Modern Day Mythos
I was digging through the archives of crap on my hard drive and I found a bunch of old games I had archived on a virtual pc on my Mac.
I remember one day my significant other and I were talking about games and how you kind of lose your identity in them. I agree for the most part. You grab a controller or mouse or whatever, and the next thing you know, the magic console fairy has taken several hours of your life irrevocably.
I admit, yeah, games can be a time waster. But, I don't think all games are bad. The ones I found lying around were old Sierra games, vintage early 90s. I remember time as a young girl spent saving babysitting money excited to buy the next parser driven game (for you young folks, that means no mouse, typing in commands on a keyboard). Sierra has always had a knack for atmosphere, something you rarely find in games today, and even rarely in Sierra games post-1996. It is one thing to throw together a bunch of sterile rendered 3d objects and call it a "room", as a lot of games do today... It is another to simulate the heartbeat of life that is present in a real building or city. A lot of the old Sierra games accomplished this by adding incredible amounts of 2D detail, passerbys who were very interactive, and allowing you to interact with objects in the environment even in impossible ways.
My favorites are the old Quest for Glory games, a parody of the traditional medieval hero rpg. They had a lot of humor intended for all ages. Everytime I played, I discovered new humor and inside references to popular media from all times (from Marx Brothers to Casablanca to old time 40s and 50s movie theaters). There were real phrases of Arabic (from the desert lands) and classical references to mythology and mythological creatures. You could also play as thief, wizard, or sword swingin' hero, each solving puzzles in a different way.
In a way, many hours of QFG kind of shaped who I am. It taught me to persevere and not give up, that over time your skills will be refined and you will achieve your goal. It also taught me that sometimes there is no easy answer to hard ethical questions, you just gotta do what you gotta do and take the good with the bad. Yeah, lots of cliches. But also, although I was young, the cultural references made me want to explore the world and read about the fantastic monsters I had seen in the game. The game made me want to be a hero.
But anyways, IMHO, gaming experiences are only as empty as the participants and the authors make them. Well done, smart games can be almost like good books, expanding the imagination of a young player. Bad games are an anathema to thinking, and encourage passivity. Good games don't make you want to escape the world, they make you want to embrace it.
-- Aeryth
I remember one day my significant other and I were talking about games and how you kind of lose your identity in them. I agree for the most part. You grab a controller or mouse or whatever, and the next thing you know, the magic console fairy has taken several hours of your life irrevocably.
I admit, yeah, games can be a time waster. But, I don't think all games are bad. The ones I found lying around were old Sierra games, vintage early 90s. I remember time as a young girl spent saving babysitting money excited to buy the next parser driven game (for you young folks, that means no mouse, typing in commands on a keyboard). Sierra has always had a knack for atmosphere, something you rarely find in games today, and even rarely in Sierra games post-1996. It is one thing to throw together a bunch of sterile rendered 3d objects and call it a "room", as a lot of games do today... It is another to simulate the heartbeat of life that is present in a real building or city. A lot of the old Sierra games accomplished this by adding incredible amounts of 2D detail, passerbys who were very interactive, and allowing you to interact with objects in the environment even in impossible ways.
My favorites are the old Quest for Glory games, a parody of the traditional medieval hero rpg. They had a lot of humor intended for all ages. Everytime I played, I discovered new humor and inside references to popular media from all times (from Marx Brothers to Casablanca to old time 40s and 50s movie theaters). There were real phrases of Arabic (from the desert lands) and classical references to mythology and mythological creatures. You could also play as thief, wizard, or sword swingin' hero, each solving puzzles in a different way.
In a way, many hours of QFG kind of shaped who I am. It taught me to persevere and not give up, that over time your skills will be refined and you will achieve your goal. It also taught me that sometimes there is no easy answer to hard ethical questions, you just gotta do what you gotta do and take the good with the bad. Yeah, lots of cliches. But also, although I was young, the cultural references made me want to explore the world and read about the fantastic monsters I had seen in the game. The game made me want to be a hero.
But anyways, IMHO, gaming experiences are only as empty as the participants and the authors make them. Well done, smart games can be almost like good books, expanding the imagination of a young player. Bad games are an anathema to thinking, and encourage passivity. Good games don't make you want to escape the world, they make you want to embrace it.
-- Aeryth
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