as recently as a few years ago when the last Rock Band came out. Now, however, that people who sit and play games alone in a room are the core of the gaming market, fewer and fewer companies are making the types of games that were once the reason people would get together and hang out.

Now I sound like I am whining, and I probably am. You can rest assured, however, that I am not about to go on about the "good-old days" and talk about how everything was better in the past - most things were not better in the past. Civil rights in our country has come a long way, as has medical technology and procedures and a number of other important things, so never will I talk about how much better it was to live back when I was young. I will, however, talk about how gaming was once something more than what it is slowly turning into. As games become more artful, they are becoming less imaginative. As games are embracing the technology of this century, they are becoming less and less a way of bringing people together, in the same place, to enjoy each other's company. I am happy that Nintendo doesn't place much importance on online gaming - they are concerned, first and foremost, with the quality and fun-factor of the game. I like that - it makes me feel like someone, somewhere, actually cares about my busy lifestyle and the type of gaming that I get to enjoy in my limited time.

As I have pointed out in previous posts, I know I am in the minority here. I know that my voice alone is not going to change the trend here, that Nintendo is probably, within the next few decades, going to stop making video game consoles (although they will probably dominate the handheld market for years to come). I know that the market has spoken and online gaming is far more popular than what I find entertaining. I will, despite all of this, continue to complain in the vain hope that someone out there will agree, at least partially, with what this need for online gaming has done to the gaming market. I just hope that someone (probably Nintendo) will keep making games that I can enjoy casually on my own and with my friends, so I can continue to get from a game what you should always get from a game: pure enjoyment.

Nerdy Month in Review: July 2015

On the first of every month, I will recap my nerdy endeavors over the course of the previous month.

July was a hectic month from a non-nerdy standpoint, helping our little lady get through having her tonsils out and adjusting to another foster child in the house. We've also had some pesky visitors in the form of lice and mice, so I have been busy and will continue to be busy. Here is what I did manage to get in, though:

TV
The Little Lady and I have been working through Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. As of today, we have gotten about 10 episodes into season 2. We've witnessed the Avengers tackle Loki and his invasion of Asgard, the Kree, and right now, the Skrull invasion. The cartoon is epic, far more than the movies ever will be, so for anyone that wants to get into the Marvel universe, this is an excellent place to start (others might suggest the comics, naturally, but if you are like me and comics aren't your thing, then check out the cartoon). I wish they worked harder to get more female superheroes into the mix - we've recently been introduced to Ms. Marvel, a strong female superhero, and Wasp has been there since the beginning, but she fits too many ditzy female stereotypes to really count as a solid female superhero. The comic relief is consistently good, and the series does a good job of recalling intertwining storylines that began at the beginning of the series. Despite the complexity of the storylines, The Little Lady has had no problems getting what's going on until recently, when she got thoroughly confused on who was a Skrull and who was not.

In other TV nerdiness, Umberto MacJay and I are attempting to watch every season of Dexter and rank each and every episode. We spent one glorious afternoon discussing our rating mechanisms and how we are going to rank each episode and present it to all of you wonderful readers. The entire list will probably be available on this blog sometime in the Fall, but don't hold us too closely to that - this is a significant undertaking, and I myself am only about halfway through season 2. I have seen every season except for the final season, which fans were not crazy about, but I am going to withhold judgement until I see it for myself.

Video Games
Where to begin here? I have been playing a wide variety of games over the course of the month, mainly because whenever I finally get time to sit down and play one, it's been so long since I have actually played anything. As a result, I've done mostly gaming without any semblance of a story - Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. I already wrote at length about Super Mario 3D World and will spare you anymore details here (no, I have not yet beaten that STUPID OBNOXIOUS RIDICULOUS final level). Mario Kart 8 continues to be a challenge with the addition of 200cc, a ridiculously fast romp through the levels that forces you to change your entire racing strategy. It's like playing a brand new game after being so accustomed to 150cc and the Mirror tracks. I am still missing a 3-star, gold trophy on one of the Mirror tracks, and got 2 stars on one of them (I HATE not getting 3 stars - I usually quit as soon as I don't get first in a race as a result). But, I have enjoyed trying 200cc and silently cursing Nintendo for forcing me to change the strategy that I used over the course of an entire 8-game series.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is out and about again in my house because I purchased all of the DLC. Ryu has been a fun addition, and I have enjoyed whipping out all of my old Street Fighter moves when I use him (although really, I usually fall back on using the B button to use all of the special moves to ensure my victory). I wish they had added more locations in the new DLC - I miss the stages in Brawl and Melee so much, the newer versions haven't quite lived up to those - but overall, the game is still a blast to play in a living room full of people.

I spent a lot of the beginning of the month playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. It's easily one of the strongest entries in the Zelda franchise, and perhaps, at the moment at least, is my favorite of the overhead, 2D Zelda titles (not that it is really 2D, with its gorgeous 3D visuals). I am super glad they ditched the requirement of using the touch screen to control Link. I never finished Phantom Hourglass as a result - my hand would get cramped up eventually, and I always ended up doing things I didn't want to do eventually, because of the odd controls. A Link Between Worlds, while I am not even halfway through, has proven to be a phenomenally deep game. I just hope I have more time over the next month to play it.

The Little Lady has taken over LEGO Marvel Superheroes, although I got pretty far before she decided she was going to play it all of the time. Again, I wrote at length about this earlier, so I will spare the details now, but the depth of the game continues to amaze me. I could wander around LEGO New York City for HOURS and still not find everything, and that's a good thing. The Little Lady has also taken over Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and thankfully, she is no longer leaving all of her stuff lying around town. As the mayor of Koholint, my town in Animal Crossing, I want my village looking immaculately clean. She probably wouldn't have cleaned up the town except I pointed out that, if you go to the Mayor's Office, my secretary points out how absolutely annoyed all of the villagers are about it. Thanks, Nintendo, for making a game that encourages me to obsessively organize things - that almost makes up for changing my Mario Kart strategy.

Movies
Nothing much going on here. We have been having The Little Lady watch the original Star Wars trilogy, and yes, we'll probably show her the prequel trilogy because it is, after all, canon. Then we can take her to see the new one, whether she's still living with us or not. I continue to love how interested she is in virtually everything - it was so easy to get her into Star Wars and keep her interested. She still asks me sometimes why Obi-Wan didn't tell Luke the truth about Darth Vader. She seems very annoyed about that.

We went and saw Inside-Out and both my wife and I bawled while the girls were simply non-plussed by (spoiler alert) the realization that yes, some important memories can be sad and our emotions get more complicated as we enter our teenage years. Pixar's slogan should be "let us entertain your kids while you bawl your eyes out." That damn Lava short-movie didn't help - I honestly thought they would give us a sad ending to that volcano's tale for a few seconds, and thought, "Geez, Pixar, I thought you wouldn't stoop this low after the first ten minutes of Up." Don't worry, guys - it's Pixar, it ends happily, although you still might cry.

Books
After finishing Stephen King's It, I read the not-so-nerdy Faithful, the story about the 2004 Boston Red Sox in which Stephen King was a co-writer. The Red Sox are my one truly non-nerdy interest, although I needed to read Faithful to remind myself that I am still a Red Sox fan after such a horrible season up until now.

It is a good book if you think about it like a short story collection, but overall, it's a mess of missed opportunities and silly storytelling shortcuts, all in an effort to force out some sort of epic story even though there really isn't any need for it. Characters like Henry Bowers (a truly amazing King villain) and Beverly's father (King knows exactly how to take abusive, horrible people and make them somehow more disgusting) are far more terrifying than It, and the backstories and the little vignettes King tells are often far more fascinating than the main story. I want to like this book, but it's such a mess that I have to consider it one of the worst King outings I've read, probably the first one I have read that disappointed me (I haven't even come close to reading them all, and if it matters, my favorites so far are The Stand, The Shining and The Dead Zone).

I am now reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, something I am told I should have read long ago. As a nerd, it's probably criminal that I haven't read it yet, and so far, I am pretty impressed. Some of the comedy within it feels twinged with arrogance on the part of the author, a sort of "oh wow, look at how clever I am" sort of feeling, but enough of it is quite entertaining that I am continuing to read it each night before going to sleep. It's part of an anthology with three other books by Adams, so I'll probably read those too.

Coming Up in August...
My wife and I will see Ant-Man at some point, and I am sure I will just throw all of my wonderful feelings about the Marvel cinematic universe down in a blog entry at some point afterwards. I will continue to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as well, hopefully getting through it by the end of the month, and I want desperately to work harder on The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, in the hopes that I can write a Game Profile about it. More Dexter is on tap as well, perhaps allowing me to write an entry about how well it humanizes such a dark character, and adds darkness to characters that are otherwise good. I have also been thinking a lot about online gaming and what it has done to the social aspect of gaming. I have an opinion that is probably in the minority of opinions on online gaming, but hey, I'm going to throw it out there anyway.

Game Profile: Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)

Since I rarely play games in time to properly review them, I occasionally take a post to discuss whatever games I am playing at the moment, and create a "review," of sorts, that may or may not convince someone else to play it or not play it. These games may be recent or old - either way, you get to hear about it from what I hope is a different perspective.

Mario has gone on many adventures by now, and despite the fact that these games tend to follow the same kind of dynamic (run and jump to get places, pick up power-ups here and there), most of them feel incredibly unique. Sure, some feel like retreads (New Super Mario Bros. U feels like leftover levels from New Super Mario Bros. Wii) and others don't always feel like genuine Mario experiences (Super Mario Sunshine, as good a game as it is, just doesn't always play like you'd expect a Mario game to play), but on the whole, when you go into a Mario game, you tend to expect something different.

Super Mario 3D World is no exception - pulling its gameplay style from Super Mario 3D Land, this game manages to present some wonderfully innovative gaming experiences. From the multitude of stages, to fighting Bowser in his car that looks like a product of Pimp My Ride, to the chaos of multiplayer (seriously - it's harder to play multiplayer than it is to play alone), this game offers a continuous barrage of things to catch your interest. Just when you think a series of levels feels the same, over and over again, you get hit with something completely different, forcing you to adapt to face the new challenges.

That doesn't mean the game is particularly difficult - overall, if you care mostly about the main game (excluding the extra worlds at the end), and you consider yourself an experienced gamer, then you'll have no trouble finding your way to the end. If, however, you are the level of gamer that our little foster daughter is, you might find some levels are rather vexing. The game does offer its share of challenges, and for experienced gamers, those challenges don't come until the end, but overall, this is not the hardest Mario outing (that, in my opinion, belongs to the real Super Mario Bros. 2, known as The Lost Levels here in the US).

The game, like pretty much every Mario game these days, follows a map screen in which levels pop up each time you beat one. Sometimes you've got a single path to follow, and other times, you have a couple of choices. To avoid spoilers for those that haven't played it, there are a bunch of worlds, and each time you beat a castle, you move on to another world. Each level has its own care of collectables - the typical ones have three green stars and a stamp. The stamps can be used to post messages to the Miiverse, Nintendo's attempt to make gaming into social networking (really not my thing). Once you beat enough levels in the game, you start being able to see with which character you beat the level, meaning yes, in order to unlock everything in the game, you need to beat every level with every character. If you play primarily alone, like I do, then that means you essentially need to play through the game 5 times (so far, I've only bothered to do that in world 1). Notice I said five times, as opposed to four - there is a hidden character much later in the game.

I do primarily play alone, even though the little lady is more than happy to play with me, but in order to effectively play this game with others, you need excellent communication and the ability to coordinate your movements almost effortlessly. Unfortunately, that's just something I cannot do with our little one, try as I might, but I could see it working well with the right group of friends. I worked through New Super Mario Bros. Wii with my brother and a friend, and we managed to coordinate extremely well most of the time, rarely giving in to the temptation to put ourselves in a bubble and let one person advance while the rest of us get dragged along. I think that the temptation to do that in Super Mario 3D World would be greater, mind you, but the levels are not impossible to do together if the group practices coordinating and timing things effectively.

Even if parts of the game aren't that tough, the game is quite long, even before you go through and do every level with every character. I myself am a completionist, so if I miss any items on my first play through a level, I play it again right away to get what I missed. If that isn't your strategy, you'll find some levels blocked off because you don't possess enough green stars. I am also unsure of how exactly to unlock the extra worlds - I imagine you need all of the green stars, or to get to the top of each flagpole at the end of each level - because I made sure to get everything in each level before moving on.

Some fun breaks from the main action involve Captain Toad - you get to play as him on some levels in which the play style changes considerably. You need to follow a 3D path in what amounts to a level shaped like a cube, without jumping, but hitting switches to unlock other paths and changing the camera angle to see all of your options. The levels are fun, and I am under the impression that the game Captain Toad: Treasure Trackers is essentially this style of gameplay the whole time, so that is a game I might make the time to check out at some point. The little lady would certainly enjoy that game, and it would probably be more on her gaming level than Super Mario 3D World.

What impresses me most about Super Mario 3D World is that when it does get difficult, it gets really difficult. The extra worlds can get insanely hard, especially if you want to collect everything, and after about fifty to sixty tries, I still haven't managed to beat the very last level in the game. I recently started going back to play through the other levels as the other characters as a break from the frustration of the final level, going back and making attempts at it when I have the right items in my possession. I hope this eventually does the trick, because after all, I need to complete that level five freaking times in order to unlock everything. Thanks, Nintendo.

As usual with Nintendo titles, the sound, music and visuals are clever and beautiful. The music reflects the light-heartedness and fun of the game, while the visuals are cartoonish and bright (unless it's one of those underground levels, then sometimes you are puttering around in the dark). There are levels in which you need to watch the shadows on a wall to get the whole story, and some that keep the camera above you as you navigate a maze-like area. It's no Super Mario Galaxy in terms of the scale of each level - it's as if original, platforming Mario levels have been stretched into 3D - but it's still great to look at.

Overall, this game, like nearly every Mario title before it, is an instant classic, one that captures one's attention quickly and never stops throwing creative challenges into the mix. From platforms that appear and disappear based on the beat of the music to bodies of water that move in the air, forcing you to jump between them, this game does what a game is supposed to do: challenge you repeatedly and make you marvel at the world in front of you. The creativity on display in this game is quite impressive, and if you still haven't picked up a Wii U, or have a Wii U and somehow missed this game, you need to alter your priorities.

And if I ever beat that final level, you will all be the first to know. Well, second to know - anyone within a several-mile radius of my location will probably hear the screams first.

Somebody Make This: Cooperative, Multiplayer Avengers Game

Imagine this: both HYDRA and AIM, evil organizations from the Marvel universe, are fighting each other in New York City, with SHIELD jumping in not only to fight off these two, but to keep the Avengers from interfering. The Avengers are scattered throughout the city, some tackling HYDRA, some tailing AIM, and some fending off SHIELD. They each have their own tasks but must come to the aid of others when they can. It's a crazy, hectic situation, the Avengers needing to stay coordinated and communicate.

Well, if you can't imagine it, you can simply watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episode titled "Hail, HYDRA!" That's the premise, and it's a doozy - a fun episode that shows just how entertaining the show can be and the kind of mayhem it can present. The movies cannot touch this kind of character collision - too many actors, too many contracts, too full for even a 3-hour movie. And do you know what else would be able to handle an epic battle of this magnitude?

A video game.

I know - there's LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, but it doesn't have the cooperative aspect or the multiplayer aspect. As much as I have talked up that game in a previous post, the thing I have in my head is much, much more than what that game manages to accomplish. There's also this Avengers: Battle for Earth game, but it's a fighting game, not the type of large-scale treatment the Avengers really deserve. These guys need something big, something epic ... something Hulk-sized.

Here's what I've got:

The gameplay covers a map - let's say New York City, but other Marvel locations could work (maybe Wakanda, maybe another city). There is chaos all over this map - maybe HYDRA trying to steal something somewhere, maybe another super villain breaking in somewhere else - and you and a team of Avengers is scattered, trying to handle all of the problems. Whether the multiplayer action occurs online or in your TV room together (I prefer it all happening together - more fun, better communication, better gaming environment), it is up to you and whatever Avenger you have chosen to save the city. You need to coordinate, obviously - you can't all go to the same crisis and ignore the others - but you also need to work together to accomplish every task.

There could be missions to complete, or maybe you get some sort of rating after you have saved the city. You could compete with others to get a better rating. There could be some sort of story mode, but it would need to feel unique somehow - it can't feel tacked-on like the Star Wars Battlefront story modes. It needs to somehow build on the multiplayer mode, but I haven't thought of any good ideas about that yet.

But more on the gameplay, since that is the most important aspect. SHIELD could play an important part in this, and even be playable - how about taking advantage of that wonderful touch-screen controller for the Wii U and letting someone use that to pilot the Helicarrier? They could keep track of where all of the action in the city is, tell the other players where to go and who is there. They could even call in recruits from SHIELD or (and this is where things get crazy), they could even call in Ultron recruits. The Avengers cartoon does a great job of introducing Ultron as an army of robots that help the Avengers fight off an alien invasion, and soon afterwards, Ultron turns on them. What if you had the option of using Ultron in this game, and sometimes, but not all of the time, Ultron turned on you and you had another problem to solve? Oh man, if this game had that kind of depth, it would be epic.

Let's build on that - what if you and your friends were sitting in the living room, playing this game, and online, somewhere else, was another group? One group could be coordinated by HYDRA and the other by SHIELD, and you would fight each other over the internet, not knowing what the other group is planning. That is definitely one of the best multiplayer ideas I have ever heard.

Now, some of this gameplay does sound like Star Wars Battlefront, but those games were always clunky and unrefined. This needs to be almost flawless in its execution or it'll be a let-down. I know it would never, ever happen, but Nintendo could destroy this (in a good way). Shigeru Miyamoto once said he would never put multiplayer in a game unless it was better than Mario Kart (a high standard, to say the least). This could be exactly what he's talking about, and nearly every single Nintendo game I've played does play smoothly, especially in multiplayer mode. This is a game that needs the kind of care and attention Nintendo tends to give games. This is, of course, a dream, but it's nice to dream sometimes.

There would, of course, be a wide variety of heroes to choose from: Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Antman, maybe the Wasp (since I got my inspiration from the cartoon), and definitely Black Panther. You could also play the game from the villain's side and play any number of Marvel villains. I imagine DLC would happen at some point, with more locations and characters available to unlock. This could be a pretty big deal, if it were done well.

And while I am thinking on an incredibly large scale, why not make one of the locations Asgard? The little lady and I, continuing to plow through the Avengers cartoon, just watched the Avengers thoroughly thrash Loki and his army of monsters. How about defending, or taking back, Asgard from Loki? What about somehow incorporating all of the other nine realms? Maybe SHIELD cannot coordinate here and you need to find other ways to coordinate your efforts and prioritize different parts of Asgard as you fight off the enemy threat.

I'm sure I haven't even scratched the surface of all of the possible Marvel locales that could be involved in such an undertaking - I am limited to what I know from the movies and the cartoon. Those who read the comics may have a better handle on how this idea could be broadened or refined, and what sorts of things to include. The game would need some significant development time - it would need to be tested and retested to make sure it all works flawlessly - but I have no doubt that this game would be a pretty big deal if it ever actually happened.

Why no one has managed to try putting something like this together, especially in the wake of continued success of Marvel movies at the box office, is a complete mystery to me. I suppose the idea might be out on the internet somewhere, if I broaden what websites I check regularly, but maybe it isn't, not on this scale. Come on, people - talk this one up. Someone needs to make this happen, because it could easily be one of the biggest games to ever grace our wonderful gaming world.

The Appeal of the Gaming Audience

My brother, and several of my friends, used to enjoy watching me play video games. For a while, it was whatever the most recent Zelda adventure happened to be, or Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64 (although we spent about half the time playing that one together). One of my best friends growing up would ask me to complete parts of games for him, a task I found both flattering and annoying. Why would someone want to have someone do part of a game for them? I never understood it, and still don't, now that our youngest foster daughter asks me to do the same thing on a regular basis. "You do it, it's too hard!" she exclaims, but then, twenty tries later, she gets it.

I would say I never understood this will to watch someone else play a game, but now that I think back on my childhood, that would be a lie. Another of my childhood friends was a PC gamer, through and through (not my style - I need that controller, sitting comfortably in my muscular, sweaty hands), and about half the time I went over to hang out with him, I'd end up watching him play whatever new PC game his parents happened to buy him. Incredibly early on, it was Mech Warrior. Eventually, it was Civilization: Call to Power. I remember discovering Half-Life while at that friend's house, one game that I got into watching and helping out with. I helped out very rarely, I found, but managed to come up with strategy in that game that actually made my presence more than just that of a spectator. So, I do kind of get it - watching someone play a game can be entertaining, given the correct formula.

As it turns out, I require a very specific formula to enjoy watching someone plug through a game. I have discovered this is more detail lately due to keeping Twitch running on my computer while I do things like plan out lessons, grade, and, since it is now the summer, write a letter to one of my friends (this particular friend is in prison and has no access to the internet, so no snide remarks like "What, people still write letters?"). I have a tough time simply watching someone play - I need to be doing something at the same time. Moreover, the type of gamer that holds my interest is, at it seems, tough to find. Many people tune in for the speed runners, or so that they can find people with whom to play games online. The games that get the most viewers - those massive, multiplayer games like League of Legends and World of Warcraft - do not interest me in the slightest.

So, what does hold my interest? You probably didn't ask, but here I go anyway.

Firstly, as I stated above, I tend to avoid speed runs. I will tune in for some, because hell, some of those people are crazy good. It takes hours and hours of playing the same damn thing over and over again to get good at that, and additional hours watching others to get ideas. While that, on some strange level, impresses me, it makes me feel like the fun has been sucked out of some really great games. Why speed run The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time when it is such a great game, with a solid story and a world of depth to discover? It's one of those games in which I discover something new each time, so rushing through it seems almost criminal. So much care goes into games, from a wide variety of sources, so speed running, while occasionally impressive, just doesn't do it for me.

Now, what if someone uses a gimmick? The first time I tuned in to someone playing Luigi's Mansion on Twitch, I smiled to find out that the individual playing was racing one of his buddies. Audio from both of them fed into the channel (the friend had a separate channel running as well) and the banter was fantastic. Listening to them talk about parts of the run that were challenging was fun, adding something to a speed run that makes it a lot more interesting to watch.

Or how about playing through a game blindfolded? Oh man, I know people always cry "Fake!" at things like this, but this man playing through Super Mario World blindfolded feels so genuine to me. He fails here and there, despite what appears to be incredible timing. True, this is an attempted speed run, and he skips some amazing parts of the game to get it done (not playing through the Valley Fortress seems too easy), but he's freakin' blindfolded! I mean, how often are you going to see that?

Despite running into the occasional gimmick, I look mainly for people doing casual play-throughs of games, and usually games that I have played through myself. I hate spoilers with a burning passion, so I avoid games I have even the smallest inkling of an interest in playing. Casual play-throughs can be boring beyond belief, especially if the player isn't even miked-up (seriously - why would you do a casual play-through on Twitch if we can't even hear your voice?). But, I run into those gamers that manage to give a good commentary and remain committed to interacting with the people watching. I am not that annoying guy in the chat room that talks all about how I know what's going to happen, or about how hard it's going to be when they get to such-and-such a point - that's just being a troll. No, I sometimes ask if they've played through or not, and maybe talk about some points I enjoy, or engage in the friendly banter from the others in the chat.

Sometimes, I even make a stupid joke, as I am apt to do, just to test the flavor of the place. No response usually means I am out of there - who needs a bunch of gamers that take themselves way too seriously? I like to goof around, and once I find others that know how to do the same, I am totally down to hang out for a while. In Super Mario Sunshine, there's that Shine Sprite you get by destroying monsters that are messing with a ferris wheel and making it spin faster than usual. I pointed out quickly that it hardly seems to be moving too quickly - maybe they improved the ride? Getting the person playing the game to laugh is always a good sign, and I think I might have caught the gentleman playing that game off-guard by pointing that out, because he seemed to find it hilarious (let's get real - it's just a mildly amusing little observation). I enjoy interactions like that, where we can just hang out and talk about games.

As I have had these thoughts over the past year, after I started hanging out on Twitch semi-regularly, it did occur to me that maybe that's all my friends ever wanted - to hang out and talk and have fun. Somewhere along the line, they figured out that hanging out while I play games is fun, and I tended to agree with them, even if I initially scoffed at their suggestions. Watching someone play a game can be entertaining if you have the right mix of people. That was demonstrated to me quite clearly earlier today while I surfed Twitch. I found a group of guys watching one in their midst playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and listening to them issue commands at the one playing sounded eerily like my friend's basement did when I was younger. That is, until one of them dropped the n-word (they were all white, by the way) and I tuned out, because I don't enjoy watching a bunch of racists have a good time.

But that's what it comes down to - having fun with your buddies, having a few laughs, and maybe figuring out some of the more complicated bits together. The social aspect is what's fun - the game just happens to be a medium over which that interaction occurs.

I have tried, over the last several months, to try broadcasting my own gaming over Twitch, with mixed success. I gathered a bunch of followers while playing Metroid Prime, and a bunch of them stuck with me into Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. I also picked up a few playing clumsily through every difficulty level of Mario Kart 64. People seemed to enjoy themselves, and I tried to provide a steady diet of ridiculous observations as well as tried to interact with my viewers and engage them a bit. It was fun, but given that my wife and I care for two foster children, I don't have much time to Twitch much anymore. When I had viewers, though, it went well, and I enjoyed the process immensely, kind of like I enjoyed gaming while hanging out with my friends year and years ago.

So, after spilling all of these ridiculous thoughts out of my hands and into the computer, the next time I am hanging out with my siblings or friends and one of them says, "Hey, let's watch you play a game," I might just do it. Gaming, as it turns out, doesn't have to be the anti-social endeavor it is often made out to be. I spent years having fun with my friends while gaming solo, as well as hours upon hours of playing games with them, sometimes late into the night. Having an audience doesn't need to be an open display of narcissism or an opportunity to show off - maybe the whole idea of having an audience, like it is in sports, is to engage with others and enjoy their company.

