The game hits shelves all across the country and eventually the world, all of the data which the visionary and his coworkers worked so hard to create tossed onto one inconsequential little Compact Disc and wrapped up in a snap-open plastic package with the title and branding on the front. There’s a silly little blurb on the back for good measure, based on the sadly-correct notion that the average American’s mind can be made up based on a few sentences on the back of a jewel case. Gamers line up to get their hands on the newest of releases, most of them nearing bioluminescence from lack of exposure to the sun. They rush home and the CD makes a clatter as they drop it into their computers—some people insist on calling them “rigs”—and begins to spin as a small laser reads compressed data off of the shiny side of it. The reader sends the data through over to the Central Processing Unit, which allocates the computer’s resources appropriately to the execution of the data. The video card is fired up and image data is sent through some kind of cable to a monitor, which displays the data as a picture splayed over a few million points of light. Photons fly out of the screen and into the eyes of the waiting gamer.
All this happens so you and your neighbors can protect a broken-down house from Nazis—who are also zombies, in case you didn’t notice—using period weapons, all in glorious, gleaming High Definition. The gaming business, by nature of what it creates, is a weird place. In a diverse field of war retellings, incredibly in-depth sports simulations, and the stories of myriad heroes on the path to redemption, fame, or what-have-you, what I can’t explain is that the most popular product ever released by the industry is one in which you, the consumer, and up to three of your friends can pretend to go bowling. Just below that is a game that lets you live through the two-dimensional eyes of a plumber, continually journeying to the castle of a giant turtle to save a princess, only to discover again and again that she is, in fact, in another castle.
All this happens so you and your neighbors can protect a broken-down house from Nazis—who are also zombies, in case you didn’t notice—using period weapons, all in glorious, gleaming High Definition. The gaming business, by nature of what it creates, is a weird place. In a diverse field of war retellings, incredibly in-depth sports simulations, and the stories of myriad heroes on the path to redemption, fame, or what-have-you, what I can’t explain is that the most popular product ever released by the industry is one in which you, the consumer, and up to three of your friends can pretend to go bowling. Just below that is a game that lets you live through the two-dimensional eyes of a plumber, continually journeying to the castle of a giant turtle to save a princess, only to discover again and again that she is, in fact, in another castle.
Haha yes, peach is always in another castle...Anyways, as for the piece itself, theres a few things I would say. First, I wasn't sure what the final point of this piece was. The last paragraph is very good and seems to say what good video games can do and the power to the players (don't sue me GameStop) idea. However, the rest of the piece is more a detailed look at the production of a game and how it all happens. At the same time, there is a paragraph about how games work in a computer and the paragraph about what the writer accomplished in the game. Both of these paragraphs are very well written, it just seems as though they are all somewhat disconnected, save for the last paragraph and the second paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThe two paragraphs in the excerpt here I believe are the best of the piece, and so if this were revised, I would probably center the piece around the two paragraphs here. As someone who knows their way around computers and video games, I found myself able to picture the descriptions in the first paragraph of this excerpt and was laughing at the second paragraph. This is just an example for me of the good writing throughout the piece. With a clear sense of direction, this could really be a doozy of a short writing, though.