Vol.
2, Issue 4
November 30, 1999
Birth
of a Gamer:
Myth II
(My First Foray Back Into Gaming)
by
Heather "elki"
Haselkorn
irst
off, I just want to thank you guys for all of the great e-mails
last week. I feel so loved! Anyway, let's turn to the real business
at hand:
Myth
II was the
first game I'd played in about two and a half years. It was also
the first game in which I've ever had to run a tutorial before
playing. Although I consider myself an animal lover (and a former
vegetarian), I experienced a sick pleasure at blowing up the chickens
in the barnyard. I figured if the rest of the game were like this,
I'd have no problems! That's where I made my first mistake. Someone
had already told me that the original Myth was hard enough
to be unplayable, and that Myth II was only slightly easier.
Still, I thought, how hard could it be?
Before
I get into that, I just want to give into some childlike awe.
I had never seen a game in 3D before, so when I first started
playing, I just couldn't figure out what to do. I was so used
to games that scrolled either vertically or horizontally that
I couldn't get used to the illusion of actually moving forward
or backward. It was a little disconcerting. And the graphics
stunned me. I could move the camera in, out, around, take an aerial
view of my troops or come in close-up right over their heads.
And in addition to the main action, there are also leaves falling
from trees, and birds and butterflies flitting around. It was
breathtaking!
Once I
began to play, I immediately learned my first lesson about gaming:
Much as I love my PowerBook, a track pad is not an ideal gaming
tool. The time it took to run my finger across the pad and then
click with my thumb really slowed things down. For example, whenever
I was ambushed it would take so long to select my knights and
bowmen that I'd inevitably lose quite a few of them. Sometimes
it seemed as though I spent more time listening to my computer
shout "Casualty! Casualty!" than I did actually playing
the game. But anyway, as I expected, the first three maps were
fairly easy and I finished them all by the second try. I don't
remember much about the first map, other than finishing it very
quickly (full disclosure: I played on the easiest setting). The
soldiers jumping up and down at the end of a level, shouting "Yay!
We did it!" is just the funniest thing in the world. And
the monsters and other nasty things that come at you are actually
very cute. Maybe they are supposed to strike terror into the hearts
of my knights, but I just have to laugh at them.
The second
level provides even more visual pleasure. It's dark and gloomy
and the rain comes down steadily and my troop has to trudge through
streams and muddy forest into an abandoned graveyard to save some
prisoners. At this point I was still trying to work the camera
and I kept getting lost whenever I tried to look too far beyond
where my soldiers were standing. But I managed to finish it, and
while my soldiers were shouting "Yay!" at the end, I
couldn't help but join them (with my cat staring at me disapprovingly
from the other side of the room).
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