Videogames
October 6, 2008
A recent reading that I did, “Semiotic Domains: Is Playing Videogames A ‘Waste of Time?’” discussed the literacy value of videogames when compared to other such literary values as books. Frankly, I never considered the nortion that games could have a literature value because one does not ‘read’ a videogame as much as one does so for a book: one plays, interacts, or immerses oneself in a videogame
However, we were discussing the notions of first-person shooters in class. In our discussion, we asserted that to a degree, videogames do have a literacy value in a sense that the player must keep track of a multitude of information at any given time. Take, for example, Command & Conquer, a military strategy game. I, as the unit commander of an assembly of soldiers on the screen, must be aware of a multitude of factors, including how many units I possess, the location of my base and its weak points, my power level and financial holdings, the location of the enemy, his assets, his capabilities, and his weaknesses. At any given time, I have enough time to process this information at a slower and more calm pace compared to first-person shooters. FPS, as they are so called, are more fast-paced, and the player must be aware of his health and armor levels, radar system, locations of friends and enemies, his weaponry and ammunition, and if he throws a headset into the mix, he must be prepared to interact with his teammates and relays commands, responses, or instructions in order to better defeat the enemy.
The point is that while videogames do not necessarily envelop the idea of literacy in the same manner as a book, there is a still a requirement to involve oneself in the information intake and processing procedures of the videogames if one hopes to better learn how to operate and survive in the field of electronic gaming.
Additionally, the idea of real-world videogame applications were discussed in the forms of the game controllers. Aside from games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, which allow you to play musical instruments as controllers, the U.S. military is utilizing X-Box 360 and Wii controllers in order to pilot their Unmanned Ground Vehicles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, as today’s soldiers are familiar with such controls. It is the videogame controller which has revolutionized the manner in which we play videogames and operate today’s futuristic robot combat systems.
See, Jack Thompson? Videogames can’t be all that bad!
Honor
September 28, 2008
Recently, I had a discussion with a friend of mine about the subject of honor in videogames. He argues that there can be no honor in a virtual battle, such as in Halo 3. I argue differently.
Firstly, I feel actually following the programmed rules of the videogame is a sign of honor (no cheating, no hacking). Secondly, focusing on the opposition rather than betraying your brethren is another display of honorable actions (no team-killing). Basic stuff right there.
Then there’s the tactics you employ. This is where things get very tricky.
For one thing, there is “terrain-exploiting,” or using glitches, errors, mistakes, or otherwise obtaining access to various areas of the battlefield that otherwise you cannot physically reach on your own without using another player’s assistance (man stack-jumping) or by jumping on a niche in the wall like a lightpost or antenna (Call of Duty 4 is notorious for this, and they still haven’t been corrected). This I consider dishonorable, as other players do not expect you to attack from otherwise inaccessible areas of the battlefield, such as outside the map.
Additionally, there is the idea of attacking a player when he is not physically playing, i.e. “away from keyboard.” If a player is immobile and standing in a spawn area, or a section of the battlefield that I happen to encounter, and I determine he is not playing or firing on me, then I will not attack. I held my fire on a player who wasn’t playing in Halo 3, and I let him go until he returned and fired upon me. My friend who initiated this discussion felt I should have killed him outright, but I disagreed with him.
Lastly, I feel that if one is engaged by a weapon which he can match in strength and defeat (such as a Halo 3 Assault Rifle), he should make every attempt to do so; he should not run and thereby he should engage in close combat and attempt to defeat his enemy. The only times I can see a legitimate reason for breaking contact with the enemy is if you’re being attacked by a shotgun, Mauler, Gravity Hammer, or sword. Any other time, the honorable maneuver is to directly engage and return fire on the enemy (unless you’re being fired upon by a sniper rifle or Battle Rifle from long range, but the idea of weapons falling into the discussion of honor is still open to interpretation).
So, what about you guys? If there can be honor in a real-world battle, can there be honor in a videogame battle, a virtual contest?
I Nuked Islamabad
September 21, 2008
Indeed, I did. I staged a coup de tat in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, deposing the West-sympathetic government by launching a suicide carbombing attack against the Pakistani Prime Minister returning from exile, killing her instantly and initiating civil war. But as U.S. Marines from the 1st Recon Division closed in around my capital palace, I set off a nuclear bomb, virtually wiping out anyone who had the nerve to try to disrupt my coup, and martyring the city’s entire population, no matter their disposition. Though I was not there at the time: I was in my safe house in Nok Kundi in northwestern Pakistan awaiting transport to cross the border into Iran while in possession of a nuclear explosive removed from a nuclear warhead I stole from one of Pakistan’s ‘secured’ launch silos. My intention was to transport the nuclear package to a bunker in Iran, where it would be stored until it was needed.
