You Can’t Pwn At Pong

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Mario Bros Atari
I’m only twenty-something, but I still am not sure I feel right saying ‘pwned’.

It feels a bit unreal to have gaming be the younger cool. It seems like just yesterday, I was my little brother’s age and getting flack for the same reason he’s considered awesome. I feel like the same people who will wear Mario Bros. shirts now might be the same ones who poked at me in school for video gaming. Part of me wants to reveal the poser they are. I would ask them:

In the first level, do you go down the pipe for the coins? You do? Now why would you do that? There’s a barely hidden one-up that you miss if you go down the pipe. 100 coins equal a one-up. Do the math.

They look at me blankly, thinking, “Up-whats?”.

Am I still allowed to use the word poser?

Across the room, nestled between cd video games and Super Nintendo cartridges are little rectangle bricks that belong to no Nintendo. One of them even says “Mario Bros.” on it.

People think Mario, they think Nintendo. It’s hilarious how many games people remember as being exclusive classics for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System originated for the Atari, early PC, and even old Macs.

You just can’t pwn at old video games. There was no typing to other players in a multiplayer environment. Even when doors and muds came about in BBS land, I don’t know about you guys, but I remember there usually being 1 node for one person to play at one time. In Legend of the Red Dragon, when you killed someone in the field and were interviewed for what you said after kicking ass, no one ever uttered “Pwned!”. They would have looked at the screen, backspaced a few times, and totally “Owned!” you.

Legend of the Red Dragon

I also feel I don’t really pwn, because I don’t play Halo. To me, Halo is just MIDI Maze, Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Heretic, Hexen, or GoldenEye 007(etc.) all over again… in space… with more jumping. Wait, System Shock was in space (with zombies even). So yeah, just with more jumping. I know people will raise their fists at me, but to me Halo has been repeated so many times that I shrug.

I watch my little bro in his headset screaming ‘Dude! Let’s super jump.’ and just ask, “Why is there so much jumping?” and feel kind of old.

I don’t mind feeling out of touch with pwnage. What is kind of sad is that I’ve stopped being as excited by new video games. I’ll say, “That’s kind of cool.” or “That’s pretty neat.”, but for the most part, I just feel like I’ll never be as excited as I was when video games were still new with leaps and bounds in their advancement. I didn’t even have the money for them, but I had plenty of time and an obsessed uncle.

Don’t get me wrong, I roll up my Katamaris and I play my voice acted RPGs, RTSs, and TBSs. So, maybe I’m just not a shoot ’em up kinda gamer.

This is not the case, because I’m not all about the MMORPGs. Instead they horrify me. The amount of time (or cheating) you have to invest to have a good time just boggles my mind. In addition, it’s kind of like I say when I see someone play Halo and I say, “Why is there so much jumping?”, with these it’s, “Wow, why is there so much running around?” Sure, there’s always been world map trekking, but this is insane. It used to be a few steps to the next town or a few random fights, now the random fights *ARE* the game. The intimacy of you, the characters, and the plot has been sacrificed to hack and slash with a subscription fee.

If you are reading this and like Halo or your MMORPG of choice, good for you. I mean, I’m obviously old and not so cool, so don’t listen to granny here.

I will keep saying “In my day…”, but that’s okay too. The best part about it is that now I have the resources to find all the old games I missed and try them out with the PC and emulator. Then I’ll snap shot the screen shots that amuse me and put them away for future posts. I know old games are not without flaws, but their flaws were lack of budget and technology to back them. I am floored by the mediocrity of today’s games. We have the tech and budget now, but where is all the fun game play and awesome writing? Creativity used to outpace the ability to convey it, now that the money and tech are there… where has it gone?

I am glad that there are exceptions. I just wish they were more the rule than the exception. At some point I’m hoping I’ll see it come back around and people will learn that eye-candy and hack and slash just isn’t enough.

Pure pwnage needs something more to back it up.

  • Don’t look at me, I’m a PC gamer. Halo to me is kinda like a not very good half-life 2 without the gravity gun. Which is kinda like having vanilla ice cream without some sort of sugary sauce, or apple pie without cheese (alright, custard).

    And I avoid MMORPGs because I can easily become addicted to paltry incremental increases in my character’s abilities. Although as I’m generally a loner when playing I’d probably hate them anyway.

    But then again, I’ve been playing Unreal Tournament with old friends recently, and it rawks. (Also I bought the Unreal Mega Ultra Pack from steam, so I’ve been playing UT3 as well, which rawks too.)

    Also I’ve been playing Kane’s Revenge, or Kane’s Bad Acting, or whatever the C&C3 expansion pack is called, and that rawks a little bit too.

    Then there’s Assasin’s Creed (Director’s Cut, with Extra missions and more apostrophes) to play when it comes out. And steam have Prey for only $25 (it was $5 over easter) which is probably worth it, as the demo was teh awesome.

    Not to mention that I got trapped in the magical mystery land that is U R Mr Gay fairly recently.

    But we’ll be doomed with bland and commercial being the dominant gene in computer games for a while, until the cost of creating astonishingly realistic and beautiful games starts to come down a bit, so that studios can afford to take risks on bizarre genre defying leaps of creativity.

  • SteveJ

    I feel better that it’s not just me. I still have all the friends that buy the latest greatest as soon as it comes out. Now I’m a responsible whatever and I still haven’t bought a PS3 or 360. Still waiting for that gotta have it game. (And my HD projector…soooon). I didn’t get a PS2 until I played GTA3, XBox until Halo (or maybe Obi-wan).

    I think it’s all the energy. When I played all the (S)NES RPGs/Adventures I had to talk to every person, find every item, etc, no cheats allowed. You could beat a game by getting to the ending, but you couldn’t flip it until you’d done it all. Now there’s so much content and so little time I just couldn’t possibly keep up. Do you remember bombing every single square brick in Zelda to find stuff? Pushing every rock, burning every bush? I’m dusting off Morrowind this week and I’m already overwhelmed.

    I was really afeared of the MMORPGs, I saw what they did to nerds. Everquest was worse than any drug I ever saw, people just disappeared. Then Star Wars Galaxies came out and I was stoked, I built a new P4 system and everything to play it on. And then I found out real quick that if you can’t play 16 hours a day, you just can’t keep up. My MIL and FIL play WoW probably 3-4 hours a day and scoff at anyone who doesn’t have a dozen level 60s.

  • Sing it muh bruthas… Let us lament and rant our sorrows.

    “I still haven’t bought a PS3 or 360”

    Not that I have the money to, but me neither. I haven’t been excited enough to. Wii seems innovative at least, but even then- all I’ve played for it so far is what seem like minigames.

    “Now there’s so much content and so little time I just couldn’t possibly keep up. Do you remember bombing every single square brick in Zelda to find stuff?”

    If the content hooks me, I’ll keep up. However, I have so many games with saves I just never finished. They managed to lose me due to not enough good content. Too many fetch quests in modern games don’t hold my attention. With Zelda, I was little, and still there was a real level of difficulty that I’m not sure games today have- and the number of hours don’t approach a modern game. RPGs are the worst (for me). Nowadays, they’re time consuming, but easy/mindless for the most part. I thought vids would grow up with me, but it seems like they’ve grown backwards in many ways. I’m way more into Final Fanatsy V now than I am into any of the newer ones. That game is *hard* and… kind of creepy and sad. I want to use smarts and strategy. Just using time to beat up shit just doesn’t interest me. I want the rush of getting past something difficult.

    I do also miss being able to search every corner and talk to all the people in a town. I think Summoner might have been the first game where I got through some small percentage of a town, people talking about fish and the weather, before I put the game down. I know it’s silly to have only 10 people living in a town and have them all have clues, but you can make it be interesting and engaging dialog with even subtle clues, history, and back story. We can assume many people live there. I think when you talk to a towns person, there’s an assumption that your characters are asking the right questions. Just like a novel doesn’t cover Drizzt the Drow pooping, video games don’t need to fill our fantasy worlds with the mundane.

    Point of games to me is: fun, mental exercise, challenge, and rush in as small a time commitment to get those things as possible. And, you can come back to enjoy again. Other things I look for are: emotional investment, story, and characters- in RPGs specifically. Now RPG means building levels and grabbing gold. It’s practically a numbers game! I want to be transported to another exciting land like when I read a good book.

    “But we’ll be doomed with bland and commercial being the dominant gene in computer games for a while”

    I guess it’s happened with TV and movies. I hope people will notice that the same people who want shows/movies challenging with depth want their vids the same way. Not everyone wants reality tv and mindless action flicks.

    There is evidence that the market will turn against these mediocre games. My little brother won’t be 11 forever and he’s already starting to wonder why games aren’t as varied and exciting as they used to be. He can see the difference between the psychological horror of Clock Tower (and rush of playing a character without a single weapon in a game that changes the map around on you) and the nonsense of Resident Evil 4 (which is really a little bit of every genre and yet none at the same time).

