Finding the Lack of Fun...and Why It Can Be Rewarding

I'm a Scotch drinker. I don't however, consider it a fun drink. I like it because it's often smoky. I like it because it burns going down, and, if you're not careful with it, it can knock you right on your ass. I like my art like I like my Scotch: challenging, complex...and with maybe just a hint of absurd nihilism. It doesn't have to be fun or pretty. I like it to challenge me, make me rethink the way I understand language and narrative or color, subject, and perspective. It stands to reason, then, that I approach games in the same way I drink a glass of Scotch--to experience something complex. Sometimes I play because the story hooked me more than the mechanics. I play because the game is beating me senseless, and I'm too pissed to quit. I play because a game's thematically challenging, and I just want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. I play because I want to see which glitches I can exploit (Bethesda, folks...Bethesda), to discover where the boundaries of the world end, to figure out how I can read this digital text in a meaningful way. As a literature scholar, I constantly ask myself questions regarding the pleasure of a certain text, and I posit that games can be approached the same way. Sure, approaching a game with a goal other than having "fun" seems like a ridiculous idea, but it can lead to new insights on how games function as forms of art and entertainment.

My general rule, like almost everyone else's, is that once I stop getting some type of satisfaction out of a game, I stop playing. There are games that I've played, however, that I found less amusing than was worth the time I put into them. I never finished Crysis because, try as I might, I just couldn't get into it. I finished Dead Space, but I didn't really enjoy it. I just wanted to get my money's worth and see if I like its brand of genre horror (I do, but not enough that I'd ever return to it). I hated Dead Island. I'm worse at Madden and NCAA football games than I am at actual football. I got bored with Red Steel 2. I cannot find the joy in user-generated content. I only played Assassin's Creed: Revelations so I could get the story before ACIII; for me, the game was close to joyless. These games I usually abandon or sell fairly quickly because there's just not enough there for me to keep them.

But the ones I do keep, I don't always hang on to them because they're "fun" in the traditional sense. One such game that I enjoy without having fun is Dark Souls. I've already written about Dark Souls, so I won't repeat my larger argument there. The game does not entertain me in nearly the same way other games do. The combat system tasks my brain to constantly anticipate my enemies' reactions, making every single encounter a puzzle with a set number of variables. Exploration fills me with dread, as I approach each new area with more trepidation and anxiety than excitement. I cannot play the game for long periods of time, and it, like its predecessor Demon's Souls, requires more time to master than I have to give it. I, nevertheless, have held onto it, returning to the game every now and then when I'm feeling masochistic. I play it because I am fascinated with how it attacks not just my character, but my actual psyche. Yet, in those brief moments after I've killed a massive boss or I've successfully navigated through a trap-filled fortress, the trials seem worth the effort. Dark Souls' play structure functions as a type of Zen master, and the player serves as the game's apprentice, willing to undergo ruthless tutelage in order to achieve "enlightenment" in the form of a successful playthrough. Dark Souls is a digital koan I play to achieve satisfaction through struggle--not a game I enjoy for its "fun factor."

Whereas Dark Souls provides a gameplay experience akin to taxing meditation, the converse type of meditative experience arises in thatgamecompany's Journey and Flower. I love these games because they offer the potential to create meaningful, emotional experiences in digital playgrounds, but I wouldn't classify my experience with them as fun. I did not initially play Flower because it's fun to play; I played the game because I wanted a gameplay experience not built around violence. The first time I moved pedals across the meadow, I was calmed. I immensely enjoyed the responsiveness of the controls as they synced with the waltz-like movement on the screen. I came to Journey with a similar expectation of enjoying an experience driven by emotion and isolation rather than the pursuit of some obvious goal. The haunted vagueness of Journey's world becomes not a series of digital rooms and challenges toward that white light at the end, but rather the game itself, insisting on nothing but its own existence. I cannot (and nor would I want to) deny that my time with Journey was worthwhile and enjoyable (even deeply meaningful), but I still don't see it as a "fun" game.

