Author: Michelle B

Gaming as a motivation

Agro gallops across a beautiful green landscape.

Video games are the best muse I could ever ask for. When I’m unwell I turn to a certain to a certain calibre of game to keep my most pained moments as comfortable and enriching as I can.

I now use gaming not just to relax but to claw back some productivity from my body, to feel like the hours of downtime are time well spent. To ease my mind away from what I can’t do, and feel nourished by what I can.

A humbling experience

When I am unwell I am unable to do anything other sit or lie down and keep still. It’s a murderous lack of activity for an active mind. In truth gaming has become the most effortless activity I can manage when I am in pain. A small part of me is grateful for the moments of relief that indulging in gaming gives me.

On a wider note for all though, gaming indulgence isn’t a bad thing. Ruminating on what to play during a particularly difficult week of pain, the desire to play Shadow of the Colossus hit me.

There’s something about the grandeur of Shadow of the Colossus that makes you feel unworthy of its message. There’s a level of intimidating beauty on display here that makes it effortless to forget the pain surging through my body. The delicate animations of Agro, the blending of colour and light as Wanda rides over the landscape. The accumulation of sand and dust fizzing around you, with a haunting soundtrack which lingers on the brain weeks after you finished the game.

Games like Shadow of the Colossus are the reason I fell in love with gaming all those years ago. It has a central metaphor to the narrative that takes intelligence to unravel, a quiet but intensely clever puzzle element, a gentle landscape that lulls me away from all my troubles. The potent design of Shadow of the Colossus reminds me that it is perfect rationality for our hobby. The combination of some of game developments finest minds collaborating to make something truly humbling.

In Shadow’s vast and beautiful window on a masterfully created environment, I am reminded of what is genuinely special about our medium, how games can motivate and inspire this community more than any song, any artist, any film or play. Precisely because of how unique the experience of playing a game can be.

An extraordinary muse

Games are the gentle rhythm powering me through each day, by making the downtime and the pain delicately manageable. It has become my muse, my fine and unwavering inspiration to create, the motivation to finish a complicated project, to start work on improving something that has failed me for weeks. Ultimately video games are the positive experiences keeping my mind engaged and body free from pain.

It’s become more to me than a mere entertainment form, gaming is now the fuel for my mind, in both creative and rational spheres. I like to think I have an enriched mind as a result rather than the flat and absorbed brain that many equate to the sensation of an addiction.

No, gaming has culminated in hundreds of awe-inspiring experiences like Shadow of the Colossus to fuse itself indelibly to my personality and way of thinking. It has done so by comprising an appealing intellectual lubricant to my daily humdrum. I realised the extraordinary properties of video games all those years ago as a toddler, free from the bias that comes with adulthood. I’ve never forgotten how inspiring games can be, it just takes a truly remarkable game like this one to remind me of how I easily I fell in love all those years ago.

Currently playing

Hype as a obstacle

Alucard and a Gaibon are illuminated by torches.

Hype can work in mysterious ways. It’s frequently associated with the upcoming and the new, but it has a funny way of putting me off something as old as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

This is a frequent concern as someone who often looks back to see what they’ve missed rather than forward to see what games are coming. Can a game really be as good as the hype makes out?

Symphony of the Night

I last experienced Symphony of the Night in the summer of 1999. I had never played a Castlevania game before (largely due to my affinity with Sega in the early 1990s). Castlevania and I didn’t exactly get on. I was drawn to the game by numerous friends and strangers who were convinced it would be perfect for me. Only it wasn’t.

The introduction to the game (where you’re Richter fighting against Dracula) was clearly the end of another game and left me feeling like I’d stumbled into something halfway. I struggled with the intricacies of the combat and narrative that would have been effortless to anyone familiar with the series. It left me feeling out in the cold, rather than embraced and involved with the world.

It took me 13 years to come back to the game and give it another go. Partly because of that bad initial attempt at the game, but mostly because that first attempt had been inspired by the fevered praise of others. Their desire for me to enjoy the game as they had, their anticipation of my potential excitement.

It made me confirm something I’ve always realised about how I play games. The decision to play a game (particularly one that is out of your normal comfort zone) should be yours alone.

Let me count the ways

So my experience of Symphony of the Night was not meant to be. My second attempt at coming back to Castlevania has not only been successful, but I’ve fallen in love with it completely. The game is no different than it was all that time ago, with its powerful but almost baffling start. Most importantly I have a broader and more open mind and I was ready to embrace the game, to battle on through my past difficulties until I could understand why Symphony of the Night is so well-regarded. In laymans terms I was very late to the party, but I’d arrived on my own terms and in my own time, that’s a big part of the reason why I succeeded.

