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Freedom. A basic human right. Something every human being, no matter their height, skin colour, age or gender, should have. We would be nowhere without our freedom. Books have been written about it. Recent news sites have had articles about it, specifically the freedom to play video games in Greece. If you think about it, freedom is everything that is humanity. It allows us free speech, free will and lots of other great things...
But when it comes to video-games, developers are only just getting the idea of freedom. Freedom to do things YOUR way. The freedom to tackle a problem from behind, head-on. With stealth, or with a grenade launcher. The smash hit GTA3 really hammered home the idea of freedom, when it gave you a whole city to walk around, doing what you pleased. You could go and do a mission to advance in the game. You could do a bonus street race. You could blow up cars with a remote control toy. You could mug old ladies with baseball bats and steal their money, or go up to the top of a car park, bring a sniper rifle and a packed lunch, and make a day of it. You could go as fast or as slow as you liked, with plenty of things always there to do.
Platform games traditionally have hub worlds, with portals or doors to the various levels. As shown in Super Mario Sunshine, you can have hours of fun just wandering around this hub world without really achieving anything. Sure, you could grab a secret star or two but you can be equally as contented wall-jumping, butt-stomping and belly-sliding. Again, there is the constant theme of going at your own pace in SMS and indeed many other games of a similar ilk, although there is not as much 'freedom' as in GTA3. At least, not the freedom I'm talking about.
Deus Ex gave you the freedom to be whatever you wanted to be. A hacker, an invincible monster, a weapons expert, a lock-picker, or an olympic diver. It also gave you several different ways to get an objective, albeit not very subtley (at the beginning of the first level you are given the chance to take a non-lethal taser, a silent crossbow or a long-ranged sniper rifle)(and yes, I know I probably spelt that word wrong). It was regarded as a huge leap forward in the first person shooting world (and indeed the gaming world as a whole), blending two genres such as FPS and RPG so successfully.
Another somewhat mislabelled type of freedom is seen in games such as Black and White. You are given the 'freedom' of choosing between two sides, good and evil. You can be a vengeful God, slaying all that doubt you (and all that just seem to annoy you); or you can be a nice God, showering your devotees with prosperous crops and wood for building huts. In The Sims you can have a normal family, have friends round for tea and work your way up the capitalist ladder to get a good job...or you could build a moat around the house to drown any pesky neighbours, remove the toilet, and keep starting fires by having barbeques in confined spaces.
It's not really true freedom, but it's a step in the right direction. Just like life, games are giving us a general guideline. In the real world our aim is to be happy, maybe marry and have children. In a game, it could be anything from saving the world from nuclear weapons or getting a lot of people to follow you as their God (although if you're that way inclined, this could apply to real life too). From then on we are given the freedom to go about it our own way, at our own pace. We could mull around for a bit, take a metaphorical gap year travelling Asia, or get right to it and search for a metaphorical bride (or groom).
With GTA: Vice City coming out soon, I don't doubt that we will see freedom in an ever-more realistic form. We will be able to enter shops, discos, hotels and convenience stores, be it to get a mission or complete one, to admire the scenery or to cover it with the blood of innocent dancers or customers.
I want to be able to do what I want in a game. I want the freedom to do things that petty little things such as laws prevent me from doing in my own home, or down my own high-street. I want to be able to be as cruel as can be, or as kind as humanly possible. I don't want to be confined to the shackles of levels, or missions, or time limits. I want to break free.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey
But when it comes to video-games, developers are only just getting the idea of freedom. Freedom to do things YOUR way. The freedom to tackle a problem from behind, head-on. With stealth, or with a grenade launcher. The smash hit GTA3 really hammered home the idea of freedom, when it gave you a whole city to walk around, doing what you pleased. You could go and do a mission to advance in the game. You could do a bonus street race. You could blow up cars with a remote control toy. You could mug old ladies with baseball bats and steal their money, or go up to the top of a car park, bring a sniper rifle and a packed lunch, and make a day of it. You could go as fast or as slow as you liked, with plenty of things always there to do.
Platform games traditionally have hub worlds, with portals or doors to the various levels. As shown in Super Mario Sunshine, you can have hours of fun just wandering around this hub world without really achieving anything. Sure, you could grab a secret star or two but you can be equally as contented wall-jumping, butt-stomping and belly-sliding. Again, there is the constant theme of going at your own pace in SMS and indeed many other games of a similar ilk, although there is not as much 'freedom' as in GTA3. At least, not the freedom I'm talking about.
