Feeding a Pokemon some Berries

A few days ago, our class read a story called Gooseberries by Anton Chekov. It wasn't really that interesting to be honest, but the message kind of made up for it. In the short story, the speaker is talking about his brother Nikolai. His brother basically becomes obsessed with getting a farm and he treats the others around him poorly and almost kills a women in order to get money for it. In the end, he gets his farm but it's described as being an awful piece of land. The river was polluted and the gooseberries were unripe and sour. I figured that the brother was in denial and lying to himself that everything was perfect...the farm was perfect and that the gooseberries were delicious. I wasn't really sure how to relate any part of this story to a game, so I thought of characters that were like Nikolai, and no one fits his description better than Gary Oak from the Original Pokemon Games. Gary was first seen in Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow for the Gameboy Color as well as in the cartoon. Gary didn't treat his Pokemon fairly and he was blinded by his goal to become the best Pokemon trainer ever. He had an aggressive nature and did whatever he could to get what he wanted. Although Gary does indeed become the Pokemon master, he later got destroyed by Ash Ketchum. It's implied that his journey wasn't worth it and that he later realized the mistakes he made after being defeated at the Pokemon League. I feel like Gary and the brother represent parts of our conscience...that they're the thoughts and emotions that take over us when are overly observed with our goals. It's as if Gary and the brother symbolize how we shouldn't let our goals take over us and it's the journey reaching that goal that matters. Although it may not have been the original intent of the game developer, I thought that Gary was a lesson about how the affects of our desires harmed the people around us and that we should just take it slowly and appreciate the present and not obsess too much about the future and our goals. I feel like both of these pieces of work showed this lesson and that we should apply it to our life.

Finding that inner Tiger

So this next game that I'm about to tie this post into is fairly new; however, it has a retro look as well as an 8-bit feel, so I figured it would be appropriate. So about a week ago, our English class read a short story called Child By Tiger. It was very...unpredictable to say the least. In short, it was about this seemingly harmless man of African descent named Dick living with a White family. He didn't really do anything unusual, except for the fact that he was portrayed as having a stalking-like movement and that sometimes his eyes shined at night. He was ordinary in every other aspect though- he went to Church, did chores, and played with the kids. But then the story went for a sudden turn and the next thing you know, Dick is killing everyone in town. So that had me thinking, what kind of games could I tie in with this? The story was interesting and the plot twist was pretty crazy. Then I remembered that I stumbled upon a game a while back called Hotline Miami. Hotline Miami was published in 2012 for the PC and was created by Dennaton Games. In this game, the character that you play as is anonymous and known only as "Jacket". The character wakes up one day with a Mask and a little list of objectives that you must complete to advance. These masks come in different animals, like the Tiger mask and Unicorn Mask, and they each give the player a different personality. The objectives usually involve killing large amounts of people as well as planning assassinations. So this got me thinking-what's a deeper connection between these two creations other than the obvious that they both have something to do with killing people and tiger personalities. And then I realized there may be a connection to why the characters did what they did. Both the characters were affected by this Tiger-like personality and I thought of it as a symbol for the human consciousness. It's our thoughts that drive us to do what we do and it's affected the characters in similar ways. Tigers are thought of as hunters, predators, killers, and that's what the characters were portrayed as. These people may have started off as the average person, but once they got connected with their other personality,whether it be in the form of a physical material like a mask or maybe just a feeling, their beast-like nature took over. This made me realize that this also applies to real life in that everyone contains a beast-like nature; it's just that people may not realize that they have it and that its affects vary from person to person.

Your princess is in another castle.

So a few days ago, I had to read a short story called Where are you going, Where have you been by Joyce Carol Oates. Basically, it was about this narcissistic, self-absorbed girl that gets stalked by a man called Arnold Friend and it's inferred that she gets kidnapped at the end. Her attempt at acting like a mature woman backfired and caused her some unwanted attention. When I first read the story I had no clue how I could possibly tie it into a retro game; however, the kidnapping reminded me of a very renowned game: Paper Mario. Paper Mario was originally designed for the Nintendo 64 and it was released in 2000. I realize that Where are you going, Where have you been isn't about some plumber going to different castles and fighting turtles to rescue a princess per se, but there's a similar element in both the short story and Paper Mario. Princess Peach and Connie share a commonality in that they're both kidnapped, portrayed as pretty, and that they try to care for others before themselves. Although Connie may not seem like the type to care for her family, she does so in a faint way. The Antagonist, Arnold Friend, gives Connie the option to save her family or to go with him on a "ride", thus saving her family from possible injury. In the beginning of Paper Mario 64, Mario attempts to save Princess Peach from Bowser, but ends up being quite useless. Peach realizes this and sacrifices herself to Bowser in order attempt to save the rest of her castle. This in turns leads Mario to starting a journey through different castles in order to save the princess, but that's not important for this.

Demolishing buildings...in Style

A few days ago, our English class had to read a short story called The Destructors and it was written by Graham Greene during the 1950's. The Destructors was about how these children who were raised in Post World War 2-Germany and the lifestyles they lead. After the Blitzkrieg in Germany, many houses were destroyed which caused the people to live in poor conditions after the incident. I feel as though this is the back story to Greene's story and more than likely, it is. So these kids, most likely pre-teens around 15 judging from their actions, form a gang and grow up in a relatively destroyed area. However, they come in contact with a beautiful house and I guess they're just shocked to see it because they've probably never seen one before. Trying to make a name for their gang, they decide to destroy the historical house which is absolutely ridiculous if you ask me. The story says that they had no motivation for destroying the house- that they just did it for fun, however, my friend managed to convince me that there probably was a "reason" as to why they did what they did. He told me something called the Broken Window theory. Basically, it means that people who grow up in relatively broken areas, such as broken windows on houses, tend to commit more crimes than those who grow up in relatively clean and unbroken areas. So by applying this theory, these kids that more than likely lived in poor areas saw a house that wasn't broken and was kept relatively beautiful and decided to destroy it. The destroying of the house reminded me of a game called Rampage and it was an arcade game made in the late 1980's. There wasn't really a plot to the game, but the style of the game was relatively similar to The Destructors. In the game Rampage, the players pick between three different characters: A gorilla called George, a Dinosaur-lizard called Lizzie, or a Werewolf called Ralph. The players then destroy cities while trying to avoid getting hit by helicopters and other destructive weapons. Although Rampage is quite large scaled compared to The Destructors, they're both similar. The players in Rampage would represent the children from the short story, and the cities the creatures were destroying would represent the beautiful house.