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Loving, Hating Videogames
Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Videogames, I mean.
In 2005, while I was writing my book Unspeak, I gave them up completely. I couldn’t afford the hours; I couldn’t afford the highly specialized and ultimately useless cognitive investment. But then, after nearly a year, when it came time to deliver the final manuscript and buy myself a little completion present, it was Sony’s little slab of black magic that whispered to me. Maybe, the PSP murmured, some ultimately useless cognitive investment is just what the doctor ordered when your brain is still spinning from having finished a book. You can’t just turn your brain off. It has to wind down at its own speed. Why not distract it in the meantime with some supernaturally sharp antigravity racing that fits in the palm of your hand?
Well, I was like a former junkie who thinks he can still shoot up once in a while. The odd half hour of comedown Wipeout Pure or Ridge Racer while sprawled on the sofa turned into rapturous megasessions of Metal Gear Acid and Exit, and then, with a DS Lite, Animal Crossing and Phoenix Wright, which my girlfriend could play in French at the same time.
But I resisted buying a new box to put under my TV. Partly this was because for a long time there was nothing on the 360 or PS3 that struck me as new. (I loved playing Wii Tennis at a friend’s house, but it was impossible to install in my compact and bijou Paris apartment if I wasn’t ready to smash everything in it to bits.) And anyway, handheld gaming just seemed to fit into my life better. To get me to spend tens of hours in front of the TV, a videogame is going to have to be as compelling as The Wire or Six Feet Under.
Most refreshingly, since I no longer wrote about videogames for money, I didn’t have to cultivate a professional interest in every type of game. This is an occupational hazard – or, as the French put it more bluntly, a “deformation professionelle” – for games writers. Since our medium has been attacked and rubbished from its inception, dismissed as childish, mindless or morally harmful, it is sometimes tempting to over defend it as a whole, to claim that all games are fascinating and artistic, etc. As an ordinary games consumer, I happily relaxed into a new attitude. There are loads of terrible games. There are also loads of games that, though they might be excellent examples of their genre, I am never going to touch, because I find the genre inherently tedious.
I’m faintly intrigued by how World of WarCraft has become so huge, for example, and turned so many people who don’t ordinarily play videogames into glassy-eyed obsessives, but I’m not going to waste hours of my own life elfing around inside it in order to understand it better. The wonderful recent Onion story on World of World of WarCraft, a new game in which you roleplay the character of a guy who lives in a basement and plays WoW, about sums it up for me.
alright, mebbe i shud vent my frustration at these times on walls instead. But it is a crap article isn't it? Rlly. Look at it. And Walls ice cream is going down hill too
On the subject of usefulness your comments certainly don't warrant even the smallest entry. While I agree that first person shooters have had everything but depth and value these days, I certainly wouldn't call Mr. Poole's writing "disjointed," unlike the bile you spew. If you have nothing to say, don't talk.
@ littlewilly91
As much as I felt entertained by your bilious words, just want to remind you that Mr Poole loves videogames - at least he loved them when he wrote one fo the most entertaining books on the topic - and this "love-hate" relationship brought some great columns to the table back in the day. (And yes I loved Mr Biffo's "pretentious ramblings" too.)
Mr Miles, did you not "wank" your Wii hard enough today? You seem to have a lot of pent up ... Wii tension left in you!
Try not to post when in that state, please! ;-)
Angry reader William Miles hates this article. But none of the others.
I'd never read a bad article in my edge magazine, until i read his. I gave it a chance despite my first impressions. It started with the the unoriginal and stupid tagline of ignorant murdering arseholes who think they are great everywhere- "shoot first, ask questions later". he doesn't offset it with anyhthing. That's just it. That's just dumb- Reading the distinctly average introduction where he tells us about his boring "relationship" with videogames didn't put the bad omens to rest. After wordcount assisting description of this thrilling relationship he tells us that he couldn't get a wii for a long time because he couldn't fit it in his small flat. apparently he would have broken everything by waving the wiimote around. but most Wii games can be played fine from the sofa. so that's a lie of a reason not to own a wii. And you still haven't written anything interesting...
so it continues. The sort of pre-emptive, basic feelings and concepts described at the start of other articles go on right to the end. It's just vague smug nothingness! He says nothing of any interest at great and tedious length. And he seems to think it's all a glorious revelation! - "Do many people like all genres of film, or all genres of music? It’s very rare." mmmm yes and so is anything of any importance to a gamer on this page!
He spends most of his time telling us that video games have different genres just like other mediums, and that people aren't going to like every genre. Come on now. That's a bollocks piece of subject matter. I'd be happy to hear why any one thinks otherwise. Really i would. But no matter how i look at it i can't see anything attall helpful in this article. His "hating video games" theme also boils down to absolutely nothing. it seems like he knows next to nothing about video games and is simply trying to voice his complaints toward the guardian. I mean has anyone at EDGE read this? What happened to quality control? Hurry up and fire this vomit inducing -insert derogatory swearword here- and hire Charlie Brooker! Now there's a man who's inspiring! Or anyone else! I don't care. Plz get rid of him! He's crap
There is a line i like though- "I hate a lot of videogames: they can be soul-destroying, artistically null, atrociously written exercises in mechanized futility". PHWOAR! That's nice writing. Indeed, It feels good to know these criticisms even exist after playing hideously dull and derivative FPSes. It can feel like the world is descending into soulless capitalistic brainless mechanized futility after playing those games.
So congratulations on that Steve, but the rest of the paragraph is so disjointed and dumb that on the whole it reinforces this feeling.
"and that’s part of what I intend to spend future columns exploring"
Does that mean we'll see brand new "Trigger-happy" EDGE columns in the future? /wink, wink