Wave Foam – “Needs More Bling”
I am really glad that now, more than ever, players are interested in exploring the roots of video-games. It is becoming increasingly popular to (re)play old games, and they keep popping up in download services. The demand for these wonderful games, that have stood the trial of time, is staggering, and companies have astutely capitalized on that market by re-releasing their games whenever and wherever possible. It’s a win-win deal: companies get increased return (some of which will hopefully make its way to designers), and players can say bye bye to night-time vigils on eBay auctions that end up costing a fortune.
What I have a hard time in understanding though, is the need for a presentation overhaul in these revivals. Is it wrong on my part to think that, if these games were so good in the first place, so that they’ve even become timeless, they shouldn’t be touched anymore than strictly necessary to make them work in new platforms? Why the need to do half-baked graphical updates that, let’s be honest, most times don’t even show half the craftsmanship of the original version? Whether it is to add snazzy 3D graphics, like in “Bionic Commando Rearmed” or “Prince of Persia Classic”, or to simply add a new coat of HD paint as in “Street Fighter II HD”, these versions are poor and imperfect replacements of otherwise outstanding works of art at the time of their design.
The latest, and one of the most disappointing examples of this trend, is the revamping of LucasArt’s classic “Secret of Monkey Island”, of which Destructoid does a nice comparison gallery between the original (which will also be included in the download) and new version. The new visuals are so horrible that I can barely look. Why break the visual coherence and stunning artistry that made this game unique in the first place? We’re murdering the essence of these classics, and for what? For the sake of (and I can only guess) making them easier to understand for younger generations that aren’t used to slightly less flashy screens? But they look worse anyways, so why bother? It would be bad enough if the process was well realized, but it isn’t! It reminds me of Lucas himself trying to add cool CGI to his older movies, like “THX 1138″ or the original “Star Wars” trilogy, and in the process screwing up some of the most credible, consistent special effects to have ever been used in film. What’s next? Casablanca in color? Venus de Milo rebuilt with robot arms? Mona Lisa in 3D???
State of the Art Interlude – “Battle of the Minds”
Earlier this week, Dieubussy warned me of “Into the Night, with Jason Rohrer and Chris Crawford”, an ARTE documentary that places face to face two very important figures of the video-game world. On one side is veteran Chris Crawford, a man that my games’ professor likes to call the grand-daddy of video-games, someone who devoted his entire life to the medium we so love. He was the first great promoter of the games as art debate, published numerous books on game design, and is the author of many notorious games such as “Balance of Power” or “Balance of the Planet”. On the other side, is an aspiring youngster named Jason Rohrer, a sort of new found hope for art games that has authored a number of interesting indie ventures, such as “Passage” and “Between”. The documentary follows a casual and provocative debate between these two figures, the old and the new, as they cover everything from the state of the industry, to what paths lie ahead for games so that they become an artistic medium. Two different views on the same sort of issues I’ve been addressing in this series of articles called “State of the Art”.
I really recommend this documentary, as we get a rare, unedited, unbiased glimpse at the minds of some of the most important designers in the medium. This isn’t an entertainment media piece, with flashy scenarios, catchy phrases, pompous segments and simplified analysis, no, you only get two insightful creators from different times and places, having an honest, heartfelt discussion about video-games. It’s a conversation filled with possibilities, loose ends and unanswered questions, making it a wonderful starting point for a profound reflection on all the matters that surround the medium. It’s old school journalism and documentary at it’s best, and quite possibly, the best documentary piece on video-games ever made.
With some luck, I will soon post a more in-depth analysis of some of the ideas present in the documentary.
For those in Germany and France, the documentary is available online at the ARTE website, and for all the rest, well… you know where to find it *wink* *wink*.
Wave Foam – “The Big White Elephant”
Cloud computing has just become the hottest new buzz word for the industry. Like the mythic Phantom platform, the OnLive system comes with the promise of solving every single problem ever known to players. No more costly consoles and games, no more installations, DRM issues or complex hardware configurations, no more wasted trips to the local store to get a game, or long download times for the newest Steam-powered game; OnLive solves every one of this problems. And guarantying a rock-solid performance comparable to that of locally running an Xbox360, Playstation 3 or high-end PC, with 720p, 60 FPS, and 5.1 sound. OnLive could just as well be a player’s wet dream… and like all wet dreams it belongs in the world of fantasy and fiction. At least that is what everybody with some technical background in computer/network engineering will tell you, as the extensive, detailed Eurogamer/DigitalFoundry article shows.
If further evidence was needed, now you can have it. David Perry (notable game designer behind “Eartworm Jim” and “MDK”) is leading OnLive’s competition in the cloud computing business, with his own Gakai. He just released a new demo video, and once again, there’s a Eurogamer/DigitalFoundry article that thoroughly analyzes it. The big difference between Gakai and OnLive, is that Gakai shows off credible results considering the currently available technology. No smoke and mirrors, no outrageous promises, bold PR statements or seedy business models. Gakai seems down to earth, credible, and doesn’t aim for the moon. It allows games to be run in any computer, through a web browser page, with medium quality results. Audio is stereo with a quality level similar to low-tier MP3; visually intensive games run decently enough, even though there appears to be lag and some noticeable FPS drops; older, less technically impressive games, run in lower resolution screens, but get a pretty steady performance at 30 FPS. And this is in a controlled demo environment. If this medium-quality service already encounters some performance issues, think about OnLive, with its super high end quality standards! Perhaps then you can realize how unrealistic the OnLive proposition really is. Despite that, (almost) all of the media ran the OnLive story with minimum amounts of scepticism. Just serves to show how technically prepared most media outlets are.
State of the Art pt.3 – “Touch of Evil”
I left the last article with a prominent question: what is ludism, and why is it hurtful to the medium we so treasure? Ludism comes from “ludus”, the roman word that translates the concept of “play”. Playing can mean many things, but in this case, the dimension we’re looking for is that of “playing a game”.
A game is not like a toy, which allows children to fully author their own little fantasies and decide on how they want to entertain themselves. Kids can take an Action Man and make him fight against the evil Dr. X, as the box entices them to, but they can also play doctors with Dr. X and pretend Action Man is just a sick military man straight up from Iraq. For a child with a toy in hand, the sky is the limit – the toy is but a facilitator, or catalyst, to a type of play governed by his own imagination. It serves only as physical accessory that can help emulate fantasies, bringing them a step towards reality; but in the end, the real magic is happening in each kid’s heads.
A game is a different beast altogether. It’s structured – a pre-determined form of play that is static and unchangeable. It usually has a metaphorical background (war in “Chess’” case, or finances in “Monopoly”), a set of strict rules, goals and challenges, and also a number of rewards and penalties. It is, in its very essence, a competitive form of play, whether the competition comes from a direct opponent (”Chess”, “Tennis”), an indirect opponent (beating a pre-established record in a racing track), or just an abstract challenge (improving the number of elevations you can endure). There are many more aspects to what defines a game – from the voluntary choice of players to participate, to the possible cooperative dimensions, etc. -, but the key idea here is: a game is a structured form oriented towards a specific type of experience, with a specific type of entertainment that advents from that same experience.
What do you get from playing a game? When stripped to its barest, competition leads to certain psychological effects. Humans are biologically driven by goals, which is probably why Capitalism seems to drive people to work so damn hard. When people achieve goals and get rewards in the real world, the brain itself rewards the person on a psicobiological level, by releasing a specific type of pleasure hormone that makes the person happy, even euphoric – it’s the brain’s own way of saying “congratulations on the job well done”. The reverse is also true, so when you lose, you feel frustrated, angry and annoyed. Games are entertaining exactly because they tap into that whole “reward/penalty” dialectic of our mind. Our brain is wired to respond to that sort of experience, so when you emulate it with a game, you get the same results, despite not having the real life consequences. Video-games (for the reasons I wrote in the previous article) are exactly the same – they’re normal games, with the small exception that instead of playing them with a board, pencil & paper, or a football camp, you play them with a computer or computer-like device (such as a console).
So, now that we know what a game is and what it accomplishes, let’s dissect its limitations. Games, and by extent, video-games, can really only transmit two sets of emotional responses: the sentiment of achievement and realization when you win (usually called “fun” in this context) and the infinite frustration you get when you lose. That is all. Some of you might say- What? , but I laughed in “Monkey Island”, cried in “Final Fantasy VII” and was in love with Yorda in “ICO”!!! And here is where we start discussing the importance of video-games being so much more than solely “games”, which is where I wanted to get all along.
Ever since the birth of the medium, it has evolved by merging with many other languages and mediums, giving birth to new landscapes inside the realm. “Monkey Island” makes you laugh because of its textual and literary qualities – its off-beat humor comes mostly in the form of dialog and narrative description, not game-play. Aeris’ death in “Final Fantasy VII” is a pure cinematic moment, translated through a wonderfully designed FMV, which acts as an emotional peak, also thanks to a text-heavy scenario. The actual games in “Monkey Island” and “Final Fantasy VII” had nothing to do with the emotions you felt. The added dimensions that were on top of those games, are what really made these, like others, highly emotional and, by consequence, memorable. But what about “ICO”? Wasn’t the act of holding Yorda’s hand a game-play mechanic that made you feel something? This is where it gets tricky, and where the barrier between what is a game and what isn’t starts to blur. For the sake of argument (and to avoid extending this beyond its already enormous length) I’ll leave you to think about this matter for now, and further on, I’ll digress on “ICO’s” exact nature as a “game”.
The fact remains: games are not expressive enough to encompass powerful feelings such as loss, sadness, fear, happiness, etc, etc, etc – none of you have ever felt these emotions while playing “Chess” or “Monopoly”, have you? But we know that the “video-game” (or whatever you wanna call it) medium is, in fact, capable of producing those same emotional reactions by using other mediums’ language, but with an added bonus, that of interactivity. However, we cannot harness that potential if we continue to merely create games, or complex forms of emotional cinematic/literary/visual/musical experiences with games underneath. If we do that, then we are wasting all the potential expressiveness of our medium by reducing it to its ludic or game-y dimension, which is severely limited.
And so, we come to the million dollar question: if games are so limited in terms of emotional expressiveness, then why are we still calling our interactive medium “games” or “video-games”, and more importantly, why are we using “games” as a model for our medium when it’s so poor compared to others? And the answer is so simple. Because in reality, we, as gamers and consumers, are happy that games are the way they are. We like the familiar, universal appeal of the ludic dimension, which has been present in the medium since day one (the tragic, original sin I’ve written about before). We, as players, designers and journalists, have come to expect games to be “games”. We do not envision a different, higher vision for “video-games”, closer to that of Art, for instance. Hell, we don’t even reward or buy works that are trying to achieve that higher concept. Quite on the contrary, the more polished and entertaining a game is, the better grades and sales it gets. However, if a game is artistic, it is usually dismissed by everyone for not being “fun”, even if it gives us so much more on an emotional level. We simply do not account for the added expressiveness the medium can offer, and thus we remain adamant that “fun” is the only emotion games can convey to us. And as long as this situation perpetuates itself, then “video-games” will remain “games”. And I’m sorry, but it’s not the fault of the industry, as much as it is our own fault for not telling it, as consumers, that we want more. If we want Art in video-games, then we must learn to support it whenever it arises.
[In the coming articles I will continue delving on these issues and explore how everyone can help change the current video-game landscape.]
Wave Foam – “Best Videogames of 2009… wait… is 2009 over already?”
I get the whole top 5/10/100 thing: it feels great to massage your ego by telling the whole world what you feel are the best games/movies/albums/whatever. And as a periodic exercise it can even be healthy, as a way of promoting the good, penalizing the bad, and do some reflections on how mediums stand in that time period. It is never a question of “what will be remembered” for the future, but a question of “what should be remembered”. I believe it’s a great opportunity for media to further cultivate taste and elevate the medium. Apparently, this year, there must be a shortage on news and games, because instead of the typical yearly analysis, we’re already getting a sneak preview half way across the gap. Both Kotaku and Destructoid already have a selection of the best of the year, and Gamespot has a “Dads and Grads Wishlist”, which is basically a silly and sneaky way of doing just the same (and perhaps there are more sites, go ahead and find out). I mean… the best games of the first semester of 2009? Is this for real? What will it come to next? The best games of the second trimester of 2010? Talk about silly season. Guess the heat will do that to game journalists.
But, let’s forget that all the (supposedly) good games only come out by year’s end, and pretend this exercise even makes sense. What is the media telling us? First, and thank god they finally get it (they have to get something right, don’t you think?) – small, low budget, almost indie-like games, are being rewarded. The most notable of these examples is “Plants Vs. Zombies”, which all websites mention with top honors. “Rhythm Heaven”, “flower“, “bit trip beat”, “Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure” are some of the mentioned. From all three websites, “Destructoid” is the one that most embraced non triple-AAA gaming, with the number of honorable mentions regarding small/medium sized productions being greater than that of blockbuster titles. I have to say this is a good sign, and despite some glaring omissions (Takahashi’s “Noby Noby Boy” which, strangely, is absent all around), this could mean journalists are moving away from the triple AAA industry paradigm that was the standard not so long ago. Then again, it might just be a sign that Christmas is still to come… we’ll see then how many low-budget games get on these lists by year’s end.
Not all is well though. The number of mentions to “Resident Evil 5“, “Killzone 2″, “Street Fighter IV” and “Punch Out” are still enough to leave me utterly disappointed, might I even say, a tad nauseous, given the generic, highly derivative game-play styles of all these games. But what hurt me the most was how little praise “flower” got… a game that should have received the highest accolades, but that in the end is a secondary reference to all these nit wits that wouldn’t know what art is even if it slapped them in the face. For some obscure reason, Gamespot doesn’t even mention it (perhaps their category system is so good that it doesn’t encompass the best game of the year); of the entire Destructoid staff, only three editors selected the game; and lastly, Kotaku’s editor (who wrote the top) does mention it as one of the best 10 of the year, but still makes me gag by placing it alongside *things* like “Red Faction Guerrilla”, “infamous” and “House of the Dead Overkill”… talk about an eclectic taste, hey?
And no, I won”t do a half year top… only “flower” and perhaps “Noby Noby Boy” could make it there, so why bother?