Before that, I killed a boy. I killed a boy who was dressed in a white, black, and gray urban camouflage uniform and bearing the red angular triangle and scorpion motif of the enemy. He was about twelve years old, shorter than most other boys, wearing a Kevlar helmet that was too big for his head, his blond hair jutting out the sides. His pale hands were fumbling with an Russian AK-47 rifle loaded with only one magazine, he was carrying at least two or three grenades but he wasn’t wearing a flak jacket. Probably because all that weight would have slowed him down and made him useless to those who conscripted him. Just days ago, he had been a civilian, but like the days of World War II’s Hitler Youth, the enemy had grown so desperate to stop our advance that they were deploying child soldiers against us. Not exactly combat-effective weapons, but psychologically-killing and morale-shaking enough as it was. Though he was running towards me, I could tell he was shivering, gripped by the madness around him, the stench of death, the mind-numbing advance of tanks against men, the burning funeral pyres of destroyed vehicles, but in all, he was forced to go forward by those who pried him out of his mother’s arms.
The problem was, I didn’t hesitate. I leveled my M-16A2 at him, gripped the heat guards with my gloved hands, locked the boy’s chest into the crosshairs of my ACOG Scope and fired one round. I fired upon him as I would fire upon any other enemy soldier, and felt nothing. The bullet tore through his body in an instant, blasting blood out the other side and silhouetting his body in the red spray. He fell to the ground with a terrified look on his face, as though my firing on him was totally unexpected. Then I realized what I had done: I killed a boy, I shot a child, and now his blood was flowing onto the European landscape by my hands. Unconsciously, I ran to him. I sprinted at full speed, reaching him and kneeling over him. I blocked the sun from his body and saw a volcano of blood erupting upon his chest. He was wheezing, breathing through the bloodsoaked hole in his lungs, blood staining his open mouth and teeth, his helmet rolled off his head, his eyes turning glossy. I grabbed his hand and held it, cursing myself for what I had done. A bullet dug into the grass at my feet, and I released the boy’s hand to readjust my rifle and fire on my attacker, striking him as I had struck the boy. When I looked back down at the boy, I discovered to my sorrow he was dead; probably died the moment I let go of his hand.
So, in effect, I killed thousands of people with a nuclear blast and a child with a bullet. But, the amazing thing is, I did it all without even joining the military, potentially betraying my country, grabbing a weapon, and going on a killing spree overseas. -I did it by typing it, by writing it, by creating a story of it.
Let no man question me when I say writers are gods, for in effect, you can defame my name, you can curse at me, you can cast me out, you can insult me in all manners, you can break my heart, but with the tools of writing before me, I can destroy your world without even touching you.
Ripped From Life
September 21, 2008
I write of brutality and war, love and sex, anything you may find in everyday life, and connect it all to war. Some people have called me crazy simply based on the ideas I have presented for reading. In the past, some people have asked me “Where do you get such wild ideas?” In truth, I tell them: life.
Many of my ideas on what my characters do, say, think, the world political and military climates, and aspects of individual performance come from my own life, or real-world events. Combat actions against Russia were born out of Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and their war in Chechnya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabian maneuvers were derived out of the “War on Terror” in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, Bhutto’s assassination in 2007, Pakistan’s firing on American AH-64 Apaches last month, and the instability of Pakistan.
In the past, some have questioned whether or not I could face legal prosecution for using ideas from videogames and other created works. But, largely, I do not “rip off” what has already been created in our media. I use its reference and change some aspects to make it my own. Take for example Call of Duty 4. A Middle Eastern man leads a coup de tat in an unnamed Middle Eastern nation (though by the map, it occurs in Saudi Arabia) and then sets off a nuclear device in what appears to be Iran. However, the nations of Iran and Pakistan are not directly mentioned, so if I wanted to stage a story in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Iran following a storyline similar to what is found in the videogame, I could do it (mainly because I’m not selling my stories and therefore, I am protected under the “Fair Use” doctrine of copyrighted material).
Additionally, other ideas for my characters, specifically, the one which is an embodiment of myself, “Commander A9,” are taken from actual events in my lifetime, such as my paintball performance, videogame capabilities, and actual military training. I was Battalion Commander for my Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps battalion in high school, I went to Norwich University, the Military College of the State of Vermont until 2005, I worked at a dust-hole of a factory until September 2006, and then I entered Rowan University immediately thereafter, joining up once again in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and finishing a 2-year time slot, bettering myself morally, physically, and mentally, as a good college student and upcoming soldier should do so.
Recently, I went on a 48-hour bender playing Call of Duty 4, and during so, I had two very successful engagements in which, by myself, I alone stopped the efforts of the opposing team to bomb our weapons storage by picking up a machine gun, a sniper rifle, and a combat knife and turning all three against. I maneuvered in such a way that my friend complimented me, saying my stalwart performance was “epic.” So, I took my battle from the videogame and will incorporate its idea into my writing for when my writing focuses on combat actions in the Middle East.
Other battles are derived out of my paintball combat performance, my actual military training, and the events of my own life. As my parents are teachers in reality, my parents in my stories are teachers. As I participated in track and cross country in high school, my character is an expert runner. I cannot imagine being someone else other than who I am. My alternative identity is me.
In effect, this is my autobiography in story format.
Those who have read my work thus far find me to mimic the authenticating and authoritative style of Tom Clancy, famed military and political disaster scenario writer whose work has been made into several movies and videogames, and whose videogames accurately predicted the Russian-Georgian conflict which occured this year (Clancy predicted where, when, who, and why and got it down accurately right down to the month Russia began complaining to Georgia). However, the difference between myself and Mr. Clancy is that I do all of my own research on my own. In truth, I’ve got more intelligence data on tanks, planes, weapons, personnel, military tactics, doctrines, and other related fields of the forces of the U.N., U.S., Russia, NATO, SEATO, allies, and enemies that sometimes I think I’ve got enough data to make the Pentagon nervous.
If I mention a weapon, vehicle, rifle, combat system, or otherwise something I feel must be authenticated, I do it. I explain the device’s capabilities, its relevance to the wars in my stories, and other critical information which must be listed in order to make my stories seem more realistic. I explain the make-up of military units, the power behind ranks of tanks, the sleek capabilities of the most futuristic of jet fighters, and the rationale behind locking a bullet into a firing chamber and pulling the trigger. I describe the mind-numbing concussive force of standing next to a discharging rifle’s muzzle, the sweaty and surprisingly-open spaces of being inside an Abrams Tank, the flow of adrenaline pumping through veins when a bullet narrowly rips a man’s ear off, and the euphoric feeling of victory, alongside the agonizing tears of defeat; all as they are in reality, all as I have experienced them firsthand.
I do all of these things in an effort to make my stories more real, for if they are real, then they can be believed. There can be no assumption, there can be no guessing, there can be no unproven facts; there can be only truth, there can be only authenticity, there can be only fact.
Forced Writing
October 6, 2008
Disclaimer: As the semester has been completed, it should be noted that my grades should be determined based on the quality of my work, not on my opinion of the assignment.
As the weeks draw to a close, I am concerned as to what may happen to this blog. Then again, we have not had many who have chosen to comment on our works, other than spambots. Specifically, we have received only 6-7 legitimate comments from other users who were not spambots or classmates, and even then, with spambots getting more crafty, I suspect some of our human commentators may have been bots (but that’s just my paranoia). When considering how many total users are on WordPress, this is a bit disheartening to know less than even 10 decided to comment, despite our extensive tags.
If nothing else, and unless I discuss certain conditions with my group, this will be my final post, as I seem to have lost my enjoyment and further motivation for this blogging. In truth, we were forced to blog, to make one reading response to a particular reading, which I loathed, and then post 4 more blogs per week. We were told blogging was supposed to be spontaneous, whereas in this class, blogging was forced upon us. Thereby, I lost the motivation to effectively blog here without feeling as though this was a strenuous chore. Hell, I even lost the motivation to blog in my own personal spare time for my own personal pages because we blogged way too much on this website. These 5-blogs-a-week exhausted me and turned me off to blogging as a whole. I already have a blog-like journal entry which I maintain on my DeviantART page, and therefore, I have no time for this WordPress blog unless I can be sufficiently motivated to remain here. Yet, seeing as how we don’t get any significant comments anymore, I feel my motivation to stay may have run out.
I read in Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” that a student will more often than naught abandon his creativity and personal freedom of writing in order to appease an educator or professor, especially when the professor assigns work that the student does not enjoy writing or when the professor does not understand or agree with the student’s writing style. This is not to say that I was in those straits all the time, but in recent weeks, I have found myself in such a situation, and I have considered the text which I read, and discussed it with other students.
At times, academic writing can be enjoyable, but the majority of academic writing is what I like to refer to as “forced writing.” Forced writing, in my opinion, is defined as writing which is, essentially, forced upon the student, and writing the student does not enjoy carrying out. Some examples of forced writing are academic papers of undesirable subjects and material, blogs in which the student is required to write (whereas blogging should be spontaneous), and reports made concerning subjects the student detests; all of which involve the act of a student abandoning his creativity and writing dry, dull papers in a specific style or on a specific subject in order to appease his professor and earn a passing grade due to the professor’s dislike for the student’s writing style or the nature of the subjects in which the student discusses.
