Dear parents, media and everyone else: Open your eyes to the good side of gaming

Believe it or not, it can be.
[Courtesy http://frugaldad.com/gaming/%5D

For as much joy as they’ve brought into my life, video games seem to have an inescapable place on the rhetorical hitlist of pundits, parents and pollsters alike. The examples are endless, but here are some modern highlights to set the stage: In 2010, Fox News presumptuously lambasted Mass Effect 2 for featuring “full digital nudity and sex,” two things the BioWare classic most certainly did not contain. Just last week, Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee ignited Twitter during an interview when he alluded to “all this violence, all this horrible sexism” inherent to video games. Philip Zimbardo, a professor emeritus at my very own Stanford Psychology Department, attempted to take a more scientific approach to game criticism in a book he released last week. He argues that young males are being re-wired by porn and video games — they’re the same, apparently — to “demand constant stimulation” and are “desensitized to reality and real-life interactions with others.” (For whatever reason, he completely fails to address the 42 percent of all gamers who are women or the 50 percent of gamers over age 37.)

Well-articulated or not, attacks on video games are nothing new. Even when our parents were playing Pong in their basements and Pac-Man at Pizza Hut, they shirked off a sizable population of player-haters.

The big surprise? After all these decades of mashing buttons, the world is still spinning. Apples still fall down off the tree, not up. Winter follows autumn. Young people are still getting up to no good, falling in love, tending to families and settling down the same way they always have. Life marches on in the video game era, and I daresay it’s a touch better because of them.

The custom-console conundrum, part II: Re-assessing the roadblocks

For now, custom consoles remain a difficult sort of pet-project for hardcore enthusiasts. But that could change.

At some point in your giddy, cereal-fueled youth, chances are there came a time when you realized that you were categorically superior to your parents in at least one regard: computer stuff. For me, that moment came when my dear father couldn’t switch the RF adapter for my NES from “game mode” back to cable in time for a Twins game. I was seven at the time.

The generational gap in technological know-how is a uniquely modern phenomenon, and the divide is only going to be larger for the next few rounds of wired youngsters. In the meantime, we should do more to develop a knowledge-driven sense of control over technology’s place in our personal lives.

Like I discussed last week, console-manufacturers may be in a great position to lead that sort of paradigm-shift. By couching a gentle introduction to computer-tweaking in a common medium of entertainment, a lot more people might suddenly gain legs to stand on in our increasingly tech-driven world. A host of obstacles have historically prevented that kind of radical change, but the playing field may be a little different today. Let’s take an updated look at some of the reasons console-makers don’t typically encourage us to tinker around with their products.

The custom-console conundrum, part I: The joy of tinkering

If only this kind of thing was a bit easier.

One late night in the summer of 2009, I sat bleary-eyed and jittery over a rickety card table in my parents’ basement. I’d been there for what felt like days. A completely disassembled Xbox 360 lay strewn in pieces before me, each component resting gently on its own six-inch square of newspaper. A clap of thunder rattled the window as I steadied the screwdriver in my hand.

By the next morning, I’d brought a console back from the brink of death — and even managed to trick it out with a new heat sink and some other goodies. I’m hardly a bona fide techie, and frankly, that was some hard shit. But when that pile of bolts sparked to life and I heard that disc drive purr … let me tell you, it felt damn good.

Most people don’t ever think to open up a console. Or a phone, a calculator or even an alarm clock — and certainly not a proper computer. But as anyone who’s built a PC from scratch can tell you, there’s an unexpected emotionality to the experience of powering something on when you can think to yourself, I had a hand in making that.

If more people are going to experience that quiet euphoria, the barrier for entry needs to be lower. People also need a better reason to break out the toolkit in the first place

I’m not sure that Journey can be captured in words, but here’s my best shot

The wind blows, a mountain calls. Your journey begins.

Playing Journey is a bit like sliding through an exotic dream. It’s exhilarating one moment, sad the next, and inherently the experience is solely yours, the dreamer’s. The intensity of such things, for better or worse, will always fade when you leave the bed or put down the controller. The sights and sounds evaporate in daylight, and the experience boils away to lingering, naked emotion. When someone asks if you had any dreams last night, you’re at a loss for words. But you’ve no lack of feelings, difficult as they are to convey.

I played through Journey on a cold night in March, but the memory went dormant until a few days ago. It was one of those nervous, gleeful moments that comes up every so often for any hobbyist or closeted geek: a friend of mine, with whom I quite happily spend time never mentioning games, was asking about them. My mind raced — I don’t make a habit of talking about this kind of thing, but I jump like a hungry dog when I get a good chance. With effort, I held myself back from clicking open my metaphorical briefcase and unleashing an off-putting presentation of why games will save the world, or some other overwrought bullshit. Luckily, I managed to keep my head on straight and give a sensible, not-too-enthusiastic account of what makes games worth playing – or at least, I hope I did. I was mostly satisfied when the conversation moved on, if only because I didn’t embarrass myself and she didn’t think any worse of games. Mostly satisfied, but not entirely.

Tough love to Nintendo — It’s time to change Wii U’s name

 

Sometime near the end of yesterday, Nintendo released its annual summary of the last fiscal year. Video game financials? Boring, I know. But the day’s most interesting event, whether or not it actually occurs, lies beyond the numbers. With the industry’s biggest tradeshow barely five weeks away, it’s the last chance for Nintendo to make a PR splash before the lights come on at the company’s E3 conference in Los Angeles. In this case, it’s their last chance to correct a mistake before it blows up in their faces.

At last year’s E3, Nintendo took the veil off the first new console the industry had seen since 2006. With the original Wii struggling to captivate the fickle mainstream base that put Nintendo on easy street for several years, this new set of hardware represented the company’s effort to not only reinvigorate the average non-gamer, but to bring its core fans back home by stepping into the HD era — finally. As Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime put it, the Wii U was meant for “you” and “me.” But Nintendo’s showy confidence of June 2011 was undermined by a simple, fatal misjudgment in marketing. The new name, punchy as it was, confused some, alienated others and embarrassed the rest. The stakes were higher than ever, and Nintendo was going all-in with a hand that looked bad to everyone at the table but themselves.

BioWare’s handling of Mass Effect 3’s ending is admirable, but sets a dangerous precedent

For most of human history, artistic expression was a one-time action. Ancient sculptors couldn’t take back a stroke of their chisel, and paint didn’t come off when it hit the canvas. There was a simple but beautiful synergy between the weight of those brief artistic moments and the focused, passionate energy that inspired them.

Humans are still expressive creatures, but today we’re afforded much more time and space to craft works of art. We can re-take a digital photo or edit it later, film a certain scene until we get it just right, or even re-post a tweet to make sound a little more snappy. I’m no artist, but from a broad perspective I think it’s fair to say that this trend makes art less emotional and more intellectual than it used to be. If nothing else, makes art more malleable; where paintings and sculptures were once altered by little more than the elements and time itself, films and music could last forever on a hard drive but go under the knife of an editor years later. (I’m looking at you, George Lucas.) We’ve been heading in that direction for decades, with a different flavor of technology leading the way at any given time. Recent events have made me convinced, though, that video games – still debated by some as being an art form at all – are spearheading the trend more than anything else. And while the effect on art is nothing new, I’m not sure it’s a good thing for video games.

When games get real — my friend’s dumb story of real-life NFL Blitz. Kind of.

To be honest, I probably spent way too much time pondering how to make my grand entrance into the hallowed halls of Nate of Play. I knew I would write about sports games since the site’s creator hardly writes about them, and they definitely represent the genre of game that I have the most experience with. But the most difficult part of writing is often just getting started, right?

The idea eventually came to be in two parts. First was the release of the updated NFL Blitz in early January. Blitz has always held a special place in my heart, as I’m sure it has for many gamers in their 20s right now, so it felt fitting to write something about it. Then when I was bouncing ideas off Nate for what that “something” might be, he suggested tying it in with some sort of personal story. While I’m still skeptical that people will want to read about the shenanigans of my 13-year old self, I realized that my Blitzstory actually maybe says something about the franchise as a whole. So without further ado, let’s go back to the snowy Chicago winter of 2001.

Before you leave Earth, here’s the best way to play Mass Effect 3

I recently spent the better part of 1,000 words explaining why, after no small amount of personal distress, I decided to let go of my obsession with experiencing Mass Effect 3 in the “best way possible” – if there is such a thing – and just play through the damn game on its own terms, come what may. After 15 hours back on the Normandy with my crew, you might call me hypocritical for coming back with a column explaining the ideal way to play Mass Effect 3. And you might be right. But to be fair, this time I’m not focusing on the peripheral parts of the experience: the visuals, the sound, the controller, and so on. I’m talking about the direct experience of what’s going on in your head when you play the game. In other words, a lot of your enjoyment from Mass Effect 3 is going to depend on your attitude. It might sound picky, but no game in recent memory has boasted quite the build-up or pay-off that Mass Effect 3 does. If you play it right, that is.

First of all, I might have to burst some bubbles. Electronic Arts and BioWare Project Director Casey Hudson have emphasized how accessible the Mass Effect threequel is for newcomers to the series. That’s understandable from a marketing perspective, but it’s completely wrong. It takes about 30 seconds into a truly “new” game in Mass Effect 3 – when it asks if you suffered the loss of Kaidan, Ashley or “numerous” unknown people in the earlier games – to realize that it simply shouldn’t be played on its own. There’s simply too many gnarls to the series’ plot, and too much of its twists are made poignant by the simple fact that they are chosen by the player. But by the same token, I can’t imagine a more rewarding game to cap off a trilogy so long in the making. Even if Mass Effect 3 was junk, I’d have to play it. Like a good round of poker, I’ve been at the table too long. By now, I’m plot-committed.

For a game with the predominant theme of sacrifice, it’s strangely fitting that you have to make some concessions to properly enjoy Mass Effect 3. I know it’s a little pretentious to help someone enjoy a single-player game… but you’ll just have to deal with that. You might thank me later.

If you don’t give a damn about indie games, here’s five reasons why you should

When Xbox Live launched its most recent update a couple months ago, a friend and I sat on a couch and flipped our way through all the new features – cloud saves, the new interface, voice controls and all the rest. We disagreed about the benefits of some of the changes, but at the end of the day, it was still just Xbox Live. It took us about five minutes to reach that mutual conclusion, and we were about to move on with our day.

Then, more or less by accident, we stumbled through the unfamiliar interface until we came upon a forgotten relic of Microsoft’s online service: the Indie Games Channel. (I feel wrong, somehow, capitalizing all three words in that name – given the way Microsoft threw the service into the ether and forgot about it, I hesitate to think that it deserves such dignity.)

My friend hovered his finger over the B button for a moment before quitting back out to the dashboard. As he did, he dismissed the Indie channel as nothing but a repository of shallow garbage. I couldn’t argue, really. He’s not wrong.

That’s a bigger shame than it might sound. Given the massive volume of Xbox Live users – about 40 million, at the moment – I’m sure there were plenty of other Joe-gamers pawing through the service’s new features last month, and probably at any other point in time as well. For many of them, I’m sure that the sad, derelict Indie Games Channel is their only exposure to independent game development. Of course, it makes a less-than-stellar case for the value of that part of the industry. Add in the occasional Facebook or Flash game, and the average consumer probably has the implicit, ingrained opinion that indie games are junk.

I can see why they might assume as much. But oh, how very wrong they are.

In coming to the defense of indie games, I wasn’t entirely sure where to begin. Without actually sitting down and playing through some games with my readers, it’s about as difficult as explaining the distinguishing features of Cubism to someone who’s never heard of Pablo Picasso.

In lieu of that, perhaps the best approach is to take some specific examples and illustrate, if I can, the outstanding features of each. There are inevitably going to be a dozen terrible indie games for every brilliant one, but here are five ways, at least, that small-time development can rise above the din.

Meta Effect — How the Mass Effect 3 demo turned a mirror on my gaming habits

I've got a lot to think about.

It’s not often that I mark a game’s release date on my Google Calendar. Besides the fact that I tend to remember them off-hand, they look a little silly next to all of my oh-so-important classes and appointments. But with Mass Effect 3, I can’t help myself. There’s a little red bubble on March 6 that simply reads “THE BEGINNING OF THE END.”

After playing the demo that came out earlier this week, I’m still more excited for Mass Effect 3 than any game this year. But that anticipation is tempered by an unexpected realization.

Before I get into that, I should back up a bit. When I say I’m obsessed with Mass Effect 3, I’m not just buying into the hype. Even if I put on blinders to the game’s massive marketing campaign, I’d still have to wake myself up from the occasional daydream where I’m chatting with my crew in the mess hall of the SSV Normandy. That’s because Mass Effect lends a powerful sense of personal ownership to each player’s story and, like no franchise before it, stretches that saga out from year to year and game to game. Like millions of other players, I’ve seen my decisions from back in 2007, when the first game released, come back to haunt and reward me. I’ve lost good friends, made worse enemies and, of course, had romantic encounters with sexy aliens. And even if other players have walked a similar path through the first two games, Mass Effect still makes my space-saga feel like it’s all mine. After all that, I need to finish my story. Period.