On video games

Much of the discussion about video games I’ve seen focuses on either violence or hand idea coordination with the exception being people like the Terra Nova crew working on the economics and societal aspects of MMORPGs. What’s interesting though, is the logic of the decissions in FPSes. A good FPS player is more than just a good shot or someone incredibly agile with a mouse, it’s about predictive behavoirs. Will the countering team have a sniper rifle? Will they come down path a or b? in groups? etc. A good player is able to position themself by surprise and take advantage of the level instead of the other player’s ping time or lack of a huge screen and gyroscopic mouse etc. These types of decissions aren’t as common in MMORPG where group strategy and leveling up help more than position, but predicting the enemies’ movement in Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Quake, Doom, Half Life, or CS is vital. It’s being able to build a model of user behavoir and know who will run with the group and who’s going to be slinking around the unprotected corner. Perhaps that’s why I find MMORPGs so boring. I bought a Guild Wars account and used it at most 3 times on the other hand I play CS or Quake almost everyday.

technorati tags:fps, video_games

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P.S. it’s interesting that these FPSes stress these kinds of proximate logics.

Basically, your average level of counter strike is a fuzzy logic puzzle which might explain part of it’s appeal. After all such pattern recongition games from minimal information and intuitive factors is exactly what the brain specializes in.