The Peculiar Position of Game Trailers: A Critical Perspective

The video game trailer occupies a very peculiar place in media consumption. Whereas a preview for a movie gives the audience a glimpse at what the movie offers, a video game trailer is always external to its own medium. A movie trailer works because cinema is a passive, visual medium; the viewer sees a bit of what he/she will see in the movie proper. Similarly, reading the back of a novel or a sample of the novel in another book serves the same purpose--it advertises the novel through the medium of the novel. Game trailers to not have that luxury. They operate solely within the spheres of the visual and aural, but gameplay requires the physical touch and feedback of inputting commands on a controller (or waving your arms like a lunatic, if you're into the whole motion gaming thing). Game trailers cannot communicate the ludological sensation of gameplay, hence the necessity for demos--a far more relevant method of advertising a game than a trailer could ever be. It is because of these limitations that I always approach game trailers with a fair degree of skepticism. Don't get me wrong, trailers serve a fundamental purpose of hyping the company's product and introducing it to consumers. After all, we can't all attend Gamescom or E3, and sometimes demos can be a little slow at hitting the download scene. As bafflingly illogical as game trailers are on a fundamental level, they are absolutely essential to the industry, and as such, warrant discussion about how best to accurately and honestly advertise their products.

I find that the best trailers fulfill a few certain criteria. The trailer should first and foremost always provide an accurate introduction to its game's mechanics. If I'm watching a trailer, I want to see how I'm going to be playing the game. Whether or not this takes place in-engine is negligible compared to the importance of showing the ways in which the player will manipulate the game's world. Second, a trailer should give the viewer a glimpse of the game's world in terms of its atmosphere while maintaining a certain degree of mystery. If the game will be funny, provide a funny trailer. For a horror game, instill a sense of dread and gloom. If it's a story heavy game, focus on narrative--without giving too much away. Lastly, the trailer better damn well be entertaining and memorable. We're all so plugged into the world of mass media devices and viral videos that it's easy to see a trailer and then immediately forget about it. A great trailer has staying power. Since trailers operate in a visual medium, I'll turn to a few examples of trailers that have created significant buzz this generation.

Gears of War: Mad World Trailer

When I saw this trailer for the first time, I finally grasped what this new generation of gaming could produce. I like Gears of War well enough, and when it hit the scene as one of the premiere flagship titles to sell the Xbox 360, this trailer was a bit of a risk. It's heavily atmospheric, hauntingly lonely, and bizarrely reflective. I'm a sucker for dissonance. I used to play a lot of games by turning down the game's music and providing my own soundtrack, often playing shooter games while listening to serene music to provide bizarre contrasts. This juxtaposition of the hyper-masculine soldier with the dreamlike melody of Gary Jules' "Mad World" makes the trailer certainly memorable, and this contrast emerges in the game's aesthetic. The game's setting, planet Sera, teems with ruined Hellenistic architecture, creating a world of apocalyptic beauty. Some gilded age has fallen to ashes, and the game's art direction makes destruction quite beautiful, providing a similar contrast evoked by the trailer. The gameplay, though, never quite reaches the thematic sophistication of the trailer. Sure, the game controls like a dream, and its violence is almost operatic. I nevertheless can't help but feel a bit misled by the atmospheric sense of isolation and terror in the trailer. I never feel as vulnerable as the trailer makes Marcus Fenix out to be. This is certainly a good thing for gameplay because its a game that lets you feel like a badass, but there is a slight disconnect between the promises of the trailer and the game--though the trailer is still remarkable.

Killzone 2: E3 2005 Trailer

I remember how this trailer was met with both excitement and incredulity. Some people thought it heralded the new age of gaming while others called shenanigans and claimed that such gameplay was impossible. Whichever side won out (and I'm inclined to think the former), the trailer certainly had people talking until the game's 2009 release. The trailer showcases the gameplay through a fully-rendered CG sequence, making some onlooker wonder if the game could possibly ever look as great as the trailer shows. Killzone 2 looks sharp, to be sure, but the trailer was way before its time. Releasing it four years before the game's publication date built expectations that could not possibly be met.When critics finally played Killzone 2, they couldn't help but compare it to the trailer revealed in 2005. For me at least, the trailer spoke true--others had dissenting opinions. The trailer captures the chaotic atmosphere and dynamic combat in Killzone 2, and I can't help but speculate that the team at Guerilla needed the four years to catch up to their own advertisement. Even if they did bite off a bit more than they could chew, the time spent paid off by delivering one hell of a game.

Dead Island: We've all seen it...

This trailer for Dead Island is a textbook example of how not to make a game trailer. When it hit the internet, it absolutely blew up; people who didn't even play games paid attention to it. It's an emotional, artistic and atmospheric mini-movie. It's extremely well done. The music helps facilitate this family's tragedy perfectly, providing a different spin on the zombie horror genre in a way that I thought was just reserved for The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later. The trailer is a remarkable piece of CG art, and on that level it excels. Dead Island was in development hell since its 2006 announcement, and this trailer announced its resurrection, building audience anticipation and undoubtedly resulting in a massive surge of pre-orders. But the game it advertises is not the product on the shelf. After being underwhelmed by seeing gameplay footage, I gambled on a rental, and I sadly found my misgivings to be true. While I'm sure there's plenty there for others to enjoy, I don't think anyone can seriously make the claim that the trailer captured the essence of Dead Island. Dead Island is not a game about tense, emotional situations. It's not a story-driven survival narrative. I never felt any connection to people I protected. And at no point did I throw a child out the window. Other than the resort setting and the zombies, the trailer has little else to do with the game. The game is nowhere near as good as its trailer. The trailer is a well-made movie, challenging narrative and genre; the game is a bit of incoherent mess. And never the twain shall meet.

BioShock: Near perfection

BioShock was a hard sell. Combining a bizarre environment, Objectivist philosophy, and intelligent first-person shooter gameplay looks just as strange on paper as they do in theoretical practice, but this trailer reveals only what is necessary to build excitement while maintaining mystique. We see the combat in the way a splicer fights against a Big Daddy. We see, from a first-person perspective, a deeply disturbing scene with a man forcing himself on a helpless child, the camera's position mocking the viewer's passive complicity in the grisly pantomime. We hear a synopsis of Andrew Ryan's Randian philosophy. We catch a panoramic view of the underwater, ruinous dystopia. We see strange powers, a vita chamber, a shotgun, a monster with a drill, a pipewrench. All the key elements of the game's mechanics appear...yet we're left wanting more because we don't know how they fit together. It's unlike anything we've seen before, even those of us who have played Ken Levine's System Shock 2, BioShock's spiritual predecessor. The trailer tells an ambiguous story with provocative gameplay elements on display all while building a sense of atmosphere and keeping the audience engaged. We're left wondering what the hell we just saw and wanting to discover--and play--something more in this weird world.

There are most certainly others that work just as well as these. The Dark Souls trailer set to The Silent Comedy's "Bartholomew" combines mood, mechanics, and an awesome (and relevant) song. The gameplay trailer for Dishonored works well, too, though it has its flaws--mostly due to its making the game look like a throat-slitting simulator. I love the atmospheric short film trailer for Metro: Last Light, but it provides nothing useful in terms of describing gameplay, unlike the short film for Halo 3: ODST, which worked in the mechanics through the combat sequence.

A video game trailer must accomplish more than provide a fun little video. It must accomplish more than a film preview or a sample of a novel. The most successful game trailers break the constraints of the visual to offer aspects of the ludological. We interact with games in much more complex (or at least different) ways than we do with film and literature, and trailers should acknowledge this fact by accurately portraying the ways in which the consumer/player will interact with the digital world on display. As silly as I think trailers are, we need them, and the industry needs to get the word out somehow. But they can only take us so far. Otherwise, we wouldn't rely so heavily on sites like IGN to keep us informed. We, nevertheless, should always approach the videos we see with critical and analytic eyes--and then forget them completely we play the demo.

Cheers,

--David

Slouching towards Bethlehem: Darksiders II and the Modern Apocalypse

The word "apocalypse" originally referred not to a cosmic, metaphysical event, but to the act of divine revelation. Roughly translated from the original Greek apocalypsis, the word more literally means "a lifting of the veil," or "an uncovering." The final book of the New Testament, the Revelation of St. John of Patmos (often erroneously called "Revelations," and my inner biblical scholar cringes), is sometimes called "The Apocalypse of St. John." Other apocalypses, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter found their ways into early Christian canons (though later made apocryphal), and, as a result, the term "apocalypse" became associated with an entire genre of literature, extending to Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, the poetry of William Blake and William Butler Yeats, as well as visual media. My personal favorite is Albrecht Durer's Apocalypse, a series of woodcuts depicting in vivid detail the visions of St. John the Divine. THQ and Vigil Games' Darksiders franchise offers the most recent attempt to bring a biblical apocalypse to the video game medium, and it's second installment largely succeeds where the original failed--though it's not without its shortcomings.

"Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" by Albrecht Durer (1497-98). From bottom left to right: Death, Famine, War, Pestilence (Plague) 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse provide a great central concept around which to build a video game mythology. In this aspect, Darksiders works very well. In fact, my favorite aspect of the original Darksiders is its story--though I do have a fascination with Judeo-Christian texts and mythologies. I love the comic book art direction and the over-written story and dialogue. I also enjoy its bizarre mixture of Talmudic, Babylonian, and various other biblical mythologies that re-purposed the names and stories of gods, angels, and demons. In the original Darksiders, the Apocalypse occurs ahead of schedule, and War, one of the four Horseman (along with Death, Fury, and Strife), gets the blame as the hosts of the High Heavens and the Burning Hells use earth as the location for the biggest cage fight in the Creation. The game follows War as he seeks to clear his name and defend himself against charges of premature apoculation. The first game sticks so close to its Hebraic hegemonic structure that it can come across as awkwardly complicated, but I always wanted to know what War would encounter next. It's a fun, fresh take on the biblical Apocalypse. Its scope, however, is weirdly limited. The Apocalypse seems only to have smacked one small part of the earth--an unnamed city--which seems at odds with such an epic event. Localizing the Apocalypse may be the only way to capture it in a videogame, and perhaps creating a third-person adventure that can encapsulate such a cosmic event is impossible commercially and practically. Nevertheless, Darksiders, for as much as I enjoy it, left me wanting. This feeling magnified when the game ends on the biggest cliffhanger since God of War II.

Though Darksiders II does not provide closure to the story left hanging in the first, it is a better game. Most aspects of the first are improved, as the player shifts from control of the duty-bound War to the mysteriously remorseful Death. The traversal mechanics of Darksiders II work very well, though sometimes the game does not register button presses every now and then. The clunky menu system of Darksiders has been thankfully addressed, and using certain weapons/abilities no longer ties my fingers in knots (like that damn boomerang). New leveling systems allow you to craft your character and his armor in significantly, albeit streamlined, ways. Death even begins with his mount, Despair, readily accessible, unlike his brother who spends the first half of the game's predecessor as a Horseman without his horse. Death is a much more approachable, if not complex, character than his younger brother; Death's confidence and sense of humor facilitate more interesting interactions than War's stoic demeanor. The angels, demons and all between fit Joe Maduiera's comic book apocalypse aesthetic extremely well, offering modernized interpretations of preternatural characters and eldritch creatures.

"And over them triumphant Death his dart / Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invok'd"-- John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book XI)

Where Darksiders II truly surpasses the original, though, is its world. Darksiders sat comfortably in its ruined metropolis, and, though the world has a few interesting locations, it never really shakes the "been there, done that" vibe. Players visited post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. in Fallout 3, slaughtered enemies in the bombed out world of Gears of War, survived the zombie-infested sewers of Left 4 Dead, and fought with Chimera across the war-ravaged U.S.A. in Resistance. Darksiders' vision may be a different version of the apocalypse, but its setting is certainly not unique. Darksiders II, however, takes place across multiple planes, each as imaginative as the next. From the verdant plains of the Forge Lands to the ashen mausoleums of the Kingdom of the Dead, Darksiders II boasts some of the most inspired architecture designs I've seen. If the story of the first game kept me playing, the locations of the second made me want to see more of this bizarre world. Unrestrained by the established tropes of apocalyptic settings that tethered the the original Darksiders, the team at Vigil Games came up with some truly awe-inspiring locations and set pieces.

I'm tempted to posit that, because of its setting, Darksiders II is much more apocalyptic, in the classical sense, than the first game. The game seems much more dreamlike, more like a spiritual vision of a mystical world, than the original Darksiders. Death's journey to clear his brother's name and restore humanity, though not without bloodshed, is far more focused on exploration than War's single-minded hunt for justice. Darksiders II's story takes itself a bit seriously, but no more so than something like Skyrim or Kingdoms of Alamur--though its not quite as focused as the story told in Darksiders. The world abounds with numerous side quests and optional dungeons, but, overall, the large areas are weirdly vacant. For Audrey Drake, these barren landscapes are drab and uninteresting:

"The freedom Darksiders II offers is something to behold - you’re able to journey around huge areas as you please, slashing enemies and seeking out treasure and loot drops to your heart’s content. But the bloated environments are simply too barren and often devoid of anything interesting to do or see. Since so little is done to vary up the gameplay, the pacing drags and the length of the adventure feels more like a chore than a bonus." Audrey Drake IGN Review

For me, this aesthetic of dead lands and isolation resonates with the aftermath of some distant apocalypse. The Kingdom of the Dead should be a hollowed husk of a land, and the autumnal twilight of the Forge Lands drips with sorrow and loss. It also helps that one of the best game scores this year compliments these large areas with atmospheric music that crescendos and dissipates with a serenity I would not have expected from an action-heavy game with light RPG elements. During combat, the score speeds up without overshadowing the action, as Death moves with swift precision in his danse macabre of blood and steel. As satisfying as the combat is, the eerily quiet journey across dead and dying planes of existence will be what I remember most fondly.

"Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd / Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc." William Blake, "America, a Prophecy"

Though Darksiders II does not take place in the post-apocalyptic earth, it is certainly more similar to the other-worldly visions that are the genesis of the term "apocalypse"--albeit not a true revelation of new, secret knowledge. There's little to nothing here gamers haven't seen before, but I find it difficult to harp on a game for being too derivative. Sure, I played Darksiders years ago when it was called Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. I enjoyed it then, and I enjoy it now. The loot collection makes it seem like Diablo "lite," though it is satisfying when a piece of gear really clicks with your play style. I do have an issue with the game's ending, as it looks like Vigil and THQ are building to an epic conclusion that I'm skeptical we'll ever see--with two games ending on the same cliffhanger, I find it hard not to be a cynic.

Distilling a cosmic apocalypse down to a video game franchise proves to be an overly ambitious project, often revealing its limitations rather than overcoming them. But the medium of gameplay offers a chance to participate in and rectify world-ending events in ways other art and literature cannot, modernizing texts from thousands of years ago to present a contemporary vision of the apocalypse for the video game and comic book era. Darksiders II may just be the end of the world all over again, but there's plenty there to entertain anyone willing to slouch toward Bethlehem for a vision of the end times.

Cheers,

--David

Existential Horror and Gameplay Compulsion in Dark Souls

Horror in video games is a fairly well-trod region. Some developers approach the genre through grotesque enemy design, pitting the player against hordes of disgusting monsters, often with a fair degree of gore (e.g. Splatterhouse). Others focus on place and time, building games in Gothic settings (e.g. Castlevania). The best, though, strive for an atmospheric approach to horror that combines narrative, setting, action, and gameplay mechanics to provide a totalizing horror experience. When used to its full potential, the video game medium provides an authentic horror experience that film and literature simply cannot achieve.

Like so many others, I had my first taste of horror in the medium when I played Capcom's Resident Evil in 1996. After watching a ridiculous cut scene in which unintentionally hilarious B-movie style actors delivered some semblance of story my young could not care less about, my friend handed me his controller, gave me a brief rundown of the controls, and set me loose in a mansion infested with walking corpses. Unused to the Playstation controller, I took a while to learn how to move Jill Valentine across the screen, but, after some practice, I began navigating the halls like a pro--until my first encounter with a monster whereupon I forgot what any of those damn buttons did. In that moment, everything came together--the shambling corpse, the lack of ammunition, the limited visibility of awkward camera angles, the knowledge that my character's death would lead to a restart that would undo what felt like significant progress--and created not just a great moment in my subjective gaming history, but also a sincere state of panic. This, I thought, is what horror feels like: hopelessness in the face of a foe that I knew meant certain death. Jill Valentine did not survive the encounter, and it was purely my fault. That instance would never be duplicated for me in a survival horror game. Sure, I had my fair share of scares in Dead Speace, and I felt the bizarre atmosphere of Bioshock. But nothing came close to replicating that moment of genuine terror...until I started playing Dark Souls.

I had played it's predecessor, Demon's Souls, but I never got into it. I gave it two serious tries, but I found that the game required more time to put into it than I actually had to give. But something about Dark Souls' open world and disturbing beauty drew me to it. In Dark Souls, the player's character is a nameless undead who wanders around landscape ripped straight from someone's darkest, depraved nightmare. Beginning at a place called the "Undead Asylum," the player journeys beyond the walls of his/her prison to fulfill some prophecy about something because some demons did bad stuff and it needs fixing, maybe. And that's about all you get, if you don't go to great lengths to find out the story, and it, like so many of the game's oddments, is, by design, withholding. I have no idea why my character must do what he does, and the game gives little to no direction (so much so that an internet community has grown up around trying to help newcomers and experts alike). The player must find his/her way through a demonic hellscape, and damn near everything out there is hunting for blood. It is this initial feeling of despair and unknowing that sets the tone for the game.

I was neither / Living nor dead, and I knew nothing /
Looking into the heart of light, the silence. --T.S. Eliot

The tone of utter hopelessness is not the only link the game has to the horror genre. Dark Souls offers a vast array of demonic creatures and terrifying bosses that leave the player literally shaking after a narrow victory. They attack with ground-shaking power, and they outmatch the player at every turn, if he/she is not careful. The game is not merely content with providing a borderline insurmountable challenge; the developers designed the character models to be visually revolting and intimidating. One look at the Gaping Dragon guarding the key to Blighttown is enough to turn the stomach of any seasoned player:

"I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies
of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me.
But I do not think my life will be long. " -- H.P. Lovecraft

The Gaping Dragon plays off the player's initial disgust at the creature as it emerges slowly from an abyss, and, while the player's shock at seeing the demon has not subsided, it advances on the player with devastating attacks, leaving the player helpless. It will kill you numerous times before you kill it. Another ungodly creature is the Butcher, a large masculine-looking creature, which the player finds out via an NPC is actually a female. She carries a giant cleaver--a Freudian symbol for castration if ever there were one--which she uses to hack and slash at the player, and a burlap sack obscures her face. This faceless giant is quite reminiscent of Silent Hill 2's Pyramid Head, largely believed to be the most horrific video game monster ever created (likely due to his own status as a metaphor for perverted masculinity). These two examples of the horrors the player elects to face when he/she boots up the game. Everything wants nothing more than to eviscerate the player in the most brutal fashion possible.

Though I have mostly compared Dark Souls to games in the survival-horror genre, Dark Souls is not a survival horror game. Its mechanics stem from a strict RPG tradition, so much so, in fact, that the game can easily alienate the unseasoned gamer--which is, of course one of the game's many goals. Casual gamers need not apply. The game is so alienating, in fact, that its multiplayer component (a complex system of entering others' game worlds for good or ill, cryptic messages, seeing ghostly apparitions of other players, and replaying the last moment's of another player's in-game by touching bloodstains left on the ground) is only hinted at through NPCs and item descriptions. Since player is almost always alone, seeing the specter of another player reminds the player that others share his/her fate--but they remain separated by some force that has sundered the world. The ultimate payoff is that the player must evaluate what it means to play with someone online. The connection online gameplay provides is only fleeting and superficial, but when strangers team up to take down an impressively difficult boss, the feeling of gratification is on par with beating an entire game. Players blink in and out of each others' worlds, and as well, each others' lives, inviting a metatextual pondering of existence and connection in a world of abject despair. Can we really know the people we play with? The game posits that we cannot, that they are just hollowed shells of people projected on a screen--bodies turned into ghosts by ones and zeroes. These interactions, nevertheless, are meaningful in that they help us traverse some virtual wasteland, and maybe that's all we can ever ask for in online interaction. The game offers a grim truth, beautiful in its bleak frankness.

