achronologyofbits

[achronologyofbits]

GOTY 2019

I wanted to write a personal Game of the Year list, but I realized I really didn’t play that many games that were new in 2019. So I’m ranking them, but it’s less a “top 10” and more a “10 games I played and how I felt about them.”  

10. Kingdom Hearts III

Kingdom Hearts III plays like a game from 2005.

I’m not sure I can fully articulate what I mean by that. Maybe I mean its combat is largely simplistic and button-mashy. Maybe I mean its rhythms of level traversal and cutscene exposition dumps are archaic and outdated. Maybe feeling like this game is a relic from another time is unavoidable, given how many years have passed since its first series entry.  

But there’s also something joyful and celebratory about it all — something kind of refreshing about a work that knows only a tiny portion of its players will understand all its references and lore and world-building, and just doesn’t care.

Despite all the mockery and memery surrounding its fiction, Kingdom Hearts’ strongest storytelling moments are actually pretty simple. They’re about the struggle to exist, to belong, and to define what those things mean for yourself. I think that’s why the series reaches the people it does.

Those moments make Kingdom Hearts III worth defending, if not worth recommending.

9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Admittedly, I only played about 10-15 hours of this in 2019. Perhaps fittingly, that’s about the amount of time I originally spent on Dark Souls when it released in 2011. I bounced off, hard, because I didn’t understand what it was asking of me. Once I did — though, it has to be said, I needed other people to explain those expectations to me, because the game sure as hell didn’t — Dark Souls became an all-time favorite. And I’ve played every FromSoft game since then, and enjoyed them all. Until Sekiro.

Part of it is, again, down to expectation. Dark Souls trained its players on a certain style of combat: cautious movements, careful attention to spacing, committing to weighty attacks, waiting for counterattacks. In every game since then, FromSoft have iterated on those expectations in the same direction in an attempt to encourage players to be less cautious and more aggressive. The series moved from tank-heavy play in Dark Souls, to dual-wielding in DS2, to weapon arts and reworking poise in DS3, to the system of regaining health by attacking in Bloodborne.

In some ways, Sekiro is a natural continuation of this trend toward aggression, but in others, it’s a complete U-turn. Bloodborne eschewed blocking and prioritized dodging as the quickest, most effective defensive option. Sekiro does exactly the opposite. Blocking is always your first choice, parrying is essential instead of largely optional, and dodging is near useless except in special cases. FromSoft spent five games teaching me my habits, and it was just too hard for me to break them for Sekiro.

I have other issues, too — health/damage upgrades are gated behind boss fights, so grinding is pointless; the setting and story lack some of the creativity of the game’s predecessors; there’s no variety of builds or playstyles — but the FromSoft magic is still there, too. Nothing can match the feeling of beating a Souls-series boss. And the addition of a grappling hook makes the verticality of Sekiro’s level design fascinating.

I dunno. I feel like there’s more here I’d enjoy, if I ever manage to push through the barriers. Maybe — as I finally did with the first Dark Souls, over a year after its release — someday I will.

8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

In December, my wife and I traveled to Newport Beach for a family wedding, and we stayed an extra day to visit Disneyland. As an early birthday present, Aubrey bought me the experience of building a lightsaber in Galaxy’s Edge. And the experience is definitely what you’re paying for; the lightsaber itself is cool, but it’s cool because it’s made from parts I selected, with a blade color I chose, and I got to riff and banter with in-character park employees while doing it. (“Can you actually read those?” one asked me in an awed voice, when I selected a lightsaber hilt portion adorned with ancient Jedi runes. “Not yet,” I told her. “We’ll see if the Force can teach me.”)

Maybe it’s because I just had that experience, but by far my favorite moment in Jedi: Fallen Order is when main character Cal Kestis overcomes his own fears and memories to forge his own lightsaber, using a kyber crystal that calls to him personally. It’s maybe the only part of the game that made me feel like a Jedi, in a way the hours of Souls-inspired lightsaber slashing didn’t.

I think that’s telling. And I think it’s because so much of Fallen Order is derivative of other works, both in the current canon of gaming and of Star Wars. That’s not to say it’s bad — the mélange of Uncharted/Tomb Raider traversal, combat that evokes Souls and God of War, and vaguely Metroid-y power acquisition and exploration mostly works — but it’s just a titch less than the sum of those parts.

Similarly, as a Star Wars story, it feels under-baked. There’s potential in exploring the period immediately after Order 66 and the Jedi purge, but you only see glimpses of that. And I understand the difficulty of telling a story where the characters succeed but in a way that doesn’t affect established canon, but it still seemed like there were a couple of missed opportunities at touching base with the larger Star Wars universe. (And the one big reference that does pop up at the end feels forced and unrealistic.)

When I got home from California, I took my lightsaber apart just to see how it all worked. Outside of the hushed tones and glowing lights of Savi’s Workshop, it seems a little less special. It’s still really cool…but I sort of wish I had had a wider variety of parts to choose from. And that I had bought some of the other crystal colors. Just in case.

That’s how I feel about Jedi: Fallen Order. I had fun with it. But it’s easier now to see the parts for what they are.

7. Untitled Goose Game

Aubrey and I first saw this game at PAX, at a booth which charmingly recreated the garden of the game’s first level. We were instantly smitten, and as I’ve introduced it to family and friends, they’ve all had the same reaction. When we visited my brother’s family in Florida over the holidays, my eight-year-old niece and nephew peppered me with questions about some of the more complex puzzles. Even my father, whose gaming experience basically topped out at NES Open Tournament Golf in 1991, gave it a shot.

I’m not sure I have a lot more to say here, other than a few bullet points:

1) I love that Untitled Goose Game is completely nonviolent. It would’ve been easy to add a “peck” option as another gameplay verb, another means of mischief. (And, from what I understand, it would be entirely appropriate, given the aggression of actual geese.) That the developers resisted this is refreshing.

2) I’m glad a game this size can have such a wide reach, and that it doesn’t have to be a platform exclusive.

3) Honk.

6. Tetris 99

Despite the number of hours I’ve spent playing games, and the variety of genres that time has spanned, I’m not much for competitive gaming. This is partially because the competitive aspect of my personality has waned with age, and partially because I am extremely bad at most multiplayer games.

The one exception to this is Tetris.

I am a Tetris GOD.

Of course, that’s an incredible overstatement. Now that I’ve seen real Ecstasy of Order, Grandmaster-level Tetris players, I realize how mediocre I am. But in my real, actual life, I have never found anyone near my skill level. In high school, I would bring two Game Boys, two copies of Tetris, and a link cable on long bus rides to marching band competitions, hoping to find willing challengers. The Game Boys themselves became very popular. Playing me did not.

