I went to Old Ascalon and All I Got were these lousy Screenshots

As in: Games

I've been playing a bit of Guild Wars lately...

Me and a Yak

We were supposed to rescue this girl and it turns out she's dead. At right: Thedrellum.

The closest I have to one of those photos of someone holding up a fish they just caught.

Arcade of Attractions

As in: Games

One of my students recently wrote in his blog about how he's enjoying a nostalgic return to Final Fantasy 3 after having played some more recent games, and how he regrets that more recent games don't spend more energy creating games that, like FF3, engross the player with good gameplay and story, rather than focusing on FX and programming.

While this is by no means a new concern among game designers, scholars, or consumers, it occurs to me that there's an interesting parallel between the drive to produce ever-more-polygons and the cinematic drive to produce better and bigger special effects. Tom Gunning argues, in the well-known article "The Cinema of Attractions", that the Hollywood prediliction for acrobatic, explosive action scenes stems from the early influence of vaudeville in cinema. While some movies first appeared in kinetoscope parlors, others began showing up in vaudeville theaters. As part of that venue, these films included more openly performative (and less narrative) elements. Gunning suggests that the lavish dance scenes in musicals or the interminable fashion shows that pop up everywhere in classic hollywood cinema stem from this vaudeville past. Scott Bukataman uses Gunning's argument to explore cinematic science fiction, suggesting that special effects are the children of those fashion sequences and the grandchildren of Melies' magic shows.

Might we suggest that the video game obsession with graphical (and sonic) 'progress' also stems from this secondary influence of spectacle rather than narrative? While many have pointed out the conflict over resources involved in complex graphics design--the more complex the graphics, the less time there is for 'gameplay' programming--I'm not sure whether we have examined the issue in light of the historical conflict between spectacle and narrative.

I don't really have anything to say about that, except that it occured to me. Could this be a useful lens to bring into the conversation?

Fallout: week 1

As in: Design , Game Journal , Games , Science Fiction

I just started playing Fallout, the "post-nuclear role playing game" in the vein of Balder's Gate—though I don't know if I'll pick up any group-mates. I haven't played much of it so far, but I'd like to comment a bit on the interface and the opening sequence.

The game opens with a sequence meant to evoke a sort-of nostalgic future. A television in a blasted-out building displays an advertisement for "Vault 13", an under-mountain refuge from atomic war. Then it shows an add for a new car, a "Cryslus." Both ads look like they're straight from the fifties. They use stylized drawings of Dennis-the-Menace-like figures and the car has fins like a classic automobile. At the same time, they evoke the 'prosperous future' the fifties imagined, by adding to the mix an advertisement for a robot and by charging 199,999 for the car.

The interface for the game, similarly, has the look of an old-school science fiction film. Rather than using a digital display like we might expect today, Fallout builds its futuristic machinery from buttons and dials. These clanking, clicking buttons mimic the fifties sci-fi feel, but they also give a tangibility to the game's experience. I've long thought that buttons, levers, and dials make machines feel more 'real' because their very nature (as analog devices) links them physically to the objects they're measuring, or at least it seems to.

These stylistic choices give Fallout the curious effect of being a science-fiction game about the future as conceived by the past. The 1950s-era looks give the game an air of whimsey that offsets the disturbing storyline. I'm keen to see whether these whimsical elements will continue to pop-up throughout the game, or if the dark tone set by the narrative (The future of Earth is a wasteland in the wake of a worldwide atomic war.) will override. The best outcome, I think, would be a mix of the two.

Smashing Zombies

As in: Games

So I downloaded the demo for a game from skasoftware called "Zombie Smashers." It's essentially Double Dragon with zombie enemies. I'm probably not going to buy the full version ($20!) but I'm intrigued enough to play the demo a couple times.

There are two threads that interest me about the game. One is the nostalgia thread--in these days of complex games that demand long time commitments, a game where you can just spend a couple minutes smashing zombies in an old-school style is just nice. The second aspect of the game that interests me is the time element--if I bought this game, I'd have no problem playing it for just 10 minutes or so. Gentle readers, do you have 10-minute games hanging around on your computer for those moments when you can't look at another student paper?

Non-gamers on games

As in: Games

So Roger Ebert is learning that gamers read. He wrote:

I believe books and films are better mediums, and better uses of my time. But how can I say that when I admit I am unfamiliar with video games? Because I have recently seen classic films by Fassbinder, Ozu, Herzog, Scorsese and Kurosawa, and have recently read novels by Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Bellow, Nabokov and Hugo, and if there were video games in the same league, someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense.

While some agree with Ebert, most find his comments either ignorant or offensive. Personally, I'm surprised at Ebert—what kind of arrogance does it take to say "I am unfamiliar with video games" but "someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense"?

