Non-Violent Does Not Mean Non-Good

For those of you who don't know, which I'm sure is not many of you, the Supreme Court -- like really, the Supreme Court -- has been hearing arguments on violent video games.  Strangely, this case started in California, one of the most liberal, free-thinking states out there.  Think about it.  Where do you go if you want to escape being persecuted for your crazy-ass lifestyle?  California.  More specifically, maybe San Francisco.  That's the reputation we have at least.  Anyway, I am more than confident this case will come out with gaming on top.  The courts have always sided with free speech, so if they started censorship with videogames, it wouldn't make much (any) sense.  With that being said, I am not here to talk about violence in videogames.  That's been done.  I am here to talk about games that don't have violence at all.  Games that have a protagonist, in some form to be sure since someone must be controlling something, but do not seem to have any antagonist.

Now, truthfully, an argument can be made for a protagonist and antagonist in every game.  Tetris: the player vs. whoever sends you down blocks; Flower: nature vs. pollution/industrialization; Sim City: the city vs. the world.  There are games that are more directly concerned with the hero defeating the villain, but, as you can see, there are also games that feature conceptual enemies.  Games where you may even hesitate to call them enemies.  Would it be a bad idea to have more games like these?  These games are more than one person defeating several armies worth of minions; they force you to attempt to understand something more complex than "bullet goes into head, I win."  Ok, maybe not Tetris.  That one is in a whole other genre with games that are more puzzles than anything else, like Peggle or Monopoly.  I would venture to say that these are all great games.  You may balk at Monopoly, but how many times have you played it?  How many years has it been around?  The answer to both of those question is "a sh*tload."

This is so exciting! I LOVE games without any action!

I would like to see more of these games.  Games like World of Goo, Braid, or flOw should fill the stores, both real and online.  I've gotten tired of games where I can mindlessly defeat mindless hordes of poor-operating AI.  Sure they can still be fun, but less often intriguing and rarely original.  Maybe that's because I am not an FPS gamer.  I prefer games like Mario or Zelda to Halo or Call of Duty.  "Adventure" just has a much nicer ring to it than "First Person Shooter."  I own a Wii, but I do not own The Conduit and I will not own Conduit 2.  There is no appeal for me in these games.  Surely, those shooters are the only kinds of games that would be under scrutiny if videogames lose the aforementioned case.  I guess my gaming tastes would still be satisfied if this happens, despite my moral outrage.  Good-ish news for me then.

Everyone else who has different views than me, however, will still be at a loss, right?  Not necessarily.  Perhaps this would give them the perfect chance to broaden their gaming experiences.  I know two people who live together and both have Xbox360s; between them, there is not one non-FPS title.  This disgusts me.  I cannot go to their house and watch them play anything because it's all the same, whether they're shooting aliens or terrorists.  If you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that these games are too similar, think about the controller set-up.  Is the right trigger always shoot?  Is A always action and B always melee attack?  It's the standard control scheme now in place for most shooters.  One could seamlessly switch between several games and not lose a step.  But to go from Flower to Sim City or from Peggle to Minecraft?  Who will see any connection between those games?  As a side note, Minecraft can be switched to "peaceful" if you just want to build without any annoying enemies sneaking up on you in the dark.  Maybe it's not possible anymore to have such variation in FPS games.

Oh Man! This game is WAY better than that other, generic shooter we just beat!

The point here, if you haven't picked up on it already, is that you don't need violence to make a game good.  You don't even need to have a strong antagonist.  If the title has innovative gameplay, addicting mechanics, and/or a fascinating experience, that's more than enough to make an enjoyable game.  People who can't get enough of gunning down endless enemies should be aware that there are other games, most of which are rare gems in the gaming universe.  It's not often one will find something like Flower or Minecraft, but it seems games like Halo have become a dime a dozen.  Whether that's something that needs to change in game developers or something in the gaming community, I cannot say.

Obscure Title Tuesday: Monopoly!

Monopoly for the Nintendo Entertainment System! Or, as I like to call it: Insert Joke Here!

Monopoly is, of course, the insanely popular property trading bankruptcy game by Milton Bradley that, by some fluke, is not too complicated for the average American to play. You go around a board buying property, when you own all the property of a certain color you can buy houses and hotels for that property, and when your friends (or enemies!) land on these properties they must pay you major bank, or ‘rent.’ The object is to bankrupt everyone else, leaving them penniless and you Scrooge McDuck.

I should stop walking because this road is about to end

When playing this NES game with others the game functions exactly as a normal game of Monopoly, though there are 3 key ‘differences’ you have to get used to. Many people play Monopoly using house rules, which is pretty much any rule other then the official rules to make the game more fun. A common house rule is if you land on the free parking space then you get 500 dollars (or some other amount of money, like the money you lost from chance cards and landing on that damn ‘Luxury Tax’ space RIGHT in between Boardwalk and Park Place! THAT space should be the free parking! If I come that close to Boardwalk and not land on it I should be consoled with parking that is free, not a 75 dollar diamond ring….heh heh heh, crazy 1933.) Since that’s not an option for this game, landing on free parking gets you nothing but the animation of your game piece chillaxing on free parking.

Curiously, even tho this game was made in the 90's no one has been named 'Gertrude' since the 1800's

There are two other ‘differences’ (which are really just the original rules of Monopoly that some don’t use) that may frustrate some. Whenever you land on a property, if you choose to not buy that property, it MUST be auctioned off, with the property going to the highest bidder. Though auctioning of a property is quick and easy in the game, it makes the rich get even richer as they can abuse people with less money by getting properties cheap whenever anyone lands on a property that they can’t afford. Finally, there are a limited number of houses and hotels that can be bought in this game, whereas most home games will find some pennies and use those when they run out of houses in the box. This doesn’t matter too much, though, as there are 32 houses; more than enough to bust your opponents. Other then that, the board is the same, everything costs the same, you can offer trades to people who can accept, offer counter trades, or just flat our refuse, you got your chance and community chest cards, game play is quick, and, with the addition of video technology, all the game pieces have little movement animations during significant events like moving around the board, going to jail, buying houses or hotels, and each chance and community chest card.

Gertrude buyin' a railroad. Because that was the main mode of transportation in her day.

The music for the intro is catchy, though there’s no music during gameplay; just sound effects and snippets of music during things like the rolling of the dice, trading, going to jail, or whenever you land on Boardwalk and Park Place and no one has purchased them yet. There are enough sound effects to make the absence of a general background song not noticeable. Also, when you win the game it shows you, triumphant on top of a giant dollar bill sign with your name and how much all your money and property is worth combined displayed, along with a totally bitchin’ song in the background that makes you feel like a winner and forget all about the recession.

Donnie would later fall and sue the giant golden dollar bill manufacturer for another $12,125.

The area in which this game shines is the computer AI. You can play with up to 7 computer players and……they don’t suck! The AI in this game plays an effective game of monopoly and is even able to hold up against your many, repeated attempts at trying to trick it into making a stupid trade. Trading with these computer players is like playing Monopoly with a friend of yours who is really tight fisted with his property, but not unreasonable. When you choose to play with a computer player the game brings you to an art gallery showcasing 4 pictures of high society with their names underneath, collectively called the ‘top four.’ You can also click on the ‘bottom four’ to see the crappier, noticeably poorer and more homely computer players. Though they are billed as the ‘top four’ and ‘bottom four’, I find that there’s nothing really that much different about how they actually play or go about trading. Interestingly, I think the bottom four are just less lucky when it comes to dice rolling. Or, more accurately, they land less on unowned property. Specifically, and I don’t mean to accuse Milton Bradley of blatant racism, but, most racistly, the worst and most G-d awful bottom four computer player is ‘Ollie’, who is Hispanic, and I have seen him play multiple games where he rolls so poorly he only buys 2 properties for the entire game before he goes bankrupt…curiously, during these times the property he buys is a green property and a Railroad……other then that, however, I’ve played many games and never noticed a predictable pattern in rolling tendencies. Oh, and at the beginning of each game a person is randomly chosen to go first, and Ollie always goes last. In FACT, you can’t even feel bad for him and just give him free money because if you try to trade him and offer him like, 20 dollars for nothing in return, he won’t simply refuse the trade, he will literally move your cursor to the ‘quit trade’ button. I like to think of it as, he’s too proud to take your pity hand me down charity. To be fair to Milton Bradley and Nintendo, this would be a lot more racist if there wasn’t another Hispanic guy in the top four named ‘Erwin’ who will destroy you. If you let him.

I know from memory that Ollie just landed on Park Place with 4 houses. I love Monopoly.

There are some options to customize your game before you start, like properties being randomly assigned, timed matches, or you can literally just choose who owns what property and how much starting money each player has. I find it’s more fun to either play the classic game of monopoly, or, make yourself start with as much money as you possibly can, then, when you land on that ‘Income Tax- Pay $200 or 10%‘ space, (four spaces from ‘Go’) click ‘B’ to pay 10%, and watch that little cash register guy eat like….$99,999 in taxes…he only eats one bill at a time, so it takes like 5 minutes!

Also, the computers play at a medium pace, but there is an option to make them play quickly so that they don’t watch any of the animations and perform no brainer decisions quickly (like buying properties).

All in all, besides poor prideful Ollie, this is a fine substitute for the board game and as long as you can get past the auctioning of property and the no free money for landing on free parking, this is a great fun game that can be played with friends or alone! Of course, I really enjoy the game ‘Monopoly’. So I guess if you don’t like the board game you would probably think this game sucks. Oh well!

3.75/5 Computer Players That Don’t Suck! No Missing Pieces! Only a Teensy Bit Racist!!