Video Games and Me
May. 16th, 2016 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsBeen too long since I posted. As usual.
I never did do a post-mortem on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
insert_coin; I both wrote and received stories for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link; I think both stories came out very well!
And I think I overdid it on the book challenge and burnt myself out a bit, so I've been taking a break lately, but hopefully I'll get back into it soon.
The matching video game challenge I invented... Well, I never have fully committed to it, although it's given me some nice thoughts. But that feeds into the actual topic of my ramble, because...
I am in a really weird place when it comes to video games. It might even take multiple posts to try to unpack all the baggage here.
To start with the practical stuff, the situation in my house is such that I don't really have space for a proper TV-connected console, so when I play dedicated-platform video games, it's handhelds. I have a DS Lite (which I love), a PSP (which I love somewhat less), and a New 3DS (which I love, although so far I'm better at just fiddling with it than actually playing games on it). I've also been drooling over mostly-indie games on Steam and have promised myself a graphics card when my birthday rolls around, but until then I'm severely limited in playing stuff on PC. And, BTW, my internet connection sucks, so MMOs or any such thing just aren't on the cards.
So that's present practicalities. I'm also in this weird time warp. Like, I grew up with games; the NES and SNES especially were major pillars of my childhood although I mostly watched my sister play and only had a few selected games that I played myself (more on that later) --- we also had a Genesis and all the trimmings but it didn't make as much of an impression on me; it's the Nintendo consoles I get nostalgic for. Then I went off to college around the time of the original PlayStation and sort of dropped out of gaming. I eventually got a PSX, which I mainly used for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and even a PS2, which I mainly used for DDR, but yeah, I didn't really keep up.
When I got my DS Lite I started catching up (with like ALL the handheld Castlevania games especially), but I was playing catch-up and largely limited to handhelds, so yeah, the current console stuff I'm seriously out of the loop. And other than a stint with Puzzle & Dragons on a tablet that I have since given away, I haven't gotten into mobile games either; I actually don't have a mobile device.
But all that practical stuff is really just scratching the surface next to the psychological weirdness with me and video games, which I've touched on here before, but I'm going down that road again.
It's like, games have all this great stuff going with persistence and goals, and my brain apparently doesn't know how to deal with any of it.
I mentioned that as a child, I mostly watched my sister play games rather than play them myself --- and from that day to this, it's like I've never learned to lose at games. I'd like to say that dying in a game rattles me, but on further thought, it's infinitely weirder than that. As I also mentioned, there were certain games I would play myself --- especially RPGs. They were somehow okay, and somehow my mind classified them as safer and easier, although these days well-adjusted people will tell you that the original Final Fantasy was a "Nintendo Hard" game. My memory is sketchy, but I know I lost at Final Fantasy, and I don't think it bothered me like a more action-based game would. Partly I was resistant to real-time performance pressure and a turn-based game took that pressure off --- when Square went to a more real-time system in the SNES FFs, it scared the crap out of me, although I did adjust. Maybe part of it was that I just understood RPGs better, like if I failed I could immediately see what had gone wrong (go grind for levels/equipment or just try again until you have better luck with the damn turn-you-to-stone birds) where I could imagine myself beating my head against the wall of a platformer indefinitely. I don't know.
And I think I've had phases where it was less bad/more manageable, but today, I'm in kind of an awkward place. Like, turn-based RPGs just aren't exciting anymore. I like them okay sometimes, but I enjoy something with more of an action element --- but if the action gets too difficult or stressful, I still freak out. This has given me a quixotic wish for the perfect "goldilocks" game. It has also gotten me wondering why some games even need death mechanics. I mean, story-wise it wouldn't make much sense in, like, Legend of Zelda if the monsters weren't out to kill you, but is the threat of death really necessary to the appeal of it? Isn't failure to advance enough of a push? I found a couple of interesting links to people reflecting on death in video games as a possibly-weird cultural artifact, but it seems underexplored.
Actually, the whole thing about having failure-anxiety getting in the way of enjoying video games seems really underexplored.
