This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
Here’s where I diverge from the script.
You’ll no doubt be expecting Link & Zelda here. I would be expecting Link & Zelda here. There’s hardly a more timeless, classic video game couple than Link & Zelda. While the two non-Power facets of the Triforce started as a rote, damsel-in-distress story with Link playing the part of the Knight-Errant, the Zelda series has done a wonderful job highlighting Zelda as an appropriate and equally capable adventurer as her long-time legendary beau. Zelda has been a master of disguise, a sage, a pirate (and a ninja!) and most importantly, the personification & holder of the Triforce of Wisdom.
In short, the girl’s moved up in the world.
I love the evolution of Princess Zelda, and what that’s meant to the series named after her. Zelda was such a minor character in the first several entries in the series, which always was odd to me considering that she’s the title character.
But they’re not a couple. They’re a threesome. Link & Zelda would simply not be Link & Zelda without Ganon.
I know, it’s trite. Every tired old adventure story is a triangle – the knight-errant, the damsel and the villain. But the concept of triangles are so prevalent within the Legend of Zelda, it’s impossible to ignore – the Triforce needs all three parts, not just Courage & Wisdom. In fact, you could argue that Link & Ganon are more of a couple than Link & Zelda, but if you really want to get into it, the real couple is Ganon & Zelda, who represent the two extremes of the power of Triforce. Anyway, the point being is that Ganon has the Triforce of Power, Zelda Wisdom, and Link eventually gets his tiny little hands on Courage, and the three of them are trapped together forever.
No, my favorite couple comes from Bioware’s excellent Mass Effect series – Commander Sheppard & Garrus Vakarian. Renegade buddy cops, bounty hunter bros, soldiers of virtue and honor, or just bumping uglies (or incredibly supple wrists), Shep & Garrus are my favorite couple. Male or Femshep, it doesn’t really matter, though I prefer to bring the scruffy battleworn Turian into Jenna Sheppard’s renegade bed. To me, Garrus fits the renegade FemShep the best – two incredibly tough badasses that have hearts of gold buried under three feet of steel plating, ready to save the universe, no matter what it takes.
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
Okay kids, let’s jump into it, Dr. Jack style, and sort this one out.
There are two obvious contenders here for me, both involve many of the same aspects of entertainment and video games, so we’re going to break this down and see which genre comes out on top. Our two contenders? Role-Playing Games and Strategy/Simulation Games. Both involve long-term strategy in terms of building up to a final state which you are going to see through to the end with, both (when done right) have a high-replay value, and both are slower and involve countless hours planning out ridiculous builds.
Yeah, dead in the water there. Let’s jump in, shall we?
Builder Mentality
WOW’s original talent system
One of the major hallmarks of role-playing and strategy/simulation games is that for most of those games you need to have a more long term vision of your gameplay when you start. Role-playing games mechanically revolve around the concept of building your character up from your humble beginnings as a farmboy/peasant/novice/pissant/whatever to ultimate badass – part of being the ultimate badass usually involves building your effectiveness at some aspect of combat, stacking force multipliers and attempting to minimize any weaknesses in your style. This was never better exemplified (and vilified) within World of Warcraft’s original talent system – each character had three avenues of specialization, some were more subtle differences within the same basic playstyle (see: dual-wielding melee DPS, Rogue), others were massive role changes (see: hybrid, Druid.)
Usually in most RPGs, you have a basic idea of the type of character you want to play when you start a new character, though for persistent world MMORPGs, there are often options to have multiple builds allowing you tailor your build to the situation or just take a night off from healing raids to blow shit up.
In simulation games, it’s a bit more nuanced, since that builder mentality is at the heart of the game. Again, the name of the game is usually start small and build up to something worthy of winning of the game, but the act of building is more of the focus in many games in the genre. While there are exceptions (Paradox’s line of historical simulations come to mind, starting as France, England or Spain in Europa Universalis is not ‘starting small’), the game play is usually similar (see: SimCity, Civilization, Roller Coaster Tycoon.) In these games, you’re usually tasked with a problem and your opening moves are to establish a baseline strategy to build towards a solution. The challenge comes in with random elements which will test or force you to change your strategy. The advantage to a well-thought out strategy is that you can of course weather those challenges without having to change your “build”, allowing for your city/empire/theme park/whatever to continue to grow while overcoming challenges.
That being said, it’s far easier to play with the WOW talent builder during work.
Advantage: Strategy/Simulation
Replay Value
SimCity 3K start, all random and no ability to customize your terrain plot by plot
This is a tough one for RPGs – replay for many role playing games simply means redoing the same content with a different character. MMOs have a tougher challenge as their business model is one of repetition to keep subscribers coming back (or, now with the Free-to-Play model, to entice users to spend real currency on additions/additional modes.) However, this works as the experience can be incredibly different with another archetype of character or, in the cases of games like Mass Effect, that have aspects of the “choose-your-own-adventure” style of storytelling, where your choices can unlock or lock certain gameplay elements. This is a constant challenge for the genre, and one that’s been addressed often, which is always a good thing.
Strategy/simulation games have an easier go here, the random nature of the challenges lends itself naturally to a high replay value, but the reverse is true, there’s not often a lot of incentive for a game designer to spend time considering replay value. And, an unfavorable set of circumstances can be a very frustrating experience (see: Shaka, as your walls fall under unrelenting waves of impi.)
Advantage: Role Playing Games, for chasing innovation.
Gameplay/Fun
So uh, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? While none of what I’ve said is hard science, this last category is no doubt the most subjective. Fun is absolutely relative to the person playing the game so it’s hard to break this down without just stating my preference. Which, is, uh, well, the whole thrust of this post.
So which is it? There’s not a clear answer. Sometimes you want to build Rome in a day, sometimes you just want to want to kill rats over and over and over and over and over and… you get the point. However, I think choosing requires me to say RPG solely again to the genre’s intersection with action & adventure games and a looser convention that allows for differing playstyles – one only needs to look at games like Skyrim, or the intersection of action in games like Guild Wars 2 or Wildstar.
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
ZELDA!
Yeah there’s really not a lot of doubt here, is there? I have professed my love for the Zelda series time and time again on this site so we don’t really need to go too in depth here, do we? Instead, with that out of the way, I can spend a bit of time on other franchises that I’ve loved throughout the years.
The first that comes to mind, and really, has made a strong running to displace Zelda is Civilization in all its glorious incarnations. Civ games always have a high replay value and some of my best memories in gaming are finally pulling off that grind of domination game, or the abject terror of a Zulu army hell bent on my destruction. It’s hardly surprising that given my love of history and geography that Civ would rank so high, and the latest few releases’ habit of hiring great voice actors to deliver the quotes attached to each technology (and, in Brave New World, to read the Great Works of Writing) have really brought an incredible touch to the series, a real connection to the history that the series is built upon.
There are many other franchises that have come and gone over the years, Mass Effect was an amazing drop into world building, Dragon Age to a lesser degree as well. Mario of course is perhaps the best loved and longest tenured franchise out there, but its appeal has waned for me for a while now. Prince of Persia was a series that drew me in early but lost me with the more recent releases. Knights of the Old Republic and its various spin offs were enjoyable, but nothing ever grabbed me as much as the first did. Warcraft was almost the opposite path – it took me a while to get into the series but by Warcraft III, and of course, World of Warcraft, I was hooked for a long time.
It does dawn on me, that while the Zelda series will always hold that special place in my heart, that maybe, just maybe, Sid Meier stole it out from under me.
Well, he’s not minor nor random, and maybe qualifies as a companion, but since I didn’t get the grumpy guy his due then, I’ll give him his now. Let’s talk about Garrus Vakarian.
Garrus is perhaps one of the best homages to the buddy cop ever. A charismatic guy with a dark past, a tendency to operate a bit outside the law (perfect for the Renegade Shep who is going to save this goddamned universe, goddamnit) – he’s Male Shep’s best buddy, a compatriot with a thousand war stories.
But to FemShep (canon, imo), he’s more. Much, much more. Sure, he’s willing to sit around all day and “calibrate the guns” but once you crack that hard plated skin of his, he’s a big gooey mess of a lover, so very, very awkward. But beware of chafing.
So here’s to the best friend a lonely Shep could ever have (outside of Liara, or Tali, or… Jack, I guess, if you’re insane?)
