11 October 2008

Perspectives on Reboot for the modern gamer

So Arthur in today's Sheldon asks a good semi-philosophical question.  He asks:  in the tallest building in the world, if there happens to be a bathroom on that floor, did someone bother to put in curtains?

My instant thought was, what about slightly deranged helicopter pilots?

Just a thought, lol.

And for those who remember Reboot (the show), might I recommend going back and rewatching some of the early episodes?  It's interesting to hear them talk clearly intending to sound cutting-edge ("Alphanumeric!" Enzo always yells), and to see the old-fashioned games.  Like, the user in Episode 5 is all blocky with a ponytail.  I mean, the main characters aren't blocky, but the user's character is.  Fascinating.  And it's interesting to think about all the games we've played (and hopefully won) and see how they would destroy Mainframe little by little.

Maybe Alpha wouldn't hate losing as much if he realized he was just losing to a guardian protecting Mainframe.  Lol, then again maybe not.  And how would MMORPG's work in that visualization of the computer.  What if Bob got stuck in EveOnline, for example, he'd never, ever get out because you couldn't beat all the users.

And if the user (us) lost as often as the one in Reboot does, would they continue trying games?  That explains why they don't necessarily replay games during the series.  It's an argument for buying console games.

What happens when the user cheats?

Food for thought.  Watch Reboot on youtube and ponder. (Coffee tawk.  Tawk amongst yowrselves.)  Lmao.

2 comments:

Alphasim said...

I can see it now; Bob goes to stop World of Warcraft and finds himself up against the combined might of the Alliance and the Horde, none of whom actually pay him any mind. He's trying to 'beat' them, and they're just off doing whatever strikes them at the moment. How do you 'beat' someone dancing on top of the fountain in Stormwind, just waiting for an auction to go through? Thousands of players, doing thousands of different things. Players can never really 'win' or 'lose' WoW, so in effect he could never win!

And yes, I do think that this could be an argument for console games. About the show, however, I can't get over how everyone looks like melted plastic toys and not real people. Can you believe that used to be high-tech? Wow.

BetaSim said...

Hey, they look like plastic, but they still look better than the user.

I can't get over how cool Megabyte sounds. It had never occurred to me that the voice acting is pretty spot-on.