Hey Tom
I completely agree with you. I think we may have a lot in common when it comes to games. In the early mid 90s (pre-Internet) I enjoyed geek-fests at a friend’s places. A turn based PC strategy game (Warlords II) often went on in tandem to ongoing Mortal Kombat rage. These were evenings of female repellent to be sure.
The Internet ruined many of my geek pastimes before online gaming could even gain a foothold.
But we used the Internet to meet other players of a certain card game we took to very early on. My circle of friends used play this ‘new’ concept in game, a certain collectible card game based on fantasy and magic. We’d gleefully create imaginative decks that reflected our personalities. Characters, spells, monsters and strategies were all very colorful and imaginative.
Then we decided to use the early/mid 90s Internet to meet other groups who also played the game.
Having met the real world we discovered the game had been desecrated like an unholy temple. We played frustrating games with these other people who didn’t care for the ‘fantasy’ aspect of the game. These new players had learned to break the whole game down to its lowest common denominator.
They applied a level of analysis that never occurred to us. They had actually come up with an “ultimate” deck based on all available cards in the first gen of this game. The strategy was purely defensive and prevented anyone from doing anything. The whole game became a snore-fest. We couldn’t put the genie back into the bottle after we saw what the game was capable of.
Needless to say the game was ruined. One could say we were rather foolish never having figured out this ‘ultimate’ winning strategy ourselves. But then, who were the fools? The fools who played oblivious to winning strategies … or the fools who kept playing this simplistic exercise in tic-tac-toe they had created out of a once imaginative and stimulating game.
First Person Shooters
I feel the same way about first person shooters including Quake ## on PC and Halo## on Xbox Live. I love the style of game, I love head to head firefights. Running for your life when your health gets low, tossing grenades and following it with machine-gun fire. Taking hits to get down into the deep cover of safety. Now all these games have two ‘ultimate’ weapons, the sniper rifle and the rocket launcher. There is no real battle anymore.
Yeah, it’s fun to snipe – for about five minutes. Online there is no end to the array of kids that will continually rack up kills in death match games against far inferior opponents. They don’t look for challenge or fun, they just want to be the ‘best’ and will use any cheese tactic.
It’s no secret - I am not looking for the high score, I’m looking for a good match. I’m looking for knee deep firefights, face to face. If I could ban rocket launchers and one-shot kill weapons I would.
So, basically I think these games, for me, have come full circle. I simply don’t play with people I don’t know anymore. I joined random games of Halo3 just to check it out. But now, if I’m going to play it’s only with like-minded people. People like me who have a job outside of the game.
For me the frag-fest is just mindless entertainment. If I ever –EVER get to the point where I feel I must practice to get better at it, just shoot me.
XboxLive GamerTag: epicondylitus
It’s the name of nerve damage condition suffered in the forearm from playing too many twitch video games. I am a living experiment in the long term effects of playing too many video games.
