Link Out (12/10/08)
October 12th, 2008
The past few weeks I seem to be sectioning between days with no time on my hands to days with perhaps too much free time. It’s all pretty random, so in the downtime I’ve been chipping away at some articles and doing plenty of reading because I know, before too long, I’ll be back in the cycle again.
Whatever the case may be I seem to have more time on my hands over here, which is great. This means that the quality of links for this month are top notch. Here’s what I have enjoyed lately:
The Needles: The Russians Are Coming! – The Escapist
This editorial should be read in tango with my Culture Bred Through Game Design article as it’s a sarcastic take on the cultural convenience of using Russians as the default video game villains. Despite the humour of the article, I find the observation to be an intriguing one. Been planning on writing about “cultural convenience” for a while.
Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked
There aren’t many thinkers in the industry, particularly ones that managed to tie together games and some significant discipline of study, which is why I am happy to plug almost anything that Henry Jenkins writes about games. Take a read.
Coming Home – Sexy Video Game Land
I don’t think that I’ve ever linked out to Leigh Alexander before which is a pity because I enjoy most of the stuff she writes, it’s all very melt-in-your-mouth writing. This post talks about the conclusive state of mind gamers place themselves in before we even have a chance to play. The quotes at the end nail the point beautifully.
Metal Gear Solid 4 spite – GameSpite
There’s been a whole pile of new writers on GameSpite lately and I’m not too sure that If I like them or not. In anycase, the critiques are still pretty solid, as was the case with this one. Some good points made, still not enough to mend the shitstorm that blew in come review time. Some of the points tie in with what I wrote here too.
TGS: Square Enix’s Wada: Japanese Industry Has ‘Lost Its Position’
The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that it exists and Yoichi Wada just did. Asian cultures seem reluctant to change, his acknowledgment is a good place to start.
Masochistic? [Too Human] – Consolation Prize
The account here is interesting. Basically it’s all about the affinity that builds up between you and the game when you are forced to teach yourself how to play. The effort invested in the game ultimately makes it harder to hate the title because you become more aware of what it was trying to do, even if it didn’t do it properly in the first place.
Greater than the (Riemann) Sum of Its Parts?
I must confess, I love this blog and have been backlogging on articles I missed for the early on. Richard’s approach is simple; everything can be broken down into smaller parts, hence by dismantling games we can better understand why they are good or bad. It’s common sense genius that doesn’t exist in this industry. So go forth, learn!
The Power of Language in Games
September 3rd, 2008
Language is a powerful tool. The overall significance of language regarding current art forms moves along a sliding scale dependent on the medium in question. Books survive only within the context of language, language is often crucial but by no means an essential part of music and film – as in games – is perhaps the least important. The further removed words are from creating the actual experience (and onto visual, rhythm and gameplay cues) the less significant the role of language appears to be.
Despite this paradigm, the youth of this medium (video games) places a heavy reliance on language to often fill in for the role of gameplay. We use narrative to create context in ways that gameplay cannot currently achieve. As gameplay evolves though so will its ability to self narrate the experience. We can already see this taking place with the role of context sensitive actions (Resident Evil 4) and in game narrative (Halflife 2) as examples. Hence, over time the heavy reliance of language disappears, changing its role to being another tool in the game design tool box. Ignoring the foresight though, language shall always be significant in games much as it is to movies and music. I want to use this article to explore several past examples of the diverse use of language in games. This isn’t intended to cover the complete history of language in games but rather a few noteworthy posts along the path of application.
You’re Twisting my Arm Here Sony
September 1st, 2008
NB: As it stands the Australian dollar stands at about $0.98 American dollars, so almost equivalent, keep this in mind when reading. Of course this article was also written a while ago too.
Despite my enthusiasm for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, there was a lot of friction involved in balancing up whether a Playstation 3, at this stage in the game, was worth the $AUD750 purchase. Truth is, I am a very cautious buyer and I never like to plonk down the cash on a big investment unless I am certain that the investment with more than cater towards my needs.
Another personality trait of mine is that I hold no shame in playing games that are a few years past their used by date. So the bright lights of next gen didn’t really woo me to a great extent. Therefore if I was going to buy a PS3, I needed a real sufficient reason to do so. Fortunately for the big wigs at Sony, MGS4 was more than sufficient but it didn’t mean that the choice was an easy one by any lengths.
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