Understanding video game addiction

After a decade of observations, the World Health Organization is adding gaming disorder to its list of recognized mental health condition starting in 2018. According to Daily Mail, the WHO draft defines gaming disorder as when gaming “takes precedence over other life interests... even when it leads to ‘negative consequences.’” In light of this recognition, I would like to go over some key points about the relationship between video games and personal health and well being.

Every once in awhile, there are news stories about how someone has played games until they died mid-game or have played so much they neglected responsibilities, sometimes to tragic consequences. There was a story, I remember, about how a couple in South Korea had neglected their baby to play games, resulting in the baby’s death. You don’t have to go far to find similar stories of people playing literally for days and dropping dead.

One of the first things that may pop into our minds when we see stories about people who game without sleeping or eating are the words “video game addiction.” The terminology immediately groups video games with things like drugs and alcohol, prompting worried parents to turn their heads whenever the words are mentioned. So the question is, are video games addictive?

First, we must understand what addiction is. Psychology Today defines addiction as “a condition that results when a person ingests a substance (e.g., alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (e.g., gambling, sex, shopping) that can be pleasurable but the continued use/act of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work, relationships, or health.” Wikipedia and its string of citations define addiction as a “medical condition characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.” Finally, there’s the American Society of Addiction Medicine and they say, “Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response.” The key aspects from all the definitions of addiction we’ve looked at characterize addiction as a condition when a prolonged activity hinders normal, everyday function.

When people say video games aren’t addictive, they’re right in the sense that video games don’t act like drugs or alcohol where there is a tolerance build up resulting in a physiological change in brain chemistry. After all, playing video games over a long period of time does not lead to dependence in the way that chronic smokers or drug users face. Video game addiction is on the side of behavioral addictions, which are covered by impulse control disorders, so it isn’t in the same grouping as chemically addictive substances. It isn’t uncommon for behavioral addiction to also be labeled as a disorder, as the terms are rather interchangeable. The addictive facet of games comes from compulsion, a heavy engagement. As Extra Credits put it, games aren’t addictive; they’re compulsive. There isn’t a physiological demand that is being met with excessive gaming and there isn’t a euphoric high that can only be found with increasing amounts of game time either. The compulsive aspect of gaming comes from an intense, irresistible interest or attention that cannot be ignored.

However, just because games aren’t addictive from a physiological perspective doesn’t mean video game addiction or disorder isn’t a real condition. Video games are compulsive and that very compulsion can potentially develop into video game addiction. In truth, anything can be “addictive” in the sense that any deep compulsion can potentially develop into an addiction—video games are no different. Dr. Mark Griffiths, in a BBC article titled “Why anything can be addictive,” puts it very nicely: “In a nutshell, the fundamental difference between excessive enthusiasm and addiction is that healthy enthusiasms add to life whereas addiction takes away from it.”

It’s uncertain how many people may be affected by gaming disorder. The estimate given by the Daily Mail article gives a range from anywhere between 0.2% to, I kid you not, 20% of all gamers. The formal guidelines for a diagnosis haven’t been written yet, but I think gaming disorder is something you’d definitely know if you saw it. For example, it’s one thing to skip a college class to play a newly released video game, but it’s an entirely different matter when it becomes a recurring event and grades become negatively affected. It’s one thing to go home after work and play six hours of video games and another to just continuously play, not bothering to go to work.

So far we’ve mostly discussed gaming disorder in the context of older gamers with greater life responsibilities than kids. Where do kids fall in with our definition of video game addiction? What does “normal, everyday function” mean for kids? Are kids even diagnosable with gaming disorder? How should parenting style factor into a potential diagnosis? Is it fair to be diagnosing kids with gaming disorder when so much of their lives is out of their hands? There are still many questions that need answers to fully understand the scope of gaming disorder.

I can’t speak to what treatments work or don’t because there are so many stories out there about what’s effective or not. Everybody is different and one method may work for someone but not another. So let’s instead talk about a question that resides at the essence of gaming: Why do we play games? You might think that was a dramatic setup for such a mundane question, but gaming means different things to a variety of people and how people see gaming tells us something about themselves and the society we live in. Maybe we just play because it’s in good fun and we want to relax. Maybe it’s because games offer a challenge that we want to see ourselves overcome, to get to the next level or beat that boss monster that has us gnashing our teeth and swearing in frustration. Maybe we play because gaming offers a space with absolute rules and we know our roles and everything that comes with it. Perhaps we view gaming as a space for creative expression, a place where we can play within set rules and still be able to create and innovate. Games also offer a virtual space to hang out with old friends and make new ones. This list goes on and on, but in short, maybe games offer some people things they can’t find anywhere else.