Having said that ... you should all follow me on Twitch. My name is rcbean, and having followers makes me feel important.

Video Games as Architecture

When we talk about whether video games are art, we usually think of them as fundamentally narrative pieces, most comparable to movies, which also integrate storyline and character with visuals and sound. Part of the difficulty in arguing that video games are art lies in showing that video games can tell a tight story, that (in spite of players' ability to change the course or details of the story) game designers can craft a narrative that affects its players on a level deeper than mere amusement. Even if we can point to some examples of deep characterization and narrative in games, that also leaves out at lot of video games, and there may be games that we thought affected us aesthetically but which don't have great narrative strength. (Ocarina of Time is one game that I wouldn't describe as having particularly sophisticated character or narrative, but which I find profoundly beautiful). So what I want to argue is that the aesthetic effect of some games resembles architecture-as-art more than it resembles film. Let's get a few other points out of the way first, though.

One thing I want to make clear is that I'm not arguing that all video games are more like architecture than like film, nor that all video games are art. I think it's possible for movies, music, and food (among other media) to be art, but not all pieces within these categories are art either: I saw Jurrassic World for the fighting dinosaurs, I sometimes listen to Disturbed to amp myself up for Halo, and I like to eat a big bowl of calorie-rich rice and lentils before I jog. Analogously, I sometimes I play video games just to distract myself for a couple of hours or for the fun of competing. I've never felt aesthetically moved by the Halo series (except perhaps by Reach), but playing it gives me kind of a rush.

Since I already feel heat on the back of my neck from all the Halo players who hate Reach, I want to make a related point. I think that what aesthetically moves us varies from person to person, and, for that matter, from situation to situation. Sometimes I play Kerbal Space Program just for the fun of problem-solving. Others times I find myself feeling genuinely moved toward the aesthetic sublime. Once it caught me by surprise; as my rescue pod took off from the Mun, ferrying a stranded kerbonaut to safety, my heart went pitter-patter, and I suddenly felt very small. So I'm not trying to tell anyone which games they should or shouldn't be aesthetically touched by. I am trying to describe one manner in which games can aesthetically affect us.

I'm also not sure that the other motivations for playing games--for a rush, for problem-solving, for the challenge, etc.-- are necessarily at odds with aesthetic experience. When I rescued my stranded Kerbal from his camp straddling the Munar sunset, I had already put my free time (as well as in game resources) into training that character, as well as into designing the rescue-craft and getting it to the Mun. I suspect that my previous commitment of "resources" to that mission and my desire to succeed were partly responsible for my unexpected empathy with the character I was rescuing. Similarly, when I first took my Skyrim character through the Barrow at Bleak Falls, I felt a real sense of dread, which I wouldn't characterize as a "fun" in any simple sense, but which I might characterize as aesthetically interesting. I think the dungeon inspired this feeling in part because I was actively trying not to be killed by hidden enemies. Though sometimes I really do play video games just for the fun of trying to win, I suspect that the trying-to-win aspect of games can actually contribute to their aesthetic impact.[1]

"But what about this architecture business?," you may ask as I meander through my thoughts. Well, I think that video games in some ways more closely resemble architecture than they do narrative artworks, and that some of the reasons people might use to disqualify video games from the artworld would also disqualify architecture.

Unlike films, games, to one extent or another, encourage players to explore the game on their own terms. This is taken to an extreme in open-world games like GTA and Skyrim, but also characterizes some level-based games like Dishonored and some slow-moving strategy games like the Civilization and Total War series.[2] Similarly, most architecture doesn't limit its viewer to a single perspective, nor does it require you to view it in rigid order of perspectives. Of course, there are some limits in both cases: It's pretty much inevitable that you see bottom floor of Sainte-Chapelle before you see the upper floor; you can't play the last level of Dishonored without playing through the previous levels. But you do have some control. If you want to, you can dwell on Sainte-Chapelle's more dimly lit lower floor for a long time before walking up into the light of the chapel's nave, which might heighten the intensity of the second experience. You can also choose whether to go out to the chapel's balcony or stay inside viewing the windows. In larger cathedrals, like Notre Dame, it's impossible to see everything at once, and you can choose your path through the structure as well as which elements of the cathedral you focus on. Likewise in games, you have some latitude to explore the game-world and its mechanics as suits your preferences; the aesthetic experience isn't engendered by a highly crafted and tight narrative, and we don't complain that cathedrals aren't art on this basis.

Architecture also shares with video games the integration of a variety of aesthetic forms and media. It's true that films contain music, background images, 3D spaces, etc., but in architecture, as with video games, the components need to be appreciable individually as well as within the context of the whole. Whereas in films, viewers are limited by the director's choice as to how closely they can observe the art forms that comprise and back the film, with architecture, the viewer can study each piece individually. A film may pass over a painting briefly, but (keeping with the cathedral examples)  viewers of the building's stained glass, frescoes, or sculptures can dwell on those aspects for as long as they choose. Video games share with architecture the need to form some kind of coherent whole while containing a number of separate works that are individually appreciable. If you look around a cathedral, you'll see one story told by the Stations of the Cross, stories of saints depicted in the windows, and maybe a story of judgment or creation laid out on a ceiling fresco. Each of these works can be in itself visually beautiful (or sublime), and it at least has to be complete enough to evoke something on its own. Whereas films are usually praised as art when they focus in on the psychology of a single character and tie that personality into a tailored story, it seems to me that architecture can work on us by winding together the themes of many artworks and smaller narratives into a great narrative or a great theme. As a lone artwork, a gargoyle, a window, or a fresco may not evoke religious awe, but when all of these smaller works are combined architecturally they can evoke something which none of them can on their own.

