I Have Freed My Mind. (Computer and Video Games in general)

Name: Ibizor Digez

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Product:	Computer and Video Games in general
Date:	14/03/01 (517 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You will become open to a new world.

Disadvantages: You will lose track of your time.

I’ve been in a world of aliens,
I’ve driven through streets of crime.
I’ve invaded Europe with Stalin,
We changed the course of time.

I’ve shot lightning from my fingertips,
I’ve only Cactuar to gain.
I’ve challenged those in apocalypse,
Thrown in a vortex by Kain.

I’ve escaped Black Mesa with Freeman,
I’ve crossed the dessert with Abe.
I’ve commanded armies as the Zerg.
I’ve shot terrorists with Gabe.

I’ve had the T-Virus and survived,
I’ve hidden and killed with stealth.
Still stuck on 9-B of Timesplitters,
She doesn’t have enough health.

My parents say that I waste my life,
But I will argue I don’t.
Through gaming I can do anything,
So surrender it I won’t.

Hi there everybody. I hope you don’t mind me putting this poem at the start of this review.
I am fourteen. I am very small in what impact I can currently have on the world. Maybe a signature on a petition, but that’s about as far as it goes. This is mainly because of my age that many dismiss my opinions readily as ‘some kid’s idea’ and don’t consider them properly. I find though that on dooyoo the users make no such discrimination and are there to hear each other. This is why this article must go up here.


My history With Games
(This sections about me so feel free to skip it)

1986, I was born. I’ve had the good fortune to grow up with games and with to far older brothers studying computers so I was exposed to them probably before I realised it. I have vague memories of some old commodore games back then. Most of them are memories of losing to my brothers as games such as TrailBlazer.
There was the occasional game I was good at. There was one where you played a fox and you had to get food for your wife or something like that. I forget the name.
Oh, and Pawstrong (A play on the name Armstrong) where you had to capture a roadrunner type animal on the moon.
Thing-On-A-Spring, Aliens, The Hobbit, Halloween, Dizzy, Pitfall, Herbert’s Dummy Run, Barbarian, Spy hunter, Spy Vs Spy all burnt images of themselves into my memory. Without realising it, I was hooked.
It went on for years afterwards that we would get games for the PC. Wolfenstien, Heretic, Commander Keen (all of them), Doom 2, Space Quest 3, Sim City, Golden Axe, Populous, Scorched Earth and Alleycat were some games that we got.
(Yesterday I found an old floppy disk with a demo on Doom on from 1994. It says, and I quote, “The game everyone’s talking about.” That is depressing isn’t it? That’s seven years ago. To me that’s half my current life.)
I never really owned a thing of my own for playing games. That is until 1997. I was jealous of my schoolyard friends boasting about their games consoles so I decided to buy a console. This was probably the worst reason to buy a console I can think of but back then this was my logic. And to prove how dumb my logic was I almost bought myself a Sega Megadrive. Luckily my brother who was 17 at the time stopped me from doing it and I bought the little grey box instead. A.K.A PlayStation if you must for £236 with six games, two controllers, a memory card and a carrying bag thrown in for free by the good people at Dixons.
It was then that I actually started to get in to games. I began to accumulate issue after issue of Official UK PlayStation Magazine taking in all the information. I then started to buy games because I’d played demos and read reviews not because my mates thought it was good.
I now own a PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and a PC. I have bought and passed many fantastic games including Final Fantasy (8 + 9), Abe’s Odyssey, Abe’s Exodus, Resident Evil (1, 2 + 3), Dino Crisis, Crash Bandicoot (1 + 2), Speed Freaks, etc. In short,
I love games.


Are games for kids?

This is a common misconception by parents, non-gaming society and most regrettably many Games Developers. These presumptions can get passed down and through out generations thus preventing games from breaking the boundaries.
That isn’t saying that all computer and console games are for kids. There are many games targeted at the older audience such as the Resident Evil series. Also there are such games as the vaguely controversial Primal Image. Soldier of Fortune and Kingpin are two examples of a more violent gory realism present in games but I’ll get into those later.
Most kids games are crap churnouts by developers who believe that young children will be sucked in by the ahem… ‘nice-looking cover’. This immoral selling of crap games to kids who, although they know little about games, don't deserve this treatment. Too often it works though. On the N64 ‘Yoshi’s Story’, which my cousin owns, is a fine example. Passable in half an hour, mediocre gameplay and blindingly bright kid-friendly graphics that make the eyes bleed.
The solution to this problem is finding either a brilliant kids game (which is rare) such as Medieval or better yet finding a game that crosses the age-gap like Crash Bandicoot (any of ‘em). Or if you want to go one step further buy your kids a game that is targeted as an older audience and just let them take longer to pass it.
But let us face facts now. Games were never really for kids when they started off were they? I mean did they invent pong for kids originally. I sincerely hope not.
I believe the reason that this games = kids idea came along was that most adults found it hard to adapt as computer games took over arcades and were in the end reluctant to take a go. The younger generation of teenagers took over and urged their little brothers and sisters to have a go as thus passed games down to a new generation.
Adults who misunderstood this took it as only kids being gamers and as a result of that stereotyping many adults could be branded as nerds if they liked games. It is the same screwed up idea that happed to role playing (a.k.a. Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, Dragonlance, etc).
Luckily we are beginning to break this shell. Wicked games are coming out that not only kids like. For example, my father (fifty-three) who is not very computer games friendly was saying that SSX looked rubbish. The following day I was cruising down the slope racing him to the finish and he loved every moment. Admittedly he lost but he really did like it.
It is such pickup-and-play games that cross boundaries of age that we need now that I believe will in time get rid of this age-old perception.