Prior to Tetris 99, the only version of the game that gave me any shred of humility in a competitive sense was Tetris DS, where Japanese players I found online routinely handed me my ass. I held my own, too, but that was the first time in my life when I wasn’t light-years beyond any opponent.

As time passed and internet gaming and culture became more accessible, I soon realized I was nowhere near the true best Tetris players in the world. Which was okay by me. I’m happy to be a big fish in a small pond, in pretty much all aspects of my life.

Tetris 99 has given me a perfectly sized pond. I feel like I’m a favorite to win every round I play, and I usually finish in the top 10 or higher. But it’s also always a challenge, because there’s just enough metagame to navigate. Have I targeted the right enemies? Do I have enough badges to make my Tetrises hit harder? Can I stay below the radar for long enough? These aspects go beyond and combine with the fundamental piece-dropping in a way I absolutely love.

The one thing I haven’t done yet is win an Invictus match (a mode reserved only for those who have won a standard 99-player match). But it’s only a matter of time.  

5. Pokemon Sword/Shield

I don’t think I’ve played a Pokemon game through to completion since the originals. I always buy them, but I always seem to lose steam halfway through. But I finished Shield over the holidays, and I had a blast doing it.

Because I’m a mostly casual Pokeplayer, the decision to not include every ‘mon in series history didn’t bother me at all. I really enjoyed learning about new Pokemon and forcing myself to try moving away from my usual standards. (Although I did still use a Gyarados in my final team.)

As a fan of English soccer, the stadium-centric, British-flavored setting also contributed to my desire to see the game through. Changing into my uniform and walking onto a huge, grassy pitch, with tens of thousands of cheering fans looking on, really did give me a different feeling than battles in past games, which always seemed to be in weird, isolated settings.

I’m not sure I’ll push too far into the postgame; I’ve never felt the need to catch ‘em all. But I had a great time with the ones I caught.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

I have a strange relationship with the Zelda series, especially now. They are my wife’s favorite games of all time. But I don’t know if I’ve ever actually sat down and beaten one since the original Link’s Awakening. Even with Breath of the Wild, which I adore, I was content to watch Aubrey do the heavy lifting. I know the series well, I’ve played bits of all of them, but most haven’t stuck with me.

Link’s Awakening has. I wrote a piece once about its existential storytelling and how it affected me as a child. I love the way the graphics in this remake preserve that dreamlike quality. It’s pretty much a re-skin of the original game, but the cutesy, toy-set aesthetic pairs well with the heavy material. If this is all a dream, whose dream is it? And when we wake up, what happens to it?

Truthfully, some of the puzzles and design decisions haven’t held up super well. Despite the fresh coat of paint, it definitely feels like a 25-year-old game. But I’m so glad this version exists.

Oh, and that solo clarinet in the Mabe Village theme? *Chef’s kiss*

3. Control

I actually haven’t seen a lot of the influences Control wears on its sleeve. I’ve never gone completely through all the episodes of the X-Files, Fringe, and Twin Peaks; I’m only vaguely familiar with the series of “creepypasta” fiction called SCP Foundation; and I have never endeavored to sit through a broadcast of Coast to Coast AM. I’m also unfamiliar with Remedy’s best-known work in the genre, Alan Wake. But I know enough about all those works to be able to identify their inspiration on the Federal Bureau of Control, Jesse Faden, and the Oldest House.

Control is an interesting game to recommend (which I do), because I’m not sure how much I really enjoyed its combat. For most of the game, it’s a pretty standard third-person shooter. You can’t snap to cover, which indicates you’re intended to stay on the move. This becomes even more obvious when you gain the ability to air dash and fly. But you do need to use cover, because Jesse doesn’t have much health even at the end of the game. So combat encounters can get out of hand quickly, and there’s little incentive to keep fighting enemies in the late game. Yet they respawn at a frustratingly frequent rate. The game’s checkpointing system compounds this — you only respawn at “control points,” which act like Souls-style bonfires. This leads to some unfortunately tedious runbacks after boss fights.

On the other hand, Jesse’s telekinesis power always feels fantastic, and varying your attacks between gunshots, thrown objects, melee, and mind controlling enemies can be frenetic fun. That all comes to a head in the game’s combat (and perhaps aesthetic?) high point, the Ashtray Maze. To say more would be doing a disservice. It’s awesome.

The rest of the gameplay is awesome, too — and I do call it “gameplay,” though unfortunately you don’t have many options for affecting the world beyond violence. The act of exploring the Oldest House and scouring it for bureaucratic case files, audio recordings, and those unbelievably creepy “Threshold Kids” videos is pure joy. The way the case files are redacted leaves just enough to the imagination, and the idea of a federal facility being built on top of and absorbed into a sort of nexus of interdimensional weirdness is perfectly executed. And what’s up with that motel? And the alien, all-seeing, vaguely sinister Board? So cool.

With such great worldbuilding, I did wish for a little more player agency. There are no real dialogue choices — no way to imbue Jesse with any character traits beyond what’s pre-written for her — and only one ending. This kind of unchecked weird science is the perfect environment for forcing the player into difficult decisions (what do we study? How far is too far? How do we keep it all secret?), and that just isn’t part of the game at all. Which is fine — Control isn’t quite an immersive sim like Prey, and it’s not trying to be. I just see some similarities and potential, and I wish they had been explored a little.

But Control’s still a fantastic experience, and in any other year, it probably would’ve been my number one pick. That’s how good these next two games are.

2. Outer Wilds

Honestly, this is the best game of 2019. But I’m not listing it as number one because I didn’t play most of it — Aubrey did. Usually we play everything together; even if we’re not passing a controller back and forth, one of us will watch while the other one plays. And that definitely happened for a large chunk of Outer Wilds. But Aubrey did make some key discoveries while I was otherwise occupied, so while I think it’s probably the best game, it’s not the one I personally spent the most time with.

The time I did spend, though? Wow. From the moment you wake up at the campfire and set off in search of your spaceship launch codes, it’s clear that this is a game that revels in discovery. Discovery for its own sake, for the furthering of knowledge, for the protection of others, for the sheer fun of it. Some games actively discourage players from asking the question, “Hey, what’s that over there?” Outer Wilds begs you to ask it, and then rewards you not with treasure or statistical growth, but with the opportunity to ask again, about something even more wondrous and significant.

There are so many memorable moments of discovery in this game. The discovery that, hey, does that sun look redder to you than it used to? The discovery that, whoa, why did I wake up where I started after seemingly dying in space? Your first trip through a black hole. Your first trip to the quantum moon. Your first trip to the weird, bigger-on-the-inside fog-filled heart of a certain dark, brambly place. (Aubrey won’t forget that any time soon.)

