Is “Press Start” a Little on the Nose?
Yeah, video games are pretty cool. I like ‘em; they might become popular in the future… I’ve been playing since I was 3 years old, when my brother handed down his Super Nintendo. I have also been asthmatic since I was 2, so I didn’t go outside as much other kids. You can see where this is going. In my early childhood, with no way for me to play more active games and socialize, games took hold of me early. They gave me adventures to go on, allowing me to project myself into fantasto. I could run and jump, blam things away, and explore fantastical worlds. In school I could hardly contain my daydreams of Megaman X, Star Fox, or Perfect Dark.
There is simply no substitute for the immersion and tangibility I felt in playing games. No other medium, (though I learned to enjoy others as well) could keep me glued to it like games. It’s exhilarating to watch John Wick judo-shoot his way through Russian Mafia goons in a perfectly choreographed sequence, but it’s even more invigorating when it is you who tears through the baddies. In a game, you can do it in your own style, and learn how to fight them all your own. Making choices allows you to project yourself onto the world you inhabit, or, allow you to step out of yourself, acting like someone you never thought you’d turn into.
“These are the things you always hear when people tout games, right?”
Welp, yeah, and I totally agree with these platitudes.
Really, to me, explaining what makes games so entrancing is a serious challenge, because of how… deep (forgive me) they are. Yes, the platitudes still ring true, but the format is rich because of how much developers can pack into a game, and how many different forms of art are incorporated within it. Film, its closest cousin, shares much of this richness, and is a huge influence on games themselves, but even film does not quite go far enough, in terms of what it is able to feature. It’s not a very fun movie if it stops all the time to allow the audience to read a short story. That’s perfectly normal in an Elder Scrolls game, though. Even the relatively dungeon-oriented journals, which reveals clues about the current dungeon I was in, have been riveting: Another adventurer marks their influence in the hallowed cave. Finding them (dead or alive, usually dead) further inside is the physical proof, sure, but I felt the weight of their presence through the prose.
Epistolary stories are just one aspect of a dense game, and I could go on and on, but this introduction would be severely unfocused, and I would be eliminating potential subjects for this blog! Suffice it to say, I just really love a game that can tell me a story that I’m excited to live in. It’s true, I’m not a “purist” when it comes to game design, though I also catch myself admiring the hell out of games that go that route, certainly. It’s complicated, and I hope this blog will not only serve others, but myself, as I try to identify what it is about a given game I love, hate, or don’t care about.
Bottom line, I want in on this whole “videographic gaming television” business. From development, to criticism, to simply producing entertaining content within the realm of the genre. Welcome to Polygonal Prescriptions!
