Gatekeeping In PC Gaming

Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time away from my main desktop at home, forcing me to put my laptop to use in order to work on classwork or surf the web. The laptop in question is nothing special, but it represents the bare minimum of what modern gaming can be in 2021, and that’s something none of the PC YouTubers would ever say. My Laptop is an HP with a Ryzen 4500u and 8GB of RAM, it has no graphics card and has to use the onboard graphics processor in the Ryzen chip. And because I waited for a sale I got it for the low low price of $649.99. But to my surprise, I have been able to have a very decent gaming experience on the laptop and I’ve been able to question what hardware you truly need to be able to game on PC in 2021. 

Simulating a new consumer trying to begin PC gaming I googled “Gaming PC 2021” and the first non-ad-related result was from pcgamer.com. Most of the recommended PCs are well over $2,000, and even under the best deals category, there's nothing under $1,000. And on a surface level, PC gaming is very exclusive and expensive, and if you were in middle school you could never afford a Gaming PC.

This is also how many online tech reviewers make it seem, that if you don't have the latest or greatest tech then your computer is old and slow, and that’s something I believed. After buying my first computer I began to do extra research online and slowly replaced every part in the whole system until it met the standards that I made up for myself from the reviews. And I know I’m not the only one. 

Since then I have been working at a PC hardware store, and my experiences with the younger generation prove that other people feel the same pressure. Often I have kids come in with their parents looking for gaming PCs. Most often these kids come in looking for $1,000 components totaling to $4,000 systems, something their parents are not interested in. But these kids have only been shown that side of the tech space. 

As I’ve experimented with gaming on my very basic laptop I’ve learned that you don’t need these crazy high-end components to have a very solid experience. Initially, I started things off slow as I had no expectations for my laptop at all. GTA San Andreas, a classic but a game from 2004. I thought the laptop would struggle a little, but it was no problem. I was able to play the whole game, and from that moment on I realized how open-ended gaming could be. 

Fortnite, Rocket League, and Minecraft were all fine. And these are some of the most popular games of today, even if they aren't the most demanding. But a more demanding title that has really grabbed me lately is the Latest Forza installment, Horizon 5. Even a short viewing of the launch trailer shows you that this is a beautiful game, but that also means it is the most intensive game available for me to test with. And while the game didn't look as good as the trailer it was still playable, and with my Xbox controller, I was racing just as well as I was on my main desktop.

A screenshot from the Forza Horizon 5 intro scene running on my laptop.

To me the journey was very exciting, testing the limits of my hardware and exploring how cheaply you could play these new games. It also made me reflect on how much I’ve spent on my desktop over the years and if I really had to make it as crazy as it is. But these kids don’t have that same hands-on experience, if only they knew their standards were so high, and that it doesn’t have to be the best of the best all the time. That they can still have amazing experiences on lower-end hardware.

Jack Slater

Jack is a professional writing student at Algonquin College and has a passion for tech and cars!

My Turn

We’ve got him now! The baddie is against the ropes, time to hit them with our signature move, it never fails. An all or nothing onslaught of attacks ensue, the dust settles, and there stands...... the unharmed baddie? With a confident smirk they say, My Turn. 

The My Turn trope is the classic turning point of a fight when the hero (or villain) survives an incredible attack from the opposition, but is unscathed and more confident. Ready to dish out a dramatically more incredible attack on the opposition. 

These moments are perfect for grabbing the audience’s attention and letting them know how strong a character truly is. Bonus points if the character looks frail and weak for the ultimate blindside. 

Look no further than the 2018 hit game God of War. Near the opening of the game Kratos, (the literal mythological God of War) is met with a tattooed stranger who is small and feeble in appearance, at least compared to Kratos. The stranger insults Kratos and asks for a fight, Kratos being the God he is, destroys the stranger with the hardest hit to the head I’ve seen in a video game. But the stranger gets right back up and the immortal phrase leaves his mouth. My turn, and hits Kratos with a gut punch sending him soaring over his own house! 

Now at this point most of us have seen a My Turn moment at least once before, but even though we see it coming it still has a very valuable place in action. These moments let us know that this battle will be larger than any of the battles we’ve seen with this character before, and that it won't be easy.  

This trope can be seen 1v1 like in my previous example but it can also be seen in a similar fashion when our hero is attacked by ten henchmen, oftentimes we lose sight of our hero as they’re trampled and buried in an onslaught of punches and kicks. But our hero will bounce back knocking them all away before beating them all. 

However this trope is highly versatile, in fact the first time I can remember witnessing it wasn't even in an action movie, it was in the little known 2010 film Despicable Me. After Gru’s adopted children fail to beat a rigged carnival game Gru stepped things up a notch. Reaching for an oversized laser gun Gru says My Turn in his classic accent, shortly before blasting the entire game stall out of existence. And to this day, I quote that scene at least on a weekly basis to the annoyance of friends and family. But to me it proves how powerful this trope can be and is. I was only 9 when I first saw that film, and still that comedic My Turn is branded into my mind. 

To me the My Turn trope is one of the best and most versatile tropes there is. It’s open ended nature puts us all on the back foot, in those moments when the good guy is getting assaulted by the bad guy we all pause, unsure if this will be a classic My Turn moment or if this is an elaborate set up to put us into a false sense of security. But no matter the circumstances, or how many times we’ve seen it before, the My Turn trope will always be a moment that hypes up the audience.

Jack Slater

Jack is a video game loving computer nerd, with a passion for learning new topics and exploring how the world works.

Offscreen Teleportation

With the theme of Halloween fresh in all of our minds I thought it would be fun to explore a classic horror movie trope, Offscreen Teleportation. It might sound extremely sci-fi but let me break it down for you. Oh no! The creepy guy with the mask just found you! It's time to run. You run up three flights of stairs, through a hallway, and towards the closet, but when you open the closet.... THERE HE IS! While some may be quick to call this trope a lazy way to get a quick scare, and be right while doing so, it is surprisingly effective. 

While a scenario like that is oftentimes completely impossible or at best a really lucky break for the killer, that is the very reason it's so effective. The killer being able to find a faster way up a building and into a closet you found while running in a panicked state? Unlikely, but because of it being so unlikely it can often catch the audience off guard. 

On the flip side it can be used to great effect when the teleportation is intermittent, leaving the audience guessing with every slow doorknob turn. However, when teleportation is the only upper hand the otherwise perfectly realistic villain has then the fun and suspense can be ruined.

This trope was used to great effect in the movie Don’t Breathe from 2016. In this movie our killer is a blind man with supersonic hearing. Most of the time we can hear him sneaking around the old creaky house, but he always manages to get where we least want him, all without making a sound. This use of offscreen teleportation is great because the more realistic the situation the harder the audience falls for it. 

Alternatively the offscreen teleportation can be used in many other genres, including comedy and adventure. In many depictions of Batman, from movies to video games, it is used to great effect. Instead of scaring the audience it looks awesome. Our caped crusader is seen hanging in the rafters observing joker's goons, in the next shot he’s right behind the henchmen and takes them out with a POW! and THWAP!

But it's a double edged sword. How many times has Batman successfully caught a villian, only for the bad guy to magically escape and disappear into the night? I’m looking at you joker....

I’m sure we can all recall a moment when a character in a cartoon looks through a pair of binoculars and sees someone on the horizon, only to look down from the binoculars to see that same person standing in front of them. Throw in some dust settling and the character coming to a stop the way a spring door stop does and it's hilarious! 

JACK SLATER

I am a writer trapped in a nerd’s body, and I love analyzing my favourite tropes!

Power Up Food

A trope I find interesting is the Power-Up Food trope. The basic concept that eating a food or power-up will instantly heal or charge up a character. Most often seen in video games where healing is often a core gameplay mechanic. But also seen in cartoons, such as Popeye, where spinach was his power-up food. Giving Popeye super strength immediately after eating the food. This is nothing new to the video game world however. With early games such as Pacman revolving around eating fruit to increase your score, and pellets which charge up Pacman to eat the ghosts. This is clearly a very basic example of an idea that had not been fully fleshed out yet, but in the years to come game designers would play with their food and create new ways to incorporate this idea. 

Pacman eating a Power-Up Pellet

Only five short years after Pacman’s pellets first hit the scene, Super Mario Bros was released with new power-up foods and new ways to implement them. It was no longer as simple as a magic pellet solving all of your problems. A basic magic mushroom would double your lifespan and size to defeat all Gombas in your path. And honestly, I think it’s a great way to encourage a younger audience to eat healthily. If you see your favourite characters eating fruits and vegetables to become strong and healthy you’ll be sure to follow suit. We also start to dabble into what can be used as “power-up food” A flower being used to give fire powers. While not traditionally a food, it still works and was the start of a new theme in gaming.

Even in more modern games like Call Of Duty and Far Cry we can see the power-up foods and items that carry on the tradition of the foods. In the latest installment of Call Of Duty Zombies we can see food items (bananas, apples, cookies, cakes, etc.) being used to instantly heal players from the brink of death. After a player is thrown from a building and mauled by zombies, all it takes is a few bananas and we’re just as good as new. In the Far Cry series it is less direct but the same themes can be seen. Often after being shot many times or attacked by wild animals, our character will begin to heal themselves. Regardless of the injury the same piece of gauze is brought out to wrap a cut on our arm. Shot in the head? Gauze to the arm. Have your legs been eaten off? Gauze to the arm. And while it's not food, the theme of instant health or power in reality mocking ways clearly carries on. If you’d like to see specific examples of Far Cry’s hilarious health mechanics I would recommend THIS Gamology video where a doctor talks about how unrealistic the healing is. 

Why do these power-up foods exist? One could argue that they are a lazy placeholder for a game developer not wanting to put the time in to make a proper healing system. That if a character is damaged they will need healing and you need something to heal them. But I think the truth is a more wholesome conspiracy. I think that since the start of power-up foods in cartoons, people were looking for a way to make the target audience think fondly of healthy food. Seeing your favourite character eat healthily and get stronger, whether it's Mario’s mushrooms or Popeye’s spinach, you’ll believe the foods will be just as great for you. 

So next time your character grabs an apple to heal themselves two hearts. Thank our old friend Pacman, for setting the trend.