Blogging for a class is a viable example, as it can be greatly exhausting. In the early weeks of the class, one may enjoy freelancing on the blog site and updating it weekly on topics the student enjoys writing about. Then, when the requirement to write in response to specific readings or otherwise academic parameters are leveled upon the student, those within the class suffering under such parameters may feel that blogging becomes a chore, something that “has” to be done rather than something the student “wants” to do. The motivation to blog on time may be lost, and students may find themselves laboring in order to post blogs which are being forced upon them.
In my case, I hate writing papers, especially when it’s for a subject I dislike. I also hate being forced to write a response to a particular reading I may have undertaken and did not enjoy. Hell, I hate reading responses in general, as reading responses are “forced writing.” One might say it’s how all academic writing is to be conducted, but does that mean that we have to drudge through our academic assignments like they’re torture? Does that mean that academic institutions can’t make their academic assignments as simple as blogging about anything the student may enjoy? Why is it that academics at times are delivered to the student without any motivating fun-factor involved? I want to be motivated to blog, not forced to do it within certain parameters for a grade. I don’t want to discuss a reading, I want to discuss my writing, because I find my writing more interesting than reading, and frankly, we were instructed to blog about our reading as our subject on interest.
I don’t like being told what I can and can’t write about. I don’t like being restricted, I don’t like being regulated, I don’t like being censored, and God help me and the poor man reading my work, I most certainly hate being silenced. In the greater principle of things, an American soldier fought and died today so we could exercise our right to free speech and freedom of expression, the right to write about what we want without infringement from higher governmental authority, so let’s exercise it while we still have the chance before the Constitution is used for some senator or president’s toilet paper. My fourteen friends in Iraq who joined the National Guard while in various college are all a testament of this.
Let us seriously consider for a moment exactly how many college students read. Hell, let’s consider how many people read in the first place. Out of those, consider how many actually enjoy it. Talk to people, find out if they read. You will find the numbers are minimal. My friends don’t read, I personally don’t read, not even for “pleasure,” because I don’t enjoy it, and I most certainly don’t enjoy writing reading responses or blog responses.
Additionally, students may become infringed upon when certain classes require them to create particular web pages, which require the student to input his real name. In my class, we had a discussion about online privacy, and how to better protect oneself. Therefore, I refused to put my full name into the web pages we were assigned to create so as to better shield myself from malicious intent. On that note, I’ve got enough personal web sites to maintain already, such as my DeviantART page (which allows me to blog anyway) and my custom Wikipedia pages, as well as several message boards that I am already involved with. Those with Facebook and MySpace pages already have their hands full with their custom-made pages more so than having the time to create Netvibes and Diigo pages that I feel are useless to me since clicking a link in my favorites bar is faster than going to Diigo, and Netvibes is useless to me since I prefer my Firefox tabs.
I also considered how many students actually read assigned readings, especially when considering that the PDFs which contain the readings can sometimes number beyond 20 and even 50 pages, all on very small font. No one has time for that, not when they’d rather be doing other things, such as writing about subjects they enjoy.
I’m a writer, and I’d rather type my stories rather than read a PDF that I’m going to forget in the next two hours after reading it. This seems paradoxical, since I dislike reading, but as a writer, I expect my work to be read. Then again, I enjoy reading my own work more so than academic reading, and frankly, if one doesn’t want to read my work, he doesn’t have to, but by God, no one has a right to stop him from exercising his choice to write and read what he pleases.
Some who have written in the heated manner in which I have done so have questioned whether or not an academic official could affect one’s grade for having that student express his opinions. I’d have to say that no professor can legally lower a student’s grade even if that professor doesn’t like what that student has to say. I once had a high school teacher for a typing class give me a B as a final grade instead of an A because I finished my work faster than anyone else. I typed faster than all other students using my own style of touch-typing, which she authorized, and therefore finished ahead of all other students. Hell, I even typed faster than the teacher, and she still lowered my grade because she didn’t like how fast I completed my work! Now, things are different. No professor on God’s green earth can lower a student’s grade based on personal opinions; only the quality of that student’s academic work determines the student’s grade, and if a grade is lowered because of bias against a student’s opinions, there is going to be problems hell to pay.
So, in the end, I hate forced writing, I hate less-than-enjoyable academic writing, I hate forced blogging, I hate reading, I hate reading responses, because they are not engaging; to get me to write, I have to be motivated and inspired to write. If you force me, expect dull, bland, unmotivated or falsely-motivated results, but if you motivate me, if you let me write about what I care about, if you let me write regarding my work, hell, if you let me write my work, you will see me shine.