Re: Snakers
On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Nathan T Dudek wrote:
> Huh, text games were pretty cool. Amazing how everything has changed in
> what seems like a small period of time......
But was the change for the better? Back then, computer games honed
problem solving skills and taught you to think your way out of situations.
Now its "lets just kill everything in sight, then blow the building up to
bury their scorched bodies."
Case in point: Castle Wolfinstein was an incredible game. You were a
prisoner of the nazi's and your goal was to escape by sneaking around
guards, breaking into chests and taking things you needed. Violence was
only used only as a last resort, and was discouraged in the game, due to
guards hearing your gunshots and then hunting you down, and because
bullets were very hard to come by. Searching bodies took precious time,
every second was one step closer to your getting caught. The odds were
ALWAYS against you escaping, and you had to time your steps to avoid
confronting the guards.
How different this is to Wolfinstein 3D, where your object is to kill as
many people and animals as you can, with escape as a secondary goal.
Killing is encouraged, in fact, if you finish a level without killing
everyone you are encouraged to feel like you "should have done better"
Very seldom in the game do you feel like the odds are against you, as
weapons and ammo are plentiful, and the only real strategy you have is
trying to figure out how to kill the Bosses.
I like blowing things up as much (or more!) than the next guy, and I
enjoyed wolf3d, doom, duke nukem, et al, but theres something seriously
lacking that used to be there. The violence and fear exercises the
emotions and the reflexes, but what about the mind? These games stupify
rather than edify us. There needs to be a balance.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong... =)
Michael Packard
Lord Generic Productions
lgp at exo.com http://exo.com/~lgp
A Crash Course in Game Design and Production
http://exo.com/~lgp/euphoria
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