Video Games

So after over two months, I have a little bit of quiet time.  Not sure how long it will last, but both Erin and Amelia are still asleep.  I've been feeling like writing for a long time, and now I have a chance to do just that, so I'm sitting at the kitchen table with my MacBook and a cup of coffee.

Now I know this blog is usually about film and thoughts about it, (which apparently I have astoundingly long gaps in).  Today I'm going to switch it up just a little bit and talk about video games.  It's a close tie in, and I'll get to why a ways down.  

So yes, to sum up, I am a 33 year old father, about to take the only free time he's had in months to get on the internet and write a long blog about video games.  Everyone up to speed?  Good.

A Little History

I have loved playing video games since I got to keep my Atari 2600 in my room.  It was hooked up to a little black and white UHF/VHF TV (kids, ask your parents... or possibly your grandparents) via a box with two forked prongs that you had to pinch under two screws in the back of the TV.  I loved Pitfall so much, that as a child, I would run around the apartment pretending to jump over snakes and swing on vines, all while belting out my rendition of the already obnoxious Pitfall music.  (There is video evidence of this.)

Apart from that, I was a huge fan of Yars Revenge, Barnstorming, Solaris, and MASH: The Video Game.  Yeah, it existed.  The game consisted of catching wounded soldiers that were for some reason being thrown out of a flying helicopter (not the best way to safely transport patients), and then operating on them by removing a bullet from a sad pixelated man via a series of labyrinth like... arteries maybe?  I don't know.  In hindsight, MASH The Video Game had some logistical issues.

Thanks a lot, Obamacare.

After that came my Nintendo Entertainment System.  Now, it seemed, I was playing with power.  (Kids, ask your parents.) There were two action buttons instead of just one.  Also a gun with which to shoot ducks, and when said ducks were missed, was used to angrily and futilely try to assassinate a cartoon dog.  Better than Duck Hunt was Hogan's Alley, where you would shoot cardboard cut outs of criminals while trying not to shoot cardboard cutouts of innocent ladies and old people.

Don't judge a book by its cover.  The guy on the right is the Unibomber.

The NES was a huge hit and basically invented the home console market.  Sure Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, they existed, theoretically, but the NES was a force.  Apart from Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, I'd venture that Mario is one of the most recognizable cartoon faces out there.

Games were different back then.  If you wanted to know the plot, you had to read the manual.  (Did anyone know Birdo from Super Mario 2 was transgendered?  You might if you had read the manual.)  If you couldn't beat the game, the game didn't give a damn.  You didn't get unlimited lives, you didn't get save points.  Nothing was more disappointing than getting knocked out by Mr. Sandman after playing Punchout!! for an hour only to see this:

Pictured: Little brother punching rage.

Did anyone ever play the NES version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?  Did anyone ever finish it?  I'm not asking my readers here, I mean anyone.  Ever.  The game took you as Eddie Valiant all through 40's LA and into Toontown looking for the four pieces of Marvin Acme's Last Will and Testament.  Once you found them all, you had to fight Judge Doom in a final battle for the lives of Roger and Jessica Rabbit.  And by "fight," I mean 45 minutes of hopping and punching to be undone by three punches from Doom leading to the inevitable complaints that a button stuck, the game cheats, and eff Roger Rabbit.

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU.......

Video games weren't based on trophies or achievements.  You got points.  Your points were your trophies.  Finishing the game wasn't a forgone conclusion.  It was the accomplishment.  Not in a specific time, not with a specific amount of power-ups.  Just finishing it.  I knew a kid in elementary school who beat Mr. Dream in Punchout, (Mr. Dream was the white Mike Tyson without the licensing rights.)  This kid was a legend.  Many years later, when I was 25, I accomplished the same feat as witnessed by my roommate, Jon.  I rode that high for days.

The witness was important.  You couldn't prove you beat a game because you didn't unlock an achievement like you do today.  My friend RJ once took a picture with his mom's camera of the end screen of Super Mario Bros 2, because no one was there when he beat Wart.

After the NES came the Super NES, thus forever cementing Nintendo's use of the system name to unimaginatively name their games. (SNES = Super Mario World, Nintendo 64 = Mario 64, Wii = Super Mario Bros Wii, Wii U = Super Mario Bros U...)  Here were 16 Bit graphics... twice as amazing as the NES.  Mind blowing.

This was also the first moment of the "console wars" a not at all hyperbolic way to describe the fact that there are two or more competing companies with home video game consoles.  When you're in 4th grade, it's acceptable to argue over which is better, the SNES or the Sega Genesis.  After that, not so much.  (More on that later).

So it was Mario vs. Sonic the Hedgehog.  I never owned a Genesis.  In fact, I only had Nintendo until I got a PS2 from my wife four years ago so I could play Kingdom Hearts.

This is also where Mortal Kombat showed up, and the discussion about games getting a rating so little kids couldn't play them.  I also played games on the PC, (technically on Brian Atkinson's PC) and remember specifically a moment in The 7th Guest where a character said, "What the hell are you doing?" and losing my mind that video games could say that.  Again, for today's kids, coming out of Pac Man and Super Mario, that was kind of a big deal.  As was Phantasmagoria, where you get killed by having a demon rip your face in two in full motion video, and halfway through the game, the female protagonist you play as gets sort of raped by her Shining-like possessed husband.   Never could I ever have dreamed of Grand Theft Auto V.

After the SNES was the N64, and the Playstation.  And here was the only point where the argument over which system was better really made any sense.  The N64 still worked on cartridges, the Playstation worked on CD.  The N64 had a fully established set of intellectual property, the Playstation was new to the market.  The N64 had Goldeneye, the very first mainstream multiplayer first person shooter.  The Playstation had Final Fantasy VII which is still considered one of the best role playing games of all time.  The N64 had The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which invented Z-Targeting and is still thought to be one of the best games Nintendo has ever released even over 15 years later.  Playstation had Tekken, and was a CD player.  (Kids, ask your parents).  The N64 had a controller that allowed you to have a third hand.

Controller designed by Salvador Dali.

Then came Gamecube, Playstation 2 and the newcomer XBox.  And the argument over which is better became less relevant.  Gamecube still had the established intellectual property, the Playstation 2 had some of it's own, and the XBox had Halo, and was susceptible to overheating.  Games got more complicated, controllers had more buttons.  Nintendo officially adapted a wireless controller, the Wavebird, which in my opinion, is still the best controller they've ever released, and for the life of me, I can't understand why they didn't keep this design for the Pro Controller for the Wii U.

Then Wii, Playstation 3 and XBox 360.  This is where Nintendo basically jumped off the train and decided to go their own way, and for some reason, people were surprised it was a huge hit.

Casual Gamers vs. Gamers

The Wii was the first motion gaming system.  It incorporated movement of the controller to easy to understand movement of your character.  Wii Sports was a phenomenon, becoming the current best selling video game ever by more than double of the #2 spot.  People who needed fast processors and HD graphics and massive online multiplayer options for their first person shooters were baffled.  How could this little kid system crush the competition so hard?

They came up with the term "casual gamer" to explain it.  There were people who played video games, and there were "casual gamers" who were old ladies who liked to Wii Bowl or play Tennis, but wouldn't ever deathmatch in Team Fortress 2 like real gamers.  They'll play Angry Birds, but not spend hours leveling up their mage in World of Warcraft. But "casual gamer" is a misnomer.  There aren't casual gamers.

The real answer to why the Wii was so successful was that there are gamers, and complex gamers.

I started with Yars Revenge, and MASH.  Neither of those games are more complicated than Fruit Ninja or Candy Crush Saga.  The third best selling game of all time is Tetris.  In fact, 20 of the top 25 best selling video games of all time are all Nintendo exclusive.  Of the five that aren't, three are Grand Theft Auto games, the others are Minecraft and Skyrim.  Nintendo has had this "casual gamer" junk figured out for a while.

See, lots of people used to love video games.  Myself included.  We'd go to arcades, we'd have Pac Man fever and Nintendo thumb.  My mom played Duck Hunt.  Then one button on the Atari became two on the NES, which became six on the SNES, which became nine and two directional pads on the N64, which became seven, an eight way directional button, and two directional pads on the Gamecube.  Casual gamers are the people that loved video games until they got way too complicated.  We all had ten minutes to play a little Dig Dug, we don't have 45 minutes to do a tutorial on Assassin's Creed Black Flag or Final Fantasy XIV just to learn how to play.   

I'll admit, I love playing games, but I, like a lot of people, have been intimidated and stayed away from a lot of what passes for video games today.  I have never attempted World Of Warcraft, nor do I have any inclination to do so.  I have Madden 25, but I also had Tecmo Bowl.  When I got Madden, I wanted to play a season as the Detroit Lions and take them to the Super Bowl.  (These games look pretty realistic now, and it may be the only way I see this scenario happen.)  

Nice... but it's just not the same.

So I turn the game on and there are like twenty options to start.  I can play as a player, I can play as a coach, I can play as a classic coach, I can trade and draft players from my NCAA Football 14 game, I can play as the owner and set the prices for soft pretzels in my stadium, I can design my face and make myself a player or a coach and have a backstory, I can read the fake Twitter accounts of real NFL analysts and see if my QB is trending on social media, I can unlock achievements and make my profile stronger so I can qualify for higher ranked online opponents who can put on a headset and yell homophobic obscenities at me.  And all that is before I even play the game, during which I can design my own playbook, hit button combos to stiff arm, swat the ball, intercept, call audibles, see and save instant replays, use the hit stick, which is... I don't know what that is, use stumble recovery... I've played the game for a few hours, and I'm sure I don't know how to play yet.

The people that we call "casual gamers" aren't new.  They're the people who were left behind to fill a smaller and smaller niche market.  Once the Wii came out with it's "If you want to hit the ball with your tennis racquet, swing the controller like a tennis racquet" simplicity, it took off like a rocket.  They're the reason smartphones are also video game systems.  

Generation 8

This brings us to today.  Wii U, Playstation 4, XBox One.  The big fight is between the PS4 and the XBox One, with even Nintendo admitting the Wii U is performing terribly.  This is a symptom however of Nintendo forgetting it's roots.

The reason the Wii U is not doing as well is because they focused on the hardware.  See, Nintendo has always been the innovator of new video game ideas.  Z-Targeting is in every 3D action game after Ocarina of Time, wireless controllers are the only thing available now after the Wavebird, motion gaming was first thought to be a ridiculous idea, and now there's the Playstation Move and the Kinect after it was found to be not all that ridiculous.  But the pressure came to make a more adult system with HD graphics and violent games.  Nintendo isn't going to compete on that front with Sony and Microsoft, especially when they release a console a year earlier.  What they have seemingly forgotten is that their intellectual property has always been what has sold for them.  And they've seemed to actively avoid using it for the first year of the console's existence.

Of those top 20 of 25 games of all time, eight have the word "Mario" in the title, and four have the word "Pokemon." They also own Starfox, Smash Bros, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Zelda... yet they've only released a basic 2D scrolling Mario, a 3D Mario that is really fun and selling well, and an HD remake of a Gamecube version of Zelda.  They've got a Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and Donkey Kong on the way, and once those come out, I think the system will gain more traction (especially Smash Bros.) but until then, a system without games is a paperweight.  

Early adapters of the Wii U got it because they knew those games were coming.  The Wii U's Legend of Zelda will be amazing, because the new Zelda's have consistently been amazing.  But until they announce those games are on their way, the system will sit on shelves.

Nintendo has traditionally been better at this.  The NES came with Mario and Duck Hunt, the Wii came with Wii Sports and released with Twilight Princess, the Gameboy came with Tetris.  Abandoning the push for content in favor of hardware specs is a rookie mistake.

So now the "fight" is between the XBox One and the PS4.  Nintendo has said they aren't competing with those systems, and they are right.  Not because their numbers are low, but because they don't care.  Once their intellectual property titles come out (imagine a massive multiplayer online Pokemon) they'll be fine.  Now the "console war" is down to two systems that are so ridiculously similar that the amount of fervor that comes from saying one is better than the other is completely unwarranted.  Being a PS4 fan who screams on internet forums that the XBox One is a piece of junk or vice versa happens needlessly everyday.  Like I said, these arguments were fine, in 4th grade.

If I told you that I hated McDonalds because they exploit their workers, sell you heavily processed items that some countries won't even classify as food, raise their animals in torturous environments and contribute more to heart disease and the destruction of mom and pop restaurants than anyone else, you may think I've got a point, and high five me or something.  If I followed that statement with, "That's why I only eat at Burger King" I would make as much sense as anyone participating in the "console war."

The XBox One and PS4 have just about the same library of third party games, and have only a handful of decent properties that they exclusively release.  XBox has Halo, PS has Uncharted.  That's about the only difference.  Otherwise both systems are pretty much 80% first person shooters and sports titles that are really in no way different than the one that came out last year. This is why the Wii U shouldn't be competing with these two.  It's McDonalds vs. Burger King vs. Applebees.  In the world of crappy food, two are nearly identical, but you can get a steak and a beer at the third.  You just might have to wait a little longer.

The Nintendo of food.

The Oscar Goes To...

But every now and then, there's something different.  And this is the long awaited film tie in.  The Last of Us for the PS3 is one of the more amazing games I have ever played, and it's nearly entirely due to the story, which almost had me drop a tear or two before the title screen.  

Please... like you didn't

That's when you realize that video games are entertainment and follow the same model as everything else.  Music, Movies, TV, Video Games, all are about 85% miss, 15% incredible trend setters.  As I've said previously, for every Forrest Gump, there are 20 Jack and Jills.  For every Breaking Bad, there are 20 Honey Boo Boos.  For every Justin Timberlake there are 20 Justin Biebers and for every The Last of Us there are 20 pointless Call of Dutys, which seem to be the CSI of video games.

Video games have now become an accepted form of cinematic entertainment, and some should be eligible for mainstream awards.  A Golden Globe for best performance in a video game, for example.  An Oscar for best video game screenplay.  It's a new avenue for story-telling, and honestly, it's a bit outside the box.  But now that the ability to have voice acted, motion captured characters react with realistic emotion, who's to say it isn't legitimate?  If animated films can be nominated for a best picture Oscar, why couldn't Beyond Two Souls?

Where we came from...

...and where we are now.

So, wow.  Really long post with multiple plot lines.  Old video games vs. New video games.  The Console War.  The Nintendo business model.  Video games as Cinema.  Feel free to discuss if you made it this far.  Like I said, finishing is the accomplishment.