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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?"
I swear, I'll never play that game in the dark again. Damned headcrabs scared the hell out of me, jumping out of dark corners and attacking me in air ducts.
Afterwards I hard a hard time getting to sleep since there was a storm outside and it sounded like the headcrabs were coming to get me.
"They told me it was impossible. I replied with maniacal laughter." http://www.mydailyrant.com/
...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)
The first time I encountered one of those floating brain things in Duke Nukem 3D I nearly peed myself. Those things made the creepiest noises, did massive damage, and completely freaked me out the first time I saw one (after it snuck up behind me, underwater).
As for a game that affected me emotionally, I'd have to say Final Fantasy 4 (2 in the US). The storyline was so deep that, even with the terrible translation that Square inflicted on it, the pain of the characters showed through.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
There are times now in traffic when I get that unimistakable urge to just pull into the oncoming lane to pass some slow moron in front of me, or to pull the guy who cut me off out of his car at the next red light and lay a beating on his ass.
I don't do it, of course, but one can dream... and I know I'm not alone, because I've seen other posts on here from people similarly afflicted.
Doom. Definately Doom. First truly immersive 3d shooter. Those dark areas and shuffling noises scared the bejesus out of me.
And there was nothing worse than turning a corner and confronting a demon unexpectedly
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...for giving me an interest in history and geography.
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
I played it for 72 hours straight and got severely dehydrated. If I hadn't looked at the clock I, might have died.
The game that affected me the most was Wolfenstein 3D. I was 7 at the time, and somehow it had appeared on my computer (I guess my dad went out, bought it, and installed it). I figured out the directory where it was stored and played it (this was back on my 386). Never has a game scared me so much. I wasn't even allowed to see PG movies, let alone Nazis and guard dogs and mutants spewing crimson gore! I was mightily afraid of the game, but at the same time, couldn't stop playing it. It taught me an interest in the Nazis and World War II that I would never have acquired otherwise. And I had nightmares for years on end ... walking through hallways armed only with a pistol ... and then I turn around and a Nazi with a machine gun is shooting at me!! Newer FPS's with more realistic graphics don't scare me as much ... for me, the one and only horror game will always be Wolfenstein 3D.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
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.
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Once I was talking to someone about the benefits of recycling and solar power and then I realized I was basing my entire discussion on what I had learned from playing Sim City 4.
Of course, now I look back and am embarassed at our reaction, but it did freak us out at the time. Not so sure it affected me forever or anything.
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Nothing else comes close. Several months ago my machine crashed and I had to reformat my hard drive. By this time I was already having dreams ascii dungeons, monsters, and a 'd' following me around hoping for '%'. I decided maybe it was best if I didn't reinstall nethack. Though there's still those darn public nethack machines....
I don't know if I'm the best example, though. I've spent tortured nights dreaming of physics problems, one or two particularly bad nights dreaming of C++, and even come up with a Pascal algorithm or two in my sleep.
Of course, I have also come upon the secret of life once or twice in my sleep, but can never seem to remember it when I wake up...
Tweet, tweet.
It introduced me to sleeping with hookers. I've never felt so diseased!
When I heard the sound of that little white square hitting that white line, knowing that the little white square was now headed toward my white line, I was so frightened I turned and ran.
Talk about nearly peeing yourself.
MORTAR COMBAT!
If it wasn't for Leisure Suit Larry, I wouldn't know that failing to take a condom off after sex results in terrible disease.
Thanks Al!
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?)
Not long after the DOOM phenomenon began, I had to sleep in my basement during the period after I gutted my bedroom and before my new furniture for it arrived. The basement has wood-paneled walls, and a lot of stuff hanging on them. One night as I was sleeping down there, one corner of a "frameless" picture frame decided to let go of the nail upon which it was hanging at about 3am one morning. It began swinging back and forth on the remaining nail, scraping against the paneling. It made a noise that was practically indistinguishable from the tearing noise you heard when one of the baddies in DOOM (the guy on the right side in this screenshot) got too close to you and started inflicting damage by clawing at you.
That noise immediately triggered said DOOM character's appearance in a dream, and about 10 seconds later I bolted upright, wide awake and feeling around for my gun, any gun-- what woke me up was the feeling panic that I was taking damage from that guy, and I couldn't see where he was to shoot him. Then I realized it was a dream. THEN I realized I still heard the sound, even though I was awake. Finally, I noticed the swinging picture frame, laughed sheepishly and pulled it off the wall before going back to sleep.
When you had to rail a car RIGHT on to get it to do a 360.
The announcer yells,"Threeeeee SIXTEEEEEE!"
Its awesome... So I'm driving home after 6 hours, and see someone pulling out of his driveway.
Now since the timing in the game is like under a second which way you need to aim, you don't really have much time to think about your actions.
I almost deliberately turned into the back of this person coming out of their driveway because I was in an almost hypnotic state, thinking of the game.
So to get people suggestive:
#1: Use lots of loud and cool noises in your game to reward people for doing cool things.
#2: Have the cool thing be something very similar and realistic to real life.
#3: Leave the window for the action to be under a second, so conscious thought can not control a reflex action.
Then guaranteed at least 1 or 2 people out there would do the shit in real life.
God spoke to me
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.
Most of the games that really get under my skin are in the 3d shooter category (some spoilers):
Quake -- I thought it was just another 3rd person shooter, albeit with better graphics. Then the Fiend leaped at me for the first time, and I yelped and nearly threw my mouse across the room. I got killed -- but it was worth it for the adrenaline rush.
Thief -- During the haunted monastery episode, while I was watching an in-game "cut scene," one of the undead Hammers snuck up behind me. Just by coincidence I happened to turn around just in time to see a six-foot skeleton swinging his weapon at my head. I nearly had a heart attack and spent the rest of the game deathly afraid of those things. When the sequel came out, and I found myself trapped in a basement with one of those things, I said "forget it," and just stopped playing.
System Shock (the original) -- still one of the most cinematic games in history, IMHO. Best scene in any game ever: I finally set the station to self-destruct, and fought my way to the escape pod... then, just as the countdown is about to reach 0 to launch and I am breathing easy... the countdown stops and Shodan appears on the screen. "You're not leaving!" Oh, hell. I didn't know whether to laugh or scream -- as I recall, I did both.
Half-Life - though the game is excellent throughout, I think it has the best opening in video game history. Walking through the Black Mesa installation, causing the "resonance cascade scenario," then running back through the same installation, except this time it's trashed and all the scientists and security guards you were talking to are dead... fantastic. That, and the huge monster running after you through the parking garage, tipping over SUVs as it charges... breathtaking. There are so many great moments in that game. I can't wait for the sequel.
Alien DOOM Full Conversion -- Much older, and many years before the AvP video game, but so scary I could never stand to play it for long. Especially when you had to go into the tunnels full of facehuggers. Screw that.
Omikron - Not a perfect game, but very underrated IMHO. You enter a parallel world where you possess the bodies of other people and are stalked by invisible demons that only you can see. A great adventure game with a great plot; not without its flaws, but original enough to be very compelling. It was all I could think about for days after playing it.
I'm sure there are more, but these are the games that come to mind immediately...
I think mine would be "Lemonade Stand" on my Apple II+. I nearly pee'd my pants when I had allocated most of my money to inventory, and not only did it rain the next day, but there was construction on my street, diverting traffic. Being a cool day, the construction workers were not interested in Lemonade. I went bankrupt. That is probably the pivotal moment of my life.
;-)
I did better in Quake I, though...
About ten years ago, I was home from college during the summer, and making a little extra cash by being a receptionist at an insurance company office.
...and play Tetris on the 386 running Windows 3.1 on my desk. So I played it a lot. For hours on end, day in and day out: racking up some pretty impressive scores, and spending almost entire days in the Tetris Zone.
Being the middle of summer, half of the adjusters were on vacation, and the rest of them were taking as many personal days as they could manage. There was nothing to do except answer the phone when it rang twice a day...
This went on for about three weeks, until one afternoon I had to put a particularly intense game on hold to go answer the call of nature. I ambled into the bathroom, sat down in one of the stalls and was all set to do my business, until I made a fatal mistake: I looked down...at the floor made out of thousands and thousands of 1.5" white square tiles.
I swear to god the entire room tilted sideways, and if I hadn't been sitting down, I would have fallen. I could feel the parts of my brain that had been doing nothing but tetris pattern recognition for the previous four hours having a near-meltdown as they looked at this solid mass of blocks and tried to map tetris shapes onto each of them. For about 15 seconds, it was like watching a thousand games of tetris played at once, transparently overlaid on each other. I imagine that the sensation was a little bit like what epileptics feel: a firestorm of neurons triggering all at once.
As drug experiences go, it had a lot to recommend it, but I have never really wanted to play Tetris since. Just say no.
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