"One of the sexier pixel vixens, for sure"

And what am I doing writing for this blog?

Well, the short answer is that I was asked. The long answer… is longer. I thought I would spend my inaugural post for Wing Damage exploring my relationship with video games, to explain my perspective to the readers, and to introduce my n00by self to my fellow contributors. A lot of the points that I bring up in this entry will be expanded on later, so I guess you could say that this entry is going to be my Wing Damage thesis statement.

First, hopefully without boring everyone to death, I should outline my history with video games. I had earthy, borderline hippie, parents. I’ve eaten more than my fair share of beans with rice and lentil soup. Not really the type of parents that go out and buy their kids a Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo. But they did get me a computer, as they had been told that it could be used for educational purposes. I got a few games and immediately latched onto the one that had absolutely no educational value; Jill of the Jungle.

Looking back at screenshots of it while researching for this article, I’m struck by how bland looking the game is compared to my rich memories of the environments (certainly a testament to the evocative nature of retro, pixel-y games). From there, barring Duck Tales on my cousin’s NES, or every Ninja Turtle and Earthworm Jim game made for Sega Genesis at a neighbor’s, I didn’t play video games for years. Then one day, in an effort to get more out of his investment in a computer, my Dad showed up with a bargain priced CD ROM copy of Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. He liked the cover.

I played it for a while, but didn’t really get it. I couldn’t find my way out of the ruins of Xenon, and would just wander around until I inevitably got screamed at by the weird zombie thing. Then the robot would come and shoot me. Not really fun. Then one day, possibly years later, I popped it in again on a lark and eventually escaped into the sewer system. The discovery was exciting and rewarding, and I was hooked right away. I got all of the other Space Quest games I could, and played them all the time, alone and with friends.

I got a few other adventure games over time. I played and enjoyed the Quest for Glory series, Doug TenNapel’s The Neverhood, and a number of LucasArts games (Sam and Max, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle). Around when I was in eighth grade, the person whose house I went to after school got a Nintendo 64. I still remember feeling motion sickness playing the first level of Shadows of the Empire; backgrounds had never rotated before. I was so in love with the system that I begged my Dad to get one for me. My Dad, fulfilling his role as a carbon copy of Calvin’s dad, said that he’d buy me one if I graduated from college with a BA or higher. A contract was written up, and names were signed. In college, I lived with a couple of guys who were dedicated NES players. We had an old system in our apartment and played a lot of Anticipation, Caveman Games and Beetlejuice. I stayed away from the more hardcore stuff, like the play through of every single Mega Man game, for example. Although, I was the clear champion of ski jumping in Ski or Die (I later found out that my fast button mashing skills approach that of Takahashi Meijin, the world record holder). After I graduated, I dug up my father and I’s contract and he made good on it by buying me the most beautiful and wear-free translucent green Nintendo 64 I’ve ever seen in my life. I played it a lot in those directionless post college days, and now have beat many of the people that shamed me in GoldenEye when I was in middle school.

Obviously, in terms of being someone who writes for a video game blog, I’ve had a very limited and offbeat history with video games. So what am I doing here? Even though I never played them a lot, I’ve always been fascinated by the prospects of storytelling in video games. I think the way they tell a story is a lot like my media of choice, comic books.

Comic books and video games are both active experiences for the viewer. When you watch a movie or listen to music, it’s a passive experience; you’re sitting there while it does it’s thing without you. But with comic books and video games, the viewer takes on a more active role; the viewer takes in the story at their own pace and is free to go slow or fast, stop or go backwards. In this way, comics and video games involve the viewer in the story in a unique and immersive way. This storytelling strength is what attracted me to adventure games. I’ve still never found a video game that even comes close to the storytelling levels that I know they can achieve (except, possibly, for Grim Fandango). I thought very little of video games that weren’t focused on storytelling before my NES college days, but then I realized that game-focused video games were just a completely different breed. They served only to entertain, and could be great at it.

Video games are now separated into these two camps in my head; “storytelling” and “arcade”. While most video games are probably a balance of the two, I think most of what is played popularly skews way on the “arcade” side of the equation. I could be wrong, but all of these historic war games, FPS in space and RPGs seem like they focus more on gameplay than story to me. Which is more than fine. Like I said, they have their place. But I’m more interested (in a “finding things to write about for an editorial gaming blog” way) in storytelling games. In fact, since I’m so unlikely to be able make a profession out of exploring storytelling in comic books, I would like to try and make a go out of exploring it in video games. I even have some actual experience designing characters and environments, and figuring out how to communicate with the viewer, for video games. I worked extensively on the Space Quest 7 fan game throughout college (it was written by Josh Mandel, the lead designer on Sierra’s Space Quest 6), and designed a UI for the impending relaunch of Chron X, the worlds first online TCG.

By writing for Wing Damage I’m hoping to focus a lot of my ideas about video games, and also to be exposed to a lot of things that I had no idea about. And I promise that future entries won’t be so marred in sentiment and theory; I’m here to have fun. I like Wing Damage’s focus on editorials over reviews, and look forward to the topics that my fellow contributors plan on busting out. I guess I’ve got to start playing some video games.

Tags: adventure games, Jill of the Jungle, N64, NES, PC

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.