Ignore the Lines
Prepare, all, for a stretch of an entry!
I have disliked children for a long time. I have disliked children and the parents that spawn them for a long time. I think the new age child-rearing that recognizes children as people is probably one of the most insane and irrational concepts to arise in a long time. It just adds up to one of the reasons society is headed into another Dark Age.
If anyone is curious about where there rant is coming from, then I must say it comes from sitting back and watching children and their idiotic parents running amok both out & about, at the Museum of Science and at GameStop. Randomly catching tonight's edition of 20/20 sorta' became the last straw.
One of the things covered in 20/20 this night was:
Of course, since this is "Amurrica," the event was covered with nothing but sensationalism. When the coverage was bold enough to ask viewers to think critically, I conjured up my two cents. First, I'll analyze the video. The girl is typical of the average youth. Completely retarded. While it is somewhat unfair that she was singled out (they're all retarded, really), the bus driver isn't a machine and can only focus on one lousy kid at a time. The bus driver has to deal with a busful of loud, obnoxious kids. Then there's this girl (who has been labelled as trouble) being obnoxious on her cell phone. So, the driver reserves her right to regain order. Naturally, being a 21st Century youth, the girl completely derides the authority. After all, she's a high school student. She's a first class citizen and, with all the rights and privileges of an adult, is an authority unto herself. That is how it has been for a while.
I'll admit it, authority sucks. I question it. I am wary of it. However, I am also an adult and paid my dues as a teen being subject to arbitrary authority (yeah, sometimes unfair).
Kids need to learn how to suck it up. Human beings, in general, are horrible creatures. Unfortunately, in order to keep human beings from living up to their full, terrible nature, authorities are in place to knock some down a peg or two. Even after you're 21 and can legally be a buffoon and endanger others in the process, you're still someone else's slave. You'll be following stupid rules your whole life.
Why am I so contemptuous of children, though?
I definitely dislike children. I consider them nothing more than chimps with the ability to imitate human language. One can endow a child with all the sophisticated faculties of a fully-developed human but the fact remains they are under-developed and have yet to learn and grasp the very vague virtues we tout about as properties of "maturity."
However, I think above all, I dislike teenagers. Why? Because they're worse than children in a very significant way: they think they're already adults and are all too often treated like adults. A lot of new age mumbo-jumbo will convince one of the fact that teens are people too. When they're not. Not at all. The only reason it seems acceptable to treat teens as adults is because the majority of today's teens were born from teens. As we all know, of course, a pregnant teen is not necessarily "more adult" than a good, productive teen.
So, we've got this girl on a bus making trouble and there is a side fully supporting her. Exhibit A: '69' scribbled on her wrist with a sharpie. A shining example of a person whose cause I should get behind. Unless '69' is the number of infractions commited against her or the number of townspeople slain by a regional tyrant--and not what I'm sure it stands for--she has automatically forfeited her right to be taken seriously. Exhibit B: teens should be restricted from cell phones. Seriously. The worst thing one can allow among dangerously idiotic people (read: teens) is access to constant communication. They already communicate enough over AIM and XBox Live--poorly, might I add. Exhibit C: she's shouting "GET OFF OF ME," when the bus driver is nowhere in sight, with not a hand upon her. That amounts to one of two things: either 1) she's bat-shit insane or 2) she was intentionally misleading those who could not get a clear view into believing the bus driver had been assaulting her... when the bus driver clearly hadn't been.
I am sure a lot of folks out there love children and sympathize with teens. Heck, in ways I may too; I was once a teen. But then I remember something. Children and teens aren't supposed to count as people. I can affirm that the instant children and teens became a problem was when they became a legit target demographic. Children and teens should never be catered to. Sure, the occassional movie about the "good old days" (by the way, anyone who says high school is "the best years of your life" ended up, in fact, a total loser) is fine. It's fun to reminisce, even to glorify. However, it's wrong to package it as a commodity to be adopted and imitated and considered a natural right.
So, what we're left with are stupid teens that believe they count. And they're driving industries. And they're multiplying. And they're getting dumber. And it's for the previously-mentioned things. If anything is corrupting youth, it is anything that empowers youth.
This is a topic I've had brewin' in m' brain for a while. Though not the main topic, 'tis related to the argument that "video games are art." Before anyone goes into a "OMG U R TEH LOSERY GUY" tirade about how we are well into July and I'm talking about video games, I say only this:
Summer is not a season for fat people. 'Tis a season for the young, the fit and the attractive (though not necessarily altogether). I may be relatively young but I fail to meet the other two criteria. Also, as someone who firmly thinks that video games count as legitimate art, I fail to see video games as "toys" or "children's entertainment."
So, moving along....
After letting my mixed feelings about MGS4 churn a bit more, I got to thinking about what I consider good and excellent writing in a video game. That got me thinking about the heyday of the tacit game; the kind of video game that utilized a bare minimum of words to weave its tale yet be completely immersive and produce a believable, living, breathing world. Anyone who knows me will know I'm talking about the days of the Super NES. That era of gaming was amazing and was as important and influential to gaming as silent films of the '20s were to cinema.
Admittedly, a lot of the games to be discussed are RPGs, which got around the "bare minimum of words" by being an "acceptable" genre with which to utilize words. Following are a list of Super Nintendo games that deserve a serious second (or perhaps third) look in order to uncover the [most probably unintentional] sophistication within their minimalist narratives. Though not in any particular order, I admit to beginning with the game I place as my number one favourite, best game of all time:
That's about all I have for tonight, folks!
I have disliked children for a long time. I have disliked children and the parents that spawn them for a long time. I think the new age child-rearing that recognizes children as people is probably one of the most insane and irrational concepts to arise in a long time. It just adds up to one of the reasons society is headed into another Dark Age.
If anyone is curious about where there rant is coming from, then I must say it comes from sitting back and watching children and their idiotic parents running amok both out & about, at the Museum of Science and at GameStop. Randomly catching tonight's edition of 20/20 sorta' became the last straw.
One of the things covered in 20/20 this night was:
Click to viewOf course, since this is "Amurrica," the event was covered with nothing but sensationalism. When the coverage was bold enough to ask viewers to think critically, I conjured up my two cents. First, I'll analyze the video. The girl is typical of the average youth. Completely retarded. While it is somewhat unfair that she was singled out (they're all retarded, really), the bus driver isn't a machine and can only focus on one lousy kid at a time. The bus driver has to deal with a busful of loud, obnoxious kids. Then there's this girl (who has been labelled as trouble) being obnoxious on her cell phone. So, the driver reserves her right to regain order. Naturally, being a 21st Century youth, the girl completely derides the authority. After all, she's a high school student. She's a first class citizen and, with all the rights and privileges of an adult, is an authority unto herself. That is how it has been for a while.
I'll admit it, authority sucks. I question it. I am wary of it. However, I am also an adult and paid my dues as a teen being subject to arbitrary authority (yeah, sometimes unfair).
Kids need to learn how to suck it up. Human beings, in general, are horrible creatures. Unfortunately, in order to keep human beings from living up to their full, terrible nature, authorities are in place to knock some down a peg or two. Even after you're 21 and can legally be a buffoon and endanger others in the process, you're still someone else's slave. You'll be following stupid rules your whole life.
Why am I so contemptuous of children, though?
I definitely dislike children. I consider them nothing more than chimps with the ability to imitate human language. One can endow a child with all the sophisticated faculties of a fully-developed human but the fact remains they are under-developed and have yet to learn and grasp the very vague virtues we tout about as properties of "maturity."
However, I think above all, I dislike teenagers. Why? Because they're worse than children in a very significant way: they think they're already adults and are all too often treated like adults. A lot of new age mumbo-jumbo will convince one of the fact that teens are people too. When they're not. Not at all. The only reason it seems acceptable to treat teens as adults is because the majority of today's teens were born from teens. As we all know, of course, a pregnant teen is not necessarily "more adult" than a good, productive teen.
