Hunie Pop: so bad yet so brilliant

I've played my fair share of the dating sims when I was a teenager. They were all roughly the same, but hey - boobs! And to be fair, some of them had really decent writing or even more interesting settings than "you're a transfer student, now go and hump everything that moves". When I was browsing the most recent Steam sale list, I came across Hunie Pop. Was only around 3 Euro and to be honest, looked pretty lame. What caught my eye was the "Overwhelmingly Positive" in user reviews. Could it be that the genre that used to be a one-trick-pony has something new to offer? Could it be that jRPG and Iron Maiden are the only ones still stuck in the 80's and the visual dating novel has left them behind?

Yeah, I bought it and I was astonished how bad it was. I mean... The assumption that if I'm playing it I must be a loser that could never get a girl was both funny and embarrassing. The dialog choices were always between "my nose is bleeding" and "my tongue is stuck between my teeth". The occasional "Hey, I'm not a total moron" options were always greeted with a "yeah, right... get real" kind of reply. Of course, not 30 minutes later, I'm a regular playboy that can ask any girl out and aks every chick their cup size and - what's even weirder - age and get a reply. With no magic involved, but just because the game wanted it that way.

The writing is so terrible that it walks this fine line between so bad I want to quit and so bad it's funny. Luckily, the Voice Acting is even worse, which pushes the whole thing to the definitely funny zone. The uninspired one-liners of stereotypical teachers, schoolgirls and gym bunnies are met with performances so dull that Siri sounds like a sex line operator in comparison. 

Yet... the game is actually the best dating sim I've ever played. Before you ask the girls on dates, you get to ask the girls questions and buy them presents. At first it feels like mindless collectible unlocking. Soon enough though, between some relationship questions where you need to simply tell the girl what she wants to hear, she will check whether you've been paying attention and ask you what her weight or favourite color is. But that's just child's play. Where it gets really good is the dates themselves.

It's the first dating sim I've seen that actually uses its mechanics as a metaphor of dating instead of making me read through pages of dialogue and descriptions to chose an option every 15 minutes. Instead, it's a logical match 3 type of game. A surprisingly deep one with a decent amount of strategy in it. Additionally, every color you're matching corresponds with an emotion or a conversational topic. Every girl prefers certain topics, so you have to navigate through the board to focus on sexuality or flirtation, but it's not always possible, when all that's on the table is talent and romance. Every now and then you accidentally trigger a bad topic and the whole carefully built up mood goes to shit. And sometimes, when you are out of your game and the colors just don't seem to match, the date ends without really moving the relationship forward, leaving you both in that "meh" zone. 

That's a pretty damn accurate mechanic to mimic the intricacy of dating. But wait, it gets better! When you finally manage to get into a girl's pants, the rules of the match 3 change. The board is now filled with easy matches. You're both in the mood. All you need to do is not to fuck it up now. You need to fill the rapidly depleting mood bar. At first, used to thinking things through, you're searching for good, strategic matches. You get some points, then a combo comes crashing down. You're already doing great. The bra is gone, but you have to act quick before the mood drops. You start getting a bit nervous. You just match whatever you find first. You're getting sloppy. You know you could probably be doing so much better, yet you keep plowing through and even though sometimes you ruin the mood a bit with your tempo, you finally get there, feeling like you've actually accomplished something. However silly that sounds. 

I don't know about you guys, but I'd take this kind of experience over an overly long sexual act description. And while it might all sound really silly and while Hunie Pop might have an awfully candyish, dumb, primitive, sometimes straightforward racist and stereotypical skin, its gameplay is solid and an incredible example of using just the right mechanics to let the player experience the complexity of the dating game. In that regard, Hunie Pop is a game that beats all entries of The Witcher, Mass Effect and Persona series all together.