They take effort, those moments. They do have to be earned, and it isn’t easy. Your spaceship flies like it looks: sketchy, taped together, powered by ingenuity and, like, marshmallows, probably. Some of the leaps you have to make — both of intuition and of jetpack — are a little too far. (We weren’t too proud to look up a couple hints when we were truly stuck.) But in the tradition of the best adventure games (which is what this is, at heart), you have everything you need right from the beginning. All you have to do is gather the knowledge to understand it and put it into action.

And beyond those moments of logical and graphical discovery, there’s real emotion and pathos, too. As you explore the remnants of the lost civilization that preceded yours, your only method of communication is reading their writing. And as you do, you start to get a picture of them not just as individuals (who fight, flirt, and work together to help each other), but as a species whose boundless thirst for discovery was their greatest asset, highest priority, undoing, and salvation, all at once.

I don’t think I can say much more without delving into spoilers, or retreading ground others have covered. (Go read Austin Walker’s beautiful and insightful review for more.) It’s an incredible game, and one everyone with even a passing interest in the medium should try.

(Last thing: Yes, I manually flew to the Sun Station and got inside. No, I don’t recommend it.)

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

If I hadn’t just started a replay of this game, I don’t think I’d be listing it in the number one slot. I started a replay because I showed it to my brother when we visited him in Florida last month, and immediately, all the old feelings came flooding back. I needed another hit.

No game this year has been as compelling for me. That’s an overused word in entertainment criticism, but I mean it literally: There have been nights where I absolutely HAVE to keep playing (much to Aubrey’s dismay). One more week of in-game time. One more study session to raise a skill rank. One more meal together so I can recruit another student. One more battle. Just a little longer.

I’m not sure I can put my finger on the source of that compulsion. Part of it is the excellence of craftsmanship on display; if any technical or creative aspect of Three Houses was less polished than it is, I probably wouldn’t feel so drawn to it. But the two big answers, I think, are the characters and their growth, both mechanically and narratively.

At the start of the game, you pick one of the titular three houses to oversee as professor. While this choice defines who you’ll have in your starting party, that can be mitigated later, as almost every other student from the other two houses can be recruited to join yours. What you’re really choosing is which perspective you’ll see the events of the story from, and through whose eyes: Edelgard of the Black Eagles, Dimitri of the Blue Lions, or Claude of the Golden Deer. (This is also why the game almost demands at least three playthroughs.)

These three narratives are deftly written so you simultaneously feel like you made the only possible canonical choice, while also sowing questions into your decision-making. Edelgard’s furious desire for change is just but perhaps not justifiable; Dimitri hides an obsession with revenge behind a façade of noblesse oblige; Claude is more conniving and pragmatic than he lets on. No matter who you side with, you’ll eventually have to face the others. And everyone can make a case that they, not you, are on the right side.

This is especially effective because almost every character in Three Houses is dealing with a legacy of war and violence. A big theme of the game’s story is how those experiences inform and influence the actions of the victims. What steps are justified to counteract such suffering? How do you break the cycle if you can’t break the power structures that perpetuate it? How do good people end up fighting for bad causes?

While you and your child soldiers (yeah, you do kind of have to just skip over that part; they’re in their late teens, at least? Still not good enough, but could be worse?) are grappling with these questions, they’re also growing in combat strength, at your direction. This is the part that really grabbed me and my lizard brain — watching those numbers get bigger was unbelievably gratifying. Each character class has certain skill requirement prerequisites, and as professor, you get to define how your students meet those requirements, and which they focus on. Each student has certain innate skills, but they also have hidden interests that only come to the surface with guidance. A character who seems a shoo-in to serve as a white mage might secretly make an incredibly effective knight; someone who seems destined for a life as a swordsman suddenly shows a talent for black magic. You can lean into their predilections, or go against them, with almost equal efficacy.

For me, this was the best part of Three Houses, and the part that kept me up long after my wife had gone to bed. Planning a student’s final battle role takes far-seeing planning and preparation, and each step along the way felt thrilling. How can you not forge a connection with characters you’ve taken such pains to help along the way? How can you not explode with joy when they reach their goals?

That’s the real draw of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I think: the joy of seeing people you care about grow, while simultaneously confronting those you once cared about, but who followed another path. No wonder I wanted to start another playthrough. I think I’ll be starting them all over again for a long time.

[achronologyofbits]

Game of the Year

I don’t like Game of the Year lists. 

Actually, let me clarify that: I don’t like reading the Game of the Year lists for entire publications. The aggregated preference of a group of disparate critics doesn’t interest me much. 

I am, however, more interested in individual Game of the Year lists. These tend to be more personal, more unique, more thought-provoking, and especially more experience-driven. 

Deciding whether one game or another is “better” bores me. But descriptions of singular moments? Those, I like.

So I’m not making a Game of the Year list. But I do want to mention a few of my favorite gaming moments of 2013. 

Bioshock Infinite’s opening

The first few minutes of this game will stay in my memory for a long time.

The very beginning, as your character is rowed to another lighthouse in a deliberate callback to the first Bioshock, merely made me curious. The dialogue is funny, the environment interesting, the sky an ominous red. 

Then the choir started singing.

Faith is important to me. So the tone of this segment — the gorgeous music and beautiful monuments, at once overwhelming and unsettling, devout and disturbing — hit me hard. As with the lighthouse, the parallels to Rapture are evident here, with Father Comstock filling the Andrew Ryan role. But Ryan’s mantra did not allow for the kind of gods Comstock claims to serve. 

By the end, Bioshock Infinite doesn’t have a lot to say about religion apart from the perils of misusing it to excuse evil behavior. But the opening was a singular moment for me, drawing just close enough to forms of worship I hold dear, then subverting them in such an uncanny way. 

I showed this section to my brother Bryan when he still lived at my parents’ house. My mother overheard the music and dialogue.

"It doesn’t sound like that game is being very respectful," she said, her voice thick with reproach.

"That’s the point," I said.

The antenna tower in Tomb Raider

I need to write about the original Tomb Raider at some point. It’s a huge gaming touchstone for me and my older brother. We spent hours exploring the first game’s landscapes, often with — don’t laugh — Dave Matthews Band’s first album Remember Two Things playing on a nearby tape deck. (Side 2’s tracks fit remarkably well with the gameplay.)

In one sense, the 2013 Square Enix series reboot was a disappointment for me, weaned as I was on the Incan and Atlantean ruins of the original game. While the island setting is beautiful and mysterious in its own way (although the concept artists had clearly just finished binge-watching the entire six-season run of LOST (and since I love LOST, that’s not really a problem for me)), it doesn’t have quite the same ambiance. Critics often quipped that this Lara Croft simply wasn’t raiding many tombs. I know what they mean. 

