Comments on: Mario and the Jedi http://tleaves.com/2004/09/11/mario-and-the-jedi/ Creativity x Technology Sat, 17 Mar 2012 05:09:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Eric Tilton http://tleaves.com/2004/09/11/mario-and-the-jedi/comment-page-1/#comment-593 Eric Tilton Mon, 13 Sep 2004 16:31:34 +0000 http://tleaves.com/?p=188#comment-593 So, yeah, it's a pretty common theme in CRPGs that rather than making you directly learn all the right ways to twitch (and despite the quasi-real-time combat of KOTOR, I dispute that it is in any way a twitch game), you instead have little computer people who get better at twitching for you. So fundamentally, they're all "manage resources, see exotic new locales, and kill & loot from the inhabitants." I find two aspects of CRPGs interesting. First, I like the abstraction. In Ninja Gaiden, I can get about halfway through before my weak, aged brain breaks down under the onslaught of pure ninja madness. In KOTOR, I can get all the way to the end, and I think we all know a Jedi can kick a ninja's ass any day of the week. Second, I like the story and the dialogue trees. It's true that I have zero interest in replaying the game, since, as you point out, the story is still essentially linear. I think that's great -- I don't have another forty hours to put into that thing just to find out the whole crazy alternate path where you turn into a Star Destroyer and eat planets or whatever. I want to experience the core story on the first time through. But! But! What's interesting is that the conversation trees and the smaller decisions I can make add texture to my whole, y'know, storyexperiencingcollaborativeblahblahblah ENVIRONMENT. There's some pressure, some feedback there. I played it around the same time as Kevin played it, and we'd talk later, and I'd be all "did you see the thing with the guy in the place!?" and he was all "what!? You could do that? It happened like this for me!" There were little small, interesting differences that responded to the game play, and that totally sucks me in. But then again, I'm a big Sims slut, so what do I know? :) So, yeah, it’s a pretty common theme in CRPGs that rather than making you directly learn all the right ways to twitch (and despite the quasi-real-time combat of KOTOR, I dispute that it is in any way a twitch game), you instead have little computer people who get better at twitching for you. So fundamentally, they’re all “manage resources, see exotic new locales, and kill & loot from the inhabitants.”

I find two aspects of CRPGs interesting. First, I like the abstraction. In Ninja Gaiden, I can get about halfway through before my weak, aged brain breaks down under the onslaught of pure ninja madness. In KOTOR, I can get all the way to the end, and I think we all know a Jedi can kick a ninja’s ass any day of the week.

Second, I like the story and the dialogue trees. It’s true that I have zero interest in replaying the game, since, as you point out, the story is still essentially linear. I think that’s great — I don’t have another forty hours to put into that thing just to find out the whole crazy alternate path where you turn into a Star Destroyer and eat planets or whatever. I want to experience the core story on the first time through.

But! But! What’s interesting is that the conversation trees and the smaller decisions I can make add texture to my whole, y’know, storyexperiencingcollaborativeblahblahblah ENVIRONMENT. There’s some pressure, some feedback there. I played it around the same time as Kevin played it, and we’d talk later, and I’d be all “did you see the thing with the guy in the place!?” and he was all “what!? You could do that? It happened like this for me!” There were little small, interesting differences that responded to the game play, and that totally sucks me in.

But then again, I’m a big Sims slut, so what do I know? :)

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