I see four useful rebuttals to Ebert's comments (which I'm sure have been made in many places--I didn't have time to follow all the links to folks writing about this issue).
Read the rest on Game Culture Watch

DRM and Steam

As in: Games

NOTE: To prepare for my Video Game Culture course in the Spring, I'm starting to model posts for the collaborative blog we're going to do--Game Culture Watch. Lest my loyal DS readers feel left out, I'll be cross-posting for a while (once the class starts, I won't post over there much).

Chris Canfield's article "In support of Steam" over at Joystick 101 argues that Steam has potential to thoroughly re-write the distribution system for games (what's Steam?). He suggests that for Steam to really work, Valve should pursue a more aggressive marketing plan (like putting a game and Steam on computers to be sold in stores).

But Canfield ignores the issues (covered nicely over at kuro5hin) about the extremely scary DRM embedded in Steam. While Steam does allow for quick download and easy, instant updates, it also holds the games you've purchased under lock and key, and only allows you to play them when you're online. But this isn't really any different than the licenses we already buy when we play games, is it? Steam merely plays out a path we've been following for some time: allowing publishers to enforce tighter and tighter restrictions on their texts.

Read more at GCW

Memory Machines

As in: Games

I have a model of this tank, but it's painted with Ork graffiti.

The first review of Dawn of War I read described the game as the "beer and pretzels" version of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000. True tabletop gamers would not give in, it suggested, to the glitzy blood and diceless battles of this flashy new computer game. For me, however, the sense is rather nostalgia for the old game. A friend from the gaming days suggested that on his next visit to Chicago I should break out the old models for a rumble. Perhaps I finally understand those Deer Hunting games now—they don't function as fun games, but as memory machines, trying to capture the essence of something else that's fun. That's what Dawn of War, a reasonably good but not great RTS game, does for me. It captures the look and feel of those tabletop models squirreled away in my closet.

Games that weren't

As in: Games

While visiting home last weekend, I came across a copy of a game among my dad's things—I doubt he ever played it. There, right on the bookshelf next to pocket-paperback copies of McLuhan's Hot & Cool and Toffler's Future Shock was a bizarre Avalon Hill Bookshelf Game: Who Can Beat Nixon?.

It amazes me that this game could get made. I'm excited to play it sometime, but in the meantime, here are some other games I'd like to find in a closet:

• Philately, the boardgame!
• Assassinate McKinley: one player is Leon Czolgosz, the others are the security detail. Choose your moment at the Pan-American exposition. Get McKinley when he's in a good mood, and maybe he'll give you the famous "Go easy on him boys."
• Pedagogy Tycoon: navigate a semester of academic life; build an army of loyal undergrads; balance teaching, service, and research! For Mac and Windows. Also look for the Pedagogy Tycoon Expansion Pack: Search Committee.
• Board Game Brainstorm! Come up with ideas for boardgames, pitch them to one another, choose the best idea and make it. Box includes three decks of blank cards; a foldable, laminated board; one Dry erase marker; one Board Game Brainstorm Idea NotePad 2000; One box of Sculpey.

Fellow gamers? Have you more?

Machinima and art

As in: Games

I'm the first to admit that I'm behind the curve in enjoying machinima. That said, I find The House in the Middle really creepy. The couch image in particular freaks me out. The artist doesn't really intend creepiness, but the idea of unexplained violence works pretty well here.

Half-Life 2 is rife with such images, particularly in odd places. The designers there have done a nice job building a world in which numerous previous people have tried and failed to defend themselves. Yesterday I encountered a prison cell (another entry on the game's use of the prison some time) with a bed tipped on its side, like a barracade. I also found a small bathroom splattered with mysterious blood.

These types of images, which Bichard makes strong use of in his exhibit, work so well because they portray history and invite curiosity/investigation. Perhaps that's what makes Half-Life 2 so intriguing, despite its "rail-shooter" setup: it uses the adventure-game motif of developed environments shrouded in mystery to evoke curiosity. Thus, HL2 returns us to the excitement of Myst while still keeping our fingers twitchy.

The contrast between HL2 and traditional "Adventure games" stands out particularly strongly right now for me because Jenny and I are working our way through The Crystal Key. CK strongly focuses on art over narrative. In terms of its story, it falls far behind even Myst, but some of its visuals are pretty good anyhow.

Machinima, particularly "still photos" seem to be at the same pole as The Crystal Key. If adventure games move in one direction, they become more like Half-Life2, if they move in the other, they become more like "The House in the Middle."

Cross-posted on Academic Gamers

Benson

As in: Games

So I started playing Half-Life 2 today and, to my surprise, heard Robert Guillume's voice. Weird! I haven't seen him since Sports Night. It's always strange to hear recognizable voices in odd places--James Coburn selling Dodge trucks, Gene Hackman shilling for Lowe's, and now Benson in my video game. Lord help me if Carrot Top shows up.