Why I don't like "twitch" games
Media ·Wednesday December 16, 2009 @ 05:08 EST (link)
"Twitch" games don't require much thinking, just fast fingers. If you enjoy them, well and good—Honey enjoys Guitar Hero, and has fun with it (although it also frustrates her a lot)—but they're not my first choice. If i want to do something repetitive and routine quickly and accurately, I'll write a program for it and find something interesting to do while the computer does the busywork. In the past I've preferred to write programs to solve classes of problems, e.g., a Sudoku solver, a word jumble solver ("for" Honey, and used on Frank in Missouri), and a Minesweeper solver (while stuck at Buffalo airport overnight). A solved problem, especially one I can and have solved, isn't all that interesting to me; I'd rather write code to solve the whole class (or just develop a mental algorithm) than waste time on individual instances.
I suppose I prefer strategy games, which is why I liked Warcraft (III) for a while, but when it became clear that it had equal parts twitchery I lost some interest. Plus i confess I'm not the twitchiest gamer on the block and I'd rather build things and explore than race a machine that can always beat speed-wise anyway. Maybe I'll go off and play Zork now….