Beautiful? Yes. Meaningful? Absolutely. Enjoyable? Infinitely. Fun? ...erhm maybe?....

A game does not have to be either brutally punishing or quietly calming to offer something other than fun. Sometimes, a game is worth playing because its content is challenging. Spec Ops: The Line provided the most compelling game experience for me so far this year, and it did so without being fun. The mechanics serve the narrative and themes at play, and that's about it. I did not enjoy my time in Dubai, per se, but I have completed the game twice. The story drags the characters through a hellish pit of surrealist military nihilism with the player in tow. It breaks apart not just the characters but the shooter genre, all by exploring what it really means to play soldier. Every person I killed had weight and significance. I felt every atrocity my digital avatar committed. I've done horrible things because a game directed me to...and I've tread even darker virtual paths because I chose them. I continued to play Spec Ops not because the combat was enjoyable and fun. I wanted to finish the story and continue on this path of self-destruction. And when it was done, I went back and did it all again. It's not a fun trip, but it's one worth taking.

You just phosphorus bombed a group of civilians. Are we having fun yet?

Though Spec Ops proves to be an excellent exercise in gameplay nihilism, it is not alone in this respect. Playdead's Limbo and Jonathan Blow's Braid offer ambiguously dark game experience, albeit through different means. Both are platformer/puzzle hybrids taking place in strange lands, but while Limbo's black and white aesthetic makes loneliness and despair apparent from the outset of the child protagonist's journey, Braid masks its darker, solemn tone with lush, impressionistic art direction. I did not play these two games because I found them fun--the puzzle/platformer does not really appeal to me. I played them because I found their core concepts fascinating. The time-based puzzles in Braid required intricate solutions that, while rewarding once conquered, provided me little in the way of fun in experimentation. I kept playing because the game's mysterious story and surreal puzzles came together in meaningful ways that challenge narrative and generic conventions. Limbo, on the other hand, is built on a "trial-and-death" mechanic that forces the player to kill the protagonist time and time again. While I enjoy the game immensely, I don't focus on the fun of the platforming and puzzle solving but rather the dismal beauty of its art direction and the hauntingly minimalism of the core system. It disturbs instead of enchants me--and that keeps me coming back.

It's terrifying and disturbing, but is it fun?

I recognize how completely subjective my position on the issue of fun is. "Fun" is a loaded term, and positing some objective definition would be an exercise in futility. A gamer's relationship with a game is personal, and while I may find the sadistic gameplay of Dark Souls rewarding for its difficulty but not for its fun, I see no reason why someone could not have a blast with the combat. I get why someone would have a lot of fun playing Braid or Limbo, too. My point is simply this: sometimes, approaching a game for a reason other than fun, yields worthwhile results. With the games listed above, I rarely sit back and appreciate what a joy it is to play the game. I play them because they're maddening. I play them because their emotional. I play them because I want to see just how far the game can punish me without me biting back. I test them as much as they test me, and in the end, I turn the machine off, still thinking about how meaning or insight can be delivered through groups of pixels floating across a screen. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for a Scotch.

Cheers,

--David

Heroic Violence in the God of War Franchise: The Ultimate Postmodern Myth

I knew I loved God of War from the very first moment I made the pale barbarian Kratos pick up an undead warrior, dig his massive hands into the monster, and savagely rip it in half, showering himself with an arc of red blood. The motion was smooth and brutal, and the ripping, crunching, tearing sound that wretched from the rotting corpse made the beast's execution all the more satisfying. From that moment, I knew that I was in store for a whole new world of video game violence. I enjoy the over-the-top combat and epic battles of the game, and, yes, I freely admit to being fascinated by the spectacle of violence. While the franchise sometimes catches hell for being too violent, I don't think its goal is simple shock value. The game asks us to dare to enjoy the bloodshed while also punctuating the combat with moments of genuine discomfort. Over the course of five games, players have steered Kratos on his quest for revenge and see him fall more deeply into a hate-soaked frenzy, so much so that he eventually unleashes plagues on mankind that can only result in genocide. But Kratos doesn't exist in any real universe. His is the realm of Greek myth (albeit modernized) where heroes could be vicious and brutal. The result is a postmodern version of a very old world, where the violence of the tales the rhapsodes sang are given visceral life in the new medium of gameplay.

"Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, / murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, / hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, / great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion, / feasts for the dogs and birds, / and the will of Zeus was moving towards its end."

So begins Robert Fagles' translation of Homer's Iliad, the chronicle of the Trojan War of Greek (and later Roman) myth. We all know the story more or less, despite the mediocre Wolfgang Petersen film, but I want to call attention to the fact that the first lines of the poem, in its earliest written form, translate to an invocation to a muse to sing specifically about rage bears significant influence for situating Kratos in the epic tradition. His ethos stems from the aristocratic warrior archetype in Greek myth; princes and generals are the heroes of ancient Greece, and, since Kratos is the son of a god and a general in the Spartan army, it's easy to find his locus in ancient Greek literature. It is also easy to see why the Greeks looked to violent figures as heroes because it became a cultural necessity. Torture and gladiatorial combat were state-sanctioned in Athens and Sparta, and violence served as the most powerful political tool in antiquity, despite advances in philosophy that led to establishing schools of rhetoric. It's almost refreshing, then, to see a character that so perfectly embodies this cultural ethos. We'd like to believe that Achilles is as good looking as Brad Pitt or Hector as handsome as Eric Bana, but Greek concepts of beauty rarely intersected with what they thought of as "heroic." In a gaming landscape filled with handsome lovable rogues (Nathan Drake), dashing demon hunters (DMC's Dante), and attractive androgynous adventurers (pretty much any guy in Final Fantasy), it's refreshing to play as character who is ugly as sin and pissed as all hell.

A face only a mother could love...and he freakin' kills her, too. 

And it's only fitting that Kratos be so brutal. His story slides ride into the lexicon of Greek myth, but with a postmodern twist. As the ancient world's most adamant atheist, Kratos actively seeks the undoing of the entire Greek myth tradition. Since Kratos is a victim of control of gods, his character is also at the whim of the imagined worlds of Greek mythology. Killing the gods is not simply a fun narrative hook--it's Kratos' escape from the narrative itself. Greek mythology kills his wife and child because Ares makes Kratos kill his wife and child. Unlike every other hero in Greek mythology, Kratos sees the world he lives in for its ridiculousness. He is almost self-aware, as if he knows that he is trapped in the song of Greek poet--or in the case of the game, a narrator voiced by Linda Hunt. He kills to be liberated from the world of the game, not just for retribution or satisfaction. For this reason, Kratos' brutality increases with each installment and his goals become cloudy. First, he wants to kill Ares, then Zeus, then the Fates, then Zeus again, then Gaia, then everyone, then Zeus... It's exhausting and convoluted, and his motivations become less convincing each time he paints a new target, especially when the death of an Olympian means subjecting the innocent people of the world to plague and natural disasters. But whereas reviewers initially saw this dissonance as one of the game's flaws, I see it as part of the game's inherent design. Kratos' pathos erodes over time and he becomes increasingly alien to the player because he wants his freedom from the world that ensnares him, and the only way he can do that is through the tools the system and the ancient Greek tradition affords him: sheer, focused brutality.

