Promoted from our Community Blogs
[Dtoid community blogger Dreamweaver shares with us all the ways he is thankful for video games. I think we can all relate in some fashion to his words. Want to see your own stuff appear on the front page? Go write something! –Occams Electric Toothbrush]
Now now, I’m sure you guys think that I’m being a little too, for a lack of a better word, materialistic. If my parents ever hear me saying this they would scoff and think exactly that but a lot I have to be thankful for has stemmed from video games. Whether it’s a mechanic that helps saves me so much grief and agony, to helping shape the kind of person I am, for better or worse. Video games are like mementos; sure, the trinket themselves may not be entirely valuable, like a disc in a plastic case, but it’s the meaning behind them, the stories they tell and the characters you know, that makes them too valuable to me. So, without further delay, here’s what I have to say about why I’m thankful for video games.
Streamlining/ Making Things Easier
Got shot in the face? No problem: “Tis only a flesh wound!”
This is something a lot of people actively hate, but hear me out: I’m not a very good gamer. So having things like regenerating health helps a lot in keeping me interested in games. One reason I wasn’t too appreciative of games when I was younger, back on those NES/ SNES days, was because I didn’t have the skills to make it very far. I still haven’t been able to beat either the original Super Mario Brothers or its sequel Super Mario Brothers 3, with or without warp pipes and whistles, and I don’t think I’ve gotten any better as I got older.
Furthermore, my parent’s financial pockets weren’t very deep, so I was always afraid to buy a game in fear that I wouldn’t be able to get past the opening levels which made a lot of games seemingly unavailable to me. I still kind of have that fear in me now, as I’m even afraid to buy The Evil Within for myself after getting frustrated with that bloody, multi-armed chick following you in Chapter 5 after my friend let me try it at his house.
Thankfully, lots of games have gotten so much easier, and because of that, I’ve been more willing to try games that I never would’ve otherwise. If Halo: Combat Evolved didn’t revolutionize the genre with its regenerating shield, I would’ve never played it and fell in love with the series as I did. (I wrote something of a retrospective of it on Destructoid a while ago, but don’t go digging that up, please!)
It isn’t just regenerating health, either. Mechanics like on-screen prompts, hint systems, checkpoints…all of these things make a bunch of games more accessible by not making me have to stress out over every little thing. Nothing would ruin a game like stressing over whether I will get lost navigating an area or get stumped on a puzzle. I understand that people like complexity in their games, and to an extent, I do agree; there’s something about managing weight, stability, and power output (and heat, in the earlier games) that makes building a mech in Armored Core a pretty interesting simulator, and I couldn’t imagine Dark Souls as a game that told you where to go. However, for the most part, I’m quite okay with having my hand held if it means getting to the end of a game because I’ve played a lot of titles that were so well worth it.
Experiences I May Not Get Otherwise
One of the most adorable intro to a character ever!
I’m what you would call the video gaming equivalent of a bookworm who only reads in her (I say “her” because I always imagine bookworms to be female because it’s so sexy) spare time. Instead of sitting on a table with a pile of books at her side, I’m sitting on a comfy couch with cases of games I wanna tackle piled on top of my console. All I wanna do is play video games, but it’s not so much for getting the high score or top slot in the leader boards as it is to watch tales unravel before my eyes and get to know the characters as they travel on their journey.
This has caused me to have a bit of a spending problem, as I would literally think about my next purchase, bargain bin or otherwise, immediately after receiving the shopping bag from the Gamestop clerk but I can’t help it! I feel like Yomiko Readman from the ever-so-excellent Read or Die OVA when she buys all those books in the beginning of the series when she still has plenty at home, and the smile on her face when she’s carrying them must’ve been mirrored on mine to a -T whenever I hold a recently bought game in my hands.
Character Customization AND Integration
Let’s be honest, who in their right mind didn’t choose Morrigan?
You wanna know what’s better than witnessing character in a video game going on an adventure? Participating in one yourself! Like Elsa once wrote about how she likes to create her own characters to put herself in the game (couldn’t find a link, sorry!), I too get a huge kick out of being able to replicate myself into the world. The chance to fight alongside the characters and developing a personal bond with them as though I was really in the struggle with them is something that I always appreciate. This experience is generally unique to the world of interactive media that movies and books can’t really reproduce.
Of course, it simply won’t do if the game half-asses it though. As cool as it is to make myself in Soul Calibur IV and go head-to-head with the heavenly goddess-blessed Ivy and Taki or the awesomely badass Nightmare, Starkiller, and Darth Vader (say what you will about how Star Wars characters don’t fit the universe, but including them was a huge a fanboy moment for me!), there’s something to be said for the player being treated like a part of the storyline.
Being Commander Shepard in Mass Effect and the Grey Warden in Dragon Age: Origins were two memorable experiences for me. Not only did it feel like I was in the game after creating the character to look like me, but also because inquiring who my companions were and learning their backstories made me feel like I myself was getting to know them, rather than controlling a proxy like, say, Jude Mathis in Tales of Xillia. This feeling of connectivity and immersion was cemented further when I got to make some of the big choices throughout the game. This made me feel like I mattered to the story rather than watching it unfold in front of me. Whether I saved or condemned an endangered alien race was my call, and if I wanted to bang Morrigan just because she offered, then damn it, I will because I wanted to and oh boy, did I want to!
Sure, many games do emphasize player choice, like Telltale’s The Walking Dead, but to me, it doesn’t feel like I personally am making the choices so much as it is that I’m choosing what I want that character to do. Throughout The Walking Dead: Season 2, I chose Clementine’s dialogue based on who I want her to be instead of what I would say if I were her.
Multiplayer in Games
The clowns in this game scares me, and I ain’t talking ’bout the ones at the Carnival…
Yet, for as much as I love engaging in a cinematic,immersive experience with a video game, sometimes I simply want to play a game, and nothing says that like playing against other people! While I don’t want multiplayer to be shoehorned into every game, there’s nothing like getting to the top of the scoreboard based on your abilities. I love playing Call of Duty or Halo online where I can just focus on winning and killing with some finely-tuned shooting mechanics. Also, playing against other gamers online is such a hoot!
As some of you may know, I played a couple of heists with the awesome Scholarly Gamer a while back. Now this isn’t a game where the success of a heist is based on what the narrative has to say. On not at all. If you aren’t working together and plan out what needs to be done, then chances are none of you are going to be enjoying your riches. Other games such as Battlefield 4 has advertised itself for being known as the multiplayer game where “Battlefield Moments” are abundant. Moments like running across a field while avoiding the strafing gunfire of a helicopter before covering your engineer as they take it down. These exciting and seemingly scripted moments are something that can happen completely unprompted and on the go.
It also brings another element of the unique abilities of video games as well. As we all know from the shining example that is the Souls series, players can either leave messages to alert others of the dangers ahead or help them find a hidden secret. This is extremely useful when you’re running into an unknown location, especially in a game where death can happen quickly and with little warning. The other more intense way of interaction, however, is that players who are feeling particularly malicious can invade your world and try to assassinate you. If you’re connected online (which, in my opinion, is the only way to play a Souls game, and I refuse to play without it) and meet certain conditions, another player could be stalking you, waiting for the perfect time to stick a blade in your back!
Of course, on the positive side, you can also summon them to help you, and celebrating victory after taking down a boss is something that really helps make the fight, however easier it was, all the more rewarding. I especially like how you can see “ghosts” of other players as they play in the same area as you. This little touch really helps to break the feeling of isolation and loneliness when you see others having to trek the same land as you.
What other medium could evoke the same thing? Sure, when you see other survivors in AMC’s The Walking Dead, you know they’ve been through some tough times but when it’s you and another player, it feels more personal.
Talking about games
Pictured: not me. 🙁
You know, I can talk about the genius behind the multiplayer aspect of the Souls series for paragraphs on paragraphs and that leads me to another thing I’m thankful for: being a gamer has given me a chance to talk to others. Let me be extremely honest right now: I don’t have many friends as I’m an extremely shy person and socially awkward. It doesn’t help that I have limited interests. Not a lot of people I know are gamers, much less ones who don’t play Call of Duty all day (like I said before, nothing wrong with that, but I can’t really connect with them much) and I don’t really have any other hobbies Sure, I enjoy writing, though I haven’t done so in a while, but it’s not something you can really chat with others about, and I’m less invested in other mediums like anime, television programs, and movies than I am with video games.
As I mentioned earlier, most of my money goes towards new games so I can’t afford every DVD coming out, but there’s also only so much time in a day which is, admittedly, funny coming from a half-time student with no job. However, the point still stands that I can’t do everything I want to. (how the fuck does Chris Carter do it?) Still, I’m okay with being a gamer because I’m very passionate about the medium and I’m happy to talk about it with all of you guys!
Throughout my life, I’ve always turned to the internet for my social interactions ever since I joined the Nintendo Power forums way back when, and since it closed down, I’ve moved on to other forums like Gametrailers, Gaia, Escapist and even Gamefaqs (which I still frequent, actually). My wandering eventually led me here to Destructoid, where I was something of a drifter for a couple of years. I made an account around 2009 and posted some embarrassingly bad blogs here and there, but I never really involved myself with the community because I didn’t really feel like I belonged. Of course, I guess you could say that I didn’t really attempt to make an effort until last year in 2013, four years later, but hey, better late than never, right?
Nowadays, I consider this place to be something of a second home to me, the third being Gamefaqs since I’ve been there since 2009 as well, and post there often enough, but we all know how it can get sometimes and I’m glad to have stumbled to this site. The staff members seem like genuinely good people and the community members even more so! I hope you guys feel the same way about each other and I hope you guys will write blogs to let them know! It’s always appreciated to hear something like that, so say it while you can.
Anyway, that’s why I’m thankful for video games!
What are you thankful for?
