Stuck to the screen

A modern (and common) dilemma: a group of friends gathered around a table together, staring at their phones, totally detached from the group around them. What is it about staring at an individual screen that feels so isolating?

I am not making some sweeping statement that technology is ruining our social skills and our ability to connect. During our TV binges, my group joined together, sharing one screen and one viewing experience. We chatted, made jokes, and asked important questions like "Wait, who is that again?" and "Why won't he die already?" In this case a screen provided us with a real bonding experience. 

The group video game experience was not quite that. I wouldn't say it totally alienated us from one another or worsened our relationships, but it certainly wasn't vastly improving our connections either. Our conversations were short and practical during gameplay, everyone was very immersed in the game and we rarely looked away from our screens. Because of our different skill sets and schedules for playing, we were all at different levels of the game and so were unable to share that unspoken connection of "we're in it together."

I think video games can be a great resource for connecting people. I think online gaming communities, though often misled or misrepresented, can be good environments for building relationships. I think family game time playing Just Dance or Wii Sports can be healthy for familial bonding. Video games are not bad. However, with this binge, each of us playing Pokemon on our own never turned into anything larger. 

This could be due to a lot of factors (Pokemon doesn't require a lot of in-depth discussion, we only had two days to binge together, etc.), and I also don't want it to seem like I didn't like my group or the game. I enjoyed both, and found that I still felt less isolated playing in a group than playing alone (duh). But was it a lovely, Girl Scouts-esque, trust-developing, bonding experience? Tragically, the answer is no.

A video game not made for bingeing

Ready for action

Playing Lego Lord of the Rings for exorbitant amounts of time did not go as expected. The game different from my idea of a normal video game. For one thing, it was very easy.

I began the game in a flashback to the time that the one ring was originally lost. Since this short level was a battle sequence, it wasn't exactly a way to ease into the show. It was tricky and relatively intense compared to the rest of the game.

However, the end of that level commenced my honeymoon period with the show.

Frodo plays in a fountain

Frodo and Sam frolicked around the Shire collecting coins and looking for mushrooms while pastoral music played in the background. The game was fun, it seemed easy, and I wasn't tired of it yet. Oh, for the good old days.

After the game took a darker turn, my opinion of it declined as well. It wasn't that I didn't like the levels that had more substance; it was just bad timing. During one level, I misunderstood the instructions and spent at least twenty minutes trying to beat three enemies with a move that was doing nothing. Finally, one of the enemies simply disappeared, and I assumed the game was trying to make it easier for losers like me. However, when I finally defeated the others I quickly realized there was now no way to win. Because of the glitch, I had to repeat my steps for quite a while in order to reach the level again and finally beat it.

Though this happened only once, the frustration seeped into all the other levels I played. When a level didn't progress despite my best efforts, I guessed something was wrong with the game. On top of that, I began to become lazy.

The last day of bingeing petered out like this, and my days of video game bingeing did not end with a bang. If I had only this binge to go buy, I would have a very boring impression of video game culture. Fortunately, I know the games get better. Maybe one day I'll try bingeing on a really incredible game, and my life will change.

The crew

 

Yes I have binged on gaming before. I remember one time my friend Jack came over to my house for three days. On the first day, we played video games for about a good 6 to 8 hour period. The Second day I would say we binged on video games during a time period that was about 12 to 14 hours. That is really the only time that I have binged on video games. When normally playing video games, I would say my normal playing time is about 6 to 8 hours. I have always enjoyed playing video games. I first started playing video games when I was in elementary school. The game system that I had was a Nintendo Game Boy Advance, and the majority of the games that I played on it were from the Pokémon series. Then when I reached Middle School I lost interest in video games and gave it up for a while. However when I was about to go into high school, I got back into video games because of the video games series Guitar Hero. I really do enjoy playing video games because they help me relax and unwind. For the past couple of years my favorite type or genre of video game is military. My favorite is the Call of Duty series. However I also like playing other types and genres of games, just over Christmas break I got a new hunting game. Overall if a video game is good and I like it, I will play it.    

Emotional Attachment to Fictional Creatures and Other Symptoms of 3 Days of Pokemon.

    I started my journey with a small turtle with a leaf growing out of it's head. A sound choice made on the basis "I like turtles". It was also chosen on the basis "I like plants" but less so. After choosing my little green friend I used my astounding naming skills and dubbed him Shell. May my future spouse name any children we might have. I had no clue just how fond I would grow of Shell after three days of forced playtime. But now that he is big enough to have a full tree growing from his namesake, and has been with me through three champions, I must say he's grown on me.

    The second companion gained was an unexpected one. But after repeatedly losing to the poison frogs in the marsh I decided to catch one out of spite. I didn't plan to keep him long, and so I didn't name him for quiet a while. However I did keep him and he punch many things for me. Which is a good quality for a friend to have I think.

     

     Having covered the reptile and amphibian needs of my journey I branched out with my third member. And when I say branched out I really meant it. I left the animal kingdom completely behind and nabbed a floating eyeball magnet thing. It is now a U.F.O. magnet thing, and was surprisingly frail for being made of steel. I never named it either, but considering it was three living things briefly I'm not sure what name would have worked.

       I was actually clever in naming mon number 4. See it was originally a one headed blind dragon of the Deino species, out outrageous amount of time later it becomes a two headed Zweilous, and finally it opens it's eyes as the now three headed Hydreigon. Ein, Zwei, Drei. One, Two, Three you see. I named mine Vear, which is pronounced like fear, and is german for four. I did this because if you give me a dark dragon literally listed as the brutal pokemon I will turn it into a linguistic joke and baby the poor thing for the entire game despite the fact that he carried my team. 

     My next choice was simple, I saw a vulpix, realized I've never used a vulpix, so I caught a vulpix. I asked my roommate what was japanese for fox, having been impressed with my german exploits earlier, and named the little fire fox that. From then on she burned any thing that needed burning, and just generally looked fabulous

    My final member came to me very late in the game. I had played through maybe two fourths of the game and noticed that I had seen very few ghosts. I fixed that by carrying a ghost with me at all times. Not much more to say on that really. 

  

     It might have been spending most so much time with these guys, or the things I accomplished with them, or maybe just the exhaustion from the rest of the binge, but they hold a special place in my heart. That and having a giant turtle with grass and a tree growing out of it's shell would be an amazing pet. Portable nap spot for now and for ever. 

Did I ever mention I was allergic to plants?

               Hold your plants and get ready for a good killing! Plants vs. Zombies became a game that I hated in the most rarest passions. It was all a love and hate relationship. When I first started playing this game, I thought I could sit for hours and hours and be trapped in. Well, I was wrong, but also right. In ways, I was trapped in a zombie apocalypse, but I felt like a complete plant and all I wanted to do was not die. When I first started the game I sat for 2 straight hours and was okay with just killing some zombies but after awhile, I wanted to throw my iPad across the floor because I couldn't kill some zombies! Call me crazy, actually don't because I'm pretty                                                  

positive that people called me that after I got done with the entire binge session. By this, I mean that I was excessively angry at everybody, I found that every time I tried to finish a level and people kept bothering me, I had even more anger built inside me, so right when the binge session was over, I just took the anger out on every body on sight. When I was younger I went through a phase where I wanted to be a "gamer" and that didn't work out because I'm the type of person to play a game, but after I start getting frustrated I just quit. This was my biggest challenge in this entire binge session, because I couldn't just give up, I had to keep going. I have a 26 year old brother who is a master at this game, when I say master, I mean he completed PvZ and PvZ 2! So, in one of the game sessions, I called him asking for some help, like cheat codes or anything really, but all he did was laugh. There are no such thing as cheat codes for Plants v. Zombie, all there is, is strategy. 

Psychonauts: Fighting a war for mental freedom… and losing

  I’ve never been a natural gamer. During my childhood I rarely ever played video games and if so, my choices consisted of Harvest Moon, Nintendogs, and those Imagine Chef and Babysitter games. I wasn’t interested in too much of a challenge, but more the interactive aspect of petting a puppy by tapping a stylus or learning how to create a five-course meal by dicing and sautéing virtual meats and vegetables at my leisure. I found my experience with the video game binge to be much different. I chose the game Psychonauts, about a young psychic character named Razputin

who must undergo a series of obstacles. The setting of the game is in a really creepy camp, and campers interact with Raz occasionally, which I found disturbing. The picture shows two of the campers who continuously yelled, “punch” while Raz must punch down a number of wooden targets with limited time. It took me approximately 17 times to complete the challenge, and once completed, I had to turn the sound off for the rest of the game.

I chose this game for it’s obscure graphics, and I must say it exceeded my expectations with originality. Some of the characters reminded me of cartoons from my childhood, which lured me in more than I think a first person shooter game like Call of Duty would. However, constantly getting stuck in ditches and having to repeat tasks 3 to 4 times frustrated me, and has kept me from playing the game since. I think the ideal audience for this game targets younger teens (12-16), for the dialogue felt very juvenile along with highly repetitive obstacles. 

            For the video game binge I definitely think group binging has been the most helpful. When I would get stuck, I could ask my group and immediately someone would be able to help or provide some advice. In my experience, group binging encouraged my hermeneutic momentum. By binging in the morning, I gained more confidence in my playing, and became more invested in the show. I think I would have been less inclined to play had we first binged individually, and met later on in the evenings. This is important to notice, for it goes beyond playing video games. In the future, I intend on studying more in groups, as I’m finding this sense of community can have a great influence on one’s motivational abilities, and can further induce individual work.

I'M SICK! I SAID I'M SICK!!!

There’s nothing like locking yourself up in room for hours at time and just… play Pokémon. To just sit in my room and beast out on some Pokémon is an experience on of a kind. I’ve never had leg cramps by sitting till I started binge playing Pokémon. It was great in a neet shut in kind of way. However, after two weeks of binging on Game of Thrones and reading Outlander it should’ve been a lot better. It feels like I did three months of work in three weeks.

Watching TV was great. All I needed to do is sit there and let the TV do the work. Game of Thrones? Now that’s a show. It inspired me to begin binge playing Shadow of Moordor, a game that’s based off the same time frame and theme of the show. However, I haven’t watched the show since the binge ended.

My New Year’s Resolution was to read more but now… I don’t know. After attempting to read Outlander I might give up on books all together. I hate that book so freaking much. Though, it’s my fault for not checking out the book beforehand. Oh well, I’ll take that “L.”

Adding all that up with the questionnaires equaled to an exhausting three weeks. Now, I’m sick of TV (though I can’t stop watching), I’m sick of video games and I’m without a doubt sick of reading. However, I have no regrets! I would do all of that stuff anyways. At least now I’m getting credits for it.