Fallout Shelter vs. SJW

Let me tell you the story of my Vault 666. Room and resources were scarce. Everyone had to contribute. The expansion went fairly quick until we've hit the population of 14 or so. At this point, new dwellers did not appear and the growing production rooms needed manpower. In one of the lunchboxes my dwellers found a Medieval Ruler Outfit, adding to charisma among other stats. Quick check what charisma is for later, I've selected a man with the most charisma, added the Ruler outfit and that's how King Woland was born. His role - staying in the living quarters and impregnating all the women in my vault. This was the fastest and most efficient way, as everyone else needed to help with the respource production. Once all the ladies showed significant signs of pregnancy, King Woland, having the highest stats, went out to the wasteland, to find more weapons and outfits. In the meantime, it turned out that in case of any disaster, like fire or a raid, my pregnant dwellers run for their lives, leaving men to deal with the problem. This quickly taught me to give all the weapons I found to men, tasking them with defence. We are facing extinction - there's no point in arguing. Men get to defend the next generation with guns. Women with not endangering the fetus. Hard to imagine it the other way round.

A week later my Vault already has 120+ dwellers. Population is not an issue, I have more people than I need anyway. I keep training the dwellers to maximize production and caps income. Breeding is not necessary, since I have a fully upgraded radio station with six gorgeous girls in lingerie with their charisma maxed out. There's no reason not to give women weapons or education now. Some of them are as highly trained as men, some even explore the wasteland. Life is good. 

Now let's imagine Bethesda wanting to suck up to Social Justice Warriors while designing the game. After reaching the 14 dwellers point I would probably find out that half of the population is homosexual. Keeping track of everyone's sexual preferences would be extremely annoying gameplaywise, but I would probably finally manage to get one or two women pregnant, after hour-long minigames that show how respectful the men are towards these women. In a few days, I'd crawl my way up to the 20 dwellers treshold to unlock the radio and right after that a Wasteland Adoption Agency to let all the gay couples in my vault have a baby. In the meantime, the only women that were willing to get pregnant a couple times with different partners would be slut-shamed into leaving the vault and pretty quickly the Wasteland League for Equality would enforce parity that would make me unable to accept any straight white males into the vault. Within a week my shelter would be abandoned by its Overseer, who got tired of micromanaging and women screaming "rape" each time the poor raiders just want to steal some water. All those poor dwellers would die, equally irradiated, starved or slain.

What a terrible game that would be! Not because there would be homosexuals in it. Because gameplaywise it would be tedious and most of all, it would be unfitting for the world of Fallout. I am extremely glad that Bethesda did not give in to the pressures of seasonal feminists and other groups that aggressively refuse to think outside their narrow agenda. Fallout Shelter's gameplay quite realistically shows how a vault dwelling society in nuked 50's USA would get organized. I'm actually quite surprised that there was no shitstorm here like with Kingdom Come: Deliverance for example. Maybe the internet finally got tired of trolls? Maybe we're finally growing up and people are starting to use their heads for something else than angrybanging their keyboards? Here's hoping we are finally starting to let people make games about fun again, not enforcing social concepts.

Quickie #3: Attacks on PSN, Battle.net and others

My first thought when I heard that was "okay, but why do that?" Then, of course, my thoughts kept wandering. It didn't really make me all that angry or scared. If it's "just" DDoS, then my credit card info should be safe as far as I know and yes, it does suck that I can't purchase and download a new game online, but... But I immediately thought that it is just an opportunity to catch up with the dozens of games that I've already installed or have in boxes or clutter my Steam Library. Seriously, I could probably live and play happily for a year or two without really missing the online services.

But... That's just an approach of a guy who grew up without internet. For all the players that base their entertainment on online rivalry or developing their artificial life in WoW, attacks on such services are like a kick between their legs. Imagine what would happen if all these online junkies wouldn't get their fix for a month. Would gaming really have nothing to offer them? All these kids writing "multiplayer or gtfo" under every gameplay trailer would actually have to gtfo and play some football or chess or something.

The image barely makes sense here, but I couldn't resist anyway.

I am far from justifying or giving meaning to what was most probably just an act of a group of extremely bored teenagers, but if there actually was a message behind this, what would it be? For me it would be something like this: "Play a game for the story once in a while. Instead of running, shooting and shouting in CoD, check out what happened in Dubai in Spec Ops: The Line. Instead of cheesing through a choke in Starcraft, check out how Kerrigan became what she became. Instead of spending 10 hours a day in WoW, well... Play just any other game that came out in the last 10 years."

