I wonder if maybe Guitar Hero is one of the most perfect video games ever made. Or rather, if it is one of the most perfect expressions of what big time video games typically are or try to be. The entire package, the characters and artwork -- right down to the messages on the loading screens and in the instruction booklet -- all serve to create a world where rocking is the most important thing, and that you, the player, rock so hard that you will soon become the ruler of that world. And even though it's presented cartoonishly, and despite the fact that the real-world guitar is an undersized ukelele-esque plastic thing with candy-colored buttons, it's meant to trick you into looking past the silliness of the illusion and believe that you are becoming a hero.
Or at least it does at first. The first few times my friends and I played the game, we all showed off our rocker moves to some degree, fueled by the bravado that holding a guitar-shaped thing tends to instill, especially in people who have had some practice shredding air guitar beforehand. Of course, adding a bit of that pseudo-sexual bombast to the rhythmic button pushing has no actual bearing on success or failure in the game itself, but it did make it possible to feel cool while playing. Add to that the challenge of completing the hardest songs on the hardest difficulties, and it 's easy to see how playing well can even start to feel like a real accomplishment.
The problem, of course, is that any sense of accomplishment, coolness, or whatever else one might feel while playing Guitar Hero fades over time, and worse, is more or less only valid within the context of the game. The same can be said, I'm afraid, of all video games. No matter how good you are, how far you've gotten, how much work you've put in; as soon as you turn it off, it all goes away.
That doesn't mean that games are completely worthless (nor do I mean to imply that games are unique in being intangible in this way), but I worry that games don't do enough to justify the amount of time they require from the player. I worry that their value as entertainment trumps all other kinds of value they might potentially have. While I do appreciate the sort of cultural currency that comes with having played a lot of games (especially a lot of good ones) as a way to connect with other people over shared interests, I wish that having a shelf full of completed games could itself be more than just a kind of merit badge.
To be fair, a shelf is probably the wrong place to look for intrinsic value. The most interesting games seem to be the download only, independently developed things that I still don't have much experience with. I have to admit that some of my disappointment in games is a disappointment in myself, for continuing to come back to that dried out well that produces typical video games. And I don't even necessarily mean triple-A games. I play a lot of import and retro games, many of which are relatively obscure and narrowly focused, but nevertheless fail to aspire to much more than their more mainstream counterparts.
When I re-started this blog about a month ago, I had hoped to share some of these lesser-known games with you, the reader, but I'm struggling to find a way to do so in an interesting way. Unfortunately, hollow entertainment leads to hollow criticism and analysis that can only ever really focus on a game's flaws, or on the way in which it maintains an illusion of value (i.e., whether or not the story, characters, systems, etc are "good"). Looking at the shelf of games next to me, I remember liking a lot of these stories, but how many of them rely on a twist as the only remarkable thing about them? How many use simplistic melodrama between characters taking a banal stand against oppressive corporations/religions/despots? How many actually have something to say besides "You Rock!"?
I need to rethink my approach and try something different. I think I'll just experiment with whatever I can think of until I hit on something good. Or I burn out, which, according to rock lore, is preferable to fading away.
Or at least it does at first. The first few times my friends and I played the game, we all showed off our rocker moves to some degree, fueled by the bravado that holding a guitar-shaped thing tends to instill, especially in people who have had some practice shredding air guitar beforehand. Of course, adding a bit of that pseudo-sexual bombast to the rhythmic button pushing has no actual bearing on success or failure in the game itself, but it did make it possible to feel cool while playing. Add to that the challenge of completing the hardest songs on the hardest difficulties, and it 's easy to see how playing well can even start to feel like a real accomplishment.
The problem, of course, is that any sense of accomplishment, coolness, or whatever else one might feel while playing Guitar Hero fades over time, and worse, is more or less only valid within the context of the game. The same can be said, I'm afraid, of all video games. No matter how good you are, how far you've gotten, how much work you've put in; as soon as you turn it off, it all goes away.
That doesn't mean that games are completely worthless (nor do I mean to imply that games are unique in being intangible in this way), but I worry that games don't do enough to justify the amount of time they require from the player. I worry that their value as entertainment trumps all other kinds of value they might potentially have. While I do appreciate the sort of cultural currency that comes with having played a lot of games (especially a lot of good ones) as a way to connect with other people over shared interests, I wish that having a shelf full of completed games could itself be more than just a kind of merit badge.
To be fair, a shelf is probably the wrong place to look for intrinsic value. The most interesting games seem to be the download only, independently developed things that I still don't have much experience with. I have to admit that some of my disappointment in games is a disappointment in myself, for continuing to come back to that dried out well that produces typical video games. And I don't even necessarily mean triple-A games. I play a lot of import and retro games, many of which are relatively obscure and narrowly focused, but nevertheless fail to aspire to much more than their more mainstream counterparts.
When I re-started this blog about a month ago, I had hoped to share some of these lesser-known games with you, the reader, but I'm struggling to find a way to do so in an interesting way. Unfortunately, hollow entertainment leads to hollow criticism and analysis that can only ever really focus on a game's flaws, or on the way in which it maintains an illusion of value (i.e., whether or not the story, characters, systems, etc are "good"). Looking at the shelf of games next to me, I remember liking a lot of these stories, but how many of them rely on a twist as the only remarkable thing about them? How many use simplistic melodrama between characters taking a banal stand against oppressive corporations/religions/despots? How many actually have something to say besides "You Rock!"?
I need to rethink my approach and try something different. I think I'll just experiment with whatever I can think of until I hit on something good. Or I burn out, which, according to rock lore, is preferable to fading away.
1 comment:
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