I Still Wish I Could Loose!
So to continue on my looserish or loose favouring rant… I really don’t get it. Is competition really that big a part of our lives today that a sub-par score just wont do? I mean we are supposed to be gaming for fun right?
Its weird in games like counterstrike when you get a single head shot and then just die, or spend an entire round hidden up in some corner, waiting for a victim… you know in typical sniper style people don’t get what you’re doing. Is it really that important to run after kills? If all I’m trying to do is have fun, then that’s all I’m trying to do…
If I find it interesting to build 20 ornagers and have them mow down a forest, while my woodcutters do nothing, is that really all that big a deal? I don’t get it… why aren’t we allowed to be weird, and slightly irrational when we play a game?
Its really not fair!
I mean most games are bad parodies of realities, specially in the FPS format, so then if I want to have some fun and just get myself killed as I try to at least play the character with some amount of dignity what is the bid deal?
For example when I Splinter Cell, I find it virtually impossible to actually pull of the whole stealth bit, and instead try Rambo mode… the game wont let me. In fact most games don’t let you do most of what you want to… which brings me to the topic of my next blog… but then you’ll have to wait for that, because I’m not yet sure what I want to say.
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Can I Loose? Please!
So another thing about gaming, that is interesting, is the fact of the only choice you have, to play or not to play. Once you’ve made that choice, there’s really not much free will you have left, assuming of course that you want to win the game.
First I’d like to qualify my statement. Okay, now I know there are games that let you make some very significant choices. As an RTS fan, I cannot but acknowledge that, of course the choice between training horsemen, pikemen or bowmen is very important, as is the choice between collecting gold, wood or food, or gems, or whatever it is the game requires you to do.
Even FPS games give you a choice, you can either go through the front door, or the sewers or the back door… or I don’t know, the roof maybe. Sports games give you choice too, the team you want to play with, how you want to play with it. I mean you can make someone like yourself become the star of the NBA. The only thing that you cant choose, and this is common to all games…
Is to loose. There is no game, at least none that I know of where if you pursue a strategy with any goal other than winning in mind that you can be successful. I mean I know what I’m arguing for is kind of stupid… to say that you want to play a game to loose it, is not exactly intelligent…
What I’m complaining about is the simple, singlemindedness with which we are required to pursue this goal. There are no hasty beatings of the retreat… no changes in strategy… to use analogy from the economic world, as a gamer the only goal you are allowed to have is that of profit maximization… even in economics one can try risk minimization, or underselling etc.
So I’m not saying I want to loose… just that sometimes we should be allowed to choose what it means to win. In Racing games a third place should be acceptable… the insistence on a win before the game allows us to proceed is kind of irritating.
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