Quickie #2: PlayStation Plus

I often hear players, especially the young ones, complaining how expensive games are. And ten years ago, it would have been completely true, but nowadays, with Steam sales, humble bundles, Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus, games have become incredibly accessible for any kid with an allowance of $5 to $10 a month. What I will present below is not aimed at advertising the PS+ service. I am sure Xbox Live Gold is offering similar benefits, but since I don't have it, I won't be writing about it. PC gamers have lots of obvious ways to save cash on games too. Just treat it like... A nerdy noob playing with a spreadsheet :)

Yesterday I turned my PS3 on and remembered that a new month has started, so most probably I will get some new games. For some reason, this month I wasn't searching the web for this info and I got surprised. After last month's Borderlands 2 + DMC, this month I received Metro: Last Light and Bioshock Infinite.

I started doing the math (I like math - shoot me), I even prepared a whole spreadsheet (bring a shotgun) and what came out, pleased me greatly. I have bought the 1-year membership somewhere around August or September. It hasn't even been half a year. It costs $50 in the US, in Poland it is actually a bit more expensive, somewhere around $62.

During that time I have received over 30 games. I even checked the prices (as of 2. February 2014) and here's the exact list with total values:

for PSP:

GTA Liberty City Stories

total value: 59 PLN (~19 USD), average metascore: 88

for Vita:

ModNation Racers: Road Trip, Dynasty Warriors Next, Soul Sacrifice, BLAZBLUE Continuum Shift Extend, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD, MotorStorm RC, Gravity Rush, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Touch My Katamari, Street Fighter X Tekken, 

total value: 1083 PLN (~344 USD), average metascore: 76,9

for PS3:

BioShock Infinite, Metro: Last Light, DMC Devil May Cry, Borderlands 2, Grid 2, Remember Me, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Jak II: Renegade, Jak 3, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Mafia II, Spec Ops: The Line, Far Cry 3, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, LittleBigPlanet Karting, Guacamelee!, Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark

total value: 2262 PLN (~718 USD), average metascore: 81

for PS4:

Don't Starve: Console Edition, Contrast, Resogun.

total value: 167 PLN (~53 USD), average metascore: 73,3

Now this means that for the 195 PLN (62 USD) I have spent on the 1-year membership, in less than half a year I got a total of 3571 PLN (1133 USD) in games with average metascore of 79,6. And I'm counting in current values. A number of these games had to be more expensive a few months ago when I got them. 

Now let's analyze it further. My PS3 with 2 gamepads, PS Eye and two Move wands cost me 1300 PLN (412 USD), I bought a PSP for 300 PLN (95 USD) and the 1-year membership for 195 PLN (62 USD). Total cost of 1795 PLN (569 USD) The games I got for these platforms only are worth more than I spent on the hardware. The PlayStation Plus paid me back for the whole investment in the hardware. 

If I wanted to buy a Vita to play all these games I've accumulated, I would need to pay 600 PLN (180 USD), which would still be less than the value of the games I already have for this platform. And it's just been half of the subscription time. By the end of this subscription period, it will save me enough money to buy a PS4... at least twice, and I will already have more or less 10 games for it.

Now I know not all these games are titles I dream of, some of them I won't even touch and yes, I did not get them in day one. Still, thanks to PS+ I have at least halved my new game purchases and I have doubled the length of my "to play" list. Also, if you are a developer, you need to play lots of various games, even those you wouldn't normally buy. And if you are a gamer complaining that games are expensive, I think this is still a quite solid advice how you can make your gaming experience more affordable. 

Game of the year: Journey

After long talks within the one-man-jury, the verdict is in! It was a close call between some of the titles, but then I though there should be some deciding factor that can let me choose this one and only. I decided that this factor should be the story and how it's delivered. The factor of narrative, what combines writing, gameplay, level design, music and all other elements of the game and how well they go together.

I believe really strongly that storytelling in games should be treated differently than in movies (as I already hinted in my narrative-related post). Therefore The last of us, even though it delivered an incredibly well-written, mature story, still would have been just as good as a long movie. Gameplay elements there are mostly to let the player shoot or punch something once in a while.

And the complete opposite of that would be Journey. Only one relevant word used during the entire game (not counting the completely unnecessary control hints) - the title. Whole story told with gameplay. And what a deep gameplay it is, using only the left stick and two buttons while giving a complete experience that lacks absolutely nothing. Everything that happens is beautifully intuitive. Whether you are walking, running, crawling, gliding, jumping or flying, you immediately feel like you were just born with the knowledge how to do that. Journey truly is a piece of art that you would not be able to channel through any other currently available medium.

