Nothing like a little R&R during the spoopy season to put one at ease.


R&R standing for Rancid & Revolting in this example

Just some quick thoughts today, as it is one of those moments where I do not have many to spare. I think one of the hurt/heals of having lived within the realm of gaming for so long, is one tends to start to forget about things that have occurred. Maybe other people have strong enough memories, but I am not among them. The hurt on this of course is forgetting plot details of games from the past, maybe puzzle solutions to titles you’ve beaten many times, but not for a long time, perhaps even entire endings to games. The heal of this is that since you’ve forgotten big chunks of the past, when you do play through an old game, it is kind of like playing through it again almost completely fresh. I’m definitely running into that with the Silent Hill 2 Remake (SH2R), which I’m contented with on some level, as most of it is just vague enough to escape my memory.

The one issue I do have with it, is it does take away from my ability to look at what the remake has or hasn’t added, and kind of critique it thusly, so really, purely from an analytical process involving the writing of the events laid bare. This was not as much of a problem as it was with the Resident Evil 3 remake, when I played it this around last year, as I always played the RE series as more of games to play instead of media to marvel at. Which, may sound like I favor Resident Evil as a result of more time with it spent, but that’s not necessarily the case, as one of the reasons I didn’t like playing through Silent Hill relentlessly back in the day, was due to thoroughly appreciating the elements that comprised the atmosphere, approach, characterization etc in a way that I didn’t want to kill the vibe with repeated endeavors, almost like not watching your favorite comedy so that it stops being funny. I imagine most people are the same way on some level, with varying levels of toleration or love of their favored fictional properties that would dictate when they’ve essentially “overdosed” on them. I don’t know how many times it takes to make something stale, but I know it happens, and it’s one of the reasons I stopped watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail oh so many years ago. After so many repeated viewings, the funny eventually faded, and nothing but a valuable lesson was left in its wake.

Maybe it depends on the genre, too, as something like comedy and humor are both so visceral, it’s the rawness factor that plays so feverishly upon our emotional strings. I contrast this with something like musicals, which I feel have that excellent learning curve where you eventually learn all the words, and then it just becomes second nature to make it a sing along. Still, I love Nightmare Before Christmas, helping to anchor this post even more into the spoopy season, though I will admit, I have definitely watched it less and less has time has marched on, signifying to me perhaps nothing dodges the bullet entirely. Games are the same, but different, new game plus springs to mind as a uniquely video game element, though that obviously has limitations still, too. I don’t know, maybe my point is that some things are meant to be savored, while others consumed regularly? I feel like there is a lot more to that thought, one I will have to keep in mind for when I have more time.

I do know (albeit meandering) thought process does lend itself to the notion I eventually landed upon in my “gaming career”, and it was that priorities changed over time, as I feel is the natural state of affairs for most. Unless one is frozen as i if a bug in amber, one should change, develop, and evolve over time, thusly changing their habits. Something akin to those who live a NEET lifestyle may be foreigners to this concept, with only the shut-away life style and constant exposure to media provided has them forever locked in the same loop of consumption over and over again. I’m sure there are examples of NEETs who genuinely don’t have a choice in the matter due to medical reasons, but for anyone else living that way by choice…we have vastly different outlooks on life, to put it mildly, though I will reserve further judgement on the matter, as it was not my point.

More to my point, was the idea that in terms of how my thought process changed in regards to gamng was in the simple fact of having less time and more interests, meaning I couldn’t spend every waking minute in front of the TV. This gave way to a complete 180 on how I viewed video games in terms of playability/replayability, as I went from liking games that essentially went on forever or were in some way, shape or form, ridiculously long winded like a JRPG, or had a myriad of ways to enjoy it, like hidden unlockables, difficult achievements, high scores through various modes etc. Not that any of those lost merits, as I dabble in any of them from time to time for games I truly enjoy, but as I aged, any game that could fall whim to through truncation in terms of storytelling, with a development team knowing how to editorialize their own vision, with a much more compact adventure, became favorites of mine.

One great example of this, and I almost hesitate to bring it up, as I represent a minority of players who aren’t totally in love with the title, was when Portal launched. I wasn’t a crazy big fan of the game, and this is aside from how many people just completely killed the jokes the game had with brutal repetition, but I felt kind of short changed when even upon my first playthrough of the game, I had finished the entire thing in only a little over an hour. Seemed to me like such a desperate lack of content. Of course, over time, I appreciated the title more for what it was, and with an expanding knowledge base of the industry and game development as well, I grew fonder of the title with each passing year.

Hmm…I don’t know if I meant for my takeaway on this post to be some weird lowkey flex of not being a media whore or total addict of the virtual persuasion, but I guess a good take away is that not all media has to someone’s “everything” to be worthy of enjoyment or praise. In fact, it’s nice to be able to just enjoy something without feeling like one needs a PhD on the subject to feel as if now they can claim some kind of ownership over said media, as if it’s an all or nothing scenario in terms of needing to be a complete slave to our consumptive processes. We should definitely all be more aware of who we are, and in relation to our fictional consumption, so we are more than just a collection of our favorite pieces of media, which I’ve written about before.

Ultimately; do what you want, it’s your life not mine, I just think one can find a more complete sense of self beyond our consumption, not just through it.

~Pashford