The Red Circle

By Tom Nix

Let’s face it. I am old. My first gaming system was the Atari 2600. I was six or seven, and I played Adventure and Asteroids for hours at a time. Hell, I even had a sick thing for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. I won’t defend that. I’m not here to explain why a seven year old likes stupid things. What I am here to support is how the games produced in the 80′s and 90′s blow away the games made in the modern era in terms of story and enjoyment.

I realize this is a hard claim to back up when the story of Super Mario Brothers is “get a girl back from a dinosaur,” and the plot of Asteroids is essentially “Don’t get hit by shit.” All the while, you’ve got games today like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted that have helped redefine how tales are told in the interactive arena. Let me explain.

These new games have much more elaborate storylines. They have greatly improved graphics and animations. They have superior voice acting, and they are a portal to a world like one you’ve never imagined. And that, friends, is the rub. These games do not require an imagination. They require a set of hands and eyes to navigate an avatar through a lushly rendered environment. You have a generation of games that dictate your own thoughts. They don’t inform you about you. Back in my day (Christ, kill me.), you didn’t need a weighted morality system to go dark side on someone. The game depended on you, not vice versa.

Why do you think the video game industry is in boom? It’s not because the games that are coming out are legendary things of immaculate quality. I’ll give you a hint – it’s the same reason the average age of a gamer is hovering around the low 30′s. They hooked us young with the potential of an interactive environment that you had more or less complete creative control over. Sure, with those early games, the range of motion was a little limited. Sure, there was only so much you could do within a level. But, do you know what you could do? Imagine.

I gave a backstory to Asteroids. I placed myself within Simon Belmont. Not because I was controlling his blocky form, but because I wanted to be him. Because the lack of “This-is-how-you-play-the-game” graphics and storylines. I had to kill the hell out of Dracula. That was the endgame. The rest was up to me. It’s something even the best games of the new school fail to grasp. It’s hard to fill in the gaps in Halo and Gears of War when the world is so distressingly fleshed out. Your decisions are made for you, your allegiances prealigned. Certainly, you have the immersion thing at your advantage, but how does that stimulate the part of you that is, well, you?

On top of that – these games were HARD. I defy anyone to find a more difficult and player-hating game than Super Ghouls and Ghosts. Like The King of Kong has shown, you actually needed a complete mastery of patterns, predictability, and patience to even make it past the third elevator stage in Donkey Kong. There are EIGHTEEN elevator stages in the game. I’m not going to make the mistake of dismissing the new generation of games as being devoid of skill-based interaction. I just don’t believe that they engage your brain on the same sort of level. Halo 3 requires you to react. Donkey Kong requires you to think.

I don’t want to come across as a Player Hater. I’ve enjoyed resident evil 4, Shadow of the Colossus, and Twilight Princess to an absurd degree. But a lot of these I see as exceptions to the rule. Except the first one. I just really like putting bullets in zombies.

Right now, the only modern game I play regularly is Rock Band 2. It’s because I have an unforgiving love and devotion to the act of playing music. It connects me with that on a very real level. I play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night because I love adventure. By expanding my surroundings and motivations with my own experiences and thoughts, it connects me with that on a very real level. I am not fighting the Covenant. I am not trying to make it in the tough streets of San Andreas. These franchises certainly deliver on the experience end through their breathtaking landscapes, and their completed backstories. But my games allow me to tell my own tale. I don’t have the script right in front of me. I’ve got to be at point A at X’ o Clock.

Everything else is on my watch. Let me write my own story.

photo-Illustration by Ryan Brlecic

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