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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1982)
possibility. Robert Lewis Stevenson's dictum that “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive” has lost meaning in an arena without any notion of "sportsmanship." How do you play fair against a machine? The challenge is playing to the point of boredom (i.e., “to win”), outwitting the computer program by hook, crook or strategy book. The manufacturers know this. Most are reluctant to disclose the simple rules of their games, forcing each player to figure things out by trial and error. Nineteen-year-old Hirschfeld’s manual does well by providing simple rules rather than arcane strategies, and his initial volume for 30 games has not one, but two, sequels in the works for the more recent machines and up dated programs. The better you understand what you are watching on the screen, the more power you have towards achieving the sought after boredom border. (See Level Seven). The informed player won’t mista kenly shoot his little pink hu manoids in DEFENDER, taking them for yet another enemy. The smart player will trust his own experience over the touted rules of strategists. LEV E~L F O U~R~ Typical Attacks and Uncopyrighted Rebuffs Attack #/.- These games are corrupting our youth,” says a Long Island housewife who is working toward their banishment in her area, a move already taken in parts of Texas, Rhode Island, Illinois, Massachusetts, other states and even entire countries “They are not wholesome. They mesmerize our children, they addict them and force them to mindlessly pour one quarter after another into the slots. We see 15 year olds playing on school nights and during school hours. We want the games out of our town.” Rebuff: Mitchell Robin, a child psychologist and instructor of data processing, wrote the New York Times with this statement: T have seen absolutely no scientific evi dence to date that video games are mesmerizing our children.' There has simply been no such research. Campaigns against video games are created out of a fear of the un known, in this case, computers, Adults are afraid of the power of computers, because we didn't grow up with them What better way to be introduced to them than through friendly software such as computer games?" Attack #2: "People are sepa rated from society already with each new technological advance The car, the telephone, television . all keep us at a distance. You don't have a comrade in arms Even when you play the games with someone else, you're just waiting your turn. The machine stands be tween you more than ever " Rebuff: Unlike many other ac tivities, electronic gaming brings families closer together," writes Frank Laney, Jr., editor of Electronic (lames Magazine "How many other things can mother and son, father and daughter, enjoy on an equal basis? Most participation sports give such a tremendous ad vantage to bigger and stronger players that the idea of, for in stance, a family game of tennis or golf becomes an exercise in bore dom and frustration." And Mitchell Robin again: “Children who aren't athletically inclined can use video games as a means to success that is accepted by their peers. That type of acceptance through a particular skill is very important to the psy chological health of adolescents.” Attack #3: "The games are ac tually sort of stress-related," says Larry Gertz, owner of Chess and Games, one of the largest game re tailers on the West Coast. “I find myself wasted when I'm competing with Entex Football Four. I'm exhausted physically and mentally. ! can feel the muscles in my body all tense.” Contributing editor of Games magazine, Roger Dionne, writes, "I was amazed at the hostil ity the machine has aroused in me. I walked away trembling" The DE FENDER callous and PAC-MAN blis ter have already been cited as other physical handicaps of the games. Rebuff: Steve Nelson, doctoral candidate at New York University, deduces from his research that “a video game can teach you how to process information on several channels at once. The Army and Air Force are experimenting with them. The rapid increase in learning abil ity they can provide is amazing. Therapists have been using them in rehabilitation of the handicapped.' Linda Duesterhaus, mother of a 3-year-old video arcade habitue named Zack, comments, "People don't have to use their wits any more Maybe some street people survive that way, but mostly soci ety’s too safe. The positive aspect of video games is that one must be alert in many sensory modes at once. ’’ Attack #4; I don't see why people put their money in them They’re frustrating, make irritating sounds, and all you get if you win is more of the same and all of it is torture. And the people who hang out there are just a mess,” com ments Katherine, a young library assistant who likes the theatre Rebuff: This is pure prejudice, based upon bordello assumptions from the pinball past The person just hasn’t tried a game suited to his or her personality Perhaps Katherine should try DONKEY KONG for its narrative element The best answer here, however, is just a "you won t know until you try it" laugh The pool hall mys tique does get a foothold in some arcades, handed down from the un informed fears of River City. Not worth huffing at. Attack #5: Audio visual coor dlnator and part-time TV talk show host Scott Parsons says, "The real question Is whether video games are more addictive than other ad dictive things, and I think they are The manufacturers are just begin ning to realize how to capitalize upon this aspect of the games Rebuff: None Change the sub ject. He is right •My baby's spending ah het^d cUmb. Dodging monger, electronic toy. SheTreams of centipedes and fleas, invaded all my W (Chorus) S tVe’Sme/g^sh^ ^ monster feasts Hear the blips and boops^^ SEES ‘SS 5ft “* In the video arcade "te«»anJ *°°J£ ^oS'S'brisim* «*» £ »V we spen, - life che f,„ures out attack plans Siill She'd rather run htm round The answer is, 1 guess, ^ To learn “ Pl^jde her on adjoining stool. s;'™;.