Roborant: entry

So, here’s a little two-fer for you.

A story, and a question. What better combination?

So, once upon a time two weeks or so ago, I was hanging out with Ben and his fiance. This is nothing new. We hang a lot, and the times are good. On this particular evening, Ben and herself (I try to walk a fine line between the people and things that I name here. A topic which could rate its own post…) had just returned home from a birthday dinner with her parents. And at dinner the rents had produced a Wii for her.

So when I telephoned later that night to see what was up, they invited me over to play some Wii before our regularily scheduled plans took effect.

I got over there, we hooked the thing up, and I began the painful process of pretending to enjoy playing the Wii. It was obvious that she was overjoyed with her new toy, and I didn’t want to shit all over her birthday.

After a few games, we settled on a tennis match. My only experience with Wii Tennis at that point had been in the Wii Fitness Test (My Wii Fitness Age is, like, 57 by the way). So, with no real idea of what to expect except ‘wait for the ball, flail arm’, we launched into combat.

I should mention at this point that I am a minor fan of real tennis. Although perhaps ‘fan by association’ may be a better description. My father was a die-hard Agassi fan, and when Nadal eclipsed him in his final season, my father found a new player to follow. So I spent much of my daytime downtime the last 2 summers watching tennis with my Dad.

Anyway, knowing what little I know about the game, I was somewhat stunned to see how far Wii tennis strayed from that. I mean… the game moves your players for you so that you can always hit the ball.

As the game progressed, I noticed an interesting pattern. Neither her nor I were launching any interesting shots. One would serve, the other would wait, and then flail their arm at the appropriate time, herself from a spot on the couch and me from a ridiculous stance on the other side of the room.

And back and forth it went until one of us fucked up and flailed at the wrong time. A point would be scored and we would move on.

The games were close. One of us would score 1 or 2 times in a row, but then the other would come back. I was beginning to show something of a talent for appropriately-timed flailing. However, the way the game played itself was beginning to bug me.

I turned to her and said, “Do you get the feeling that this is a game lost by the losers instead of won by the winners?”

Now, I’m going to break the flow of the narrative here and explain that as best I can. I picked up the term from a really interesting article (I’ve never played EVE, but the ‘no holds barred’ PVP mechanics really interest me, and I often find myself reading articles like that one. In fact, I’ve been keeping up with his column ever since I read that), and I hadn’t really had a chance to use it. So I flung it out there with the hopes that it was a somewhat familiar expression. I hoped to elicit some camraderie along the lines of ‘yeah, I know what you mean.’

After all, my experience with the game was that… I wasn’t really playing her per se. We were taking turns playing the machine. One of us would serve, which didn’t actually have an affect on the other person’s shot. No matter where the ball went or how fast, the machine moved your little peg-person into place so that it could be intercepted. All the serve did was prime the pump for the first man vs. machine encounter. If you flailed at the right time, you sent the ball back, which set up the other player. Since the machine always placed you in a spot to hit the ball, your input had no effect on the other player. In essence, all we were doing was waiting to see who fucked up playing chicken against the machine first.

Or, to put it more plainly, we were basically evenly matched. The first one to fuck up lost the point, instead of the first one to make a good shot or set up a scoring opportunity.

So, lost by the losers instead of won by the winners.

But instead of that little tidbit of game design philosophy, all I got was polite confusion from her… and a look of pure murder from Ben.

“Did you just call my girlfriend a fucking loser?”

Oh god… Oh dear god, no.

I spent the next minute frantically explaining myself. They seemed to buy it. But no one was really having fun at that point.

I ended up beating her. Ben immediately requested a match against me.

What proceeded was an incredibly quick virtual drubbing at Ben’s hands, the likes of which I can confidently say I have never experienced before in any game. I did not land a single point. Ben sat on the couch, a Coors Light in one hand, the Wiimote in the other. The only motion was relaxed sipping of the beer and the tiniest wrist-flicks with the ‘mote.

It would appear that Wii Tennis is more complex than I imagined. However, things moved so quickly once Ben got started that I have no idea what was happening. As soon as the ball left his racket it would double in speed and move at a ridiculous angle. My impression of the game is basically unchanged because I was afforded no opportunity to learn before it was over.

I hate that fucking Wii…

Which brings us to the question.

This is actually a really old gripe of mine. It started niggling in the back of my head back when Wolfgang won his button from Granite through a series of posts and counterposts which eventually boiled down to… I don’t know… whether Samus would rather go to prom with Master Chief or Gordon Freeman.

It was a terrible time. A great read, but a terrible time. I did my best back then to just stay the hell out. I know Wolfgang would have liked to have an ally in those arguments, but I didn’t want to be dragged in. And then it was over. Wolfgang went back to his irregular posting schedule, a new button was born, and we all moved on. In the more recent past, Wolfgang had another spurt of posts, where my least favourite issue reared its ugly head.

So here we go. I’m not casting judgement on Wolf or Granite. Wolfgang is pretty embittered against the Wii, and Granite often finds himself cast as Defender of the Faith, willingly or not I have no idea, in Wolfgang’s criticisms (usually by spam-ish comments left on The Box).

All I wish to do is lift out a certain segment of argument that continues to be repeated, but never fully explained. It goes like this:

1) The Wii is the least powerful current gen system. The games (obviously with exceptions) are boring shovelware, even the quality of first-party titles is inconsistent. The controler, while highly innovative… is still a pain in the ass a lot of the time. (This is Wolfgang’s part of the refrain)

2) Nintendo is making a literal killing in the video game business. They are rocking profits that no one has ever achieved before. Without profits, a company will die. Dead companies make no games. (I’ve heard this from everyone except Wolf [and by 'heard' I mean 'read', obviously])

Part 2 infers part 3:

3) With record profits and an unprecendented number of customers with a vested interest in supporting the Wii (because they’ve already bought one), Nintendo is in the best place possible to revolutionize video gaming as we know it. They are able to take risks no one else can take. If 1% of Wii owners buy a new game that goes against mainstream trends etc, that’s still enough people to make that game profitable (especially given that a risky venture of that nature will have a much smaller budget than a major release along predictable genre, or other, lines).

But… hold on. Part 3 contradicts part 1. And part 1 was the entire reason that we started this little hypothetical situation.

And this ends up turning the argument into a circle. Someone complains about the Wii, someone else mentions that Nintendo has never been in better shape. This infers part 3, but the people bitching in the first place aren’t satisfied, because they can’t see any evidence of part 3. There’s lot’s of evidence for 2, and plenty of anec dotal experience to kick up fuss for 1. And what happens?

We get part 1 again. Maybe it’s a different post. Maybe it’s a different poster. It’s probably worded differently and using different games or situations or anec dotes, but it’s basically the same.

There we go. I’m not really interested in starting another fire.  I’m going to be monitoring the commenting here as closely as I can, and if people step out of line, I’ll start removing comments or just lock commenting down.

Your comment must relate to:

1) Welcome back, Liam! We missed you so! What a hilarious set of circumstances between Ben and yourself!

2) A non-judgemental discussion of the questions raised in parts 1, 2, & 3. Have I got them wrong? Am I distilling (or deriving?) the argument too far, and thereby losing critical details? Etc.

Bon soir!

I am already working on another post. It shall be password protected. Expect more racy material. Not really.