Pastiche of Life

Well, Ladies and gents , i have appeared from the shadows once more to post onto this blog, The reason for my absence since my last post just before my submission of my dissertation has simply been due to being busy doing nothing. Its a strange convergence of having so much to do and having plenty of plans but sadly their co-dependence for completion that makes it impossible to do a single one.

I started with the movement of my media centre pc to the living room and hooking it directly up to the Tv. Meaning that the living room is now wired for sound and there is no slow (or network breaking) transcoding. (see Inserted picture)

The necessity of this due to the sad fact that my Xbox has fluxed itself into another reality, Currently I’m waiting for its pickup and repair but it is the last straw that broke the camels back. The slave i have been for consoles and for gaming is a long and glorious history from my first NES (Nintendo mind you not a Mattel one) to this current generation of consoles, about 6 months ago i abandoned the Wii as a platform after a debacle of trying to load Super Smash Bros Brawl, Simply by not playing my Wii for prolonged periods of time i was unable to play a brand new game because of a dirty lens and with the compact and sealed nature of the wii that required another purchase of cleaner, in my now addled mind that was a form of daylight robbery. instead of be held by the reigns of a capitalist teet for having better things to do that perfect my wii bowling skills i found it a necessity to trade the console in along with my never played copy of Brawl. This act in itself was the first of many gates from a dyed in the wool game player to casual, the whole process strangely inverse compared to the actual purpose of the console to bring in casual audiences.

I originally planned on doing regular reviews of games here in the blog but I renounce my game filled days. I’ll still find the occasional interesting object to drag me back to the world of games but i hereby renounce my love of games for the purpose of playing them the 360 in my home had become a media extender more than a games console the only occasions i would dig out more than one pad was for my compatriots enjoyment of a game of PES or for me to school a few of them in Street Fighter for being for being trounced on the former game.

If this was the only reason i didn’t dig out a controller other than for menu selections i wouldn’t have minded to much due to a beautiful history i have had with rpg’s but sadly even the lustre that solo gameplay once had for me is gone. This was compounded by a string of RPG’s that simply didn’t excite me. Infinite Undiscovery Made me run from the first battle while The last remnant’s combat system and variable difficulty of enemies cause me to lose hours of play due to not saving.I’m sure i missed the boat on all the malarkey that has currently ensued in recent Square-enix releases from Final fantasy 12 onwards mostly due to my early abandonment of the Play station 2 but which these changes i have found that with the more complex combat systems have removed the reliance on the emotionally attached storylines. This might be a change of guard in the story departments but it also reflects on the current state of gaming and its public perception. The absence of a gripping yet emotional relationship between the main characters more specifically the romance between a lead male and female character which took a macrocosm of world protection from some great evil and made it a personal tale of love may have been the perfect ingredient for immersion from the 90’s has given way to plots of generals and troops and the borders of conflict between countries.

The best articulation of this premise may be found in Final fantasy 8 which detached the character from the body politic by making them mercenary characters trained to be above the conflict for the purpose of pay but in the end involved them even more due to the casts combined past. This basis of personal tales building to encompass the world at a later date is inverted in stories like infinite Undiscovery. , The world of politics is important to the world where a prince and pauper hybrid story becomes the basis of the tale while in Last remnant you are conscripted into an army even with your own personal goal set aside until a later date. both of these games lost me early on and while the combat systems and the story would have developed they lacked the killer hook that final fantasy 8 contained in its first hour of play (The coastal attack at the communications tower)

The Entire Public image of gaming has changed over the years and the socially reclusive aspect of gaming has been abandoned for a more aggressive and public performance. This abandonment of an emotional and solitary core is the path of gaming in the future and sadly i don’t see any place in it for myself.

So let us remember the couples of the past Squall and Rinoa, Tidus and Yuna, Chrono and Elena, Link and Zelda fondly for what they represented a tutorial for the perceived socially inept. A reflection of a public image of gaming that has long since been abandoned.

As a postscript i would like to point out that Lost odyssey was the last Square Rpg to really grip me and it was most assuredly not due to its "rings system" it was because at any time you could be treated to an emotional flashback that served nothing to the plot. May it be the epitaph to my link to solo gaming like my own odyssey that has lost its purpose.