A great game has a way of making you feel extremely privileged about discovering it, almost as if you’re playing something precious and rare. This is the feeling that Symphony of the Night invokes in me. As a result I can appreciate what Symphony of the Night does far better now than I would have 13 years ago. I am in the cusp of passionate adoration that all players go through when experiencing a good game, regardless of when it is played. So why the reluctance both then and now?

Disassembling hype

Hype is a dangerous thing, it can successfully highlight experiences that are worth playing to someone that would never have thought twice about a game, however it can also taint an experience, raising your expectations far above where they would be if you had come to the game naturally.

This is the problem I have with the marketing of many modern games and in fairness this stated expectation of greatness doesn’t just come from the developer and publisher alone, but it’s audience and fans, who have the ability to expand anticipation with its feverish devotion to reading, watching and discussing every detail of a games development cycle.

These days I prefer to learn enough about a game for me to establish whether I’m likely to enjoy it and then I’ll play it after a patient wait devoid of marketing pizazz. In shifting to the shadows with Alucard I have become enraptured with Castlevania’s masterful combat, score and setting, this quieter approach to choosing my games has empowered me in turn.

Gamers

A lack of gaming conversation

Post author By Michelle B
Post date April 13, 2012
1 Comment on A lack of gaming conversation

A screenshot from Scott Pilgrim, Scott and Ramona kiss as the rest of the cast looks on.

Every so often I’ll bump into someone that clearly enjoys games more than the average person. There are little clues about their person, a gaming-related badge, an outfit, a particular sentence overheard.

Gaming is slowly but surely making it’s way into the mainstream, and it’s doing so ever so slowly and quietly that many people don’t even realise it. As video games become a little more popular. I’m finding it harder to come across like-minded gamers who are happy to talk and identify themselves as video game players.

We’re in the background

There’s a huge perception that gaming is heavily niche pasttime. Anyone active in the gaming community knows that this simply isn’t true, internet culture and video gaming culture is so heavily intertwined, because of that precise need for video games players to find each other forced by the ongoing stigma of playing or discussing video games in public.

I suspect this is a large part of the reason gaming exhibitions and trade shows are so popular, there are fewer occasions where gamers are likely to collect together in one place. Many years ago before gaming shops became solely about sales that was that easiest place for gamers to congregate. In reality large, specialist shows are one of the few occasions where this still happens.

I’m quietly comforted by each person I see who is obviously a gamer. I talk about it to them when it’s appropriate to do so, despite being the huge gaming advocate that I am, I’m also deeply aware that other gamers are not comfortable with their hobby being publicly known. It’s a sad fact, but one I think we can all relate to.

So over time, this quiet contingency of gamers are slipping around in the background of public life, enjoying the mastery and beauty of video games as a medium, promoting it’s social aspects over it’s well discussed negative aspects as best they can, or perhaps more realistically as much as they dare to. Over time perceptions are slowly improving, one step forwards, two steps back.

Pushing back

The result of our gaming interest being pushed underground is we all collectively miss out on that effortless banter that only really happens in person. Despite there being more people playing games, it seems to be getting harder to openly chat about a love of video games in public. It’s easy for someone with a passing interest in sport to do so, similarly for fashion, television, films or books. Talk about games though and a distinct atmosphere fills the room, as if it’s something you shouldn’t do.

So there’s an underlying quandary here about the ability to be yourself in a public sphere. Unfortunately (as is the case for many gamers I suspect) I don’t get to do this as often as I’d like. In vocalising our love of video games we do so mindful of the risk of stigma. Talk about video games too much (even to someone as equally appreciative as you are) and you may get a response from another in the room in jokey, but negative tones. Even when this happens playfully there are few other hobbies where it would be socially acceptable for people to respond in such a mocking tone. It would be deemed rude if anything else.

Passing judgements

These judgements usually come from people who have hardly played any video games. This has always puzzled me. I wouldn’t be in a position to judge past-times that don’t suit my taste, I simply haven’t experienced enough of them to be able to comment on them, or understand why someone else might enjoy them. I believe the same is true for video games. Although games developers are making an apparent effort to make video games more simple for people who play games less to simply pick up and play them. Very few interests can be understood or mastered within minutes and for the most part gaming is the same.

We’ve also started to depend far too much on our communities online to meet other gamers. The internet has become the de-facto place to gather socially, as gamers find fewer occasions to meet up and play something in person. It’s become a bit of a double-edged sword as the availability and popularity of online games has soared we’ve found less need to venture out to find gamers in our locality.

