Tuesday, October 17, 2006
When War meets Video Games
War games are in the market for a period of time now. From Battlefield II to Call of Duty, these war games give us a moment of peace in a life of continuous work. Life is not always that exciting. For us teenagers, we have endless amount of homework. For adults, they have work from morning to night. It seems gaming is the only "fun" in life.
Thinking about life always give people a headache. As a teenager, I would rather watch TV and play games. TV lets us watch our dreamed fantasy stories. It is a good source of entertainment only because it gives you the idea that fantasy is the way of life.
But let's not go off topic. How many of you ever dreamed of being that person on TV. The characters on there are always "cool" and looks perfect. Everyone wants to be that person. With the invention of the video game, that dream can become a reality.
The quote "If it's not realistic, it's not worth playing" is true. More and more gamers expect better graphics from their favourite games. Some see games as a way of life. The better the graphic, the more realistic it is. But that is not always good.
Let’s say you shot somebody and you are near sighted. The scene is not very clear because you can’t see the blood clearly. But if you have an eagle's eye, then you may probably get a heart attack. My point is games are virtual realities. They should stay that way. If they become reality, then our world would be a mess. Have you noticed the increase in gun crimes in Toronto recently? They are probably the cause of the crystal clear graphic in war games.
Does war game really give children a better understanding of the concept of war? I don’t think so. Contrary to that, they seem to emit the message "War is fun!". The article quotes that when an eleven year old kid sees a friend in the game blown up by an enemy’s grenade, he just comments the simple two letter word, “OK.” In real life, war is not fun, but terrifying. As a soldier, you constantly have to push yourself forward, even when your comrades fall. It’s hate vs. more hate. Wars are not fun. The games kill the idea of peace.
Indeed, games encourage kids to join in the violence and make wars. A recent news report from CTV tells us that the Canadian military is in desperate need for troops. How do they get them? They create a war games and attract kids to play. Once they will get fired up, they will have a better chance of joining the military think wars are "fun".
Personally, I don't play war games. But from time to time, I do like to drop in and be isolated from my school work. Like I said at the beginning, it adds some excitement to life. It’s a nice break from that pile of homework on my desk. One of my friends said that video game passes time (as if he has enough of it for homework).
A lot of precious life time is wasted in video games. But sometimes, fantasies allow us to enjoy life. War video games allow a person to live the life of a soldier while you are perfectly safe and laying comfortable in your leather chair.
Just for the sake of this article, I played a war game called "Advanced War II" on my GBA. My original plan was to just test out my feelings for the game, but I ended up playing for five hours straight. I guess the bad side to games is that one can easily get addicted. All the homeworks I planned to do that night was out of my reach. I felt my life being "numb" . It's like you are lost and don't know what to do next. Stress is the result of the game play because the work that I was suppose to do that night piled up to the next day. Most likely, one will return to the game saying "I can just finish that tomorrow" like I did. I know I'm not going back to that game any time soon.
I call games "false pleasure" because the gameplay itself isn't relaxing at all. I enjoyed the background music much more than the gameplay itself. Stop playing games, and get a few friends together to do some sport. Even clearing the blockage of my toilet gave me more pleasure. (a joke)
Anyways, I don't want my five-hour gameplay to be wasted so I will list some quotes of what I said/thought while playing the war game.
"I feel like I'm being controlled by the game. Even though I'm making the call in the game, I still can't find the urge to leave this game."
"All the things I wanted to do is now out of reach. You're lost, confused and you will most likely turn back to the game and waste even more time."
"Just die. (to my own people) So that I can create better units." (because there was a limit as to how many units I could deploy)
As you can see, I became more aggressive after playing a war game. A person's life isn't so valuable when it's a game. But in the real world, it's totally different. War games create a false concept of war.
5 Comments:
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Largo commented at Sunday, October 22, 2006 2:40:00 pm~
Hi Andy,
Your yawning child graphic is brilliant! Very funny - and scarry - at the same time.
Ms. Largo-
animal storm commented at Tuesday, October 31, 2006 9:29:00 pm~
Muy interesantes tu historia y tus comentarios
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lord of enlightenment commented at Sunday, April 15, 2007 8:35:00 pm~
Hi Andy!
This was very infomative and you made your satement clear. The text was a bit small though. You are right, almost all of the games these days have violence (or worse =/). If it doesnt have violence then its a 'kids' game. I disagree however, that not all games with violence are a 'waste' of time. Some of them like RTS actuall have some histroical basis such as the Age of Empires series. They taught me a lot about histroy and aren't that violent. Though I have seen the extent that some these games have gone to make me sick and are a bad influence. For example that guy sho shot those people in Dawson College was influenced by a very violent game.
Good article, and a nice picture too.
Keep blogging
Signed,
Daniel-
mediaartslc commented at Sunday, May 27, 2007 10:55:00 pm~
Good job, you statements are very good, games really waste people's time.
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Neil commented at Thursday, June 07, 2007 7:22:00 pm~
Hello Andy,
Your views on this subject are great! As for the yawning child graphic, as sad as it may be, it already is happening. Yeah and not all violence games are a waste of time like Daniel mentioned. They do tend to teach you a lot about historical events. Oh yeah, you yourself make violent games for TIK 20! So there! =p
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