Just a quick update here to tide the blog over until after finals, at some point next week, after my Latin final has given its best shot at murdering me.
I was never one for ignoring the outside world in favor of sitting around inside all day, necessarily. From our youngest days my brother and our cousins always enjoyed packing sandwiches and heading off to adventuring in the great outdoors, and I can remember countless hours spent on local mountainsides, in pursuit of the kind of care-free joy which the summer provided. I imagine it is because of this that video games have always been, for me, a device to simulate something which I could not actually do. And even with things that we couldn’t actually do, like command armies of alien races across strange battlefields, or adventure into the lairs of dragons, there were always tabletop games and role-playing games, though we did, and still do enjoy their digital equivalents. But again, these were things we couldn’t actually do. When it came to pursuing actual possibilities and getting some fresh air, we scrambled for the Croquet mallets or Badminton net with equal zeal, and took to such games with an attitude of boyish competitiveness indistinguishable from our time spent on the tabletop or in front of a screen. It seemed a simple formula: if you could do it, go do it (and believe me, we did). But if you couldn’t actually defy gravity while moving at incredible speeds or grab a rocket launcher to take out an enemy tank, then there were always video games. The line has always been pretty clear for us.
That’s why when the Wii debuted its motion sensor technology, we were probably the least impressed people in the existing fanbase, and tolerated the existence of what we affectionately called the “gimick-mote” as a necessary evil to achieve certain ends. Namely, in order to be able to select the game we wished to play. No more. But despite Nintendo’s obnoxious attempt to replace actual exericse, life went on.
That is, until Lionhead Studios decided to move things a step up with the introduction of Project Natal, the supposed next generation of motion-sensor technology.
You may view the video in question here.
I’ll admit I’m not exactly sure who this gentlemen is, but he seems to make certain questionably informed comments, such as when he states (twice, no less) that science-ficiton hasn’t even written about this sort of technology. Here is a man who’s never watched Star Trek, to say the very least. But aside from his personal ignorance, I’m not sure why everyone is so excited about technology which simulates a conversation I could have with my six year-old cousin. Lionhead’s spokesman seems to be pitching this new technology as some sort of glorious replacement for real life, real people, and real experience.
Curious that Lionhead chose to debut this technology with a cheap imitation (realistically, probably not that cheap) of things that we can already do, like interact with human beings. More curious still, this seems to validate the theory that video games are moving away from a means for group interaction and towards an increasingly solipsistic experience. For starters, the face-sensor technology doesn’t appear to encourage multi-player interaction, though I imagine it will, like X-box LIVE, boast that I can play with my friends across the net. Although, this really just means that I have to play with my friend who is now behind a mask, somewhere else than in my back room, where I can’t reach over and pat him on the back or punch him in the arm.
No, the soul of gaming always reveals itself to me at those times when there are six to eight people in our back room on their laptops playing team Starcraft over LAN and my brother is yelling at the top of his lungs about how over-powered something or other is and everyone is laughing, and I can see my friends smiling or whispering strategy across the tables to each other. Or else when we have three TVs set up with Halo or Smash Brothers of all kinds, playing furiously or else watching and commenting. No, gaming is something I do with people, for people. Because at the end of the day, the systems get turned off, but the people remain alive and real.
