Featured Discussion: Gaming Awakening

Featured Discussion: Gaming Awakening

In some ways I feel a little bit like Rip Van Winkle or Han Solo after being released from his Carbonite chamber.  In college I was an avid video gamer, and even though I mostly owned Nintendo consoles and Macintosh computers, I managed to stay fairly current with a lot of the games and gaming trends.  After graduating, moving to Minnesota, and starting my career as a teacher, I found that video games took a back seat to lots of other things.  My job kept me so busy that when I had time to play video games, I rarely did as I didn't really find them to be relaxing or even enjoyable (levels I could not beat only frustrated me, since I didn't have much time to devote to a game in the first place).  We did get a Wii, though, and I did enjoy playing (dare I say it?) casual games with my wife and our friends, but it was never the same as the late nights spent playing Halo or Resident Evil in college.  And to be honest, I just didn't play video games all that much.


A month ago, everything changed.

Being out of the teaching profession (for now) with a regular 8-to-5 job, and having a nice living room in our own house, I thought it would be good to get back into the video game scene a bit.  And so I recently purchased an Xbox 360 and after borrowing several games from Phil and other people, have begun catching up on the last four years of video games.  In a way it's actually cooler like this, because all the great games are not only cheap (I bought Gears of War for $10 used at Gamestop) but a lot of people I know are already well versed in various games and are willing to provide help, or just good conversation about them.

But along with my personal video game renaissance, I'm also experiencing, for the very first time, what it's like to be an online gamer.  I've dabbled in a few online games before (most notably the absolutely terrible MMORPG Hyperiums, but for Christmas my wife's parents got me a subscription to Xbox Live...and wow.  In just over one week my entire conception of what online games are, or can be, has entirely changed.  Like a kid in a candy store, I have been trying to sample as much of various online games, so I haven't exactly gone in-depth with any of them.  But after several matches of Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, 1 vs. 100, as well as the other online offerings that Life has, I can say at the least that I will be renewing my Xbox Live subscription next year.  And at most, I'd even wager a bet that Xbox Live is the future of online entertainment.

A bold claim, perhaps, but hear me out.  And allow me to use 1 vs. 100 as an example of what I mean.  To wit: I am not much of an RPG gamer, and certainly have not the time or willpower to become invested in a game like World of Warcraft.  Part of my hesitancy to jump in to those types of MMORPGs is, to be honest, the intimidation factor:  pit me against millions of seasons veterans, and I'm going to feel like there's no way I can gain a foothold in the game.  But 1 vs. 100 eschews the entire concept of what an MMORPG can be, although I suppose it's not technically an RPG, but more of just a, well, a G.

However, this past week my wife and I have had a great time playing several rounds of 1 vs. 100.  Even though we are entirely new to the game, we immediately felt like we were making solid progress.  The half-hour time investment is easy, the questions are balanced enough that we never go more than a handful of rounds without knowing at least knowing one or two answers.  And it's the kind of game that we could easily play with others in our living room, with everyone chipping in to answer questions.  Far from a game like Scene It? or Buzz!, one of the most exciting parts of 1 vs. 100 is that we are playing against other people.  When we get a question right that the Mob mostly gets wrong, we feel a sense of satisfaction.  And when we are beat by other players, we don't blame the computer in a fit of frustration--instead, we feel like we were bested by people who were simply more knowledgeable than us.

In short, the online game 1 vs. 100 has captivated us (both casual gamers) in a way that no other online game has.  But even more than just my wife and I playing, I have had a few matches during which I was using the Xbox headset to chat with friends.  It was almost as if we were all in the same living room, and the idea that we were all playing individually but with each other was far more compelling than any other online gaming experience I have ever had.

It's this type of online gaming experience that will serve to introduce more people to video games in general, and online games specifically.  To be sure, there will always be an ever-growing market for online games like Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, and the like.  But while Nintendo continues to flap its corporate gums about casual gaming and paying lip service to the concept of online gaming, while growing ever more stagnant and lifeless as a company, and Sony struggles to bring its online offering to the point where Xbox Live was four years ago, Microsoft has quietly begun winning the battle of the Living Room.  Or perhaps they have already won.

-Simon