(Guest writer Andarko plays the occasional casual game, and she's female. Suffice to say she offers quite a different perspective than the usual contributers, i.e. gamers and male. It's refreshing to see these topics from such a different angle. We hope you enjoy it and we look forward to more writing from her in the future -danzuke)

I am not a gamer. Never have been, though I’ve been around video games most of my life. When I was a kid, my dad bought an Atari, which he ended up playing more than I did, and then a Nintendo, which quickly became my brother’s domain. Currently a PS1 and an XBox reside in my house, along with my husband and my dog, but the PS1 was a gift and the XBox belongs to my husband, and it’s rare that I ever feel like playing either of them.

Occasionally a game will strike my fancy, though, and I’ll become addicted for a while. On the PS1, I totally got into Bust a Groove. Then I discovered Dance Dance Revolution, which was fun until I broke my foot and couldn’t jump all over the dance pad any more. I can also play the perennial classic Tetris just about any time on any system, including my cell phone.

Tetris is easy to play and easy to control, though. All you have to remember is how to rotate the pieces, move them left and right, and make them fall into place. That’s it. A very simple concept that’s very easy to play, and yet very enjoyable and addictive. And maybe that’s why Tetris and Bust a Groove and Dance Dance Revolution all appeal to me so much.

As a non-gamer, the complex controllers of today’s video game systems can be very intimidating. There are so many buttons and triggers and joysticks, and so many combinations of buttons to remember; and the controller vibrates! It can be very frustrating to learn. Often I don’t have the inclination or the patience to spend an hour just figuring out how to make the character on the screen do what I want it to do.

Maybe that’s why I’m so intrigued by Nintendo’s upcoming Wii system.

In the May 15, 2006 issue of Time Magazine, an article about the Wii caught my attention. In it, author Lev Grossman describes using the Wii’s TV remote-like controllers to play a Warioware game and the upcoming Legend of Zelda title, Twilight Princess. He likens using the Wii controllers to performing games instead of playing them, and compares the controllers’ ability to translate his motions into action on the screen to voodoo.

I thought to myself, this is the video game system for me! The Wii wands are elegantly simple, and rely more on motion than on button pushing. I am far less intimidated by this design, than the button-heavy Xbox controllers, for example. Also, the idea of using my entire body to play a game, instead of just my thumbs, is very appealing. If Nintendo asked itself, why don’t non-gamers play video games, and designed the Wii in response, they might just be onto something.

But that’s just my view, from the outside.

Comments (3)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment