~snorkmaiden12

Mornings for me usually follow a regular ritual. I wake up around 7, shower, make coffee, fry an egg for breakfast, and read the newspaper. Usually among the funnies and opinions columns, nothing jumps out at me, but there was an article that did this morning. It was yet another "OMG WERE ALL GONNA RUIN OUR KIDS BECAUSE OF VIOLENCE IN VIDEO GAMES AND HALO IS SATANIC AND MARIO IS COMUNIST PROPEGANDA AND OMG OMG OMG!!!" mumbo jumbo.

We've all seen and heard this time and time again for the past decade or so. But this morning it occured to me that my generation are taking the pretend characters that are nothing more than polygons and pixels WAY too seriously.

I also recently read a blog that was about ten word document pages long about how the video game Halo is a metaphor for the apocolypse. That video game gives me motion sickness whenever I try to play it, so I really never payed close attention to the story line.

Whatever happened to when games were fun, just for the sake of being fun?

I remember the glorious Christmas morning when my siblings and I opened up a SNES as a gift. The games that came with it were Super Mario World, Mario Paint, and Pilotwings.
Now pilotwings was an interesting game. The object of it was to control this little pilot guy who flew various aircraft, such as an airplane, jetpack, hanglider, and even a helicopter at the end of the game. There were also these sort of teacher characters, who would praise you when you did well, and make goofy faces when you did poorly.
However, it didn't take long for us to figure out that it was a lot more fun to see who could make the biggest crash possible for the 32 bit system, and see who could make the teacher for whatever level you were on make the weirdest face. (and when you're 7 years old, that NEVER gets old!) My brother would make Susie and I laugh by "making funnies" on a regular basis on Saturday mornings for the better part of 6-7 years.

There are video games out that throw its players into a world of fantasy, philosophy, morals, ethical struggles, and stories that are more complicated that most of Shakespheres' plays. As fun as a lot of these games are, Im starting to wonder if the gaming industry is taking it way to far. Pretty soon instead of actually opening a book to read, people will be turning on their x-boxes to see what Midna from Twilight Princes's view is on the naturalistic school of thought.

For serious games out there, do as you want, I really can't control what you do. Its your choice, game as you see fit.

But as for me, I will always prefer making the little parachute guy crash into the radio tower.