Still, it's when that brutality is turned outward toward the player when the genre of the Greek myth really starts to break down. After all, by controlling Kratos, the player is complicit in this undoing of the Greek tradition. But it becomes doubly relevant when the player realizes that, though Kratos constantly tries to break bonds (bonds of humanity, of godhood, of fate, of Ares, of lineage), he simply can't because there's still someone yanking his metaphorical and literal chain: the person with the controller. Chains appear so often in the God of War that they become a recurring motif symbolizing not only Kratos' bondage to the gods, but also the bondage of video game architecture. When the player steers Kratos as he moves up and down (and eventually breaking) the Great Chain that connects Olympus, Earth, and Hades, it's a metaphor for his moving through (and sundering) the world of Greek myth recreated in game space. As the player is involved in the breaking of Kratos' universe, so too is he/she complicit in the violent atrocities Kratos commits. Killing a helpless caged warrior in God of War, two priests in God of War II, and a vulnerable woman in God of War III all in the name of Kratos' progress toward self and societal destruction issupposed to disturb the player and solidify his/her connection in the game's hero's quest. We're controlling Kratos, and we're the very apotheosis of the inescapable shackles he longs to break.

The game finally calls attention to this relationship in God of War III when Kratos kills Poseidon, and the camera shifts to the victim's perspective:

Here, we see firsthand the unflinching savagery of the monster we control, and that violence is projected out to the person with the controller. The player presses the buttons that makes Kratos attack the camera--a macabre act of self destruction. Kratos hates Poseidon, and he hates the player as they are both cruel masters and abusers of their power. This concept is reversed at the game's finale when the perspective is switched to Kratos' first-person view as the player fights the spirit of Zeus after Kratos' reconciliation. Both the player and Kratos know that the only way for him to truly be free is through his own execution. His only option, therefore, is suicide, and, with the player's help, Kratos delivers the coup de grace to both himself and to his slavery.

When I mention that God of War is the "ultimate" Greek myth, I dont' mean that it's the best; I mean that it's the last. It is a story constantly focused on its own terminus and the end of the Greek tradition. And only through gameplay could we enact this process of myth-destruction. I'm very eager to see if the newest entry in the God of War: Ascension follows the trajectory I've mapped out, but I'm betting it does. After all, can we really have Kratos without unspeakable violence that will lead to nothing but destruction? I really hope not.

So what do you guys think? Who's amped for Ascension? Do you buy my reading of the games? Let me know, and we'll get to talking.

Cheers,

--David

In Defense of Game Criticism

We've all heard it. Hell, we've probably said it. "Don't take it so seriously, it's just game." Or perhaps, "People are too sensitive." Or, my personal favorite, "They just don't understand." As much as critics love to voice their opinions about games, they are just as often demonized by self-proclaimed adamant defenders of gaming. Here, problems arise from both sides. The critics who are constructive get attacked almost as often as those who seek the undoing of the game industry. Just to clarify, this blog post is not a defense of the latter, but rather a case for the former, for those who work to enter into a dialogue about what the cultural significance of video games. If games are indeed the artistic products that fans so desperately argue, then they must be subject to the same critical exercises that have been used to discuss art, literature, and film--which means taking the game architecture and narrative under consideration when evaluating them.

First, a disclaimer: I absolutely do not condone the actions of pundits and politicians who see games as the root of all evils in the world. The Jack Thompsons of the world have little say in this discussion, if only to provide an example of how not to be a game critic. Those who see violent video games as the cause of violent actions such as shootings, beatings, rape, or any other violence, not only lack a basic understanding of the relationship between gameplay and understanding, but also they diminish the severity of the crimes themselves. Blaming a video game for a school shooting is irresponsible because it dangerously equates the explosions of pixels across a computer screen to very real, very tragic physical actions, which devalues the physical harm of the victim. And, quite frankly, it's bullsh*t. Similarly, the sensationalism in the media about sex in games such as Mass Effect is equally stupid. While I still think games haven't really dealt with sex responsibly (the only exception maybe being Atlus' Catherine), getting parents and politicians up in arms about some titillation offers nothing but a colossal waste of air time. Sure, sex and violence have seen a drastic surge in game presence this generation, but the people who condemn games are often not the people who know the state of the gaming industry or are unfamiliar with the game title in question. Just watch the clip below to get an idea of how not to go about the discussion:

These are not the people I defend. Instead, I want to focus on the people who offer real critiques of the games they play. For example, Keza Macdonald's opinion piece "What the Hell is with that Hitman Trailer?" offers a valid discussion of why some people have a serious problem with the Hitman "Attack of the Saints" trailer:

Her argument is well-executed, pointing out specifics in the trailer that should give the viewer pause. She states the issue that concerns her very matter-of-factly, saying,

"Let’s be clear here: the problem is not that Agent 47 is graphically murdering a group of women, though that’s pretty nasty. It’s that it fetishizes the violence and sexualises the women, drawing a clear line between sex and graphic violence that makes the trailer really distressing to watch, and leaves you questioning who the hell it’s designed to appeal to."

Furthermore, her opinion is not an unpopular one. Grant Howitt at theguardian states that watching "a chap who is murdering these naughty, naughty nuns (with details that border on the pornographic – lingering arse and crotch shots, sprays of blood over cleavage … you get the idea) makes the viewing a little uncomfortable," and Dan Silver at Mirror News calls the trailer "a shameless piece of sexist tat designed to get the internet worked into a lather and millions of YouTube plays." While I think Silver and Howitt are of the same opinion, McDonald provides detailed analysis of the trailer to back up her statement, implicitly offering the reader to take into account his/her own reading of the nuances of the trailer. She ends her piece with a few questions--"Are we supposed to find this trailer appealing? If so, why? What is supposed to appeal to us about it – the violence, the sexy nuns, the slow-motion gun pans, the image of scantily clad women getting taught a brutal lesson?"--and then provides her own conclusion: "This isn’t cool. We shouldn’t shrug and accept this kind of marketing material as representative of what we, as gamers, want to see. Publishers need to stop these tactics. It’s not acceptable, and in the eyes of many, many people it does a lot more harm to Hitman Absolution’s image than good." Her writing brings together questions about violence, feminism, and spectacle as well as the central question of of what a trailer is supposed to do. This is what a critic does; asks challenging questions while providing her own opinion to spark discussion.

Then the comments section happened. Some comments offered good counterpoints, citing actual gameplay from the Hitman franchise, which often features brothels and sexual situations as well as the obvious gratuitous violence. But others just outright denied the problems the trailer presents and resort to attacking her for offering a feminist critique of the trailer. Reverse sexism is obviously a provocative lens to view the game trailer, but without offering a counterpoint with civility, the comment section devolves into a series or rants instead of giving people the opportunity to discuss the issues raised by the trailer. Feminism in video games is a great topic for discussion, yet a quick view of the comment section provides no indication that people actually know what feminism is. The critic, then, is reduced, through no real fault of her own, to a caricature of herself: a bra-burning rights activist instead of someone offering a legitimate interrogation of where she can situate her values in the game. It's not entitlement; it's investigation. It's keeping a critical eye on the industry that we love, that we want to see flourish, and that we all enjoy. But most importantly, the work of critic engages in a conversation about cultural values and how we read/play/view works of art.

Obviously, this is just one example. The problematic race issue is Resident Evil 5 brought similar criticism and controversy, and the more recent issue of the implicit rape in the new Tomb Raider game brings, again, the issue of female empowerment and victimization to the discussion table. It's healthy and though-provoking to discuss these issues, but it's not productive to automatically side with the game and demonize the critic outright. People should have their opinions. People should voice their opinions. People should, most definitely, defend their opinions. But wouldn't it be better to discuss them and engage with them with each other in ways that do not alienate our peers. It's damn good to disagree with critics, but it's even better when someone can do so by providing some sense of why he/she has come to that opinion.

I no doubt feel this way because I've been a teacher, an editor, and because I'm in the early stage of my dissertation. And I understand that it's hard to "talk" to each in the lewd alleys of a virtual community without anonymity making people much braver without the threat of consequence. But I cannot help but be disappointed when I see discussion boards turn into schoolyard sandboxes where name-calling and insults are the primary method of communication. It takes away from the function of criticism instead of sharpening it, and, without good criticism, the video game industry will inevitable stagnate, producing little of cultural, aesthetic, or (God forbid) entertainment value.

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

E3 2012: Game news killed the video game star?

I always look forward to E3 like some of friends look forward to the NFL draft. I love the announcements, the energy, the big three trying to outdo one another, and, of course, hours and hours of new videos of the games we are all anticipating. But this year was different. A friend of mine asked me how I felt about E3 this year, and, like more or less anyone else who reads this post, I answered with a full, resounding..."meh." It was "ok," and there were a couple of surprises (more on that later). Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel like something was missing, and I'm not the only one. I found myself a bit fatigued, and (dare I say it) a little bored. And it's about damn time.

To be fair, we gamers are a ravenous lot. We consume games and gaming news at such an alarming rate that new gaming websites are popping up all over the place, competing for our views and trying to be the first with the newest, boldest stories. You need only look at the comments section anywhere on IGN, Game Informer, Gametrailers, or any numerous other sites to find evidence of our voracious appetite--these sections do not stay blank for long. We live in the information age, an era that prizes information on a global scale more than any other time in world history. Mass media saturation exists because we love it, we crave it. It's an addiction, and we're all hooked (my self included--I'm writing a blog for God's sake).

So what went wrong with the flow of information at E3 this year? Absolutely nothing. E3 did what it needed to. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all came out and made announcements about upcoming games, and the big N even showed off a good bit of Wii U. There were mistakes, to be sure. Microsoft's ending with Modern Warfare Black Ops 2 and it's leaning on the Kinect were admittedly lame choices. Sony's pushing the Vita was understandable, if underwhelming, but the augmented reality story book was 20 minutes of "what the hell is this." And Nintendo's lack of solid first-party software and it's reliance on the Wii U's ability to sell new versions of games that a lot of people already own make this new system a hard sell.

Yet for almost every lackluster announcement there was something to look forward to. Tomb Raider, Borderlands 2, Last of Us, God of War: Ascension, Far Cry 3, Dishonored, Luigi's Mansion 2, New Super Mario Bros., Hitman: Absolution, Amazing Spider Man, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 all look great, and they hold significant promise for the upcoming season and next year. We truly have a lot to look forward to.

But we already knew that. As per usual, in the weeks before E3, new announcements were being made about these games, and we, the avid readers we are, devoured that information as it was fed to us by sites like IGN, Gamespot, GameTrailers, and Kotaku. So, when the games were "revealed" on stage or in live demos, we watched, but we didn't salivate--at least not collectively. It's hard to get crazy amped about games that we heard about a week, a month, hell, a year prior to its presentation. We saw what was coming up, but like a crew of Oliver Twists, we always ask for more porridge...though we never seem to get the switch instead of the bowl...

Please. sir, can I have some more?

This is not our fault, and this is certainly not the fault of the online gaming news networks. IGN editors do there jobs and they do them well because we ask them, we demand them to. In fact, "fault" is perhaps a poor word choice for my part. I think what we saw manifest at E3 this year was the logical result of high expectation confronting the reality in the information age: with the saturation of news comes the consequence of no longer being surprised. We are, near literally, products of our time. Sure, we may get something awesome like Watch Dogs that we weren't expecting, but it's the exception that proves the proverbial rule. There's nothing "wrong" or "faulty" about this information model. It's just the way things are. Developers and publishers could keep tighter lids on their projects, but then what would happen to sites and writers who make their livings by reporting such news? It's a fragile information ecosystem, and it's constantly in flux. We all have our parts to play here.

Gamers are a forward-looking group, always awaiting our next meal. Appropriately, I can't help but wonder if next year's conference will offer the same outcome. We know there will be a new generation of consoles already, so that announcement will not be a surprise. The specifics of these machines and their software, however, will offer a bit more chance for excitement and anticipation. It's likely, however, that we'll know about them before the conference, as well as a few games to be on display, and it's equally likely that we'll see a few surprises as well. But, the smart money says that we'll see more of what we know than what we don't. Either way, we'll lap it up as quickly as it's delivered to us. After all, we're still very, very hungry.

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