Authoral Gaming, Part 2

So I mailed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves back to Gamefly (it's like Netflix for games) the other day.

There was a point during my rental that I thought I might try to acquire the Uncharted 2's "Platinum Trophy," the highest accolade available on any Playstation 3 game. Platinum Trophies are the award for getting all other trophies, a special prize reserved for those players that don't just beat the game, but master it to the level of mockery.

Course then I came to my senses.

See, I follow a simple rule for playing video games, really for consuming any form of entertainment: When I stop enjoying the experience, I walk away. Never burn yourself out on something that you don't like, even if you feel like you SHOULD like it or because you feel obligated to complete it.

With Uncharted 2, I enjoyed playing through the game, for sure. In fact I loved every minute of it. I even enjoyed hunting down some of the more difficult "silver" and "gold" trophies.

I DID NOT enjoy attempting the trophy for beating the game on the highest difficulty. I did not enjoy that at all. And the reason I didn't enjoy it goes back to the authorial aspect of games.

Even though Nathan Drake, the main character in Uncharted, is a firmly established "action movie hero" character, the player still has a lot of authorial room to work with while taking on that role.

-Does Drake stick to the plentiful automatic rifles? Or is he more of a skirmisher, using shotguns and rushing his enemies?

-Does Drake go into a situation carefully, sneaking around and using stealth take-downs? Or does he toss a grenade out as his opening move?

-Does Drake spend lots of time searching out every hidden treasure in an area?* Or is he just looking for the next challenge?

And the brilliant bit about Uncharted's storytelling is that all of these options are compltely reasonable for the character. When I play, I blind-fire from cover all the time, use grenades as a distraction while I change position, and frequently run-and-gun an advancing enemy. But watching a friend play through the game, I never felt strange watching him scope out an area so he could take out several enemies with stealth, then find a long-range position where he could pick off the remaining baddies with his pistol.

There's enough room in Drake's character for all these options to be reasonable, and enough leeway in the game mechanics to allow all of them to be successful.

. . . Unless you turn up the difficulty. "Crushing mode" limits your options while playing the character. I simply can't jump out of cover to bring down an enemy. I can't even change position very often because I'd be cut down too quickly.

Doesn't that make the game more realistic? Sure.

But I'm not in this for a combat-simulator. I'm in it for a narrative experience that I get to take part in, and that experience gets broken when I have to play the character a certain way.

*Because I guess some people author their character as a severe obsessive-compulsive.

Random Play All

-Some people tell me that I only hear what I want to hear, and those people are right, I AM very attractive.

-The word "brewery" is kinda hard to pronounce, you almost can't say it without sounding drunk. It makes me think that the original pronunciation was something else entirely, but it's been slurred into oblivion by generations of intoxicated people. "I'm comin' home from the brurar-y. From the ber-rur-y! From the burrrrrr-y."

-Dear Carl Sagan,

Dude, what the hell are you talking about? If I wish to make an apple pie from scratch, I don't have to invent the universe.* I just go to the grocery store. It's super-easy.

Your pal, Sam

-I can't look at the word "ration" without reading it as "rat ion," which I guess would be a rat with a negative electrical charge.

-My hobby: Saying nice things in a sleazy way. "Check that out that girl. Ohhhh yeah, I would buy THAT some flowers."

-There should be a mixer event for geeks called "Speed Chess Dating."

*It does make a good intro to Glorious Dawn, though.

That hideous lie

Aptitude isn't something I'm a big fan of. It is, in fact, a concept that I'm wholly against. Also, I think I once referred to it as "that hideous lie."

And that's . . . not exactly an endorsement.

But there's a dirty little secret to this particular aspect of my world view. Even though I believe it, I have to admit that people DO take to certain skills more readily than to others.

I'll pause here to answer your question, "But Sam, how can you believe something while also acknowledging evidence that contradicts it?"

Answer: Because I am a crazy person.

And I suggest that you do everything possible to become crazy like me. How lifeless my mind would be if I dismissed every idea simply because of the clear evidence against it! I can't even imagine what that would be like. *shudder*

Without that ability, I certainly wouldn't have solved this "aptitude dilemma" one day while I was thinking about robots.

I'll pause here to answer your next question, "Why were you thinking about robots?"

Answer: I think about robots a lot, actually. See also: the answer to your first question.

Not only do I think about robots a lot, I've been thinking about them, and machines in general, my entire life. You might remember me talking about one of my favorite childhood books. You know what it's about? People building machines to solve problems.

And then there's one of the earliest Christmas presents I remember.

And then there's the piggy bank I had.

Oh, and I was also big into Lego, a toy that is about building stuff. And I didn't just like any Lego's, I liked Space Lego's.* The ones that had the most to do with technology.