It is impressive, how much has been packed into this short game. The whole experience lasts at most two hours and tells a deep tale of destiny, solitude, companionship, achieving goals, joy, friendship, cooperation, sorrow, mystery and reward. However, depending on you as a player and the variety of possible interpretations and experiences that can be linked to the story, the game can be singing a tale of many other things, like reaching for the stars, love, redemption, purification, sharing knowledge, communication and many, many more. It is simple, yet universal. Ascetic, yet broad. Truly incredible. If you are not afraid of spoilers, check out the http://journeystories.tumblr.com to see what a vast range of experiences people have while going through this linear game.

The whole game wouldn't be complete without the revolutionary art direction. The year was 2012. Eye-candies like Final Fantasy XIII-2, Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition or Max Payne 3 were released with their thousands of polygons and megapixels of textures, yet... None of them had visuals that would be worthy of cleaning the desert dust off the Journey's main character's pointy legs. Rarely can you encounter in the gaming world art direction so perfectly consistent. Seemingly empty, one-colored spaces all perfectly serve their purpose. The main character has no face and no name. A perfect vessel to carry any player's soul in this beautiful adventure. 

Another incredible element of the game is its online co-op feature. In the course of the game you are able to encounter other players, all on their own journey. This is the crucial part. No matter who you encounter. Whether it will be a White Cape that will lead you or a guy you drag along or some independent dude that just goes wherever he pleases and disappears as suddenly as he appeared... You never have any doubt it is indeed your journey. And what's best, everyone you encounter, has the exact same feeling about their journey. Not to mention the fact that the only way you can communicate is by running, jumping and chirping a single sound. Again, not a single word is involved. You would be amazed how unnecessary the words in Journey are, even in communication with others. And after you meet a White Cape that shows you all the secrets of the game, you get this urge to get that cape too and help others get it. 

To put a cherry on top of this, I made an experiment. I have played the entire game in front of my father. He's in his 50's, has never played a game in his whole life. Never watched any game for more than 10 minutes. I even doubt he's ever watched a full football match. He sat through the whole thing. He understood the mechanics, the story and after more or less 20 years of telling me games are a waste of time, he agreed, that games can be a work of art. 

If you haven't been on your own Journey yet, go. If your excuse is that you don't have a PS3, buy one. I'll be waiting in the deserts in my sexy White Cloak :)

Game of the year

Hello everyone! The year's slowly ending. Everyone around me is slowly summing up their successes and failures. Half a month from now we will all have new year resolutions that will mostly last less than a week. Ahhh, the end of the year atmosphere was alrady surrounding me so snugly, when I got a spam e-mail from Gamespot.

Gamespot was announcing their game of the year nominees. Click on the link, don't be shy. I personally loved it. Why? It just represented so much good in the gaming community. Professional studio and a reveal formula that brought to mind sport studios in the half-time breaks during football games (to the american readers: deal with it - in football, you use feet, not hands to move the ball around - foot + ball - can't get any clearer than that ^^). Five guys sitting at a table. Each of them knowing at least a bit about the games they were discussing. Each of them cleverly stimulating the conversation to be as interesting as possible. Each of them showing a lot of wit, creativity and self-aware hypocrisy. Each of them talking about games. Not sports. And none of them coming across ass awkward nerds with social skills of a retarded stone. And on top of that, a very cute girl that was in charge of tweet management that was bringing more wit and humor to the table instead of boobs.

This video showed a level of maturity mixed with joy I would love to see more in the community. Sadly, as soon as Mary started reading the tweets from watchers, the level of maturity dropped on its face into a sea of emotional preferences. Shows how much work there's still ahead of us before we can really show games are not just for kids, but hey - at least we're slowly getting there. Good job, Gamespot guys!

Games Making Noob's GOTY

All of this made me want to make one of my own, too! And since it is my own, I can also apply any rules I want. So here it comes. Games eligible for the GMN GOTY award are games that I have played in 2013 for the first time. So even though I spent dozens of hours replaying old Final Fantasy titles on my PSP, these games don't count, I have played them earlier. I don't care if the games were released in 2013 or 1983. If I just discovered them, they are new to me and my experience with them came from last year. You, as a reader, can of course vote for any of the nominees in the rarely used comment box below. Obviously, your voice won't count in the verdict, because it's my GOTY not yours, but it will sure be fun to see what you guys think of the games I'll pick. Maybe I'll make a "GMN readers pick" award?

What's the award? Eternal glory on the virtual pages of my blog. Oh, and I'll send a congratulations card to the studio that released the game. And I'll probably write a lot more about the game in the post that reveals the winner. And... That's it. What more recognition could the winners want? Lol.

Games eligible for the title are 

on PC:

Dear Esther, Evoland, Portal 1 and 2, Recettear, The Walking Dead, Thomas was Alone.

on Android:

Plants vs. Zombies 2, Tower Defense, World of Goo.

on PS3:

Alien Rage, Catherine, Demon's Souls, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dragon's Dogma, Far Cry 3, flOw, Flower, Guacamelee!, ICO, Journey, Little Big Planet Karting, Lollipop Chainsaw, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Remember Me, The Last of US, Tomb Raider, Uncharted 3, XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Games that just missed the time window by a month or two include Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock 1 and 2 and Dark Souls, which is paradoxically fortunate - those would make the choice of the one best game so much harder!

And here come the ten nominees!

Catherine

Even though I didn't completely love the story and the immature, bipolar approach to a complicated adult topic, I still can't deny that Catherine's gameplay is extremely fun and well-designed. Not to mention an impressive difficulty level that's design-based, not just achieved with modifiers to parameters. 

Demon's Souls

Another demanding game I have spent well over 100 hours with before I finally got the platinum trophy (mostly because I have erased my save data halfway through the second playthrough). Why did I platinum it? Out of respect for the team who made it. It's a game that my girl hated so much she bought me awesome headphones just not to hear the game anymore :)

ICO

Another game I have already written about. Beautiful story told with minimum words. Intelligent, rewarding puzzles, the feeling of responsibility as you hold Yorda's hand to get her to safety. One of these experiences that simply enriches our lives. 

Journey

Another beautiful story. This time told with no words whatsoever. One of the pearls of video game writing combined with a bold, consistent art direction. By far the best online co-op experience I've ever had. Just an hour and a half long, linear game that touches your heart every single time you play it.

Little Big Planet Karting

One of extremely few games that I could actually play together with my girl on PS3. Delightfully fun and random. After a few races you even stop caring whether you are winning or loosing. All that really counts is getting new clothes, new carts and whacking the opponents with whatever you find on the track.

Lollipop Chainsaw

Another game that exists purely for fun. Sets your expectations really low just to prove how much more it is. The game is fun from start to the end, with great pacing and variety of gameplay mechanics that don't overwhelm, but are just enough to keep you experiencing a new thing every half an hour. A game you buy for boobs and you end up with a whole lovely package. 

Portal

I know Portal 2 is probably better in every possible aspect, having more assets, more variety, more characters, more clever dialogues, better pacing and in general much higher production values... But there's just something cute about a game that has been built from Half-Life leftovers, crude and simplistic, but not really lacking anything. And the ending - definitely the best ending credits I have ever seen. 

The Last of Us

Speaking of production values, they do not get any higher than in this game. Right at the end of PS3's life cycle, Naughty Dog shows everyone, how much could developers actually squeeze out of a 6-years old console, but never actually did. Interesting and coherent world, believable characters, well-crafted story. Even though I didn't like the gameplay one bit, I still can't deny this production a very high score.

Thomas was alone

I was having hard time deciding which of the PC games to nominate and I decided to just go with the ones with best storytelling and... Yeah, Thomas was alone (in my opinion) wins with The Walking Dead and Dear Esther in this category. The world of this game just couldn't get any more simple, yet still Mike Bithell managed to deliver a very deep gameplay and narrative through it. 

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Nostalgic journey back to the days of my youth that not even the crappy localization could keep me from playing. I would call it a very good port to the modern gaming standards that still manages to keep the game challenging (or even crazy hard if you choose ironman mode). So what the assets mostly look like crap. Games are meant to be played, not looked at :)

Make sure to vote on the games of your choice. The official winner of GMN GOTY award will be announced in a few days. Or in a week. Or whenever the hell I decide which game deserves it most. 

