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Remembering scrabble

There was a time scrabble use to be a board game. Of course it had all kinds of rules how it should be played. But after getting tired of the rules, we (my friends and I) would buy more scrabble games and break every rule the game had. We would have twenty blocks and come up with crazy words, which did not exist in the dictionary and some which no one used in polite company. We would laugh our heads off at the bizarre words, sometimes they would not be words instead entire phrases and even sentences. We would put several boards together and the game would never end. But coming to this day and age - the video game age - there is no flexibility no way you can make your rules - so rigid. Leave alone scrabble, we would make hash of chess. We buy as many chess games as we could and play the entire game with queens and no other pieces, the person who could wipe out the other's chess pieces would win. There was no check or checkmate, it was our version coming in with all the big guns blazing. No such option exists in present day video games. The reason why we learnt the rules of scrabble, chess and monopoly because there were no computers and game consoles, so one had a great deal of time to learn to play, one did not learn in one day or a week, it was learnt over several years, there was plenty of time to spare. But now new games are emerging and it is very difficult to to remember how to play them on the computer. If one were to learn a game in several years, the entire video game industry would be in deep trouble, it already seems to be is in that situation, because many games are just too difficult to understand leave alone play. One cannot just put a CD or DVD in the computer or console and start playing right away, one has to learn there are aggravating training courses one wish one could skip. The games do not offer variety and very limited options, there are just a few things which could be done.
The funny thing about vidoo game developers is that they think everyone is competitive and be the best of the best. The point of it all is to have fun. If a game is not fun, it is worthless. If to learn how to play game takes very long then its simply not worth it. Too much score keeping is boring. The point is to enjoy oneself- game developers focus too much on making a game interesting but they forget the fun factor. Pacman was fun - no sophisticated graphics nothing just this dot eating machine. I played a version in which the 'eating machine' could be made invincible so just went from one level to the next without ever being destroyed and never ever losing now that was fun.
Games have become too dead serious - too much effort is making the games different. The new generation of games are still too ridiculous. Supposing one is playing an action game, items one sees like lamps, tables - they are just paintings - no matter how much damage is done, those items never ever break, they also cannot be used, what rubbish. Tomb Raider was impossible to understand there were just too many commands to remember and the game ended before I had even done anything and I never understood to this day why I lost - was it the wrong key or something else? That game including the much hyped Half Life was consigned to the rubbish bin, NEVER PLAY A GAME WHICH IS A STRAIN. Racing games are for do not make any sense, what's the point of racing anyway when the computer or console will always beat you no matter what. I bought a chess game, the only thing I do is play it at the easiest level. The aim is to enjoy the game for its own sake - not try to become a champion. Usually I rush through the game so that I can play the next. There is really no point waiting several minutes for the computer to make the move that is so boring.
Action games should take into every consideration every aspect of human mobility - running, jumping, walking, crouching, climbing. But the games are too limited in this. It so stupid to see a character unable to do many of these things. The games follow a storyline - who cares about the story, the point to get on with the game, no training required - just play nothing else. Half the time is spent in how to play the game. That is where standardisation comes in. Game developers should all agree on what commands should be common irrespective of game type. Some games set time limits to perform specific tasks, which is also so irritating because personally I can never finish any of those tasks in time - so I have stopped playing that game altogether, returned it from whom I rented from.
The point is to have fun - enjoy oneself, if that is not attained the point of playing the game is compeletly lost. Score cards with statistics in it are meaningless because some people do not take the game as seriously as many game developers imagine, people just play through and do not care what the score card says - the idea of score cards should not exist at all, it is an insult to the person who is playing the game, because there are all kinds of players, some are good and some are not at all. I have always played the easy level of every game, some easy levels are not as easy imagined they are fairly difficult to play - so it is terrifying to consider ever playing the harder level.


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