This willingness of architecture to play on "great themes" (grandeur, salvation, modernity) by assembling constituent works reminds me of the relation between a video game's whole and its parts. The quests of Ocarina of Time, which stand on their own as mini-narratives, can be fun, enchanting, pretty, and creepy in turn. Individually, most of them probably don't have the narrative weight to be art-fiction. What's of interest (to me) is the thematic interplay between the quests. The first half of the game, characterized by fairy-tale-esque quests, bright spaces, and friendly people, gives way to an incredibly dark second half: The people of Castle Town have been replaced by soul-sucking undead; the realm of the Zoras is frozen solid, and you can never fix it; almost every part of Link's childhood has been transformed into something threatening or macabre, and when you return temporarily to Link's childhood you descend beneath Kakariko Village to find that a darkness has been festering there all along. Even at the end of the game, when the realm of Hyrule springs anew, Link needs his childhood magically restored -- Along the way, he's lost something he otherwise can't get back. In many ways, the game that I remember most from my childhood is about Link's irreparably shattered innocence. It's very lovely and very sad. So without performing as art in the way we expect narrative fiction to, the game is able to generate a thematic interplay that many players, myself included, find quite moving.

I want to point out one more way in which video games and architecture resemble each other: they are both highly technical and industrial, and if we refuse to call video games art for this reason, we'd also need to deny architecture art-status on the same grounds. It's true that video games require highly technical skills, and well as the mobilization of large scale industry to create the computers and servers they are played on, the computers used by the developers, and the networks involved in their distribution. But architecture also is highly technical and requires a large number of skilled workers. For a building to stand, it must be built so that the forces of gravity are distributed properly into the ground; you need to know which materials are strong enough for the job; you need to take into account environmental dangers to the structure. All of this requires architects to make a number of technical decisions to realize their aesthetic vision, as well as to leave much of the execution up to skilled workers who may have minimal personal interest in the aesthetic vision. As with video games, architecture involves a lot of technical skill, and much of the skilled work isn't executed by the work's "auteur." So, I think if we disqualify video-games because of their technical and industrial aspects, we'd also have to disqualify architecture from being art, which seems an undesirable implication.[3]

So what's my point? It's not that all games are just like architecture. Rather, I'm trying to show that we shouldn't assume video games are like films or automatically judge them according to the same standards as films. Some video games are primarily narrative, but there are plenty of non-narrative artistic media, and video games come in many varieties. Perhaps we can expand our appreciation of video games as aesthetic objects if we expand the ways in which we understand them to function aesthetically.

---

[1] I think I may be remembering this argument from somewhere else, but I can't recall who should get credit. 

[2] I personally have a hard time getting anything aesthetic out of fast-paced strategy games like Starcraft II, but I'd be interested in whether others experience those games differently.

[3] Come to think of it, I think Roger Ebert made a passing remark similar to this in one of his writings on video games. 

An Honest Defense of the LEGO Video Games

I think in most gaming circles, I would not be considered a "gamer," as most hardcore gamers interpret the word. Yes, I play video games, for many more hours than the average human being. Yes, I do buy some games brand new and play the heck out of them, my sights almost always set on that elusive yet tempting "100% completion" rating. And yes, in the words of a good friend of mine from my youth, I am "obnoxiously good" at learning how to play a game quickly and efficiently. I remember that particular conversation occurring over Soul Caliber 2 for the Gamecube. He had bought the game a week previously, and within about twenty minutes or so, I was beating him regularly with characters I was only trying out for the first time. As a result of all of this, most people, particularly those that do not play video games on a regular basis, consider me a "gamer," and I, too, refer to myself as such. Yet, because of what games I play, how often I end up playing those games, and my attitudes about gaming in general, in spite of everything I just wrote, the gaming community would probably not consider me a true "gamer."

It's sad, though, that such a community can only be open to those that play certain games. The online gaming craze that start in the late nineties has grown exponentially - now, some people only play games online. Moreover, the need for better and better graphics (which most people interpret as "more realistic") has captured the attention of the hardcore gaming community, as well as the need for "grown-up games," leaving gamers like myself out of the loop in many instances. And, while I could write forever about how sad and depressing that all is, that is not my goal here. No, my goal is to make an argument about a specific type of game, one that is regularly disregarded by those that consider themselves hardcore gamers. This type of game, despite its fun-factor and playability, gets labeled a "kid game," and naturally, anyone that plays this type of game is not serious about their craft. These games, for lack of a better word, are actually quite...

Awesome (because everything is awesome ... am I right?).