Announcement / Ogłoszenie : Extra Credits

Hey there everyone!

Most of you probably know the popular game-related series, Extra Credits. Me and my friend Stilghar decided it's a shame that the show is only available to the english-speaking audience and we should make it more available for polish people.

Extra Credits do a great job helping people understand video games. We are aware that a lot of people don't know english well enough to be able to follow Daniel on steroids ;) Young adults mostly have no problems with the language. However, we think it's teenagers and their parents that would benefit a lot from having someone explain to them the basics of game design and present games not as a cheap entertainment, but a new exciting medium to tell us new and immersive stories.

First episode has already been translated. Thanks to Soraya for a great contact. Thanks to James and Dan iel for creating the series. Thanks to all the great artists who contributed to the fun videos.

We will be adding more episodes as soon as we manage to translate them - most probably not in chronological order. 

Cześć wszystkim!

Istnieje sobie taka fajna seria filmików o świecie gier wideo - Extra Credits. Ja i mój kumpel Stilghar stwierdziliśmy niedawno, że to przykre, że są one dostępne tylko dla osób władających językiem angielskim i że powinniśmy udostępnić tę serię Polakom.

Extra Credits świetnie pomaga zrozumieć gry. Lektor, Daniel, mówi w tych filmikach bardzo szybko i wiele osób nie ma wystarczającego skilla, żeby za nim nadążyć po angielsku (nam też ciężko było wcisnąć tyle treści w napisy tak, żeby były one względnie czytelne). Szczególnie nastolatkowie i ich rodzice według nas najbardziej mogą skorzystać na wiedzy, którą seria przekazuje, mogą mieć czasem barierę językową. Filmiki te uczą podstaw game designu i prezentują gry nie jako prostą rozrywkę, a raczej nowe, ekscytujące medium zdolne opowiadać wciągające historie. 

Pierwszy odcinek został już przetłumaczony - wystarczy kliknąć w filmik, żeby go obejrzeć. Dziękujemy Sorayi za świetny kontakt. Dziękujemy Jamesowi i Danielowi za stworzenie serii. Dziękujemy też wszystkim rysownikom, którzy użyczyli swoich umiejętności, żeby filmiki były jeszcze ciekawsze.

Nowe odcinki będą się ukazywać tak szybko, jak damy radę je tłumaczyć - w pierwszej kolejności wybrane epizody, nie chronologicznie. 

Miłego oglądania!

Quickie #1: Fanboys

Hello guys! For a while now I had a few topics bottled up inside, but I didn't feel they deserve a whole article. Then I realized (yeah, I know - I can be reeeeaaally fast sometimes) that not every post on a blog needs to be a full-blown article. Long story short, I'm starting a new series on the blog - Quickies!

Today's quickie came to me when I was watching the newest episodes of South Park (for the people from the future - 17th season, episodes about Xbox One and PS4 premiere). South Park has really recovered in this season, by the way. None of the episode was straightforward boring or completely forgettable, like most of the episodes from a few last series. Good job, Trey and Matt! Back to the topic though. The episodes are about children forming alliances to buy either PS4 or the new Xbox. Among a lot of dumb arguments about which console is going to be better and other arguments that are just a complete matter of preference, there was one that struck me. It was when one of the Xbox followers said:

If you buy a PS4 you will not be able to play online with us!

Frankly, I never thought about it this way. Back when I was a kid and could only afford one gaming platform, it was really cool to have something nobody else had. I remember how me and the other kids were visiting each other, because one had a NES, one had a PC, the other had a Commodore and another one an Amiga. Then, in another generation, one had a Pentium, another a N64 and some other kids had PlayStations. People played together by visiting each other. Variety of platforms meant a variety of games you could play. You having something nobody else had was a social advantage! Now, in the age of online gaming, kids grow fat on their couches, not interacting with each directly. Sure online multiplayer is great, but I myself miss the days of good old co-op, where we were spending whole days on 8-player battles in Heroes 3. Now it seems that the console you own determines your social circle. Kinda sucks. 

