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What Games Have Actually Affected You?
FortKnox asks: "What games have affected you simply by playing them? What games immersed you so well into its environment that you actually felt different after playing it? For me, I'd have to go with System Shock 2. Basically the predecessor to Deus Ex, it was the only game that made me so afraid that the minute I heard a matron mother, I turned the other way and ran. What game scared you to death, or made you think after playing it?"
...has always been a favourite of mine. I mean, the series has gone through 12 iterations now and it's still going strong; maybe not the most cutting-edge graphics, but the attention to storyline and soundtrack has certainly made it very popular (Square games seem to have by far the most fanfics written for them, if that's any metric of the storyline).
On an unrelated note... AAARGH!! MY EYES!! MY FRIGGIN EYES!!!!!! (if you can't tell I'm really not a fan of this colour scheme)
After I played Tetris for a while, I just couldn't stop thinking about the block shapes and the combinations I could use to create complete lines. I haven't played in a while, but I can still clearly picture a game in my head.
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
Quake would be one. It was one of the first real 3d first person shooters. The lighting, combined with Trent Reznor's twisted soundtrack, made this a real experience. While games like doom or wolfenstein were great, they still had that "video-game" feel to it. Quake was the first game that really gave me that sense of claustophobia and panic.
Another notable example would be Starcraft, which affected me greatly as I lost my tan and my social life because I spent so many years playing it online!
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Computer games can affect people on many different levels. There's the meta-effect, where a person sees something occur in a computer programmer and thinks "What the blazes?" and is inspired to work out how it works, how it can be replicated, how the technique can be used in other applications. There's the deliberate effect, where a game can promote a point of view or a a view of the world that makes someone's mind click and say "I understand that". The great strategy games, with Sid Meyer standing proudly in the center, have influenced me there, but other, more ordinary games, can often influence in much the same way. Games can also mentally challenge - Lemmings taught us to solve puzzles in real time, adventures did similarly, and the games that have followed Doom and forerunners like Hired Guns have provided us with a new level of real time problem solving.
The mind is exercised by those flashes of light on screen. Like a lightbulb appearing over one's head, computer games can illuminate the dark crevises of the mind, putting them to work for all of us. Unfortunately, not everyone sees the world that way. Efforts are often made to discredit computer gamery as a mind device. Attacks from procensorship groups are common, and while the games industry is not yet as heavily regulated (voluntarily or otherwise) as, say, the movie industry, it's merely a matter of time. Already computer games are typically more regulated than the music industry, and without an RIAA like organization to defend computer game manufacturers, that trend is likely to get worse. Indeed, whereas the RIAA, and Hilary Rosen, has done an astronishingly successful job of countering lobbying to censor music through a combination of token solutions ("Parental Advisory" labels and such) and aggressive pro-speech counter lobbying, the ASPA and ESPA and other similar groups have gone far beyond even the MPAA on self-labelling and have done little to promote the notion that games, like music, films, and literature, are a form of speech; indeed that you cannot "censor" without there being speech to censor.
The games industry lacks an affective defender, and without one, attacks on "violence" and sex in computer games will continue until a legislative disnification of games becomes inevitable. The choice between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will become a fight where only the names are different.
This quagmire of games becoming censored in the absense of an affective lobbying organization which becomes more unlikely to be effective as games become more and more censored will not disappear by itself. Unless people are prepared to act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that computer games are a form of speech, that they impart ideas and ways of thinking, and that they inspire people to do things they'd otherwise never do. Tell them that you appreciate the work of groups like the ASPA and ESPA to combat attempts at censorship by the imposition of voluntary ratings but that if groups like these continue to fail to focus on the speech aspects inherent in computer games, and as such games merely become more and more neutered, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Tell them that you believe the world would be a better place with more groups following the lead of successful free speech lobbyests like the RIAA. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how censorship everywhere, in computer games a
KMSMA (WWBD?)
From it's loose concept of "virtues" to it's world simulation, most of the Ultimas have been worlds apart from the fictions most games take place in.
Ultima IV was an amazing concept for it's time, and remains revolutionary as far as a game plot goes. There is no big "Foozle" to kill, you just have the archtypical midieval land to fight through... but the goal is to make a respectable character out of yourself. Sure, you could cheat the system like anything else (See Doug the Eagles page for many examples in the Ultima series), but it actually offered a somewhat meaningful system of judgements about your actions in the game. Sure, you could steal and cheat others in deals, but you would not be walking the path to Avatarhood... it was a pretty large impact in an age when games were so private an experience on home computers.
The later games left a VERY minor aspect of such karma in the game, but the effect lingered, as gamers continued to think of themselves as the Avatar. In a sense, the lack of judgement improved later games. Having concepts like Humility being important, not for religious reasons, but because you are role-playing a character who went to such pains to represend himself one way... 'tis a very unique thing.
Of course, beyond Virtues, the Ultime series is as historic as a game series can get. Ultima Underworld was pretty much the first fully-fleshed out first person simulation game out there - from the deep interaction of objects in the world, to many factions of creatures in the Underworld... when it all came into existence BEFORE Wolfenstein 3d... it was truly an awesome thing to behold. And still to this day, the mixture of plot and characters (after you get past the kidnapped-princess thing) makes the game worth re-playing just for the entertainment of the writing.
And of course, on the same lines, Ultima 5 through 7 revolutionized games in ways that have yet to be matched even in other RPGs. The deeply pervasive NPC schedules, the complex mixture of dialogues and plots, the wide variety of dynamic object interactions, and of course the humor and the unique technicalities that come from exploring the absolutely huge acts of creation that went into these games... it's truly amazing.
Ryan Fenton
Read all the comments.
Scared, confused, upset. Only one that had a positive effect.
Maybe the question should have been phrased to specifically include positive affects.
Granted, most games are designed to appeal to the basest human instincts.
Humans are Easily Scared but Hard to Please.(tm)
Who can design the game that makes people say "Wow, after playing I wanted to go out and make the world a better place!"
Let the sarcasm begin.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Zelda: Ocarina of Time is probably the most flawless game ever created.
I have a theory. When motion pictures first came out, they were dismissed as gimicky and for entertainment only. Only years later did they become recognized as a legitimate ART form.
I truly believe that this will one day happen to videogames, like movies. Most will still be just entertainment (which, like many movies, is perfectly fine), but some, like Zelda, with it's mixture of gorgeous visuals, enchanting music, wonderful storyline, fantastic gameplay and engulfing characters will one day get the recognition it deserves as a work of Art.
Second that. GTA3 & VC have trained my subconscious to hit pedestrians, sucker-punch policemen with brass knuckles, and ram cars that cut me off till they burst into flames and explode. If only they made games that trained me how to invest like Warren Buffet, instead of behave like a fucking maniac, I'd be set.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
For showing that a game can have a more complex plot than "There are 5 billion demons trying to kill you". There's more going on in those games than a lot of novels.