Things We Hate About Gaming: Obsessive Overanalysis
That’s right. Since finding myself becoming more and more involved and obsessed with gaming as more than a hobby but as a culture, I’m finding myself less and less able to just sit down and play for fun and then get up and leave.
I think it is the same way a film maker might not enjoy going to the pictures or a composer might not enjoy listening to the radio. I find myself scrutinising every fault and flaw. I cannot stop myself trying to see a developer’s logic behind the placement of an item or the geometry of a map. I have a filthy lust to find a glitch and ponder over the coding errors that caused it to be.
I love it and I hate it as it enables me to appreciate a good game to its fullest as I can see all the hard work that has gone into it. But then I remember; ‘œI shouldn’t be thinking this hard about it’. The games we play are targeted at the gamers who play for fun and nothing else. The prepubescent racist sailors and team killing dicks we experience in online lobbies are having a great time at my expense. But when I’m not around they still have a good time no doubt. Whilst I’m noticing the differences as I see that this loaded cell has much better textures and little to no graphic popping compared to the last cell, I’m not having fun. It’s only a few steps away from Q&A testing. And that doesn’t sound like fun at all. The thing is, I can set down the controller and go do something else but I don’t. Instead I sit there and take it like a fool!
I think this is more or less inevitable for someone that plays games like me and is as passionate about them as I am. I also think that it is something I am going to have to live with as I can’t think of a way of reversing this effect. Even if I could I don’t think I would want to. I’m used to it now and it’s the kind of gamer I am.
Even consider my non-gaming time, of which I spend a lot online (as one does this day and age). Well over half that time is spent trawling gaming blogs and chats. Even now I have… Fourteen Firefox bookmarks in the bar at the top of the browser. Of those bookmarks; 8 of them are directly related to gaming. When not online at all (gasp!) gaming is a thing I have in common with a good deal of my friends and it dominates a lot of our discussion.
I have considered myself a ‘˜gamer’ for a long time now. But how does one define ‘˜gamer’ in the sense that we are thinking of? Is a person that occasionally plays a flash game at work on their PC a gamer? Almost certainly not. How about someone that plays the occasional game of battlefront on their flat-mate’s skinny PlayStation 2? This is where it becomes something of a grey area for me. A classmate of mine considers himself a MASSIVE gamer. He’s constantly bringing gaming jargon into real life conversations and wearing his clan shirt to classes (which annoys me to no end, perhaps a TWHAG for another time). Yet I do not consider him a gamer at all. He plays Call of Duty 4 competitively and literally nothing else. I was quizzing him on his knowledge and found out the following: He has never even loaded ANY game’s campaign mode; he has never heard of the Half Life series; he could not place which system the Halo franchise primarily exists on.
Perhaps an individual’s level of obsession/passion about gaming is relative to that person. After all we have no gaming yardstick up against which we can hold our priority to gaming and see how we compare. If time spent gaming and obsessiveness were on a chart perhaps I would just be at the high end of a normal curve.
It’s funny that you bring this up, or that I’m reading it now at this time, because I had a similar conversation with a friend about this topic. My friend and I discussed how if someone one who only plays WoW, but has other gaming systems can be considered a gamer. Though we never thoroughly tested her knowledege, we considered that, no, she is not.
You should create a comprehensive gamer knowledge test. That would be pretty cool.
Indeed. The NG sign-up page only filters the noobs from the boys. Not the men.
As someone who is currently studying television/film production, watching films is actually incredibly important. Even if I’m dissecting pieces of a film, it’s still easy for me to find enjoyment in it. Similarly, when I play a game, I’ve been actively looking for elements of game design I like or dislike; I’m interested in games as a way to tell stories and use my future degree in other ways, but it’s also more engaging to think about the design process instead of simply playing it. I’m not sure what my point here is, but I think I just enjoy breaking these things apart while I enjoy them as a way to learn what I can from them.
I analyzed the shit out of RA3 the first few times I played it, and my conclusion was that it kicks ass. Granted, it isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty darned close. I think some games are meant for analysis… games that make a claim to greatness before they even launch *cough*gta4*cough*. But some others aren’t. Dungeon Siege 2 is full of flaws.. just start the game and you’ll notice them immediately. The difference with DS2 is that it’s got a good story and is fun to play. It doesn’t need to be analyzed. Games like Halo 3 and GTA4 deserve every bit of analysis they get, because they were both hyped up to a point of severe disappointment. Yes, Halo 3 has some sweet stuff in it, but play it online and look at it for what it really is: Halo 2 with smoother graphics. Every single aspect of the game feels identical to its’ predecessor, and for a game that stirred that much hype, you’d think they’d at least do something new. GTA4 was just a plain disappointment… too much hype, and it didn’t follow through. Saint’s Row 2, on the other hand… Saint’s Row failed, because it was blatantly a GTA clone, and a pretty sloppy one at that. SR2 fixed almost all of it, and did what GTA should have done: made a colorful, comical game where most things are overly exaggerated, and made it a joy to play.