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Rise of the Video Game - tonight on Discovery
RandyT:
--- Quote from: MaximRecoil on November 29, 2007, 12:51:31 am ---Well that's fine, but what relevance to video games does that have? Before Missile Command, what was there with a Cold War theme? Pong? Space Invaders? Galaxian? Pong certainly doesn't count, and it is quite a stretch to associate space/alien themes with the Cold War.
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I don't think you've made the connection they attempted to show. Technology is driven by both the "war machine" and the "race for space" . Both of those were in high gear at the dawn of video gaming. The same technology being used for guidance systems and other needs of those communities, was applied to a more entertaining function by the very same people. The military and space programs were crucial to the birth of electronic gaming and that's why the emphasis.
--- Quote ---You do realize that such actions go a long way to neutralize the threat, right?
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You mean to neutralize the threat that didn't exist? :)
--- Quote ---Yes, and general war themes have never died out in video games, and I suspect they never will. They have no strong association with the Cold War, in which the alleged threat was a nuclear attack rather than conventional war. Most of them from the 80's were Vietnam-themed in fact (jungle setting).
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I think in Rush 'N' Attack (Russian Attack) you were actually running around on ICBM's in some stages of the game. Even in Rambo, the Soviets were the ones "calling the shots". Viet Nam was supposedly fought to beat back the "communist threat". I'm pretty sure there's a connection there.
--- Quote ---And BTW, Namco beat Nintendo to the punch with "cutesy games" with Pac-Man.
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It's difficult to give PacMan the "first cutesy game" award. The characters were very abstract, and while there was an element of lightheartedness, I'd be hard pressed to call it "cute". Donkey Kong was really the first to have developed characters with story lines and scenery that supported them. Those elements tend to make DK more endearing than an abstract shape eating dots and being chased by ghosts for no apparent reason.
I haven't watched the second episode yet, so I'll reserve judgment on the rest for later :)
RandyT
MaximRecoil:
--- Quote from: RandyT on November 29, 2007, 02:32:13 pm ---I don't think you've made the connection they attempted to show. Technology is driven by both the "war machine" and the "race for space" . Both of those were in high gear at the dawn of video gaming. The same technology being used for guidance systems and other needs of those communities, was applied to a more entertaining function by the very same people. The military and space programs were crucial to the birth of electronic gaming and that's why the emphasis.
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Not only is that a trivial connection, but that wasn't the main connection they were trying to make.
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--- Quote ---You do realize that such actions go a long way to neutralize the threat, right?
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You mean to neutralize the threat that didn't exist? :)
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That's a joke, right? I hope so, because if it isn't, it implies confusion on your part over a very simple concept which was explained in standard English.
They were not a significant threat because the threat was neutralized to a great extent, and being kept neutralized to a great extent. The analogy of the criminal with the gun should have made this perfectly clear to you.
--- Quote ---I think in Rush 'N' Attack (Russian Attack) you were actually running around on ICBM's in some stages of the game. Even in Rambo, the Soviets were the ones "calling the shots". Viet Nam was supposedly fought to beat back the "communist threat". I'm pretty sure there's a connection there.
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Rush'n Attack came out in '85, i.e. "Glasnost" years. There was even less concern about a nuclear attack by that time.
--- Quote ---It's difficult to give PacMan the "first cutesy game" award. The characters were very abstract, and while there was an element of lightheartedness, I'd be hard pressed to call it "cute". Donkey Kong was really the first to have developed characters with story lines and scenery that supported them. Those elements tend to make DK more endearing than an abstract shape eating dots and being chased by ghosts for no apparent reason.
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Pac-Man was about as "cutesy" as it got at the time. And what does a storyline, developed characters, and alleged level of endearment have to do with "cutesy"? Pac-Man was made to appeal to girls. BTW, DK only had a very rudimentary storyline (save the girl, which was not even possible to do), and character development? There wasn't much of that either.
RandyT:
--- Quote from: MaximRecoil on November 29, 2007, 03:37:03 pm ---Not only is that a trivial connection, but that wasn't the main connection they were trying to make.
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Perhaps in your opinion. Videogames and computer science would be nowhere near where they are today without the war mentality and things like the "Star Wars Missile Defense" programs. It's not a coincidence that early videogames had a lot of shooting and destroying of things. Just because you viewed something a certain way when you were 12, it doesn't mean that all others saw it that way, or that it was correct. The military was looking at videogames as enlistment and training tools since day one. They matured hand in hand.
