This is Dirty Talk #2 for all the people who are just joining us or returning after enjoying our previous episode. Tonight we give Khuutra the stand to expose himself to you.
Squilliam:
Do you want to be interviewed for dirty talk?
Khuutra:
Oh my
Sure why not
Squilliam:
I want you to think of your most enjoyable experiences you've had gaming, were they with other people or by yourself? Can you also describe the experience, what made it so enjoyable?
Khuutra:
I have to choose just one?
Squilliam:
Either one or two really enjoyable experience in depth or several really enjoyable experiences briefly. Its because your reputation for verbose writing is undeniable.
Khuutra:
Okay, I'll take two. They operate of of two different interpretations of "enjoyable", and they kind of hinge on how differently enjoyable playing games by yourself or with company are.
My most enjoyable moment in gaming in terms of "fun" wasn't actually a single moment so much as it was the entirety of my first time through Gears of War 2. I live 1500 miles away from my younger brothr, and he and I played the game together over Xbox Live as a way to break the game in. I have never had a better multiplayer experience in my lif than what I had in that game - not in Halo, not in Double Dragon, not in Smash Bros., not in anything.
There's a very real sense of reward and compensation you get from coordinating attacks in what is a relatively technical shooter, and providing cover fire or your teammate as he charges tthe enemy line and starts chainsawing Locust is very rewarding. Once you find a person with whom you can play and function well as a team, you begin to operate as a single unit, allowing you to do things that would be impossible by yourself. More than that, there's a certain thrill in helping each other - I don't think that anything I've ever done in a game has been a bigger adrenaline rush than charging in to have a chainsaw showdown with Skorge as he's about to slice my teammate in half. It's a very primal experience, one that I think is intrinsic to the co-op multiplayer experience, so to a lesser extent this goes for all the Halo games and your RE5s and what hav you, but I don't think any game has done htis better than Gears 2.
Single player games are different. I tend to be "affected" by single player games more, even though multiplayer games tend to be more fun, if you get my meaning. There are experiences you can lose yourself in, completely forgetting who you are, and the enjoyability comes in being able to step outside of yourself, to experience things you couldn't experience otherwise.
In that sense of the word, my most enjoyable experience in video games was probably the entire building up to the final battle in Shadow of the Colossus, as well as the battle itself. Up to that point I had never felt hatred as an emotion, it was a novel thing to me, and it's weird to talk about a video game affecting you like that, but it consumed me almost entirely. I had been struck, I had lost something that the game had made dear to me, and I felt a ridiculous need to blame something that hadn othing to do with it. Seeing that colossus there, an uncaring god that looked down at me like an insect, gave me something to hate. I relished the act of killing that monster. I don't know if it's entirely normal, but there has never been another moment where I stepped outside of myself so completely.
Squilliam:
Do you own all three current generation consoles? It seems that by taking your responses above that if you didn't already you would soon own all the consoles simply due to the unique experiences they can all offer. Is that a fair appraisal?
Khuutra:
I own a 360 and a Wii, and would own a PS3 if I were in a position where I could afford it. Yes, I think that each console offers enough experiences to make them worthwhile, even if you only own one, but I am very greedy with my experiences and want to be able to play as much as possible.
If we count a PSP I don't have one of those yet, either, but I'm not as eager to get one as I am a PS3.
Squilliam:
Changing subjects a little here. What do you get from Vgchartz which keeps you coming back here? What does Vgchartz mean for you?
Khuutra:
One of the primary reasons I comee here is that the information on sales that is the site's hook tends to draw a certain kind of gamer, who tend to be very savvy in their own ways. It also attracts rabid fanatics, but I think the ratio here is generally very nice. It's a great place to come to for questions or help, or to find people who are into niche games which I am also into.
I also see the site getting a lot bigger as time goes on, so being in close to the relative ground floor is going to be an interesting experience.
Squilliam:
So whats the draw for you to seek out these niche gaming experiences? The sales numbers alone indicate these games are not for everyone, so what makes them good for you?
Khuutra:
Well, I don't mean to imply that I'm only into niche gaming experiences, because I think you can tell that I'm not. It's just that I enjoy a lot of different experiences - it's actually very hard for me to find a game which I can't like in at least some capacity. Part of what I love about games is learning new interfacs and new rules of logic for progressing through a game, and a lot o people are not into that sort of thing.
As an example, Harvest Moon is fairly niche (though not nearly as niche as some games, obviously), and the elements that I enjoy are also part of what makes it so... I suppose "esoteric" is a good word. A lot of people would find my enjoyment of a game about farming, where you do the same thing more or less every day, completely nonsensical. but the experience is there, and it's very unique, and there's a certain economy of time inherent in it...
I could go on for a while. It comes down to constantly seeking out new experiences.
Squilliam:
If thats what the niche titles offer you, what do the mainstay genres/games offer you which makes you keep coming back for more?
Khuutra:
On the one hand, I enjoy new experiences, but I'm also the kind of person who can play games with similar formulas and enjoy them. The Kirby formula usually doesn't change very much between the series' major releases (Canvas Curse notwithstanding), but I can always come back for more because that's a gameplay type that I just really enjoy on its own merits.
On the other hand, I think that new experiences go beyond things like basic play mechanics and theories behind gameplay. A lot of people don't give enough credit to mainstay genres in providing different experiences - you get a lot of people who pigeonhole shooters or platformers as all being alike, but that's obviously not true. Gears 1 and Gears 2, as an example, offer very different experiences in their shift in narrative and gameplay focus, going beyond the whole idea of Bigger is Better. Same is true of God of War and God of War 2, or the Zelda series. Experience is hard to quantify, and I could probably write a huge editorial on this, but it comes down to the fact that a lot of mainstay games and genres just feel very different from one iteration to another.
Squilliam:
If you went to E3 2009, where would you go and what would you try to see?
Khuutra:
Hoooo. E3... three days. Three days, to see everything there is to see. And I don't even know what's going to be there!
When I was younger I would have said I would spend time going around trying to play as many games as possible, and that's still true, but I would try to make arrangements with publishers to attend smaller showings of games, behind closed doors if possible. But outside of that I would be going to as many panels and keynote speeches as I could fight my way into. Have you ever seen the video where they revealed Twilight Princess in 2004 or whenever it was? I want to be there for something like that, caught up in the wave of explosive excitement that our medium generations.
Squilliam:
If you woke up and Marcus Fenix was standing over your bed, what would you do?
Khuutra:
Now, if Marcus Fenix was standing over me while I was sleeping. Uh.
I'd say "SHIT" really loudly, assume I had been conscripted, and go off to fight and die in a war where I could only hope that I contributed to the results that I would not live to see.
If he was naked, I would just hope that I'm right in assuming that I can outrun him over a short distance.
Squilliam:
Thank you so much for taking the time, your responses have given my immense anticipation for tomorrow and at this point if you have anything else you would like to add, the stage is yours to raise any issues or put forward any topic for the Dirty Talk thread.
Khuutra:
And it's been my pleasure, I think this is an excellent platform to get people talking about different aspects of gaming.
I think the questions you asked ae very good ones, and several of them can be asked of anyone, so everyone who's reading this, I would ask yourself the questions that Squilliam asked me, namely: what do you look for in your games?
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Thats a wrap for today! Our interviewee, Khuutra, had a lot of fascinating ideas to discuss with us today and for many of you im sure it really got you thinking. Our interview today merely scratched the surface of this very interesting and complex individual whose own self awareness may lead to greater understanding within yourself.
To get the most out of this interview, I urge you my readers to participate in this thread and speak out about your own experiences and beliefs, and perhaps even ask Khuutra a few more questions as im sure he will be willing to participate further as well.
Thats all for today, the stage is now open to you to express yourself. Dirty talk has no cheap gimmicks, what you see is what you get and its all about the interview.
Have a great day. 
Tease.
