I don’t want you to hold my hand

I like games, I play games.

When I’m in a gaming mode, you’ll probably find me playing pen and paper role-playing games, or reminisce about the good old games of old. And it in not that the latter are better. Erm, the older, that is. And I do play, and enjoy, modern games. It is just that older games had an unforgiving nature often missing from games of today. And nostalgia…

I recently picked S.T.A.L.K.E.R. out of a garba… bargain-bin. Mainly due to Andrew‘s review of it. This is a game containing what I miss. It holds promise of much good role-playing, and of having to plan before running in guns blazing. At least as long as you stay away from the dreaded quick load button.

The relationship between game and your avatar in it… it is a hard one. You can die, easily. I had promised myself that I would explore. I wouldn’t be a hero in this game, just a tourist. But I start out with a small pistol and a handful of rounds for it. And the promise of payment for finding some info, I met up with a small band of people. I’d get them killed in the process. And they knew it…

As we set out for the bandit lair, their leader said it was time for them to be heroes. Heroes die, and they did. The fight still got hairy for me, but I got the info in addition to the loot from both the bandits and the heroes. The “sad” part came when I returned and reported the successful eradication of bandits… I got paid a bonus for the deed. Three out of four dead friendlies for eight or so bandits. And one friendly extracted. I guess the heroes were expendable after all. They usually are.

This kind of feelings; the feeling of being expendable – and even more so – the feeling of being vulnerable, are powerful motivators. If any mistake, minor or major, can be fixed by the push of a button… what obstacles are left to climb?

Whenever you undertake to play a Hardcore character in Diablo 2, you embrace the special burden of flawless performance, at least within the limitation of keeping your character alive. If you should falter and be slain, the game is over. That’s part of the fun of Hardcore, and it shines best here in single player, where unlike the Realms there are no lag issues, no server issues, no desynch issues, and you don’t get wiped out if your game crashes or you lose connect to the net. You live and die on your own actions, and isn’t that how it was meant to be?

–Sirian

There is one thing I miss in most games these days… something that ties you, your avatar, and the game world together.

A sense of accomplishment.

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This post is a part of Corvus Elrod‘s Blogs of the Round Table for June 2008: I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Other entries for this month are available below: