There's a new craze that has stormed and is reforming gaming; online games. And I don't mean playing Bejeweled on Shockwave. There has been online network gaming for a long time. Some may argue this point, but I believe that Blizzard Entertainment redefined online gaming with World of Warcraft. It is a fee based MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) with over 11 million subscribers world wide. About the same time that WoW was rolling forth , a Korean company called Wizet came out with a free to play MMO called Maplestory. The company makes money selling ingame enhancements to players. We first learned of Maplestory from cousins over a Christmas break. Since then, it's become a central gaming focus in our family.
The game is enjoyable to play by itself but there is a lot of interaction between the players and that increases the fun. You can create and/or join a guild and then do quests together in a party. This combination of different character abilities is the closest thing Maplestory has to the RPG genere. But even played as a single character the storyline is engaging and the company constantly adds new content. Certainly like true RPGs, the joy from gaming comes as much from conquering parts of the game as it does from doing it with friends.
Our current guild is TimeLords. Look for us.
Anyhow, I was really upset when Sony and Microsoft announced that they were not making their new systems backward compatible. I can understand how with major upgrades in technologies, the companies producing those new technologies want everyone to make the switch and make them richer. I don't begrudge them making a profit, but I'm not going to go out and buy a whole new system every other year or even every other, other year.
As a kid, our mom wouldn't buy us a home console. We had a computer (Vic 20, Comodore 64) if you could call that a computer. The only Atari or Nintendo exposure I got was from going to friends' houses. She told us that we spent too much time in front of the tv as it was. And, well...she was right. I would've been content to sit for hours platforming with Mario or battling evil with Link.
Like most men my age, I grew up reading comic books and playing video games. Although, when I was little we had a Commodore64 and before that a VIC20 with a cassette deck. That should tell you about how old I am. My brother and I would play the super old two-dimensional games that loaded from a 5 ¾ in. big floppy disk inside the disk drive that was the only thing that could resemble a hard drive then.
As a boy, I loved to spend my paper route money on soda, candy bars, comic books, and arcade games. I still love to spend money on those things. However, the amount I spend in those areas is next to nothing now. When you grow up, you just don’t have the time to spend two or three hours plugging quarters into the latest game at the 7-11 while you sip on your 44oz. Thirstbuster and munch a giant-sized Snickers bar. Oh, those were the days: days of acne and embarrassment of your changing body; days of uncertainty about the opposite sex and trying to be cool. Thank goodness they are over! And thank goodness arcade games have upgraded from the likes of Pac Man and Spy Hunter.
I used to play arcade games when we lived near a nicklecade. They just don't have the draw anymore, now that Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony continuously update their platforms. I used to love to play Soul Caliber; a one on one battle where hits scored lowers the enemies power bar and ultimately defeats them. It’s an upgrade from Soul Edge. The 3D graphics and animations are stunning. I love the changing angle of the screen shots and the maneuverability of the characters.
I like role-playing computer games and the new RPGs are advancing the structure of gaming every day it seems. There are lots of massive online games right now. I think that trend will continue. One interesting thought was brought up during the development of the the Matrix online game. If the theory behind the Matrix was that all the humans were caught in the Matrix and being controlled by it virtually (ie. your whole world and everything you know is virtual), and they create an online game where people interact with others virtually in an ever expanding world with a never ending story, then isn't that the same thing as the Matrix?
My two favorite gaming sets are WarCraft and StarCraft. They are both made by Blizzard and very similar. One is medieval and the other futuristic. You build structures and units and then go destroy your enemy. I like them because of the strategy involved. You must decide how to use the limited resources you have, where to explore, if and when to expand to another location, how many forces to commit, and what kind of defenses to build (your computer or human opponents are not passive). And there’s a story line. There is a reason for each of your campaigns. It’s not senseless violence.
I don’t like the Mortal Kombat games. The arcade set up is too confusing and that’s led me to not be interested in the PC game. I don’t enjoy the shooting games. Too much gore. I play games to relax, not to make myself sick.
