Friezeit

 

  Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly.

— Lauren Bacall

   

This is not really about Germany at all but something that I have been doing a lot of since I have had the means to do again. Well that and the Fraulein was not present for five days. It has a undeserved derogatory reputation. Its technology is some of the fastest developing in human history. Its worth more than the motion picture industry. It educates, entertains, stimulates and it a growing professional sport. It is computer gaming.

Unlike generations before that have serious stuff to do, like fighting each other or trying to buy each others houses and rent to other peoples children, generation Y has lived through the computing revolution.  

So what does a computer do? At its most basic sense it processes binary equations, 1s and 0s, Yes and Nos. Much like your brain who runs>  Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before? cycles all day long. Computer also solve problems, so does your brain in relation to survival matters. But your brain does not double in computing power every two years.

 For Example Take Pong released 1972...

  

...admittedly I was born ten years after its creation, but its the first game I can remember.  Two players, one ball, a single interface of turning a knob left or right played on the television, scored like a simple game of back yard soccer minus the grass stains. To win both of these games you have to have more points that you opponent. Period. We had a basic system that ran this when I was growing up, but I never was really that allowed to use it. Perhaps that explains it....or perhaps it was the rule that I was not allow to play anymore games after my parents got up, around 10 AM on a weekend. This ruling was circumnavigated by setting an alarm for 5:30 AM creeping past their room and upstairs and getting in a good five hour binge in in before being kicked off, at which point I would go back to bed. Not much worse company to be found, than a tired grumpy child pulled involuntary from their world of imagination.

Anyway, take Pong and then compare it to one of my latest favorites, Mass Effect 2 released late 2010.

   

It is part two of a three part series. It is a science fiction based role playing game/shooter trilogy The fictional world in which it is set is generally credited with being better written than the Star Wars universe. It has won several awards for Game of the Year for the console version.

Thematically this game has almost everything revenge, racism, identity, strained paternal relationships, redemption, xenophobia, artificial intelligence, terrorism, bureaucracy, violence, hope, cooperation, environmental destruction,  faith, purpose, cloning, hacking, immortality, evolution, loyalty, betray, corruption, family, masculinity, pride, sacrifice, ideals, genocide, war, love, impossible odds, alien life, cultural clashes. All these themes are seamless projected onto a fictional world were the user can indirectly experience the woes of the real world.

Most of the choices made in the game have consequences further down the line, not just in this edition, but in the sequels. Conflicts within crew members, have to be managed as does the opportunity cost of upgrading certain parts of the ship. Which crew member do you send to do what job and why? Which system do you explore at the expense of another. To win this game you have to travel the known and unknown galaxy, collect the best of the best, gain and keep there loyalty, and defeat The Collectors. 

The voice acting for this game was played by the following>

Martin Sheen (The West Wing, Apocalypse Now) Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck)  Seth Green (Austin Powers, Robot Chicken) and Keith David (Crash) Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica)  Carrie-Ann Moss (The Matrix Trilogy), Shohreh Aghdashloo, w Michael Hogan (Battlestar Galactica)  Adam Baldwin (Chuck, Firefly) , and Michael Dorn (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as Gatatog Uvenk.

What actors were in Pong again? I forget.

To live through, and grow up in, this immerse and continuous transformation is unique in human history. The journey of my generations coming of age parallels this technological revolution. I will not begin to address the Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), with around 12 million players for just World of Warcraft with fully functioning economies both legit and black, which cross over into the real world. Thats a whole new kettle of fush.

Surely the time spent justifying time spent playing computer games is over. If/when I ever have children they would not have to justify it to me.

I was not just playing computer games, I was managing my civilization from 4000 BC to the present, fighting wars, creating diplomatic ties, and conducting research.

I was not just playing computer games, I was assembling a crew of galactic specialists, managing there conflicts, and making decisions that affect entire cultures.

I was not just playing computer games, I was living in some of the most detailed and well written worlds that humanity has ever created built on all our history and dreams to date.

What did you do? The washing?