Hey, New Tag!

[nano_moose]

I know that setting my local Centrelink building on fire wouldn't be very helpful, but it's still a temptation. I'll have to set something else on fire instead.

At any rate, a meme! Stolen from squeemu! Everybody dance!

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we don't necessarily know as much about each other as we'd like, particularly about how we live our daily lives. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you!

Comments

[squeemu.livejournal.com]

I want to steal your question!

What, in your opinion, makes a game excellent? Or, at the very least, "enjoyable enough to play through to the end?"

And! What makes a book excellent? What makes a TV series/movie excellent? (This can be exclusively animated shows/movies, if you prefer.)

I can't remember if I've asked you this before. But: do you prefer eating salty things or sugary things?

How well can you function without music?

Do you meet new people easily?

Do you skip classes?

[squeemu.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, and I want to ask you this question, too! *is blatantly stealing your questions to me* ...what, they're good questions!

What's something that'll definitely turn you off a game?

Do you drink pop? DO YOU CALL IT POP OR SODA OR SOMETHING ELSE?

Can you ever imagine yourself living outside of Australia?

What is the scariest thing you have ever seen/played?

[nano_moose]

After a long hard think, I believe it is these:

Atmosphere and immersion.

They are why Thief is my favouritest game in the world, and why Half-Life 2 and Bioshock make me do the dance of joy, and why Shadow of the Colossus and Ico and Prince of Persia make me squee. Because when I'm playing them, I feel like I'm in the world they present to me and I am the character that I control. This is something totally unique to games, I feel. Movies and books and comics and TV and pictures are about watching, but games are about doing.

Team Ico, the guys behind SotC and Ico, really understand this better than just about anybody except possibly Valve (and LGS, sigh), and they tailor their stories to take advantage of that. Shadow of the Colossus in particular takes the fact that you do certain things to proceed because, if you didn't, there would be no game, and stabs you with it. No softening, no "you did what you had to", no 'good' path. It knows you did this because you wanted to, and now, you will deal with the consequences.

And that atmosphere is what sells it; the lands you ride in are forbidden, and they feel like it. Not Mordor-esque, but empty of anything but you and your horse and your foes and filled with crumbling ruins. Beautiful, but unutterably lonely. You get a lot of time to think.

Valve, on the other hand, take a different tack by never telling you anything outright. It's like they took 'show don't tell', turned it up to a zillion and applied it to the game's backstory with a shovel. They never tell you the Combine drained the seas, they never tell you there haven't been any children born in something like sixteen years, they never tell you humans are enticed to join the Overwatch because they get rewarded with food and sex, that earth animals are modified into weapons, that they simply dropped those dozen-kilometer-high Citadels out of the sky. But you know, because you see it in every line and look and place, if you pay attention. And it feels real.

ANYWAY. WOW that was a tangent. The other thing that'll make me really like a game is charm, especially clever writing and interesting art direction.

What turns me off a game:
I'll answer the other question here as well, and it's two things. One is gratuitous violence - wait, WAIT, I can explain. I am just fine with violence, but I am not fine with violence as the center of a game's appeal rather than just window-dressing. I giggled like a schoolgirl in HL2 when I found out hitting an antlion with a shotgun blast makes it pop like a balloon, but I felt kind of skeevy playing God of War and throwing spears at civilians for health. I know GoW has other things that make it good, but after an hour of play I started to realize that pulling wings off things and twisting monsters' heads off like bottle caps and shoving swords down throats in fountains of blood was supposed to be entertaining me, and it wasn't. It still doesn't. It just feels ugly. (Also, God of War gives me a headache. SO LOUD.)

The other thing that really throws me off is unnecessarily frustrating or time-consuming and repetitive gameplay. I don't actually have a lot of time, these days, and I don't want to spend it on gameplay that I may as well walk away from leaving a brick on the X button, or things that make me want to scream and pull my hair out. This is why I've never really managed to fall in love with JRPGs; they seem to take pride in devouring huge amounts of time with nothing but the same fights, over and over and over. I hear there's a game where the final boss fight takes six hours, and I'm sorry, but that is not good game design. It's probably not altogether suprising that two of my favourite games in the world are criticized for being too short; myself I feel they have everything necessary, and I was never angry at them.

This is basically why I hate the Soulforge. Good idea, foul and terrible execution.

[nano_moose]

Excellent movies/TV/books:
And uuuuuh, okay, gee, I haven't given this nearly as much thought. For movies it's definitely writing, especially if it's funny and clever! I also like them to be visually interesting, and the visuals to suit the tone of the movie - The Incredibles has these gorgeous, colourful environments that go perfectly with the big, bouncy, fun story. WALL-E is a film that makes everything it shows wondrous, which fits exactly with Wall-E and his irrepressible curiosity. The Lord of the Rings movies are just enormous, somehow; there's just this hugeness to them that I love. I basically like my movies to wow me. I go to movies for wow.

As for my TV shows, I like them to be written by Joss Whedon!

...That isn't much of an exaggeration. I, uh, don't watch much TV. ...Good writing, continuity and likable characters are all likely to figure in what I do watch, though; I kind of have to be convinced to stick around, with TV.

As for books, I like individual narrative voice, things that are both hilarious and unexpectedly deep (Pratchett Pratchett Pratchett), things that grab me by the ear in the first few paragraphs, compelling descriptions, and interesting and detailed worldbuilding. And Matthew Stover, though lately I've been troubled by his female characterization; that is, he do not has it. (Or at least, not much of it.)

Foods:
I think you have! And that reminds me, I forgot to answer your question about what I actually will eat. And the answer is that it's kind of too extensive to list, but I definitely prefer my vegetables raw (this is why stir-fries are om nom nom), and I'll generally refuse sauce. I don't really eat a whole lot of meat, for some reason. I like chicken and pork and bacon, though. And ham. I love pasta. I'm more likely to eat meat if it's minced or diced, I don't like mush of any kind, I have an objection to tomatoes and peas…see, this is why I'm hard to cook for, because if you do give me something I don't like, I am physically unable to eat it without gagging. I genuinely don't mean to offend anyone; it's an instinctive reaction and I feel guilty every time it happens. I do like food, and I try to keep balanced, and I'm also trying to build up my tolerance to things. I am, however, still kind of crazy when it comes to food.

Buuuut I like salty food best! Bacon bacon bacon! (And 'tato. Mmmm potato.) And Vietnamese food tends to be pretty salty, but also delicious. They have this weird sauce they use on a lot of it, it's fishy. And now I want some.

Music:
I don't need music if I'm doing something I really like, but if I'm not it tends to keep me focused. If I go for a while without it I start to feel like I'm missing something, though. I also tend to use it to fend off street evangelists, because they don't talk to me when I have earphones in.

Meeting new people:
Erm, not really. I'm very shy and kind of bad at social interaction; I generally need to see how they'll deal with my particular brand of weirdness before really being myself. I'm better if there's someone I already know there, though then there's the possibility I'll talk until the universe unmakes itself.

[nano_moose]

Skipping classes:
No! Why would I do that? How am I supposed to know what I'm learning if I skip my classes? I'll really only do that if I'm sick or in a really bad mental place. Of course whether I can actually get myself to pay attention is another story; I try my best, but I am a scatterbrain.

Soda/Pop:
We just call it soft drink! And yes I do; probably rather too much of it. I've been trying to switch to orange juice and water instead, but I still get frequent cravings for sweet sweet Coke.

Living elsewhere:
I've barely even been out of Australia! I do like my country a lot (I sometimes read about the religious craziness in America and feel both deeply confused, because in Australia the Religious Right are a tiny minority with no power, and very sad). I think I'd really have to travel a bit more before I can come to a conclusion for that, sorry!

Scary games:
Silent Hill 2, hands down, no contest. That was a game that had me almost literally crying with fear, and it's fantastic, because none of the monsters really presented a serious threat; it was all in my head. And it's not just out to scare you, either. It's a very thoughtful, tragic story. I actually cried for real when James got to talk to Mary one last time at the end. That was so simple and so sad.

I also have to award a runner-up prize to the Cradle, which is the only other level/game to provoke a physical reaction. I remember once accidentally getting the notice of one of the Puppets, haring off into a dark corner and leaning against the wall. It followed me, but I broke its line of sight, so it spent some time padding around the room looking for me - and once it was so close I could see the individual stains on its bandages. It finally left, and I breathed out, and went limp, and realized I'd been so tense I had been shaking.

And wow, I just realized I've been at my desk most of the day answering this. HELLO, I OVERSHARE, NICE TO MEET YOU. But it was fun!