I have finished the game, and I have to admit that I used Game FAQs to figure out each and every puzzle. As much as it was convenient to get through the entire game and not lie awake at night thinking of the rooms I could not get to or how I could figure out each puzzle (which was what happened the first night I played Myst without cheats), beating the game is not satisfying! It is like I skipped to the last chapter of a book, figured out the story, and then read the book from beginning to end knowing where each twist in the plot was ultimately going to lead. It made me think of how much gaming has changed with the availability of cheats on the internet versus actually having to go out and buy a book or suffer your way through puzzles on your own. In each game my boyfriend and I play on a console, we get stuck on a certain boss or have somehow overlooked a important item that is essential to the completion of the game. The way games are now, like Zelda Twilight Princess which we recently played, it seems that there are so many levels and tricks to each that it would be impossible to circle back through the entire game and figure out where we went wrong. In those cases I do not exactly mind using FAQs, although as soon as we read what we have to do it seems that the solution was fairly easy, hindsight being twenty-twenty and all. With Myst though I feel like I cheated myself out of a very fun game which would have taken me much longer to complete yet would have given me so much satisfaction to do.
My overall gaming experience with Myst was rather enjoyable. Despite the fact that the game's graphics are dated and that there is not much of a reward system for completing each Age, I loved that it was simply puzzles and that the violence was all implied and backstory, as we discussed in class. I am no good at first person shooters and can never get a handle on button combinations in the newest games, so the simplicity of Myst, as far as controls and story go, made it much easier for me to play and kept my attention better than simply running through mazes shooting zombies. I think that I might play the next game, Riven, and try to complete it without cheating. Wish me luck!
Playing Myst was enlightening as well. It was interesting to see where all of the breakthrough games drew their inspiration. Half Life 2's use of subliminal messages in order to locate items (placing the delta sign on walls where one could walk to locate med kits, etc.) must have derived from the changes in music that occur in Myst once you successfully complete a puzzle to let you know that something has changed and that you can advance through the story. I also really liked the choice at the end of the game (I chose the green book because I knew it was the right ending) because it reminded me of Fable. Fable is a great game because the player has ultimate control over the destiny of your avatar, and although you learn the same backstory no matter which personality you give your character, you really feel like you have free range over the video game and that you could go back and play it all differently to change your gaming experience.
So I am looking forward to playing the Myst sequel and to showing my friends the similarities between this dated game that many people despise and some of the new games that people praise for the originality and cleverness!
Friday, February 2, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Social Environments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oFvYokMSIo&NR
Above is the link to the old commercial I refer to in the post.
A week ago, I was watching old commercials for the original Nintendo system. It was interesting to see such a drastic difference in the way video games were marketed and how the standard for games has changed considering the quickly advancing technology and the competitive market. The old commercials featured kids getting excited and high-fiving each other, and the objective of this specific commercial was to sell the entire entertainment system package together, including "rob" who apparently helped the gaming experience (I do not remember the "rob" feature) but was not necessary. Contemporary commercials are cinematic and try to sell a game or console as ground-breaking, the next big thing in graphics and response to controls, packed with features like DVD and online capabilities. Comparatively, they do not show the children playing them, they try to keep the plot line mysterious prompting the gamer to look it up himself, and they do not stress the multi-player features as the original commercials had. It seems the gaming community has become so advanced and the economy stable enough that people can afford at least one console that the experience has completely changed from one where you used to go to a friend's house to share a console to one that I believe marketers are trying to create: a solitary gaming experience (especially in adventure games) where every single person has their own copy of the game. These observations are all pretty obvious I am sure, but it just dawned on me when I was watching those commercials how different my gaming experience used to be. For me personally, it was much more social because we would go to arcades together or visit a friend with a console. Now, friends come over for certain games, like an all-nighter of guitar hero, but after about a week the game is old and the friends have all moved on to something else.
The social aspect of playing video games makes me think of World of Warcraft as well. The online game sucked in my roommate's boyfriend for two years, where he would constantly refer to his guild as his friends and would talk to us about these people of whom he knew tons about their personality yet had never met in person. I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing, making friends through guilds online, however in Ben's case he would do nothing else and lost most of his social abilities when he would hang out with us tangible people. It is interesting to see how the social environment of video games is becoming more virtual through online gaming than it used to be. One of the positive aspects of this is being able to connect with people from different continents which can change your gamin experience as far as level of play and even entertainment.
Overall I think that bringing the arcade games to the home console and allowing people to connect to each other through mmorpgs are exciting steps forward. I suppose it is just nostalgia for the way I used to play games with my friends and see them every afternoon during the summer to just sit around and take turns trying to beat different levels or going to the arcade to play Mortal Kombat on those huge machines.
Above is the link to the old commercial I refer to in the post.
A week ago, I was watching old commercials for the original Nintendo system. It was interesting to see such a drastic difference in the way video games were marketed and how the standard for games has changed considering the quickly advancing technology and the competitive market. The old commercials featured kids getting excited and high-fiving each other, and the objective of this specific commercial was to sell the entire entertainment system package together, including "rob" who apparently helped the gaming experience (I do not remember the "rob" feature) but was not necessary. Contemporary commercials are cinematic and try to sell a game or console as ground-breaking, the next big thing in graphics and response to controls, packed with features like DVD and online capabilities. Comparatively, they do not show the children playing them, they try to keep the plot line mysterious prompting the gamer to look it up himself, and they do not stress the multi-player features as the original commercials had. It seems the gaming community has become so advanced and the economy stable enough that people can afford at least one console that the experience has completely changed from one where you used to go to a friend's house to share a console to one that I believe marketers are trying to create: a solitary gaming experience (especially in adventure games) where every single person has their own copy of the game. These observations are all pretty obvious I am sure, but it just dawned on me when I was watching those commercials how different my gaming experience used to be. For me personally, it was much more social because we would go to arcades together or visit a friend with a console. Now, friends come over for certain games, like an all-nighter of guitar hero, but after about a week the game is old and the friends have all moved on to something else.
The social aspect of playing video games makes me think of World of Warcraft as well. The online game sucked in my roommate's boyfriend for two years, where he would constantly refer to his guild as his friends and would talk to us about these people of whom he knew tons about their personality yet had never met in person. I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing, making friends through guilds online, however in Ben's case he would do nothing else and lost most of his social abilities when he would hang out with us tangible people. It is interesting to see how the social environment of video games is becoming more virtual through online gaming than it used to be. One of the positive aspects of this is being able to connect with people from different continents which can change your gamin experience as far as level of play and even entertainment.
Overall I think that bringing the arcade games to the home console and allowing people to connect to each other through mmorpgs are exciting steps forward. I suppose it is just nostalgia for the way I used to play games with my friends and see them every afternoon during the summer to just sit around and take turns trying to beat different levels or going to the arcade to play Mortal Kombat on those huge machines.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
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