Never underestimate the speed at which any argument can blow up.
I can see that I’ll have to trot out the usual defenses against the dedicated gamers. Okay, here goes:
Jman - A gamepad is not the same as a joystick. A painful (literally in some cases) which has been driven home to me more times than I can count. A pad is much worse than a stick for precision maneuvers…you know, quarter circle or half circle motions, flight controls…and it really puts a strain on my thumbs. They just don’t feel good in my hands (no, not even the DC one; that’s why I got the joystick).
As for emulators, I have them - for arcade games. I’m not interested in the inferior consoles (cough 16 bit cough), and the consoles that I have right now, I also have the joysticks and Gamesharks, which makes the total experience much more fun even if I could get the emulations. These things matter to me, dammit. I’m not someone who can just dive into a super-tough, super-technical game and have a blast no matter how badly I stink it up. I need some control.
I also don’t bother with multiplayer games. How, exactly, is getting clobbered by total strangers preferable to getting clobbered by the computer? (Trust me, I’ve seen some of the high scores on shockwave.com…I really don’t stack up that good against the general population.) Besides, multiplayer games usually don’t allow “cheat” functions, which is probably the one thing that could draw me to a modern computer game in the first place.
Wouldn’t know about the sound, because as often it not it doesn’t come out at all (did I already mention this?).
Asmodean - See, see…exactly the point I was making. There was a time where the home console makers pandered to the TINY MICROSOPIC ELITE of gamers who found everything too easy. (You know, the kind that could beat World Heroes 2 on a single credit.) As a result, the games were too goddam hard for the rest of us. (I know what I’m talking about here…I’ve played all the Battletoads games, for crying out loud.) Since one of the purported purposes of the home consoles was to appeal to the whole family, it finally sank in that if they really wanted to appeal to younger players, they’d have to do more than color the blood white. Hence, easier games…and games with a wider range of difficulty, which they should have done in the first place. Try as I might, I can’t see anything bad about this.
SPOOFE - One more time.
Difficulty: I was only using Warcraft 2 as an example (which I thought was obvious, but never mind). If you need more examples, here’s a few.
NASCAR Racing. About a million things that can go wrong on every lap, and you have to fiddle with one damn configuration after another for literally hours to even be competitive.
All the first-person shooters. When I was playing Doom, I think I used the “light goggles” code every other minute, and I often used the “all items” code just to get the damn keys.
Blood and Magic. Precursor to Warcraft and just as hard. It took me several tries to clear the very first level of the easiest mission. Yeah, that bad.
Dungeon Hack. In a nutshell, the exact opposite of a Gameshark, i.e. a game where I could control absolutely nothing of signifigance (oh, goody, there’s lots of food…where are the weapons that I need?) and where everything’s too damn random.
Any and all fighter jet games. You gotta fly the thing right and get exactly the right weapon layout and tackle both ground and air enemies and of course land the thing afterward (usually on a runway which looks like a tiny ribbon from the air.
Oh, I’m sure there are lots and lots of things that I’m doing wrong. One of which, no doubt, is trying to get good at those games in the first place.
Availability: You’re lucky. That’s good. I wasn’t.
Variety: There is a huge variety of games…which take days to learn and are all but unplayable for any but the most dedicated, serious, hardcore gamers. There was a time when computer stores had much simpler games…text adventures (which have all but disappeared), Kings Quest-esque graphic adventures, arcade shooters…again, didn’t I already metnion this?
Quality…feh. I’m one of the few players who thinks that enjoyability is still is a factor. Call me old-fashioned.
Cost: Fine, except that I’m not talking about buying a computer, I’m taking about buying computer games. For the record, my Dreamcast, our Playstation, and our computers, as well as the perhiperals and accessories for all, are already bought and paid for. Hence they are sunk costs, which are irrelevant to determining the relative value of any future purchases. (Why yes, I am an accounting major. ;))
So the only thing that matters here is which games are worth my money. Frankly, I find renting to be a very attractive option in the vast majority of cases (of the roughly dozen games I’ve played on DC so far, I’ve bought four, and three of them are imports). The only equivalent for computer games is shareware, and try finding a top-of-the-line jet simulator or multi-layered war strategy campaign that way. (Shareware is good for simpler, arcade style games…I remember the first time I played Jill of the Jungle; I was blown away…but they’re still not as available as console games.)
Gameshark: I use it. I also used the Game Genie. The Gameshark was what kept me sane through the endless hoops some Playstation games insisted on making me jump through (Tekken 3 and NFL Blitz 2000 were among the worst). I can’t imagine gaming without it. I can count on maybe one hand the DC games where a Gameshark really isn’t necessary.
Why? Because it gives me control, and it allows ME, the player, to decide just how hard, how long, and how challenging I want the game to be. Granted, some computer games I could mention need it a lot more than most DC games, but I still wouldn’t go without one. It also allows me to try all kinds of fun things; unlimited supers in fighting games, accessing impossible-to-get-“honestly” secret modes, the best weapons/equipment/defense whenever I want them, easy high scores, easy upgrades, and on and on. And the point of gaming is fun, right? Right?