«w«"-ir .»;»»* If she discovers Donkey ‘ na be her fool 1 know that ha»ry monkey s gum_ LEVEL FIVE The sexual component of video games isn't due to suggestive im ages on the screen. There are very few — if any — of these and they're lx-st left to the archaic pinball era. Instead, sexuality becomes both sublimated and transformed into metaphor during the experience of videogaming. The DEFENDER player, for example, needs a physical position ing over the machine that allows no room for distraction Me may have to use an elbow to fly into hyperspace, since both his hands and all his mental (sower must be intricately aligned with the buttons and joystick. As he defends his hu manoids ami planet against the in vaders, the emotional experience grows into one of serious right eousness and a do-right edge of will The humanoids, of course, are androgynous. Winning any of the video games at best entitles you to put your ini tials at the top of the board. Machismo conquest and egotism can trail one whose initials fre quently are seen on various ma chines and in various arcades "Stud" has become one common designation for a games adept, while "wimp" is the sort of conge nial taunt allocated one who fails. Sex linking the games made a breakthrough with PAC, MAN, the first video game to attract as many women as men One regular male player insists it is the perfect pick up ploy, offering a round ol PA(. MAN as an opening line. Because the yellow Japanese gobbling ball survived the sex test better than any before it, the new game MS PAC MAN has now been introduced, in which a female gobbler, wearing a ribbon and dancing in circles when captured, moves in pink and yellow mazes and through a dual set of Freudian tunnels. Special in terboards depict the new Pac Woman falling in love with the Original, a First (but probably not the last) in the infant world of video game evolution. LEVEL SIX Philosophical Finish A bored kid sits on his stool, watching the yellow PAC-MAN run by itself toward the bottom left wall l.ix)k, Ma, no hands, he seems to want to say, but to whom? No one is watching, no one cares, anil the I>oy hesitates briefly before con tinning his pattern play to rack up impressive points. Having spent his lunch money to be here, he has achieved the ultimate goal of video games: success by saturation. The theory of entertainment is that the formula shouldn't change F.ntertainment is a commodity which trades I test when quality con trol is high, standard, and utterly predictable An, on the other hand, makes us nervous, challenges our assumptions, involves change, and lives on risk McDonald s hanihuf gets, with across the country uni fortuity In Its product, make a good case Idr entertainment fixxl The movies rely upon a great deal of repetition sometimes called sequels to Ixilsier Ixtx ol flee That's entertainment Movies, however, are trying hard now to win back the dollars that video games have stolen away from them Five billion dollars were grossed by the video games Industry In l‘)g|, only $2 H billion came to the movie lx>x office Hollvwixx! is wasting no time getting the attractive video image onto the big screen I'm afte front \cu York and Wnlfcn were lust two of last year s movies to tea ture video-generated techniques, and Walt Disney Studios have re leased Tron, a feature-length com puter animated film about life within the videogames reality. (One might be tempted to claim that Star Wars inspired the videogames boom — and there is some connec tion — but the first computer game was called SPACE WAR, created in 1962 by Steve Russell.) More than this, film exhibitors are bringing games into the lobbies of the theaters, hoping to augment the concessions income which already accounts for the largest percentage of a theater owner's income. Movies are just an excuse. That's entertainment, too. Are video games art? Of course not. For a quarter you get a scenario that is infallible and pre dictable, like a good 48* ham burger. But with that limitation, you also get a chance to interact in ways Raiders of the Ixxst Ark never could provide, and the aesthetic experience is quite likely of a higher order on the tjnachines than at the movie. The game lets you re late, revise, devise, experience all the synthetic emotions of hate, fear, anxiety, and (with MS. PAC MAN) even romance. You come away sweating, and you — not Indiana Jones — have done something about the survival of the plastic planet. Aldous Huxley’s prediction of participation “feelies” in Brave New World may only be as fat away as 3-D and holographic video games. Not since classical music has am entertainment form allowed as much fascination within a rigidly fixed form. The rigid guidelines of a Bach fugue — consistent within a strict structure — have a symmetry and recursive design already praised highly by computerists. It takes many many listenings before one tires of the intricate music that's hard to unwind. Video games are as constricted as a sonnet, yet — like Wordsworth's praise of that confinement have the beauty of playing within pure form. The games may provide the revenge of the IV generations We re capable of talking luck at last, we re finally getting our crack Monotony, uniformity, and hyp nosls have their place in coping with a rough world where sportsmanship is largely a game for hypocrites. A quarter may give com fort. II Marcuse or Mcl.uhan were alive today, much hypothesizing altout the future of a planet popu lated by video gamers could lx- ex pected Are games really that important? Hesse thought so when he wrote //>*• (Hass Htskl (lame, predicting a world where gaming controlled all politics, religion, and language. Cer tain lx the Zen archer would have DEFENDER blisters on his hands Even it artificially induced, the hypnosis" of video games creates an intense emotional concern, something re ter reel to in the Sixties as “involvement." Maybe it will spread to other human realms once the feeling is reawakened The more things change, the more they stay tlte same 1'he universe recy cles and is saved once again insert coin.