    I’m thinking people might get bored, and stop spending money.

    It might be wishful thinking. :) It’s probably also the least of my worries, but this still saddens me.

  • Portal Rocks though!

    I too don’t have a PS3 or 360, because my missus won’t let me buy one. (Curse her! I tried to point out that having an HDTV and no HD content is a terrible waste, but she was not to be moved by my “PS3 as cheapest Blu-Ray player” argument. It’s not even like I have to shell out for games, as LoveFilm.com will rent them to me.)

    There’s still some imaginative stuff out there, but it’s not the norm anymore, and I don’t think it’s ever going to return to being the norm. Face it, mainstream is middle of the road by definition, but there’s still the Okamis, No More Heros and Portals to keep the rest of us entertained. Hopefully we’ll get more of that kind of stuff if the cost of development ever goes back to sane levels.

  • “Face it, mainstream is middle of the road by definition”

    Yeah, and now that video games are moving further and further into the main stream…


    But hopefully the genre of ‘not mainstream’ (aka anti-suckage) will be born. Do mediocre games make money? I mean, aside from Halo, all the knockoffs and ‘7’ ratings.

    Another funny Wii thing, I’m seeing people spend as much money on old games they already have to bring their old school favorites to the Wii. Nintendo sure likes recycling. Why make things backwards compatible when you can make so much more money this way?

  • SteveJ

    “Why make things backwards compatible when you can make so much more money this way?”

    It’s genius! I had my nintendo hooked up to the SAME TV as the wii, with all the smbs in easy reach, and I still bought them all on virtual console. Other than the convenience aspect, and wirelessness, there’s actually one other nice thing, you can pause any game and come back later. So for Metroid, TMNT, and Simon’s Quest I could play through without leaving the system on or copying down any passwords. That’s worth $5 to me at least. All of the wii controller options aren’t as good as the originals (tiny buttons on wiimote, too many buttons on classic controller for SNES, strange positions for N64 and Genesis), but no blowing, wiggling, etc involved. I think I’m ok if that skill is lost to antiquity. I also never owned a genesis or turbographx so that’s kinda cool, but they really need a 10-minute demo option built into all the VC games. I’d buy more if I knew I liked the game. I bought balloon fight and a couple others because I remembered them much differently.

  • @SteveJ

    You can buy yourself a brand new 3rd party top loading nes on ebay for a song. I have a Yobo. No wiggling, and all of your old games and controllers work with it.

    But, if you’re happy buying them for the Wii, go right ahead. You could always try these titles out on an emulator before buying them. That’s what I would do.

  • Don’t look at me, I’m still waiting for the return of adventure games. “Why do I have to shoot these guys, why can’t I just combine this old sheet with this dirty towel to make a makeshift rope and escape?”

  • I would like to keep up with all the latest games, but I still play games that are 10-15 years old (and older) with regularity. Why would I update my PC to play the latest air combat simulator when I can replay TIE Fighter? I still buy new consoles when a must have game comes out–I’ll be dropping at least $700 to play Metal Gear Solid 4 when it’s out–but I don’t ever seem to get the utility out of the consoles that I do out of my old PC and it’s wonderful games.

    As an aside, I’d like to mention that with precision controller work you can get the one up while keeping almost 50% of the pipe on-screen, allowing you to slip down and get the coins as well.

  • “Why would I update my PC to play the latest air combat simulator when I can replay TIE Fighter?”

    Yes!! Tie Fighter is awesome!!

    “As an aside, I’d like to mention that with precision controller work you can get the one up while keeping almost 50% of the pipe on-screen, allowing you to slip down and get the coins as well.”

    I’ve never been able to do it (and I’ve tried!), but I’ll have to take your word for it. For knowing exactly what I’m talking about: A, for improving upon what I said: A+++!! I wish I had prizes to give out…

  • SteveJ

    Scott, scott, what have you done?

    I haven’t touched my flight stick since I moved, but now the siren song of tie is echoing in my ears.

    My imaginary NES PC will play tie fighter. This is reason enough to build it. I can see it now, awesome 80s gameplay on my (also imaginary) game projector.

    Y’know I usetacould get the one up and go down the pipe. Haven’t been able to do it on wii, not sure if my skills are diminished or what.

  • “Scott, scott, what have you done?”

    You guys are killing me.

    Now I want to play Tie Fighter. I have the disk- will it work on my current PC? If not, VORGONS will help me.