Ace Dickhead

I talk at length about things. My mobile view header was created by Nimblejack on the MSPA forums and was taken from Homestuck. This blog currently left blank, things to come in the future.

[thegonzologist]

Let’s Talk Violence In Games

If you’ve been following my writing career, you know I really write about shooters a lot. It is safe for you to assume that I really like violent video games. But lately, I’ve noticed some weird responses to the idea of violence in games, and I wanted to address that. So let’s talk about them for a bit, okay?

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[cyclopscaveman-blog]

I really love this post, especially since it put words to a concept I haven't personally been able to define.

The concept of mechanical drama here gives some added weight and understanding to the relationship between the player and the game for me, and why cutscenes or poor gameplay experiences can damage that relationship.

Simply, cutscenes just don’t provide any sort of mechanical drama at all. There’s no game-related point to them other than moving plot forward in the story or provide extra characterization or whatnot. Without mechanical drama to back it up, I may as well be watching a movie.

When I play a game, I expect there to be a certain level of interactivity between myself and the game. If I’m spending a lot of time sitting around and doing nothing, I’ll watch a movie or something instead. As weird as it may be, certain scenes have more impact when mechanical drama is introduced to them rather than being played through a cutscene. Portal 2 wouldn’t be the same game if you were forced to pull out from your perspective and watch a cutscene for any of it’s more dramatic parts. 

Dialogue, too, can bring mechanical drama out. Playing a scene in a game, and having your actions or words in that cutscene can lead to massive player enjoyment. I recall a scene early in Deus Ex: Human revolution where you can try to convince your boss to perform or not perform a plot-relevant action. I felt in control of that scene, and my potential fuck ups felt more real because I was in control. 

Metal Gear Rising: Revengance has two examples. At the start of the game you get your arm cut off by your main rival, and you feel like you have no control in that situation. The lack of control is part of the mechanical drama here, and it makes the scene feel that much better than if it were a normal cutscene. 

It’s a bit different with a part later in the game. Drama is introduced when you become depressed after being forced to hear the final thoughts of the people you’ve been senselessly and violently murdering the whole time. Unfortunately, you’re given free control and no remote change in mechanical drama  happens; until immediately afterward. Then, you become depressed and make it to a scene where you’re not even allowed to move, in order to introduce the stage boss. Honestly, as much as I love the game, this part is a giant cutscene. The only difference is you’re forced into it each playthrough. If it were a cutscene, at least I could skip it.

Other third-person action games suffer from this, too. Lots of games will take some time to show you how badass your protagonist is in a cutscene, despite there being plenty of opportunities for that to be played through in the game itself.

I think a particularly egregious example is the fight that you’re supposed to lose. Most people know the one. It’s a super tough battle that you can barely pass by the skin of your teeth. You’ve tried forever to beat this and now finally, with satisfaction in your heart, the game puts you into a cutscene where . . .

You lose immediately. It’s a huge separation from your accomplishments through mechanical drama and what the story wants, and can leave a player feeling cheated out of something that they worked hard for. It can be done intentionally, but I feel that things like that should be done in the framework of the mechanics, to allow for the player to still feel like there was effort put in to the outcome, rather than the outcome being predetermined and the action just being what you have to do in order to watch the next cutscene.

Having a word for it, it puts into perspective for me what makes games their own experience compared to movies or tv or books. What you do and what you have control over has weight. When you tell stories about playing a game, the framework of the mechanical drama helps make it feel more like a story that you took part in making. Mechanical drama separates a game you tell stories about from a game where you’re told the story.

[cyclopscaveman-blog]

Thoughts on Narrativism + Formalism

Recently I cam across an article and a video showed up in my YouTube subscriptions about the relationship and discussions about the relationship between narratives and game mechanics. It's gotten me thinking about how the two interact with each other; whether purposefully or not. Let's entertain that idea for a brief second, here.

Whenever you play a game, you start out normally with a sequence that sets up the conflict, the protagonist and antagonist (plural if we're playing a multiplayer game), and a condition for the story to end. Normally, we would recognize this as the total sum of our interactions with games. From beginning to completion, this is the complete arc of play. What if each time you sit down to play a game, whether it be for 1 hour or 10, video or traditional, you are engaging in a mini-narrative built out of a combination of the mechanics and the overarching story or the general fluff of the game?

When you play a game, even just to do dailies in an MMO, or to play a chapter or two in the story, you are engaging in a narrative with the mechanics. This is more readily visible in more mechanically focused genres or modes of play, like Player versus Player combat or Arena Shooters, as well as in Grand Strategy games or in a game or set of turns in a civilization game. The act of engaging with a game follows a general narrative arc.

As an example, Chess begins by setting up the board. This is parallel to the opening of a book, where we establish who is a part of the story and their specific goals. Next, players make their moves, each trying to outwit the other, culminating in a moment where one has won or is close to winning the game. The sequence of play followed by the win or near-win can be considered the climax, and the post check actions can be considered the falling actions, and the post mate actions can be considered our conclusion. 

Unlike in most traditional narratives, however, protagonists lose a lot more often. Games, being an inherently competitive or strongly interactive medium, tend to have states where the player can fail to meet the expectations of the game, or be bested by their opponent. I give merely light consideration to that fact, though, because the nature of games is to have a losing state.

Am I wrong, though? Do games inherently have a narrative built through their mechanics or does it not exist, or is it done by accident?

[cyclopscaveman-blog]

My Thanksgiving

Aside from your normal thanksgiving tradition of dinner with family, my day was rather busy. I had work from 5:30 until 1AM, rendering me caught in the machine for most of what is normally a day of relaxation. I'd be betraying my reason for creating this blog by talking about that experience, however. Today I also got a taste of the next-gen's cartoony shooter "Sunset Overdrive." I didn't complete the game, but my first impression was very good. The game opens up with your avatar having a pretty bad weekend working for Fizzco cleaning up the garbage at the launch of Overcharge, a new energy drink. Someone approaches you, sick, and turns into a monster! Following, practically everyone at the event starts turning. You make your escape from them and get on the train. Afterwards, you get a taste of the gameplay when you're allowed to go from the station back to your apartment, and the game begins in earnest when the story jumps forward 17 days and you're evicted from your apartment by the same crazed monsters from the start, which you quickly learn are called OD, Overcharge Drinkers. One of my favorite small touches from the opening sequence is that it does something I haven't seen in anything other than Bayonetta. When you start, you can change your character's body type, face, and hair. You're later also allowed to set up an outfit before the game starts in earnest. These outfits and your appearance decisions are transferred into the cutscenes, which is a small detail that goes well into getting and keeping the player immersed and invested in the game that they're playing. As far as the actual gameplay goes, Sunset Overdrive does not disappoint. Movement is fluid, fast, and fun. I really enjoy moving in the world and building up my style meter. The guns feel great, and the wide variety of weapons allows for a refreshing variety in what I'm using to murder people. There are also a lot of other subtleties to combat that make it much more fun, but given that I am unable to really "grind" up my playing skill, I'll refrain on commenting on it for now. Sunset Overdrive is also a nice challenge, not tough as nails, but not a cakewalk either. Death is not a huge punishment, because otherwise it would punish taking risks in combat. The respawning animations are also well varied; I never saw a repeat in the few hours I played. If I get the chance to finish it, I think Sunset Overdrive is a game I'd recommend people play if it interests them, or if they're looking for a nonstandard third person game for the XBox One. I enjoyed it, and if I get the chance, I'll try to finish it myself, as well.