The old school sounds thing is just…dumb. It’s bad television — there’s no need for it. Viewers understand what games are without that kind of telegraphing! What if they substituted rotary bells every time a cellular rang? Same ridiculousness.

But yeah, back to what you were saying. That’s interesting about the verbalization of stylized sounds. Any reason for that tendency? Adam was seven or eight I’d guess. While they might have been getting at this, it’s something that’s been a problem since games first appeared in season one.

I can see how old school sounds would be obnoxious to a gamer. How old was Adam? They might have been trying to highlight how small boys, especially autistic ones, can only verbalize using stylized sounds.

I didn’t even tell you the worst thing - at one point I decided I would play the levels, decimate the enemy to the point they were no thread (but not kill them thus ending the level), and collect all the resources. i.e., mine all the gold, cut down all the tress, etc. With the objective being to score a TON of points.

Luckily I came to my senses during the second game…

Besides, with games (unlike, say, fandom), there’s a safety net in that you’ll eventually finish conquering more or less everything. Even if there’s some kind of infinity mode, you’ll eventually plateau. There’s not necessarily a next season to look forward to.

Those Warcraft matches must have been crazy, though! How long did they take? Wouldn’t the AI just crank more units? Did you ever play against other humans? Nuts.

Anyway, I know we’ve talked about my experience with Blizzard games, and it’s funny that you use a Warcraft example. In Warcraft 2 when I was the humans I’d often make a ton of mages and use them on a rotating cycle of hit-and-run attacks. They’d either kill a single enemy with Polymorph or cast Blizzard on a structure, and then retreat. Usually I’d get chased a little bit and then the computer program would turn back to it’s base. At which time of course I’d send in the next mage…This worked pretty well as the first guy usually regained the requisite 200 mana by the time I had sent each guy once.

That said, my example is clearly on the extreme side (but true!) and your point is well taken. And yes, I do enjoy strategy-based games. Ultimately I guess just as I make compromises with my time I (have to) make compromises with my OCD side.

But it’s funny to me that you’re afraid you’d play every game in such perfectionist fashion. What I just described with R2 isn’t necessarily typical of my tastes; much of the time I’ll be more than content with finishing the narrative. Besides, don’t you tend to like strategy titles? You’d be hard-pressed to finish an engagement without losing a single Orc in Warcraft, for instance.

Anyway. Nice to hear that you’ve been reading the archives, but it’s also kind of horrifying — my blog’s been wildly inconsistent and weird since it started a little over a year ago. Hope you enjoy roller coaster rides!

For example, for years I have been a HUGE sports fan. There is really no way I can convey to you how big a part of my life watching, playing, and following various sports has been. But following the 2008 Super Bowl I made a decision to stop. Entirely. It is now almost one year later and I have still not watched a single minute of sports, which pains me greatly. But giving up sports was a decision I made in order to give more time to my other pursuits.

I do NOT mean I don’t have time to play video games (or watch sports) as my choice is not intended as a criticism of those who opt to partake. In fact I do enjoy video games and always have enjoyed them the (relatively) few times in life I have allowed myself to play them.

The problem is that gaming take up a lot of time. Especially for those who may be described as OCD (ironically a theme in your proceeding post: http://mashedmarket.com/2008/11/24/waving-goodbye-to-kotaku-tower/), which I almost undoubtedly would be. Example: when I started reading your blog last month I began by reading the entire archives. Every week or so I come by and catch up on a month of old posts. I am almost all caught up now.

So in my world it is not enough to play this or that video game. I would then want to:
Beat a level without losing any energy.
Uncover every secret in a stage.
Collect every item in the game.
Beat the level without losing any item while uncovering ever secret AND uncovering every secret.
And then do the same on EVERY level.
Then switch it to hard mode.

And then I’d probably want to try other games in the same series, and then related games, and then games made by the same company, and so on. It’s like some horrifying version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Truthfully I just don’t really enjoy doing things in a sub-par fashion. I enjoy excellence. So as far as watching other people play, I enjoy it…if they are good. I appreciate the perfection they are striving for because it’s what I would be doing if I were the player. In some ways they give me a taste of the excellence I crave without necessitating the time commitment.