Filed under: Interest Pieces
This very interesting article on 2 Bit Wasteland considers the background role of the ‘grunt’ in video games and how these faceless characters are rarely fleshed out more than ‘kill this because it’s bad’. I’ve noticed this before, but would almost consider it a necessary step in writing conflict based narrative, regardless of media.
It can be hard to deal with ‘big bad’ motivation in any sense; even looking at our Western history we’ve seen war tactics and propoganda that depersonalize and dehumanize our enemies so that soldiers can do their job without consequenting conscience and morale problems. These are themes often glaized over in action movies, where it’s more engaging to have the main character blasting villains away in triumph instead of contemplating the horror of his own actions.
On the rare occasion, however, this can become the subject of a film. It’s addressed brilliantly in films such as Platoon and a little bit in Apocalypse Now; the Vietnam war obviously being a very dour subject when it comes to mixed interests. Even softer narratives placed in the setting of wars have touched upon these concepts, such as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Empire of the Sun.
It would be amazing to see a video game that, like Platoon, sincerely considered the consequence and morality of mindlessly slaughtering grunts, or the motivation these grunts have to keep getting back up and asking for more. Even the contemporary ‘bests’ in the gaming market today like Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War are completely insincere at the worst of times, and present shallow objectiveless waffle at the best.
Metal Gear Solid have always been almost paradoxically anti war in narrative and philosophy, but reward players for
I actually think Mass Effect is commendable in this sense, and I think this is due to the exploratory nature of RPGs, because during the playthrough of the story a lot of information about every faction is revealed, to obsessive degrees, and it really helps shape the dynamics of the characters.
Filed under: Interest Pieces
I have been considering methods to bring more value to collectible items in video games. There is a vast amount of books and scrolls that players can explore for many different genres, this kind of back story design used to be reserved almost entirely to RPGs like Fable and Baldur’s Gate, but we’re seeing more collectible items and secret reveals in shooters like Gears of War and Halo 3. Roleplaying games have had one of the biggest influences on the way video game stories are told, but I still think there is a problem with the ‘pick up and read’ method of lore delivery.
I remember in Fable 2, I downloaded the ‘Into the Future’ expansion, and I really enjoyed it, but I didn’t lend the time to reading each collectible item’s story, something which actually hindered me when a puzzle came up that required knowledge o
I saw fault in this, not because it required that I read a little of the back story, but because the game never explicitly encouraged me to do so. That puzzle was immediately cut off from me because I was not interested in navigating Fable 2′s terrible pause menu to get at the item descriptions.
and due to not having the urge to read the book first time, I ended up rather confused in one of the puzzles. You could argue that this isn’t so much as a bad thing
Blue Dragon has a number of small stories that you are able to follow by reading bookshelves, and I was focused on reading them the first time I found them because I understood that I could not take the text with me and this meant I might not find the stories again. There is a major problem with this method, however, in that you can miss one of the shelves and entirely lose any context for the rest of the story and if you were to leave the game for a while and come back, something which had to happen in my experience, so that I didn’t kill it for myself, you might entirely forget what the story was about in the first place. For those reasons, I think I can safely rule out that alternatives.
One character can read so they go to him and it becomes a more interactive environment. Possibly even decode stuff by decyphering letters in their alphabet. Gradually reveal the story.
Back stories are interesting as well. I think I like Mass Effect (or, perhaps by lineage, Baldur’s Gate’s) method of back story delivery. It’s carefully paced with follower dialogue, so you are gradually given lore on certain members of your party without it feeling forced.
Filed under: Interest Pieces | Tags: emotional connection, innovation, interactivity, video games
Video games have been ‘in development’ since the 1950s, and they have come a long way from their beginnings as private projects constructed by programmers and engineers to the massive commercial entertainment industry they are today. For a very long time games have been considered a pretty trivial entertainment reserved for beefy arcades or anxious teenage boys with inch-thick glasses, but as we all know, video games grew.
If we rev up to 88 miles per hour and go back to 1972, only a few months after pong was released, we could witness, first hand, those first baby steps towards the mega industry we saturate with our pocket money today. I’m talking about a company named Magnavox and their release of the first ‘home gaming system’, which was named the Odyssey.
Though the console was apparently crippled by misinformation that it would not play on all television sets (if not because it looked like it belonged more in a lab then in anyone’s living rooms), it still sold a significant 100k units, as it played Pong on a television screen. We see more individual console released, each with specific but basic games, but it wasn’t until four years later in 1972 that the ability to play more than one game on a console was introduced. Cartridges caused a huge change in video games, with the ‘Fairchild Channel F’ being released with a number of different games available to play. Suddenly there was market potential to increase sales by selling individual, and cheaper to construct games. Moving forward again, it wasn’t until 1983 that we see any familiar names, such as Nintendo releasing their first console, the Famicom, in Japan. Prior to this, Atari had the largest market share, and the rest of game developers were generally independent developers.
It was also in 1983 that America almost lost their market for video games entirely; due to a lack of interest caused by a general disenchanted feeling towards the fledgling industry it almost collapsed. This crash spread through to 1986, at which point Nintendo took a big risk and ported the Famicom to the US as the Nintendo Entertainment System or ‘NES’ for short. It had been slightly updated, but was in essence the same console. By taking this risk, Nintendo helped revitalise the industry in America and the west. The NES was a strong console through to 1990, with another recognisable name popping into the equation, Sega appeared as the strongest competition to the NES with their new ‘Genesis’ console. Pong The Fairchild Channel F The competition between the companies forced both to improve the hardware developed, in 1991 the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System was released, which had updated power, graphics and in general better games.
James
“You know what’s really exciting about video games is you don’t just interact with the game physically — you’re not just moving your hand on a joystick, but you’re asked to interact with the game psychologically and emotionally as well. You’re not just watching the characters on screen; you’re becoming those characters.” This quote by Nina Huntemann summarises one of the biggest reasons as to why I play games and why I think so many other people do, this is the reason why video games are the sector within interactive media that I will be exploring.
They are one of the most foregrounding platforms of interactivity in the multimedia industry, primarily due to their already massive, but still growing presence in the entertainment business, not to mention the everyday lives of so many people the world over, including myself. I play games; not only as a physical amusement but also as a form of escapism through my ability to empathise with characters, mostly fictional, but this is a trait many consider the backbone to our humanity.
Many would consider our ability to emphasise with fictional characters an advanced level of intelligence, in fact many would consider empathy on it’s own a higher thought process. We do not see empathy in wild animals, and so it is an important emotion to consider, and this empathy is so much enhanced in video games that you can almost become the character you’re playing as, which allows developers to take people into other worlds and narratives, ones that break the conventional boundaries of standard storytelling. This is most eloquently expressed through role-playing games, a favourite category of mine, as you shape the course of the game play through the way you develop your characters and their subsequent strengths and lifestyle. When you have such close control to your characters development it allows you to connect freely to their emotional portrait, but it is important to make the story engaging and the characters authentic enough that you can actually relate with them as well. What has become quite popular in games like this is the ability to customise not just the skill range of your characters, but the look of them as well. Of course, when you look at so called ‘MMORPGs’, massively multiplayer online role playing games, this is an obvious step needed to distinguish characters apart, but when you are given advanced levels of customisation in a single player game it may seem like a somewhat pointless exercise and yet now we’re starting to see this customisation bleed into other genres of video game. Sports games, action games, even games that defy conventional stereotypes like the Wii’s Mii Channel, which seems entirely based off of making customised avatars for you and your friends. What do developers hope to achieve?
James
I think I grotesquely overestimated the amount of new and interesting games I play.
Regardless, in a deranged attempt to keep up with the times I’m going to review the 20 minutes of demo that was made available to everyone, ever, negating any real need for this review…
It was alright I guess.
Yeah, you heard it here folks! Resident Evil 5: Alright. In seriousness, though, of what I have seen so far? The set pieces are developed enough to stay interesting, though the pacing has been jacked up, even from number 4, so it doesn’t feel anything like a Resident Evil game anymore (minus the standard ‘resident evil’ font that crops up in every damn game and draws the menu back in a poorly executed attempt of nostalgia). I didn’t feel tense once, and thanks to my house mate’s infectious lack of enthusiasm for anything Resident Evil I actually felt a bit disillusioned. Still, I got him back while he was playing Halo Wars by making the game repeat the phrase “All units!” until the characters on screen couldn’t keep a straight face.
Personal inflection of a racist fueled genocide adds another depth to the game.
The usual Capcom standards apply to the visuals, yes the graphics are wonderful and draw you in to the African setting. My biggest problem with the game, though, is the menu, which is a little cumbersome and gets in the way when you’re trying to not die. I have to ask, guys, what.. what was wrong with a pause function?
The inclusion of a co-op mode could be an inspired move, though it’s not nearly as well executed as the team-play involved in Valve’s Left4Dead, and as we know – there is no I in team but there is an I in AI, if that even makes sense. No, no I think I just butchered that and I’m going to stop.
James
Filed under: Playstation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 | Tags: batman, game, lego, review
The Lego Games of yonder year have developed a sense of game play that borders between puzzle and platformer and Lego Batman doesn’t vary from this style. Lego Batman plays like any other Lego game of the past, you have a home area where you are able to access the levels of the game at your leisure, you are also able to access an items screen where you are able to buy characters, new upgrades, cheats and hints.
Chris
I am inflated it could be stated, as I anticipated the long awaited review of Gears. It was debated, and thus belated, but if I hated or was elated it will be stated and annotated in this review of Gears! And unrelated, I’d want to play skate it! but I’ll focus on what I have created and I’ll restate it, this is a review of Gears.
I’ll start by making the point that Gears of War 2, in my eyes, is an almost perfect sequel. Now that does not mean, as a point, that is is a perfect game. What I mean, when I say this, is that it takes all of the elements that I loved from the first game and it builds upon them. The unfortunate side to making a sequel in anything, however, is that you have to take both the good and the bad from the original game. Luckily, Gears of War 1 was a pretty fantastic game.
James
Filed under: Xbox 360 | Tags: arcade, downloadable, fable 2, live, pub games, xbox
The Fable 2 Pub Games content is nothing more than Microsoft and Lionhead trying to make money. The DLC (downloadable content) is just a way to get the fans to spend more money in anticipation for the Fable 2 game. That aside the game itself has come up with some interesting new spins on some old gambling games…
Chris
Fable 2 is interesting in it’s premise, customization to the extreme, not just on a personal character based format but within a consistently changing world that reacts to the players actions and will. It’s a difficult task to put into code, but those who loved the old Fable will certainly not be disappointed with it’s sequel.
It is a different breed to Fable, however, not only because it’s set 500 years into the future, but also because the developers had more freedom, and it’s obvious they decided to have a go at all those crazy ideas they’ve been throwing about. The tone has evolved, much like the style and qualities that the original Fable tried to distinguish for itself.
Of all the elements I remember from the old Fable, the juxtaposition between tremendously dark parts of the story and the tongue in cheek, or plain ludicrous comedy moments is still an odd one. At times the two are kept apart carefully to allow some emotional expansion, but then the game meshes the two together in awkward, conflicting threads. I’m not sure this wasn’t what Lionhead wanted to achieve, though, as being taken into this world as a character and forced to react to all of this is, if anything, an experiment of philosophical merit.
James
Filed under: Wii
Warioland: Shake It, or Warioland: The Shake Dimension (as it is known in the UK and god knows where else) is the big console adaption to the hand held classics that the gamecube version failed to achieve. Aside from having a ridiculous title over in the EU, the game is near-on faultless for what it is attempting to be.
This review is currently under editorial freeze, while we complete the game. You’re welcome to venture forth into the full articles, but be prepared for a lack of punctuation, grammar and.. well, most of the content. Our Warioland article will be finished soon.
