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Joshua was a military super computer in the 1983 film 'Wargames'. A hacker broke into Joshua's system, thinking it was just a game server, decided to play a game called "Global Thermonuclear War" and a great film was born, with important subliminal messages running throughout, including the importance of coding things properly. Clearly, Bill Gates missed that message.
Hideo Kojima didn't. In the same way that films can become platforms for getting a message across, Hideo Kojima created Metal Gear Solid not just as a game, but as his platform for getting across the message that nuclear weapons are a bad thing. If you keep in mind that he lives in the only country in the world that has ever had a nuclear bomb dropped on it as an act of war, you can see where he's coming from.
But we live in an age where political correctness is the buzzword. So it would be very difficult for, say, a Japanese developer to push a game that features Japan as the world's policeforce in a U.S. market no matter how good that game actually was. Political correctness in games stifles creativity purely because of the need to sell product to a wide audience.
Even so, with the release of Zone of the Enders, Kojima still manages to convey a sense of the sanctity of human life and portrays the the hero's internal struggles over the necessity of killing in a unique way; by using him to interact with a heartless computer and to teach it 'right and wrong'. ZOE 2 might be more of an eye-opener than we realise when it gets released, and I'm looking forward to it with anticipation.
There's not enough of this in games today. In the same way that the music and the film industries tend to pander to the mass markets and the quick buck by churning out the same hi-octane yet meaningless blockbusters month after month, the games industry does the same, hence why we have Grand Theft Auto residing in the number 1 spot on the gaming chart for the forseeable future. I'm not saying GTA is a bad game, in terms of entertainment it deserves its top spot, but with a bit of adventurous scripting it could have offered more, it could have had 'meaning'.
Maybe we'll start to see more meaningful games being released on the next generation of consoles, but I doubt it, they'll be concentrating more on getting online capabilities up and running for the next few years, and developers will be concentrating on getting the most out of it by making online features a major part of their games.
But after that? Well, I figure future generations of consoles will be a lot easier to code for. And we'll get back to the times where a 14 year olds can start coding for these super machines again from their bedrooms, like we used to back in the 80s with the ZX80A processors which seemed oh so logical back then. With the advent of this, we'll start to get an underground movement going, in the same way that the film industry has its underground movement of scriptwriters and directors producing films that have meaning regardless of the box office receipts at the end of the day.
When those kinds of games are downloaded to your console, and they start influencing you with their storylines and their philosophies and their idealisms, that's the day from which you'll be able to start saying "This game changed my life" in the same way that you can currently say that about a few books, a few films and a few songs.
And that will be the day when gaming 'really' comes of age.
Hideo Kojima didn't. In the same way that films can become platforms for getting a message across, Hideo Kojima created Metal Gear Solid not just as a game, but as his platform for getting across the message that nuclear weapons are a bad thing. If you keep in mind that he lives in the only country in the world that has ever had a nuclear bomb dropped on it as an act of war, you can see where he's coming from.
But we live in an age where political correctness is the buzzword. So it would be very difficult for, say, a Japanese developer to push a game that features Japan as the world's policeforce in a U.S. market no matter how good that game actually was. Political correctness in games stifles creativity purely because of the need to sell product to a wide audience.
Even so, with the release of Zone of the Enders, Kojima still manages to convey a sense of the sanctity of human life and portrays the the hero's internal struggles over the necessity of killing in a unique way; by using him to interact with a heartless computer and to teach it 'right and wrong'. ZOE 2 might be more of an eye-opener than we realise when it gets released, and I'm looking forward to it with anticipation.
There's not enough of this in games today. In the same way that the music and the film industries tend to pander to the mass markets and the quick buck by churning out the same hi-octane yet meaningless blockbusters month after month, the games industry does the same, hence why we have Grand Theft Auto residing in the number 1 spot on the gaming chart for the forseeable future. I'm not saying GTA is a bad game, in terms of entertainment it deserves its top spot, but with a bit of adventurous scripting it could have offered more, it could have had 'meaning'.
Maybe we'll start to see more meaningful games being released on the next generation of consoles, but I doubt it, they'll be concentrating more on getting online capabilities up and running for the next few years, and developers will be concentrating on getting the most out of it by making online features a major part of their games.
But after that? Well, I figure future generations of consoles will be a lot easier to code for. And we'll get back to the times where a 14 year olds can start coding for these super machines again from their bedrooms, like we used to back in the 80s with the ZX80A processors which seemed oh so logical back then. With the advent of this, we'll start to get an underground movement going, in the same way that the film industry has its underground movement of scriptwriters and directors producing films that have meaning regardless of the box office receipts at the end of the day.
When those kinds of games are downloaded to your console, and they start influencing you with their storylines and their philosophies and their idealisms, that's the day from which you'll be able to start saying "This game changed my life" in the same way that you can currently say that about a few books, a few films and a few songs.
And that will be the day when gaming 'really' comes of age.
Joshua was a military super computer in the 1983 film 'Wargames'. A hacker broke into Joshua's system, thinking it was just a game server, decided to play a game called "Global Thermonuclear War" and a great film was born, with important subliminal messages running throughout, including the importance of coding things properly. Clearly, Bill Gates missed that message.
Hideo Kojima didn't. In the same way that films can become platforms for getting a message across, Hideo Kojima created Metal Gear Solid not just as a game, but as his platform for getting across the message that nuclear weapons are a bad thing. If you keep in mind that he lives in the only country in the world that has ever had a nuclear bomb dropped on it as an act of war, you can see where he's coming from.
But we live in an age where political correctness is the buzzword. So it would be very difficult for, say, a Japanese developer to push a game that features Japan as the world's policeforce in a U.S. market no matter how good that game actually was. Political correctness in games stifles creativity purely because of the need to sell product to a wide audience.
Even so, with the release of Zone of the Enders, Kojima still manages to convey a sense of the sanctity of human life and portrays the the hero's internal struggles over the necessity of killing in a unique way; by using him to interact with a heartless computer and to teach it 'right and wrong'. ZOE 2 might be more of an eye-opener than we realise when it gets released, and I'm looking forward to it with anticipation.
There's not enough of this in games today. In the same way that the music and the film industries tend to pander to the mass markets and the quick buck by churning out the same hi-octane yet meaningless blockbusters month after month, the games industry does the same, hence why we have Grand Theft Auto residing in the number 1 spot on the gaming chart for the forseeable future. I'm not saying GTA is a bad game, in terms of entertainment it deserves its top spot, but with a bit of adventurous scripting it could have offered more, it could have had 'meaning'.
Maybe we'll start to see more meaningful games being released on the next generation of consoles, but I doubt it, they'll be concentrating more on getting online capabilities up and running for the next few years, and developers will be concentrating on getting the most out of it by making online features a major part of their games.
But after that? Well, I figure future generations of consoles will be a lot easier to code for. And we'll get back to the times where a 14 year olds can start coding for these super machines again from their bedrooms, like we used to back in the 80s with the ZX80A processors which seemed oh so logical back then. With the advent of this, we'll start to get an underground movement going, in the same way that the film industry has its underground movement of scriptwriters and directors producing films that have meaning regardless of the box office receipts at the end of the day.
When those kinds of games are downloaded to your console, and they start influencing you with their storylines and their philosophies and their idealisms, that's the day from which you'll be able to start saying "This game changed my life" in the same way that you can currently say that about a few books, a few films and a few songs.
And that will be the day when gaming 'really' comes of age.
Hideo Kojima didn't. In the same way that films can become platforms for getting a message across, Hideo Kojima created Metal Gear Solid not just as a game, but as his platform for getting across the message that nuclear weapons are a bad thing. If you keep in mind that he lives in the only country in the world that has ever had a nuclear bomb dropped on it as an act of war, you can see where he's coming from.
But we live in an age where political correctness is the buzzword. So it would be very difficult for, say, a Japanese developer to push a game that features Japan as the world's policeforce in a U.S. market no matter how good that game actually was. Political correctness in games stifles creativity purely because of the need to sell product to a wide audience.
Even so, with the release of Zone of the Enders, Kojima still manages to convey a sense of the sanctity of human life and portrays the the hero's internal struggles over the necessity of killing in a unique way; by using him to interact with a heartless computer and to teach it 'right and wrong'. ZOE 2 might be more of an eye-opener than we realise when it gets released, and I'm looking forward to it with anticipation.
There's not enough of this in games today. In the same way that the music and the film industries tend to pander to the mass markets and the quick buck by churning out the same hi-octane yet meaningless blockbusters month after month, the games industry does the same, hence why we have Grand Theft Auto residing in the number 1 spot on the gaming chart for the forseeable future. I'm not saying GTA is a bad game, in terms of entertainment it deserves its top spot, but with a bit of adventurous scripting it could have offered more, it could have had 'meaning'.
Maybe we'll start to see more meaningful games being released on the next generation of consoles, but I doubt it, they'll be concentrating more on getting online capabilities up and running for the next few years, and developers will be concentrating on getting the most out of it by making online features a major part of their games.
But after that? Well, I figure future generations of consoles will be a lot easier to code for. And we'll get back to the times where a 14 year olds can start coding for these super machines again from their bedrooms, like we used to back in the 80s with the ZX80A processors which seemed oh so logical back then. With the advent of this, we'll start to get an underground movement going, in the same way that the film industry has its underground movement of scriptwriters and directors producing films that have meaning regardless of the box office receipts at the end of the day.
When those kinds of games are downloaded to your console, and they start influencing you with their storylines and their philosophies and their idealisms, that's the day from which you'll be able to start saying "This game changed my life" in the same way that you can currently say that about a few books, a few films and a few songs.
And that will be the day when gaming 'really' comes of age.
THIS WAS POSTED LAST MONTH, AND NO-ONE REPLIED.
Just thought you'd like to know...
Just thought you'd like to know...
I was being hopeful, but I just picked the wrong day where anything over 4 lines long got skipped for being too mentally exhausting.
I'll print it off and read it later, you'll forgive me, eh??
It's just too late....
My head hurts...
It's just too late....
My head hurts...
Wow... Never thought about the entire Pollitical Correctness stuff before. Wow. Ah! *Brain suddenly seizes up.* Must... Not... Read... More than... 4 lines... Ugh. *Falls in floor in seizure.* Oops, sorry. Buy yeah, considering all that Hideo Kojima should really have had a huge impact with me on a deeper level. But it didn't. It just made me crave for MGS2...
Well i read the entire thing and though it was damned good :)
Unfortunatly im not old enough to appreciate coding your own games in the 80s :p
Unfortunatly im not old enough to appreciate coding your own games in the 80s :p
Good post, and I love that film. Tic-Tac-Toe, Tic-Tac-Toe aha!
*falls asleep*