Angry Birds Vs. Gears of War.

Well, Gears of War 3 came out today.  I saw the commercial for it last night, as well as one called Rage.  To be honest, and I know this will probably send someone into fits, but they look pretty much the same. To be honest, I've never been a big 1st person shooter player, well, except for Half-Life, which was an amazing game! Maybe it was the memories of the time around playing it, in college, usually with friends, etc... and so that got me thinking about the difference between these games, the ones that I like playing (I'm playing now Alice: Madness Returns, the follow up to American McGee's Alice), and the addicting games that are on Facebook or on Android, such as Angry Birds

First off, I don't see the hype in Angry Birds.  I tried playing it once, and found it low key and either really easy or really hard.  There wasn't really anything to keep me playing. No explosions or power-ups to stimulate my ADHD mentality, nor anything brain-bending to keep my brain interested in the game.  I would much rather play a round of Worms: Armageddon where a Holy Hand Grenade or Exploding Sheep can be used as weapons.  And there you have to take into consideration wind speed and angle...etc.... and you can play with friends in multiplayer mode.

I've always thought of video games as being something better done in isolation, strictly a one-player affair.  When my friends were over playing games, I never saw the point, as it didn't allow for any interaction between me and whoever it was that was over.  Imagine the interaction between friends as arrows, and then if we're playing a board game, or something like Basketball outside, the interactions are directly between one person and the other.  But when watching TV or playing Video games, the interaction is with the screen, and so there's no real bonding occurring.  With today's technology, multiplayer games, from one computer to another, from one country to another, is possible, linking people all over the world, and you see the other person as the sniper on the building, or the guy with the giant energy blaster shooting you to smithereens.  The interaction actually goes through the monitor and into the other person.  Friendship is still possible in this way, unlike the more passive approach of just watching someone play a game on one monitor.

Unfortunately, I've never been very good at the games that are popular right now.  My brother can, as a sniper, see that pixel way off in the distance, pick it off, and sure enough, it's another player.  And in the realm of StarCraft, I tend to be more build oriented, more defensive, whereas those that play it with any regularity like attacking and destroying.  It's why I liked Spore so much, until it got to the stages that resembled Warcraft and the like. This probably has something to do with me actually being anti-social.... I just don't like playing such games, where I have to interact with people I've either never seen before, or I end up just being an easy kill and there's no fun in it.
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So let's return to Gears of War vs. Angry Birds. Taking the social aspect out of playing a video game for a second, playing either game does basically the same thing neurologically. I've often talked about video games as being a method of escape, much like reading or watching television. It's a stimulation that engages the visual senses (Neil Postman would have a ball with today's technology and how we use it to communicate with one another), engages the emotions, increases adrenaline, gives us the taste for victory that we once had winning the war on actual battlefields. We can play NFL football without actually being athletes, wearing jock straps, getting ourselves injured, or being in front of thousands of fans. But we get the same rush when our pixelated wide receiver runs into the end zone for a touchdown.

So does playing Bejeweled Blitz, for instance, provide the same biological needs as going out and buying Gears of War 3? There are so many games on the Internet now, through, ironically, social media, that are free, stimulating, and more time consuming, than paying $250 dollars for a console, $60 for a game, and then bringing it home. Granted, it is well worth it to play the masterpieces in Video Game Art as they come out. The computer I have now I originally bought so I could play games like Psychonauts, as the older one I had wouldn't even play the games I saw at Big Lots. And it's well worth playing Little Big Planet for the music soundtrack alone. Those experiences are worth it. The game designers are much like filmmakers, writers, or artists, in that the world they create is as much a part of the creative process as Leonardo painting the Mona Lisa, or Schumann composing "Arabesque." Some video games are experiences that can affect one emotionally, or, dare I say it, change a life. This is something that endless hours of Angry Birds can't do, other than adding pounds around the waist.

In the end, it's about how we spend our time. James Taylor wrote, "The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time." Daivd Crosby wrote a song, "Time is the Final Currency." We work and spend our money so that we might enjoy the time we have on Earth. It just depends on how we want to enjoy that time spent. Do we want to fling birds at pigs, or combine 3 of the same jewels, or do we want to engage ourselves in masterpieces of alternate realities? I guess it all depends on how much time we have to play.

Anyone got a Pet Octorok?

I'll just bet if you're reading this, you've experienced this... You're trying to find your backup emergency key underneath the rock in your front yard, and, upon lifting the rock up, you hear, from out of the heavens, "do do do do do do do." Or, seeing a towering stack of boxes in the back room of your local Borders, you are tempted to grab a Sharpie and make them into blocks of bricks, and that maybe, just maybe, there's a mushroom in one of them. I've even walked down the back corridors of Stonecrest mall, getting the mail, and imagined where I would put down trip mines, or where the blood sucking aliens are going to drop at me from the ceiling.
It's the blurring of fantasy and reality (something I know a lot about. And it's an experience that few older than me would understand, that this world is so much like a video game, or perhaps it's the other way around. No matter.

There was a plumber that came out to redo the pipes underneath the Cafe sink, and he had a mustache and an Italian accent... he could have been Mario. And only my brother, who is much better than Tetris than me, can pack everything into an SUV from one of our vacations, and still have plenty of room to spare.

I've talked about Escapism a lot in these blogs, because it's something that we've all learned to do. We are comfortable on the Enterprise, with Picard at the helm, because it is a safe place for us, and we continuously return to Middle Earth or Pern or Narnia, because those are the worlds, in literature, that we could actually live in, so vivid are the details of the imaginary universes created in those books. The same thing goes for Video Games. Our generation is very little different from the ones before, only the media has changed. My dad used to take books from the library in Bethany, Oklahoma, and read by the hour, locked in his room. They were westerns, or sci-fi, or fantasy... each worlds different from our own.

And while books are still a very economical way of escaping into another world, video games have become yet another source of other-worldliness. I have lived most of the time when video games have been affordable for everyone, and I've seen the worlds come and go, from simple pixels to lifelike representations of people, where even the hairs are discernible on the screen.

There is a book just released (which you can get at Borders), 1001 Video Games you Must Play before you Die. Looking through it shows just how far we've come in such a short amount of time. I remember with my Commodore 64 how advanced it was if the computer spoke even the most rudimentary words through the small speaker. Now having the characters not speak is questioned. And the worlds people have created, with enemies and power ups and everything....even creating a mythos around a character, a world, so that the complexity rivals that of any master author.

And while I will never be able to play all 1001 games (nor would I want to), I will go again and again to the world of Hyrule, and clothe myself in the green garments of Link, and wield the Master Sword and the Hylian Shield. And every time I find the Magic Flute, especially after beating the Fifth Dungeon, that sense of accomplishment will fill my soul, as if I had painted a masterpiece, or slain a dragon. For the Legend Of Zelda has few equals, and the world they have created around Link, Zelda, and Gannon, is one I would live in any day, if given the chance. I am playing LOZ: Twilight Princess right now, and it is a veritable greatest hits album of all the magical things that have been created in each of the other games. Magnificent!!

I understand the addictiveness of games like World of Warcraft, with the Multi-player economy and the vast expanses of worlds to explore. But I'd rather be alone. I'd rather walk the plains of some imaginary world myself, instead of having 3 million other people sharing my journey. And yet, every time I finish a single-player game, like Windwaker, or Ocarina of Time, I almost can't finish the game, because after that, well, it's like closing the pages on a book, knowing that the world is closed off to you, because the actions are finished. It is the platform's main weakness, because you can never actually let the game go on forever like you can WOW. They've made the game profitable for everyone, and so it has to be multiplayer.