Like the heroes of South Park, the majority of kids have to choose only one gaming platform. For economic reasons mostly. Even as an adult I am reluctant to buy a new console just to play a few games that interest me and are not available on other platforms. These games - exclusives - are in my opinion the very core of the fanboy phenomenon. I mean - most of the platforms are similarly attractive. Arguing which one of the two most popular controllers is better when the biggest difference is where the D-pad is? Seriously, guys - go find yourselves a real problem instead of running around in a wizard hat, forming childish alliances. The only actual difference between platforms are the exclusives. The exclusives from the other gaming platform are something that all the fanboys secretly crave. It is what they are jealous of. It's what makes all the hate boil. If you are a PC gamer and can't play The Last of Us or Gears of War, so you will loudly glorify Starcraft 2 on your way to BlizzCon. Most PS gamers loathe not being able to play Halo, so they boast about the God of War. X-boxers would die to go on a Journey or to play Demon's Souls, but instead they embrace Fable.  And Nintendo fans... Well, they've just been playing Mario and Zelda over and over for the last 30 years :P 

Acting like a fanboy is simply a way of overcompensating for the games you can't play. If you think about it, being a fanboy is psychologically identical to a small wiener syndrome - overcompensating for something you don't have. 

How did games distort your reality?

Hey guys! During my last vacation I visited some old castles. After one little event, I suddenly did the House M.D. thing - you know, when he shuts up and walks out of the room, because he just had this brilliant idea that has a high chance of killing the patient. I took a little look back at my previous vacation and some other actions I took, and came to a conclusion that... games majorly distorted my reality. 

Exhibit A: The Triforce

The picture below was taken on Gran Canaria, near to some cathedral or botanical garden, in a pretty little town that would make everyone wanna take a slow, quiet stroll, taking in everything around. This noob just looked down and instinctively started to looking for his ocarina to play the Song of Time. Needless to say, it's the only picture I took in that town. 

Exhibit B: GPS walking

The picture below is not mine, but it's pretty damn accurate. I sometimes get directions from my phone, but even if the target is just a few meters away, I keep the navigation on. Why? Because it is fun to see your progress tracked by an electronic device. Because it is just like a minimap in a game, showing you your position, your way, your quest's destination, points of interest - it only lacks NPC's and mob locations.

Exhibit C: My staircase.

Back to the real pictures - it's my actual staircase. As you can see, I live on the top floor of a block without a lift. It's a nice exercise most of the time, but getting home from the saturday's grocery shopping (30-40 kilograms in total) can be a bitch. At some point I counted that there are 8 stair segments and one final section between the top of the stairs and my door. Nine in total. Fifteen seconds later, it ceased to be nine elements. A progress bar appeared, and clearing every segment was getting the progress bar up by 11% - arriving at the door became 99%, turning the key a rewarding 100%. This might sound really fucked up, but it actually made the shopping bags lighter - I knew the progress, the remaining distance. For the last years, I do this progress bar thingy every time I climb the stairs with something heavy.

Exhibit D: The grassland

This was a more one-time thing. After playing Skyrim for a few hours, I got out on a walk and first thing I wanted to do is clicking on the purple flowers in the grass to collect them. Picture from google maps, but showing the spot.

Exhibit E: The stepping stone

Finally, the thing that I mentioned in the beginning. When walking around one of the castle ruins, me and my girl came across a square block sticking out of the floor. Took less than a second to think "if we step on it, a door will open". So we did and even though the block didn't move, there was actually a sound of something happening somewhere. We knew it was a coincidence - some kid probably dropped his wooden sword on the floor. We still looked at each other, smiled and started searching. Didn't find anything, so we came back to the block, continuing the fun. We knew that in games with 2 characters sometimes one has to stand on the block while the other goes through the hidden door and pulls a lever. She stepped on the block, no sound this time. "It must be broken" we stated and went to search for another adventure.

Should we start taking meds?

A game nerd probably loled at most of these examples. A person who doesn't play games probably thinks I'm mentally sick. Hell - even if I am, at least I'm having fun. I am also aware how heavily this post approaches the topic of gamification. Maybe I'll write a separate article on it at some point, but for now, dear reader, I just want to ask you a question: how did games distort your reality and how do you like it?