1297: “Remember When…”

“…games were fun?”

It’s a question often trotted out any time there’s some sort of controversy in the video games medium, whether it’s someone saying something stupid, or something in a game offending someone. Basically any time there’s discussion beyond “this game are good, I liked the graphics the best”.

Actually, that’s grossly unfair to those who do good work on video games criticism when there isn’t some sort of overblown controversy going on, but it is accurate to say that there are some people out there who use “remember when games were fun?” as a method of attempting to shut down discussion beyond simple, relatively superficial comments.

“Games are fun” isn’t even a particularly accurate statement to make these days, because there are plenty of experiences out there that are specifically designed to be not fun. Take something like Corpse Party, which I wrote a little about yesterday, or Silent Hill — neither of those series are intended to get you thinking “this is fun; I’m having a good time”. Quite the opposite, in fact — both are intended to unnerve, disturb, frighten and depress you. This doesn’t make them bad games, however; in fact, it makes them extremely good games, because they both succeed admirably in achieving what they set out to do; both are genuinely unnerving, disturbing, frightening and depressing experiences.

Take something like Journey or Flower, too; neither of those carry the deliberately negative emotional baggage of stuff like Corpse Party or Silent Hill, but neither are they particularly designed to be “fun”. Rather, they’re artistic, contemplative experiences that are enormously open to interpretation; your own personal interpretation of both games might be that you find them fun, but likewise you might find them sad, or they might make you angry, or they might leave you awestruck at the scenery, or… you get the idea.

Visual novels, too, aren’t designed to be “fun”, at least not in the traditional sense of “having fun gameplay”. No, you might find the characters, setting or story of a visual novel to be fun to hang out with or immerse yourself in, but the actual act of “playing” a visual novel is not fun at all. And that’s fine — it’s not a negative thing at all. In the case of visual novels, “gameplay” can distract from the narrative, which is the reason to play (or, more accurately, as many fans say, “read”) these games in the first place. (There are exceptions, of course; Aselia the Eternal strikes a great balance between narrative and gameplay, and successfully integrates both into a surprisingly coherent, if technologically rather primitive, experience.)

So yeah. I remember when games were just fun. That was cool, I guess, but I’m much more of a fan of the diversity of experiences we have today. I enjoy the fact that modern games make me think or make me feel something. I’d be kind of sorry if we didn’t strive for anything more than “just fun” in interactive entertainment.