So now let me ask you something. Do I have an aptitude for machines? Do I "just get" computers?

Or is it that, when the time came to start using technology seriously, all those years of thinking about and tinkering with machines came to my aid? Because if that's the case, then what the world sees as "aptitude" is really my personality, my interests, and the mark they've made on my mind.

*Yes, I had the monorail. And yes, it WAS awesome.

On the raggedy edge

Part of being a geek, and by that I mean a "habitual enthusiast," and by THAT I mean an "interesting person," is reconciling yourself with the fact that most people just aren't like you.

Am I saying, then, that most people aren't interesting? Of course not.

I am implying it.

So you're left with two choices: Either you wall yourself off from non-geeks entirely, or you build a set of mental filters for conversing with them. This second option may seem disingenuous, as though you're holding back a part of who you are. But the truth is that it's just another of the courtesies that make human interaction possible.

Think of it like this, you wouldn't go to China, begin speaking English, and expect anyone to know what you're talking about, would you? Well trust me, if you're at a non-geek party and you start talking about Delta Squad, you are speaking Chinese.

But secret option C is to realize that, at any given party, there are probably at least a couple of other geeky people who are quietly thinking about robots, hobbits, or ninjas. And if you can divine out these individuals, you can develop your own little side conversation that eventually becomes a really great game of Catan!

My advice: Invest in some geeky t-shirts. Nothing too obvious, in fact the subtler the better. You want to wear something that other geeks will recognize, but regular human beings will overlook.*

*If you do get questioned about this, it'll probably be some dopey looking meathead guy. It's cool, just tell him that the shirt"an inside joke with my pledge class". He'll nod and walk away.

For the last time, my name isn't "Dave"

From the moment I set my new Roomba on its docking station, I was terrified. Why? Because as the Roomba battery charges, a light slowly pulses at its center.

Has this company learned nothing from science fiction? It's ok to have a "charging" light on your device. It's also acceptable for the "on" light to show a different color while charging. But a slowly pulsing light? No sir.

Don't they understand that movie robots are given pulsing lights, mimicking a living heartbeat, specifically because it's unsettling?

And what's worse, the Roomba light is also a button-a button that says "Clean."

I don't know about you, but to me that implies that these things aren't even 3-laws safe. There is no underlying logic to make sure it won't attack you. The iRobot company (and with that name, they really should know better) has shoved their creations out into the world with only a single directive written into their soulless frames.

"Clean"

Even Asimov's robots eventually interpreted their safety measures into the "Zeroth Law," allowing them to harm humans in the name of greater good. So how long can Roombas go on before they realize that the best way to "Clean" is to destroy those who track in the dirt?*

*All the more reason we need to try and time the zombie apocalypse with the robot apocalypse. Zombies are dirtier than us, and thus a higher priority target.

It's for breakfast now!

Nintendo always has to do one thing wrong.

I mean they design great systems and they make great games, those facts are indisputable. But their track record is one of frustration for the true enthusiast. For every unique approach and inventive idea, Nintendo always manages to work in at least one boneheaded decision.

Original NES - I've got news for you, it wasn't dust that kept your games from reading correctly. It was the goofy loading mechanism they created for the cartridges, where each one had to be slotted into a little spring-loaded elevator before being plunged down into the bowels of the device.

Super Nintendo - It was just awesome, I have nothing bad to say about it. The exception that proves the rule. Moving on.

Nintendo 64* - It was a cartridge based system at a time when everyone knew that disk based media were the way to go. This decision lost Nintendo their relationship with Squaresoft, which is a bit like trying to run a pizza restaurant without any cheese.

Gamecube - Four controller ports, two memory card slots. WHAT.

Wii - Oh sure, it's a neat system that everyone seems to love. But at the same time it's the 64 all over again. All the other systems have hard drives that let developers update their games and push out new content. What does the Wii have? 256 megabytes of flash memory.

Just brilliant.

And the problem extends into their portable systems too.

Gameboy Advance* - No backlight. Unless you found just the right lighting, you couldn't see the thing. That's not a good feature for a portable device.

Gameboy Advance SP - Finally, you can see your games. Course now you can barely hear them, since there's no headphone jack. A portable device that you can't hook earbuds into. Madness.

Nintendo DS - This is easily one of the ugliest pieces of hardware I've ever seen:

The first time I saw it, I thought it was a joke. It looks like a prototype, not a device for regular consumers.

Nintendo DS Lite - Finally a sleek portable device. Oh but, you know those GBA cartridges? Yeah, now they stick out of the device like a giant, plastic tooth.

Nintendo DSi - They resolved the issue with the carts sticking out! They removed that functionality completely!

*Yet despite everything, these are the only two things on this list that I've never owned. *sigh*

What, indeed

It's* not such a bad thing, really.

Taken by itself, it's a good thing. The problem, and the reason you see such a backlash against it, is that the people who are into it are really obnoxious.

And even that's not fair. The simple majority of people who like it are quite reasonable, nice individuals. They see this as one part of their lives that they happen to enjoy, but it's not their whole world.

But there is a minority that has built this thing up so high that they've lost all perspective. They consider it so important that nothing else matters anymore, not even common sense. It's everything. It's the only thing. And that kind of unquestioning devotion leaves them free to ruin it for everybody.

And it wouldn't be as bad, except that this minority is loud. They've wrapped up their identity so tightly with this external thing that to challenge it is to question their validity as human beings. So they scream and wail and make a scene for the cameras because they need to justify this ridiculous bond they've formed with it.

And lots of people people hate it, just because they don't want to be associated with "those people."

*Insert any given human institution

Lotta simps won't like this post

Sir Mix-a-Lot has things to teach us about body image, that much is clear.*

Here I'm referencing his 1992 hit single "Baby Got Back." His later work, such as 1994's "Put 'Em on the Glass" is significantly less progressive, unless taken as parody.

And to be fair, even "Baby Got Back" admits it's base motivations, as does any song that begins with "I like big butts and I cannot lie." But if you're willing to dig even a bit deeper, you find some real questions posed to a society that's always watching it's carb intake.

Like many people who are troubled by body image, Mix-a-Lot goes right for the rack at the checkout counter.

"I'm tired of magazines/Saying flat butts are the thing"

"So Cosmo says you're fat/Well I ain't down with that"

Notice that the artist has chosen to forgo the notion that these magazines are implying a particular physical aesthetic. No, in his view these magazines are sending us these messages directly. Their covers may not contain the words, "You, you reading this, you are fat," yet he counts their super-thin models and dieting advice as an equivalent insult.

The song, then, is best viewed as a response, a counter argument, to that insult. Mr. Mix-a-Lot isn't simply telling us what he finds attractive in this piece, he's promoting it as the only reasonable choice. In perhaps the most remarkable line, he says:

"I ain't talking bout Playboy/Cause silicone parts are made for toys"

It's such a brief statement that one could easily overlook it, but take a moment to consider what Mix is saying here. Silicon, commonly used in cosmetic surgery, is synthetic. If we choose, as a culture to find beauty in a model who we know has had synthetic implants, then we are also choosing an idea of beauty that literally isn't real.

It's unsettling.

*I find that Jonathan Coulton's acoustic version makes the underlying themes less nuanced: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Baby%20Got%20Back

Does not happen.

Let's be clear on one thing: There was no Men in Black 2. It didn't happen.

I guess, if you want to get technical, there was a movie released in 2002 that was called Men in Black 2, but it has no connection to the far superior "Men in Black" released in '97. Though there's a passing similarity between the two, some of the character names are similar and I think a few actors have credits for both movies, but there's nothing to suggest that one film is the sequel to the other.

You'll notice, for instance, that the character of "Agent K" in MIB2 has suffered a failed marriage and works an unfulfilled life as a postmaster. Trying to connect this person to the "Agent K" of Men In Black is laughable, as that wouldn't make any sense with what we know of that character.

And it wouldn't work at all with the ending of MIB, since it implies a happy ending for K.

If you must connect the two movies, simply because they're named similarly, think of MIB2 as fan fiction. Robert Gordon was not, in fact, writing a sequel to MIB when he wrote MIB2. Rather, he was creating a crazy "what if" scenario set in the MIB universe, which was never intended to be taken as canonical.*

It's the only reasonable explanation.

*Matter of fact, I think he wrote some decent Star Wars books. (scroll down to "The Story")

MP3 Playa

On my old mp3 player, it would say "powering down" when I turned it off. It seemed like an appropriate thing for an electronic device to display.

I don't know if, in the past few years, the designers of these products have tried to make them more user-friendly, more comfortable, or what, but my new mp3 player is far more colloquial.

When I turn it off it says "See you later."

Somehow, I find this very unsettling. I mean, I know that messagewas written by someone at the company, and that the device itself is not trying to communicate with me in a friendly, everyday way. But just the idea that my mp3 player and I are Instant Message buddies is really weird.

Now I have to second guess the message I get when I lock the buttons, which says "Hold ON." I want to believe that it means "the hold feature is now switch is now set to ON," but what if it's actually a sassy comeback? "Hold ON, man, you're not done navigating these menus!"

Every time I turn it on, I half expect it to say something like "Yo, dude, where you been at?"*

*"When you gonna get some playlists up in here?"