So, we've got this girl on a bus making trouble and there is a side fully supporting her. Exhibit A: '69' scribbled on her wrist with a sharpie. A shining example of a person whose cause I should get behind. Unless '69' is the number of infractions commited against her or the number of townspeople slain by a regional tyrant--and not what I'm sure it stands for--she has automatically forfeited her right to be taken seriously. Exhibit B: teens should be restricted from cell phones. Seriously. The worst thing one can allow among dangerously idiotic people (read: teens) is access to constant communication. They already communicate enough over AIM and XBox Live--poorly, might I add. Exhibit C: she's shouting "GET OFF OF ME," when the bus driver is nowhere in sight, with not a hand upon her. That amounts to one of two things: either 1) she's bat-shit insane or 2) she was intentionally misleading those who could not get a clear view into believing the bus driver had been assaulting her... when the bus driver clearly hadn't been.
I am sure a lot of folks out there love children and sympathize with teens. Heck, in ways I may too; I was once a teen. But then I remember something. Children and teens aren't supposed to count as people. I can affirm that the instant children and teens became a problem was when they became a legit target demographic. Children and teens should never be catered to. Sure, the occassional movie about the "good old days" (by the way, anyone who says high school is "the best years of your life" ended up, in fact, a total loser) is fine. It's fun to reminisce, even to glorify. However, it's wrong to package it as a commodity to be adopted and imitated and considered a natural right.
So, what we're left with are stupid teens that believe they count. And they're driving industries. And they're multiplying. And they're getting dumber. And it's for the previously-mentioned things. If anything is corrupting youth, it is anything that empowers youth.
This is a topic I've had brewin' in m' brain for a while. Though not the main topic, 'tis related to the argument that "video games are art." Before anyone goes into a "OMG U R TEH LOSERY GUY" tirade about how we are well into July and I'm talking about video games, I say only this:
Summer is not a season for fat people. 'Tis a season for the young, the fit and the attractive (though not necessarily altogether). I may be relatively young but I fail to meet the other two criteria. Also, as someone who firmly thinks that video games count as legitimate art, I fail to see video games as "toys" or "children's entertainment."
So, moving along....
After letting my mixed feelings about MGS4 churn a bit more, I got to thinking about what I consider good and excellent writing in a video game. That got me thinking about the heyday of the tacit game; the kind of video game that utilized a bare minimum of words to weave its tale yet be completely immersive and produce a believable, living, breathing world. Anyone who knows me will know I'm talking about the days of the Super NES. That era of gaming was amazing and was as important and influential to gaming as silent films of the '20s were to cinema.
Admittedly, a lot of the games to be discussed are RPGs, which got around the "bare minimum of words" by being an "acceptable" genre with which to utilize words. Following are a list of Super Nintendo games that deserve a serious second (or perhaps third) look in order to uncover the [most probably unintentional] sophistication within their minimalist narratives. Though not in any particular order, I admit to beginning with the game I place as my number one favourite, best game of all time:
- Super Metroid: Although a lot of people will rise up and state that Ninja Gaiden is probably the first "cinematic" game (and, rightfully so, since it was the first--to my knowledge, at least--to incorporate "cinema scenes" complete with crude animation and dialogue), I argue that Super Metroid should carry that title. When I had first begun playing the game, I almost immediately thought to myself, "this is truly cinematic." The game's opening was relatively brief but, most importantly, utilized sophisticated techniques brought on by superb direction to give players not only a feeling of immersion but a simultaneous feeling of being subject to a marvelous presentation. Amazingly, only about 1/3 of the opening has any traditional exposition; following a brief account of the events leading up to Super Metroid entirely in text, it subtlely launches into a completely tacit narrative. Despite every moment being mute, Super Metroid still tells an amazingly intricate sci-fi tale. It tells its tale through the adventure itself, using atmosphere and intense moments to paint an uncanny mural. It is quite difficult to describe, almost impossible! The best way I can think to describe it is to say it is like an interactive dumb show. Depending on how much of a completionist the player is, it can be a very long dumb show. In the end, it closes on a cinematic note akin to its opening. By the time one is through, they will have ingested a huge story that can be labeled as a quest without having been given a single word.
- Earthbound: Despite its wads of text, what Earthbound ultimately is shines through without words. Earthbound is the ultimate, satirical critique of every pan-American notion of "Americana." The game's settings, scenarios, music and aesthetic all come together to create a game world that is nothing but a pastiche of Containment Culture USA. The game's plot is nothing but a series of early '50s/'60s movie plots that have "rural paranoia" as their retrospective themes. The game's core narrative revolves around an unambiguous yet vague "ultimate evil" that has the ability to influence the past from its location in the future; it involves the main antagonist being in cahoots with opportunist aliens (also from the future), a sleepy "southern" town being threatened by a popular cult, a town becoming overrun with poltergeists and zombies, a shore-side town being affected by its negative counterpart from an alternate dimension, emboldened wildlife, corrupt officials, disgruntled citizens and unruly youth. The only solution to the main problem is a group of idealists of "pure heart," who possess an inner power and, though from different walks of life, are all acceptable in the respect that they're all law-abiding and hard-working. Every consumer industry is parodied, like the service industry, which repeats its slogans incessantly and is gratuitously kind. The game shows the Western world through outsiders' eyes. Though funny and fun, it is also a sudden splash of cold water.
- Super Mario RPG: A lot of people retrospectively consider Super Mario RPG to be total saccharin dreck. Unfortunately, those people failed to see what was under the game's technical achievements and juxtapositional story. If I could describe Super Mario RPG as one thing, I'd say it is an Alan Moore-esque turning of the Super Mario world onto its head. This is the game that introduced us to the more complex relationship between a pair of plumber brothers whose only strenghts seem to be their popularity and unlimited luck and a failure of a villain whose only wish is to expand his dwellings beyond its almost completely uninhabitable territory. This was the first Mario game to show Mario's cult-like following within an ignorant and apathetic Mushroom Kingdom, Luigi's inability to escape his older sibling's shadow, Princess Peach's true ineptitude and Bowser's own ineptitude. Every traditional Mario character is shown in a new, unflattering light, completely twisting the considerably exaggerated and imbelished implications of previous Mario games built upon each other. All that occurs amidst world-shattering side plots involving totally new characters from until-then-untold regions of the game world's ever bigger, encompassing world. Within that we are shown issues of nature versus machination (Geno), issues of identity (Mallow) as well as other, more dark and mature themes otherwise unheard of in Mario games; the "sword" imposing its Leviathan-like will and order at the expense of the liberty and soul of free nature, a benevolent royalty supplanted by a malevolent, aristocratic usurper and a team of mercenaries whose zeal undoes them... just to name a few.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: This one follows almost the same exact rationale as Super Metroid. It is an amazingly intricate adventure story told in as few words as possible. Beyond Super Metroid's more "straightforward" narrative, LttP touches upon themes of inner darkness amongst even the "purest" of persons, themes of balance and of the corruptive force of power without wisdom, themes of will and themes of strong interpersonal bonds across vast distances, even worlds. Ultimately it is a game about corruption and its pervasiveness but it is presented in such a fantastic way by showing a world split into its two opposites.
- Donkey Kong Country: I think only Scott will know what I mean when I say, "Frederick Douglass."
- Chrono Trigger: I feel obligated to include this gem only because it appeared in EGM's "Golden Calf Barbeque" article (or whatever it's called; I can't recall) in its July 2008 issue. The point of the roast is to showcase games that are on a seemingly undeserved pedestal. Chrono Trigger was listed because of its lasting appeal with almost ev'ry gamer, despite what the article states as it having nonsensical characters, plot and dialogue. The article goes on to say that those elements prove that anyone will laud a convoluted and obscure game as long as it is "Japanese." I beg to differ. My argument is that Chrono Trigger is no more sensical than a Hans Christian Andersen or Die Brüder Grimm fairytale... yet is also as charming and fantastic and wonderful as. Plus, it has one of the most well-done utilizations of time travel as a functional plot device.
That's about all I have for tonight, folks!