After a stressful week, I find that playing a video game can be rather therapeutic. You can project your enemies onto the plethora of monsters you must fight and gain a sense of satisfaction from completing in-game tasks. While the individual tasks in a game as long as an RPG can be quite nominal, they are fairly easy to complete. I am a person who makes lists and loves to cross things off of them, so it is fun for me to go through with a strategy guide and mark my progress.

Richard Bartle would probably classify me as an achiever for this reason. I do thoroughly enjoy running around the levels and collecting items. I like playing independently – I enjoy competition most if it’s against the game or myself. I don’t mind leveling up at all, but there could be two possible motivations for this. The first would be that I enjoy gaining levels, another form of achievement. I find that higher levels make boss fights a little bit easier, and I am a fan of low-stress games. My second motivation is that I enjoy killing monsters. As I mentioned earlier, I can unleash any pent-up aggression on the virtual monsters. If a monster scares me, it shatters that line where I feel safe (like when I jumped and screamed after the sudden appearance of a monster in Doom). This takes me out of the play and I would much rather fight monsters when I can see them clearly.

These two motivations are not mutually exclusive, however. While Bartle’s ideas apply mostly to MUDs, I do think that it is possible that people can fit multiple classifications, and these qualities may be seen more clearly in different games. I believe that I do have a bit of a killer in me – I’ve been known to shout Bartle’s “Die! Die! Die!” (a killer classification quote) when excited about any fight. However, I think that my neurotic collecting and leveling up would classify me as an achiever, even if I do decide not to go after EVERY ultimate item at the end of these games. (Usually, at the end of RPGS, I am at such a high level that it really does not matter if I get all the items since it would not make it significantly easier to beat the game.)

I had been neglecting my RPG addiction in an effort to spend time with my mother during her recent visit and get my homework done. However, once I had a few spare hours to myself, I decided it was time to jump back into that genre I love and give Kingdom Hearts II another try.

I was so excited to play again, thinking that after my first five hours, the game would really take off. I had regained control of the original party (not the main character’s doppelganger and his friends). I was thrilled to have to chance to run around and collect items, and maybe slay a few enemies along the way. Unfortunately, I had triggered a story point before I saved that cleared the area of monsters. How disappointing. While it was nice to run around quickly, I missed the satisfaction of slaying the monsters. I told myself not to get too upset, as I would soon enter a new area that was sure to offer more enemies.

I was bitterly disappointed when I played for the next two hours, when I encountered fewer than 20 fights (lasting about 15 seconds each) and more and more movies. The movies were obviously being used as a crutch to patch together an overly complicated story. I was in control of the characters for less than half of the time again. I found that the play mood was interrupted and I was rudely thrown outside this game “magic circle” each time a new movie appeared. There were so many that I kept wondering how long it would be until I would get to play again. This game me the felling that I was not invited to my own party – they didn’t need me, the player, to help them tell the story. I was just there to hack up the occasional enemy (ridiculously easy) and move along a very clear path in order to trigger more movies. It not longer felt like play.

Even if the killer in me could not be satisfied by the fights, I had hoped that the achiever part of me could find satisfaction. However, the collection of items didn’t even seem fun anymore. After eight hours of gameplay, you could collect synthesis items to synthesize better weapons but you didn’t have enough to actually improve weapons yet. Even the ready-made weapons were (what I considered) worse than what I already owned. Plus, I did not have enough money because I had barely been allowed to fight. The only other way to gain money in the game was to complete ridiculous mini-games and I really did not want to waste my time re-playing games that were ridiculous when I completed them earlier as the doppelganger.

After all this, I really thought that I would give the game one more shot or at least play it until I got to the Pirates of the Caribbean level. Unfortunately, my strategy guide walkthrough showed me that it would be at least 5-10 hours away, and I simply did not have the patience to wade through so many movies for a level that I heard wasn’t nearly as cool as it seemed.

The magic circle was shattered and my needs as a player were not met. I decided to send this game back and stop wasting my time being disappointed by a game that would not satisfy my player types.  

Today in class we had the chance to play some old games. I got a chance to check out Real Myst, Doom, Quake, and Castle Wolfenstein. I rarely take the time to try out the older games, and it was fun to go “out of the box” a little – I’m used to my happy children’s games and RPGs.

Real Myst was probably the game I played for the least amount of time. I was playing with a friend, and both of us had grown frustrated by the puzzles of the original games. I had the advantage of a strategy guide, but I quit before playing five hours simply because I felt so lonely in the first Myst. After discussing the exciting ability to move more fluidly through the world in Real Myst, I was excited. However, as soon as I encountered the first puzzle, I decided that I had seen enough of the pretty graphics and wanted to move on. The Myst series appeals to a very select audience, especially in this age (with more variety in games). I think it takes a very patient person, and many people in my generation simply aren’t used to waiting around to appreciate the beauty of a game.

Castle Wolfenstein was not what I expected. When I first heard the game, I thought it would be an 2-D platformer/adventure game, not a shooter. I played it for a short period of time, in which I was confused by the number of identical doors and the limited mise-en-scene. I had little idea of what to do (other than shooting) and shooting didn’t interest me much. After I had seen some of the Germans, I decided that I had the general idea and moved on.

Quake and Doom helped me realize once and for all why I never play FPS games. I was playing Quake and I died in almost no time, even on easy mode. I simply am not motivated to run around in the dark and kill things. I always seemed to be running low on armor, which made it even worse. I felt like I was on suicide missions. I am also very jumpy. I thought I was doing okay when I was playing Doom. I had worked out a strategy where I would strafe behind newly opened doorways so I could scout out enemies and scan the area. If I ran around shooting at the slightest hint of movement, I seemed to eliminate most enemies. The dated soundtrack and growling sounds didn’t seem to bother me too much. After hearing an irregularly large number of growling sounds, I assumed that there could be a monster nearby. I spun around in the dark and saw nothing. Then, I suddenly realized that I was being harmed and screamed aloud in terror as a pixilated monstrosity appeared out of nowhere. Seeing as I was wearing headphones at the time, my classmates all turned to look. My friend, who was watching, stated that it was probably best that I didn’t play FPS games. I think he’s right.

While I do appreciate returning to some of the classic games, it is very clear to me why gamers often stick to genres they love. My friend, who had played many shooting games, picked up the controls easily and found the game design easy to navigate. Many genres, like FPS, RPG, or racing games have similar strategies that experienced players can master. I think I will still devote most of my time to the genres I most enjoy, since it’s much more comfortable, creating a more enjoyable experience.