{"id":25,"date":"2002-08-20T01:07:36","date_gmt":"2002-08-20T01:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=25"},"modified":"2002-08-20T01:07:36","modified_gmt":"2002-08-20T01:07:36","slug":"grinding-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=25","title":{"rendered":"Grinding the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Play a game enough and it can invade your thoughts, tormenting your<br \/>\nbrain with its twisted visions.<\/p>\n<div>\n&#8220;Hey you could grind that light post over there, do a quick transfer, and finish your grind over on that fence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Would you need to manual between the two or can you clear the gap?&#8221;\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This was quite close to a conversation that the wife and I had<br \/>\nthe other day, after a couple of long sessions of<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.akaacclaim.com\/aggressiveinline\/index.html\">Aggressive Inline<\/a><br \/>\nfor the<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.xbox.com\">Xbox<\/a>.<br \/>\nYes, a conversation<br \/>\nwith my <i>wife<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you not familiar with that game in particular or<br \/>\ninline skating lingo, we were discussing some features of the<br \/>\nroadside as if we were still performing impossible stunts<br \/>\non our pretty black box of gaming, not driving along to our<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/archives\/000022.html#000022\">destination<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Aggressive Inline is a game that fits into the extreme sports<br \/>\ngenre, one that includes such great games as<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.activisiono2.com\/hawk.html\">Tony Hawk<\/a><br \/>\nand<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ea.com\/easportsbig\/games\/ssxtricky\/home.jsp\">SSX Tricky<\/a>.<br \/>\nBasically, you have a huge assortment of tricks that you can perform,<br \/>\nsome realistic and some not so realistic.  A game level consists<br \/>\nof a single, often quite large, environment for you to explore as you<br \/>\nsee fit.  Each level comes fashionably with a set of objectives, often aquired<br \/>\nfrom various in-game characters littered across the landscape, and your<br \/>\njob is to go about accomplishing them.<\/p>\n<p>Accomplish one of these objectives and the level often changes in<br \/>\nsome way &#8211; for example, at one point you sink a cruise ship, providing<br \/>\na whole new area to explore.  Accomplish another and an entirely new<br \/>\nlevel may be unlocked.  It quickly becomes a twisted game of trial<br \/>\nand reward.  Think of a donkey chasing the carrot on<br \/>\na stick and you&#8217;ll have a good sense of what this game<br \/>\ncan do to a person or, in our case, the both of us.<\/p>\n<p>It hasn&#8217;t helped that the wife has been happy to join in.<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t get me wrong.  I love the fact that she wants to play.<br \/>\nI suppose some part of me is happy that her experience<br \/>\nwith Aggressive Inline and its spiritual predecessor, Tony<br \/>\nHawk, has given her a taste of my hobby and a taste of why<br \/>\nI play games in the first place.  However, the fact that<br \/>\nshe does play has provided extra incentive to continue<br \/>\nmy habit.  It is sweet that we can share some quality<br \/>\ngaming time together but, in reality, it is more like<br \/>\none addict trying to help another.<\/p>\n<p>But play too much and it can play with your head, blurring the real<br \/>\nworld with the fancy antics of the video world.<br \/>\n(Hmm, anyone interested in building my neighborhood<br \/>\nwith its in-game editor?  I&#8217;d love to grind my neighbor&#8217;s car.)  I<br \/>\njust hope this doesn&#8217;t happen when I begin to play the<br \/>\nnew<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.supermariosunshine.com\/\">Super Mario<\/a><br \/>\ngame.  Lord knows where I may stick my butt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Play a game enough and it can invade your thoughts, tormenting your brain with its twisted visions. &#8220;Hey you could grind that light post over there, do a quick transfer, and finish your grind over on that fence.&#8221; &#8220;Would you need to manual between the two or can you clear the gap?&#8221; This was quite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}