Kinds of videogame

[mtbc]

Many years ago I played a wide range of computer games. Back in the 1980s the graphics were rudimentary but I don't think that matters. For example, considering the wire-frame graphics of vehicle simulators like Battlezone or Elite, I suppose that one's mind imbues the abstractions with significance just as when one reads a novel, so I found them immersive. After a decade of gameplaying I chose to have other activities displace it: athough I saw first-person shooters like Doom or Descent over others' shoulders, I have not played them: I know subsequent games like Half-Life and Halo only through popular culture.

Ignoring multiplayer games like Scorched Earth, games that held my attention better include various novel elements as one progresses: even basic early games like Chuckie Egg or Bruce Lee added new layouts with hazards like the duck coming free. In more recent years it looked to me as if games like Ōkami offer variety. Personally, it was flight simulators such as Gunship and F29 Retaliator that I most enjoyed. They didn't have to be combat simulators: it was through Solo Flight that I first discovered how flat Kansas is.

I notice that others seem to favor games that I would expect to bore me. These puzzle games that people play on their smartphones, matching rows of jewels and the like, look tedious but I never much liked Tetris either. Or, considering consoles, watching people play games like Super Smash Bros. has me curious about their appeal: as an observer it all looks so similar and I find my attention wandering. On talking to players I hear that the different characters favor different playing styles so I suppose that there must be richness that goes unperceived by me as a bystander to the fights. Were I to try such a fighting game I may turn out to like it but my armchair suspicion is that I would still prefer flight simulators. If different people do look for different things in videogames then I wonder why that is.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

I have to admit that I haven't enjoyed any video games since Space Invaders. I just lost interest.

I really don't like the whole "war as a game" theme that seems to be what's the most popular. I think it gives people the idea that they know what war is like, and that's so patently false I cringe.

[mtbc]

I guess I've been okay with very abstract war, where for example in Gunship I might launch a rocket at some ground troops but never actually saw any little guys (the targeting system indicated their location); I went on to do several years of DoD-funded work like Tradeoffs on the Efficient Frontier of Network Disruption Attacks which I found interesting. I find myself drawing the line at where I see clear guys with faces and whatnot: for instance, despite the dreadful graphics and consensual context, Wii Sports boxing is just too unpleasant for me in expecting one to hit the person standing right in front. The issue's when I see the targets concretely as individuals. (I'm not suggesting that's how it should be, just how it seems to be for me in computer games.)

I guess my bigger problem in terms of consequential fighting has been with television shows in which people can be injured or killed and a couple of episodes later everybody behaves as if nothing happened. It seems particularly common in some kinds of children's television.

[wpadmirer]

I do think that it makes a difference when it's one on one and a faceless mass.

I actually don't enjoy watching boxing at all because I think it's brutal. Which drives my boxing coach crazy. And I love taking boxing lessons, but have no interest whatsoever in hitting anyone. He has difficulty understanding that. I just enjoy the lessons and learning to use my body in a different way. And it does make me more able to defend myself, should I have to. But just as a sport - nope.

And I agree about how injury and death seems to be easily forgotten in tv shows. I've had to stop watching some shows because a death disturbed me so much I couldn't keep watching it.

[mtbc]

It's great that you so enjoy the lessons despite not wanting to batter people, that makes plenty of sense.

Did boxing specifically appeal or was it more a matter of what was convenient locally and you could have just as easily found yourself taking up aikido or somesuch?

[wpadmirer]

Oddly enough, I woke up in May 2017 wanting to learn to throw a punch. I have a bad hip, and arthritis in my hands, so boxing seemed to make the most sense.

I looked through the websites of the local boxing gyms and found this one: http://www.gladdenboxingclub.com/

At the time I was looking, he had a statement about his philosophy of boxing. It appealed to me, so I went to meet him and signed up!