Real Life: The Full Review

[Baron Munchausen]

I don't know how long this particular review has been on Gamespot but I think its of interest to everyone here.

http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/gamespotting/071103minusworld/1.html

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Hilarious!

Although I'm not sure I believe that 'believeable characters'...

[geoschmo]

I really like this. My only gripe is that they have gone to so much trouble to create this and make it fit the format of a regular game review, and yet it's apparently not listed among the regular reviews. Wouldn't it be so cool to be browsing through the game reviews and come upon this by accident. You'd be a couple paragraphs in before you realized it was a spoof.

In fact, without following your link, I can't seem to find a reference to this article anywhere on the GameSpot site at all. It makes me wonder if this was placed on there without the knowledge of the people actually running the Gamespot site.

[StarShadow]

I'm still trying to figure out a way to access the 'console'..

[capnq]

geoschmo said: It makes me wonder if this was placed on there without the knowledge of the people actually running the Gamespot site.

Given that the author was an Executive Editor and on the Gamespot staff for ten years, that seems unlikely to me.

[Xrati]

If only people would put that much effort and time into their own "REAL" lives as they do a "GAME" life. The game promotes a false sense of satisfaction as your real life doesn't.

[AgentZero]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
Although I'm not sure I believe that 'believeable characters'...



Thanks, Narf. I am pretty unbelievable if I do say so myself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Yeah, most people on the internet are completely unbelieveable.

[Randallw]

I have enough trouble with reality without having my suspicions that the whole world is only what I can see, the rest of the world is only shown when I access those areas, and that there are unseen people who organise how everything runs, verified.

[Renegade 13]

Randallw said:
I have enough trouble with reality without having my suspicions that the whole world is only what I can see, the rest of the world is only shown when I access those areas, and that there are unseen people who organise how everything runs, verified.

Wow. I thought I was the only one who thought about such things from time to time!

[dmm]

Oh man, that sounds sooooo cool! I've got to try it. But I can't figure out what console it is for.

[dmm]

I'm also concerned about the time investment. It sounds like it could take a long time to play. I'm worried that RL issues could interfere.

[Randallw]

Renegade 13 said:
Wow. I thought I was the only one who thought about such things from time to time!



If you too suspect you are in the Truman show then I suggest you get psychiatric help http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

dmm said:
I'm also concerned about the time investment. It sounds like it could take a long time to play. I'm worried that RL issues could interfere.


*Facepalm*

[Renegade 13]

Randallw said:
If you too suspect you are in the Truman show then I suggest you get psychiatric help http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'll confess to not even knowing what the Truman show is!

[Randallw]

That's a slight surprise, but anyway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Show

basically, and I found this is actually a symptom of one of my ailments, because of what to you seem like unlikely coincidences together with a belief that you ARE the most significant/important person (The main character if you will. Probably because of an inability to consider other people to be "worth" as much as you, after all they're NPC's) you come to believe the whole world exists only to entertain/test the "player" and that coincidences don't exist but are the people behind the scenes controlling everything. It is important I believe to promptly ignore such nonsense otherwise you end up wearing a tin foil hat, accosting newsreaders and asking what the frequency the government uses to mind control you is http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Edit: and at the risk of getting carried away I find it delightful that link I gave you also leads to the Alegory of the cave. A delightful little parable to convince you that the insane really do understand reality for what it is.

[Aurore]

Real life has many problems as a game. The grinding is awful. You have to spend 90% of your time engaged in pointless activities designed to enrich other players who spend most of their time sitting on their asses, simply to get enough ingame resources to continue playing.

That means that for the majority of the population of any teritory you spend so much time doing something you dont want to do that you dont have a lot of time for anything else.

The very unfair and often irreversible random starting conditions are a terrible flaw as well. If your startup has few resources, whilst it is possible for some skille dor lucky players to overcome the handicap, others startup with vast resources and have a totally different play experience.

I understand that in the past there have been PVP attempts to correct this, one in a territory called france and another in Russia, with varying degrees of success. No one has however been able to make the system even close to fair for any length of time.

Yes, the interface is great, yes the available options are *in theory* great, though most people dont get access to them, but the rules are very badly thought out, and the game is horribly unbalanced economically, politically, and as I said before, the grind makes almost any other game more appealing.

Avoid!

[Aurore]

I had a discussion with some friends a few times about looking at life in a 'game' way. The results were disturbing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Basicly you can condemn the economic inequality as fundamentally immoral and effectively 'cheating' which frees you to 'cheat' too. Essentially your best game strategy if you do not start off as one of the lucky few with millionaire parents, and you do not want to spend all your time 'grinding' is to turn to crime http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Caduceus]

"Confused? You won't be, after this next episode of 'Soap'."

I just really hate "sweeps weeks" in my life. Really turns everything in its ear.

[capnq]

Aurore said: I had a discussion with some friends a few times about looking at life in a 'game' way.

When walking with groups of friends in college, I sometimes thought about whether we were arranged in a good marching order in case we were attacked. (We usually weren't.)