Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "video-games"

I was about seven or eight years old when I got the demo disc for Command & Conquer. Up until that point I'd only ever played games like Commander Keen and Super Mario Bros. and such, which were fun but not particularly noteworthy. I had no idea what to expect from the opening demo and that guy (my first FMV experience) talking to me... until the music kicked in, accentuated by the explosions, the cannons, the gunfire, and the screams of the dying, and promptly blew my mind.

I played that game as much as I was allowed for the next couple days, until the disc was taken away. I never figured out how to set up the construction yard and make buildings and new units, and instead charged with my mammoth tanks and others in a suicide mission against the NOD walls and the laser obelisk, over and over again, like banging my head to a wall. In retrospect it's probably a good thing that I never got over that: I later learned that the next demo mission involved a commando, and that guy probably would've blown my mind all over again in some unhealthy way, with his badass one-liners and awesome insta-kill sniper rifle.

Christmas 1999 I got Tiberian Sun, and I still remember it as one of my most beloved presents. Even today I think that game has the overall best soundtrack in the series - sure, it doesn't have any Hell March in it, but neither does it have a single C&C Thang - and a pretty great visual style that's influenced my scifi writing a fair bit.

In any game of the series, I always loved engineers. I preferred capturing all enemy buildings rather than destroying them, because it felt wasteful. But there's a thing there: what's up with the way reverse-engineering works in these games?

Okay, I've acquired the NOD stealth tank designs, can I use these in the next mission? No? Why the hell not? Why do I need to do this again every time? Shouldn't once be enough, and now everyone in GDI everywhere should be able to design these things? This makes no sense!

I didn't get to play Warcraft II or Starcraft until years after Tiberian Sun, but as soon as I did they resonated with me. They didn't have this reverse-engineering nonsense. Warcraft's armies were equal: obviously the orcs had long since stolen the sword designs from humans, for instance. And yeah, they still had dragons, but the Alliance has a bunch of gryphon riders that can shoot lightning, so it evens out.

(I used to experiment with their stats in level editors, giving humans better penetration and armor due to sharper weapons and better steel, while orcs got higher damage and hit points because they were stronger and tougher themselves. It never really went anywhere.)

And in Starcraft, of course, the three different factions are entirely different - but also of entirely different races. I can't imagine humans figuring out how to use Zerg tech. So that's also pretty great.

That's why I like them better than Command & Conquer. They're so realistic.

I haven't written so much Ivar Stormling of Skar today, because I was flashed with a random bit of inspiration and just had to churn it all out at once. I may as well put it here now.

Loot



Also, this is a very nice picture of Peal someone drew for me.

(I've never written any satire before. This probably shows.)

Last time I played Earthbound, I made it till fourth town before losing interest. This was many years ago. Now I'm in Twoson and I'm sure I'll make it to the end this time.

I honestly think that all else being equal, twelve is the best possible age for the main character. You're old enough to be a bit more independent of your parents and other authority figures, to run around on your own and get in and out of trouble, to manage yourself in a tight place and even get into fights. Yet at the same time you're so young as to still be growing into your own person, still figuring out who you are and what you want of life - the best time for character development - still possessing that blissful and carefree attitude we all once held on to, still knowing how to laugh and how to cry and how to love... and of course, there's something tragic about how you already must take up such a burden, when you should be out playing.

This may be the best thing I like about Harry Potter, in retrospect. He started out at about the perfect age, and we got to see him grow up too.

And of course it's entirely possible the whole adventure was just a whole bunch of make-believe. Done right - ambiguously enough, where it may or may not have been, or parts of it may or may not have been - it'd be a story worth Wolfe. Alas.

I wish I was a child again, only with the full wisdom and knowledge adulthood brought me. I never could appreciate it enough the first time around.

Why do so many divine beings go out on their way to seek validation from the obviously inferior mortals? Why is my fear and love, my praises and beggings, so important to them? Why do they even notice me? What did I do?



Lovecraft had the right idea: anything so far above mankind would not care about them at all. We'd just be ants, trodden under their feet not because they care enough to do so, but because they don't even notice us. But I feel that there's a lot to do with the opposite approach as well: for a god to descend among the mortals for a while - a lifetime for us, a short while of idle distraction for them - as a peasant rather than a king, freely mingle with us, one of us. They couldn't care less of what we think of them, because they know for a fact that they've nothing to prove to us. Why not have a while of good time instead? Why not see what these little mortals are coming up with now? What else is there to do in the universe, anyway?



Don't get me wrong - I've got plenty of divinities, like too many for me to count, that fit into the weird middleground where they feel themselves above mortals, yet not above enough to not flaunt it. They can play innumerable roles in a story, and drive all sorts of plots all on their own, in a far more varied manner than either exteme. But from an outsider viewpoint... they come across as pretty insecure.

That, or it's a strategy game they're playing. You know how addictive some of those can get. Even a god might not be able to resist.