Explaining Games to Those Who Never Play

Lately my non-gaming friends are full of questions about GTA IV. The game is this year's biggest pop cultural event, so of course they're interested. The problem is my answers never live up to how I much I enjoy the game. So much depends on knowing the series, or knowing generic game stories and how much GTA IV destroys those cliches.

The problem is even more basic than that though. How can you explain GTA, or any game, to someone who doesn't even understand the notion of HUD, or a health bar or the way a mission starts? These are things I've lived with so long I can't remember the moments I learned how to use and understand them. It would be like trying to explain to the deaf and blind why I love Star Wars.

Of course, the internet, like it always does, read my mind. Today N'Gai Croal reviewed game reviews – mainstream reviews that is. Really, Croal is looking for more criticism in mainstream discussion of games, the problem is the audience those outlets are speaking to often knows nothing or little about videogames. He wants a review that “will allow us to examine the mechanics, visuals, sounds and narrative elements of videogames not in isolation, but in concert.” The problem I'm having with this is that combining all those elements in any meaningful way, and in a way a non-gamer understands, seems nearly impossible when non-gamers don't even know what many of those things mean or that games even include them. How do you explain game narrative to someone who doesn't know what 'cutscene' means and what effect it has on a game's flow? Or even what flow means for a game? It's not impossible, but where do you start?

Then the internet read my mind again and gave me the blog HowDoIPlayGame. The answers to my questions aren't here, but this is a start. It's a blog devoted to one man's play-through of Half-Life. What makes it special is this man isn't a gamer, and Half-Life is, frankly, quite a game to step into when you know next to nothing about the medium.

Most of the blog is devoted to a first-person account of his latest gaming sessions, but even in that there is something to learn about how a non-gamer plays. He seems most interested in progress and achievement, though a linear game like Half-Life probably lends itself to those feelings. It'd be interesting to see his take on GTA or any open-world game.

You have to sift through some review of the plot and sequences, but it's worth it just to see the world again with your non-gamer eyes. Plus the guy could use some help.

[HowDoIPlayGame via TinySubversions]