Having said all that, I immediately identified with this younger, less experienced Lara. Climbing the radio tower brought this into stark focus. Like the best moments of the Uncharted series, the ascent is an incredible visual setpiece, full of scripted moments that caused me to grip the controller in vertigo-stricken panic, unconsciously holding my breath.

The difference between the two series is that Nathan Drake, while somewhat less unflappable than, say, Indiana Jones, is nevertheless extremely capable. You never worry — even as he falls to his death — that he is in any real trouble.

Lara, on the other hand, doesn’t have Drake’s rugged competence or roguish whimsy (or her earlier alter ego’s stoic skill). She’s doing everything in her power just to survive. That extra verve made a huge difference for me. Especially when she finally succeeds.

Salt Lake City in The Last Of Us

My home state is not exactly prime video-game territory. Outside of Fallout: New Vegas and various sports games, you’d be hard-pressed to find Utah as a setting in any title. So when Salt Lake City was basically referred to as the only hope left for mankind in The Last Of Us, it definitely caught my attention. 

As with the other real-world locations in the game, certain liberties are taken. Salt Lake City has no long tunnels (and no water to flood them; the eponymous lake is actually some distance from the city). The off-ramp Joel and Ellie traverse isn’t quite the same as 600 South. But the mountains feel familiar. Buses and police cars are replicated in color scheme if not precise design. And the Salt Lake Temple stands immediately apparent in the distance.

Also, in case you non-local readers were wondering: the local zoo does have giraffes. 

I probably spent a full five minutes with Joel and Ellie there, staring out over the wild, nature-reclaimed urban landscape toward the Temple and the mountains beyond. I might have done that anyway, Utah native or no. It’s such a necessary moment of beauty in a bleak world. And when you leave it, descending from the roof down a darkened staircase, you know things can never be the same. 

I don’t live in Salt Lake City proper any more; I took a new job this year and moved back to my hometown of Provo, 45 miles south. Like Joel and Ellie, I pinned a lot of my hope on moving to the city. Suffice it to say, it didn’t turn out as planned for any of us. But the mountains will always be there.

The tabletop RPG in Kentucky Route Zero

I should probably play this game again (with its second episode) before writing this remembrance. It all feels so surreal. Oh well.

I often find myself putting off playing. I know they’re best played in one single session, and I never seem to have the time to devote. Or I do, but I don’t want to. Somehow knowing that I could makes me want to delay the gratification. 

I was crashing at my parents’ place, in the brief two-week period between leaving Salt Lake City and getting an apartment in Provo, when I finally played Kentucky Route Zero, sequestered in my bedroom with the lights turned off. (Which is the best way to play.)

I loved it. I loved the dark pixel art, the folksy dialogue and the beautiful descriptive prose, the strange commingling of the mundane and ephemeral. The early scene beneath the Equus gas station provides the perfect example of this. Your character can’t interact with the board game taking place…and yet, you find the glowing die the players reference. That was Kentucky Route Zero’s first hint at the strange world it would unfold. It’s one I can’t wait to explore again. (Although maybe I’ll put it off just a little longer.) 

The ending of Persona 4 Golden

Technically, this game was released at the end of 2012, but I played it in the year just past, so I’m counting it. 

I have mixed feelings about my high school experience now. I suppose that’s not so rare. I still cringe at the way I brazenly (and, in hindsight, creepily) confessed my love to crushes, the way I stressed over grades and music performances, the loneliness and the despair. But I also remember all of those things, and the people I spent those years with, more fondly than I ever expected I would.

Persona 4 somehow captures both of these extremes. The dialogue is silly, in that translated-from-Japanese-with-American-voice-actors way. The relationship-building can be cheesy. The underlying philosophy is perhaps trite and puerile. But it’s also incredibly, endearingly sincere, so much so that you can’t help but love it. 

When the game ends, and your silent-protagonist character prepares to leave Inaba, it’s so bittersweet. Persona 4 tells you that the bonds of your friendships will never be broken…but they are, and do, with time and distance and growth and change.

The memories stay the same, though. And that’s enough. Better, even. 

[achronologyofbits]

Alone In The Dark

(It's Halloween, so I'm reposting a Bitmob article I wrote about this original survival-horror classic. There's a bit of artistic license here -- I'm pretty sure I only watched as my brother finished the game, for example -- but whatever. This is how I choose to remember it, which is what this blog is all about, anyway. --L ) 

It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth’s dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.

– H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

I don't even remember how we obtained the game. My older brother would often come home from school with disks smuggled in his backpack, borrowed from one friend or another, and I would usually watch as he navigated his way through King's Quest 5, Gabriel Knight, Day of the Tentacle, and other PC classics.

One night he procured the floppy diskettes for Infogrames' 1992 DOS title Alone in the Dark, and I decided to take a shot at playing. I thought I knew what I was in for. I didn't.

So when, after 30 seconds of aimlessly wandering around the attic of the mansion called Derceto, I was suddenly assailed by a jagged, abstract, vaguely wolf-like creature that leaped through the attic window (!) and bounded across the floor at me like some kind of demonic Tigger…yeah, I was a little rattled.

Alone in the Dark used 3D rendered character models on 2D backgrounds, much as later games like Final Fantasy 7 would do. Except in 1992, the polygonal models were even less distinct than Cloud's blocky arms and nose-less face. These days, I can look at these graphics and laugh at how bad they are. Back then, their lack of definition terrified me even more.

I mean, what was that thing that attacked me in the attic? Was it a werewolf? A giant, springy rat? The vile offspring of a bear and a crocodile? I didn't know, and I didn't want to know. And then there were the zombies with impossibly long, thin, flipper-like arms. And the strange, transparent ghosts who would suddenly transform into malevolent clouds of multicolored bubbles when disturbed. The bizarre graphics only made me more uneasy.

Lovecraft would have approved. In the horror author's writings, characters are always going insane simply by looking at something too hideous to be real. No wonder, then, that Alone in the Dark borrowed heavily from Lovecraft's mythos in creating its atmosphere and story. Books containing Lovecraft excerpts litter the drawers and shelves of Derceto, inducing an ever-greater feeling of dread.

(In fact, two of these books will actually kill your character instantly if you read them, with no warning or protection. This utterly baffled and terrified me.)

You could die in a large number of ways. At its heart Alone in the Dark was just another graphic adventure game, with puzzles solved by inventory items gained from searching the house. Except, instead of getting stuck for hours as in most adventure games of the time, you just died. A lot. And in the cheapest ways possible — ways you couldn't possibly anticipate (like the books).

For example, as I explored the house from the top down, I finally managed to locate the front door. Screw this, I thought. I'm getting out of here. Throwing open the door, I found not the dirt path and horizon I longed to see, but a green, gelatinous, pulsating mass which sucked my character into its Sarlacc-esque maw. Yeesh.

Perhaps the thing that weirded me out most was the cut-scene that played every time you died. You'd watch as one of the house zombies dragged your lifeless body through a dark stone hallway and laid you to rest on a strangely carved altar next to a pool of water with something lurking in it. And the music that played during this scene wasn't an original composition. It was a Chopin waltz, in a major key, with pleasant-sounding synthesized instruments spilling from my Sound Blaster. The inexplicable pairing of the two made that death scene all the creepier.

You could fight the house's horrors, but the awful keyboard-only controls made combat laughable. You watched as your female character reared back for a full two seconds before giving a weak-looking kick that, if timed right, would strike the enemy with an inappropriate whip-cracking sound (but little discernable damage). After about ten of these kicks, the zombie/wolf-croco-rat thing would die…by exploding into a cloud of bubbles and a peal of thunder.

And you could find guns, too — but they were almost always used as solutions to puzzles, not meant for real combat. (I think there were about 10 shotgun shells in the whole game.) Some enemies could only be damaged with certain guns, so you had to know when to use them. Suffice it to say that combat did nothing to assuage my fears.

Fortunately, you could avoid almost all the enemies if you knew how. Push that armoire in front of the window in the attic, and the wolf thing won't be able to get in (although you'd still hear the sound of breaking glass, which froze me for minutes before I realized nothing was coming). Move that chest over the trap door and a zombie won't be able to get through. Sometimes it was as banal as closing a door. Apparently doorknobs are a zombie's secret weakness.

By the end of Alone in the Dark, I had learned the pattern of dealing with enemies and puzzles, and the game grew less scary. But I still felt an enormous sense of relief as I ran out of the catacombs beneath the house and headed for the front exit, now free of green Sarlacc beasts. As I got into the car that pulled up on the road, I sighed, exhausted. I was safe at last.

And that's when the driver of the car turned around to reveal his face — a laughing white skull.

Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days; and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.

– H.P. Lovecraft, The Picture in the House

[achronologyofbits]

Myst

I don't imagine the story of my introduction to Myst is very different from anyone else's. When my father bought the family's first CD-ROM drive (single-speed! By Magnavox!!), Myst just naturally appeared along with it, as I'm sure was the case for millions of early-adopter consumers at the time. You couldn't do much else with the thing.

Fortunately, my siblings and I didn't want to do much else. We had already experienced two classic pre-CD-era adventure games -- Alone In The Dark and Quest For Glory -- and dabbled in text adventures before that, even writing a few of our own. For us, Myst was the natural evolution of our preferred PC genre. 

I don't know that we realized that at the time, though. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of immersion as my brother and I huddled close to the monitor, marveling at what limited animation there was (which wasn't much; Myst was little more than a slideshow, which made sense given its HyperCard-stack foundation). The first-person perspective, combined with the amount of detail in each image, gave an extraordinary sense of depth.

(Had I ever played an adventure game with a first-person perspective before? Shadowgate, maybe? Nothing this smooth, certainly.)

Myst, more than any game before it, made me feel like I was exploring a three-dimensional world. That it accomplished this feat without actually containing any real-time three-dimensional gameplay -- or really, much gameplay at all -- speaks to the atmosphere it wove. Like the D'ni linking books themselves, Myst used prosaic means to create seemingly fantastic connections.

The game's minimalist storytelling drew me in. Though the player is never actually in any danger, a sense of (forgive the pun) mystery lingers in every corner: the scorched and tattered books in the library, the eerie creaking of the abandoned tree village, the labyrinthine underground railway. They hint at some evil, unseen force...one that might still be lurking somewhere.

Most chilling are the clues left behind indicating the true natures of the game's antagonists, Sirrus and Achenar. The two brothers, trapped in matching red and blue books in the Myst library, are likely the first interactive objects players can find (or at least, the only objects that seem to react in any apparent way). Each begs to be brought his and only his, respectively colored pages, and each claims the other has betrayed and murdered their father.

Yet in exploring each world, you soon find evidence that both brothers are...well, certainly not innocent. Achenar's hidden chambers are filled with torture devices and other general creepiness, while Sirrus' reek of ill-gotten opulence. (Finding a scrap of fabric in one of his rooms bearing a pirate insignia mentioned elsewhere made my heart skip a beat.) 

Upon bringing one or both brothers their last evident page, each instructs the player to enter the library fireplace -- a construct theretofore opaque in it purpose -- and enter a certain pattern into the grid there. Doing so presents final red and blue pages...and a green book, containing Atrus, the noble family patriarch. (That each brother separately warns the player NOT to open the green book is the game's biggest sign that it needs opening.) Only then are players presented with the true victory condition: Atrus needs one last page himself, available on Myst Island by relatively simple means. 

(In fact, once you know the trick, you can "complete" Myst in about two minutes. I was once so adept at this that I memorized the grid input code for the fireplace. I'm not proud.)

From here, the game has four endings, and my siblings and I delighted in exploring each: Free Sirrus, free Achenar, free Atrus, or (perhaps best of all) join Atrus in D'ni, the world beyond the green book, without his necessary page. (The scolding he gives you is both hilarious and entirely deserved.)

Each ending is notable for being both final and open-ended; none of them really "end" at all. Freeing either of the brothers results in your own literary imprisonment. They gleefully jeer at you, removing pages one at a time until you see nothing but static, and finally, blackness. But there's no game over screen, no credit roll, just...nothing. You can sit there forever, as doomed as the in-game character.

Go to D'ni without Atrus' page, and you can do nothing but wander the same seven or eight screens over and over. Again, the only "ending" is Atrus telling you that you're stuck there forever. I remember frantically trying to do something, anything, to provoke another reaction. Nothing happens. It's almost Sartre-like in its futility. 

Even the "good" ending doesn't exactly give closure. Instead of a triumphant final scene, complete with soundtrack and credits, Atrus merely tells you that you're free to explore the worlds you've already pretty thoroughly traversed, as well as indicating that he might need you again soon (sequel!). Head back to Myst, and you see only scorch marks where the red and blue books lay. It's just creepy enough to make you wonder whether you chose the right side.

After that, quitting the game is the only sense of finality you get. Which is fitting, I suppose. The whole fiction of Myst revolves around the idea that other worlds already exist. Writing a linking book doesn't create an Age; it merely allows access. You can close the book -- or eject the disc -- but Myst will still be there: silent, pensive, waiting for a new explorer. 

- L

[achronologyofbits]

Tetris

I have probably played Tetris, and its variations, more than every other game in my entire existence -- combined. 

I was probably 10 or 11 years old when Nintendo's original Game Boy debuted, with its dot-matrix screen and muted-pistachio grayscale and bright red buttons and diagonal speaker grate and four AA batteries giving it a wonderful heft and bulk.

Initially, my siblings and I had to share time on the device, as we did our consoles, until one birthday when I received a squarish clamshell case containing space for cartridges, a carrying pouch, and my own personal piece of portable gaming heaven (complete with a clear plastic shell through which -- in the height of '90s fashion -- the system's circuit boards were clearly visible).

A sampling of locations and circumstances to which this device accompanied me:

-- School, as often as I could manage without my mother or teachers noticing

-- Any trip I had to take in the car with the family, including our yearly pilgrimage to Tempe, Arizona for Thanksgiving with my father's parents

-- School outings, including overnight journeys with the marching band, where bus rides became impromptu Tetris tournaments (and I never lost)

-- My younger brothers' room, from which I had to forcibly retrieve it after one or the other of the twins had purloined it

-- Piano lessons, where I neglected my theory exercises while waiting for my turn with the teacher

-- My bedroom, where it occupied a permanent place on my bed, nightstand or desk

Basically, if I was awake, you could be sure my transparent Game Boy was not far out of my reach. In fact, my being asleep was no guarantee that the system was not still clutched in my hands.

I've always been a night owl and borderline insomniac, and Tetris has always been my sleep aid of choice. Not that playing it makes me sleepy. Few things give me more pure pleasure than the sight of an I-piece descending into a waiting four-line gap, the discordant sound of the lines vanishing, the immediate boost in score (12,000 points each, if you start on Level 9, and if you don't, you're officially a wuss).

No, Tetris has little effect on my drowsiness in and of itself. It's the relaxation I find by playing it. I've always been an anxious person, a worrier. I work the stresses of the day over and over in my mind, gnawing at them until my mental gums are sore. Tetris -- especially when combined with a favorite album of music or a good audiobook -- soothes all that away. 

I'm pretty good at the game. (After so many hours playing it, I guess I'd have to be.) I know I'm nowhere near Grandmaster, Ecstasy-of-Order types in ability; the clearest metric of my skill was Tetris DS' online multiplayer, where I held my own against most (anonymous) opponents but certainly wasn't unbeatable. But I'm good enough that most who watch me play stare agog for a few seconds, then back away slowly, as if slightly afraid that my mania might be contagious. 

They might not be wrong. Tetris is perhaps the purest distillation of interactive entertainment -- the video game in its most unadulterated form. No matter how many times you play, it remains the same, stoic, unyielding, inexorable. 

To some, that might seem depressing. I know of no greater comfort.

-- L

[achronologyofbits]

Trog

Some games just stick in your head.

I never played the arcade version of Trog, a thinly veiled, dinosaur-themed Pac-Man ripoff that involved grabbing eggs (stones?) and fruit and avoiding (or defeating) cyclopean neanderthals. Unlike Pac-Man, though, Trog supported multiplayer -- apparently up to four simultaneously in the arcade, two on the NES. 

Trog did add a other few twists to the Pac-Man formula. You could only pick up eggs of your color, and every player had at least a basic attack at all times. A variety of power-ups -- including a pineapple that turned your docile dino into a hulking T-rex capable of chomping any cavemen or competitor in proximity -- rounded out the gameplay.

Though Trog ended up being more fun than it had any right to be, I wouldn't call it "good." Compared to other multiplayer NES games of its era, Trog is pretty average. But that's not why I remember it. I remember it because I didn't own it. My friend Danny did.

Games belonging to friends held a mythical quality at that point in my life. With multiple siblings to fight off for NES time at home, going to a friend's house to play a game you knew nothing about was an exciting pleasure. Since game criticism effectively didn't exist in the late '80s outside of Nintendo Power, kids (and parents) ended up taking chances on all kinds of strange titles. To borrow a Gumpian phrase: you never knew what you were going to get.

Trog somehow has come to represent that phenomenon in my memories. Trog is every strange box sitting at the video rental store, complete with indecipherable marketing copy, two tiny screenshots, and a world of possibility within. I'll always love it for that. 

-- L

[achronologyofbits]

Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines

(No promises about being more active here. You gets posts when I feels like writing ‘em. (Although I’m pretty much forcing myself to write this one tonight. Not for any particular reason. Just seems like I should.))

I never should have played this game. I’m very glad I did.

Let’s take each of those statements separately.

Near the end of my two-year Mormon mission to South Africa, I was assigned to a city called Potchefstroom. Among locals, “Potch" was most notable for its prominent Afrikaans-centric university. Among missionaries, it was the subject of a number of myths and legends. Past proselytizers had been assaulted there, the whispers said. They’d been hunted by mobs. No Good Thing Could Come From Potch. 

In reality, Potch was a beautiful place, full of green forests and meadows, charming small-town shops and restaurants, and genuine, intelligent college students with whom I got on very well socially and spiritually, despite our differences. I loved it there, and would gladly visit again were the distance lesser and the cost lower.  

We lived in an apartment complex mostly occupied by college students (which, given the stringent code of Mormon missionaries, was probably an oversight). One such student was a large, ruddy-faced, quick-witted, good-natured man of Afrikaner descent named Rudy. And oh, man, did he like PC games. 

My proselyting partner and I visited Rudy several times, and while we were unsuccessful in encouraging him to try the virtues of the Book of Mormon (at least, as far as I know — we left a copy with him, in any case), he delighted in showing me games I had not seen during the past year and change.

In the interest of honesty and as a matter of record, I should mention here that, though Mormon missionaries are under injunction to forsake such worldly matters during their service, I was not a strict observer in this case. Games gave me a point of entry with Rudy, I reasoned at the time, and if that meant sacrificing some knocking of doors in favor of some shooting of headcrabs, then so be it. 

No matter the mental justification, though, Bloodlines was not a game a Mormon boy from Utah should have played. (Sorry, Mom.) Its content is decidedly R-rated; as a newly “embraced" fledgling vampire, players traverse a depraved underworld of politics and vice, where hookers become allies, purveyors of snuff porn enemies, and the brother of Abel himself makes an appearance. Lurid stuff.

And though Rudy didn’t show me enough of the game to see the worst of this content at the time, I promptly purchased it when I returned to the States and (excuse the vampire pun) devoured the main storyline several times in succession. I loved it.

There’s a saying among PC gamers that originated (I think) with Bloodlines’ spiritual progenitor, Deus Ex: “Every time you mention it, someone reinstalls it." That’s because Bloodlines builds such a rich, deep world, weaving gameplay and narrative together, that it feels like there’s always something more to see.

The game’s seven classes offer largely different experiences, both in mechanics and dialogue: sophisticated Ventrue and Toreador vamps can seduce their way through objectives, while the deformed Nosferatu must sneak and the Brujah must brawl. Best of all is the Malkavian class, which features a completely unique set of dialogue choices due to the fact that all members of that clan are completely insane.

(Nothing drives this home more clearly or hilariously than the involuntary conversation Malkavian players have with…a stop sign.)

By far, the most memorable moment in Bloodlines comes early in the game, when the player is tasked with retrieving a locket from an abandoned hotel. What follows is an absolute roller-coaster ride that doubles as both a terrifying greatest-hits tour of every horror movie you’ve ever seen and a master-class in game level design. Lights explode. Vases tremble and shatter. Ghosts appear in the corner of your vision (or, most pants-wettingly, directly behind you as you turn around, with no warning or audio cue).

You end up fleeing from room to room trying to escape…only to realize that your panic led you exactly where you needed to go next. And by the end of the quest, you’re overcome with relief that you got out alive, even though you never fought a single enemy.

It’s that subtle aspect, so rare in games, of leading players by the hand while simultaneously validating their choices and refusing to insult their intelligence that makes Bloodlines such a singular experience. 

But seriously, don’t tell my mom. 

— L

[achronologyofbits]

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

So, hi. After a first-week flurry, I've let this site lie fallow for several weeks, mostly due to an increased workload at the office. (Why did you have to quit, Matt?) But no longer! I intend to be active on here going forward, with more games, more personal stories and more navel gazing. Yay.

Today is the 20th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The original Game Boy release is unquestionably my favorite entry in the series, and probably a top-five favorite of all time. 

I wrote this piece about the game on Bitmob a few years ago. Here it is again. 

---

They say the "Ballad of the Wind Fish" is a song of awakening. I wonder…if the Wind Fish wakes up, will he make my wish come true? — Marin, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

I first questioned the nature of reality when I was 11 years old, and it was because of a video game.

The early games in the Legend of Zelda series weren't long on story. You had your unlikely hero, your damsel in distress, your evil monsters, your power-hungry villain, and that was about it. Even A Link to the Past, the SNES epic, didn't deviate too much from the formula.

Link's Awakening, the first portable entry in the Zelda series, did. Rather than in the familiar realm of Hyrule, the game took place on the island of Koholint. (Or did it?) The damsel in distress wasn't Zelda. (Or was she?) And the Big Bad wasn't Ganon. (Although he did show up….)

Link's Game Boy adventure did things that I had never encountered in a game before — it overtly allowed its characters to wonder about the nature of the world they were in.

And it blew my little 11-year-old mind.

Hey, man! When you want to save just push all the buttons at once! Uhh…don't ask me what that means, I'm just a kid! — Mabe Village child

It's pretty common these days for games to break the fourth wall with in-character references to game mechanics or control advice. (The Metal Gear Solid series leaps to mind as a good example.) Games before Link's Awakening did it, too — PC adventure titles frequently reacted to player commands with jokes and asides about save files, prices, and advertising.

Link's Awakening went a step further, though. Because the game revolves around discovering the nature of Koholint Island and the Wind Fish, the fourth wall comments become more meaningful. When a kid in the village tells you how to save your game and then claims he doesn't know what that means, it's cute. When he later wonders if he's going to disappear when the Wind Fish's dream ends…that makes those meta-jokes a little weirder.

Where are you from, brother? Outside the island? What is "outside?" I've never thought about it…. — Mabe Village child

The game makes it fairly obvious from the start that Koholint doesn't actually exist. But it also doesn't specify what it truly is. Your owl guide explains that the island is all part of the dream of the Wind Fish, a creature you don't see until the game's end. But if you're somehow stuck in a reality created by a magical whale-bird-thing, then why do you meet Marin, who, the game explains, looks eerily similar to Princess Zelda? Why does Ganon appear as one of the Nightmares at the end of the game? Who exactly is dreaming whom?

As you continue your adventure, it becomes clear that, no matter who's responsible for this dream world, it will end when Link wakes up the Wind Fish (and himself). Which means that every inhabitant you meet on your quest will effectively cease to exist the moment you achieve your goal. Talk about bleak.

AWAKE THE DREAMER, AND KOHOLINT WILL VANISH MUCH LIKE A BUBBLE ON A NEEDLE…. CASTAWAY, YOU SHOULD KNOW THE TRUTH! — Mural

When Link finally does awaken, he is adrift on the wreckage of his ship in the middle of an empty ocean. He looks up and sees the flying form of the Wind Fish crossing the sky — one of those classic "So the dream was real!" moments that asks more questions than it answers.

The designers of Link's Awakening created this sense of mystery and ambiguity on purpose. In an interview last year, Nintendo's Takashi Tezuka said he intended for the game to have a Twin Peaks-esque feeling, to make characters "suspicious" and heighten the drama (minus the murder, obviously).

Those design decisions set the stage for similar narrative techniques in later Zelda games — current series director Eiji Aonuma said in that same interview that, if not for Link's Awakening, the tone of the whole Zelda series would have been different. Some characters in more recent entries like Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess certainly maintain that sense of strangeness and mystery.

Link, some day you will leave this island…. I just know it in my heart…. Don't ever forget me…. — Marin

Obviously, I didn't know all of this when I first played Link's Awakening as a kid. But the game's themes stuck with me.

One night soon after completing the game, I had my own dream. I found myself as Link, on a raft-like piece of flotsam in a vast sea. Then I suddenly realized I wasn't alone. Marin was with me. We sat together as we watched the Wind Fish sail past. And just as Marin turned to look at me…I woke up.

That feeling — sitting on that wreckage, toes in the water, sun on my face — has never left me. I still remember it vividly today.

So who's to say it wasn't real?

SOMEDAY, THOU MAY RECALL THIS ISLAND…. THAT MEMORY MUST BE THE REAL DREAM WORLD…. COME, LINK…. LET US AWAKEN…TOGETHER!! — The Wind Fish

-- L

[achronologyofbits]

Quest For Glory

In the mid '90s, PC games just seemed to appear at my house, as if by magic.

I usually knew where our home console and portable games were coming from. My siblings and I were all gamers, and in a house with five children where the age gap from oldest to youngest was only eight years, it was always somebody's birthday. And that birthday inevitably involved at least one or two video games as gifts. And that was a cause for celebration for everyone, because it meant we'd all get a turn at playing (or even just watching) something new. 

PC games, though...they just materialized out of nowhere. I don't remember asking for them as gifts, or buying them myself (with a few exceptions). They just sort of happened.

In retrospect, these boons probably came from one of two sources. My brother David, the oldest sibling and two years my senior, had a seemingly inexhaustible network of friends with whom he traded and borrowed PC games. (I had a similar network among my peers, but Nintendo products were our commodity of choice.)

The other likely source was my father, who early in his career worked for Novell, a software company that dominated the network-solutions market in the early '90s (before Microsoft muscled it down to a shadow of its former self). Novell didn't make games, but my father often came home with disks of one kind or another for us to try out. Obtaining a PC in the first place was his idea, and he has since given us to understand that its expense was exorbitant and probably unwise. Especially since we monopolized its use.

I promise I have a point in blathering on about all that personal history, and it's this: I have no idea where our copy of Quest For Glory came from. I can't remember. 

What I do remember is playing the crap out of it.

I didn't realize at the time that our version of QFG1 was a remake. The original EGA version used a traditional (for the time) text parser for commands, combat and interaction. By 1992, text had given way to the point-and-click generation, which made for a more intuitive, less difficult experience. My siblings and I were too young to have grown attached to text adventures, though. Pointing and clicking was simply How Things Were Done.

The unique thing about Quest For Glory, though, is that it's not, strictly speaking, a point-and-click adventure game. Or not just one, at any rate. It's also a role-playing game. You're not playing as King Graham or Myst's nameless Stranger, but as a character you create from scratch, using the time-honored Fighter/Magic User/Thief triumvirate as base classes. You have skills that you strengthen with repeated use, and you have numerous options for solving puzzles depending on your character's abilities. 

Again, for older gamers weaned on PC RPGs like Ultima (or even tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons), this doesn't sound amazing. Quest For Glory's systems definitely lacked the depth of those progenitors. The series' genius was combining its two related, but distinct, influences -- the point-and-clicking and the role-playing -- into one holistic creation. 

Even so, these days I remember Quest For Glory 1 more fondly for its tone, world-building, and corny sense of humor than anything else. Many of the jokes flew right over my pre-teen head -- upon replaying the recent Good Old Games release, I noticed dozens of references I had missed -- but I loved that the game never took itself too seriously. Awful puns accompanied every death message. Clever thieves could "pick" their noses. And most memorably of all, if you visited the right part of the forest at just the right time of day (did I mention the game had a day-night cycle?), you could watch the beflanneled Earl Sinclair from the Jim Henson sitcom Dinosaurs stomp home from work. 

Yet for all its lightheartedness, Quest For Glory 1's valley of Spielburg held characters of real depth. The pun-slinging wizard Erasmus felt immensely powerful and dangerous even as he joked with you. The scorn of the fencing master in the castle courtyard could sting the strongest warrior. Even minor characters like the homely healer or the centaur farmer and his filly daughter felt real and round and permanent. They weren't just constructs, stimuli for the player to react to. You got the sense that these people had lived in this world since long before you came, and even after you turned off the computer, they'd still be there. 

I think that's because the Quest For Glory series, and especially the first game, is about becoming a hero, not just being one. You're nobody when you start out. Less than nobody. Your only claim to heroism is a certificate from a correspondence course (yes, really). In every game in the series, even if you carry your character over from the previous entry, you have to make new connections, explore new lands, and prove yourself anew.

And if you fulfill any prophecies along the way, it's because you see the need for them to be fulfilled. The kingdom needs a Hero, but you have to earn the title. You are not the chosen one; you're the one doing the choosing. 

-- L

[achronologyofbits]

Skiing

I mentioned in the introduction that, despite this project's title, I didn't intend for it to follow any chronological order. But it makes sense to at least start with something old.

I'll begin with a confession: Although I have lived in Utah for roughly 26 of my 29-plus mortal years, I have never gone downhill skiing. Not once. And with my advancing age and waistline, the odds that I ever will diminish daily. 

Fitting, then, that the first game I really remember playing is this, the Atari 2600's minimalist slalom-sim. Its release predates my birth by three years, but that was something of a running theme in my family; we were definitely not day-one consumers. (Not then, anyway.)

In fact, I may not have gotten into games at all had it not been for my uncle, who left Utah to serve a two-year Mormon mission (in exotic Connecticut) and bequeathed his 2600 and a stack of cartridges to my brother and me. (Many of them deserve their own posts. All in good time.)

Like most -- though not all -- 2600 games of its era, Skiing was a simple affair: You would push the joystick left or right, and your blocky alpine avatar would alter his downward trajectory slightly so as to navigate through a series of gates and avoid time penalties. (And trees and rocks, the latter of which may have been intended to represent moguls. I'm honestly not sure. The 2600's abstract graphics left much to the imagination, for better and worse.) 

Skiing's appeal lay in its twitchy nature. The game's higher speeds required joystick maneuvers at once precise and brutish, and while frustration at a failed attempt was common, flawless runs felt marvelous. Especially because you knew you were beating a family member's record time. 

That leads to another source of Skiing's memorability: It was one of the few games that my father would willingly play with us. My brothers and I have long since given up on attempting to get Dad to share our hobby (with a very few exceptions), but back then, the 2600's simplicity allowed him to engage with the software (and with us) on a primal competitive level.

It appealed to the athlete in him, I suspect. Fundamentally, the motions required by the gameplay were no different than those in any number of contemporary titles. But the relatable sporting context drew my father in, giving him motivation and purpose for playing.

As families go, though, we're not an especially competitive one, and we've all mellowed with age. I'm not sure any game would hold the same collective allure for us now. But Skiing did then, and without it...well, things would be different.

-- L

[achronologyofbits]

Introduction

Hi.

I love video games. But I sometimes struggle to articulate what makes them so powerful and personally relevant, even as I near three decades of play.

So here I hope to capture some of my gaming memories and share why the virtual plumbers and princesses of my past have had such a profound effect on my life. 

While I'm titling this project "A Chronology of Bits," I don't intend to detail every game I've ever played in chronological order. (That would be amazing to see but logistically problematic to write.) Rather, each post will include a brief remembrance of or thought about a single game, in whatever order they come to me.

I want this to be less about in-depth criticism or analysis -- others can do that better than I, including veteran writer Jeremy Parish, whose excellent Anatomy of a Game series inspired this project in part -- and more about my personal experiences. 

That may not be interesting to anyone else. But I feel like it's worth writing about, because games are worth writing about. They're worth remembering. 

Let's see how this goes.

-- L