When we look at gaming disorder, we can’t look at the video games alone as a sole cause. Demonizing video games as some harbinger of mental disease is counterproductive and acts as a distraction to the real underlying social issues that have created a space in which gaming disorder can exist. As a community of gamers, we need to begin to discuss why we play games in the first place, what is it about games that make them so compelling and interesting to play. We need to begin to look at what games offer that other mediums don’t. By bringing up discussion and exploring the heart of why we game, we can begin to better understand what people with gaming disorder go through on an internal level.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. I wish you all the best for 2018.

I’ll see you in the next one.

Nier: Automata

Where do you even begin with a game like Nier: Automata? Do you mention its relatively obscure pedigree, the Drakengard series? Yeah, you must be fun at parties. Well, you'll be happy to hear that you don't actually need to have played the previous games to really understand what's going on in Automata. If you were to start with categorizing the game, Automata is an RPG hack-and-slash, bullet hell hybrid with some novelty in its narrative delivery. In less technical language, the game is about androids made out of congealed sex-appeal that wear maid outfits and use katanas and lasers and shit to blow up everything around them.

You know, the characters aren't a bad place to start in seeing just what kind of game Automata is. To that end, let's go to Yoko Taro, the director himself, for some insight into the characters. Mr. Taro, why is a battle robot in high heels and a French maid outfit? "I just love women. There's no particular reason for it." That's it, really. There's no discussion about that and, really, I applaud Yoko Taro for that kind of answer. It's a simple and honest response that pretty much asks us, "Why not?" I feel like that's the defining core of Automata, the moment you experience something and say, "Yeah, sure, why not," for better or for worse.

I'll be honest with you: the game gets away with a lot of things. Nier: Automata is certainly Yoko Taro's masterpiece, but it's a stretch to be singing praise from the comfort of every 2B body pillow out there (you know who you are). The game is beyond technically competent (except for the tragic PC port) and the overall experience is fresh, but one has to be honest with a game like Automata. The gameplay is flashy and repetitive, the art-style is blandly minimalistic, and the philosophical stuff suffers from an underdeveloped cast of characters that have been tasked to carry out the story's message. It isn't the gameplay, artistic delivery, nor the half-baked philosophical musings that makes up the spirit of the game. As a whole, Nier: Automata is really an exercise of the medium, a simple yet elusive one that celebrates the ability of video games to deliver an experience you couldn't find in any other form. So let's get into it.

the robots wear hats later on

The premise of the game follows a war between machines that have been built by an alien invasion and human built androids. Supposedly, humans lost the war and have fled to the Moon while androids continue their master's proxy war. The androids' base of operations is a space station in orbit and every once in awhile the androids will receive suspiciously pre-recorded sounding propaganda messages from the last remnants of humans who are totally alive and well on the Moon. Keep it up, we're totally alive and, gosh, we don't have Earth yet but we sure will soon! Keep at it boys and girls. Anyways, you'll get to play as various characters while you muck around in the whole "machine consciousness" thing. Think Terminator 2, thumbs-up-in-lava. Good? Good.

in the apocalypse, everything is coated in dust from exploded concrete

Let's have some fun this time around, starting the the game's Premium Girl, 2B:

There's one android called 2B,

2B or not to be, you see?

She's got big thighs,

She's cold towards allies,

You know, that's about it, really.

You have 9S whose name is a combination of his age and size of clothes he wears:

Adolescent boy

2B, a cherry blossom

Shitty minigame

Then there's A2 who's basically 2B but with longer hair and further down the scale of traumatic experiences lived through. Oh, she cuts her hair eventually so consider her your 2B replacement:

[Chorus - Snoop Dogg]

When the pimp's in the crib ma

Drop it like it's hot

Drop it like it's hot

Drop it like it's hot

robot with a hat, i can get behind that

If at any point during the game you think to yourself or out loud to your lonesome self if you're one of those people, "Wow, the machines are trying to be like humans and the androids, too, are weirdly human-like despite their constant denial of emotions and interpersonal relations. The machines and androids are adversaries on the eternal battlefield yet they have so much in common with one another. What does it really mean to be human and how does consciousness fit into our ideas of what constitutes life?," give yourself a big certificate with WordArt that reads I DO MY BEST and shower yourself with gold star stickers next to your nameplate at work because you just grasped the handle of the game's complex and thought-provoking philosophical quandaries. If you got the exact wording of the thought, I ask you to please leave my room and fix the window on the way out.

The philosophical undertone in Automata doesn't rise up beyond just that. The game is spectacle driven for the most part and whatever difficult philosophies it muddles around in are just the various highway roadsigns that get less and less entertaining as the friend next to you read them out to you over and over again. The only way it could get worse is if the highway sign falls and smashes through your windshield so you can get a better look at the sign you've seen six times before.

its a claritin d commercial

Then again, subtlety is far from Automata's strong point, except when you're talking about the environments. The game world is beautiful in the sense that a desolate landscape is beautiful in a melancholy kind of way. It's like your screen has a permanent grey filter on it and it gives everything in the world a washed out after effect. In retrospect, even the carnival level worked within a single color grade and was too afraid to work with any kind of contrasting hues. The grey filter seemed to just be replaced by a purple-red one in what was supposedly the most colorful zone in the game. Every zone seems to suffer from this innate blandness once the honeymoon period is over. The first time you look across an expansive, encroaching desert, there is a sense of reverence or majesty for the forces of nature. As you begin to repeatedly plod through the game's artistically bland landscapes, however, you're going to begin to wish that natural forces were a little more creative with how they destroyed and reclaimed the world. You're going to really wish for anything to stare at. To that end, I suppose it gives you more time to ogle at 2B's revealing acrobatics—well played, Yoko Taro.

can you tell why people like this game yet

Earlier I noted that Nier: Automata features repetitive gameplay and I realized how lazy a complaint that sounded. You can't fault a hack-and-slash game for making you, you know, hack and slash stuff over and over again—it's like blaming a shooter game for making you pick up a shooty thing to shoot at things. In essence, complaints about repetitive gameplay stem from unrewarding gameplay, the sense that you're doing something for no gain. In Automata, it won't be long until you're swimming in money and health restoration items and upgrades to the point where combat really isn't a threat. Weapon upgrades all serve to simply increase damage and you don't even need to get to the maximum level to do well. Enemy variety is sorely lacking outside of boss fights and they're hardly worth the time that I ended up just running past every enemy encounter between where I was and where I needed to go to advance the story. Sidequests are generally pointless in the rewards they give and are mostly there to placate the OCD collectors that scour the game for every little hidden thing. Be prepared for fetch quests and backtracking in these sidequests, the ultimate killers of pacing and sense of fun. Harder difficulties are scaled from the School of Frustration as Challenge and the only diploma you get in the end is a piece of tissue paper that has the words "Bragging Rights" written on it. There isn't a sense that you as a player are doing better or becoming stronger as you progress through the story.

is my screen just dirty

Nier: Automata touts itself as an open-world experience but it takes little to no advantage of the fact. Invisible walls, linear stage progression, and boxed in mission zones litter the game. Was the open-world aspect to avoid loading screens? Well, you're going to be using the fast travel system anyway. Does it promote a sense of exploration? Exploration isn't really rewarded as much as you'd think and many of the zones are recycled anyways. It's not like you can interact with the world in any meaningful way, either. You can ride animals and fish, but those features don't add anything. I mean, they don't detract anything either but then it only leads you to question why its even in the game. The world may be large, but eventually you begin to see all the limitations that have been set in place. The open-world aspect of the game only serves to make navigation between story moments as tedious as possible. You'll be scrolling through the same zones that are devoid of anything interesting just to progress the story.

pull up, porkins!

In terms of the combat, the game seamlessly moves between classic bullet hell segments and third-person hack-and-slash, which also incorporates elements of bullet hell. You'll be mashing your dodge button into oblivion as the camera moves around to give you a 2D side-scroller or top-down shooter perspective for no real effect other than to make sure you're still awake. The hack-and-slash is your standard fare light/heavy attack combos, dodge, counter, special move, etc. The fluid animation and controls really come across here and carries the game on its back. The bullet hell segments are actually less developed than I would've liked and manifest more in 9S's annoying-as-fuck hacking minigame that easily overstays its welcome. The combat gameplay experience, as a whole, is smooth and will make you say "Oh, that's cool" every now and then, but is ultimately low on content and relies on visuals more than anything to keep you engaged.

just pile on the symbolism

Okay, so if the story and characters were underdeveloped and mediocre at best and the gameplay was mostly unrewarding, what are we left with?

Well, Nier: Automata certainly had its fair share of spectacular and unexpected moments interspersed within its slogging gameplay. The game made bold, convention defying narrative moves, even if they did feel disjointed and awkward at times. Automata is all about spectacle without relying on purpose and celebrates the ability of game developers to manifest their insane ideas and give them life. In the face of why, Automata pushes back and asks why not. I can't put my finger on it, but despite all the flaws there is a warm feeling of passion and care that emanates from the game. It's like a curious kid who wants to try everything out in all new ways, makes a mess, but comes out of it proud knowing he tried something different and new. If anything, Yoko Taro's Nier: Automata is certainly an unforgettable experience.

its okay

Thanks for reading.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Here's a game where I took one look at the cover art and thought, "How are you going to justify Mecha-Godzillas in a post-apocalyptic setting." In retrospect, the answer seem simple. If humanity ever did invent Mecha-Godzillas for whatever reason, it wouldn't take much smarts to determine the cause of why humanity is locked in a battle against rogue Mecha-Godzillas. There is a powerful narrative drive in Horizon Zero Dawn that sees players taking on the role of Aloy, an outcast of her tribe due to the mysterious events surrounding her birth. Why exactly is Aloy an outcast? What happened to the old world? Where did the Mecha-Godzillas come from? What role does Aloy play in all of this? Starting in a small village, the search for answers begins with small steps into a wider world teeming with beauties and dangers alike.

skyline one sunset is a planned sequel

Horizon is traditional fare as far as open-world games go. Players will have access to the definitive open-world gameplay procedure: a big sandbox world, main quests, side quests, a variety of points-of-interests, distractions/diversions, towers to reveal the map with, collectibles, OCD inducing material gathering, crafting supplies, fast-travel, mounts, etc. Combat against machine and human enemies consist of melee and ranged options. The melee combat is solely comprised of a light attack and a heavy attack without anything else to go with it. Ranged combat sees a variety of weapons, however. Aloy can use short bows, longbows, slings that shoot bombs, tripwires, a "ropecaster" that can immobilize foes, and a "rattler" that can shoot multiple bolts in quick succession. These tools are complimented by traps and a rudimentary stealth system that aids Aloy in hunting down her prey.

In the cage fight between Aloy and Mecha-Godzilla, any sensible person would bet on Mecha-Godzilla. Bows and spears don't exactly match up to tons of metal and plasma beams, that is unless you know where to hit Mecha-Godzilla. Aloy has the ability to pin-point weaknesses in enemies that will tell her where to hit and what to hit it with. This divides the combat into two effective phases: stalking/preparing and springing the trap. The machines, especially on harder difficulties, can easily flatten Aloy in several hits. It's a great deal of fun and tension as you study the machine's movements, mark its weaknesses, and prepare your traps, all to gain the maximum advantage as you inevitably come out of stealth and begin running and dodging like a headless chicken. My favorite tactic for taking down machines that could instantly mulch me was to lay a system of tripwires attached to explosive traps, spook the beast, and lure it through all of them.

While hunting the larger machines is the hallmark of Horizon's gameplay, the game falters in its smaller enemies. From the starting portion of the game, Aloy has access to an ability that lures enemies closer. Combining this ability with stealth take-downs trivializes many of the fights in which the enemy group is composed entirely of humans or smaller machines. Here's what I would do against a pack of small machines: find tall grass to hide in, lure-call one of them over, perform a stealth takedown, repeat. The enemies don't actually see Aloy as she's performing the takedown so long as you're in the tall grass so the procedure always works. Enemies will be alerted by corpses, but it does not blow your cover instantly. Rather, the alerted enemy will simply wander around the corpse for awhile, allowing you to lure-call the enemy to the same fate as his friend. Aloy can sit in one spot and take down an entire group of enemies with this method. Horizon's real gameplay prowess becomes apparent during tense moments in which larger enemies are surrounded by a group of smaller enemies that act as lookouts, but engaging against groups composed entirely of small enemies shows off the tedium of a crude and over-simplified stealth mechanic.

pinnacle of stealth technology 

In addition to head-on and stealth combat, Aloy also gains the ability to perform overrides on machine enemies, briefly flipping their allegiance to Aloy's side. Aloy won't be able to override every machine and only learns to do so against specific machines after exploring map points called Cauldrons. Sometimes fights can be decided with a single override against a larger machine. However, overrides have a long cool-down period so you're unlikely to get more than one enemy to your side in one encounter. Moreover, overrides also forfeit the experience rewards you would otherwise gain from defeating the machine once you upgrade the control state to be indefinite. It's a fun little mechanic that can lead to amazing machine vs. machine spectacles, but it's usually faster and more rewarding from a gameplay standpoint to just take on the machines yourself.

Horizon's primary forte is in its world development that parallels Aloy's development, both as a character and in terms of player progression. Aloy is unsure of her role in the world at large as strange and devastating events seem to focus around her. Her self-doubt diminishes and she journeys across the world, gradually revealing the secrets of the old world and the machines in a manner that reflects the player's own growth in the ability to take down larger and more powerful foes in increasingly complex scenarios. The narrative is not unlike a rolling boulder that gradually picks up momentum. By the time you've experienced your first piece of the puzzle, it becomes a powerful motivator to seek more of the story to unveil the mystery of Project Zero Dawn and reach the satisfactory conclusion to why Mecha-Godzillas are running around the world.

Guerrilla Games, the developers of Horizon, may not be particularly innovative as far as open-world gameplay goes, but they certainly make up for it by focusing and polishing what it has to be enjoyable and rewarding. This polished gameplay is upheld by an engaging narrative and a beautifully presented world. The machines of the world are characters deserving of respect in the challenges and majesty they present to Aloy and the player. Horizon Zero Dawn successfully distinguishes itself from other open-world games with its unique world brought to life by a powerful presentation of its mechanics and engaging sci-fi plot.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is to the Nintendo Switch what Halo: Combat Evolved was to the XBox 15 years ago: a critically acclaimed, console defining debut of a title. Much like how Halo has left its mark in the first-person shooter canon, Breath of the Wild rightfully belongs in the pantheon of great open-world adventure games. The people at Nintendo set out to reshape the tried-and-true Zelda formula into something that would properly usher the Legend of Zelda franchise into the Switch generation and they have succeeded. The open-world style allows players to experience the world of Zelda like never before. 

If I had to summarize Breath of the Wild's gameplay design philosophy, I'd put it something like this: varied mechanics, simple interactions. Hyrule is full of interactive elements that makes the game world dynamic and seemingly organic. These interactions range from visual spectacles (ex. grass and tree branches swaying in the wind) to useful gameplay mechanics (ex. flammable game objects can be burned to create an updraft for gliding). Monsters and critters will interact with one another in small ways, simulating an ecosystem full of mysteries to discern and behaviors to study. Link also has access to tools never before seen in previous Zelda games. With various abilities to manipulate game objects and influence monsters and animals, the player has a great selection of mechanics to experiment with. This gives the player many options to choose from in approaching the game's challenges. The simplicity of the mechanics make them easy to utilize. As a result, interactions between objects and the player are intuitive and consistent.

With the number of near-perfect to perfect scores the game has received from review sites, Breath of the Wild seems infallible. The game has certainly earned its critical and commercial success, but I want to point out that many of these reviews don't capture the game in a representative manner. Call it hype, nostalgia, whatever—it's important that we take the time in examining the game not solely as a remodeling of a legendary franchise, but by how well it stands on its own. To that end, here are a couple of my own thoughts about the game.

The first third of the game is the golden time for Breath of the Wild. The game really emphasizes using all of the tools available to you when Link is weak and most vulnerable. Weak early weapons and a plethora of world objects subtly pushes the player to experiment with the different interactions. This becomes phased out as Link becomes stronger and finds better weapons. Damage from dropping a metal box on a monster, for example, just doesn't compare to the direct damage of hitting a monster. While the interactions still have a place in puzzles, they become less and less relevant in combat when the simplest solution becomes bashing monsters with stuff. The effort to impact ratio is too large for the world interactions to really hold up in the later portions of the game.

everything the light touches can be yours... if you have enough stamina elixirs

Weapon durability did not give me any problems whatsoever. I've read reviews that have gone both ways regarding the issue, but it was never a deal breaker of any sort. I also think reports of needing to carefully manage weapon usage are exaggerated. On the contrary, I always had weapons on Link and was constantly finding better ones. There isn't really a need to save weapons for anything so you might as well just use them, with the only exception being keeping one or two ancient weapons around in the event you come across a stray guardian. Finding the Master Sword is relatively easy and comes with natural progression and paying attention to hints from NPCs. The unbreakable weapon renders the problem of weapon durability moot for the most part. 

Cooking was needlessly elaborate. The crafting system involved is simple: throw in up to five ingredients and see what you get. The number of unique recipes that produced specific foods kind of surprised me. Cooking is divided into two categories: food and elixirs, both of which pretty much perform the same functions. Foods come from foodstuffs and elixirs are derived from monster parts; the two ingredients categories should never mix else Link cooks up something useless. You can experiment with different ingredients but ultimately boils down to this: You need a fire resistance elixir; find anything in your inventory that lists fire resistance as a property; throw five of those things into the pot. The simplest method of throwing five of the same thing usually provides the best results. The different food recipes for cakes and soups are elaborate, but ultimately just pointless flavor.

five mushrooms for dinner again

Enemy variety was sorely lacking. The developers might have stuck to the Zelda formula a little too much here. For an open-world as large as the one we get in Breath of the Wild, I was expecting more region unique enemies. The enemies are for the most part recolored, power-upped versions of weaker templates. Variability comes in the form of size and elemental attribute, but that doesn't really count in my opinion. The same attack patterns persist through similar enemy types, so the only additional challenge afforded is the increase in health and damage that the enemies have. I would've liked to see enemies that required the use of Sheikah Slate abilities to defeat, for example, or enemies that had access to their own versions of Sheikah Slate abilities that they could use on Link.

you're really the bad guy- they were just enjoying themselves

On-demand healing was a questionable mechanics design choice. It allows the player to open their inventory at any point, freeze the game world, to eat food and heal. Whether you just pick up things that come across your way or exhibit symptoms of kleptomania, you will end up with enough food and healing items to cook with. With a cornucopia in Link's pockets and on-demand healing, the only thing that will really give you a Game Over screen is being defeated in one hit from a monster far above your weight class. Players and reviewers have pointed out that Breath of the Wild is a more difficult game, but I cannot agree with their statement when on-demand healing is present without any counterbalance. There is no penalty to scarfing down foods whenever you want and the world is packed with meats, fruits, mushrooms, and vegetables. I would've liked to see a system that limited the amount of food/elixirs Link could consume in a set period of time, or at least during a state of combat. The availability of food combined with Being able to tank everything removes the agency of a difficult fight.

speaking of on-demand healing

A lackluster ending kind of hangs in the air for me. The purpose of Link's journey is to gain strength and gather allies for the upcoming fight against Calamity Ganon, so I really shouldn't be complaining when I say the final battle is really nothing special. Breaching Hyrule Castle, however, was a great deal of fun. Previously, the shrines and the four Divine Beast dungeons made extensive use of Sheikah Slate abilities which factored into my surprise that there are very few moments in Hyrule Castle that made use of the Sheikah Slate in any great capacity. For the most part, Hyrule Castle is a straight A to B with hidden side rooms. The most direct path to Calamity Ganon can miss many of the secrets and unique items along the way, so it's still worth exploring the various rooms of the castle. Aside from finding hidden rooms, though, the Sheikah Slate is largely forgotten.

breath of the wild II will feature a sheikah fit-bit and sheikah vr goggles

--

Despite a few missteps here and there, Breath of the Wild successfully captures the spirit of the Legend of Zelda franchise in its open-world presentation. For me, the story and characters weren't as memorable as some of the past Zelda games, but the world itself may as well be its own character. With its painterly landscapes. mysterious ruins, and hidden treasures, the world itself provides an interesting sandbox for the player to create their own journey.

As far as open-world games go, Breath of the Wild isn't really that unique. I didn't feel an air of open-world innovation, but that's probably because it's still a Zelda game at heart and the open-world formula has hit a stagnant point as far as game mechanics go. On that, you still have narrative design and world presentation. Again, narrative design isn't quite there with Breath of the Wild, but world presentation carries Breath of the Wild into the new generation of gaming consoles.

they're not that bad

A more cynical part of me thinks Breath of the Wild  is still just banking on 80s gaming nostalgia for its praise. Besides, the game's mechanics begin to taper off after about a third of the way through while some of them simply become obsolete once you figure things out. However, I had to ask myself, "Did I have fun with the game" and the answer to that is a resounding yes. The reviews exaggerate the success of the game's design decisions, but that doesn't get in the way of a fun gaming experience. Breath of the Wild speaks to both older and newer generations of gamers in its journey to recreate the world of Zelda like never before.

A brief look at Gamers!

There's a new anime adaptation of a light novel simply titled Gamers! (2017) about, well, gamers. Hey, I'm a gamer! So let's take a look.

me me me! i'm a gamer!

In one of the opening shots, we see Japan's console dominated gaming market. Our main character is visiting a gaming store to pick up a game or two.

Or three... or four...

don't rush yourself with those jokes

This guy is prepared to drop some serious cash on the nine games he has in his arms. He later adds a tenth. Now, we later see that these games are actually a part of a bargain deal, but let's still do some math for the fun of it. 

A new PS4 game in Japan can retail for around 5,000 to 8,000 yen, which converts to about $44 to $71 using the exchange rate $1 to ¥112. In America, the average price of a new AAA console game tends to hover around the $60 mark. So if our main character is buying these games fresh, he's looking to spend an upwards of $710 dollars. Now, these games are discounted, but even at 50% off he's going to be spending up to $355 this trip.

Let's move on to the next thing I want to look at.

So the premise of the anime involves our loner main character gamer joining up with a bunch of other gamers in a gaming club. I've been in gaming clubs before and have had varying degrees of fun. Let's see what kind of club our main character walks into. A dimly lit room, a good start.

Are all of those cases on the shelves games?! I hope the ones on the bottom shelves are books or something. 

D R A G O N, another top seller in Japan

We get a panning shot of even more games. Here, some of the titles can be made out. Oh nice, they have "T H E  P T A"! I can never find that one.

zing

So the lights turn on and we can finally assess the full picture. There are about 77 games on the top shelf of the bookshelf in the back left. There are easily over 300 games in this room not to mention the consoles and PC gaming set up they have. By the way, I only see one tower for those three monitors. On the far left we see some trophies and a bookshelf loaded with what I'm assuming are board games and those can get quite pricey as well. 

Maybe the 300 games were all super bargains too. At $10 per game we still come out to $3,000 and at the assumption of $30 per game we arrive at a whopping $9,000. Everything included, this gaming club may easily have over $10,000 worth of games, equipment, and accessories.

if you say so

So it looks like Gamers! has an eSports angle to it. The original light novels were published in 2015 so the context makes sense. I have a general feel for the eSports scene in the West where MOBAs and whatever Blizzard decides is going to be relevant tend to dominate. But what does eSports look like in Japan?

According to esportsearnings.com, fighting games are the big payers in Japan. In the top 100 earners, the first FPS comes in at #66 with $3,686 and of course, it's Overwatch. The conclusion I'm drawing is that eSports in Japan is primarily developed around the fighting genre with little growth in the other areas. This means whoever plays the fighting games is the real club breadwinner and everyone else is a freeloader. 

Will awkward main character get the blonde haired, green eyed love? Yes—these things have a way of working out in anime. It'll be interesting to see if the show makes any comments about gaming culture in Japan or if it just gives us the usual fare in the cliche-ridden anime industry but with a gaming backdrop. See you in the next one.

Elfen Lied

I recently watched Gunslinger Girl (2008) and it turned out to be a fantastic surprise. Wanting to find more shows like it, I look up recommendations and came across Elfen Lied (2004). The cross-listing of psychological horror, romance, and science fantasy on the show's Wikipedia page immediately interested me. Now, I've watched a good handful of shows that I've wanted to write about or comment on a particular aspect but never found the time to do so. After finishing Elfen Lied, I decided the show was a fantastically disorganized mess that I had to say something regarding the show, especially seeing the polarizing reviews it received.

The crux of the show's premise lies in the Diclonii race, a mutated form of human beings characterized by horns on temples and the presence of what the show calls vectors. Vectors are invisible, arm-like projections that grants a Diclonius what would appear to ordinary humans to be telekinetic abilities. A Diclonius' vectors are powerful as they are shown to be capable of catapulting its user high into the air as if they were flying, slicing through solid rock, and even deflecting bullets. Diclonii born to humans are captured and experimented on, if not killed outright.

The opening ten minutes of the show are notorious. Lucy, a Diclonius held captive in an island facility, is escaping. Her vectors crush steel and rip armed guards apart effortlessly, preferring decapitation or total bodily bifurcation equally. Naked save for a metal mask over her head, Lucy trudges through the facility killing people in ways that will have you questioning just how much blood human beings have inside of them.

The show has been praised and criticized for its excessive blood and gore. It's fantastically visceral. Dismemberment, decapitation, and grotesque explosions result in rains of blood and flesh. The show is not afraid to expose the guts of hapless victims. It sounds odd, but the killings actually become repetitive. The killings are horrifying but they become a dumb staple for the show to stand on. Every time a minor character is introduced, you can begin a game and ask yourselves "How long until this person gets all their blood drained from them." I'm grateful, to a degree, that the show isn't afraid to depict graphic violence in the magnitude that it does because every splattering death is a kind of spectacle. It's a one-trick pony show but it's a crudely fun one at that.

The most jarring moments in the show and the source of my criticism arise from the absolutely inane writing. Towards the end of her escape, Lucy is shot in the head by a .50 caliber rifle, is miraculously only knocked into a coma, flung off a cliff, and washes up in an empty beach in Japan to be found by college students Kouta and Yuka. For one of the most dangerous specimens known to man, there is very little security detail actually searching for the escaped Diclonius. Kouta and Yuka also seem to have no questions as they take in the bloody and naked girl with horns on her head instead of calling an ambulance. These kinds of disconnects pepper the series. Some might call this a tedious nitpicking at what's supposed to be a work of fantasy, but I point to it as a failure in narrative form. Careful attention to minor details can effectively bolster a work, making the fictitious world pop out and stand for itself. The details in Elfen Lied flow in the most ridiculous fashion, often bypassing any kind of rational thought or logic. Such a mishandling of narrative leaves audiences to question the methods used by the show's creators to tell the story. The show isn't entirely swamped by these moments, but when they do come it only highlights the disjointed and cheap way the story is told.

Director Mamoru Kanabe, in a DVD exclusive interview, supposedly (I got this off Wikipedia) considers the show to be a love story, stating that he wanted "to bring viewers to tears." It's really hard to bring anyone to tears when it's difficult to feel bad about any of the characters. Let me be clear: this isn't a personal lack of empathy. This points to an absolute failure in executing narrative form. The characters themselves are actually from terribly tragic backgrounds: Lucy is the mother of her race and has known only suffering since her birth; Young Kouta witnessed the murder of his father and sister; Mayu is a 14 year old homeless girl who was a victim of sexual abuse by her step-father; you get the idea. However, every character is just about overshadowed by a ridiculous vapidness that permeates the script. Coincidence is the logic of the show and it depicts just how poorly connected the story is. Any semblance of a romantic story is overtaken by how inane and weak the writing is.

If I were to be totally generous, I would say Elfen Lied is more about discrimination than romance, but in a very loose sense. "Hey, discrimination is bad!" the show says, wagging a finger at audiences. Belongingness and prejudice are prominent themes that try to inject some kind of orientation into the series. There's a push from the show to make viewers want to sympathize with the Diclonii because of the unethical experimentation and extermination campaign against them. At the same time, it's really difficult to sympathize with a race of beings that uncontrollably kills humans. Audiences are seemingly expected to absolve Lucy of all her killings because of her doe-eyed love for Kouta. On second thought, maybe this is a story about forgiveness because Kouta seems totally fine with Lucy knowing she slaughtered his sister and father in front of him (This is another fantastically stupid scene. It's from episode 12). "Hey, discrimination is bad!" At the same time though, Lucy represents a complete and absolute threat to humanity with little suggesting any large scale method of co-existence between humans and Diclonii. "But look at how well Kouta gets along with Nyu!" the show retorts. But as Lucy she's killed countless innocent people. She has to own up to that. "She's like a puppy! You don't hate puppies, do you?" Lucy's floated the idea that she kills because she likes it. "Look, now Nyu's naked!" Oh for f-

Natural result of mutation and/or agent of divine punishment unleashed upon humanity, Lucy has rather enigmatic origins, but that's not important (or at least the show thinks so). Her origins aren't as striking as her motivations. Lucy was bullied from a young age because of her horns and decides she will never be accepted by anyone. Lucy's hatred of humanity stems from being called names and having milk spilled on her book bag. To be fair, she does also witness the bullies bludgeoning her puppy to death. Lucy loses control of her budding vectors and kills everyone in her orphanage (Here's an interesting thing: the puppy's death is shown off camera, but the death of the kids is depicted straight up). Audiences later learn that Lucy survives by going house to house, killing its occupants and taking their food and clothes. She's the bewildered other, trying to make sense of the world around her while wrestling with uncontrollable emotions while the world views her with total disdain. Lucy is the show's best effort at producing a complicated character, but that's easy to say when all the other characters have set the bar so low. I believe there's a great story to be told with Lucy, but the show's lack of a unifying direction ultimately squanders any chance of that.

Some viewers have pointed to the artistic qualities of the musical motif (there's only one: an uninspiring Gregorian chant) and imagery in the opening sequence, but it just cemented a feeling that the creators of the show had no idea what they were doing. The still shots in the openings are apparently references to paintings by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. The images are psychedelic, sure, but what links does it produce with the show's thin themes? Many reviews I come across comment on how beautiful the opening is but none of them seem to be able to produce an answer as to how the supposedly artistic opening connects at all with what happens in the show. Then there's the opening theme song itself. It's in Latin and references the Bible, I assume to support the angle that Lucy is some divine agent of punishment. It is terribly boring and devoid of any meaningful purpose and any links or implications are loose at best. Variations of the song play throughout the series in different styles as if in a desperate effort by the creators to find something to connect the scattered focus in the show.

What do we do with a show like this? The Duffer brothers cited the anime as an inspiration for their show Stranger Things, so it isn't as if Elfen Lied has had no impact whatsoever. Upon watching Elfen Lied, I was certain the show was going to have universally negative reviews. A deadpan show with vapid characters, no sense of direction, a psychotic idea of romance, and a struggling sense of artistic connection somehow moved some people to tears, apparently. Elfen Lied is simply deliciously tasteless and interesting for all the wrong reasons. Go check it out.