Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ports
When I was in second grade, every Tuesday some of the kids (including myself) would be whisked out of school an hour early to go to the church next door for something called “The Good News Club.” I don’t know how this ever got approved as an official school event because it was an hour of listening to adults tell us about the Bible and Christianity. Now, I haven’t turned out even remotely religious, so why am I thinking about this now? Well, because one day I was asked something by one of the hosts and my answer to it, I’ve realized, helps explain something that I’ve always found strange about myself.
The subject that day was “Heaven”, and the person doing the presentation asked all the kids what they thought heaven would be like. Most of the kids said things that I expected to hear — never getting old, having tons of toys or candy, not having to listen to their parents anymore, and that sort of thing. When it came to my turn, I realized I didn’t have to try to come up with an answer as I usually did. I told them that my idea of heaven would be a place where I could watch a movie or read a book as many times as I wanted, and each time would be as memorable and enjoyable as the first. I recall a lot of strange looks from my peers, probably because I described reading in the context of desirable. Go figure.
Fast-forward to today, and just looking around my room I’ve realized how often I find myself buying the same game multiple times for different platforms. Any time this is brought up to me, it’s as a negative. “You shouldn’t pay more than the bare minimum for something” at best or “You’re a consumer whore” at worst. Hey, on some level, I understand. Many ports are the exact same game as before with only a change in interface or screen to differentiate them. Others, like console-to-PC ports, can suffer from horrible consolitis with horrible control schemes and screwed up (or dumbed-down) graphics. And still, I keep coming back.
Part of it has always been curiosity — I love digging into the minutiae of things, to see how they change the controls, the balance, the levels, or anything at all. Even little things, like how the way armor negated damage in Doom 3 for the Xbox was changed from the PC version, can be exciting. But that can’t be it, right? Seriously, I do this too often and substantial changes are too few and far between to keep me going for just that reason. It wasn’t until I decided to examine this strange habit of mine that I started to think back to my idea of the perfect place, where it’s possible to have or feel anything… even being able to experience something as though it were the first time, every time.
Ports are my way of grasping that impossibility, and the most amazing thing about it is that it’s almost completely successful. Somehow, just a little change in the interface or playing it on a different screen is enough to fool my brain into thinking that I’m doing something I haven’t done before. The experience works on two levels, the part that is acknowledging what differences there are and the part that remembers how good it was the first time. If I handle things just right, I can keep myself from remembering too much and lose myself in the experience, just like I did the first time. And when it works, it’s the closest I’ve ever come to feeling something like… magic.
January 1st, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Nice post. As you know I haven’t succumbed to ports _but_ whenever I play a previously enjoyed game – e.g. Chrono Trigger – via emulation I do get a gooey feeling of nostalgia.
I think you become Christian the moment you drive across the Wallowa County Line whether you like it or not. Up is down, down is up!
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I hear you man, I’ve gone through the same religious and questionably legal (to me, that is) program in my academic youth and endure a similar enthrallment to repeated interaction with games and books and other such medias. I do confess that my wishful perception of “Heaven” did and does differ, and I feel slightly foolish for not applying your vision, something that I have longed for in this waking world, to my own idea of Heaven.
But, putting my agnostic convictions aside, I must say that there is nothing wrong with spending money on the same product for a different platform. I believe I once described it as…an enthusiastic exploration through the subtle perceptions of another? Well, something like that, it was years since I said it… But I feel I got the message across then, or briefly baffled someone in my rantings. To be honest, I’m not quite sure…
My, I do love to go on and on…well, to close: I hear you man (said again for no reason) – there’s nothing wrong with buying the same game for a different machine! The differences can revive that spark of interest that gets you absorbed in that game!
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:03 am
@Mike 2K9
Wow, if that’s true then I’m glad I didn’t make it home for Christmas. I imagine the flesh would have burnt right off mah bones as I crossed that city limit!