Ingrained Japanese culture and handling of Chinese Ethnicity within the Metal Gear Universe

March 25th, 2009

Lots of Metal Gear Solid spoilers, and a pretty deep look into the lore, so you’ve been warned!

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This post was originally going to be about how Solid Snake is a terrible representation of an American born Chinese, but on going over my fact checking I realized that he is actually Japanese/American, surrogated through a Chinese mother (EVA).

I was a little dumbfounded at this revelation when watching the video that re-affirmed this for me (1:50). Mentioning of the Japanese egg donor (IVF process) seemed a little suspect, as it just appear hammed in there. I mean, it appears as though the developers simply wanted to clarify and cement the fact that Snake is actually Japanese, and not of Chinese ethnicity, the latter which would be an easy assumption given the events of MGS3, EVA’s titular title of Big Mama and how she openly states that she is Snake’s mother.

I can see how this was perhaps needed to justify the lines of Vulcan Raven in MGS1, but it does feel very self conscious of itself, that Snake is not Chinese. It really wouldn’t matter either way but consider these two previously glossed over points:

Mei Ling’s odd representation in the later half of MGS4. As I’ve mentioned before, strange, nonsensical, award sexual innuendo that makes her appear unexpectedly ditsy, particular in contrast to her more respected role in Metal Gear Solid. I just find that these two identities don’t match at all.

As I also lightly discussed earlier on this blog, EVA has no hints of being Chinese. No accent, blonde hair and unmistakably western appearance. In one of the games she justifies this (I honestly can’t recall, nor find it) but the justification that an archetypal, western Bond Girl is actually of Chinese ethnicity is a terribly hard sell.

These three ultra subtle clues, suggest some minute, no doubt culturally ingrained influences that have naturally flowed into the development process of this game. I don’t raise these points to be in any way contentious, rather, they make an interesting example of the way in which culture naturally affects video game development, as it would anything else. That we should be conscious of these hints, because, while seemingly insignificant, they are very important in the grander message.

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Talking About Genre Conventions..

March 20th, 2009

My pesky category selection finally drove me to the point of some moderate restructuring, and now I’m finally happy about it. Here’s what I did:

Critique -> Game Discussion

I did this because firstly, classifying my writing on the textual analysis of games as solely begin critique is too limiting. I consider what I write about games as being more of “this is something interesting that maybe others haven’t talked about, let’s poke at that a little”. I guess it’s sometimes more like criticism of one aspect of a game, or comparatively tying a game to something external, like culture. In this regard, discussion is a better choice of words, anyways, using the noun critique to classify my writing contains a certain degree of bigotry in this current climate, so I think I’ll only use it as a verb occasionally.

Industry Issues -> Editorial

Editorial = one dude giving his opinions, industry issues is strictly industry related. It was recommended to me maybe a year ago to remove the word ‘editorial’ from the site slogan because it denotes seriousness and perhaps boredom. It’s good advice, but truth is, I write a whole bunch of this stuff, and if anyone finds the commentaries boring then they’ll likely find the rest of the site boring too. So rack off!

The other categories more or less explain themselves. Although I want to note that analysis does not involve games themselves (that’s game discussion!) rather issues, videos and so forth. Phew, all of that is sorted out.

I’ve also added a few more links to the blogroll over the past few weeks. I may as well point them out here: The Artful Gamer, Game Critics, Eurogamer, Crispy Gamer, 1UP’s RPG Blog (The Grind) and 1UP’s Retro Gaming Blog (Retronauts blog). These are all some of my favourite sites, whose linkage is well overdue. So check them out. I’ve also been back using delicious for random bookmarks, some that I share here in Link Out, some not. So if you’re interested in better things to read, try there. And that’s another shallow site update.

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Some Fairly Obvious Game Genre Musings

March 20th, 2009

This semester’s workload is significantly lighter than previous years, although if you combine my studies with blogging here, in my Chinese blog and a few guest articles, then I guess I have a pretty full workload. Due to the complicated workings of my free-form university program, this year I have a bunch more free choice electives, one of which I used up on a course about video games.

It’s about three weeks in, and I’ve already got a good idea how most of my courses will pan out over the next few months. Perhaps I should have anticipated it, the games course is particularly lousy from my perspective. It’s not terrible, but rather it falls back on broken convention. Here’s an example of what I mean:

Last week we were discussing genre in games, and what constitutes a video game genre. Besides the bleeding obvious (much of which the students already knew), I noticed that the tutor fell back many a times on incorrect genre stereotypes and conventions to frame a more complicated issue. For example statements such as: “All first person shooters involve holding a gun and shooting people from a first person perspective.” were freely tossed around the discussion*.

I hate blanket statements like this, you know I do, their only use is to generalize complicated issues that people aren’t willing to regard as such. It’s the greatest form of disrespect, and is used commonly by writer and enthusiast alike. I too have perhaps been guilty of this sin a few times. All it really signifies is pure laziness on the part of the speaker.

metroidvania

Metroidvania: A genre based on actual sound gameplay constructs

What the tutor, to my great disappointment, didn’t expresses was the limitations of game genre. If you take anything of great complexity, like worlds governed by a system of rules (ie. that of video games) and classify such things into categories of fixed variables, there is no doubt going to be some overflow. Game genres are not black and white, they are not absolute, they are gradients of multiple genres, forms and thematics and hence squeezing this all into the guise of absolute genre classification is nothing but generalization.

It’s exactly the same argument I made for casual and hardcore gamers. Such classifications can only operate in the broad sense, with acknowledgement given to the restrictions of such system. Yet, in our class we are still being taught that games can only operate as black or white entities. Next week our group has to do a speech on the RPG genre, defining key attributes etc, I’m wondering if my grade would be lowered if I included a mild disclaimer at the start.

*Examples may include: Elebits and Portal

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