25/04/08 - 02/05/08

Games I've been playing this week:

This week, I borrowed a couple of games from the IOCT. As I'd just studied violence in video games, I decided to choose a couple that were overtly violent.

Fahrenheit: Before I borrowed it from the IOCT, I'd never even heard of this game before. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised. I ended up somewhat addicted to it and after only borrowing it last Thursday, I've already completed it (in the sense that the story of the game is over, there's still a fair amount that I can still do with the game). Due to the fact that you control both the killer and the detectives trying to catch him, it makes for an interesting game, as you're essentially playing against yourself. You have to make decisions about how well you play each character in order to help yourself in the other roles you play. The game is fairly open in the style of play. You're taken through a story in quite a linear fashion (though the order in which you experience certain parts is up to you) but you still have a lot of freedom of choice about what exactly happens in the game. It's not as open as a game like GTA, but it's nowhere near as restrictive as a game like FFX.

The story is good, though there are certain parts where you have to suspend disbelief greatly as they can be rather fantastical. Where it really stands up is the characters. I found myself liking them and choosing what scenes to play first by which character I liked best. Another great part of the game is the atmospherics. Certain parts of the game I found very unnerving and I was genuinely unsettled, which made for a very immersive gaming experience.

The control system of the game is also very interesting. I've never encountered a game with a similar system. The way it forces you to do certain things that make it so that when your character has to make a physical effort, so do you, really adds to how you're sucked into the game. I found myself feeling slightly exhausted after prolonged sections where I had to do a lot of these challenges.

Overall, it's been a very enjoyable experience and I think it's likely I'll replay parts of the game even though I've finished the story. I've got the game for another week, but I may have to buy a copy of my own at some point.

True Crime: New York City: This game I didn't enjoy quite as much. It struck me as basically an alternate take on GTA, where you're a cop instead of a criminal. While the game can be enjoyable, it doesn't really add anything to the concept of GTA. Instead it loses something as the missions don't work well with causing mayhem, which is the most enjoyable part of the game. Also, it lacks the humour of GTA, which is really an integral part of the enjoyment of the game. One major criticism is the physics engine when you're driving. The cars are sometimes rather bouncy. I found myself bounced across a road into a pile of pedestrians when I hit a lamppost! One very good part of the game is the soundtrack, it provides a great range and has some great tracks available to listen to. It also allows you to decide which tracks you want to hear more of and which ones you don't want to hear at all. All in all, I'd still rather play any of the GTA series.

17/04/08 - 24/04/08

So, I don't have as many new games to play recently, so these posts are gonna be somewhat irregular. Anyway, here goes:

Games I've been playing this week:

Mario Kart Wii: This is the first Mario Kart title I've properly played. Others, I've done about one race and then given up. Since I've been playing Burnout, I've got much better at racing games, so I gave this one much more of a go. However, my skills at Burnout don't quite translate to Mario Kart. Using the Wii remote in the wheel accessory is very different from using an analogue joystick on a PS2. There's no real limit to how far you can turn the wheel, so it can be hard to judge how much to turn it when taking a corner. Despite this, it's a highly enjoyable game. The nature of the game of course makes it fun, but, as with most Wii games, it's the physicality of playing that really makes it. Also, the vast selection of tracks, covering every Mario Kart game, means you can have an extended session, over a variety of tracks, without it getting repetitive.

Capitalism is cannibalism, violence is violence

So, first post after Easter and I'm talking about violence in video games. Talk about starting with a bang! I'm gonna start things off with a recent video from G4TV's X-play. It features Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson talking about their new book, "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do".



So, as you can probably tell from my previous posts talking about what games I play, I have no problem playing violent games. I'm no psychologist, so really I can only have an insight into my own experiences and the experiences of people I know. Quite obviously I'm not going to prove anything about the nature of violence in games and what it may or may not cause, but I can still give my views.

There seems to be two main sides to the violence debate, that either playing violent games encourages people to be violent, or that playing violent games discourages violent tendencies as it acts as a way to "blow off steam". As is mentioned in the video, most studies seem to be inconclusive. Any that apparently prove a causal link between playing games and being violent either ignores that the "resulting violent tendencies" are not actual violence or that short-term results don't necessarily translate to a long-term effect.

In my personal experience, I play violent games and I'm not a violent person. In the same way I can play Burnout and make my way around a circuit at blistering speed but don't think it would be a good idea for me to go out and get behind the wheel of a car. So, obviously violent games don't make everyone violent (and I'm sure I could go out and find a very large group of people who would say the same is true). But that doesn't rule out the possibility that violent games could be the trigger for someone's violence.

But then, if it's not the case for every single person, then surely it's not the fault of the games. In the same way that just because some people don't like cherries but cherries are still sold to those who do. Some people are horrible drivers, but cars are still available to those who aren't.

It's an age-old debate where people try to blame an inanimate something in order to relieve themselves from personal responsibility. Personally, if there were some real reasoning behind removing violence from games, I wouldn't care. But right now, every argument given is hugely flawed. If your child plays a violent game intended for an adult and they decide to emulate something in the game, then blaming the game is the wrong way to go. There's a gap between games and reality and it's not up to a game developer to teach people that.

20/03/08 - 03/03/08

So, due to the fact I haven't had exposure to any new games recently (due to not buying them, among other things), I thought I'd use the past two weeks to reflect on games that I've spent a large amount of time on. Games I keep returning to.

PC:

Total Annihilation: I've spoken before about Total Annihilation. It's a game I've always loved, even from before I had a computer that could actually run it properly. I have fond memories of playing skirmish battles and only building air units and just bombing everything I could find. I've recently discovered there's a fully 3D remake called "Spring" available (it even runs on Linux!), so I shall be looking into that soon.

Worms 2: A game I will definitely never get tired of. I even have a version of it on my old phone. The humour and the fun of the damage you can cause when using suicidal tactics is great. Also one of the few games I've ever completed, though with only 17 short missions, this is no great feat.

Dreamcast:

Shenmue: Now almost 9 years old, this game still stands up as excellent. Games like GTA might have made the idea of a fully explorable environment somewhat commonplace, but Shenmue is still great, thanks to an excellent storyline and great characters. It really saddens me that Shenmue 3 (and thus the end of the Shenmue saga) will likely never see the light of day.

Soulcalibur: Like driving games, I've always enjoyed fighting games on a basic level, but I've never been that good at them. While I'm still not exactly great at Soulcalibur (I still get beaten in multi-player games fairly often), I've managed to complete a fair amount of the missions (though they are fairly one-dimensional, you're fighting someone, just the why or how changes) and I've made it through arcade mode a few times. I mostly play for enjoyment, rather than because I feel the need to complete and unlock everything.

Playstation 2:

Canis Canem Edit: Another of the few games I've actually completed (storyline-wise, at least). The storyline and the humour of this game just make it insanely fun to play and quite addictive to boot. One of the best parts of the game is how the richness of the environment really encourages you to explore and do things your way. This definitely ties into my post on narratives as while there is a definite pre-defined story but it allows you to explore that story with a great degree of freedom.

Kingdom Hearts: Again, a game where the story and the characters are the draw. The great part is that while most of the characters are familiar, they're used in interesting and new ways and the story of the game is still very strong.

Burnout 3: I think I've said enough about this game before. Definitely another game I've become addicted to. The lure of just doing one more race is something that can easily eat away at my time...

Shush you, I'm writing you a poem

This week, I'm looking at narratives. In all the reading I did, there were certain key questions that came up; things like "Are (all) games narrative?", "Do games need narratives?", and "How can narratives be interactive?". These questions mostly seemed to end up unanswered or answered in unsatisfactory ways.