What I would propose is what I call a SPORPG. Single Player Oriented Role Playing Game. Lets use Hyrule for an example. The game would drop you into a world such as Ocarina, with a very slow, deliberate build of characters, with the mythos of a fully developed fantasy novel. [A day passes in between one sentence and the next] Of course, now that I have had a night to look up things on the internet, I see there already is a term called SPORPG, which is basically what I'm talking about. But in most instances I came across it, it was used as a derogatory one, as if insulting WoW, for instance. It is as if playing by yourself is actually a bad thing. In all my watchings of people play MMORPGs, I've never seen anyone interact with their surroundings, fall in love with the land they are in. This is what intrigued me most about Fable, that you could value the friendship of some NPCs, and develop relationships. In the game, you could even be married. The issue I have with the Zelda games and with Fable is that, when the game ends, it is over. You could start at the beginning, but that would be it. There would be no continuing beyond a certain point. I want the game to last forever, with no end to the adventures to undertake or people to interact with. And there needs be no end to it, as computer technology has progressed to the point where a game can be continuously coded and programmed even as people play it. There are always new lands to be discovered, new enemies to take on, new treasures to find. In Hyrule's instance, the game, namely, to find X princesses or find X pieces of the Triforce, it is not necessary for every temple or dungeon to contain a part of the main plot. There can be sub-plots and meanderings that would lead you to any number of different places. Link already has a home in Twilight Princess, so it would be easy to make that a point of return, where things could be bought, kept, traded, interacted with, while the adventures were continuing. It is simply not enough to have a house that you only go to once or twice, to get the hearts out of the pots or get the 50 rupies in the chest.

Of course, I'm aware that there has to be some profit in it for the programmers. I would be willing to pay a monthly or semi-monthly fee to have the game continue. And if the new platforms come along, a simple uploading of ones profile into the new version of the game (which would allow for more interactions between the characters) would be simple using the now common online databases. It would be simple, affordable, and profitable for those who made it. If this were made, I could still be playing Fable today.

The only game I have ever found where this is true is in the open source game Dink Smallwood. Of course, the name is a parody on so many fantasy names, and the game is as well, but the open source allowed game novices to create their own worlds with their own plot lines. Most developed parts were increasingly difficult, but the idea was superb. Create a world that could be developed and played by everyone, but not all at once, but singly, as a single hero would.

Thankfully, adaptations of games like Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda are made all the time, and so, while the lands and the mythos are different, at least there is some world to be escaping into most of the time, and most are affordable for the older platforms. I say, give me Hyrule any day, and I'll travel down the Hero's path over and over again, if not in the real world, then in a created one.

Phintastic and Ferbalicious

Escapism and the Disney Channel

Ray Bradbury painted a picture of our world, in "The Pedestrian," one of glowing windows, blue and flickering, with televisions on and running, far into the night. The street lights in the neighborhoods illuminate nothing, for no one is out, even in the evenings, sitting on rocking chairs as they did before the invention of the picture box. I will admit it freely, the television plays a key role in my getting to sleep at night. There's nothing like the inane ramblings of Sportscenter to erase all pesky thoughts from your mind, resulting in the descent into the dream world.

But during the day...ah...that is when the television truly shines as a vehicle of escape. Tolkien once called the need for escapism heroic. Using the metaphor of the prisoner, he states, "Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?" ("On Fairy Stories" from The Tolkien Reader) In such a time as this, when the flood of information both depressing and horrifying, there is a great need for escapism, for books and television shows that bring us out of the world of adult responsibility and into the blissful innocence of Blake's "Lamb".

I can honestly say that I love the Disney Channel. While the movies they've produced, both animated and live, haven't really done anything for me (the last Disney Movie I really liked was The Thirteenth Year, which was made in 97.), their recent sitcom series have been absolutely amazing. Yes, the characters are stereotyped and flawed (the intelligent poor character, the rich stupid character, the idiotic parent...), and the episode plots so predictable that you can see the ending for miles. But there's something about the world that they have created that makes it very appealing. In each episode, life's problems are solved within 22 minutes (11 for Phineas and Ferb). If only real life were like that. And while sit-coms have been doing this for years (watch an episode or two of Full House, if you can stomach it), Disney has perfected the style and made it applicable not only for children, but for adults as well.

Phineas and Ferb deserves more discussion. It's the best show on television, and it could last as long as The Simpsons because it's animated, and summer can last much longer than the 104 days the title sequence talks about. The writers also worked on Family Guy, and so P&F contains quick glimpses of adult culture while remaining accessible for children of any age. I could, and have, just left that show, along with Suite Life, Hannah Montana, and Wizards of Waverly Place, on all afternoon, while doing chores, taking a nap, or whatever, and it wiles the hours away. Now if they could only switch Nickelodeon's ICarly with Disney's deplorable Sonny with a Chance, I would have all the good shows on one station.

Each show is entirely livable. As if in a dream. I could live on the S.S. Tipton forever, or aside the beach near Hannah Montana's house.... great stuff. It's why they are all escapist television shows. Assuredly, most of the shows on nowadays are just that, but none that looks back quite as well into the world of naivete and innocence as those on the Disney Channel. Reality shows show people conniving and primitive, fighting amongst themselves for food, power, love, money. It is the wost type of sport. Leave "Reality" TV to find a pastime worse than the Ancient Romans could have ever dreamed. Or, as in American Idol, they show people whose dreams are crushed, evaluated, and eliminated, all by "celebrity" judges. Dramas and other sitcoms on network TV show the vilest of human creatures, and they point out that even the good guys have their flaws. It is rare and unexpected when Law & Order leaves you with and ending with everything tied up. It mostly leaves you hanging, wondering, questioning the justice of the world that it portrays. I can barely watch these shows.

Rather, if I have to choose the television shows to watch, I would switch between Disney Channel and Star Trek, as that show looks forward into the future of what man can become, even if it is unrealistic. The fantasy world Roddenberry created is one of potential, of the success and preservation of the best of mankind. There is very little positivity in the shows anymore, and it is a gem to actually find a show that does.
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When philosophers and historians look back at the time following WWII, they'll label this period The Age of Escapism.... Brief history esson:

Reason: ~1650-1776 (Man is capable of knowing anything)

Romanticism 1776-1865 (Man lives in a world with Physical and Supernatural realms, and we must strive for the unknown, knowing it is a futile task.)

Realism 1865-WW1 (Man lives in reality only, and Nature is cold and uncaring)

Modernism WW1-WW2 (Man must question whether he exists at all, nothing really matters, communication is impossible, all history has failed us, and we must struggle to find something new.)

This is, of course, a brief and probably very simplistic look at how mankind has looked at his world. To this, I would add, from 1945 to now, the Age of Escapism. Man can live in this world, but as so much information floods his mind, it becomes impossible to grasp a hold of anything. Therefore, we should live in worlds of fantasy, letting that which we cannot understand go unacknowledged.

I could actually write a book detailing how our world has convinced us that living in worlds of fantasy is the best action to take. From Brave New World (Huxley) to the ideas of Communism and Socialism, to the Youth Revolution of the 1960's, it all can point back to the idea that mankind can live in fantasy worlds while those who want the power (who also are living in fantasy worlds) take care of us.

As soon as the world had the ability to create the material goods that it does now, thanks mostly to capitalists like Henry Ford and his mass production of goods on assembly lines, people started to advertise that this or that item could change the world. And I don't just mean television, although that invention opened up people's minds to worlds far beyond what mere books could contrive. Capitalism in America created the wealth necessary to allow people to chase after their own fantasy worlds. To pursue their addictions, from food (now available in microwaveable, artificial goodness), to drugs and sex, to the endless halls of the Internet, where any fantasy can become real, as long as it's made of HTML language.

The mass production of books also allowed authors to write more and more books, letting their minds wander as far as they could perceive, and the great boom of science fiction and fantasy genre fiction was born. It is odd that the creation of Epic Fantasy, mostly thanks to Tolkien, only happened in the 20th century, instead of centuries before. And now dragons, vampires, wizards, amongst the other space aliens, etc... now pervade our books and our imaginations. For every mind that exists, there is an ideal world to escape to, when the labors of everyday life get too taxing.
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So I shall go home this afternoon, turn on the Disney Channel, and forget about the things I should be doing, about the world around me, and tread water. It's not the most productive thing to do with my life. It's not going to get me further in life, but it reminds me, amongst all the tragedy and "reality" of this world, that things could be, or might be better. In this way, I'll get the best of both worlds.

Sometimes you wanna go...

Pulling up a chair beside Norm is so much simpler now, except it wouldn't be in a bar in Boston. I see so many people now glued to their screens, playing computer games of every sort. And I'll be the first to admit, I do it too, just not as much. But trying to get my brother off of WoW or LOTR Online and actually do a chore or two is like pulling dragon's teeth. I have a bunch of friends (and you know who you are!! :) ) who basically live in Azeroth or in Evercrack or whereever. Heck, I'd live in Midgaard easily as long as I had a Materia or two. :)

I find it all psychologically interesting, that people have to live in more than one world. Escapism seems to be an epidemic of the modern age. And it's understandable, given the luxuries we all have now. In the past, before Bordeom even became a word, people had to work all day long just to make a penny or two to buy food, clothing, shelter. Maslow's lowest rung. But now, since we (mostly) don't need to worry about that, we can ascend Maslow's heirarchy and arrive at the top... but instead of finding self-actualization, we find self-distraction. We find other worlds to challenge us, dragons to fight, since we don't have to worry about tigers and lions in this one.

But we can leave WoW for another time. I want to look at more subtle ways that we can escape for a time. I want to look at the ways people escaped before WoW and MeatMud and all the computerized worlds that are digitized above us.

Of course, there are books. Entire worlds and stories and lives that we can lead through pages of a book. That's why I enjoy reading Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels so much. Pern is the most liveable fantasy world created. No fantastically evil doomsday people waiting to take over the world. Just the annoying political villans that populate our own world. Oh, yeah, and Thread. But one could just as easily live in Paolini's world from Eragon or Tolkien's Middle Earth. And the more books that can keep us in those worlds, the better.

But the main place for liveable worlds has to come from Television. There is no better place to live than on Earth in Roddenberry's Star Trek world. And this, I would argue, is what makes any fictional show worth watching. The stage has to be set to be just far enough removed to make it engaging. Different. We don't actually live in the world of Desperate Housewives because, normally, our upper middle class neighbors aren't very attractive and go around killing dates and stuff. So it's intriguing. Same thing with House. Princeton General is someplace we can identify with, even feel at home in, but House jars it away from reality enough to make us want to come back again and again.

In the sit-com realm, things are even more apparent. Escapism is what drives the most successful comedies year after year. Take three shows: Wings, Night Court, and Cheers. Each takes place in a different place: an airport, a courtroom, and a bar. But each are places we can close our eyes and know exactly what it all looks like. We can pretend to talk to any one of the characters, and know how they'll respond. It's like living with a whole other family. And in some cases, those actors are with us for years, so they become like families to us.

I've been watching recently the Disney Channel, more specifically, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and have found a guilty pleasure in it. It makes me happy, makes me laugh. Makes me envious of the brothers and their relationship, and of the interaction between everyone in the hotel. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Even if the acting and the plot lines are bad, even if London gets on people's nerves. Even if Kim Rhodes' character sometimes blurrs the lines between being a mother and being wishy-washy victim for her sons' one liners. It can be all overlooked because it makes you feel like you're at home. You can be there, and it'll be all right in the end. I mean, that's what Full House was all about, and it went on forever.

So while we are enjoying the passage of time (James Taylor), let us escape into which ever world we wish to, be it Star Trek, or WoW, or Pern, or the Tipton Hotel. If we emmerge from our little suare into fantasy land, and are happier because of it, isn't it worth it? Make the rest of the world a better place to live by leaving it for a while each day. And go where everyone knows your name.