Note: This article was written by Madfall with very minor edits provided by LeftCoastLady. Madfall was shy about submitting it under his own moniker.
Action games are like any other drug, you start off with something simple and seemingly harmless — in my case it was “Tomb Raider 2” — and in no time at all you’re playing something like “Silent Hill 2,” a product so terrifying that it actually made me whimper aloud in more than one place.
I always had a passing interest in games growing up but being as poor as a church mouse I never had an Atari, NES, SNES or any of the consoles that came before the Playstation — the Playstation was my downfall.
The new addictions multiplied:
- The “Tomb Raider” games: Gunfire and acrobatics with pixelated tits and ass for the children, or children at heart;
- “Resident Evil” games: Zombies and the struggle for survival with limited resources, what gamers refer to as “Survival Horror;”
- “Silent Hill”: Terrifying. Until you’ve been attacked by a blood-soaked teddy bear in a school that appears to be literally in hell you don’t know the meaning of scared, really;
- “Metal Gear Solid”: An espionage, stealthy thriller with a huge helping of Mad Science, giant robots, occasional dazzling levels of violence and some of the craziest plots and dialogues ever put in a game. I could write several thousand words on it easily.
Now those are only maybe seven games for one console system, but bear in mind I probably spent 20 to 50 or so hours on each of those games…and those are only the ones that really stick out in my mind.
Next, came the PlayStation2 years with much bigger games and the discovery of one of the biggest timesinks in all of console gaming: the “Grand Theft Auto” (GTA) series.
For those people who actively avoid gaming news, the GTA series has been hugely controversial, made hundreds upon hundreds of millions in profit for the people who own it (Rockstar Games) and provoked everything from massive lawsuits to a lawyer getting disbarred and (allegedly) multiple murders. The GTA series are actually pretty simple in principle, you play the central character in a game version of a seriously hard-boiled crime thriller, think Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, or Goodfellas.
Everything you see in this trailer is stuff you can do in the game.
The huge difference between GTA and almost any other game out there is the level of interactivity there was, and is, in the game. Dozens of hours of radio to play in your car(s), multiple side games ranging from simple races to assassinations and in the later games everything from playing pool to racing airplanes and helicopters. That’s not even taking into account the hundreds of pages of dialogue they write for each game or the stellar casts they assemble (Samuel L Jackson, James Woods, Peter Fonda, Andy Dick and Wil Wheaton all appeared in one GTA game alone.) I actually missed out on the first two GTA games for the PS2 and then tried “GTA: San Andreas,” set in a fictionalized California and Nevada, as a result of which I was instantly hooked to a ridiculous degree.
Passionate gamers are an extremely picky people and will argue over minutiae of game systems, plot-lines, game continuity and so on to lengths unbelievable to normal people. I’ve been a regular member on a games forum for years and a Moderator for a few years recently, where I have seen raging flame wars break out often. The one way you can always start a fight is by saying that “(my favorite) genre is the best kind of game ever.” Then just wait for the arguments to start.
I won’t say my favorite kinds of games are the best, but undoubtedly my ultimate drug of choice have to be “Open World” games. Open World games usually have strong role-playing elements (the ability for your character to get tougher, better armed, more deadly, better equipped and so on) a map you need to navigate carefully because of hazardous opponents you may run across and finally and possibly most vital, you get more options. In open world games, you may be able to sneak past an opponent who’s in your way, or go hunting until you have enough money to just waste a disproportionate amount of explosives on the obstructing he/she/it/Zombie, set up a distraction, find a back door, use a stealth spell or device or a dozen other possibilities depending on the game.
So while I like fantasy games, sci-fi games, thrillers, horrifyingly scary epics and so on, the one thing I find almost impossible to resist in a game is the ability — after spending a couple of hours learning the controls — to pick up my best weapons, leave my little virtual dwelling and just roam around learning secrets, making money, collecting useful and valuable stuff and generally raising hell out among the pixels.
That brings us to “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” a new console to play it on, and a lesson on how playing the same game for literally hundreds of hours could explore new frontiers in sleep-deprivation and addiction.
To be continued…
