One of my happiest memories from early college is a gaggle of us in the Link Hall Apple computer cluster, commandeering a trio of units and installing Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness for which to play the highly entertaining, exquisitely designed real-time strategy game of fantasy battle. A cross between Sim City and Sun Tzu's Ancient Art of War - with a dash of Mario World goofy humor - the game was a race to build up a medieval war machine; expanding, across a varied landscape, as necessary to support your hordes of men, magic and siege engines and smash your opponents. Players could choose humans or Tolkien-style orcs. Game units, from lowly peasants and peons to paladins and ogres, would respond in character to a player's clicks and subsequent commands. "Annoyed" responses - a Blizzard trademark - were really what set the game aesthetic apart. Imagine a husky, burly, cold-blooded orc animation who would growl, after several user clicks, "Stop poking me!"
Really, from the name you'd assume the craft of war or some such direct translation: the game was like costume-party rugby with sharp objects.
We played about five times over the course of two years. I always chose orcs, as did Jon. Kyle chose humans, presumably as an extension of his current "good guy" image. Danny, who'd been playing for the better part of a year, always played humans - and never failed to whip us up one side and down the other.
Devin, who bought the game for Apple, played about once. Well, multiplayer, anyway.
It was grand. The salad days of our underclassmen years at Syracuse University and here we were, among the e-mailers on their way to a party (or doing work, not uncommon on campus), playing a video game. We barely knew how to manage; strategies were spotty, games were unpredictable and half the time someone was discovering an obvious facet of gameplay we nevertheless missed in our rush to play. Far more laughs than guile.
Gradually, each of us recovered our lives. I stayed on the Blizzard bandwagon for Starcraft, deity to which I sacrificed a nominal amount of hours my junior year. Three years later, this past winter, curiousity snagged the better of me and I dropped five tens for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Same fun game for a twenty-minute de-stressing, no doubt. Same funny creatures playing for-keeps rugby.
My friends and I were healthy about the whole affair. As with all computer affairs, the allure of Blizzard's games were galvanized by its creation of a gigantic, worldwide gaming system. All the calculator-fiddling weirdos from the Seven Seas could now battle one another - not for fun, mind you, but for win records. I attempted to play online with strangers a few times, quickly realizing that the whole point was nowhere near fun, but more in the general vicinity of animatronic, combative masturbation. Plus a whole load of mongoloid chatspeak, as if the couple of nine-year-olds who hammered me didn't know the keyboard better than the proverbial wife (incongruent analogy given the subjects). The most disturbing sight was during my senior year; the same room as freshman year, the computers having been replaced by off-white Dells. One lone Asian kid, pimply, diminutive. Earlier in the year, he'd been with about five pals playing Starcraft. Now he was alone, at the station in front of me, madly typing in a Blizzard chatroom.
Whats the matter, R you afraid of playing me? the pupa sociopath demanded of an unseen victim. The person capitulated, and played him, and he built all sorts of the same unit and sent said units straight to his opponent's base. Victory.
Yawn. Shiver.
Video games are my alcohol (Booze? What's the point?) and I consider myself a responsible "drinker": just one or two games for the taste.
I admire Blizzard. I fear most of its customers. I enjoy the nutty kitsch of the Orient. Cults are disturbing. So what to make of this:
Park Woe Shik is so serious about computer video games that he carries his personal keyboard and mouse wherever he goes, even on a three-day trip to Irvine this week from his home in Korea. Park, 18, was one of five professional video-game players visiting one of the meccas of computer gaming, Blizzard Entertainment, the Irvine developer behind the popular StarCraft and Warcraft titles. The latest - Warcraft III - was the third-best seller last year in the $1 billion-plus domestic computer-game market. But in Korea, the games are a cultural phenomenon.
Blizzard purportedly jumpstarted the South Korean economy. Professional gamers are celebrities. Since South Korea is several thousand miles away from me, including the breadth of an ocean, I've decided: I'll rejoice. Guardedly.