As a child, I was a tomboy — yes, as in the knee-scraped, cap-sporting, basketball shorts-wearing kind of tomboy. I wanted to be a girl, but I had no idea how to be one. There were absolutely no other girls in our neighborhood, as if the XX chromosome pair had suddenly become elusive. Try spending those precious sunlit afternoons with gangs of boys and their rough ‘n’ tumble misadventures. Not exactly tea party material. You have to learn to fight back.
So while other girls stewed plastic fish in mock frying pans, I had my biking acrobatics and skating disasters. And of course, there were computer games. My dad’s inexplicable attraction to shiny new gadgets made my brothers and me child stars — we were always first in the neighborhood to have Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Playstation 2. Our tiny bedroom was the village hub for wandering kids who were bored of simple patintero and POG games.
There we were: 10 rowdy boys and one little girl punching relentlessly on the poor controller, beating the buttons until the print faded away. When Sonic the Hedgehog jumps uncertainly over a cliff, we would literally jump too, as if we could help raise his chances at survival. It was utter gigil that could only come from children who have poured their little hearts into those screens. Ah, those were the days. Saving Mario’s Princess from Koopa’s clutches would make our afternoons; discovering Dhalsim’s new powers with eight spider arms would elicit tiny squeals of delight. We were on cloud nine, long before we knew what the metaphor meant.
Going back to the future, I recently tried out my youngest brother’s Playstation 3. I was completely in awe. With high-def TV compared to our fuzzy analog transmission, the 3D visuals were literally jumping out of the screen. My brother bought for me LittleBigPlanet, one of the console’s highest-rated games. Players control small ragdolls called Sack Boy/Girl. There are thousands of options to customize the character’s features: zebra heads, Hawaiian hula skirts, bouncing donkey tails. With a Playstation camera, we can even use snapshots of ourselves for the character’s face. Gaming has indeed gone all-out, and technology is on a rampage.
When we were younger, our characters could only run or jump. Sack people can swing from tree to tree, drag boxes up a slope and if they find a motor-powered jet, they can even fly around. The hurdles in these levels are no longer just about killing enemies: natural laws of physics have been ingeniously embedded in the challenges. Players must step on the seesaw at the right degree for it to lever up, or hang about with enough force to reach the next cliff. More importantly, players can design their own levels for other online members to join, and even spray graffiti on the wall to leave as a personal mark. One month after the game’s release, over a hundred thousand user-created levels had been published.
You see, these games are no longer about reaching the next level or beating big bad monsters in the final stage. This game was made to be enjoyed. The catchphrase of LittleBigPlanet is “Play Create Share” — three words that so deeply capture how our generation chooses to define itself. It is not about where we end up going, but how we get there. The game is still about winning, but not in the traditional sense of squashing dragons or how quickly it gets done. A great player is defined by creativity, dexterity and the ability to recognize opportunities. Sure we have goals for the far future, but we will not sacrifice the quality of our journey. The options are endless, and we refuse to be just one of the million other players. It is crucial to us that we are able to define ourselves to the rest of the world, that we can leave our own indelible mark. We need approval from our peers, and we are insanely curious to see what they must be creating as well.
It seems we are leaving the same attitude to the next generation. Kids today will have the gift of imagination, this world full of unbelievable colors. It will become natural for them to understand the laws of science and engineering, to recognize pulleys and levers before they learn those in class. But they will miss out on the good stuff, too. They will never have to squeeze together in front of a screen fighting over two controllers, 10 small voices cheering every good leap and yelling at hairy monsters. Now they have the wireless controllers all to themselves. There will be no need for neighborhood kids; they can find other players online. It is a scary possibility that they might come to think that this is all human connection entails.
These computer games are not just games. I was a child once and, much like fairytales, they will remain an influence on us long after we leave those joysticks behind. Especially now when these games simulate so many features of real life, they will shape what we think of the world. As children we were completely engrossed in the heroes we controlled — but we always knew they were not real. When we put down the joysticks, the Mario Brothers were just two mustached guys in funny jumpers. In LittleBigPlanet, we are the Sack Boys and Girls. We can make them look exactly like us, or even what we hope to look like. We can jump over fiery flames, find friends from other planets, and look absolutely cool in feathered Elizabethan hats — who would want to leave that world? It’s the kind of universe you can drown in, and when you finally surface, reality doesn’t seem very real anymore.
Sure, there’s the fear that this so-called microcosm of the world could well become a suspension from it, creating teenage zombies mesmerized by a simulated reality so deceptively real. Our kids will be expecting gorgeous landscapes, high-powered racecars and friendships built through television, maybe for the rest of their lives. They will demand uniqueness, individuality and the power to alter the world they live in. They will be expecting much more from the world than any of us have ever had — perhaps even more than what the real world can actually give them.
Whether all this proves to be boon or bane, one thing seems certain: the world, our world, will no longer seem so big for the little ones.