Epic Default Productions

What follows is Part I of a twisted, part-story, part-history of a formerly prevalent form of gaming. Read on if you dare gaze upon the twisted face of what once was — or if you’re simply curious as to what PC gamers are rambling on about as you pass them by on the street refusing to offer spare change. Parts Two, and perhaps Three, are to come.

It is a phenomenon considered elitist to some, archaic to others, but to a select few, it is a way of life. I speak, as the title belies, of the LAN party – one of the geekiest known forms of entertainment by anybody’s reckoning. One may wonder why the standard-bearers of this institution carry on, even in the face of the MMOG and console multiplayer; indeed, when more prevalent and less expensive technologies become the norm, why would anyone persist with an outmoded, financially burdening form of the art? The deranged ramblings of an old man follow…

My brother linked me a speed run of the NES title Ducktales, viewing which gave me pause.

Speed runs of recent titles are no foreign pursuit — indeed, I sometimes watch them simply to hasten my own runs of games, and they make decent music videos. Seeing an old title played, however, is something staggering to me. When I was first playing these games, they were expansive alien landscapes, environments that had no conceivable end, something that could hold the perpetual interest of my young mind. To view them, played in their entirety in mere minutes, is to see them dismantled before my very eyes, the memory of them torn from my childhood and dashed to pieces.

It is an experience as terrible as it is fascinating.

(Apologies to those who saw this early: lawl WordPress scheduling. Also, this is tagged LTTP because it fits the profile to a degree, and also because CW’s idea is a damned good one.)

I acquired a copy of Call of Duty 4 for 360, used, after continued insistence from a console-supremacist friend. CoD4 itself was nothing new to me — having owned the game on PC since release, in addition to previously being a fan of the series — but I figured it afforded me a chance to make a straight apples to apples comparison between platforms. Indeed, CoD4 has been hailed as a truly sublime console shooter, came in second only to Microsoft’s Halo 3 for Live activity in 2008, and was only recently usurped by its Treyarch-developed sequel, World at War, while still regularly appearing in the top ten. In all, it’s pretty clear that Infinity Ward did something very right in every version of their game, PC and 360 alike.

To be entirely honest, though, I played my 360 copy only once. One time. I started CoD4, played a round online with the aforementioned friend, and then immediately shelved it. My mind had already been made up; there was no way the console version could match up to the Windows release. This is a typical line of thinking for me, one challenged more and more as I’ve come to own current consoles, but still a common first assumption.

This past weekend, I played a few intense rounds of laser tag. In an effort to be, and I quote, “tactical as hell,” I spent most of the game crouched — an action, which, as it turns out, is a lot harder than it looks. As my thighs ached, reminding me just how out of shape I really am, the urge came upon me to play some Call of Duty 4. This left me with two options, and I chose the option that allowed me to recline comfortably at the couch. “At very least,” I thought as the 360 began spinning the disc, “I can give the two a proper comparison.”

(continue reading…)