Pondering Shooter Games.
I've had the new XBox for about a week or two now. For those that lost track, Trinity got me an XBox 360 as an early birthday present. I've always wanted one but I've always been somewhat worried about getting one. My fear is that the damned thing will chew up my time that should be spent on writing, with my girlfriend, teaching, working out, reading and the like.
Althought I've had some long sessions, in one case from 10 pm to 3 am last Thursday, I've been pretty good about keeping my XBox time under some level of control. And I think Trinity likes it because it keeps me in the Pod. We do not have internet and when she is busy doing homework or reading, I tend to head out to a wifi hotspot.
Further, strangely enough, she can sleep through the racket when I am playing the shooter games she got for me. I do not know how anyone does that. Yes, she tells me her two sons used to play those games and yes she had to get homework done when her family was steadily melting down into chaos (five people, even at full functionality, are probably going to get pretty noisy).
So, my thoughts.
The first game she purchased was Battlefield: Bad Company 2, just out this year. A sequel, obviously, we follow a squad of misfits through a campaign against the Russians. The dialogue and the wisecracks are pretty good. The characters have a certain level of development, though somewhat based on stereotypes. I think the African American Sergeant Redford is probably the most fully developed and sympathetic character in the series.
The plot? Meh, Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Kelly's Heroes and the Dirty Dozen. Not bad, not great. Besides, no one plays these games for the deep literary meaning and the plot, right?
We're playing for explodey goodness.
First, a gripe.
These games are not an accurate reflection of reality. By that I mean that when you are playing the game, you have to react differently and use your tactics somewhat differently than you would on an actual battlefield.
For instance, due to the nature of the television screen, you lack peripheral vision. I've lost track of the number of times I got tagged in shooter games due to threats from the sides. It is just as likely that I might have been killed or eliminated in the real world, but I have enough training experience to know the difference.
In training exercises as an infantryman, I often detected threats to my flanks, which is something given how bad my actual vision is.
Second, one's perception of sounds is different. If someone is behind you, often you simply know someone is behind you. Not always, but usually there is some sort of pressure back there, a weight, a stillness in the air, something that is difficult to describe. That is absent in the game. The screen is in front of you while you are sitting in an easy chair in the real world.
Finally, accuracy of fire. I will say that in Bad Company 2 it is possible to use controlled, accurate fire to achieve your objectives. Given the nature of the video environment, when possible, I preferred to engage targets at a distance. I knew that if I came to grips with opponents at close quarters that it would become a spray and pray match. There would be no time for accurate, aimed fire. The control inputs simply do not allow for that, at least they do not seem to.
The graphics are certainly better. I can see the improvement between the sequel and the first Bad Company, which I bought this week. That said, it seems to me that there is not much difference in terms of game play between the Bad Company shooter games and the games I played years back at demo stations.
It does seem to me that in a multiplayer environment, an older, calmer player with more experience in the real world might be able to outwit and outsmart their younger spray and pray style opponents with the use of controlled fire. My feeling is shaped by my experience with the Street Fighter 2 arcade game. I would often find myself going up against people who knew the Special Move and only the Special Move. If one timed their attack correctly, it was possible to negate their ability to use the Special Move (which always takes a couple of seconds to pull off, even if you are really fast) and defeat the opponent.
One thing I'd like to see, and perhaps this is the writer in me, is that the protags in these games have enough actual depth to generate emotional resonance in the players.
That way when they get "killed," they might feel something more than aggravation that they have to start the scene all over again. Maybe that is coming some day.
So it goes.
The Teaching Front
Finished the Second Quarter a day early so I'll drop a surprise on the students. Since they are almost certainly reading this blog (hi there) I'll keep the surprise to myself.
After the Fourth of July weekend we'll move into the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and the Federalist Era. I plan on revising my Federalist Era lecture into something more thematic. If that works, then I'll do the same with the Jeffersonian Era.
I also have a test to build.
The Writing Front
Today and tomorrow are slated for revisions on JWP-02.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Althought I've had some long sessions, in one case from 10 pm to 3 am last Thursday, I've been pretty good about keeping my XBox time under some level of control. And I think Trinity likes it because it keeps me in the Pod. We do not have internet and when she is busy doing homework or reading, I tend to head out to a wifi hotspot.
Further, strangely enough, she can sleep through the racket when I am playing the shooter games she got for me. I do not know how anyone does that. Yes, she tells me her two sons used to play those games and yes she had to get homework done when her family was steadily melting down into chaos (five people, even at full functionality, are probably going to get pretty noisy).
So, my thoughts.
The first game she purchased was Battlefield: Bad Company 2, just out this year. A sequel, obviously, we follow a squad of misfits through a campaign against the Russians. The dialogue and the wisecracks are pretty good. The characters have a certain level of development, though somewhat based on stereotypes. I think the African American Sergeant Redford is probably the most fully developed and sympathetic character in the series.
The plot? Meh, Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Kelly's Heroes and the Dirty Dozen. Not bad, not great. Besides, no one plays these games for the deep literary meaning and the plot, right?
We're playing for explodey goodness.
First, a gripe.
These games are not an accurate reflection of reality. By that I mean that when you are playing the game, you have to react differently and use your tactics somewhat differently than you would on an actual battlefield.
For instance, due to the nature of the television screen, you lack peripheral vision. I've lost track of the number of times I got tagged in shooter games due to threats from the sides. It is just as likely that I might have been killed or eliminated in the real world, but I have enough training experience to know the difference.
In training exercises as an infantryman, I often detected threats to my flanks, which is something given how bad my actual vision is.
Second, one's perception of sounds is different. If someone is behind you, often you simply know someone is behind you. Not always, but usually there is some sort of pressure back there, a weight, a stillness in the air, something that is difficult to describe. That is absent in the game. The screen is in front of you while you are sitting in an easy chair in the real world.
Finally, accuracy of fire. I will say that in Bad Company 2 it is possible to use controlled, accurate fire to achieve your objectives. Given the nature of the video environment, when possible, I preferred to engage targets at a distance. I knew that if I came to grips with opponents at close quarters that it would become a spray and pray match. There would be no time for accurate, aimed fire. The control inputs simply do not allow for that, at least they do not seem to.
The graphics are certainly better. I can see the improvement between the sequel and the first Bad Company, which I bought this week. That said, it seems to me that there is not much difference in terms of game play between the Bad Company shooter games and the games I played years back at demo stations.
It does seem to me that in a multiplayer environment, an older, calmer player with more experience in the real world might be able to outwit and outsmart their younger spray and pray style opponents with the use of controlled fire. My feeling is shaped by my experience with the Street Fighter 2 arcade game. I would often find myself going up against people who knew the Special Move and only the Special Move. If one timed their attack correctly, it was possible to negate their ability to use the Special Move (which always takes a couple of seconds to pull off, even if you are really fast) and defeat the opponent.
One thing I'd like to see, and perhaps this is the writer in me, is that the protags in these games have enough actual depth to generate emotional resonance in the players.
That way when they get "killed," they might feel something more than aggravation that they have to start the scene all over again. Maybe that is coming some day.
So it goes.
The Teaching Front
Finished the Second Quarter a day early so I'll drop a surprise on the students. Since they are almost certainly reading this blog (hi there) I'll keep the surprise to myself.
After the Fourth of July weekend we'll move into the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and the Federalist Era. I plan on revising my Federalist Era lecture into something more thematic. If that works, then I'll do the same with the Jeffersonian Era.
I also have a test to build.
The Writing Front
Today and tomorrow are slated for revisions on JWP-02.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri