Video Games equal Video Brains
Pretty much all of my life a video game machine has been present and therefore it has been a major influence. Growing up with Mario and Sonic the chili dog loving Hedgehog, I was obsessed with anything dealing with them. I got the magazines. I watched the poorly made commercials called the TV shows. I played the games. I spent probably thousands of dollars on video games and video game related merchandise. As I got older, the habit grew larger and larger. Buying more games. Finding out which company made the best ones. (Old school Sqauresoft!) At any rate this habit did not stop! I still play video games only now there seems to be some magic missing from them. Maybe because I am older or maybe it's just that video games feel too much like bad movies to me. There seemed to be a boost with the last couple of generations of consoles to make video games more cinematic. Apparently in order to make it more cinematic, a bucket load of cut scenes had to be added to every game. I think to games like Metal Gear or Final Fantasy for the PS2. I spent probably 50% of the game just watching cut scenes. I wanted to play the game. I don't need to see the main character do a triple summersault in the air and then backflip with a sword. Let me do that! Not only are some of these cut scenes grueling to watch, they are also very poorly written and/or translated with bad voice acting. This cinematic gameplay leads to B-movie type scenery. I read a while back that one video game developer at EA said video games still haven't found their Citizen Kane yet. Meaning, there's still not that one game that makes video games a legitimate art form. I feel the games we see now are much like the Hollywood movies of the 20s and 30s; disposable. There are exceptions but they are few and far between.
With internet technology, I was able to download some of the games that I had for my Super Nintendo. I replayed a few of them and found them to be just as fun as the day I first got them. I then found out what was so appealing! There were no load times. No waiting for updates. No 20 minute movie of a knight fighting 8000 warriors with an energy beam while a scantily clad women is floating in the air with a magic circle around her. I was actually playing the game within 5 minutes!
I guess my point is that video games have been such a huge part of my life and recently they have let me down! I still look hopeful though! The Nintendo Wii is a whole new twist on things. Even my parents bought one! (Mom likes to bowl.)
Video games to me have always been a mode of interactive story telling whether it is something as simple as I gotta eat these dots before the ghosts get me or I need to save the princess from a giant monkey, it's story telling. Now I am a film student. I have to owe a large part of that to video games! So let's see that one that's going to change it all! (I'm looking at you Grand Theft Auto 4).
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Haha. This is hilarious coming from another film student. I think that the video game era would like to be considered an artform, but I think it really falls short. I think that cool graphics and CGI are what have commandeered(hope Im spelling right) our young children's minds. Its all about how cool Grand Theft Auto is and how cool WOW appears on both PCS and MACS. Now I must admit that some video game creators have made an attempt to and some type of cinematic or oratory storytelling to games today, but none that are too crazily amazing.
I agree with you that video games now are not what they used to be. I was also obsessed with Sonic and Super Mario. Once I got into college my love for video games slowly faded away mostly because of not having enough time. I agree that the games now take to long to load. Even though the games have grown in memory, the systems have also gotten faster. I agree that the game industry has put too many videos and update breaks in the games. I hope that in the future games will not have as many breaks for videos or updates. Hopefully future games will be as fun as they used to be.
I missed Chrono Trigger when I was a kid. I heard it was epic though.
You've reminded me about this article. Chrono Trigger, a better investment than Apple.