I was waxing nostalgic with some other folks on IRC the other day about computers that we had grown up with. My very first computer was a Timex Sinclair 2000.
The Timex Sinclair 1000 was state of the art for a home computer at the time. 2K of memory. A 1/8 inch phono port to plug in the tape recorder to save and load programs. I was lucky to have a couple of accessories: The chicklet-style keyboard overlay and the 16K memory expansion pack, which was the size of four decks of cards and was so heavy that I had to duct-tape it to the expansion port in back to keep it from falling off.
Of course I proceeded from there to the venerable Commodore 64, and on to the Amiga. But before our conversation could carry me completely through my computer evolution, they started to discuss (for some reason) video games, especially some of their old favorites. This included revealing some of their reasoning why those games were favorites, and that’s where the problem in this story begins.
I’ve been playing The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion on the XBox 360 for a week, on and off. It strikes me as a much better game than Morrowind, the previous edition in the series. Why? Well, sure the graphics are better, but I find that the game itself is better played.
For example, in Morrowind, you start the game by stepping off a boat and into a town, and there really isn’t much direction at all. I guess that’s part of the allure of the game, but my main issue with it is that because there is no direction, I couldn’t really figure out what I wanted to do.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people have enjoyed Morrowind very much because of these free-form exploration possibilities. But those people could enjoy Oblivion just as well, and be better pulled in to the storyline if they wanted to be.
Oblivion starts the game with a kind of “trainer level”. I think these are important to have in games, even for experienced gamers, since it initiates you into the feel and control of the game, and sets you on a path that you can follow to complete the main storyline.
In any case, the games sited by the folks on IRC were mostly games that came out at some point for the Playstation. (Yes, I seem to hang out with a younger crowd online, when their earliest memories of video games involve a platform that came out when I was 20.) They frequently talked about how good a game looked. Nobody ever mentioned how well the game played. Sadly, game play is one of those things that if done properly is very transparent to the person it is affecting.
Some of the best games I’ve ever played were games that didn’t have graphics. I’m an Infocom junkie. For example, I think that Wishbringer was probably more influential to me than 99% of video games I’ve played. Wishbringer was all text, and it was the story that drew me in, not how many polygons the characters had.
It’s weird how a majority of games for the XBox involve shooting things, thus requiring high polygon counts for aiming and high framerates for evading. If all you’re gauging a game on is how it looks, then your criteria is pretty easy to evaluate.
Call to Duty 2 is a very good FPS on the 360. The graphics are amazing, and everything moves very fluidly. I suppose there is a kind of story going on while you’re playing, but really it’s all about the mission. It’s a linear mission. It’s a timeline that’s pretty well known, since the results of the wars are well published by now. The game itself is only engrossing because it requires concentration to shoot things well.
Immersion. That’s what I really miss about gaming — Caring about what’s going on in the game. If I’m excited about a game it won’t be because I killed a record number of Nazis or cleared a certain number of stages in record time. It will be because I managed to figure out a story or a trick to the game.
Sure, all of those mindless games have their place. For example, I love playing Wik on XBox Live Arcade. I don’t know why I like it. I think it’s just because it’s mindless fun. But if I’m looking for a serious gaming fix, where do I turn? There is a shocking lack of anything as robust as the Infocom games or the Lucasarts SCUMM games anywhere on the market.
I’m sure people will tell me that gamers don’t want to play adventure games any more. Is it that I’m crazy to think they should want that kind of game, or that gamers have simply come to accept what they’re handed?
Seriously, do we need another war game for the 360?
Next rant: Real-time “strategy”. When was the last time in real life you had to micromange hordes of troops with 20-second deployment times? If the next generation of warfare involves gathering and deploying infantry to the battle zone within one minute, our teenagers will be able to conquer the world.
