A Ghost in the Machine
April 29, 2016 8:59 PM Subscribe
Someone turned a YouTube comment into something good. Prepare to shed a tear or two. (SLV)
Oh man, that was good.
I've never experienced anything quite like that; I'm fortunate enough to have no lost my parents, for one thing. But I know of one far more minor way that a game gave me a cleansing feeling almost certainly unintended by its creators.
It was Quidditch World Cup on the PS2 - a decidedly not-very-good game. It was basically a slapped-together cash-grab connected vaguely to the release of (probably?) the 4th Harry Potter movie by EA Games. That it was the EA Games division should have been a waring sign. EA Sports has its problems, for sure. They are myriad. But it would have been encouraging as hell if Electronic Arts had given this project to their sports division with the mandate to take the rules of this fictional game (pretty well spelled-out in the books) and run with it with the degree of devotion to mechanics and strategy that the Madden games get, for instance.
Alas, it was full of problems that made it clear how tossed off it was right from the start. For one thing, the loading music was "Duel of the Fates," from Star Wars Episode I, which made less than zero sense and opened up a lot of questions about how licensing John Williams pieces works.For another thing, Ireland isn't in it at all, not as a playable country, not as a final match, nothing. (They are the victors in the books.)
For another thing, there actually is no final match, or tournament structure at all. It's played more like a regular intra-league soccer season. It's incredibly too easy, the gameplay accidentally forces you to consider an issue the books never really make you think about (why are the chasers passing the quaffle at all?) as well as making elements from the "sport" that worked on the page make a lot less sense when you're playing six of the seven players on your team. I won't go into all of this, but it's kind of a mess, and the kind of mess that the sports division probably would have had experience making sense of (Quidditch, as understood, is not terribly dissimilar from Hockey, for instance, and there have been a lot of good video games made from that.)
But I digress. I bought the thing with money I couldn't really be affording to spend from a very disheartening and sporadic period of employment. The last game I'd bought just to have something new was The Sims 2, which it turned out I wasn't into even a little bit. I needed this. I was stressed, depressed, panicky, and generally crashing into a wall of my early twenties where having been top shit and cocky throughout most of my teens was now slamming into a reality that made me hate myself. And it was a sweltering summer where my A/C wasn't very effective. The game had a proto-acchievement system in it, which was a godsend, because I needed replayability and to feel like I was getting something, anything done. And that's what led to me taking every available team through its season.
So here's what's good about the game: apparently nobody told the graphical design team what an afterthought this title was, because the stadiums (where all of the gameplay takes place) are absolutely gorgeous and inspired and extremely evocative of their locale. Japan's stadium is over a giant koi pond with beautiful bridges spanning it. When you're flying low you can see the ripples you're making on the water. France's stadium is intricate, well-tended gardens. Spain's is in a domed, middle-ages castille, with beams of light pouring in through the windows. The American stadium is built on an overgrown, fading gridiron, with red, white and blue confetti showing down around you and surrounded by trees that tell you in an instant that you are in Massachusetts in the fall.
As these go, Australia's is not one of the more notable ones. It's in the center of some rocky crags in the Outback (all American depictions of Australia must take place in the Outback.) Uluru is probably in the background but I never noticed it. What I noticed is that it just feels hot, hot as hell. And in playing as Australia (probably the weakest team in the game, for whatever reason) and having to play half the season there, in what was already a pretty steamy apartment, was not an appealing concept.
But there's another aspect of the game I haven't talked about. Not a very good or well-implemented one, basically the "limit break" of a game that had no reason to have something like that. When scoring goals and passing the quaffle, you could earn up chances to do other things, which pop up basically at random. Maybe you can bat a bludger at someone, or do a dodge move, that sort of thing. But every once in a blue moon, the chance to do a "Team Special Move" would come up, where you just click a button and watch a cut scene for a few seconds where the chasers do something tricky and earn you two goals. Each team's was different, most nothing to write home about.
But Australia's, it turned out, summoned giant waves out of nowhere, which the chasers proceded to basically surf on. And just seeing those waves emerge in the middle of all of that heat and frustration and self-loathing was revelatory for me. It was enough to cool me down psychologically and make everything better for a moment. I could find a little zen in getting those waves to appear. And so I passed like hell the whole season until the chance would come up and then I'd let those waves wash over me.
Such a stupid, silly little thing, but it helped.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:21 PM on April 29, 2016 [21 favorites]
I've never experienced anything quite like that; I'm fortunate enough to have no lost my parents, for one thing. But I know of one far more minor way that a game gave me a cleansing feeling almost certainly unintended by its creators.
It was Quidditch World Cup on the PS2 - a decidedly not-very-good game. It was basically a slapped-together cash-grab connected vaguely to the release of (probably?) the 4th Harry Potter movie by EA Games. That it was the EA Games division should have been a waring sign. EA Sports has its problems, for sure. They are myriad. But it would have been encouraging as hell if Electronic Arts had given this project to their sports division with the mandate to take the rules of this fictional game (pretty well spelled-out in the books) and run with it with the degree of devotion to mechanics and strategy that the Madden games get, for instance.
Alas, it was full of problems that made it clear how tossed off it was right from the start. For one thing, the loading music was "Duel of the Fates," from Star Wars Episode I, which made less than zero sense and opened up a lot of questions about how licensing John Williams pieces works.For another thing, Ireland isn't in it at all, not as a playable country, not as a final match, nothing. (They are the victors in the books.)
For another thing, there actually is no final match, or tournament structure at all. It's played more like a regular intra-league soccer season. It's incredibly too easy, the gameplay accidentally forces you to consider an issue the books never really make you think about (why are the chasers passing the quaffle at all?) as well as making elements from the "sport" that worked on the page make a lot less sense when you're playing six of the seven players on your team. I won't go into all of this, but it's kind of a mess, and the kind of mess that the sports division probably would have had experience making sense of (Quidditch, as understood, is not terribly dissimilar from Hockey, for instance, and there have been a lot of good video games made from that.)
But I digress. I bought the thing with money I couldn't really be affording to spend from a very disheartening and sporadic period of employment. The last game I'd bought just to have something new was The Sims 2, which it turned out I wasn't into even a little bit. I needed this. I was stressed, depressed, panicky, and generally crashing into a wall of my early twenties where having been top shit and cocky throughout most of my teens was now slamming into a reality that made me hate myself. And it was a sweltering summer where my A/C wasn't very effective. The game had a proto-acchievement system in it, which was a godsend, because I needed replayability and to feel like I was getting something, anything done. And that's what led to me taking every available team through its season.
So here's what's good about the game: apparently nobody told the graphical design team what an afterthought this title was, because the stadiums (where all of the gameplay takes place) are absolutely gorgeous and inspired and extremely evocative of their locale. Japan's stadium is over a giant koi pond with beautiful bridges spanning it. When you're flying low you can see the ripples you're making on the water. France's stadium is intricate, well-tended gardens. Spain's is in a domed, middle-ages castille, with beams of light pouring in through the windows. The American stadium is built on an overgrown, fading gridiron, with red, white and blue confetti showing down around you and surrounded by trees that tell you in an instant that you are in Massachusetts in the fall.
As these go, Australia's is not one of the more notable ones. It's in the center of some rocky crags in the Outback (all American depictions of Australia must take place in the Outback.) Uluru is probably in the background but I never noticed it. What I noticed is that it just feels hot, hot as hell. And in playing as Australia (probably the weakest team in the game, for whatever reason) and having to play half the season there, in what was already a pretty steamy apartment, was not an appealing concept.
But there's another aspect of the game I haven't talked about. Not a very good or well-implemented one, basically the "limit break" of a game that had no reason to have something like that. When scoring goals and passing the quaffle, you could earn up chances to do other things, which pop up basically at random. Maybe you can bat a bludger at someone, or do a dodge move, that sort of thing. But every once in a blue moon, the chance to do a "Team Special Move" would come up, where you just click a button and watch a cut scene for a few seconds where the chasers do something tricky and earn you two goals. Each team's was different, most nothing to write home about.
But Australia's, it turned out, summoned giant waves out of nowhere, which the chasers proceded to basically surf on. And just seeing those waves emerge in the middle of all of that heat and frustration and self-loathing was revelatory for me. It was enough to cool me down psychologically and make everything better for a moment. I could find a little zen in getting those waves to appear. And so I passed like hell the whole season until the chance would come up and then I'd let those waves wash over me.
Such a stupid, silly little thing, but it helped.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:21 PM on April 29, 2016 [21 favorites]
Someone turned a YouTube comment into something good.
Thanks for posting this, the video is really evocative, but when I read this comment last year, it was already good.
posted by hat_eater at 2:49 AM on April 30, 2016
Thanks for posting this, the video is really evocative, but when I read this comment last year, it was already good.
posted by hat_eater at 2:49 AM on April 30, 2016
Very sweet. I shed a tear or two. Thanks for posting it.
posted by james33 at 3:49 AM on April 30, 2016
posted by james33 at 3:49 AM on April 30, 2016
Beating your dad at something for the first time is a very bittersweet moment for every boy. What it must be like when beating him would also erase his ghost, I can't imagine.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:04 AM on April 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 4:04 AM on April 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
wow. intense. thanks for sharing this.
posted by greenhornet at 6:08 AM on April 30, 2016
posted by greenhornet at 6:08 AM on April 30, 2016
Tears and laughter just came out of the left field and slammed into me. It seriously felt like a physical blow, I'd have had to sit down had I been standing.
Thank you so much.
posted by seyirci at 10:14 AM on April 30, 2016
Thank you so much.
posted by seyirci at 10:14 AM on April 30, 2016
I hate to be cynical but, and I'm looking at the commenter here, this exact thing was in that amazing Speed Racer movie back in 2008.
posted by infinitelives at 10:20 AM on April 30, 2016
posted by infinitelives at 10:20 AM on April 30, 2016
I have a pinball machine that my brothers and I gave as a birthday gift to my father 30 years ago. As being the only brother living nearby when he died 20 years ago, I was the one who inherited it. It still flashes the same 550,000 high score it had when I moved it from his house. Although, the story continues in one of my blog posts...
posted by ShooBoo at 11:03 AM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ShooBoo at 11:03 AM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
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