It’s enough to put you off talking about video games altogether. These days I don’t tend to talk about video games to non-gamers at all unless directly questioned about it. Given how long this sea change is going to take. It’s no wonder than going online has become this communities preferred method of conversation.

Nothing is going to stop me from enjoying video games though. With any luck I plan to do so so indefinitely, I’m a firm believer that improvement in our ability to start gaming conversations will come. So we’ll have plenty of time to share our passion with the rest of the world as gaming becomes even more heavily intertwined with popular culture.

Video games

Let’s go back to independent games retail

Post author By Michelle B
Post date March 29, 2012
4 Comments on Let’s go back to independent games retail

A clerk from PSO greets you at her desk.

Earlier this week Game Group went into administration. With around 600 Game and Gamestation stores here it is the largest specialist games retailer in the UK.

Despite this dark week for games retail I implored gamers on Twitter to support other independent game shops on the high street. Many supported this notion, but lots more pointed out they had no indies near them – that’s tragic – but I can’t help but feel we as consumers are partly to blame for this.

Our independent gaming history

We have a vibrant video game history in this country. It’s not as well documented as other countries, but despite that, important franchises and development houses were born here, often fresh from the bedroom development scene of the early 1980s.

We had that same patchwork of independent games retailers too, who were usually fans of gaming with business acumen who realised that there was a gap in the market the came with the proliferation of games and games systems. We were largely safe from the video games crash of 1983 precisely because the majority of our developers, publishers, and home computers were based here and nearly totally uncoupled from the American market.

So these independent gamers realised that high street shops like Woolworths, Boots* and WH Smith etc were not always best placed to sell games. Sure they could put them on shelves with prices, but their staff weren’t best equipped to answer questions about what was the best console port from arcade, or what games were best suited to a player based on what else they enjoyed.

Then in 1995 (when the first big US games retailer hit our shores in the form of Electronics Boutique) this idea of independent games shop sort of fell by the wayside. By the time all EBs became Game we’d all collectively coasted along with this new model of games specialists.

Coasting off a monopoly

Game (and with their uncontested acquisition of Gamestation in 2007) became the de-facto shop Britain thinks of when it comes to game shops. More importantly this retail chain has become the retail experience by which we were all judged by non-gamers in turn. If less gaming-savvy relatives or friends wanted to buy us a game for Christmas they’d go to Game, it seemed easier than researching the title involved themselves, going online, or popping into a independent shop.

Why? Because as my Twitter audience pointed out there simply aren’t many independent retailers on the high street anymore, and if there are, they’ve been totally dwarfed by the Game/Gamestation behemoth.

However we’ve partly perpetuated this by feeding back into the loop of Game equalling the only Game shop. In turn Game and Gamestations senior management relied too heavily on our laziness. They collectively focused less (at a senior management level at least, I have no issue with the bods on the retail floor) on the experience of games shopping, and fell more inline with the experience of the very high street shops that those savvy gaming businessmen swore all those years ago to deviate from.

Game and Gamestation became another ordinary shop in all but name, still defending their “game specialist” status, but bar a few notable examples of specialism (midnight launches, pre-orders) not really providing much that you couldn’t experience in any other store, and at a premium at that. The idea of game retail specialist became a complete fallacy because Game Group had totally watered the idea down. In the process of their dominance many independent shops couldn’t compete, gamers that didn’t like the new model or weren’t catered for by Game Group went online.

One area where most high street retailers fail in regards to games is the fact that many don’t even to continue to properly support our gaming history by providing easy access to retro titles, or even the “niche” titles that befit a games specialist. These titles now can’t be found anywhere else but online, fuelling the need for people with an ardent interest in games to go elsewhere.

Where the indies come in

This week has shown that one giant games retailer doesn’t always work in the best interest of it’s audience. I’d like to see more indie stores, tweaked and tailored to the unique needs of the local area, filled with gamers or at least people that properly respect gaming at every appreciable level. It might make for a better and more sustainable business model.

They should stock what gamers want (and that means all gamers) not just the audience that Game caters for now (with all the major franchises in tow, but minimal numbers of much else). Pre-owned retro stock shouldn’t just be a nice to have. Additionally game shops are on the high street have become far too focused on the last six to twelve months of gaming. Good indies cater as far back as their customer base wants, as well as offering pre-orders for all and any new games, not just major titles.