On the death thing, I hear you actually can't die/lose in Kirby's Epic Yarn; sadly I don't have a platform to play it on. It also struck me that people have been removing the death mechanics from video games forever with Game Sharks and such and apparently still having fun. These days you can do that with emulators, and I think it would be a worthwhile thing for me to explore, which I never have before. Yes, I have a history not just of failure anxiety but also of being pathologically strait-laced; I think I'm better at letting go of that one.
I've also found on a few occasions that I can get around the anxiety if I approach a game with a certain unserious attitude, like if I'm just playing around with it and not playing it as such. That doesn't come naturally to me, but it's something else I should pursue more...
Speaking of letting go of such things and/or not taking them too seriously, my most recent renewal of ties with video games, I kind of took it in my head to pick one and play it all the way through before moving on to the next (which is kind of what the gaming challenge assumes, too). It sort of worked for a little while, but I think I could stand to loosen up and dabble more. Lately I've been bingeing Extra Credits episodes on YouTube, and the one on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation was a nice breath of air in this regard; basically, I can ask myself if I'm playing a game because it's fun in itself or because I want something from it, and if it's not fun in itself, it may or may not be time to let go.
...Okay, I think that'll do it for now. That all seemed more profound and less like pointless rambling when it was in my head before I wrote it down, but hey.
Just to wrap up, current video game status report:
I've pretty much given up on finishing Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap; what was left of it was a lot of stressful for not much reward, so I just watched the ending on YouTube. I haven't fully let it go, but I think I just should. The not-so-stressful parts were a blast, though.
PopoloCrois is slow going but I'm determined to finish it, and I'm most of the way there. The cuteness and pathos I expected are there, but gameplay-wise, it's not actually all that good and I'm just having to slog through to the end. (Given the weird history, I'm taking some solace in the revelation that the PSP one is a mashed-up port that everyone says isn't as good as the originals, so I don't have to admit that game I've been irrationally longing for for years actually isn't that good...)
And I did start Undertale, need to get back to it. Trying for a perfect pacifist run, because that's how I roll. But yeah, unless I'm going to abuse an FAQ, I'll need to accept the idea of dying before I figure it all out...
I never did do a post-mortem on
insert_coin; I both wrote and received stories for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link; I think both stories came out very well!And I think I overdid it on the book challenge and burnt myself out a bit, so I've been taking a break lately, but hopefully I'll get back into it soon.
The matching video game challenge I invented... Well, I never have fully committed to it, although it's given me some nice thoughts. But that feeds into the actual topic of my ramble, because...
I am in a really weird place when it comes to video games. It might even take multiple posts to try to unpack all the baggage here.
To start with the practical stuff, the situation in my house is such that I don't really have space for a proper TV-connected console, so when I play dedicated-platform video games, it's handhelds. I have a DS Lite (which I love), a PSP (which I love somewhat less), and a New 3DS (which I love, although so far I'm better at just fiddling with it than actually playing games on it). I've also been drooling over mostly-indie games on Steam and have promised myself a graphics card when my birthday rolls around, but until then I'm severely limited in playing stuff on PC. And, BTW, my internet connection sucks, so MMOs or any such thing just aren't on the cards.
So that's present practicalities. I'm also in this weird time warp. Like, I grew up with games; the NES and SNES especially were major pillars of my childhood although I mostly watched my sister play and only had a few selected games that I played myself (more on that later) --- we also had a Genesis and all the trimmings but it didn't make as much of an impression on me; it's the Nintendo consoles I get nostalgic for. Then I went off to college around the time of the original PlayStation and sort of dropped out of gaming. I eventually got a PSX, which I mainly used for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and even a PS2, which I mainly used for DDR, but yeah, I didn't really keep up.
When I got my DS Lite I started catching up (with like ALL the handheld Castlevania games especially), but I was playing catch-up and largely limited to handhelds, so yeah, the current console stuff I'm seriously out of the loop. And other than a stint with Puzzle & Dragons on a tablet that I have since given away, I haven't gotten into mobile games either; I actually don't have a mobile device.
