Portal through time
Long entry is long. I'm talking about Portal, first-person shooters, and there's a slice of my childhood in there too.
Picture a 9-year-old Mishi. Though barely out of the pink unicorns and princesses phase of her girlhood, her mind is still filled with fantasy, mythology, science-fiction. In her hair, tied in a tail of tangled brown, and in her unfashionable flowery leggings and too-big t-shirts, the makings of a geek are already apparent. She dreams of a day in the distant future when she might have a gaming console of her very own. For the time being she consoles herself with her brother's old gameboy-pocket.
Now picture a dark autumn Friday evening, on which her friend Cedric and his father Scott have come over for dinner. She's known Cedric from the cradle, and until recently got along very well with him. Recently, he's started commiserating with her brother instead, and leaving her out of the games. Cedric has brought his Nintendo 64.
Nintendo 64! Mishi's excitement is indescribable. She knows she's never been any good at video games, but she loves them all the same. In her mind, she's crashing Super Mario into walls, getting killed by bosses over and over again, but having a blast despite the setbacks. Cedric, however, does not own Super Mario 64. Instead, he's brought Goldeneye 007, destined to be Mishi's first experience of a first-person-shooter.
Cedric has very kindly brought three controllers so that he, Mishi, and Patrick could all play against each other. The two boys are having the time of their lives, gaily blasting away at each other, but mostly at Mishi, who is an easy target. Shooting people doesn't come easily to Mishi, and she freezes under fire. For the life of her, she can't figure out how to reload, switch weapons, or even aim properly. At the end of the game, she gets deducted points for being cowardly. She laughs good-naturedly when the boys tease her about it, but she has privately decided she would never touch first-person shooters again.
Eleven years later, my ponytailed hair still unmanageable, my wardrobe, though more fashionable, stained with bleach, I stand in EBGames looking for a used copy of Pokemon Advanced on which to squander my allowance. I scan a depressingly small shelf of used Gameboy advanced games, shocked and dismayed to find no trace of Pokemon. Blasphemy! The DS hasn't been around that long! How dare this two-bit game shop deny me my 3rd generation pocket monsters?!
Still, since my first video games were hand-me-downs from my brother, I am accustomed to settling for the games I can get, rather than longing for the games I can't. I finish browsing through the a thoroughly uninteresting selection of DS games, disappointment growing. In boredom, my eyes and my mind alike begin to wander. I should have gone to Gamestop instead. They have a larger collection. I promised Mum I'd meet her at EB games, though. If only I'd had the presence of mind to ask her when she'd be along! As I ruminate, my gaze focuses onto a single point. It seems like an exclamation mark in the form of a game package: a copy of Portal!
Unfortunately, Portal is a PC game, and my father has instilled a prejudice in me against installing things on computers. It's a holdover from the days when Dad's computer was the only one in the house powerful enough to run games, and as it was his work computer, he didn't want games cluttering up his hard drive. Turning away from Portal, I browse the Playstation 2 section looking for something else, Psychonauts, maybe. Nope, no Psychonauts, although Final Fantasy XII is mildly tempting. Stronger still, however, is the temptation to buy Portal. Are there copies for Xbox or Playstation 2 available? Will I ever find another copy? Will this be my only opportunity? And I've heard so many good things about it, too! Even Yahtzee, that fount of high-speed loquacious negativity, could find no criticisms to make about it. Still, it's a PC game, it might not even work on my computer. But Portal! It's a recent game, and my computer is fairly recent too! They're definitely compatible. Arguing with oneself is problematic, because you can never tell whether you won or lost. Whichever the case, I finally cave into temptation and buy the game.
A few hours later, my parents are out of the house, I boot up the game, and start playing. It's my first first-person-shooter in eleven years, and suddenly the reasons I disliked the genre come back to me. The ambient music scares the pants off me, I imagine danger lurking around every corner, and GlaDos's voice makes me jump every time I hear it. And the turrets! Oh dear, the turrets! I thought it was scary when Cedric would say: “I can see you, M'shell,” and give me a chance to scarper before he opened fire. I thought it was scary when I would suddenly run smack into NPC which would shoot at me right away. And if you think that the years have mellowed me out, you're sadly mistaken. Just seeing the turrets for the first time set my heart pounding, and the way they speak as they activate! “I see you!” “Won't you come out?” “Nap time.” And, when you break them: “I don't hate you.”
In any other sort of game, I would find these things awesome without reservations:
-ambient music - effectively creepy
-imagining danger lurking in every corner - well, that's just how I am when I play videogames
-GlaDos's voice - awesome.
-Turrets - positively cute!
The reason this game affects me so much more than any other I've played? Simple: it's in first person perspective. In all the other games I played, I was controlling a character that I could SEE. I was separate from the hero, and no matter how strongly I identified with him or her, we were always clearly apart. The first-person perspective, however, forces me to become completely immersed in the game's universe, so those bullets coming at Chell are also coming at ME, rather than coming at my surrogate in the game world. I've also spent an inordinate amount of time staring at Chell through portals just as one would stare at one's reflection in the mirror.
But, don't think I don't like this game. I love it so much I found myself imagining something small and inoffensive dropping through a portal directly above Mum's head, as she was nagging me about something or other. I love it to bits. It's just a lot more intense than my previous experiences have been.
Picture a 9-year-old Mishi. Though barely out of the pink unicorns and princesses phase of her girlhood, her mind is still filled with fantasy, mythology, science-fiction. In her hair, tied in a tail of tangled brown, and in her unfashionable flowery leggings and too-big t-shirts, the makings of a geek are already apparent. She dreams of a day in the distant future when she might have a gaming console of her very own. For the time being she consoles herself with her brother's old gameboy-pocket.
Now picture a dark autumn Friday evening, on which her friend Cedric and his father Scott have come over for dinner. She's known Cedric from the cradle, and until recently got along very well with him. Recently, he's started commiserating with her brother instead, and leaving her out of the games. Cedric has brought his Nintendo 64.
Nintendo 64! Mishi's excitement is indescribable. She knows she's never been any good at video games, but she loves them all the same. In her mind, she's crashing Super Mario into walls, getting killed by bosses over and over again, but having a blast despite the setbacks. Cedric, however, does not own Super Mario 64. Instead, he's brought Goldeneye 007, destined to be Mishi's first experience of a first-person-shooter.
Cedric has very kindly brought three controllers so that he, Mishi, and Patrick could all play against each other. The two boys are having the time of their lives, gaily blasting away at each other, but mostly at Mishi, who is an easy target. Shooting people doesn't come easily to Mishi, and she freezes under fire. For the life of her, she can't figure out how to reload, switch weapons, or even aim properly. At the end of the game, she gets deducted points for being cowardly. She laughs good-naturedly when the boys tease her about it, but she has privately decided she would never touch first-person shooters again.
Eleven years later, my ponytailed hair still unmanageable, my wardrobe, though more fashionable, stained with bleach, I stand in EBGames looking for a used copy of Pokemon Advanced on which to squander my allowance. I scan a depressingly small shelf of used Gameboy advanced games, shocked and dismayed to find no trace of Pokemon. Blasphemy! The DS hasn't been around that long! How dare this two-bit game shop deny me my 3rd generation pocket monsters?!
Still, since my first video games were hand-me-downs from my brother, I am accustomed to settling for the games I can get, rather than longing for the games I can't. I finish browsing through the a thoroughly uninteresting selection of DS games, disappointment growing. In boredom, my eyes and my mind alike begin to wander. I should have gone to Gamestop instead. They have a larger collection. I promised Mum I'd meet her at EB games, though. If only I'd had the presence of mind to ask her when she'd be along! As I ruminate, my gaze focuses onto a single point. It seems like an exclamation mark in the form of a game package: a copy of Portal!
Unfortunately, Portal is a PC game, and my father has instilled a prejudice in me against installing things on computers. It's a holdover from the days when Dad's computer was the only one in the house powerful enough to run games, and as it was his work computer, he didn't want games cluttering up his hard drive. Turning away from Portal, I browse the Playstation 2 section looking for something else, Psychonauts, maybe. Nope, no Psychonauts, although Final Fantasy XII is mildly tempting. Stronger still, however, is the temptation to buy Portal. Are there copies for Xbox or Playstation 2 available? Will I ever find another copy? Will this be my only opportunity? And I've heard so many good things about it, too! Even Yahtzee, that fount of high-speed loquacious negativity, could find no criticisms to make about it. Still, it's a PC game, it might not even work on my computer. But Portal! It's a recent game, and my computer is fairly recent too! They're definitely compatible. Arguing with oneself is problematic, because you can never tell whether you won or lost. Whichever the case, I finally cave into temptation and buy the game.
A few hours later, my parents are out of the house, I boot up the game, and start playing. It's my first first-person-shooter in eleven years, and suddenly the reasons I disliked the genre come back to me. The ambient music scares the pants off me, I imagine danger lurking around every corner, and GlaDos's voice makes me jump every time I hear it. And the turrets! Oh dear, the turrets! I thought it was scary when Cedric would say: “I can see you, M'shell,” and give me a chance to scarper before he opened fire. I thought it was scary when I would suddenly run smack into NPC which would shoot at me right away. And if you think that the years have mellowed me out, you're sadly mistaken. Just seeing the turrets for the first time set my heart pounding, and the way they speak as they activate! “I see you!” “Won't you come out?” “Nap time.” And, when you break them: “I don't hate you.”
In any other sort of game, I would find these things awesome without reservations:
-ambient music - effectively creepy
-imagining danger lurking in every corner - well, that's just how I am when I play videogames
-GlaDos's voice - awesome.
-Turrets - positively cute!
The reason this game affects me so much more than any other I've played? Simple: it's in first person perspective. In all the other games I played, I was controlling a character that I could SEE. I was separate from the hero, and no matter how strongly I identified with him or her, we were always clearly apart. The first-person perspective, however, forces me to become completely immersed in the game's universe, so those bullets coming at Chell are also coming at ME, rather than coming at my surrogate in the game world. I've also spent an inordinate amount of time staring at Chell through portals just as one would stare at one's reflection in the mirror.
But, don't think I don't like this game. I love it so much I found myself imagining something small and inoffensive dropping through a portal directly above Mum's head, as she was nagging me about something or other. I love it to bits. It's just a lot more intense than my previous experiences have been.