My most important requirement form a specialist games retailer is a helpful and respectful shopping experience with friendly staff that make people want to commit to shopping locally rather than going online or via a supermarket. We gamers often have more disposable income than other consumers and yet we’re still chasing the cheapest price when many other local retailers (particularly those stocking locally sourced food and crafts) are having a bit of a renaissance here. We’re starting (with other things we need at least) to go back to the idea of customer loyalty, and that’s genuine loyalty not shown with cards, but with footfall and returning business.

So why not with games? Independent shops won’t exist where they’re not supported, and while the Game Group situation may may survive in some form, we as consumer have a chance for a new and better model for games retail. Let’s not waste it.

* Yes, once upon a time, Boots did in fact sell video games. Boots is a very famous pharmacy chain in the UK.

Currently playing

Saying goodbye to Mass Effect

Post author By Michelle B
Post date March 23, 2012
2 Comments on Saying goodbye to Mass Effect

My Shepard, making the best decisions she can in a hard, and unforgiving galaxy.

I feel very lost after completing Mass Effect 3 – not because of the fan controversy over the ending, but for more intentional reasons. This final game (in the trilogy proper) was always going to be about finality, whether in the form agreeable closure or murky conclusion.

So I finished the final chapter with a bruised ego. There was no shaking off this spread of feelings. We all knew this was the final, bitter outing with Shepard and her companions.

It’s my view that this labour would have happened no matter what the ending – good or bad – and as such there are no spoilers here.

Moving on from the end of the series

Like many I have watched the Mass Effect saga unfold for nearly five years. Few developers have managed to attempt the beauty and scale of another world setting with such panache.

However it’s the little details I appreciate Mass Effect for – the way I rediscover characters from previous games like old friends. Treading over old ground, sharing old memories from the past games, wondering at our accomplishments, and of course the cheer excitement of exploring the galaxy with my favourite squad members.

So this week after completing the game I find myself mourning that lack of new adventure. The Mass Effect universe is now a closed book that I have little desire to return to. (In the same way I am reluctant to return to Halo after the primary story has ended). It’s not resentment about how things have turned out. In fact I find the discussion about the ending is almost detracting from my previously experienced sense of loss after the commitment that playing a three-stage space opera had become.

Shepard and her squad

This was always a story about Shepard’s influence on the galaxy, her decisions and influence however profound or difficult. I always found the interplay between the different characters Shepard meets the core of the game.

It’s the main humanising detail in Mass Effect’s extraordinary and alien world – and the one I looked forward to the most, there is little I can seek out to replace it. In fact I find myself looking back to the very first game. The first tentative steps of my Commander Shepard who was still finding her feet – cut from the cloth of Alliance proudest and most accomplished stock, but embroiled in something far larger than she could have ever imagined.

The team that I – that she – cultivated across all three games were the making of my experience with Mass Effect. Shepard had become a beacon within the context of the game and the epitome of a masterful, empowering and intelligent female protagonist that I (and many others) have desired for decades.

My soul lifted through the course of two further games, watching my Shepard interact with characters who returned. I started to rely on the same faces with each iteration of the game. I knew the members of my squad dearly (and one intimately). I knew their strengths, motives and backgrounds. I doubt with anyone other than Shepard to frame this discussion I would have found any of this dialogue as interesting. That sense of anticipation at meeting and finding old friends has gone now, and I’ll have to move on – but I do so with some standout moments and memories.

Sidestepping the ending

I still find myself reeling from the very difficult decisions I had to make during Mass Effect 3 – some of the hardest in the series, and the hardest ones were all before the ending. These were decisions I genuinely struggled to make, my insides writhed with the responsibility of the consequences. I urge anyone reeling over the final decision in particular to remember the compelling and believable moments leading up to the endings curveball, to think of those who have yet to make those decisions and how the large community fury is tarring the experience of those who have yet to see it for themselves.

I have always played my Shepard as myself, and acted I would have reacted to each question and decision. I suspect I share this experience with many others. The beauty of it was how our choices differed, and we’ll meet few people who played precisely as each of us did in turn. I will miss this most of all. The copious discussion of who, what, where, the agonising and the heart rates. It was glorious while it lasted, and I feel immeasurably proud to have been there from the beginning, with wide, wondrous eyes.

The finality rather then the method of the finality is causing me to feel down. It’s a blip on what has been a remarkable and enthralling five years, but I couldn’t see a world where the Mass Effect narrative ends as anything other than the darker horizon for narrative games. Upon refection I doubt I’d reacting with anything other than sadness at the conclusion of such an amazing and compelling story, and one that I will treasure dearly, and for far longer than most.

To summarise with the words of T.S. Eliot:

“…This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.” – The Hollow Men (1925)