I misbehave *all the time* when I know the guy and it's split screen, but only because we find it hilarious, particularly if it's imaginative. On the other hand, I'm on my best behaviour online; the same way I wouldn't call a man I just met an 'asshat' in jest, but I can with a friend (were I so inclined).
My favourite misbehaving moment was when I was driving a Warthog in the original Halo. My partner was in the passenger seat. We were driving along a ridge of some sort. Seeing the opportunity, I floored it, then leaped out at the last second, watching as the Warthog (and my buddy) went sailing off the edge of the cliff.
@BlueToast: There was totally a period there - "... Mario's return." If you put a period inside quotation marks it still counts as the end of a the sentence, BUDDY. Don't'cha go all grammar Nazi on me, man!
Ah, one of the few remaing joys of all being in the same room..you can punish tard behavior then and there and if your lucky, you won't have any need for that 100 pound bag of lime or that meat grinder you keep in your basement.
This Photoshopped box art for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II-which includes the tagline "It's My Turn to Get the Pizza You Asshole I Need it More!"-is a perfect encapsulation of the phenomenon.
More so than that, it's a perfect encapsulation of nearly every boy who lived in the early nineties. It is the story of us all.
When this kind of behavior is done with friends, there's a gentleman's agreement in play that anything in this nature is just harmless horseplay and anyone that goes too far gets slugged in the arm. With strangers, there's no trust in play- You don't know if they're kidding or not and just being a jerkwad.
Online, this problem is worse since there's no "getting punched for acting out of line" option available.
@wirebrain: Perhaps that why so many people crave online play for ALL their multiplayer games? The chance to act like bastards and not be penalized for it?
@GenRedLeader: I'm willing to believe that there are people who DO think that, but I'd be more inclined to think more people just want online because they can't always get their friends together.
It's just that the "for the lulz" folks seem to do it more as a side attraction, rather than the primary reason for their involvement.
I hate griefers... online. But there are few pastimes more enjoyable then completely screwing your friends over (and them completely screwing you over) in local co-op games. It was more fun as a kid, but even now the occasional co-op effort devolves into racing for items and friendly fire wars.
This is why it's so disappointing that most new games are either A) Without splitscreen, or B) Not conducive to that sort of mayhem.
@ShaggE wants to join the Egg Council.: While I understand your point - splitscreen? Are you kidding me? That's something that I never want to return to.
I, on the other hand... had some great fun playing RE5 and GoW2 with a friend - Split Screen. Listening to your buddy's disembodied voice over speakers just isn't the same.
When I first read Reggie's claim that it was purely a design decision to not include online multiplayer, I assumed it was code for "the programmers didn't want to implement network code". After actually playing the game myself -- and finding myself yelling "come on everyone, we have to hurry up!" while running to the right as quickly as possible, killing everyone else off -- I realize that playing it online probably wouldn't be quite as fun. There's something to be said for being able to actually yell and/or throw something at whoever it is that just took all four propeller mushrooms.
I wish this game had been out when I was a kid. Me and my brother were always getting in fights anyway, might as well fight over an awesome game.
I 100% this game with my roommate and it was a blast. We're both really into Mario games though and we work well co-operatively. I can definitely imagine it being frustrating depending on who you play with. I've also yet to play it with more than 2 players at once.
I have to disagree with that article. I think Portal is a much shallower game than it is getting credit for being. Yes, the main theme of it is control and breaking free of it. But I don't think the bigger picture of Portal is to make you think about video games themselves, and how the designer controls your actions in the game.
If Portal was a book, would you, after reading it, start thinking about how authors control your progression through books? #discussion
@KiwiMan: This reminds me of my English teacher last year. He would always make us find a "theme" in any section, even when one was not present, and I always felt that the stuff he came up with was beyond what the author was thinking at the time. Same thing applies here. #discussion
@qwerty613: The thing is, I'm not sure the author of this article actually implies that Portal was developed with these tenets specifically in mind. The author is basically describing how the situation in the game changes your perception of role and control.
Taking your analogy of a book, imagine reading a book about World War 3 and near the end of the book the author suddenly leaves the 3rd person narrative and begins addressing you, the reader, and describes how nothing in the book is real: the characters actually are dreaming the whole thing, the situations and events are now worthless. The suspension of disbelief goes out the window and the author is giving you the choice to continue reading knowing that everything that happens is arbitrary and once the story is over, a veil will be lifted, identifying that the characters are in fact not dead and never had those adventures, but are in fact living on an island in Greece, drinking Margaritas on a lottary wining tab.
He should have drawn parallels within the Assissin's Creed world as well. #discussion
The fact remains though that you CAN turn the system off at any time. You can pick another game to play. You can try something stupid, get killed, and retry.
Picture the case of someone throwing a ping pong ball at you - you would have to try extremely hard to actually take some kind of harm from it. If someone just did it normally, you could dodge it, bat it away, ignore it, toss it back. Psychologically, most people might be a little annoyed, or find it fun. Now if someone tied you to a chair and did the same thing, you'd be no more harmed materially, but you'd have less control. It would seem more sinister and threatening. You couldn't avoid it, you'd know that they could do anything else while you're restrained, you couldn't retaliate... I think what keeps games fun, even when they take control away from the player, is that they can never truly take control away from the player - only in the context of the game. In this way, the protagonist may be going through a miserable situation, but to most players, it will lack the gravity to truly make them unhappy... maybe frustrated or angry, but has a game ever made you truly scared beyond the time you're playing it? Has one made you deeply sad, even after you've quit and moved on? They can only intrude so far into our lives, so any control they take from us is freely relinquished to them for the sake of play. #discussion
@fuchikoma: So video games are inherently trivial, and can have no lasting impact on the player?
I'd say that's more a limit on the ideas used in games than in the medium itself.
Maybe we haven't yet played a game as profound as War and Peace (or, hell, HBO's The Wire), or that contained ideas as world-changing as the Gospels or the Communist Manifesto... But I'd hate to think that means interactive media will never be able to have a truly significant emotional, social, or cognitive impact on the player. #discussion
@bakana: You could take it to its extreme and assume that - what I mean is just that games are limited in the seriousness and immediacy of the situations they can present to the player, and ultimately, the player has control over the game no matter how much control the game takes away from the player.
I think as artistic or narrative works, games have been fully capable for a long time, just often underutilized. #discussion
@fuchikoma: I agree in some ways, I mean there are plenty of games out there that I would consider to be great works of art. All things considered, look how long we've had writing and how long it took us to create works that we would consider "epic". A few writings out of India, and Greece, some Roman stuff, the Gospels. Maybe it's just a western bias, but save for a handful of examples most of the writing we would consider true "art" didn't hit us till a significant time after 0 CE. Not that I don't consider writing before that non-art, but you see what I mean.
Look at movies for another example. Most "art" films didn't arrive until 100+ years after film was invented. My point is that considering we're only a little over 30 years into our medium, we're doing pretty well for ourselves.
That said, Resident Evil: Nemesis scared the shit out of me even after I turned it off, half expecting a zombie dog or Nemesis to jump out at any moment. How many people literally cried after Aeris died? You know how accomplished I personally felt at the end of Halo 3? That I had finally conquered a war that took me years of my own literal life to finish? I would say games really do have far more capability to convey these emotions, because of the fact that we are actively involved with the story, compared at least to a passive medium like film. #discussion
All that text and no mention of Shadow of the Colossus? There's no game-within-a-game plot twist, but a lot of what makes SotC so amazing is exactly what this article is talking about. The player is manipulated by the game design into doing something that is clearly wrong. Both the player and the in-game main character are killing the colossi for purely selfish reasons; Wander because he wants to cheat death and bring Mono back, and doesn't care what he destroys in doing so, and the player because we want to continue the game, and the only way to do that is by killing the colossi. You can explore the world all you want, but the only way to actually interact with anything and progress the story is to kill the colossi, and even once you realize that killing them is a terrible idea you keep doing it, because it's the only thing you CAN do. The only way to preserve your conscience is to quit playing the game, but even that only leaves the plot hanging; it doesn't actually solve anything.
It's an incredible example of manipulation via game design, even more so than Portal, I think. #discussion
@Th3w-san: I agreed with the sentiment. The game even subtley changes as you play it, with the first Colossi appearing as somewhat intimidating, even dangerous. You start to get the impression as it goes on that they're pretty much minding their own business. I haven't played it in a little while, but I swear one was even more curious about you than anything, kind of watching with with an almost animal fascination. And than you stab it in the head. Repeatedly.
Why do people insist on taking film/literature/music so seriously? This is just pretentiousness busting at the seams. lol.
Sit down, read a book/watch a movie/listen to music, and then forget about the damn thing. It's just stress and boredom management in the end...
Oi vey... is this what we've come to? Is this the sort of thing that we need to do in order to assuage our guilt about wasting our time reading/watching movies/listening to music? This crazy, messed up obsession with doing everything we can to analyze what we consume. #discussion
@rockyraccoon37:
I think it's good to reflect of the story of a novel, or film... or game.
What bugs me is when people get all into the symbolism of those books and movies. It especially bothers me when novels with hardly any story get so widely acclaimed for "brilliant symbolism."
I don't want to hear about how the Martian Chronicles sends a brilliant message about human nature, and expansion. It's a shitty book. Get over it. #discussion
@rockyraccoon37: People take art/film/literature/music so seriously when it's supposed to be taken seriously.
Some art/film/literature/music is just an entertaining diversion, perhaps with some quick thrills and wish fulfillment fantasy.
Some art/film/literature/music is meant as an expression of an idea or emotion, and the sense of satisfaction does not come as much from your own amusement, as it does from your own sense of gaining new insight about a certain thing.
Some art/film/literature/music is a combination of both of the above.
I do not understand your insistence upon dismissing a beneficial way of appreciating some types of art/film/literature/music. #discussion
@nworobes:
I don't disagree with what things in literature can represent. I just don't like it when symbolism is valued more by authors than a quality story.
I think a great story is the best form of art there is. #discussion
11/21/09
My favourite misbehaving moment was when I was driving a Warthog in the original Halo. My partner was in the passenger seat. We were driving along a ridge of some sort. Seeing the opportunity, I floored it, then leaped out at the last second, watching as the Warthog (and my buddy) went sailing off the edge of the cliff.
What can I say, I am an easily-amused man.
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/22/09
11/21/09
Say what you will about Penny Arcade, but their Greater Internet Fuckwad theory was dead on.
11/21/09
..er..nevermind?
11/21/09
11/22/09
#speakup
11/21/09
More so than that, it's a perfect encapsulation of nearly every boy who lived in the early nineties. It is the story of us all.
11/21/09
Online, this problem is worse since there's no "getting punched for acting out of line" option available.
11/21/09
11/21/09
@Bizzenya: I was hoping more for something like this...
#speakup
11/21/09
11/21/09
It's just that the "for the lulz" folks seem to do it more as a side attraction, rather than the primary reason for their involvement.
#speakup
11/21/09
This is why it's so disappointing that most new games are either A) Without splitscreen, or B) Not conducive to that sort of mayhem.
11/21/09
11/21/09
I, on the other hand... had some great fun playing RE5 and GoW2 with a friend - Split Screen. Listening to your buddy's disembodied voice over speakers just isn't the same.
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/21/09
I 100% this game with my roommate and it was a blast. We're both really into Mario games though and we work well co-operatively. I can definitely imagine it being frustrating depending on who you play with. I've also yet to play it with more than 2 players at once.
11/21/09
11/07/09
If Portal was a book, would you, after reading it, start thinking about how authors control your progression through books? #discussion
11/07/09
11/07/09
Taking your analogy of a book, imagine reading a book about World War 3 and near the end of the book the author suddenly leaves the 3rd person narrative and begins addressing you, the reader, and describes how nothing in the book is real: the characters actually are dreaming the whole thing, the situations and events are now worthless. The suspension of disbelief goes out the window and the author is giving you the choice to continue reading knowing that everything that happens is arbitrary and once the story is over, a veil will be lifted, identifying that the characters are in fact not dead and never had those adventures, but are in fact living on an island in Greece, drinking Margaritas on a lottary wining tab.
