What Games Have Actually Affected You? 1557
FortKnox asks: "What games have affected you simply by playing them? What games immersed you so well into its environment that you actually felt different after playing it? For me, I'd have to go with System Shock 2. Basically the predecessor to Deus Ex, it was the only game that made me so afraid that the minute I heard a matron mother, I turned the other way and ran. What game scared you to death, or made you think after playing it?"
Thief (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Games don't affect people (Score:2, Informative)
You should give credit to the original author when you post someone else's quote.
Or did you think no one would realize this quote was originally made by Kristian Wilson of Nintendo, Inc. in 1989?
That's not correct either (Score:1, Informative)
Fredrick Pohl's Gateway (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Games don't affect people (Score:3, Informative)
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:byXP0jQ6vu
or
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8
for further verification
Its a good urban legend, but an urban legend nonetheless...
Re:Tetris' lingering side effects (Score:5, Informative)
As the plane passed by the skyline of Manhattan, I looked out the window at the buildings, and visualized how many blocks I could 'drop in' to make a solid line across the top.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Guns germs and steel (Score:3, Informative)
Avatarhood as Religion (Score:4, Informative)
I know people who became so enthralled with the completeness of Ultima IV's philosophy that it became a religion of sorts for them. People I know actually wore ankh's around their necks...NOT to signfiy a taste for Egyptian mythology (where the ankh originates), but rather because it was adopted as the spiritual symbol of the Ultima series....Similarly, the notion of an "avatar" from hinduism was badly bastardized to represent a morally enlightened being in the game's world.
Anyway...putting aside the mixed metaphor world of English medievalism/Hinduism/Egyptology/Pseudo-Latin spells aside, the systematicity of Ultima IV's philosophy hung together so well that's it was profound. Seriously, for an adolescent, it was remarkably profound. Eight virtues, each symbolized by a color, were derived from a mixture of the three overarching "Principles:" Truth, Love, and Courage (a la three primary [pigment] colors, red yellow and blue). Each virute exemplified by a character class, each character class with its own "home" city...with a natural, face valid correspondence of the character classes with their virtues (Mages valuing truth and honesty, the scientists of the game....Fighters valuing valor....The artsy Bard valuing compassion..etc.). And with one symbol that captured the whole interconnection.
And your job in the game was basically to discover this system. Though you start out a particular character class (not chosen on your whims, but rather based on a psychological battery of sorts of moral dillemas..more fun than it sounds), your quest was to become a master of all virtues...and enlightened avatar..while, you know, fulfilling the plot points of the game as well.
The face validity of this system just made SENSE even in "real life", at a time when most kids (especially geeks) value imposing an order and meaning on the organization of the world...Here was a mythos that was at once undogmatic and common sensical yet tantalizingly mystical...It set out a remarkably self-consistent framework for how the moral world was organized, and how to be an upstanding person in it.
The way the game climax brought all these concepts together...oh yeah it affected me when I was 13, believe me.
I never got so into it that I started carrying an ankh, but the game did develop a trekkie-like cult following. It was a world you could feel good about immersing yourself in. But it definitely had its place and time. There was a "critical period" of both target audience (disenfranchised adolescents) and technological innocence (when it was still OK that imagination had to fill out some of the graphical details). Now games and gamers are far too cynical for a game like Ultima IV. If you weren't that age at that time playing U4, you missed out on an incredible gaming experience.
Re:X-Wing (Score:3, Informative)
I was a fan of X-wing back in the day (though my friends laughed before I got a 486 and had to try it on my 386) but never came back to it much.
And man...it's the first Star Wars game I know to do justice to anything like the battle of Endor, with swarms of TIEs...
Play Ultima7 on Linux (Exult) (Score:3, Informative)
Ultima7 was a game I played and played. It was so unbelievably huge and you seemed to be able to do anything you wanted. And then Windows95 came along and I could no longer play unless I rebooted into DOS mode. And then the sound didn't work, which was a shame considering how often I had to reboot Win95 ;-)
I was overjoyed to find that you can play Ultima 7 parts I and II with the open source Exult Engine [sourceforge.net]. If you have the data files then you can (with effort) load them up and play. Exult gives a faithful rendition of the old games (although currently you can get away with more stealing and the animals talk to you). Also you can play windowed and increase the resolution (320x200 was fairly restrictive, even at the time!)
Heartily recommended to people who know the game and people who don't.
Screenshot1 [bris.ac.uk] | Screenshot2 [bris.ac.uk]
Haven't seen this one: (Score:4, Informative)
Coupled with the music and overal atmosphere...damn near Art.
Others I haven't seen: Leasure Suit Larry 8P, Conan (first platformer I'd ever played (apple ][), with others like Montezuma, elevator action and other classics).
And of course there's a whole host of other games which showed off, wowed and changed my thinking about what computers can, could or would do with different aspects of their gameplay.
Re:Thief (Score:2, Informative)
I've heard that in III you'll be able to see your own shadow, and be able to look down and see your feet. A much more immersive experience.
But given how nervous I get playing these games, I'm not sure having a shadow is such a great idea. I'll probably keep saying to myself, "Hey, something's following me! Oh, just my shadow..." over and over again.