h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is there anyone out there who - like me - doesn't play computer games?

Before anyone gets all agitated...I don't think there's anything wrong with them. In fact this was partly inspired by an R4 programme last week which discussed them as cutting edge artistic achievement. Plus my elder son has a fairly settled ambition to study games design at the University of Abertay.

But...I don't play them. I'm sure I'm missing out. I know a lot of parents say that playing a game with their children can be a bonding experience (when my youngest talks about them I'm afraid I just glaze over). When I've tried I've been all useless with the controller - and they seem to have got even more complicated since then.

Obligatory questions:

Is anyone else the same?

Do you see computer games as A Good Thing or A Bad Thing?

Do you think you're missing out?

What's put you off so far?

What has been your experience in the past?

What could get you into them?

etc.

It's a hobby. I don't see why people get all het up about it.

I play computer games. I watch football. I read books. I write. I don't knit. I don't go to wine tasting evenings. I don't rock climb.

I do the things I like because I like them, and I avoid the things I don't because I don't (and I've tried all of those things).



Not sure what more there is to it.

Is anyone else the same?
Yes, but not me.
Do you see computer games as A Good Thing or A Bad Thing?
Good thing.
Do you think you're missing out?
No, but I think you are.
What's put you off so far?
Nothing.
What has been your experience in the past?
Playing since youth on ZX81 and in arcades.

What could get you into them?
The right game.

It sounds like people have been trying to bring you on board by showing you their favourite games instead of trying to help you find yours.

My stepdad is 72 this year. He used to be Luddite to the point of distrusting anything with a plug on it. He preferred cars without power steering. (No, that's not a joke.) He has since discovered computers, he taught me to use eBay, and I bought him a game that allowed him to manage and direct the England cricket team. He LOVES it. I wouldn't bother even showing him Halo or Call of Duty, massively impressive technical achievements by comparison though they are.

You are lucky - you live in an age when pretty good computer games are available that you can play either using fully intuitive controllers, or possibly no controllers at all.

Allow me to suggest:

Get or have a go on a Wii and Mario Kart, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort and a Wii Fit. Reject any suggestion of games that require actual coordinated control inputs in favour of things where you wave the controller about.

Go to onemorelevel.com and poke about among the genres. WARNING: TIME DILATION MAY OCCUR.

Finally, get an XBox and play Portal. It will require some coordinated use of the controller, but it is worth it. While it is one of the finest examples of game design in history, it's the narrative, the quality and consistency of which will blow you away. It's not a long game, although a novice gamer might take longer than someone like me, but you SHOULD take your time through it. It is proper science fiction in the way that very, very few non-novels are, and the script and acting should in any sane world have won an Oscar. The pictures were moving, there was art and science involved, but where were AMPAS?

Oh - and before you play Portal, find someone with the full band setup for Rock Band or Guitar Hero. You can play "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" as McCartney, Harrison, Starr, Lennon or Clapton! Also, when you've tried to actually play the drum line on "One Sweet Dream" you'll never do the "He's not the best drummer in the BEATLES!" gag ever again.

Bad at games?

Is that like "Good with colours"?

Not all of them require complicated controls. It's true that if you didn't grow up with them, getting a hang of the controller can be pretty difficult. But there's plenty of good ones out there that don't need that.

And like books or films, I think they can vary anywhere along the axis from trash, to entertainment, to art. The images from "Grim Fandango" (possibly the greatest computer game ever made, a noir set in the afterlife with characters depicted as papier maché dolls from the Mexican Day of the Dead) stay with me much more than those from most films, partly due to the fantastic visual style (do a google image search), but not only. If it had been a film, I don't think it would have stuck with me this long, it's because playing that game I, to some extent, lived in its world and experienced it in a way you can't with a film (even a really long Tarkovsky film ).

Also I echo Hoo's suggestion of "Portal". If you don't have an Xbox, play it on the PC (I think it's pretty cheap on Steam now, and it's old enough that any PC bought in the last 4 years should be able to play it without problems). My girlfriend is not a computer games player either, has the same dislike of complicated controls, but went crazy for Portal after watching me play it for a while.

I play computer solitaire [usually Freecell] with a vengeance. If that's a computer game, then I play computer games. I don't play any of the other computer games, not even Prince of Persia, which was made into a movie. Nowadays, computer games are made into movies. I've seen Tron and Tron II. I enjoyed the movies. I don't feel an urgent need to play the games. meanwhile, I play Freecell while waiting for my Internet browser to go from one link to another [it's slow sometimes....].

Civilisation (now CIV5) would be my immediate answer. No co-ordination required, pure strategy. So addictive that Ian M Banks had to destroy his copy in order to finish one of his recent books.

sprout

No other non-players, then?

I'm a gamer, have been for years and, like Hoo, started on the ZX81.

I still have a SNES, Playstation, PS2, GameCube, Xbox, Wii, Xbox 360 and a Philips CDi (with games for all of them)

Gaming is fun, first and foremost. Some games can take huge chunks out of your life (yes, I'm looking at you Skyrim) While others can be silly and fluffy. Some can bend your mind.

