The In-Game Mini-Blog

February 7th, 2009

Note that in my recent write up on Trilby I mentioned:

“Preluding each heist is a narrative scene featuring a block of scrolling text in which Trilby prescribes his thoughts of the events layed before him. The text is sort of like a mini-blog that allows the player to get a feel for current Trilby’s woes and worries. This brief insight is interesting not only because it acts as a free ride for Croshaw to display his fine writing skills but also to build understanding between Trilby’s character and the player.”

I actually wrote that article some months ago and hadn’t really thought about this topic much since then. This past week though I’ve been playing through Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror on the PSP where something within the pre-gameplay mini-blog stuck out and made me reconsider its purpose.

When it comes to narrative the Syphon Filter series (there was a trilogy on the PSone, a PS2 title and two recent PSP installments) has never really been more than the equivalent of a B-grade Steven Segal action flick. Personally, I love Mr Segal’s direct-to-video stuff which is perhaps why I am so fond of this series, but then the mini-blog stepped in and elevated Dark Mirror’s story during the later half of the game. While not a huge narrative crutch it was definitely something that I didn’t see coming.

syphonfilter-gabe-lian
In previous games the pre-gameplay mini-blog (referred to as Mission Briefings) usually contain an outline of the next level from the perspective of the protagonist. Basically they were used as a guise to tutor you on what to expect once the disc loads. In the case of the later half of Dark Mirror, the “Mission Briefings” started to become more of a personal reflection of what the protagonist (that’d be Gabe Logan) was going through. Gabe started to express true feelings about a former lover during the game. While a good deal of this was presented in cutscene format, the more interesting parts were delivered though the briefings text. Over several of the final missions you could begin to see Gabe’s feelings slowly manifested into self doubt and frustration. Gabe’s team mate Lian Xing – who is also playable – interludes Gabe’s conflictions when she becomes playable in her own mission. In her “briefing” she worries over the affects this is having on Gabe and why despite the fact they have been field partners for so long, Gabe never displays an interest towards her.

The emotional context provided in the briefings go on to justify the events that unfold later in the game and since we are slowly drawn into Logan’s mindset his actions seem genuinely believable. In contrast to the usual cardboard gruff that we are use to, this is a significant improvement.

The difference between these sequences in the first and second half of the game is that they are briefings and blogs respectively. The later entries read out as one would imagine the personal blog of these agents read like.

So between the parts that I could see coming, this pinch in the storytelling was effective. I don’t think that it can be billed as anything new, as it’s almost certainly been done before but I think it was worth mentioning before I continue to evaluate the strengths of this title. Beyond Syphon Filter and Trilby I can’t think of anymore examples, but they’ll come in due time.

Not Quite the Anniversary

July 10th, 2008

super mario bros 3

It would be convenient for me to crown today as being the first anniversary of my venture into the realm of video game blogging, unfortunately that would be far too easy considering that my step into the gaming blogosphere was quite the slow, transitional one.

A Bit of a History Lesson…

You’ll notice that on the 23rd of November last year I posted up an article titled “Welcome to The Gaming Blog” which if you did notice probably begs numerous questions. You see, for the past 4 years I have been merrily blogging away in my personal blog which I fittingly dubbed PrimeScape. Around February of last year I created a new site to house Primescape with a Wordpress CMS and gave it the address http://danielprimed.com.

It was a few months later that I began slowly shifting my efforts towards video game writing, sticking everything on PrimeScape until I eventually decided that I’d be best if I separate the blog into two; one personal and one gaming, so back last Novemeber I did just that. Since then my focus has been firmly set on improving my video game flavoured writing.

Quick Flick Through the Album

Naturally this past year of blogging has been a challenge. It’s been an uphill battle between my dedication as a gamer with something to say and my inability to fluently translate that something into words. Behind the soft blues and not too saturated to be grey whites the journey to find my feet and on those feet stand has been a struggle. I consider myself as someone who has never been well versed in professional or at least entertaining writing and while the content might seem fair on the outside, it’s taken a lot of screen staring, proof reading, re-writing and research to get to the somewhat lustrous level that it is now. I’m not sure if it comes across but I do try really hard to make everything with my rubber stamp on it to be as good as it can.

Thankfully though, amongst the struggle I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by a great community of gamer’s who genuinely care about the medium, where it’s heading and also pipsqueaks like me trying to cut a slice of the blogging pie. You know, before I started blogging about games I’d never read a games blog before. I didn’t know where to start, where to even find them! All I wanted was a platform to share my thoughts on games. It’s been through these people, their blogs and support that I have been able to become better accquanted with what exactly it is I’ve been wishing to say. I feel like I’ve my words now, so thanks for that.

A Few Ideas for the Future

Where to from here? The same route as I’m currently on, I suppose. My writing still needs massive improvement so I’ll be investing most of my time on that. I need to tighten up my articles and show you guys a little bit of mercy with the bloated length of my work. I’m also trying to bolstering my writing vocabulary, improving my general punctuation and finally creating a much more distinct voice. Hopefully these will become noticeable changes over time. Thanks again.

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Tags: blog, daniel primed

Rearranging Categories

April 21st, 2008

I’ve made a couple of slight site changes that I just want to make clear. Based on the recent poll an a few ideas of my own I have added and reworked some of the site features and categories.

Analysis, Culture , Industry Issues and Critique have been added to the list of categories and each one holds a significant amount of weight. This should hopefully make it a bit more easier to move through the content. Now if only I had an easy way of moving of moving the titles around to make them look a bit cleaner.

I have also removed Gaming Analysis from a regular feature (because it isn’t one) and replaced it with Play Impressions which I hope to continue on a regular basis.

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Tags: blog, wordpress

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