He should have drawn parallels within the Assissin's Creed world as well. #discussion
11/07/09
11/07/09
Picture the case of someone throwing a ping pong ball at you - you would have to try extremely hard to actually take some kind of harm from it. If someone just did it normally, you could dodge it, bat it away, ignore it, toss it back. Psychologically, most people might be a little annoyed, or find it fun. Now if someone tied you to a chair and did the same thing, you'd be no more harmed materially, but you'd have less control. It would seem more sinister and threatening. You couldn't avoid it, you'd know that they could do anything else while you're restrained, you couldn't retaliate... I think what keeps games fun, even when they take control away from the player, is that they can never truly take control away from the player - only in the context of the game. In this way, the protagonist may be going through a miserable situation, but to most players, it will lack the gravity to truly make them unhappy... maybe frustrated or angry, but has a game ever made you truly scared beyond the time you're playing it? Has one made you deeply sad, even after you've quit and moved on? They can only intrude so far into our lives, so any control they take from us is freely relinquished to them for the sake of play. #discussion
11/07/09
I'd say that's more a limit on the ideas used in games than in the medium itself.
Maybe we haven't yet played a game as profound as War and Peace (or, hell, HBO's The Wire), or that contained ideas as world-changing as the Gospels or the Communist Manifesto... But I'd hate to think that means interactive media will never be able to have a truly significant emotional, social, or cognitive impact on the player. #discussion
11/08/09
I think as artistic or narrative works, games have been fully capable for a long time, just often underutilized. #discussion
11/09/09
Look at movies for another example. Most "art" films didn't arrive until 100+ years after film was invented. My point is that considering we're only a little over 30 years into our medium, we're doing pretty well for ourselves.
That said, Resident Evil: Nemesis scared the shit out of me even after I turned it off, half expecting a zombie dog or Nemesis to jump out at any moment. How many people literally cried after Aeris died? You know how accomplished I personally felt at the end of Halo 3? That I had finally conquered a war that took me years of my own literal life to finish? I would say games really do have far more capability to convey these emotions, because of the fact that we are actively involved with the story, compared at least to a passive medium like film. #discussion
11/07/09
It's an incredible example of manipulation via game design, even more so than Portal, I think. #discussion
11/07/09
11/07/09
It seemed cruel, but I did it. #discussion
11/07/09
So what's the difference between this essay and, oh the entire internet?! #discussion
11/07/09
Sit down, read a book/watch a movie/listen to music, and then forget about the damn thing. It's just stress and boredom management in the end...
Oi vey... is this what we've come to? Is this the sort of thing that we need to do in order to assuage our guilt about wasting our time reading/watching movies/listening to music? This crazy, messed up obsession with doing everything we can to analyze what we consume. #discussion
11/07/09
I think it's good to reflect of the story of a novel, or film... or game.
What bugs me is when people get all into the symbolism of those books and movies. It especially bothers me when novels with hardly any story get so widely acclaimed for "brilliant symbolism."
I don't want to hear about how the Martian Chronicles sends a brilliant message about human nature, and expansion. It's a shitty book. Get over it. #discussion
11/07/09
Some art/film/literature/music is just an entertaining diversion, perhaps with some quick thrills and wish fulfillment fantasy.
Some art/film/literature/music is meant as an expression of an idea or emotion, and the sense of satisfaction does not come as much from your own amusement, as it does from your own sense of gaining new insight about a certain thing.
Some art/film/literature/music is a combination of both of the above.
I do not understand your insistence upon dismissing a beneficial way of appreciating some types of art/film/literature/music. #discussion
11/07/09
I don't disagree with what things in literature can represent. I just don't like it when symbolism is valued more by authors than a quality story.
I think a great story is the best form of art there is. #discussion