Video Games...
My response to a posting by bearpawly about video games brought up a lot of thoughts / memories / emotions in me...
I never really "got into" video games... I mean, yeah, I played them, but never really had a desire to own them and spend a lot of time on them. This carries through to today -- I have very little desire for a Wii or PS3 or anything like that. At-most, I would want it in the same way I'd want a board game -- something to play in a social situation. So I can't justify the cost of it for a rare party where people might want to play.
Back-in-the-day, I enjoyed tinkering with the text-based "adventure" games... but what intrigued me most about them was not the quest itself, but "how" it was done... the way the computer could "understand English" really captured my interest. So much so that I hacked one down and figured out how it worked and wrote a small one myself to prove (to myself) that I could do it.
The interactive-world games intrigued me too... but I couldn't really get-into them, mainly because I wasn't good at them, and that frustrated me. I'm kinda thankful that I wasn't too good at them and didn't want to spend the time in them... because if I had, I may NEVER have left the computer lab in college. There was this text-based multi-player game back before the World Wide Web became what it is... (back when "email" was "amazing"...) there were three or four people in the computer lab ALL THE TIME and occasionally you would hear one yell out to the other about some fantastic sword or kill he had just done or something like that. I just used to roll my eyes. Who knew that those multi-player games would morph into the graphically intense and exciting "worlds" of today.
They still intrigue me immensely... mainly still about "how they do it"... but, honestly, they also scare me a little. I guess I saw one too many "SciFi" or "Outer-Limits" or "Matrix" type shows where the world sinks into a truly "virtual world" and no one leaves the house or even remembers what human contact is like.
I often wonder what some of the kids today would do without their little handheld GameBoys and fancy games at home... "go outside? see the sun? talk to people?" OMG, what a concept? I wonder if the future president of the United States is out there right now playing "Mortal Kombat" or "Grand Theft Auto" and is she/he thinking that's what life is really like?
I never really "got into" video games... I mean, yeah, I played them, but never really had a desire to own them and spend a lot of time on them. This carries through to today -- I have very little desire for a Wii or PS3 or anything like that. At-most, I would want it in the same way I'd want a board game -- something to play in a social situation. So I can't justify the cost of it for a rare party where people might want to play.
Back-in-the-day, I enjoyed tinkering with the text-based "adventure" games... but what intrigued me most about them was not the quest itself, but "how" it was done... the way the computer could "understand English" really captured my interest. So much so that I hacked one down and figured out how it worked and wrote a small one myself to prove (to myself) that I could do it.
The interactive-world games intrigued me too... but I couldn't really get-into them, mainly because I wasn't good at them, and that frustrated me. I'm kinda thankful that I wasn't too good at them and didn't want to spend the time in them... because if I had, I may NEVER have left the computer lab in college. There was this text-based multi-player game back before the World Wide Web became what it is... (back when "email" was "amazing"...) there were three or four people in the computer lab ALL THE TIME and occasionally you would hear one yell out to the other about some fantastic sword or kill he had just done or something like that. I just used to roll my eyes. Who knew that those multi-player games would morph into the graphically intense and exciting "worlds" of today.
They still intrigue me immensely... mainly still about "how they do it"... but, honestly, they also scare me a little. I guess I saw one too many "SciFi" or "Outer-Limits" or "Matrix" type shows where the world sinks into a truly "virtual world" and no one leaves the house or even remembers what human contact is like.
I often wonder what some of the kids today would do without their little handheld GameBoys and fancy games at home... "go outside? see the sun? talk to people?" OMG, what a concept? I wonder if the future president of the United States is out there right now playing "Mortal Kombat" or "Grand Theft Auto" and is she/he thinking that's what life is really like?