But all that practical stuff is really just scratching the surface next to the psychological weirdness with me and video games, which I've touched on here before, but I'm going down that road again.
It's like, games have all this great stuff going with persistence and goals, and my brain apparently doesn't know how to deal with any of it.
I mentioned that as a child, I mostly watched my sister play games rather than play them myself --- and from that day to this, it's like I've never learned to lose at games. I'd like to say that dying in a game rattles me, but on further thought, it's infinitely weirder than that. As I also mentioned, there were certain games I would play myself --- especially RPGs. They were somehow okay, and somehow my mind classified them as safer and easier, although these days well-adjusted people will tell you that the original Final Fantasy was a "Nintendo Hard" game. My memory is sketchy, but I know I lost at Final Fantasy, and I don't think it bothered me like a more action-based game would. Partly I was resistant to real-time performance pressure and a turn-based game took that pressure off --- when Square went to a more real-time system in the SNES FFs, it scared the crap out of me, although I did adjust. Maybe part of it was that I just understood RPGs better, like if I failed I could immediately see what had gone wrong (go grind for levels/equipment or just try again until you have better luck with the damn turn-you-to-stone birds) where I could imagine myself beating my head against the wall of a platformer indefinitely. I don't know.
And I think I've had phases where it was less bad/more manageable, but today, I'm in kind of an awkward place. Like, turn-based RPGs just aren't exciting anymore. I like them okay sometimes, but I enjoy something with more of an action element --- but if the action gets too difficult or stressful, I still freak out. This has given me a quixotic wish for the perfect "goldilocks" game. It has also gotten me wondering why some games even need death mechanics. I mean, story-wise it wouldn't make much sense in, like, Legend of Zelda if the monsters weren't out to kill you, but is the threat of death really necessary to the appeal of it? Isn't failure to advance enough of a push? I found a couple of interesting links to people reflecting on death in video games as a possibly-weird cultural artifact, but it seems underexplored.
Actually, the whole thing about having failure-anxiety getting in the way of enjoying video games seems really underexplored.
On the death thing, I hear you actually can't die/lose in Kirby's Epic Yarn; sadly I don't have a platform to play it on. It also struck me that people have been removing the death mechanics from video games forever with Game Sharks and such and apparently still having fun. These days you can do that with emulators, and I think it would be a worthwhile thing for me to explore, which I never have before. Yes, I have a history not just of failure anxiety but also of being pathologically strait-laced; I think I'm better at letting go of that one.
I've also found on a few occasions that I can get around the anxiety if I approach a game with a certain unserious attitude, like if I'm just playing around with it and not playing it as such. That doesn't come naturally to me, but it's something else I should pursue more...
Speaking of letting go of such things and/or not taking them too seriously, my most recent renewal of ties with video games, I kind of took it in my head to pick one and play it all the way through before moving on to the next (which is kind of what the gaming challenge assumes, too). It sort of worked for a little while, but I think I could stand to loosen up and dabble more. Lately I've been bingeing Extra Credits episodes on YouTube, and the one on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation was a nice breath of air in this regard; basically, I can ask myself if I'm playing a game because it's fun in itself or because I want something from it, and if it's not fun in itself, it may or may not be time to let go.
...Okay, I think that'll do it for now. That all seemed more profound and less like pointless rambling when it was in my head before I wrote it down, but hey.
Just to wrap up, current video game status report:
I've pretty much given up on finishing Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap; what was left of it was a lot of stressful for not much reward, so I just watched the ending on YouTube. I haven't fully let it go, but I think I just should. The not-so-stressful parts were a blast, though.
PopoloCrois is slow going but I'm determined to finish it, and I'm most of the way there. The cuteness and pathos I expected are there, but gameplay-wise, it's not actually all that good and I'm just having to slog through to the end. (Given the weird history, I'm taking some solace in the revelation that the PSP one is a mashed-up port that everyone says isn't as good as the originals, so I don't have to admit that game I've been irrationally longing for for years actually isn't that good...)
And I did start Undertale, need to get back to it. Trying for a perfect pacifist run, because that's how I roll. But yeah, unless I'm going to abuse an FAQ, I'll need to accept the idea of dying before I figure it all out...
no subject
Date: 2016-05-20 04:56 am (UTC)Though that Extra Credits video makes me wonder how much of a gamer I even am. I don't have a whole lot of interest in game play. Well, at least in combat. There is a certain spot game combat can land in that I find enjoyable, but I generally have more fun running around doing other stuff than the actual combat parts of games. I suspect I'd like a relatively easy stealth based game a lot. (But therein lies the problem - real games take skill that I'll never bother to get because I'm just not that invested.) Or maybe visual novels would be more my speed. I like story and neat worlds more than anything else, even in MMOs.
Except I end up not playing the various other games I mean to try because, I don't know, somehow, even though I mostly don't interact with people in MMOs, the fact that there's a social aspect still matters. (I know, I know, that's what the fandom is for.)
no subject
Date: 2016-05-20 02:32 pm (UTC)Insecurity about whether you're a real gamer... My brain knows it's counterproductive (I knock myself for watching playthroughs and referring to FAQs, I keep moving the goalposts on skill requirements), but dang it's hard not to do. (And BTW, if you get into more Extra Credits videos, they would probably agree that arguing who/what qualifies is counterproductive; e.g. their video on What Is A Game). And further thought on the Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic thing for me turned up all kinds of gray areas. Like, I have games where I enjoy grinding for rare item drops, and I wouldn't do it without the extrinsic reward of the item, but in the presence of the reward, I really do enjoy it. Or if there's an extrinsic reward that you enjoy enough to make the rest worth it, that's cool; the most useful insight there I think is to be aware of it and not get blindly stuck in playing something you don't, on balance, enjoy.
And for me, the social aspect is part of what keeps me away from MMOs. I still have some social anxiety going, and in my formative experiences with video games they were more of a solitary thing.
But it's nice, it seems like there's such a variety of games these days, from hardcore hard-as-nails to warm and fluffy. It's a great thing if the brainweasels will just shut up.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-21 06:57 am (UTC)It is important to only play things you actually enjoy, all right. I've found that games can fall in and out of being fun. I intermittently play three different MMOs, depending on what I'm actually enjoying. (World of Warcraft is both weirdly addictive and gets boring quickly. I'd love to see someone who knows more about games, like the Extra Credits people, try to figure out why that is.) And, yes, I will do things that aren't my first choice for rewards I really want - and I don't mind doing that, as long as whatever I have to do isn't too actively unpleasant. (Though I did run flashpoints in SWTOR for a piece of gear I like the looks of, despite the fact that I hate grouping with people on account of social anxiety. That's going pretty far for shiny pixels.)
The weird thing about the social aspect of MMOs is that I pretty much don't engage in it. Most of the time, I do my damnedest to avoid interacting with other players - I don't want to inflict my awfulness on other people if I can at all help it. (I have even spotted tumblr friends on SWTOR and fled so as to avoid interacting with them in game. Even though I'll happily chat about the game and fanfic and fanart and whatnot with them on tumblr.) But, at the same time, there's something about sharing a game with other people, even if I don't want to interact with them that's appealing in some way I can't explain. (And even if I'm perfectly happy to interact with people about the game not in game.)
I hope the brainweasels take a nap so you can enjoy more games. Darn brainweasels.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-21 04:26 pm (UTC)I think I'm making some progress with the brainweasels; yesterday I did get killed in Undertale a couple of times and didn't freak out, kept right on having fun in fact. I think part of it has to do with story immersion, which is something I'm really drawn to in games, but it has this bad side effect; if I love the character and am invested in the stakes of the story, "death" becomes more threatening. Although I also think there's a "fear of fear" thing going on; the dread of it is worse and more of a barrier than actually having it happen. (Note that Undertale's story is immersive, but it's also winkingly self-aware in a way that helps defuse the dread.)