Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

Growing up tragically deprived of video games until somewhere around the age of 10, I have the unshakable feeling that I missed out on some essential skillset that I’ll never be able to fully make up for.  Additionally, the intermittent exposure I had to gaming up to that point narrowed my enthusiasm for the genre to such a degree that I had no clue what I was missing out on.

It all started with Sonic the Hedgehog.  I don’t remember why, or how, but but my first real encounter with console gaming was the original Sonic on the Genesis.  If it had happened to be Mario, my retro gaming ineptitude might not exist as it does today.  Alas, fate caught me in its insidious web.

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Last friday I dragged myself out of bed extra early at the frightful hour of 10 am with visions of Dead Space dancing in my head.  Alas, before I could spend the evening divorcing aliens of their limbs, I had to make it through a dreary, rainy day.  As it turned out, though, it was a pretty good day for gaming, but not just because I had the distinct privilege of watching a college professor try to play Dancing with the Stars.

Before that disco fever took hold, I spent two hours in a dark room listening to a guy named Russell talk about art in video games.  He wasn’t just any guy named Russell, though; he was Russell Chamier, a senior art lead at Mythic Entertainment, who recently put the finishing touches on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.  His hefty presentation was formally titled “Video Game Industry Insight and Workflow for the Graphic Artist.”  I think the other 30-odd people who managed to find the classroom in the bowels of the fine arts building were actually graphic artists.  I was just there because he was talking about games.

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Last Friday I had the unusual experience of seeing a college professor don a white Wii Sports jacket, zip it up, and proceed to play Wii Bowling on a 100″ screen in front of a crowd of nearly 300 thoroughly entertained students.  And, for the first time, it hit me what a phenomenon the Wii really is.

Logically, I knew it already: old people, young people, casual gamers and “core” gamers all find something to like on the Wii.  Of course, there are those gamers here and there who vehemently dislike the console and claim Nintendo has abandoned its base, but that’s another issue entirely.  The moral of this little story is that the Wii has really found a way to tap into the mainstream in a more significant way than anything related to gaming since, quite possibly, Pac-Man.

So, even though I knew the sales numbers and have read just as many articles about old folks’ homes outfitted with Wiis over the past two years as everyone else undoubtedly has, seeing it in the flesh was an eye-opening experience.  It’s as if Nintendo has found a way to tap on the glass wall enclosing our subconscious and say “Hey, wanna play?”  And, as it turns out, even people who have no conception of themselves as gamers do want to play.  They just hadn’t figured it out yet.

As it turned out, he was a pretty mean bowler, but not much of a dancer: he loves talking about Dancing With the Stars, but the game’s timing system was a bit beyond him, though I suspect it was actually his first time trying it out.  I think the ever-expanding presence of the Wii in the public sphere is exciting, though it’s not without its irony; what if the console that “hardcore” gamers deride for its simplicity and deviation from gaming’s roots is the very system that helps legitimize and establish the medium as a valid component of mainstream popular culture?

From my 1UP Blog (12/24/2007):

So I’m way late on the “write about how badass Portal is” bandwagon, but I’ve been so busy lately this has just sat in the back of my mind since I played the game a month and a half ago.

Portal is incredible in nearly every aspect. This is what makes it an extemely good game, what makes it cool, and it’s what makes it fun. But that’s not what makes it important. I think Portal is revolutionary because of how it’s cool.

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From my 1UP blog (11/7/2007):

When you get right down to it, choices in video games are as simple as a straightforward “If X, then Y” statement. But the ability to choose your own path has slowly slithered further and further into video game design as each generation opens up a new world of complexity. At this point, it’s rare to see a game attain much more than a simple, black or white choice — which is fine, in certain situations, but it’s tantalizing to think about the technical and literary accomplishments that could crack gaming wide open in the next decade.

For now, guiding your Luke Skywalker-wannabe to the Light or the Dark side of the Force is a choice well worth making, and other games that share this similarity to KOTOR offer replayability, tough calls, and generally rewarding gameplay.

But I’m not just talking about huge, game-altering choices. There’s more than that. The other side of the coin is plain old customization — and while I believe the big choices will lead gaming in the direction it must eventually go, the option to choose how to color your Spartan, what kind of hat your Animal Crossing character should wear, or what color your lizardy Argonian should be is the secret combination to the safe hiding away that big old fat pile of cash.

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From my 1Up blog (10/21/07):

No, seriously, it’s extreme. When I heard about E4 six months ago and found out it was a music game that allowed you to use your own music, I was excited. The potential there is enormous, and while I don’t think E4 really matches that, it tries harder than any other music game I’ve played–though, to be fair, that’s a pretty small group.

Booting up the demo Wednesday afternoon, I was skeptical. 30 seconds in and I had no fucking clue what I was doing. Okay, so I’m…blowing up? And thing doing it again? What do these powerup things do? Why can’t I control my explosion? I died pretty quickly, and wasn’t sure how much I liked the game. But five minutes later, I was hooked.

E4 is more about sensory immersion than anything resembling the kind of gameplay you’d expect from a product in which you try to create massive combo chains via psychedelic kamikaze attacks. However, even the simplistic design becomes a fairly addictive concept as you focus on strategy and time management to collect the greatest number of powerups while constructing the longest-lasting chains. Do you break off a combo to grab a shield and nab a few quickens and time extends, thereby increasing the influx of enemies and allowing you to score more points in the future? Or do you let that chain keep on going, hoping to rake in as much as you can until it runs dry?

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From my 1Up blog (10/17/2008):

Oh, Bungie. You may have made the mistake of giving me too much in Halo 3–for every amazing little tweak I can make, I pine for even more addictive customization and subtle gameplay changes.

Halo 3 is a fantastic game, and it’s entirely possible that in a year’s time I’ll have logged more hours into matchmaking and custom games than I have in any other game in my life. And this is after having played something close to 3000 games of Halo 2, god knows how many hours of Super Smash Bros. Melee since 2001, and an unthinkable number of weekends in middle school devoted to Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough.

So, to spend a few hundred or thousand words spewing fanboy gibberish and attempting to sound like A PROFESSIONAL with insight into what I’d like to see in Halo 3, strap yourself in.

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From my 1Up blog (10/9/2007):

…and probably read by no one. But that’s okay–this blog exists to allow me to prove to myself that I actually have something to say about an industry that I love, and that I know how to say it without seeming like just another guy who plays Halo a lot.

As a second year college student soon to be heavily immersed in all things journalism, I constantly wonder about the future. Moreso than where I’m going to be in ten years, I want to know where this industry is going to be in ten years.

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