Ludeus Maximus

Inspired by this recent Something Awful article, I believe we need more specific art. Not more obscure, but more specific. So much stuff is produced every day that you’d think more of this would exist. I want art about standing in line at airport security, brushing my teeth while taking a piss, falling over and skinning my knee, and turning on light switches. There should be a whole album called “Burning My Tongue On Hot Coffee” and a whole gallery dedicated to Awkward Moments In Class. There have surely been successes in the game world, like JFK Reloaded or those millions of beat up President Bush or kill Osama Bin Laden flash games (how many target Bush and how many Osama?). Or perhaps Whack-A-Mole. Specific games must be more specific than flight simulators. There should be pushing people out windows (The specific word for this is defenestration. The more you know.) simulators. They could bring you the experience of base jumping into the Golden Gate Bridge (and trying not to get stuck), or accidentally hammering your thumb instead of the nail, or navigating the labyrinth as Theseus and killing the minotaur, or riding a dirtbike up/on the Great Wall of China. These are not 40 hour games, but neither are they 40 hour experiences. You play until you master the particular mechanics and then ride away into the sunset, content that you now can now cut virtual peoples hair into weird shapes and have them pay you for it (barbering is a life skill, trust me) with the best of them. Music and other art forms could just concentrate on evoking the feeling of tripping over your untied shoelaces or slamming a door in a salesmans face or whatever else hasn’t yet been immortalized on canvas or vinyl.

One of the designers for Team Fortress 2 commented recently that critical hits are good because hardcore players enjoy having something to blame their failures on. This is ridiculous for two reasons: “hardcore” players are the exact people who hate criticals and want to be able to turn them off (a server side cvar for no criticals would be easy to include) and his comment is rather insulting to a large section of TF2’s fanbase. Luck will always play a part in games but criticals are very different from luck as it occurs in Counter-Strike. The distribution of shots in CS is random, but within a very predictable area that experienced players use to score headshots almost every kill. In TF2, while staying alive helps critical chances, criticals occur randomly and cannot be accounted for in playing style. Not to mention staying alive for a long time is probably a sign that you aren’t helping you’re team out very much. However satisfying criticals are to some people (me included), they can be extremely frustrating as well. There is no reason for Valve to insult fans over an issue whose resolution is simple (and being implemented by modders as we speak). The comment about “hardcore” players being all about ego may be true in some cases, but what most such players really want is to rely on skill rather than luck. They aren’t looking for excuses. When luck can’t be accounted for in play style it becomes annoying to “hardcore” players. It’s as simple as that.

I know perhaps it’s a bit much to expect these people to know what they’re doing, but almost every time a teacher tries to use a computer they screw something up. Even Computer Science professors. It isn’t that bad in an English class or something but when your Cinema & Media Studies professors get it wrong it’s massively annoying. These people are getting paid to keep up in a field and do research and teaching that heavily involves computers. They should be able to figure simple things out like dragging everyone’s project off the server and organizing them before class. And learning how to use computer’s competently would also be a professional advantage in other ways, not to mention a life skill that saves tons of time. This is also another reason why places like Carleton are less likely to have a game or even web design course, which is pretty pathetic in the year 2007. Academia in general has been slow to embrace new technology. And even when they do they don’t know how to use it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16106

The ESRB has a good point about the content being declared during ratings assignment (and in the case of Hot Coffee not), but I still don’t see the difference between authorized and unauthorized copies of the games and hacked hardware. Sure the Manhunt 2 hack is more illegal but downloading and using the Hot Coffee mod requires the same amount of intention and a similar amount of effort.  The ESRB seems to be making excuses here. If the big difference is the disclosure during the ratings process than they’d slap a fine on Rockstar for violating procedure, not bump the rating up to AO. The difference was media exposure and parents screaming to “protect the children” because after all, it was an “incident” and involved sex and videogames. I don’t think the ESRB can really draw a fine line here and I think they are handling things well but need to be more clear and reasonable about just what warrants a re-rating. No content that requires hacking should be included in their ratings.

http://athene.movielol.org/

and more specifically: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klDumsraM4

put FPS Doug (still funny: http://www.purepwnage.com/) to shame. Gaming related humor is usually tragically unfunny (see Penny Arcade or G4) but this is one of a few exceptions. Only part of the humor relies on gaming knowledge which is another reason why this is so good. The editing, the accent, and the sheer absurdity make it great.

Manhunt 2: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16084

Hot Coffee:  http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9171

Oblivion Re-rating: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9159

Bethesda’s Response (a pretty clear statement):

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9171

It’s an interesting question. If it’s on the disc even if it’s locked should it play a part in the rating?

In my opinion if it is accessed through a glitch, a hack, or anything that only Russians could ever figure out it isn’t “part of the game”. Noone will unintentionally activate this stuff because it’s not simple to do. Sure it may not be a good idea to leave stuff on the master but accidents happen. In all of these cases nothing could conceivably leak into the standard game experience. And game creators are never responsible for what modders, hackers, 13 year olds with microphones and Xbox Live subscriptions, or anyone else does with/to their work. If Oblivion can get it’s rating changed to Mature for what modders do (although the violence complaint may be valid that just means the ESRB messed up the original rating) than it should be changed to AO given some of the ridiculous Oblivion mods out there. Not that I see the appeal. Modifications will always (hopefully) be unregulated even if it means we have to suffer through rather questionable mods such as this and others like it but worse:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=3976

I don’t see why people even raise their voices about such a non-issue.

It’s not like my opponents were good, but this is still impressive. Been playing for five years or so and I’m still not great but every once in a while I throw down.

I was 30-0 until I died.

PS: This is my first official brag post. And it’s bragging about being good at a video game. Wow.  Am I sad or what?