Censorship. (Violence, Gore and Sex)

I dunno if you every took any notice of them on the back of PlayStation cases were suggested ages from the E L S P A (European Leisure Software Publishers) which said for ages then ticked the appropriate boxes of:
3-10
11-14
15-17
18+
These were suggested ages mind, though one of my cousins took the age thing literally (which was funny). If the game had a proper adult content like a Resi game it would have a big bold sticker on the front quoting the age limit.
Censorship had sneaked into games and nobody had noticed. Perhaps this was because no one had enforced these restrictions very well. They are getting better at doing it today only as much as cinemas are. To give an example I bought myself Resident Evil 3 recently which has a fifteen rating. I am fourteen. Not that bad really but a twelve year old could probably get a fifteen game just like I sneaked into South Park the movie when I was twelve.
Maybe the games quality control people know that the young impressionable youths will go on a bizarre mission to prove themselves and buy games for people three years older than them. Maybe all fifteens are tw
elve’s so that the three years makes no difference.
Censorship arrived recently. Sometimes in a blatant glowing blaze of stupidity. Mortal Kombat had it’s blood ‘greenified’. The blood was still there it was just green. On the Sega Megadrive version Sub Zero didn’t rip peoples’ heads off he froze them and smashed them to pieces. It’s not much different really. G.T.A was given the rather strange rating of 18 because it encouraged stealing cars and gangster ideals. Like the film Scarface didn’t?
It was a stupid rushed phenomenon of censorship that should have happed gradually or much earlier. After all was space invaders was a violent game was it not? Spy Vs Spy too was violent in ideal no matter how cartoony it was.
What happened was realism in games kicked in and critics sat up with the taste of scandals on their lips. Soldier of Fortune was banned in Canada due to it’s trophy shots which rewarded you for gruesome shots such as the groin. You could blow someone’s leg clean off and then mutilate the body. It was most definitely a game whose designers sought to encourage violence throughout the levels. Postal was banned in Britain which was a game that allowed you to slaughter innocent civilians. Thrill Kill is my final example of banning. It was a revolutionary four-player fighting game using the engine that Wu Tang: Taste The Pain has now stolen. It was bathed in blood and horrific moves.
Sex in games has made the medias headlines recently with these games being allowed on some shops shelves. Many shops though are afraid to stock these games so quite a lot of these games come to ‘chipped’ consoles from Japan where the law is more lenient. An example is Primal Image, a Japanese game which is a scantily dressed girl in a room wearing only underwear and you just have to take pictures of her. Like Pokemon Snap but er… different.
What is the solution to violent, gory or sexu
al games? Should they be taken of the shelves forcing citizens to use the black market? Should they have higher age limits restricting the games from those who will get others to by them for them? Should the age limits be lowered damaging insecure children’s nerves or morals? If there is a chose to be made I wouldn’t like to have to do it.


The Internet

Undoubtedly the biggest plus for computer games at the moment. Red Alert 2, Worms Armageddon, StarCraft, Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament, etc become so much more worth the money once you get an opportunity to get to play them against other people.
You will probably, to start with, get your arse-whipped by everyone but then you work your way up the game ladders to the top of the league. By this time your phone bill may fill the room but what an experience. Playing people from all over the world. Texting people that you’ll never ever play again in a maddened competition.
The Internet is for everyone. If you own no games you can still join Archmage or Planetarion (See my profile for the Website addresses) and clamber up to the top. All the ages of the world, all the races, all the religions come to together and put aside their differences. You are anonymous and you are who you say you are. You go where you want to go, use want you want to use no more shite from Holly of the AOL advert. Breathe it in the Internets the best thing for gaming since monitors.
With broadband, Internet for the PlayStation 2, Black and White and Final Fantasy XI on the near and far horizon the future for the netzgamerz seems so bright it’s almost heavenly.


£45 For a Game?

Say you play a game for an average of thirty hours. That’s £1.50 an hour. I generally play my games more than that but this is just an average. Alright £1.50 may seem steep but let me figure out the prices of other things first.
£19.99 for a brand new limited edition DVD. Lets round tha
t up to £20 for practicality and do I can do my maths easily. If you watch a DVD 5 times that is about £4.00 each viewing. Or if it’s the matrix you will end up watching it ten times. That’s £2.00 a viewing or £1.00 an hour. This is pretty damn close to the amount of money for games per hour.
A book will cost you about £10.00 and last you for about ten hours as well but you will only ever read a book twice. Or three times if it’s the Hobbit. Roundabout a £1 an hour but less amount of reliving the experience than in a game.
Another factor. Games are sociable. I recon at least half are multiplayer and once you’re done with them you can give them (or flog them if needs be) to a mate. Games also may not stop when you finish them. The Quake games and for that matter most 3D shooters on the PC have downloadable models, levels, patches, editors, etc. Worms Armageddon has a wonderful array of things you can download from graves, to flags, to fanfare, to levels and speech-banks.
The new TombRaidier games (which I object to as she’s already dead.) will come in the form of pay online instalments to download to PS2, PC or presumably X-Box.
In short games are worth the money it is just people (parents mainly) nitpicking at prices. After all we could do that all the time to anything. I mean think about the book you could have been buying next time your at Maccy D’s (MacDonalds).


To Finish

Games are portals into fantasy. If you play games you will understand if not take the leap, try them. If you don’t like them you can take them back to the shop if you do… uh oh I just got you hooked.

Summary: