Geek for Games

Geek for Games

I don't think I've ever explicitly mentioned it before, but I play games. Like PC games. And PS2 games (used to, at least). And PSP games. And PS3 games. And (recently) XBox 360 games.

And I play a lot.

Well, not as much as I used to. But still I'm sort of like a geek when it comes to video games.

And I know what you're thinking... "You're wasting a lot of time playing games. You don't get anything out of it! Blah blah blah..." I could write down more examples but I figured I should stop right there since I have been hearing those comments since I was a foetus. Trust me, I could endlessly list down those comments and overload Blogger's servers until they crash.

No kidding.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that the thing about "wasting your time playing games" is not entirely true. If it was true, then by extension watching movies and your favourite TV series are also considered wasting your time. Heck, even reading novels is a massive time-wasting then.

Games, like TV series and books, come with different genres. Some, like Tetris and Pac-man, are designed for you have to have fun (and possibly a significant degree of frustration when your T-shaped block got stuck in an awkward position on level 9 or when a red ghost eats your hero Pac-man just when he's about to chomp the big fat power ball) while sapping your time like there's no tomorrow. I don't play these kind of games simply because they're BORING and POINTLESS. (Tetris and Pac-man big fans, yeah, you heard me.)

What I do play is games that tell stories. You take control of the protagonist and follow his or her adventure as the story unravel before you. Instead of you watching a story or reading a tale, you drive the story forward at your own pace. Some games even allow you to alter the course of the story. See, it's almost like watching a movie of sort. Or reading a novel.

Magical.

I grew up playing a lot of story-driven games, and I can tell you that they contribute about 20% of my current English vocabulary. Not to sound like a kindergarten teacher, but it is kinda like learning English the fun way. And I do mean LOTS of fun. Now that I think about it, playing games can actually be great alternative for those people who claim that they just can't read books at all yet wanting to upgrade their English proficiency.

If you read The Five People You Meet in Heaven, improving your English isn't the only thing you get out of it. You also gain knowledge and insights, as well as values and lessons. And guess what? Games can give you that, too. Certainly not all games, but great ones are certainly capable of sucking you into their world, simply because your mind craves for those rare knowledge, insights, values and lessons. One particular game I've played was set in a world very much unlike ours, but the main theme and other messages were ironically applicable in human lives and they surprisingly bordered on the philisophical territory. Not all games are as shallow as you might think.

I'm not advocating for the world to start going frenzy on games, even if I sounded like I am. All I'm saying is that games can be a incredibly amazing experience, in some ways much more than movies, TV series and novels. If you are enticed into playing games now, then by all means go ahead and play. Of course, you have to know your limits. You just don't do movie marathons of LOTR, Star Wars, and Superman on weekdays when you have to go to work or class. Or read all seven Harry Potter novels in one go without eating and showering (urghh...). Do things, do everything in moderation. Maybe you watch The Fellowship of the Ring today, and The Two Tower the next day. You finish a chapter today, and read the next chapter of The Deathly Hallows tomorrow (Note: from experience, this is NOT an easy thing to do). Similarly, you play your games for a couple of hours at a time.

And of course, as with everything, things in practice is a lot harder than what you know in theory. But if you can manage to do that, then great! Give yourself a pat on the shoulder and stand proud in the knowledge that you are very strong-willed and much in control of your life by not letting the games take control over your life instead. If I can do it, there's no reason why you can't!

(Oh, I just hate it when I start to get all mushy. Not to mention, waaaaaay off track, which I hate even more.)

Anyway, I fondly recall a PC game that I played way back in 1999. It had such an immersive story, following the personal journey of a man to literally know his own self when he had no recollection of his past memories and discovered that he would not die, ever. Ten years later, now in 2009, you can just imagine the number of games that I had played and completed, and I can still say with absolute confidence that it was a game with one of the greatest stories I've ever indulged in my entire life. All gamers that I've met who had finished that game also enthusiastically agreed. I even did a bit of a read up on forums to find that simply everyone who has played that game fell in the deepest love with the story.

I think it's a complete waste that non-gamers (and most gamers who somehow missed the game) weren't able to enjoy the story as I and the others did. So I started on a project to novelise the game, adhering as faithfully as I can to the storyline. Mind you, I'm not going to actually publish the novel and sell it. There exists two novelisation attempts by two different authors out there, but the novels are doing injustice to the game (speaking from a die-hard-fan point of view). Besides, the novels are pretty rare in bookstores nowadays.

So I'm taking the better novel of the two, editing it HEAVILY and adding a lot more of the game content into the novel to give readers immersion closest to the one that you can only experience by playing the game. So yeah, I'm playing the game again very slowly, transcribing some of the text from the game and weaving them into the novel. It's certainly not an easy task, and it's certainly very time-consuming. It doesn't sound like a very pleasant job, but I'm actually enjoying very much.

I hope you'll enjoy the story.

Oh, and the title is "Planescape: Torment". Ponder upon that for a second.