Alright, so I've really only got experience with two of the games in this series: LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Wii version) and LEGO Marvel Superheroes (Wii U version). A few summers ago, LEGO Star Wars was my jam - I played it nearly every morning (something I can afford to do over the summers, since I spend the rest of the year teaching). I was obsessed with collecting every single little thing I could, unlocking every character and trying them all, and watching the entire Star Wars story played out by what amounted to be mimes, since the LEGO characters were given no dialogue. The game was charming, fun, and catered to my need to collect things, no mater how insignificant those things are. Did I ever get everything? As is often the result of my tireless hours spent playing a single game ... no, I did not. I could have, damn it, but the summer ended, and my schedule became full from teaching, planning and grading. By the time I had time to play something else, I had gotten something new and my attention shifted away from my beloved LEGO Star Wars.

Several months ago, using an Amazon gift card (thanks, Mom and Dad), I ordered another LEGO game, since I had enjoyed one already. The Marvel movies, as much as they are able to keep things cohesive and consistent, couldn't quite put together the heroes I wanted to see together (the X-Men and Fantastic Four being shunted away in their own franchises for stupid reasons having to do with "rights" and crap like that). So, given my brief research into LEGO Marvel Superheroes, I was excited for the possibilities. I have not been disappointed - I just finished a level where the Human Torch fought alongside Black Widow and Hawkeye! This game, unlike LEGO Star Wars, has dialogue, but that doesn't detract from the fun: the one-liners are not only true to the characters in their more goofy moments, but also to my incredibly "punny" sense of humor (ask my foster kids - if they don't cover their eyes and shake their head in embarrassment over a terrible joke I have just made at least three times a day, I have not done my job). The game, like the Star Wars iteration, has plenty to collect, and will undoubtedly take up much more of my time than Star Wars did. This thought makes me happy.

Now, I can hear some of you now, groaning and wondering how on Earth I am able to call myself a gamer with any amount of dignity. "LEGO games?" you might ask, "How on Earth are these the tools of a mighty gamer? They're too easy!" On that note, I kind of agree. These games were certainly not designed to be incredibly challenging - as a matter of fact, just a quick perusal of lists online of games that are great as "starter games" for those people with zero or little gaming experience will prove that point. Nearly universally, these games are labelled as easy to pick up and play and enjoy. You don't have lives - you simply lose what amounts to money each time you die. The default game mode yields helpful hints regularly, prompting you to use a certain type of character or interact with a certain object. The controls are quite simple - just directions, and maybe two or three other buttons are used. Combat is straight-forward, with no crazy button combinations to worry about. For someone like me that has been playing games since I was 3 or 4, these games present little to no challenge.

So why waste my time on something so easy? I'll tell you - because it's fun. Sometimes "fun" is being challenged, and for that, I turn my attention to other games (particularly the classics on the Sega Genesis and SNES or the NES - some of those are freakin' impossible). But, sometimes "fun" is something lighter and friendlier, and after an entire school year of trying to make high school students care about algebra and calculus, I'll gladly take some time to play something easy if it means I mostly just get to be entertained. Although I wish Mr. Fantastic didn't constantly repeat the line "I really had to stretch my legs for that one!" (or something along those lines), I still chuckle every time it happens, and every time something ridiculous happens. Anyone ever want to see Wolverine make one-liners at the Hulk's expense? Done. Ever want an image as funny as Iron Man just wearing his helmet and a pair of spotted boxers? Done. And nothing makes Return of the Jedi more believable than making everything out of LEGOs (seriously, that is the only way those freaking Ewoks could have completely manhandled the Empire!). LEGO games bring out the fun parts of ever franchise it seeks to embrace.

And that's the key word - embrace. These LEGO games, perhaps more so than the more "serious" games based on the movies from these franchises, embrace some of the more wonderful things these franchises have to offer. We all know the Marvel movies can be fun - so, if you are in the mood for the fun from that franchise, pick up the LEGO version. The same applies to Star Wars. LEGO games, in my experience, show just how entertaining some of these franchises can be, without sacrificing what these franchises are all about. Mind you, I haven't played all of the LEGO games, but if the others are anything like the ones I have made time to experience, they must be just as solid in terms of their representation of the franchises they emulate.

Now, don't mix up my defense of these games with their quality - these games are by no means the "best" out there. The vehicle levels in LEGO Star Wars are downright unwieldy most of the time, and both games I have played have their share of glitches. Case in point - I fell into the water as Iron Man in a level on The Raft in LEGO Marvel Superheroes, and it respawned me on a slanted part of cliff that dumped me right back in the water, over and over again. Even when I switched to my other characters, I could look over at Iron Man and see him, again and again, spawning and falling into the water. These games are not artistic masterpieces, and there are bugs that probably should have been worked out, but that doesn't mean they aren't an absolute blast to play.

In the end, a game doesn't need to be perfect to be fun - sometimes fun is all a game really needs to succeed. And in that regard, the LEGO games are hugely successful at what they seek to do. If I want a good laugh and an opportunity to explore a digital world that is far removed from my own, I pop in a LEGO game and let the ride begin. If I want something more meaningful, I'll find a Zelda game. If I want a challenge, I'll break out a classic platform like Lost Vikings (GOD, that game is hard!). If I want something that's pretty to look at, I'll play a Batman game or one of the Super Mario Galaxy games. But, if I want something stupidly fun and entertaining that probably won't drive me to rage quit (here's talking to you, Super Mario 3D World and your STUPID final level), I'll pick up a LEGO game and be able to relax for a little while.

Well, relax until someone needs me, or I need to feed someone, or put someone to bed ... you get the idea.