Monday, January 24, 2011

Why I play games

I am a bit of a loner in my family, being the only person I'd class as anywhere near "gamer", (although my sisters fiancĂ©e is close). So when I talk to them, it can be a tad hard to find a subject to discuss at times, since their hobbies rarely match mine.

One of the questions I've encountered, not just in my family, but from others as well is "Why do you play games so much?"

A fair question, and one that is kind of hard to answer in a short time.
Games, at their core, is the same as other forms of entertainment. Music, films, cartoons, books and so forth all strive to tell a story. To let the player experience a story from the viewpoint of one or more characters.
A well-written book or great film can move people, can induce emotions and explain things in ways that are difficult to do in conversations.

Games take this a step further. Games allow the player to create their own stories, through the medium. No game is ever truly the same. Even the simplest games have you ending up with a slightly different ammo count, or one more secret area. Maybe you did this and that in a different order.
Much like films, books and so on, games tell a story. But while a book will only ever tell the same story, and films will only truly surprise you once, games tell your story, not that of others. And it always changes, through your own actions.

Some games allow you to control everything, creating the world and your story however you want (Minecraft), while others have a limited place for you to move about in (Doom).
Either type of game is unique, and so each playthrough is slightly different than the others.

Games, to me, are a way of passing the time, of experiencing things I can never do in real life and, most crucially, of letting me create a story about myself that is unlike any other.


I am Changrey, I am a gamer.

See ya all on the bounce.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Darkness called, but I wasn't home so he left me a message

If you get the above quote, I salute you. If not, go play Warcraft.

It was nice to be back home for Christmas and spend some time with my family. Still unsure about this whole ireland thing due to the burglary, but I'll figure it out as time goes on, I'm in no rush yet.

I've recently discovered a wonderful gem due to the great people at strategycore, Jagged Alliance 2. Squad-based tactical top-down view games are as rare nowadays as a sensible politician so finding one of the old greats is truly a joy, thank you once again GoG. Story goes something like this; country is happy, king is alone. King finds wife.Wife turns evil and tries to kill king. King runs away with the help of underground resistance movement (yeah, cuz helping the king you are rebelling against makes sooo much sense) and flees to other country. Wife (ex-wife now) crowns herself queen and begins regime of horror, death and tyranny. King sits on his ass for a decade or two and then hires 4 idiots to go beat her 10.000 man strong army and kill her.

Yes, you play the 4 (or however many mercenaries you decide to hire) idiots. Great game. Storyline, not quite so much.

In other news, it turns out that I'm a complete idiot (like you didn't know that already). Playing around with knives is dangerous at best. Playing around with knives when other, less lethal, stuff would do the job more so. Playing around with knives you don't need while extremely tired at 3 in the morning on a weekend? Beyond stupid and way into moronic level. Took 2 hours of sitting on my ass with paper wrapped around my finger to stop the bleeding. Yay me.