Editor’s note: Brian once again wows us with his photographic talents, this time illustrating games that describe his origin as a gamer. What games would you use to write your own origin story? -Brett
This installment of Box Art was inspired by a little game called Dragon Age: Origins. The game’s name got me thinking about origin stories, so I thought I’d supplement my photographs with tales of my formative experiences with some influential games: Baldur’s Gate 2, System Shock 2, and the LucasArts trifecta of TIE Fighter, Dark Forces, and Jedi Knight.
I tend to shy away from things labeled “dark”…
Do I expect to enjoy Dragon Age? I’m not sure. I played Baldur’s Gate 2 for well over a year — regularly for the first few weeks, and then once or twice a month from there on out. One character. I eventually worked my party into a chamber in a mind flayer’s nest. Getting in was an exercise in patient, methodical gaming (not my usual style).
I made an agreement with myself to cheat my way out of the dungeon, since dying wasn’t an option (I only had one save, for some silly reason). I planned on using a God mode cheat, but found the “click an enemy and they die” cheat much more useful. In fact, I found it so useful that I never turned it off. It was a very quick run through the endgame.
In defense of cheating: I was playing a bard.
In defense of barding: I had no Dungeons and Dragons experience! I didn’t want to commit to just fighting, or just using magic, or just turning into a tree; a character who could do a bit of everything seemed a good place to start. I’m concerned my fear of commitment will turn Origin’s character creation into an 80-plus hour game.
My first pen-and-paper roleplaying experience was with the fourth edition of D&D. How I managed to go so long without playing was no small feat; I spent my teenage years acquiring dice and roleplaying manuals and never having anyone to play with.
Since starting to play, I’ve discovered that I don’t have the attention span to play a long game session (especially as Dungeon Master), the love of rules to really dig into the mechanics of the system, or the imagination to play a character different than myself. My gaming tendencies are fairly biased towards the electronic.
Don’t hate me, but I wasn’t too into this game.
When BioShock was announced, I was more than a little psyched.
System Shock 2 was the first online co-op game I played. Heck, I still attempt to play it co-op a couple times a year.
What I like about System Shock is that you can take your character along three separate paths — combat, tech, and psi — each with its own strengths and weaknesses. You make a few different choices during character creation, but after that leveling your character is open; you can train as a heavy weapons expert at the beginning of the game, but then only level up your psi powers once you get into it. You won’t be very effective that way, but it’s an option. Tech lets you hack turrets, cameras, repair and mod weapons, research enemies (any of this sound familiar?) — but any point you put into that can’t go into combat or powers.
Can you spread your points across a variety of skills and powers, being the horror game equivalent of a bard? I can’t say. I’ve never played this game single player.
Multiplayer was patched in after release. It featured the same story and levels, but up to four people could play together, which is what I did with three of my friends. Since the game had been designed to be completed a variety of ways, more teammates meant more useful skills and powers available to your group as a whole. Specialization happened naturally. Not being very good at shooters, I gravitated towards tech — I could grant the group bonuses with research, reprogram turrets to attack enemies, and hack into locked doors and crates.
It might sound like a boring way to play a shooter, but I enjoyed it, for the most part. There was one moment when I lost interest and wandered off alone. My teammates didn’t know anything was wrong until I started screaming like a little girl when some cryokinetic monkeys attacked. I had unwittingly fallen into the role of the very-useful-yet-combat-challenged scientist who just can’t stay near the guys with the big guns that make the monsters go boom.
Two lessons learned from that experience: 1) Stay with the group. 2) Use push-to-talk when playing scary games with others.
Where it all started…
TIE Fighter turned 15 in July. Jedi Knight turned 12 in October. Dark Forces will have been out for 15 years come February.
A one-level demo of Dark Forces came in a LucasArts collector pack (which also included Rebel Assault and TIE Fighter) that a cousin of mine purchased sometime in 1995. That first level is etched in my brain: When I played the game again in February of this year, it was just as navigable as World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. If there were hidden coin blocks on Danuta, I would have hit them automatically.
Playing TIE Fighter without a joystick was a hassle, and of course I didn’t have one. But Dark Forces didn’t require a joystick. It didn’t even use a mouse — not an easy control scheme in retrospect.
I got the full version of the game for Easter in 1996. I downloaded user-made levels. I read message boards. I stumbled across a chat room frequented by fans and editors of the game. It was fast becoming the center of my online social life when Jedi Knight came out. I still talk to a lot of those guys — I’ve been to weddings, crashed on floors when traveling, exchanged work-and-life related advice — but that’s not what’s important here. Jedi Knight may very well be my origin as a gamer.
I loved the vertical level design — that the game starts on Nar Shaddaa, the “Vertical City,” is significant. I totally fell for the narrative structure, like how longer early levels up until a first encounter with the main antagonists, after which the levels become shorter as you careen towards a final confrontation. I marveled at the way the spaces open up to you as you gain more Force abilities. I cherished the morality system that changes the narrative based on how you’ve played the game so far.
Playing Jedi Knight again earlier this year, I realized that these are the very traits I look for in games now.
I’m not the only one who has a game like this in their past, right? A game that absolutely influenced you, even if it didn’t influence the industry as a whole? A game that, despite all its problems, is at the core of your identity as a gamer?