Deus Ex gave you the freedom to be whatever you wanted to be. A hacker, an invincible monster, a weapons expert, a lock-picker, or an olympic diver. It also gave you several different ways to get an objective, albeit not very subtley (at the beginning of the first level you are given the chance to take a non-lethal taser, a silent crossbow or a long-ranged sniper rifle)(and yes, I know I probably spelt that word wrong). It was regarded as a huge leap forward in the first person shooting world (and indeed the gaming world as a whole), blending two genres such as FPS and RPG so successfully.
Another somewhat mislabelled type of freedom is seen in games such as Black and White. You are given the 'freedom' of choosing between two sides, good and evil. You can be a vengeful God, slaying all that doubt you (and all that just seem to annoy you); or you can be a nice God, showering your devotees with prosperous crops and wood for building huts. In The Sims you can have a normal family, have friends round for tea and work your way up the capitalist ladder to get a good job...or you could build a moat around the house to drown any pesky neighbours, remove the toilet, and keep starting fires by having barbeques in confined spaces.
It's not really true freedom, but it's a step in the right direction. Just like life, games are giving us a general guideline. In the real world our aim is to be happy, maybe marry and have children. In a game, it could be anything from saving the world from nuclear weapons or getting a lot of people to follow you as their God (although if you're that way inclined, this could apply to real life too). From then on we are given the freedom to go about it our own way, at our own pace. We could mull around for a bit, take a metaphorical gap year travelling Asia, or get right to it and search for a metaphorical bride (or groom).
With GTA: Vice City coming out soon, I don't doubt that we will see freedom in an ever-more realistic form. We will be able to enter shops, discos, hotels and convenience stores, be it to get a mission or complete one, to admire the scenery or to cover it with the blood of innocent dancers or customers.
I want to be able to do what I want in a game. I want the freedom to do things that petty little things such as laws prevent me from doing in my own home, or down my own high-street. I want to be able to be as cruel as can be, or as kind as humanly possible. I don't want to be confined to the shackles of levels, or missions, or time limits. I want to break free.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Freedom. A basic human right. Something every human being, no matter their height, skin colour, age or gender, should have. We would be nowhere without our freedom. Books have been written about it. Recent news sites have had articles about it, specifically the freedom to play video games in Greece. If you think about it, freedom is everything that is humanity. It allows us free speech, free will and lots of other great things...
But when it comes to video-games, developers are only just getting the idea of freedom. Freedom to do things YOUR way. The freedom to tackle a problem from behind, head-on. With stealth, or with a grenade launcher. The smash hit GTA3 really hammered home the idea of freedom, when it gave you a whole city to walk around, doing what you pleased. You could go and do a mission to advance in the game. You could do a bonus street race. You could blow up cars with a remote control toy. You could mug old ladies with baseball bats and steal their money, or go up to the top of a car park, bring a sniper rifle and a packed lunch, and make a day of it. You could go as fast or as slow as you liked, with plenty of things always there to do.
Platform games traditionally have hub worlds, with portals or doors to the various levels. As shown in Super Mario Sunshine, you can have hours of fun just wandering around this hub world without really achieving anything. Sure, you could grab a secret star or two but you can be equally as contented wall-jumping, butt-stomping and belly-sliding. Again, there is the constant theme of going at your own pace in SMS and indeed many other games of a similar ilk, although there is not as much 'freedom' as in GTA3. At least, not the freedom I'm talking about.
Deus Ex gave you the freedom to be whatever you wanted to be. A hacker, an invincible monster, a weapons expert, a lock-picker, or an olympic diver. It also gave you several different ways to get an objective, albeit not very subtley (at the beginning of the first level you are given the chance to take a non-lethal taser, a silent crossbow or a long-ranged sniper rifle)(and yes, I know I probably spelt that word wrong). It was regarded as a huge leap forward in the first person shooting world (and indeed the gaming world as a whole), blending two genres such as FPS and RPG so successfully.
Another somewhat mislabelled type of freedom is seen in games such as Black and White. You are given the 'freedom' of choosing between two sides, good and evil. You can be a vengeful God, slaying all that doubt you (and all that just seem to annoy you); or you can be a nice God, showering your devotees with prosperous crops and wood for building huts. In The Sims you can have a normal family, have friends round for tea and work your way up the capitalist ladder to get a good job...or you could build a moat around the house to drown any pesky neighbours, remove the toilet, and keep starting fires by having barbeques in confined spaces.