"Those who have crossed / With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom /
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost / Violent souls, but only /
As the hollow men / The stuffed men." --T.S. Eliot

It is here in which the true horror of Dark Souls stirs, opens it jaws, and howls.  Whereas most horror games choose to keep the elements of horror within the game itself, Dark Souls dares to reach out and infect the player's psyche.  In her review of Dark Souls, Keza MacDonald writes, "It appears to be FROM's mission to send you into harrowing spirals of despondency and self-pity at every opportunity," acknowledging that game is designed to infect and twist the player's psyche.  Should one choose to play the game, he/she will inevitably ask the question, "Why the bleeding hell do I keep playing?"  And then it strikes.  The player no longer plays because it's enjoyable; he/she plays because success after repeated failure is an addiction.  Gaming becomes compulsion, not unlike gambling, except the player constantly bets hours instead of chips.  The player willingly undergoes the constant threat of failure in a world where respite is a luxury not afforded when it is often most needed.  Danger lurks not only around every corner but also long after the system is powered down, as the player constantly wonders about better strategies to get past that one boss that seems impossible.  Losing thousands of souls due to a misstep or an unknown ambush is certainly cause for despair and anger, but the persistent player continues to fight, using each failure as a teaching tool.  Death and punishment serves as the game's central pedagogy, turning the player into a student.  The game actively trains you to rethink what it is to die in a virtual space.  Through some perverse game coded witchcraft, the developers turn failure into progress, an uncomfortable inversion of what we assume video games should do.

The horror influences in From Software's Dark Souls are clear in creature design and Gothic architecture, but it is the horrific nature of punishing gameplay that pushes the bounds of what video game horror can be.  A novel or film can linger in the reader/viewer's mind, but only in games can the player actively participate in his/her own waking nightmare.  As I make my way through the dilapidated hellscape of Dark Souls, I can't help but be reminded of the poet T.S. Eliot's poems The Waste Land and The Hollow Men (both from which I have quoted in the picture captions above) which are both known for their beautiful bleakness.  The same could be said of From Software's Dark Souls (as well as its predecessor, Demon's Souls), as the game design is both elegant and horrifying.  It's a journey into a Nietzschean abyss that doesn't just stare back.  It rends the player with claw and fang and leaves him/her with questions as to why he/she continues to play while spurring the player downward into a world of unspeakable horror, only claw back out again.

Cheers,

--David

Beenox's Amazing Spider-Man: An Issue of Trust

In an earlier post, I explained why I was excited for Beenox's new Spider-Man game. I did not like Shattered Dimensions, so I didn't bother playing Edge of Time. Nevertheless, I felt drawn to The Amazing Spider-Man simply because I wanted to swing. After reading Greg Miller's IGN review (and several others), I decided to buy the game despite its lukewarm reception. Now that I have completed the game and spent substantial time with it, I find that the game can be a lot of fun, but I do not think I'll return to it. I agree with most reviews that if you come in with low expectations, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Overall, though, Spider-Man fans and gamers alike should ask for more control and nuance, as well as a certain level of trust in the relationship between player and product.

The Amazing Spider-Man has its great moments. Beenox really nails the Spider-Man aesthetic--not so much in the comic book sense, but it seems like a world where Spider-Man fits. The story and characters come together and create a genuine atmosphere, and in no where is this more present than Spider-Man's swinging movements. The camera's close focus on Spider-Man's movements brings the web-slinger to life as he thwips around Manhattan. The web rush mechanic, although simple, sets in motion some stunning traversal animations. Just looking at this gameplay video reveals the elegance of Spider-Man's swing animation:

Bringing the game back to Manhattan proves successful. As I said in my earlier post, Spider-Man needs his concrete jungle to be Spider-Man just as Batman needs Gotham to be the Dark Knight. It's an absolute thrill to swing around the city, and the numerous comic book pages scattered throughout give the player impetus to explore every corner of the island. The buildings shine, and the changes in time of day breathe life into the city. Due to poor to middling draw distance, though, sometimes the streets look deserted, but this changes as Spider-Man falls toward them, catching himself at the last moment, whether you want to or not. And therein lies my biggest gripe with the game. Beenox does not trust the player to control Spider-Man.

The repetitive mission structure doesn't bother me. I am more or less unfazed by the indoor missions; they neither interest nor bore me. The sometimes awkward or uninspired character models have no real bearing on my dissatisfaction with the title. And I could ultimately care less about spoilers for the upcoming film. The problem I have with The Amazing Spider-Man is the fact that the game does not seem to respect the player's ability to work to become the titular hero. In what is undoubtedly an attempt to be more cinematic, the game moves Spider-Man almost automatically, wresting control and consequence from the player.

IGN community members (myself included) have made comparisons between The Amazing Spider-Man and Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham City, and these are not without warrant. Beenox borrows heavily from the Arkham formula, especially in combat and stealth mechanics. Spidey strikes from the shadows, and he takes on groups of enemies with the Batman's method of attack, reversal, jump, and stun (in this game, you can stun enemies with webbing). While this combat system works, most encounters left me feeling bored and cheated. The system works in the Batman Arkham games because Batman's combat style is precise and punishing, incapacitating enemies with surgical efficiency. Spider-Man's fighting style relies more on speed and disorientation; the character flips, webs, punches, kicks, and bounces all around the combat area in order to confuse his opponents while administering a barrage of pain and wisecracks. Beenox clearly understands Spider-Man's spectacular style as the character moves quickly in combat, but the Webhead doesn't perform these actions because the player makes him--he moves this way because simply pressing one button will launch the character into a dynamic finisher involving web shots and a beatdown that the player can watch without touching his/her controller. This problem occurs most glaringly in boss battles when Spidey leaps over giant robotic limbs and kicks the crap out of weak points, all with the press of a button.

Yes, you eventually fight it. Or, rather, game kind of does it for you, but it still counts, right?

Now, gamers are not strangers to quick time events, but we usually weaken the boss first with a (hopefully) intricate and intuitive combat system. Most of the boss fights here, at least the larger ones, employ a "strike here" type of gameplay where you web rush to a certain point on the enemy, watch the attack action, and retreat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Spider-Man performs wildly acrobatic and impressive moves without requiring complex inputs, thus negating satisfying feedback to the player. As a result, I never felt like I could control Spider-Man. I felt like a mediator between the onscreen Spider-Man character model and the internal systems of the game that make him move. It feels like Spider-Man lite, not a Spider-Man experience.

These issues appear in the locomotion of the character as well. Simply holding the web swing button down allows for what appears as radical flips and gravity-defying feats. As I mentioned, web rush moves look impressive, but for the player, it can also feel cheap. I wanted to be able to place the webs on the buildings with a mechanic similar to Activision's Spider-Man 2. (Note: I will never understand why a developer cannot keep the swing mechanics from Spider Man 2 in tact and build an open world game with an original story from there) I wanted to save Spider-Man at the last millisecond of free fall with a flick of his wrist right before he becomes a red and blue on the city street. But it's hard to feel satisfied with a quick save when the underlying architecture removes fall damage from the game. This twisted Manhattan--where potential death at the hands of physics is no cause for alarm--undercuts the importance of Spider-Man's sacrifice for the city and its citizens because in a world without danger, being a superhero is profoundly less super. An invincible hero, after all, is a boring hero...or Superman (I'm kidding, kinda).

I can honestly say that there are parts of the game I enjoy. I love swinging, and the combat works fairly well. For Spider-Man fans, it's worth playing. But I have my reservations about the way Beenox insists that this game provides an authentic Spider-Man experience when it removes complexity and nuance from the controls. Unfortunately, this move is indicative of the current state of video game development that infantilizes the individual with the controller in his/her hand. So seldom do games trust the player enough to find his/her own way in the game's system or take time to learn complex controls that, when it happens, it becomes novelty or niche (i.e. Dark/Demon's Souls). In order for the game to teach the player a satisfying input system, the developers need to trust the player to fail and to use that failure to learn. The Amazing Spider-Man swings along at great height and top speed, but it does so with a safety web the player does not need nor should want. We're all still waiting for a great caliber Spider-Man game, and this one is far from that ideal. Maybe the figure on the screen can do whatever a spider can, but he does so without much help from the player, which makes me wonder whether I actually played the game at all.

Cheers,

--David

Gaming the West in Red Dead Redemption

Likely the most instantly recognizable genre in any form, the Western has endured through the 20th century by undergoing transformations as varied as the stories told around campfires built in the moonlit night of the American frontier. From the gratuitous spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone to the revisionist novels of Cormac McCarthy, the genre shifts and bends according to the person behind the camera or the pen, but the fixed archetypal elements remain present enough for the viewer/reader to understand the work's function in its generic history. The Man With No Name trilogy gave Hollywood Clint Eastwood's iconic portrayal of the titular hero (aka "Blondie"), the quintessential "drifter" character living outside the law. McCarthy's Blood Meridian depicts the West as a place steeped in myth and blood. Due to the versatility of its elements, it amazes me how seldom they are used in video games.

The first Western-themed game I played was LucasArts' Outlaws (1997), a first-person shooter in which a retired U.S. Marshal hunts down the evil railroad baron who killed his wife and kidnapped his daughter. Though I never really liked the in-game cartoonish graphics (this was before cel shading solved the problem of placing cartoons in a 3D envioronment), the cutscenes made the atmosphere come alive. Outlaws spins a good yarn, and would be my favorite traditional Western game until 2010, when Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption, an award-winning game that I'm sure everyone who is reading this has played. Finally, a developer nailed the genre in look, atmosphere, and overall feel. The writing, the voice work, the mechanics, all of them crystallized in a near pitch-perfect work of genre fiction that paid homage to its inspirations while carving out a new niche for games in the Western genre. John Marston's journey toward redemption seems like standard fare for the Western genre, but Rockstar gave us a way to pick apart a genre the only way an open world video game can: we control how John Marston lives.

Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been.
His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again
in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous
to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to
man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.
--Blood Meridian

Red Dead Redemption's New Austin is violent...extremely violent. When the player first control Marston, the character is already wounded and bloody, barely a survivor of his first encounter with Bill Williamson. Even the household chores, as anyone who grew up on a farm (myself included) can attest, involve a fair degree of violence as you shoot vermin to protect crops or livestock. Violence in the frontier is unavoidable. Through these simple gameplay elements, the game invests meaning in the most mundane daily activities. Roping and breaking broncos, driving cattle, hunting, they all involve violence or danger in some form or fashion, and it is in these situations where the video game breaks from the Western film genre and becomes more novelesque.

I think that Red Dead Redemption owes just as much influence to Cormac McCarthy as it does John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. In his Western novels (particularly his Border Trilogy), McCarthy finds significance in almost every aspects of daily life in the American West. For instance, this passage from All the Pretty Horses shows how the protagonist, John Grady Cole comes to a deep, metaphysical understanding of pain and existence simply by listening to the horse eat:

He lay listening to the horse crop the grass at his stakerope and he listened
to the wind in the emptiness and watched stars trace the arc of the hemisphere and
die in the darkness at the edge of the world as he lay there the agony in his heart
was like a stake. He imagined the pain of the world to be like some formless parasitic being
seeking out the warmth of human souls wherein to incubate and he thought he knew
what made one liable to its visitations. What he had not known was that it was mindless
and so had no way to know the limits of those souls and what he feared was that there might be no limits.
--All the Pretty Horses

McCarthy's language is elegaic, tragic, and hauntingly beautiful. But the language of Red Dead Redemption (and video games at large) functions much more differently, namely through gameplay. Every task that Marston performs raises questions about control and motivation. The men forcing Marston to hunt down his former gang members are metonymous for the player's physically controlling Marston. The person with the controller is, of course, just as culpable as Edgar Ross in Marston's torment. We make John Marston kill, we make him hunt, we make him go to missions in Mexico and New Austin. Marston, as he gets pulled into the Mexican Revolution, even admits to Abraham Reyes, "I'm a semi-literate farmer. I ain't in the power game," a meta-narrative comment that, by no coincidence, calls attention to his position as a character in a game. Yet we, too, are limited by the game's scope in what we can do. In these moments of the game, we can pause to enjoy a Western sunset or have drink at the local bar because the game allows us certain freedoms, but those freedoms are bound to the system of the game just as Marston is bound to Edgar Ross. Thus, performing the mundane task of shooting rabbits gains significance about what constitutes gameplay. Can chores be made fun if they're performed in virtual space? The game asks these questions, if tacitly, through its gameplay and mission structure.

The similarities between McCarthy's Border Trilogy and Rockstar's Western do not end in the world of the mundane--these texts are elegies for the American West. In All the Pretty Horses, for example, John Grady Cole, a young man who grew up on his grandfather's ranch until his grandfather's death in 1949, elects to, rather than to live in town after the ranch's closing, to leave his home on horseback in search of work on a ranch in Mexico. Cole begins his journey as a romantic believer in the ethos of the Old West, but he finds the same inescapable truth that Marston does--that the West was settled through blood and political corruption rather than through ideals of American exceptionalism. McCarthy explores this concept broadly in Blood Meridian as well, setting the novel in pre-Civil War America where the West becomes a place of unfathomable horror and grotesque cruelty.

He can neither read nor write and in him already there broods a taste for mindless violence.
All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.
--Blood Meridian

It's easy to see Red Dead Redemption as a spaghetti Western, but I find the powerful narrative and gameplay work to create something more powerful than films or (most) novels are capable of manufacturing. The game does not just question Marston's actions or the actions of his enemies. It makes us participants in the founding of a virtual Modern America, working for or against the closing of the frontier and inhabiting the American West during its twilight years. In my very first post, I used Marston's story as an example of ludonarrative dissonance. Yes, he can tie a nun and leave her on a railroad track, and the game still tells you that you are a tragic hero and bandit-turned-family-man. But perhaps that's why the game is something special. It gives you the story structure and shootout gameplay of a Sergio Leone movie as well as the contemplative depth of a Cormac McCarthy novel. Red Dead Redemption casts a long shadow over the genre of Western fiction, and I don't see any text coming out of the dust to challenge its place anytime soon.

Cheers,

--David

Video Games and the Legacy of Genre Fiction

When most people think of the word "literature," their minds conjure up images of Shakespearean tragedy, of epic poetry, of large books about white whales and national revolutions, of the Romantics (Byron, Shelley), of the Victorians (Dickens, Eliot), and of modernists (Joyce, Hemingway, Woolf). Unfortunately, most also think of crippling boredom and tweed-clad professor types who talk ad nauseum about the cultural importance of these works and writers in front a group of people who would rather be somewhere else. I've been on all sides of the classroom--a rapt listener, an exhausted teacher, a bored student. This post, however, is not about the canon or instruction of English or American literature. Hell, it's not even about literature (that part is for context), but rather a discussion of genre and how it fits in with current video game trends.

Just as great artists like T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf were writing great works that would greatly influence and define early 20th century art, other writers churned out books as quickly as they could, forsaking linguistic complexity in favor of fast-paced plots, cheap laughs, or easy thrills. This tradition is called "genre writing," and it was often viewed as vulgar and amateurish by the high art literati--but it sold. The genres of mystery, adventure, vaudeville comedy, horror/gothic, and science fiction (still in its infancy) became established, and with them, so did the rules that governed each genre. For adventure, a group of men needed to explore a remote corner of the world, meet the natives, and reify the importance of civilization. In mysteries, the detective investigates his case with mathematical precision and dizzying intellect. A horror story worthy of H.P. Lovecraft needs a blend of psychological terror and supernatural influence. Genre fiction is comfortable, predictable, safe, and, above all else, profitable.

The influence of these generic formulas in the video game scene is more than evident. Gamers no exactly what they're getting into when they pre-order a science fiction, war epic, fantasy, adventure, or horror game. It's a brilliant marketing tool, and it's always effective. Just take a look at a few games' cover art juxtaposed with covers of novels from the same genre:

Adventure

Uncharted 3 cover art (2011)

One More Step, Mr. Hands from a 1911 edition of Stevenson's Treasure Island

Both Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Naught Dog's Uncharted 3 fit nicely into the adventure genre. Each involves a cast of rogues outside of their own countries and cultures, a fair bit a violence, and, of course treasure. The images, then, are noticeably similar, giving the consumer a quick look at the product. We can easily tell that these will contain the tropes of adventure fiction--violence, action, set pieces, etc--as well as key plot points (a plane crash and an encounter on the ship).

Horror

Resident Evil 2 American cover art (1998)

Stoker's Dracula book cover (1902)

Here, both covers achieve more in atmosphere than they do in plot--a hallmark of the horror genre. The character on the front of the book cover (presumably the titular count) evokes a threatening, and intensely gothic, feel. The same could be said of the game cover, though a bit more modernized: the source of fear looks directly at the viewer, intensifying the threat of danger. We know what we're getting into when we buy either of these products.

Mystery

Heavy Rain cover art (2010)

Dorothy Sayers' Clouds of Witness (1926)

I find this pair to be the most interesting of the three. Both contain an object in close proximity to blood. We know these objects will be of great importance to the overall plot, but what that connection is remains...well, a mystery. Mysteries and whodunits often involve a single item wanted by multiple people that is the central cause of the conflict--this object is often referred to as a MacGuffin. (Note: They're also called "plot coupons" by people who look down on formulaic writing) Here, the MacGuffins appear to be the focal points of the artworks, letting the viewer know that the plots revolve heavily around these objects.

Obviously these three examples do not entirely encapsulate all of gaming and genre fiction traditions into a set of rigid instructions. Indeed, one of the most interesting facets of genre writings is not how each work fits into its generic category, but rather how they deviate from the established paradigms. Even some of the most widely respected novelists of the 20th century worked within such paradigms to test their own experimental writings. Joyce's Ulysses, for example, is well known for (among other things) transforming one day in the mundane life of an Irishman into an exploration of language and literature worthy of an epic poem, while simultaneously interrogating the division between "high" and "low" art styles.

Also, that same Irishman masturbates in an episode
written in the style of contemporary woman's magazine.
Literature, folks.

I posit that video games often function in very much the same manner. A "good" video game challenges the constraints of its genre. Uncharted 3 addresses Nathan Drake's compulsion to complete his adventure even if it means the death of his partner, Sully. Resident Evil 2 asks the player to subject him/herself to the horrors of the game universe by employing controls that limit the onscreen character's mobility. Heavy Rain affords the player the opportunity to not follow Ethan Mars through the physical and psychological torments of the Origami Killer. These games play with genre convention in ways offer interpretive insight into the inner workings of gameplay and narrative.

My goal is a series of posts that discusses games (hopefully with help from fellow IGN community members) about how games employ and challenge the paradigms of their respective genres. Complicating the matter, however, is the fact that gaming culture has invented its own system of classification, lumping games into categories of first-person shooter, role-playing game, survival-horror, third-person shooter, dungeon crawler, sports simulator, fighting, etc. Looking at games from the perspective of generic convention reveals how they--just like novels, films, dramas, and poetry--toy with such restraints, often testing the limits established archetypes. Video games have become one of the most culturally important avenues of interrogation of contemporary values, and writing about their connections to genre fiction can make more evident the importance of adhering to and breaking from paradigms. I hope you check back soon to read about and discuss this topic.

Cheers,

--David

Playing through the Payne: The Issues of Max Payne 3

Warning: Here there be spoilers.
It happened in the decaying favela slums of Sao Paulo.  It had been a good few weeks since I picked up the controller to play Max Payne 3, so I figured why not go back.  Max Payne 3 has perhaps the most polished gunplay I have ever experienced--it's almost as satisfying as a real trip to the gun range.  In my second playthrough, the shooting and movement still felt dynamic as the first time, but in the streets of the ghetto, while Max undergoes a "hangover sent straight from Mother Nature," something felt off.  After his employer is killed and the building burns down around him, Max has a life-changing epiphany--no more booze until he puts a bullet in the brain behind this convoluted plot involving organ harvesting and political corruption.  The plot takes off in a very clear, direct path for redemption and brutal execution...but the gameplay stays the same.

Here is a textbook example of ludonarrative dissonance (shameless plug for the title of my blog).  From the beginning of the game, we know Max Payne bathes in alcohol and derides himself for being a washed-up loser.  Yet he moves with the practiced grace and precision of ballet dancer, placing shots between the eyes of his would-be killers with surgical accuracy.  It's hard to buy that Max is simultaneously a booze-soaked, pill-popping slob (he even tells his partner "I'm not slipping, I've slipped") and a grotesquely efficient killer.  Is this really the performance of a pilled-up drunk with a gun?:

Tom Bissell, one of the most established game critics I've read, writes about this in his article on Max Payne 3, saying that the game is "quite possibly the most ludonarratively dissonant video game ever made" and arguing that, in the end, the game "appears to be trying to say something about regret and death and slaughter and addiction, but, of course, can't."  I tend to agree.  The game sacrifices synchronicity in favor of a well-polished shooting system.  After all, who the hell cares if a game's story syncs up perfectly at the expense of gameplay?  Controlling a drunk, stumbling Max Payne for the first few hours of the game would not a happy gamer make.  Nevertheless, if a developer chooses to make a game as narratively driven and brutal as Max Payne, then said developer should work to elevate the purpose behind having a player kill hundreds of virtual people, drunk or sober.  One way to alleviate this issue would have been a cosmetic change to the gameplay--other than Max's shaving his head and donning a Hawaiian t-shirt.  Something as simple as making the gunplay a bit sloppier in the first half of the game by using more motion blur or by eliminating kill cams altogether would make Max's narrative shift better.  Imagine playing the game for a while and enjoying the crisp gunplay, just without the exquisite detail (because Max is drunk), only to be completely blindsided by the clarity of the the death animations in the latter half of the game when Max sobers up.  The impact would be narratively and ludologically synchronous--Max's clarity would be the player's clarity.  The trade-off would be significant, to be sure, but if the gameplay were still crisp and the visuals dialed down in the first few chapters, the transition could be extremely effective.

But the heavy themes the game introduces would still need to be resolved.  Max Payne 3 raises the issues of poverty, redemption through violence, and the carelessness of the rich without offering any type of ludological investigation of how to deal with them. The only issue explored in gameplay is extreme violence, and even then, mostly through the slow cam close-up.  The game forces the player to witness up close and in incredible detail countless bodies' being torn and shredded in gory, beautiful detail.  Only in these instances does the player have the opportunity to understand what exactly all this killing begets in the form of dynamic death animations brilliantly crafted to respond to where the bullet pierces the body.  The player also has the ability to slow down the camera to see with greater clarity the character's last movements as well as the ability to keep firing at the body even though the enemy is dead.  Affording the player with the ability to slow down and view pieces of metal ripping and tearing the human body allows the player to reflect on the means he/she employs to accomplish Max's goal.  But after about the hundredth time I saw a slow motion death sequence, it no longer induced a wince from me; I kept wondering what is the purpose behind it.  Am I supposed to feel guilty?  Am I supposed to gain some sort of insight about the human propensity to violence?  Is the message that violence only begets more violence?  Or am I simply asked to enjoy the carnage?  Entertaining any one of these questions seems like a logical critical step, but upon execution, the results are unsatisfying.  The game, in this respect, seems a missed opportunity.

It's brutal, it's disgusting, it's beautifully rendered, and it's provocative. But what does it mean?

Let me reiterate, though, that Max Payne 3 boasts the most responsive and satisfying shooting mechanics I've ever experienced. Nevertheless, if games are going to be elevated to the artistic standard we so fervently argue they do, the questions regarding video game violence and ludonarrative dissonance must be addressed. The interaction on part of the player redirects the moral responsibility of executing a person-shaped pile of ones and zeroes back on the one holding the controller.  The role of the critic, then, should be to unpack the meaning embedded in the code as pixels explode across the screen.  Performing such an exercise on Max Payne 3 yields mixed results, but the game may be compelling precisely because of this problem.  There's no way to synthesize violence and meaning here; the game drags you down into a blood-spattered critical hell and challenges you to climb back out--bullet by bullet.  Perhaps that's commentary enough.

Cheers,

--David

Why I'm Looking forward to Beenox's Amazing Spider-Man (and a note on adaptation)

In a recent conversation I had with an adviser, the topic of adaptation came up (he did not like the Coen Brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, and it's one of my favorite movies). Weeks later during my qualifying field exams, he asked me a question about adaption and how it should be approached. Therefore, I quickly through together a theory of adaptation, explaining how a writer should go about adapting a written work to a film. Here's where I differ from a lot of my colleagues: as much time as I spend among books, I don't really think anything is so sacred that it can't be adapted into another medium (books into movies, movies into plays, plays into poems, poems into paintings, etc.). As long as the artists keeps two very important things in mind:

1. The "spirit" of the original must be kept in tact. If the book is written to be experimental, plays with perspective, is linguistically complex, it's accompanying film should do the same to its genre. Plots should change (hence the "adapt" in "adaptation") if the original impetus can remain noticeably in tact.

2.The adapted product should be able to stand on its own, working within the confines of its medium. In other words, you should be able to enjoy each in its own right, without having to engage with its counterpart. Don't make a film too much like a novel or vice versa--let the medium work on its own terms.

Video games are no different. They have also had a cliched checkered past with problems in the adaptation area. Superhero games and IP's established outside of the gaming world have not historically fared well. Recently, Rocksteady upset this balance by releasing it's wildly successful Batman: Arkham series, and, what do you know it, they adhered to the two rules I hold quite dear to adaptation. The Arkham universe is fully Batman, but the developers' changes in character design, art direction, and overall plot made for two utterly engrossing gaming experiences. They can stand alone or be complemented by the comics and stories from which they draw inspiration, and, above all else, the game just plain works. This type of consideration is what I'm hoping for in Beenox's upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, and from the looks of gameplay footage, they may actually deliver.

In a recent interview with Game Informer, Ken Levine (of Bioshock fame) had this to say about the webhead:

"I’ll always be a Spider-Man guy. I grew up reading comics, and he’s every nerd. He’s how we all view ourselves as outsiders, and he does it with humor and self deprecation. To me, there’s every other superhero, and then there’s Spider-Man."

Yes. Yes I did. 

I, and so many other people, feel similarly about the character. Though I'm first and foremost a Batman guy, Spider-Man will always be my second. Always. There is something about the nerdy guy balancing his unexpected powers, his increasingly complex social life, and his overall compulsion to be the hero New York needs that speaks to damn near every young boy to ever pick up a comic book. Peter Parker isn't the guy his fans strive to be: he's the guy his fans are--he just happens to have the super powers. For us (or at least for me), Peter Parker's social awkwardness rang so much truer to me than Wolverine's standoffishness, Superman's altruism, or Batman's tormented psyche. He's a very specific type of "everyman," meant for broad appeal to be sure, but there's enough in there that's resonates more strongly with a very specific type of introverted person. For much of my life in my early teenage years and younger, I happened to be that type...and I guess I still am.

It's such a shame, then, that Spidey hasn't been a video game superstar. In the early side-scrolling arcade beat-em-ups Spider-Man made numerous appearances, but as much as Maximum Carnage (1994) is, Spider-Man doesn't seem like Spider Man. It wasn't until I played Neversoft's Spider-Man (2000) that I actually felt like I was controlling Spider-Man, and even then it was only in the levels that had the wall crawler web-jetting his way across the Manhattan skyline. The combat, the writing, and all the other aspects of the game seemed only tangentially important. It was the swinging that hooked me.

The Spider-Man swing reached its zenith in 2004, when Activision's movie tie-in Spider-Man 2 was released. All other Spider-Man games--indeed, all other super hero or licensed games--were eclipsed by the virtual playground that was Spider-Man 2's Manhattan. Sure, I loved the films, but nothing about reading or watching the web head fight crime could compare to the feeling of actually directing the character around his city. Here, the spirit of the franchise I so loved absolutely soared. This is what being the Web Head should feel like. The motion of the gameplay of Spider-Man 2 still holds up to this day.

The game was far from perfect, as the issues that so often plague movie games flare up so generously in this title--wooden acting, an awkwardly expanded story, overall lack of texture polish, etc. But the physics of the web swinging was spot on, and I lost myself for hours on end swinging from one side of the island to the next, solving one mundane repeated crime after another. Much like Batman needs Gotham, Spider-Man needs his city. He needs the slingshot kinesis of web mobility, deftly darting between skyscrapers and free falling from ledges, only to be caught at the last split second by a flick of the wrist. Anything less shortchanges our hero drastically. That is why the last two games that Beenox released felt lacking. Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time both took Spidey away from the city he needs, and as a result, this player never felt like he was controlling Spider-Man. It was just a guy (or rather multiple guys) with similar powers in weird situations. The games were pantomimes instead of the real deal because they lost the spirit I felt so prevalent in the franchise. (Note: I did not care for Shattered Dimensions, so I never played Edge of Time. If the reviews are to be believed, I dodged a bullet.)

That's what I'm for with The Amazing Spider-Man: the real deal. Based on the gameplay we have seen and the live interview at E3, Beenox promises to deliver a game that, in the words of IGN's Greg Miller, "doesn't suck." I like the zoomed in camera that focuses on the physical movement. I like how the hand-to-hand combat takes a page from the Batman: Arkham series handbook. I like the shiny new graphics. But more than anything I like the movement:

Spider-Man swings like Spider-Man, the one thing unique to the character's power. Other heroes have projectiles, super strength and mobility, and some can even cling to stuff. But only Spider-Man has the web swing through Manhattan. If Beenox delivers that, we may see another franchise that could stand next to the Arkham franchise as another game to break the curse that follows superhero franchise games. Beenox doesn't have the perfect track record, of course, but my interest is piqued. The team at Beenox has a culturally powerful IP on their hands, and, as we've all heard--ad nauseum--with great power comes great responsibility.

Cheers,

--David

Ludonarrative Dissonance: A Manifesto (of sorts)

I've never had a blog before.  I think that's fairly evident due to the fact that I've acknowledged any potential readership as "all."  Anyway, I want to build a blog for multiple.  The first and foremost is that I love all things video games. I have ever since the first time I booted up my sister's NES and died constantly as the very first goomba in Super Mario Bros. walked right into the player-controlled bundle of pixels that was Mario. (I did, though, eventually figure out how to jump)

The second reason is more career-oriented practice.  Allow me to elaborate.  I'm currently working on my PhD. in English Literature, my focus' being on Modernism and modernity (for the sake of information, roughly the trans-Atlantic artists working between the years of 1900 and 1945).  My current dissertation topic involves the influence of technology in certain works, specifically mechanical breakdown, and a bunch of other annoying details that you don't want to read and I don't feel like writing.  I write a lot.  A whole lot.  I also teach freshmen composition where I study, so I talk about writing a lot.  A whole lot.  My reason for elaborating is that this will be an avenue for me to practice my writing about topics and issues that interest me greatly.

My goal--for now at least--is very direct.  I want to spark a dialogue about not only the importance of games, but also the meaning(s) embedded within them: the mechanics, the visuals, the narratives, the sounds, the emotions they evoke, etc.  Why do we love them?  Why are they culturally relevant?  Why do they sell so well?  What can we expect from the future of the industry?  Why do people hate them?  Who gets to decide if novels, film, poetry, drama, are more important (..ahem...Roger Ebert is wrong...ahem)?  And last, but not least (though often most belabored) are they art?  The answer, of course, is a resounding "yes," but the tacit "why" that the question begs is a bit trickier to pinpoint.

The title for my blog is "Ludonarrative Dissonance."  By this, I mean specifically the point in a game where the narrative is at odds with the gameplay.  Here's an example. When John Marston of Red Dead Redemption hogties a nun and leaves her on the railroad tracks in front of an incoming train, it's the players' choice.  Nevertheless, the story still frames him as a victim of a sadistic system of government of circumstance.  Here, the narrative and the ludological aspects of gameplay are at odds, telling two separate stories and asking the player to synthesize the two.  This subject is not the only one I want to explore, but it's a good place to start.

Anyway, I hope that I gain a few people interested, and I plan to post every week or so my observations or insights into certain games, comics, movies, and other aspects of the industry.  Much like when I run a classroom, I want to see if I can incite discussion or provide an interesting point for someone to think about.  So without further explanation, let's see how this thing evolves.

Cheers,

--David