To look at the relationship between games and narratives, I'm going to look at a couple of extremes. First, is Tetris. Tetris has no narrative. There's no story telling you why you need to move these blocks around and make lines disappear and there's nothing to recount to people outside of the game (except maybe a particularly high score) as no one wants to hear exactly where you put the L-shaped block or whatever. So this seems to easily answer the question of whether games need narratives. But then what happens when games become more complex? If you removed all the story and characterisation and description from even a games as simple as Doom (walk around, shoot things, occasionally solve simple puzzles), what would be the point? The enjoyment of Tetris is in quick and logical thinking, whereas in Doom, it's being able to shoot various monsters. Though for this, you don't need an in-depth story.

To go to the other extreme, you can look at a game like Zork. Without any narrative, a text-only game like Zork becomes utterly pointless. The game relies on description for everything. But the narrative is still incomplete, your character is never described and the motives behind your "adventures" are never given. So even in a game that needs narrative, this can be incomplete.

Of course, there are more modern games where the narrative really is everything. Games like the Final Fantasy series are all about the story and because of this become much less of a game and more like a film where you push buttons occasionally (something I've mentioned before when comparing Final Fantasy X to Kingdom Hearts). There are other games where the narrative is more flexible. The story is defined and so are certain events, but things like the sequence of events and how certain tasks are carried out can differ from player to player. Most games will have only one ending/way of "winning", whereas games like Fable or Knights of the Old Republic are much more affected by the player.

Then there's games like The Sims, which are as open as possible. Instead of defining a story and making the player try to complete that story, the game developers create a world and give the player the tools with which to create their own stories.

Games like The Sims highlight how narratives in games are different to those in film or literature. In the latter, the writer controls everything and the viewer/reader is passive. They are told the story and that is that. In game narratives, the writer builds a world. They then choose their control over the "history" of the world. Whether everything is prescribed (like in Final Fantasy) or whether everything is open (like in The Sims). The player then dictates
how they experience this history. In a fully prescribed history, every player will have the same story, but it will be tempered by how difficult it was for them to discover. In an unprescribed history, each player will have their own history, but there will always be common elements as they are all in the same created world.

The problem with most analyses of game narratives is that they're compared to standard narratives of film or literature. They try to see the writer as active and the reader/player as only passive. The control the player has over their experience confounds this view. Much better is to see the player as experiencing the story in a "writerly" fashion. The game's creators/writers have put the story to them, but it is up to the player to give the story meaning and to create their own experience.

Imagine a game as a series of books. You can read these books in any order but parts of certain books rely on other books. So, you can read the books detailing certain events at any time you like, but you need to first read the book that explains who the characters are and why they do certain things (or maybe you don't, such as in Zork). Some of the books you could skip completely as they aren't needed for you to know the main plot, but maybe they are of interest because they reveal extra details about the characters or they could simply be about something enjoyable. Others would be major books that tell of major events that would result in a very boring story otherwise. Imagine the story of Star Wars as this series of books. You can skip the books where Obi-Wan uses his Jedi powers to influence the Stormtroopers or where he cuts off the arm of the alien in the bar as, while they are important, you can know the story without them. In contrast, you can't skip the book where Luke destroys the Death Star, otherwise there's no (major) ending to the story.

So, once again, the questions I began with have gone unanswered. Games can be narrative, but they don't need to be. More important is whether players want them to be (Tetris could have a story, but I doubt anyone would want to read it). Game narratives can be interactive because they're not the same as films or books. Just as a "writerly" view of reading means the reader defines the meaning of a piece, the player defines their experience of a game.

13/03/08 - 20/03/08

Once again no gaming this week. This time because I've been to France and then back home in Bristol, so I've had no access to games. Also, I've no new games, so my next post should be looking deeper into games I've already mentioned or playing various games I haven't played in a while...

ExerGaming

[Arctic_Wolf] My friends parents bought him the nice DDR pads so he could lose some weight.
[Arctic_Wolf] He gets in trouble whenever they find out he's bought a non DDR PS2 game.
[Arctic_Wolf] "HOW IS ARMORED CORE 2 SUPPOSED TO HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT, WONG?"

So, this week I'm looking at exergaming. Contrasting with the other portmanteau-named genres I've looked at before, the object of exergames isn't to teach anything (though, as with most games, this is somewhat of a side-effect) but instead they intend to promote physical activity.

Exergames can be seen as sort-of a subset of games that use non-standard control apparatus (whether simply in the form of something like a light-gun or something like a Guitar Hero controller). The intention of these controllers is usually to elevate the gaming experience away from something simply controlled by pushing buttons. In the end, you're still just pushing buttons, but it's the way you're doing it that's important.

The exception to this is certain specialist controllers that don't just rely on buttons for control. Where a dance mat is just buttons you push with your feet, something like a Guitar Hero controller or the rod controller from Sega Bass Fishing rely on motion input on a varying scale. This is of course ubiquitous in the Wii controller.

So, to move to exergaming, why is it popular and why does it work? Anyone who's played games can tell you of the phenomenon of how often people will move their controller as they move their character/vehicle/etc. They'll jerk the controller up when they try to jump, or they'll lean the way they're attempting to turn a car. It seems that, as we become involved in a simulation, subconsciously, our bodies want to be involved. And this extends to exergaming. So when playing DDR, players don't just tap the pads with their feet in a disassociated manner, they move with the rhythm of the music and involve their whole bodies. When playing something like Wii sports, while they could just use a small and precise flick of the wrist to return a shot in tennis, it feels more natural to do a proper tennis swing. Even to do it in the proper point in space, when you could just as easily do it while sat down.

But why do this instead of playing a regular game? Why put in this effort when you can just push buttons? There's the obvious reason of the benefits provided by more physical games, but that's not what I think about when playing them. I don't play Wii sports because it'll make me fit. I play it because such an immersive simulation makes a simple game much more fun. Not just that, but because these games have somewhat of a performance aspect, they become very social. People at parties have Guitar Hero battles or they sit around playing bowling on the Wii (the fact that you don't compete simultaneously in bowling on the Wii allows it to transcend certain limitations, such as the fact you might only have one controller).

Another aspect of the appeal of these games is the fact you get instant praise for how well you play. If you begin to play an actual sport or going to the gym, your initial experiences could be horrible and you can fail to see any progress. But, like my experience with Burnout, you are easily able to track your progress in these games and see yourself getting better over time. If you play football, there are few obvious goals other than things like scoring a goal or contributing to your team winning in some way and these goals can seem very far off. Playing DDR, the goals are smaller and show progress far more easily. You could get the chance to score in football, only to have it denied by the keeper, but in DDR you get to experience yourself progressing through the game without any hindrances other than your own skill.

This positive reinforcement doesn't end at any specific point in the game. You don't complete every song and get the highest score and that's it, you can carry on and see if you can repeat that phenomenon. The performance aspect of the games fires your desire to "show-off" to others. You're not content to just load up the high score board and point to your score, you have to have them watch you get that score (or close to it) or you have to challenge them. And so you keep playing so you can maintain that skill.

There's also the element of the outsider. Not trying to delve too far into stereotyping, but the personalities of people who play video games tend to be different to the ones pre-disposed to sports or exercise in general. So, what exergaming allows these players to do is to partake in these activities in an environment they're comfortable with. They're not dancing or exercising, they're simply playing a game. Playing games is something they can do, so a perceived barrier is brought down that would otherwise be there without the gaming environment.

To bring this back to something I mentioned in my previous posts, while these simulations are no substitute for the "real thing" they have their place and are "their own thing". You obviously wouldn't suggest breaking into a Tennis match at a party, but in the same way you'll never think playing tennis on the Wii will help you improve your Tennis game. It's like the people who criticise Guitar Hero and say people should just "learn to play a real guitar". That's not what people want to do. They want to play a game and they want to be good at that game. I don't get a high score when I play a song perfectly on a real guitar...