One of the things that is a bit disturbing about some of the comments made in response to this documentary is that some don't even agree with the commentary made by the folks who were there living it at the time. You might think some of Nolan Bushnells comments about women and "equaling the playing field" were silly or in poor taste, but that was really the case. For the first time, video games offered a competitive challenge that males didn't necessarily have an immediate advantage with.
Emotional attachments to video games in that time period were not uncommon. As an arcade player, you really didn't care about the mechanics or the politics that happened behind the scenes. Much of it wasn't even public knowledge. With the 70's over and the "war on drugs" underway, videogames offered escapism from a world where everything was not wonderful, and where there was constant talk of nuclear armament and doomsday scenarios. I'm happy you were born after the worst of it, but some of us were nearing draftable age when you were starting kindergarten. We probably noticed some of these things and related them differently than you did. It doesn't mean it was incorrect to feel either way about it.
--- Quote ---That's a joke, right?
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No. You maintain that there was no threat, yet it was important to "neutralize" it. It is a contradiction in logic.
--- Quote ---..and character development? There wasn't much of that either.
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In terms of eliciting an emotional response to the game, DK was far different than PacMan. But even so, "cute" is mainly a term describing visual aesthetics. PacMan was, like most games before it, functional with a very basic goal and mostly abstract graphics. DK was a step in new direction, both visually and in player experience.
RandyT
MaximRecoil:
--- Quote from: RandyT on November 29, 2007, 05:33:31 pm ---
Perhaps in your opinion. Videogames and computer science would be nowhere near where they are today without the war mentality and things like the "Star Wars Missile Defense" programs.
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That is simply speculation, unfounded speculation at that.
--- Quote ---It's not a coincidence that early videogames had a lot of shooting and destroying of things.
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Or so you say. People have been shooting and destroying things for ages, long before the Cold War. How about a plinking gallery at a carnival or fair 100 years ago? You and the show's creators are trying to look far too deep into these things.
And it doesn't matter what the technology was developed for, no more than it matters what paper was developed for when you are talking about a drawing or a novel which uses paper as its medium.
--- Quote ---One of the things that is a bit disturbing about some of the comments made in response to this documentary is that some don't even agree with the commentary made by the folks who were there living it at the time. You might think some of Nolan Bushnells comments about women and "equaling the playing field" were silly or in poor taste, but that was really the case. For the first time, video games offered a competitive challenge that males didn't necessarily have an immediate advantage with.
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What percentage of the video gaming records out there are held by females?
--- Quote ---Emotional attachments to video games in that time period were not uncommon. As an arcade player, you really didn't care about the mechanics or the politics that happened behind the scenes. Much of it wasn't even public knowledge. With the 70's over and the "war on drugs" underway, videogames offered escapism from a world where everything was not wonderful, and where there was constant talk of nuclear armament and doomsday scenarios. I'm happy you were born after the worst of it, but some of us were nearing draftable age when you were starting kindergarten. We probably noticed some of these things and related them differently than you did. It doesn't mean it was incorrect to feel either way about it.
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That's exactly the type of exaggeration I'm talking about.
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--- Quote ---That's a joke, right?
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No. You maintain that there was no threat, yet it was important to "neutralize" it. It is a contradiction in logic.
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Good grief. Do you know what the word "neutralize" means? Once a threat is neutralized, is it still a threat? I'll repeat this. They were not a significant threat because for them to attack us with nuclear weapons, they would have killed themselves in the process, and everyone was well aware of that.
I'm going to insert you into my criminal with a gun analogy. You can be the police chief:
You: So what is the situation? Is there a threat?
SWAT: No Sir. The threat has been neutralized.
You: You say that there is no threat, yet it is important to "neutralize" it. It is a contradiction in logic.
SWAT: Say what??
--- Quote ---In terms of eliciting an emotional response to the game, DK was far different than PacMan. But even so, "cute" is mainly a term describing visual aesthetics. PacMan was, like most games before it, functional with a very basic goal and mostly abstract graphics. DK was a step in new direction, both visually and in player experience.
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Not only is that an opinion, but it is irrelevant in regard to defining a game as "cutesy" or not. Without Pac-Man there may not have been DK. Nintendo was banking on Radar Scope, which was another space-themed shooter.
RandyT:
Video games were born in a vacuum. They created themselves. The Soviet Union was never a threat and the three years I spent on the nuke base in Europe was just a dream. And nothing is as cute as a circle with wedge cut out of it.
Can we agree now? :notworthy: