Vito Cassisi – Tech Blog Delving into technology

A game of values

Are we getting more from games than we bargained for?





The luring nature of leisure inducing game titles is enough for most people to part with decent sums of money. There's an attraction to virtual worlds and impossible characters that gamers can't get enough of, whether this is in the form of an action-paced FPS or a casual stroll in a vibrant RPG - or even a mixture, as presented by Bethesda's recent Fallout 3 title. Under these amusing game genres is not just a pretty picture and a procrastination enticing storyline. There's also an oft ignored element of education.

Take the aforementioned Fallout 3 for example. I've been playing this game whilst on my uni mid-semester break, expecting it to be a distraction from the toil of studies. My expectations were met, but this wasn't all the game offered. What I found amongst the radioactive landscapes and hordes of weaponry was a life lesson.

During my travels in the radioactive wastelands I had come across an issue to do with my characters strength. It would appear that he struggled to carry the large amounts of looted kit I was scavenging, resulting in the ever irritating 'over-encumbered' status. This would then mean sorting though my Pip-Boy 3000 and consuming whatever I could to lower the overwhelming weight. Unfortunately, this also meant dumping whatever weapons I could not carry.

The issue with this process is the value of such items. Do I dump the items which are cool but are of little or no use to me? Do I dump the items that are worth the most, but are also the heaviest? Do I just suffer and waddle excruciatingly slow to the nearest place of trade? It may seem obvious, but the decision often left me stumped.

So I had to learn to deal with sacrifice. This meant weighing up items of market value against items of quest value. The tough choice had to be made, the quest items were to stay. After all, the purpose of the game isn't to accumulate the most money. Nope. It's about experiencing what the developers intended to offer. So if I'm there constantly conceiving ways to make the most profit possible in a make believe world, who really benefits? The game becomes as slow and dull as watching royal Englishmen play polo, except the horse is an aged tortoise, and the rider is the Michelin man on anaesthetics.

I know what you're probably thinking, 'how is this a life lesson?' I tend to horde old items well beyond any sense of value. Sometimes I throw them out, but often I convince myself that I'll use them at a later date. What Fallout 3 has identified is the difference between perceived and true value. More often than not, an item which you think will be useful for a ridiculously rare occurrence is actually ripe and ready for the trash.

Now when it comes to clearing up the clutter, where clutter clearing is due, I take care to only keep the items that I require. This ensures a cleaner working environment so I can get work done without worrying about where everything should be. Bits of scavenged paper with old overclock trials on them --> trash. Sticky notes with required behaviours for my now completed NXT robotics project --> binned.

It could also be argued that this game, amongst several others, identifies the differences between 'good' and 'evil'. A karma rating in the game determines whether particular elements of the game are available to use. Act like a complete scum bag and you attract characters of that same nature. However this also comes at a price. You're then alienated by several non playable characters (NPCs). In short, treat those the way you wish to be treated.

Of course, this doesn't stop you acting the fool in the game! It's quite enjoyable playing an evil character, but by no means would you relate this wild behaviour to reality. Unless you happen to be one of many violent game induced crazed gunmen that Attorney General Michael Atkinson has warned us about!

Fortunately, being an evil villain in reality is quickly met by tazers to the chest. The fact that there's no save file to load once you've been sentenced to life in jail for activating a stray nuke in your local city is also a slight deterrent. Not to mention that you don't have a Pip-Boy 3000 to guide you through the whole affair. By that logic, it's probably best to run with the positive values of your gaming experience. Don't let that karma level sway the wrong way!