Scholarly Gamer

Friday, May 29, 2009

Books I have borrowed

Books I have borrowed - May 2009. Just for reference!

Hop on pop : the politics and pleasures of popular culture / edited by Henry Jenkins, Tara McPherson, & Jane Shattuc. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks E169.12 .H666 2002 Book Overdue: Due 05/20/2009

Bogost, Ian. Persuasive games : the expressive power of videogames / Ian Bogost. - WLU Book Shelves GV1469.34.S52 B64 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Taylor, T. L. Play between worlds : exploring online game culture / T.L. Taylor. - WLU Book Shelves GV1469.17.S63 T38 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Ludlow, Peter, 1957- Second Life Herald : the virtual tabloid that witnessed the dawn of the metaverse / Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. GV1469.25.S425 L83 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Law, Kar, 1941- Hong Kong cinema : a cross-cultural view / Law Kar, Frank Bren ; with the collaboration of Sam Ho. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN1993.5.C4 K37 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Wei, William, 1948- Asian American movement / William Wei. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks E 184.O6 W44 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Remapping Asian American history / edited by Sucheng Chan. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks E184.O6 R46 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Kitano, Harry H. L. Asian Americans : emerging minorities / Harry H.L. Kitano, Roger Daniels. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks E184.O6 K57 2001 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Fong, Timothy P. Contemporary Asian American experience : beyond the model minority / Timothy P. Fong. - WLU Book Shelves E184.O6 F66 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Ancheta, Angelo N., 1960- Race, rights, and the Asian American experience / Angelo N. Ancheta. - WLU Book Shelves KF4757.A75 A53 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Anderson, Craig Alan, 1952- Violent video game effects on children and adolescents : theory, research, and public policy / Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile,

Katherine E. Buckley. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks HQ784.V53 A53 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Visible minorities and multiculturalism: Asians in Canada, edited by K. Victor Ujimoto and Gordon Hirabayashi, with the assistance of P.A. Saram. - WLU Book Shelves FC106 .O6V58 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Hwang, David Henry, 1957- FOB and other plays / David Henry Hwang ; with a foreword by Maxine Hong Kingston. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PS 3558.W83 F62 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Hwang, David Henry, 1957- Trying to find Chinatown : the selected plays / David Henry Hwang. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PS3558.W83 A6 2000 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Hall, Kenneth E., 1954- John Woo : the films / by Kenneth E. Hall. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1998.3.W655 H36 1999 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Woo, John, 1948- John Woo : interviews / edited by Robert K. Elder. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1998.3.W655 J65 2005 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Bogost, Ian. Unit operations : an approach to videogame criticism / Ian Bogost. - UW Davis. Book Stacks. Main Floor QA76.76.C672 B65 2006 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Cinema of Hong Kong : history, arts, identity / edited by Poshek Fu, David Desser. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1993.5.H6 C56 2000 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Cheng, Jim. Annotated bibliography for Chinese film studies / Jim Cheng = Zhongguo dian ying yan jiu shu mu ti yao / Cheng Jian. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1993.5.C4 C442x 2004 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong : popular cinema and the art of entertainment / David Bordwell. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1993.5.H6 B63 2000 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Meaning and culture of Grand theft auto : critical essays / edited by Nate Garrelts. - WLU Book Shelves GV1469.35.G738 M43 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm
Chinese films in focus : 25 new takes / edited by Chris Berry. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1993.5.C4 C463x 2003 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Aureus, Leon, 1973- Banana boys : the play / by Leon Aureus ; adapted from the novel by Terry Woo. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PS8601.U74 B35 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm
Davis, Rocío G. Transcultural reinventions : Asian American and Asian Canadian short-story cycles / Rocio G. Davis. - WLU Book Shelves PS8191.S5 D39 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Hwang, David Henry, 1957- Flower drum song / music by Richard Rodgers ; lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II ; book by David Hanry Hwang. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PS3558.W83 F58 2003 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm
Manning, Erin. Ephemeral territories : representing nation, home, and identity in Canada / Erin Manning. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. FC97 .M36 2003 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Casteel, Sarah Phillips, 1974- Second arrivals : landscape and belonging in contemporary writing of the Americas / Sarah Phillips Casteel. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PR9175 .C37 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Yoon, Jin-me, 1960- Jin-me Yoon : touring home from away / [guest curator, Annette Hurtig]. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. N6549.Y66 A4 2003 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Berry, Chris, 1959- China on screen : cinema and nation / Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN1993.5.C4 B44 2006 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Heard, Christopher Ten thousand bullets : the cinematic journey of John Woo / Christopher Heard. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN1998.3.W655 H43 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Zhang, Yingjin. Chinese national cinema / Yingjin Zhang. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN1993.5.C4 Z49 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

New Chinese cinemas : forms, identities, politics / edited by Nick Browne ... [et al.]. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN 1993.5.C4 N49 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Lee, Josephine Ding, 1960- Performing Asian America : race and ethnicity on the contemporary stage / Josephine Lee. 1997 - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PS338.A74L44 1997 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

East Main Street : Asian American popular culture / edited by Shilpa Davé, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha G. Oren ; foreword by Robert G. Lee. - WLU Book Shelves E184.A75 E17 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Xu, Wenying. Eating identities : reading food in Asian American literature / Wenying Xu. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PS153.A84 X8 2008 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Li, Xiaoping, 1954- Voices rising : Asian Canadian cultural activism / Xiaoping Li. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks F1035.A75 L5 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971- Race & resistance : literature & politics in Asian America / Viet Thanh Nguyen. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PS153.A84 N48 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Grice, Helena. Negotiating identities : an introduction to Asian American women's writing / Helena Grice. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PS153.A84 G74 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Khoo, Tseen-Ling, 1970- Banana bending : Asian-Australian and Asian-Canadian literatures / Tseen-Ling Khoo. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PR9080.5 K48 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Singh, Simon. Big bang : the origin of the universe / Simon Singh. - Guelph/Humber Collection -- At Humber College QB991.B54 S56 2004 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

First person : new media as story, performance, and game / edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan ; designed by Michael Crumpton. - WLU Book Shelves GV1469.17.S63 F57 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Sun, Wei. Minority invisibility : an Asian American experience / Wei Sun. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. P94.5.M552 U67x 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Ono, Kent A., 1964- Asian Americans and the media / Kent A. Ono and Vincent N. Pham. - WLU Book Shelves P94.5.A762 U6 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Kane, Michael. Game boys : professional videogaming's rise from the basement to the big time / Michael Kane. - WLU Book Shelves GV1469.17.S63 K36 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

McCloud, Scott, 1960- Making comics : storytelling secrets of comics, manga and graphic novels / Scott McCloud. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN6710 .M3325 2006 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Stokes, Lisa Odham. City on fire : Hong Kong cinema / Lisa Odham Stokes and Michael Hoover. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1993.5.H6 S76 1999 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Burton, David M. Elementary number theory / David M. Burton. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks QA241 .B83 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Bogart, Kenneth P. Discrete mathematics for computer science / Kenneth Bogart, Clifford Stein, Robert L. Drysdale - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks QA76.9.M35 B64 2006 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Teo, Stephen. Hong Kong cinema : the extra dimensions / Stephen Teo. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN1993.5.H6 T46 1997 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Ghymn, Esther Mikyung, 1949- Images of Asian American women by Asian American women writers / Esther Mikyung Ghymn. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PS 153.A84 G47 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Asian American sexualities : dimensions of the gay and lesbian experience / edited by Russell Leong. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks HQ 76.2.U5 A75 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Ma, Sheng-mei. East-West montage : reflections on Asian bodies in diaspora / Sheng-mei Ma. - WLU Book Shelves DS13 .M3 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Second person : role-playing and story in games and playable media / edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin ; designed by Michael Crumpton. - WLU Book Shelves GV1469.17.S63 S43 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Screening Asian Americans / edited and with an introduction by Peter X Feng. - WLU Book Shelves PN1995.9.A77 S79 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Gee, James Paul. What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy / James Paul Gee. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks GV1469.3 .G44 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Computer games : text, narrative and play / Diane Carr ... [et al.]. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks GV1469.17.S63 C66 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

New media : a critical introduction / Martin Lister ... [et al.]. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks P96.T42 N478 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Flew, Terry. New media : an introduction / Terry Flew. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks P96.T42 F58 2005 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

New media book / edited by Dan Harries. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks P96.T42 N49 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Ty, Eleanor Rose, 1958- Politics of the visible in Asian North American narratives / Eleanor Ty. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PS8089.5 A8 T9 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Gendering the nation : Canadian women's cinema / edited by Kay Armatage ... [et al.]. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN1998.2 .G46 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Versaci, Rocco. This book contains graphic language : comics as literature / Rocco Versaci. - WLU Book Shelves PN6714 .V47 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm
Wark, McKenzie, 1961- Gamer theory / McKenzie Wark. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks GV1469.17.S63 W37 2007 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Comics & ideology / edited by Matthew P. McAllister, Edward H. Sewell Jr., and Ian Gordon. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN6714 .C645 2001 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Strips, toons, and bluesies : essays in comics and culture / D.B. Dowd and Todd Hignite, editors. - Guelph McLaughlin Book Stacks PN6710 .R83 2006 Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Fuchs, Wolfgang J 1945- Comics; anatomy of a mass medium [by] Reinhold Reitberger [and] Wolfgang Fuchs [Translated from the German by Nadia Fowler. - UW Porter. Book Stacks. 6th-10th Floors. PN6710.F813 1972b Book Renewed: Due 09/15/2009 11:59pm

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Fox 2! Dancing with the Angels: Tom Clancy’s HAWX and Ace Combat 6

It seemed almost natural to play these games back to back, even if I didn’t intend to do it that way. I’m not quite sure why I dropped AC6 way back in 2007. Other things probably came up and it was just a tad too ridiculous for me to find it engaging. Fast forward to the 2009 release of HAWX, which as a general fan of the Ubisoft Tom Clancy franchise, I felt inclined to play. By the time I finished HAWX, I felt like I should give AC6 another chance.

As for the gameplay, I can really only speak to the level design. I’ve discovered that I hate bombing missions. The one good thing about old Space Sims is that by the very nature of the setting, crashing isn’t even a consideration. You can just focus on dogfighting other fighter craft. HAWX on the other hand emphasizes bombing – and while the bombs themselves are fairly easy fire and forget type weapons, it’s still a pain to try to hit a target while trying to avoid smacking into terrain. There’s even a mission where you’re forced to fly under a certain altitude through hilly terrain for the majority of the mission. High pressure? Sure. It’s just not quite as fun as trying to chase down an F-18.

As for AC6, while the bombing is relatively simplified because of the option to use fire and forget bombs, they’ve replaced the frustration with the classic Star Wars trench run. Fly down a tunnel in a jet while being shot at by turrets and aiming for a target that you only have one chance to hit. Again, the tension is ratcheted up but since the margin of error is fairly low (especially on a higher difficulty), there is a large potential for frustration.

But, as Yahtzee said in his review of HAWX, there’s something satisfying about chasing down another plane and blowing it out of the sky – even if it’s boiled down to pointing and clicking – and there are more than enough missions in both games where you do just that.

In terms of story conveyed through gameplay and level design, both games rely on scripted sequences to try to inspire what I would tentatively call “cinematic moments” or more specifically, the type of climaxes found at the height of action sequences in war films. The turning point in HAWX is when Artemis, the PMC that your character flies for, switches allegiances against the United States because the enemy (a generic separatist terrorist organization) has offered them a better contract. In the game itself, this is represented by an Artemis fleet suddenly appearing on the map after the completion of a mission, demanding the immediate withdrawal of American forces. With patriotic fervour, your wingman declares that he can’t fight against Americans and suddenly you’re tasked with destroying the Artemis flagship in order to save an American carrier group.

For what it tries to accomplish, I suppose it’s perfectly adequate. But for some reason, it just wasn’t all that inspiring. Now, one thing to point out is that most of the Tom Clancy games are now made by Europeans or Canadians (a fact that Tom Clancy himself might find ironic in between dips in his gold plated pool filled with thousand dollar bills), and I suppose this is just a twisted view of nationalism and patriotism that non-Americans seem to believe that Americans are consumed with. It’s a far cry from the type of story found in American war films or even Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4. Alternatively, it might just be horrible writing and presentation – and given that Ubisoft doesn’t publish credits for the games anywhere online, it might not be fair to place the blame on Ubisoft Romania.

Speaking of presentation, one of the lauded features of the game was that it takes place during Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 – and indeed, the first mission in the game has you flying into Juarez in order to support Captain Mitchell. It’s a great concept that I was really looking forward to, simply because the moment referenced in GRAW2 is one of the better uses of the “cinematic moment” in games to this day. Unfortunately, the actual mission in HAWX has nothing in common with the mission in GRAW2. Then there’s the fact that they didn’t even bother to hire the same voice actor to play Mitchell. Sure, gruff American soldier is a generic voice that anyone can do... but if you’re going out of the way to reference a character that you’ve used in other games, at least have the foresight to hire the same voice actor as well.

Ace Combat 6’s “cinematic moment” comes late in the game and it’s surprisingly similar to the one found in GRAW2. You’re tasked to destroy some biological weapons, which is fairly simple it itself, and then you are told to pull out and return to base. As you begin to fly home, wave after wave of enemy fighters begin to engage you and you soon begin to realize that the odds are against you. And it’s for this reason that I found the moment in AC6 to be more engaging and emotionally affecting than the one in HAWX. Speaking for myself, when I saw that I had to somehow take on a dozen or so fighter jets with just a single wingman for support, I thought I was going to “die” (or at least, lose the mission). It’s a classic manipulation of the sense of agency that a player has when playing a game. Barring survival horror games, typically a player has a tremendous sense of power over the game world and by suddenly overwhelming the player, the designers are hoping that – at least for a brief moment – the player will feel overwhelmed and become anxious.

And just as suddenly and unexpectedly as the game removes agency from the player, the game returns it to him in the form of allied forces appearing in the map to provide support. It’s quite literally the game version of the cavalry appearing from the distance to save the protagonist in the nick of time (such as at the end of Saving Private Ryan when American forces arrive to stop the German advance). By returning the power that was temporary removed from the player, the game is able to manipulate the player into feeling a sense of relief as he realizes that he is no longer in any imminent danger. Hearing an ally tell you that he’s here to help you is as cliché as refusing to turn on one’s homeland, but the way it is executed in AC6 allowed me to temporarily forget that I’ve experienced this moment many times before – in games and in other media. Running in my head was the thought that I was glad I wasn’t going to “die” and have to repeat the mission, which is probably as close as a game can come to replicating the danger of real world combat.

Moving on to the actual stories of both games... they’re both fairly obnoxious in terms of how shallow they are, but for very different reasons. I don’t want to go into any real detail because plot summaries of both games are available on Wikipedia, but I will say that if I had to choose which one I liked more, I would have to go with Ace Combat 6. The story in HAWX was just pure bullshit that makes Metal Gear Solid 4 seem like a well considered white paper on the precipitous future humanity faces as private military corporations begin to capitalize on the everlasting demand for soldiers and weapons. Just like the current season of 24 (season 7), for some random reason a PMC wants to destroy the United States... but there’s no real compelling reason why they’d want to take over America or what they’d even do if they actually succeeded. And even then, most of the footage they used for the “cutscenes” (or over-glorified Power Point presentations) in between missions was recycled from other Tom Clancy games. I think they probably shouldn’t have even bothered with a story at all.

Ace Combat 6 on the other hand is disappointing in that the storytelling is so heavy handed. It would almost be an insult to anime to call this story anime-inspired, even though it’s clear that’s where the game is drawing its inspiration. Essentially (and quite like Valkyria Chronicles) a country is invaded by an unprovoked aggressor and you have to fight to save your homeland. But as the story unfolds, it’s clear that this is an anti-war story. I think I’ve touched on my feelings about Japanese anti-war stories in my Valkyria Chronicles post. While it’s strange seeing an anti-war story from the Japanese perspective (for a variety of reasons – the most notable one being that the game received assistance from JASDF), at least they’re trying to do something “more meaningful” with the story than their Western counterparts.

That said, it just seems that Japanese game writing seems to be clunky as hell. While the narrative is split amongst several characters, let’s focus on Melissa Herman. When the game opens, we find out that her husband is a pilot in the air force that you yourself fly in. A typical war movie would just be happy with having the character discover that she is a widow through a messenger or another soldier. Not Ace Combat 6 however. No, Melissa finds out that her husband has died when she walks by the wreckage of her husband’s jet on her way out of the city. And of course, there’s the “Go Dance with the Angels!” line that is used throughout the story. It’s supposed to be an elaborate way to curse someone (dancing with the angels implies that one should be shot down by pilots) but it just becomes a joke by the time the game ends. I have to assume that it was better in Japanese and the translator/localizer did the best they could when trying to come up with an English equivalent. Either way, Japanese game companies should simply hire anime writers/directors to work on the story for their games to avoid problems like these entirely.

Finally, I just wanted to touch on the music. Wikipedia lists Tom Salta as the composer for HAWX... which is slightly disappointing because I think his work on the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter games was excellent. Unfortunately, no tracks really stood out this time. The Ace Combat 6 soundtrack on the other hand works well with the game. The track that they used for the trailer (the “Invasion of Gracemeria” theme) is probably one of my favourite pieces of game music. In fact, I’m not surprised that they went all out and released a 3 CD OST in Japan.

There was some other minor point that I wanted to write about... but it's long since left my head unfortunately. Hopefully it'll come to me again some time in the future.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Valkyria Chronicles: I hate Nazis and You do too!

A sequel to Sega’s Viking: Battle of the Asgaard? No, not quite. It just seems that non Judeo-Christian mythology is back in vogue again and I for one am perfectly happy to indulge in this new trend. No more crosses, please!

Anyway, let’s go through the game in brief. It’s a half real-time and half turn-based SRPG – which in itself seems like a crazy idea but it injects some life into an old genre. You control each character in real time from a third person perspective, almost like a TPS. There are also quite a few nuances with the combat engine, the best example is that if you move into an enemy’s cone of vision you will expose your characters to a free attack, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

I’m also not going to dwell on the eye-catching art style that they chose to use – everything looks like a watercolour painting or a pencil sketch. I have no idea how the technology works, but it needs to be seen in motion to be truly appreciated. In a world where every other game has is the plastic look of UE3, anything that takes a different approach should be commended.

What I really want to focus on is the story and the story telling. So it’s been a while since I’ve watched a full anime or manga series mostly because I don’t have the time or self-dedication to devote myself to watching something that will take months to get through (the heady days of the 90s, with Initial D and Sailor Moon and GTO, are behind me) but Valkyria Chronicles is the most “anime” text that I’ve experienced in a long time.

Everything that confuses and bewilders me about anime is in this game. For a game set during a brutal war, it feels strange to have 14 year old characters being shot at by soldiers who are essentially SS troopers. I know that the genre often features characters that are extremely young – but imagine if the cast of Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan were all teenagers. It’s just an odd convention that takes a bit of getting used to.

Then there’s the other anime convention that has always confused me – are these characters white or Japanese? It’s set in a fictional Europe that they’ve so creatively dubbed “Europa”, but the characters are drawn exactly the same way that characters in other anime series are drawn. What makes it all doubly strange is that there are “black” or at least “dark skinned” characters, so it’s not as if race doesn’t exist in the convention of anime. I just don’t know enough about Japanese culture or the conventions of manga/anime to know if this is just an art style, some form of deep-seated wish fulfillment or even just the typical privileging of whiteness.

Taking out the mythology of the “Valkyria” and the steam punk nature of the technology, the game is basically a retelling of the Second World War – including the holocaust (the Darcsen being locked up in concentration camps, use as forced labour and then being executed as their overseers abandon their posts? It's not subtle at all). Now, I don’t want to attribute the qualities of one game to an entire nation, but given the role that Japan took during WW2, it seems odd that there is a romanticisation of the European front of the Second World War. Perhaps the only interesting divergence from real world history is that the “Allies” in the game’s fiction are almost as evil as the “Axis” powers in the game’s fiction. I just wonder what the game would have been like if it was set in a fictional Asia, with the “Korean” country trying to resist a fictional China and Japan. Again, this is just one of those odd socio-cultural aspects of being Japanese that I'm not sure I'll ever understand.

As for how story is presented in the game itself, it’s typically Japanese – long cutscenes intermixed with bits of gameplay. I was mostly caught up in the story, as clunky as it could be, so I didn’t mind it so much but I can understand how someone might be totally frustrated with having to sit through hours of videos and text bubbles in order to actually play the game (it's better than Metal Gear Solid 4 thankfully). That said the way they presented the story is probably one of the cleverest ways I’ve seen someone do a menu screen since Psychonauts. The game is set up so that as you play through the game, you are essentially reading a book about the war aptly titled The Valkyria Chronicles, with each chapter of the book being a mission in the game. When most games simply use a text menu to select cutscenes and missions, it was just nice to see someone take the time to integrate the menus into the fiction of the game world.

While I wished that they took some of the thought that went into designing the menus into figuring out ways that they could have told the story during gameplay, I definitely appreciate the game for what it is. Yes, it’s undeniably a Japanese game but it is also innovative enough that it becomes a standout in a genre that is somewhat stuck in old conventions.

(Now if I could only finish Persona 3... or Persona 4!)

Oh, and here's an interesting picture I found on NeoGAF that apparently comes from 4chan that pretty much sums up the weirdness in the game:

Saints Row 2: Even Rower

Okay, so that’s not the subtitle... but it seems in keeping with the spirit of the game. Yeah, there’s really nothing spectacular about the game’s narrative or story – Volition has gone out of its way to tell you how pretentious and boring Grand Theft Auto 4 was – instead opting to make a game that was simply fun. Your character isn’t a conflicted ex-soldier trying to find a better life – s/he is just a “gangsta” who wants to own the city through any means necessary. Sure, there’s satire, but it feels more genuine and less contrived than Rock Star North’s particular brand of extreme Americanism.

And you know what? In an open world game – that just works for me. There is no narrative dissonance when I run over people or shoot down a police chopper with a wire guided RPG. There isn’t an overwrought cutscene trying to convince me that the main character is more than what s/he is – a psychopath who likes to blow things up. It’s completely unapologetic and it’s much better for it.

With a very thin plot then, what is there to talk about? I just wanted to point out that if there was ever a game about ergodic/ludic/emergent “game telling” experiences, this is it. The game is as fun as you want it to be and Volition went out of their way to make it accessible to as many people as possible. In mission checkpoints, regenerating health, the ability to recruit CPU players to help you on missions and a Gears of War-like revival system in co-op – it’s a game that wants you to finish it. Even the cars handle much easier, relying on a more arcade-like handling model that lets you do hairpin turns on a dime.

For all my talk about narrative in games, I just needed a reminder that games can just be “fun” and that I shouldn’t feel the need to apologize for the fact that I find it amusing to run around suburbia with a septic truck spraying raw sewage on people in order to lower property values. As I make my way through GTA4: The Lost and Damned, all I can think is that I hope Volition is working on Saints Row 3.

Flower or How I Became a Flower Child

Like Braid, I’m imagine that Flower has been talked to death by the time this goes up, so there really is nothing I need to say about the game that hasn’t been said – including those who think the game is a pretentious, unplayable mess. Of course, I’m in love with the game for the same reasons that everyone else loves it. Following in the footsteps of Rez and Everyday Shooter, Flower is the embodiment of game “synesthesia”, where you add to the music in the game through your own actions. But what will immediately draw people in is just the amazing art design of the first two levels.

That said, I honestly wasn’t impressed with the first three levels. It was charming and pretty and I was quite happy to play the game, but it felt like nothing more than an elaborate tech demo.

Then I played the fourth level and the whole experience changed. It went from just flying around a pretty environment to being a rousing adventure straight out of the typical myth cycle. While I’m sure people will have their own take on the game and ascribing authorial intent to a game that tries its best not to impose a narrative on the player is somewhat problematic, I believe that it is safe to say that the game is a reaction to urbanization from the perspective of a flower.

The jarring move from the gentle turning of windmills on a grassy plain to the black and harsh reality of a world full of power line towers and steel girders is an extremely emotionally jarring moment. The game forces you through a dark trench that imposes a feeling of claustrophobia on you – a feeling that is doubly more oppressive because of the freedom that the game offered you in the first three levels.

In the fifth level, the game completely changes. For the first time the game introduces an element of danger. If you touch a downed, blacked power line – you take damage and lose visibility. The first time that happened, it was so unexpected that I almost felt the shock myself. The payoff for the “boring” unassuming gameplay of the first three levels is that it is able to lull you into a false sense of security. I haven’t seen a better way to invoke the fear that a flower would feel when faced with the cold and harsh reality of a city. I’m sure there are poems and paintings that try to do their best to be moving representations of nature, but actually putting the experience into the hands of the player simply makes the experience that much more personal.

Following the myth cycle, the final level is one of redemption. Having suffered the crushing oppression urbanization, the flower then strikes back. The game gives you a powerful sense of agency and tells you to go forward and destroy the corrupting elements of humanity. It doesn’t condemn humanity or city life. In fact, when you destroy downed power lines and steel girders, new high rises are born out of the ground – just like flowers! – and you see that nature and humanity can coexist. You enliven a city block by restoring colour to the buildings and bringing back life to a small park. You even make flowers bloom as you fly down a highway. This isn’t the hyperbolic YOU’RE KILLING THE EARTH message that you’ll find everywhere else.

And the final moment of the game is the emotional climax that the game builds toward. You explode past a tower of steel and into a scene that reminds you of the window you see at the beginning of the game and the steel tower suddenly transforms itself into a giant tree. It was just an extremely satisfying moment that I haven’t felt since I finished the special “star” ending of Braid.

I really don’t want to make any declarative statements. Games have arrived. Games have evolved. Games are more than just a series of violent actions linked together by cutscenes stolen from film. I’ll let other people try to argue those points about the game, because I'm sure the hyperbole is flowing free without me contributing to it. I’ll just say that I never thought a human made "text", game or otherwise, could ever properly personify a flower – so much so that I felt, as stupid as this sounds, the anxieties and aspirations of a flower. Flow left me a little disappointed, but Jenova Chen is now on my radar and I'm definitely looking forward to "Flowerer" or whatever his next game may be.

What better way to end a post than with a sunset?

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Prince of Persia (2008): Save me Elika! You're my only hope!

I’m not sure what I can write about this game that hasn’t been covered by reviews. Part of it is cultural – it’s interesting to see that British reviewers didn’t like Nolan North’s Prince because it felt like an anachronism whereas many American reviewers liked the new character because he’s very much like Han Solo (which is interesting, consider who they cast to play the "real life" Prince of Persia in the new Disney film trilogy). The other part, of course, comes down to the difficulty. No matter how you see it, this is a game that is simply TOO easy and for many people this is its most basic flaw.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and I simply don’t have the patience to play a game for 100 hours (Persona 4, I’m looking at you) but I was perfectly happy with the game difficulty and its balance. While you can’t die, you are penalized when you miss a jump or when you are knocked down by an enemy. As many people have mentioned, the game implements quick save into the game itself and quite frankly, it makes it a more enjoyable experience. That said, I do find the actual platforming to be annoying sometimes – it’s so automatic that it runs counter to all of your instincts as a gamer. I jumped to my death so many times because I instinctually pushed a button that I shouldn’t have and it was extremely frustrating. Although, to be fair, for someone who has never played a game before and who doesn’t have that game grammar ingrained into them this automatic nature of the platforming would make the game infinitely more accessible. I’ll also say that if you’re able to hit every jump and grab correctly, it’s very satisfying to go from point A to point B.

With that out of the way, let’s just look at how the story was delivered in the game. It still relies on cutscenes, but a lot of the exposition and character building moments are found in incidental dialog (primarily through your battles with the Concubine) and through the purely optional dialog cutscenes with Elika. Essentially, if you want the story, you can stop and listen to it but if you want to breeze through the game and just play, you can do that too. I admire the choice – rather than force you to sit through cutscenes that you can’t skip (Heavenly Sword), it gives you the choice to experience as much of the story as you want. You can still get the basic plot points by just going through the game, but if you want to discover the characters’ motivations, you can do that too. It’s a design that certainly satisfies both types of gamers. (Incidentally, yes, the Prince of Persia is actually a prince. The game hints at the fact that he has run away from his title and that in the sequel, he’ll have to face his “destiny” and assume the mantle he has rejected.)

In terms of how the main story is told though, it’s pretty standard. While the environments are stunning to look at, other than the plates left behind by Ormazd they don’t really tell a story. There is a feeling of loss because this once vibrant and beautiful land has decayed into disrepair and neglect, but it doesn’t really tell anything more. The game’s highlights are in its small touches – the Prince’s interactions with Elika are so fluid it feels very much like they are working in tandem. Once in a while, you’ll find that she’ll slow you down as you wait for her to catch up but for the most part, there’s an almost ballet like quality to how they both interact with each other and the environment. Even if you skip all the character development exposition, you get a feel for how the characters are bonded to each other. At the very least, it’s probably the first time I’ve appreciated the storytelling possibilities of dance.

The other storytelling highlight is the ending. On a drink fuelled podcast, Greg Miller of the IGN Playstation channel said he was angry that the game forced a decision on him (and actually suggested that GTA4 had a more open ended ending!). I’d argue that all games are linear in terms of their plot – even GTA4 funnels you towards an ending regardless of your choices throughout the game. I just like that they made you play through the ending yourself. In most games, this would have been an elaborate bloviated ten minute cutscene that you’d forget about after the credits rolled. Instead, you are forced to actively participate in the ending – whether you agree with the Prince’s decision or not. But I’m getting ahead of myself; in the ending, you have saved the world but at the cost of Elika’s life. Unwilling to let her die, the Prince makes the same pact with the devil that her father did and frees Ahriman in order to revive her. The game makes you career her dead body to an altar and then directs you to destroy five newly planted trees in the game world meant to symbolize renewal. Each tree you destroy corrupts the land and when you destroy the final tree, you are given a light seed that you can use to revive Elika. For me, it’s a haunting sequence that is meant to invoke Shadow of the Colossus (which is a nice touch, since the Prince/Elika relationship is obviously a reference to ICO). Like that game, here you are choosing to destroy the world in order to save the woman you love. While games constantly refer to each other through conventional artistic signs, this is a rare example of intertextuality through gameplay itself – where a gameplay sequence is meant to invoke the gameplay in another game. A nice touch is the use of achievements to tell you that the story will be “To be continued...”. They even timed it to appear at the right place in the game.

I haven’t played the previous trilogy – I was a PC gamer who avoided console ports – so I don’t know if this game is any better or worse than Sands of Time. What I do know is that this Prince of Persia should be lauded for trying to tell story and develop its characters through the game itself and not through cutscenes or blocks of text or any other traditional form of storytelling. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what they’ll bring to the table for the sequel because they’ve clearly raised the bar for me.

And, on a completely random note – it looks like Nolan North is now the “lead” for two major game franchises. He really is the Harrison Ford of video games!

Also, if Wikipedia is to believed, this is all based on Persian legend. At least we're moving away from knights and princesses and elves. Thank Ormazd!

Steven Spielberg on Games and Cutscenes

http://videogames.yahoo.com/celebrity-byte/steven-spielberg/1271249/2