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Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Apr 11th 2005 7:55pm





The Zen Of Button Mashing

from the who-knew-it-was-so-cathartic dept

Can you get a sense of zen from a video game review? Clive Thompson is discussing his latest video game reviews for Slate, and notes that, while describing one of the games, he realized the zen aspects of "button mashing." Button mashing, of course, is the experience of playing a particularly complex fighting game where the inexperienced player has absolutely no clue of the various combinations and how to use them, and is forced, instead, into random button mashing: just pushing all the buttons in a random order and praying that something actually works. Hardcore gamers, of course, recognize button mashing as the sign of a rank amateur who has no business being near the console. However, Thompson finds that button mashing is a form of zen learning -- and that by continuing to button mash on a new game, one can get a grasp of the intricacies of the moves, and eventually learn to step out of the character and use the buttons more effectively. Of course, others might just call this trial and error, but it's probably all relative anyway.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    The Zen of Mashing a ....

    identicon
    dorpus, Apr 11th, 2005 @ 8:09pm

    Aichi Prefecture Police arrested a 71-year-old man for beating his 44-year-old retarded daughter to death. The man got upset after the daughter ripped a futon, thus beat her to death with his bare hands. The next morning, the man called police and reported that "my daughter is dead". The man had lived with his 62-year-old wife and 44-year-old daughter.

    I guess the man got fed up with 44 years of drooling and laughing.

    http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20050412-00000004-kyodo-soci

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: The Zen of Mashing a ....

    identicon
    thecaptain, Apr 12th, 2005 @ 5:04am

    aww c'mon dorpus, you can troll better than that.

    You used to be more creative...this is just trash.

    I mean why bother to troll like you've been doing for so long if your heart isn't into it?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Actually, it's "trial *and* error"

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2005 @ 11:21am

    "others might just call this trial by error"

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Actually, it's

    icon
    Mike (profile), Apr 12th, 2005 @ 11:57am

    Yup. You're right. Fixed. You can consider this editing by trial and error as well. Thanks!

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Dorpus mashing

    identicon
    blorpus, Apr 12th, 2005 @ 7:26pm

    Can someone mash dorpus every time he/she/it posts a reply that has nothing whatever to do with the article?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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