It's not really true freedom, but it's a step in the right direction. Just like life, games are giving us a general guideline. In the real world our aim is to be happy, maybe marry and have children. In a game, it could be anything from saving the world from nuclear weapons or getting a lot of people to follow you as their God (although if you're that way inclined, this could apply to real life too). From then on we are given the freedom to go about it our own way, at our own pace. We could mull around for a bit, take a metaphorical gap year travelling Asia, or get right to it and search for a metaphorical bride (or groom).
With GTA: Vice City coming out soon, I don't doubt that we will see freedom in an ever-more realistic form. We will be able to enter shops, discos, hotels and convenience stores, be it to get a mission or complete one, to admire the scenery or to cover it with the blood of innocent dancers or customers.
I want to be able to do what I want in a game. I want the freedom to do things that petty little things such as laws prevent me from doing in my own home, or down my own high-street. I want to be able to be as cruel as can be, or as kind as humanly possible. I don't want to be confined to the shackles of levels, or missions, or time limits. I want to break free.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey
But when it comes to video-games, developers are only just getting the idea of freedom. Freedom to do things YOUR way. The freedom to tackle a problem from behind, head-on. With stealth, or with a grenade launcher. The smash hit GTA3 really hammered home the idea of freedom, when it gave you a whole city to walk around, doing what you pleased. You could go and do a mission to advance in the game. You could do a bonus street race. You could blow up cars with a remote control toy. You could mug old ladies with baseball bats and steal their money, or go up to the top of a car park, bring a sniper rifle and a packed lunch, and make a day of it. You could go as fast or as slow as you liked, with plenty of things always there to do.
Platform games traditionally have hub worlds, with portals or doors to the various levels. As shown in Super Mario Sunshine, you can have hours of fun just wandering around this hub world without really achieving anything. Sure, you could grab a secret star or two but you can be equally as contented wall-jumping, butt-stomping and belly-sliding. Again, there is the constant theme of going at your own pace in SMS and indeed many other games of a similar ilk, although there is not as much 'freedom' as in GTA3. At least, not the freedom I'm talking about.
Deus Ex gave you the freedom to be whatever you wanted to be. A hacker, an invincible monster, a weapons expert, a lock-picker, or an olympic diver. It also gave you several different ways to get an objective, albeit not very subtley (at the beginning of the first level you are given the chance to take a non-lethal taser, a silent crossbow or a long-ranged sniper rifle)(and yes, I know I probably spelt that word wrong). It was regarded as a huge leap forward in the first person shooting world (and indeed the gaming world as a whole), blending two genres such as FPS and RPG so successfully.
Another somewhat mislabelled type of freedom is seen in games such as Black and White. You are given the 'freedom' of choosing between two sides, good and evil. You can be a vengeful God, slaying all that doubt you (and all that just seem to annoy you); or you can be a nice God, showering your devotees with prosperous crops and wood for building huts. In The Sims you can have a normal family, have friends round for tea and work your way up the capitalist ladder to get a good job...or you could build a moat around the house to drown any pesky neighbours, remove the toilet, and keep starting fires by having barbeques in confined spaces.
It's not really true freedom, but it's a step in the right direction. Just like life, games are giving us a general guideline. In the real world our aim is to be happy, maybe marry and have children. In a game, it could be anything from saving the world from nuclear weapons or getting a lot of people to follow you as their God (although if you're that way inclined, this could apply to real life too). From then on we are given the freedom to go about it our own way, at our own pace. We could mull around for a bit, take a metaphorical gap year travelling Asia, or get right to it and search for a metaphorical bride (or groom).
With GTA: Vice City coming out soon, I don't doubt that we will see freedom in an ever-more realistic form. We will be able to enter shops, discos, hotels and convenience stores, be it to get a mission or complete one, to admire the scenery or to cover it with the blood of innocent dancers or customers.
I want to be able to do what I want in a game. I want the freedom to do things that petty little things such as laws prevent me from doing in my own home, or down my own high-street. I want to be able to be as cruel as can be, or as kind as humanly possible. I don't want to be confined to the shackles of levels, or missions, or time limits. I want to break free.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey