1276: Be Patient

Those who are “against” video games are always quick to mock how supposedly “brainless” and “useless” they are — the other day, for example, a writer for The Times displayed a staggering amount of ignorance on the issue, which resulted in this article.

But video games can teach us all manner of new skills and abilities. Besides the old favourite hand-eye co-ordination — everyone says it because it’s true — games also help train our reflexes, develop the problem-solving parts of our brain, express our creativity, socialise with others and all manner of other things.

One of the things they’ve helped me with most over the years is the matter of patience. I have a significant amount of patience for irritating situations, which is something I was regularly complimented on back when I was a teacher. (Having patience to endure irritating situations is very much a benefit when you’re dealing with a class of 30 misbehaving little scrotes.)

Actually, it’s not just irritating situations I have patience for; it’s the patience to keep beavering away at something until I’m successful (also file under: stubbornness); the patience to try and achieve something even if I don’t know that I can do it; the patience to learn things that initially seem difficult.

A combination of video games and learning musical instruments growing up taught me this particular virtue. And it pays off.

My patience means that I have a lot more time for, say, games that take a while to get going; games that might not be the most accomplished technically, but which have their heart in the right place. My patience means that I am able to keep trying a particularly difficult part of a game until I’m successful at it; my patience means that I’m willing to explore beyond the superficial in games that have hidden depths.

This sense of patience has persisted over the years, too; replaying old first-person shooters such as Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold recently has revealed that they’re a lot more difficult than I remember, and people with less in the way of patience would undoubtedly give up very quickly. But I’ve been persisting, and it’s been an enjoyable experience to return to these games that I grew up with — while they may look dated, they’re still extremely fun, so long as you can deal with the fact that these are games that make much more of an effort to actually kill the player than a lot of modern titles.

I’m weirdly proud of my sense of patience, because it means I can find a lot more things enjoyable than some other people. The games in which I’ve made use of my patience to look past flaws and problems have become some of my favourite games of all time, no exaggeration, and it’s largely due to the fact that I know relatively few people have seen the things I have.

That may sound smug and superior and for that I apologise (a bit, anyway) — but I wouldn’t have things any other way.

#oneaday Day 135: Patience is a Virtue

I’ve often been complimented on what is possibly my best virtue — my patience. I’ve developed this over many long and arduous years, and I attribute my possession of it as a virtue to two things in particular: video games and music.

Music’s contribution is obviously (possibly) from the amount of practice necessary to get to a good stage with your instrument playing, composition, singing or whatever. While I don’t do as much practice as I did when I was growing up — no exams or anything to aim for at the moment, for one thing — I can still sit down and actually work on something until I get it right if necessary. Sure, it might be frustrating for anyone sitting nearby to listen to the same few bars over and over at gradually-increasing tempi, but that’s why God invented electric pianos and headphones.

Video games’ contribution is, interestingly, almost the exact same reason — practice. I was playing my evergreen favourite game Trackmania United earlier today and it occurred to me that I was quite happy to sit there and repeatedly attempt each level until I got a result with which I was satisfied. It helps, of course, that Trackmania carries little to no penalty to failure, much like the notorious Super Meat Boy. Hit the “restart” button and, unlike many racing games out there, you’re immediately back on the start line, ready to go. The fact it’s so easy to restart and try again makes the whole thing a lot more conducive to repeated attempts. And the more repeated attempts you make without your head exploding or a string of expletives erupting forth from your mouth, the more your patience builds up.

Patience has come in useful in many life situations. When I worked as a teacher, I had to make use of it pretty much every day as the more unpleasant children out there have a habit of trying to “push” their teachers as far as possible until they snap. Sure, I did “snap” once or twice, including the time that drove me out of secondary teaching for good and left me on sick leave for over six weeks — I’m only human, after all — but for the most part, I managed to maintain composure even in the face of extreme adversity — including one time when a 14-year old kid threatened to knife me because I’d asked him (politely) to stop talking. Nice, huh?

It’s not just teaching where patience comes in useful, though. Waiting in a post office queue is a situation that practically demands patience (and judging by the amount of tutting and sighing that generally goes on in such a queue, not many people have taken the time to hone their skills) and so is attempting to explain to an elderly person how to use a computer. And there are many more situations in which it becomes useful. Mostly, though, if you’re patient about things, when the thing you’ve been patiently waiting for finally comes along, it’s worth the wait because you haven’t got yourself all wound up beforehand.

So chill out, relax, have a juice. That thing you’re waiting for is just around the corner. (Unless it’s a taxi, in which case you all know what “just around the corner” really means.)

#oneaday, Day 220: Five Things I Learned From Gaming

Gamers spend a considerable proportion of their lives justifying their hobby. This is not the way Things Should Be, of course. No form of media or entertainment or hobby should force its enthusiasts to become apologists. But such is the way of things.

Gaming, to some, still has a reputation of being an adolescent male-dominated thing. And sure, there are plenty of male adolescents out there playing things. But the whole thing is so broad and diverse now that absolutely anyone can get involved on one level or another. And by getting involved with gaming, there are some valuable life lessons that can be learned. And I’m not talking about the old faithful, “hand-eye co-ordination”.

Patience is a virtue

If there is one thing I think that gaming has taught me above all else, it’s the fine art of patience. Specifically, I’m of the opinion that RPGs in particular have taught me this.

RPGs are all about delayed gratification. There’s always that next step to strive for, be it gaining another level, saving enough money to buy the Super Death Blade (only to discover it’s not as good as your current sword) or beating a difficult boss.

It’s not just that though. Games like Phoenix Wright with lengthy conversational sequences are reminders that it doesn’t have to be action, action, action all the time. Granted, this kind of thing doesn’t appeal to everyone, and there are people out there who skip every cutscene (and annoy the hell out of me, because I like cutscenes, unless I’m seeing it for the forty-seventh time) but it’s a Valid Lifestyle Choice for many gamers.

Whatever you may think of crap like FarmVille too, it’s obvious that in most cases, these people are displaying patience, too. Unless they’re the sort of person who actually spends money on playing those games, in which case they deserve to be fleeced out of every cent they pay to the Shinra Corporation… sorry, Zynga.

Perseverance is also a virtue

Commitment to completing a task is often one of the most difficult aspects of motivating oneself. It’s easy to get halfway through a project, feel like you’re not achieving anything and give up. Through the awesome experiences I’ve had through many games, I’ve learned that a difficult journey often leads to an amazing destination. Take Persona. Both Persona 3 and 4 are 90+ hours long. That’s a significant time investment. But the conclusions of both stories were so great that I was happy I’d spent that time playing.

Practice makes perfect

Both the epic Geometry Wars 2 battle the Squadron of Shame had upon this game’s first release, and the drunken Joe Danger night my friend Sam and I had a short while back are great examples of this. If at first you don’t succeed at something, try it again. And again. And again. And again. And… (repeat until you’re top of the leaderboards by a comfortable margin)

RPGs are again symbolic of this. The longer the characters play and do the same things, the better they get at them. Sure, in most cases levelling up doesn’t actually mean the player’s skills have necessarily got any better. But the characters have. Sad old nerds like myself can pretend that they’re levelling up when they get better at doing something.

Where am I?

I have an excellent sense of direction. I attribute this to two things: firstly, getting drunk a lot at university, finding myself at friends’ unfamiliar houses, and somehow always managing to get home without being killed or bumraped. And secondly, playing a lot of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom when I was younger. Wolfenstein didn’t have a map at all, and Doom‘s automap wasn’t particularly clear. As such, players quickly learn to find their way around by following visual cues and working out where their eventual target is.

To this day, whenever I visit a new city, I actually quite like to get lost for a while to get a feel for where everything is. Also, shoot Nazis.

Creative solutions

This sort of thing is particularly apparent amongst gamers of a certain age who grew up with adventure game logic. How else would I have figured out that I could fix a Sega Saturn controller using nothing but a screwdriver, a piece of toilet roll and a bottle of cheap vodka? Or that the appropriate way in which to remove the ludicrously-difficult-to-remove cover on the light in my bathroom was to use a stepladder and a teaspoon?

There’s an argument that watching The A-Team or MacGuyver could produce similar results. But I attribute my particular possession of this quality to adventure gaming.

So there you have it. Gaming is awesome.

I realise that by posting this I’m somewhat guilty of being one of the gaming apologists I mentioned at the beginning. But whaddayagunnado?