To Hoo's Wii list I would add Mercury Meltdown: You're a blob of mercury, you have to change colour and negotiate a trap ridden circuit, just by moving the controller in you hand and a simple push of a button on the back of it. Very frustrating, but very good *fun*


I'm currently playing Catherine on the XBox 360, not many complicated button bashings, just pushing and pulling blocks to get up to the top. Again, it can be quite frustrating, but again, ultimately fun.

I don't think there are that many people her that have not at least dabbled with some gaming, even it's just Mafia Wars or somesuch on Farcebook.

As for Guitar Hero...I have four guitars, a mic (when I can find it) and a tabletop drum kit (I also have around 10 games for said set-up) They are great fun.

I was a non-player. Or almost was. I was really bad at computergames until I found out that I was playing the wrong games. There are still lots of games I can't play because for instance I'm too slow, but I can also enjoy watching other people playing them.
I agree with Hoo on the point that you basically just have to find the right game.


I'm sure there are other non-players, don't worry. My parents for instance can't understand computer games. They are just not interested. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm with 603 post 2 on this basically. Had a few goes when my last girlfriend got into them...they seem like a bit of fun..and could be addictive...and I'm sure there are games out there to suit me..but as life is of a finite quantity..at present I prefer spending time on other activities. Also I can never quite see how I'd form that sense of relationship with a computer game in the way I do with other things I like to do.

Eg. I'll never forget when I suddenly got the of using a chisel on different sorts of wood..it was sudden...and then the of understanding hand sharpening. I can get it now just thinking about it.

** @ Dogster
> I don't think it would have stuck with me this long, it's because playing that game I, to some extent, lived in its world and experienced it in a way you can't with a film (even a really long Tarkovsky film

I've seen Mirror several times over. There's always new insights and discoveries to be made...and like other special art forms it stays inside you very vivid... you can't beat thinking about it...and new connections and ideas come to you in periods of tranquility about great art...and suddenly they are in your mind, from where.

Most get thrown away...but every so often a gem arrives.

If someone can recommend a game to me that does something similar for me as Rembrance of Things Past did...I'll defo give it a go.

It's fiendishly complex and truly truly sensuous.

"Is anyone else the same?"

I know a few people whose other interests would lead you to think that they'd also like computer games, but who don't. One in particular regards all computer games as tasks like birds involving pressing a button repeatedly to get a nut. He tries some new games, enjoys it for a bit, and then decides that it's just like that, and gives up again.

I'd echo what others say about finding the right games that suit. I've given up online/multiplayer games and won't touch them any more. I don't really have the reactions or the co-ordination or the spatial awareness for most first person shooters or (I suspect) football games. Social gaming I can take or leave, which I guess is the idea. But I like strategy games, and immersive role-playing games with strong characters and a decent plot.

But even those take a bit of getting used to in terms of working out which of the fifteen buttons does what. But it tends to be intuitive, and after a while it becomes reasonably automatic. A bit like driving. Strategy and RPGs tend to be more forgiving in terms of allowing time and space to learn the controls. But there is a sense that there's not much of a shallow end - a fair few games rely in part on having played some similar games before to understand certain conventions.

I'm not sure I'd say that *everyone* who doesn't play games is missing out any more than someone who doesn't consume much of any other art form. And I suspect that people who play too many games or play too often are likewise losing out. I remember reading an article somewhere about there being too much stuff nowadays - too many high quality US dramas, too many high quality Nordic dramas, too many good books, good films, good computer games, and so on. So everyone's missing out on something they'd like somewhere and somehow....

Try the following:

http://onemorelevel.com/game/3d_logic
http://onemorelevel.com/game/bloxorz
http://onemorelevel.com/game/cursor10
http://onemorelevel.com/game/electric_box
http://onemorelevel.com/game/hexiom
http://onemorelevel.com/game/lightbot
http://onemorelevel.com/game/shift
http://onemorelevel.com/game/zilch

One point I might make is this: in terms of hours of entertainment delivered per pound spent, I would put computer games near the very top of the value for money pile.

You might pay a tenner to watch a movie in the cinema, or a few quid to buy or rent the DVD if you've never heard of bittorrent. That will keep you going for two hours or so.

For four times the price you can have an Xbox game that might keep you entertained for *months*.

Similarly, most of those things I've linked above will keep you amused for at least an hour and are entirely free. Some of them (e.g. Lightbot) are additionally actually educational (it teaches programming concepts like conditionals and nesting loops).

I should emphasise that, while all the advice and raves are appreciated, I'm not necessarily looking for a way into games. I'm just taking the temperature to see if there's anyone else like me.

Also... http://portal.wecreatestuff.com/portal.php

I'm like you in that I don't play them..but I don't it a seconds thought..as they are just not what sends me...the actual virtual reality media concept.

I spend far more time wondering at the places on earth I'll never get to visit...and which if any I might make it to before I die...new people I might meet, but really I so stuffed myself stupid with good stuff for the first half of my life...there's plenty to last.

Yeah give them a go...they might grab you.

My impression is that billions of people still don't play them though.

I wonder if there's anything that I do a lot of that others don't because they're busy playing games? I can't imagine that it'd be anything constructive, lazy bugger that I am.

And before you jump on the 'virtual reality media' comment Hoo, I'm referring to it in the sense of *actively* interacting with it....in a very different way than would a film....which is plenty of yin to go with the yang.