The Best Bizarre Video Game Concepts: Animal ... - Gaming Survival

A pertinent aspect of video games is the notion of escapism. Wanton gunplay, implausible gymnastics and absurd scenarios are inherent to the video game milieu, and impossible to entertain in any other realm. ?Gaming logic? is governed by laws of physics that make nary a semblance of sense in the tangible world, nor are they generally welcome within it. If, while playing as a deep sea diver, you are beset by a gargantuan beast with a lion?s head and midriff and octopus tentacles, what would the resultant thought process be? You are unlikely to succumb to such actual brain-tastic questioning as what the hell is that, curtailing to a piteous jibbering jelly-man at the oddness of it all. Instead, you will attempt to slay the entirely-fabricated liopus.

As such, the life sim is an odd confection. The Sims tasks us with building a home, populating it with a diminutive homunculus or two, and simply living. Going to work, making meals, watching television, paying bills? It constitutes a formidable sting from the malevolent wasp of reality; and, I?d venture, proliferates new dimensions to the term ?game.?

Such concepts are but par for the course in the Animal Crossing series, which lends further nuances of its own to the life sim. Here, the real-time clock governs proceedings with a vehement, jackbooted mech-colossus stride. (?YOU SHALL ONLY ENCOUNTER THAT WEIRD DOG-THING WITH THE GUITAR ON SATURDAY EVENINGS! FOR I AM THE REAL-TIME CLOCK, AND THOU SHALT HEED MY WILL, LEST I SMITE YOU MIGHTILY. IN THE EYEBALL! THE EYEBALL, I SAY!?) For the most ardent Crossing-ers, schedules back on ACTUAL EARTH must tally with in-game shenanigans, should we desire an encounter with the Warthog woman that hawks turnips or the aforementioned canine musician extraordinaire. The issue remains, inexorably circling like ravenous vultures above a hippo in the midst of a fatal embolism: Why is virtual mortgage paying and virtual wallpaper laying so entertaining?

The most significant factor, for me, is customization. Such simulations oftentimes invoke an overbearing appeal for the ?collecting? obsessive gamer. Toying gleefully with the myriad of interior design options, or the desperate hope of obtaining that one crucial item to render an Animal Crossing furniture set complete, is a formidable compulsion. In tandem with this is the reward mechanic. You reap what you sow with such titles. Without such pedestrian concerns as missions to clear, the joy of succeeding in a personal goal is almost peerless. The triumph of marrying a guy, after a protracted courtship opening less-than-auspiciously when you wet yourself on his priceless Persian antique rug, is extraordinary. The lure of fabricated lives may be inexplicable, but it?s a cogent force for many. It may also elucidate the continued success of such reality television tripe as Big Brother. (The contestants are, almost to a one, so vacuous that they leave me yearning for that half-witted gorrila neighbour from Animal Crossing.)

Sims image from http://www.hdgamewall.com/the-sims-2-12.html

Source: http://www.gamingsurvival.com/2012/08/05/the-best-bizarre-video-game-concepts-animal-crossing-and-the-sims/

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