Game in Mind

Fanboyism: In Defense of Ideas, Not Plastic and Circuits

(Image courtesy Gamespot)

Even though I own one, I'm pretty hard on the Wii.  I'm even guilty of saying that I "loathe" it here on the blog.  But let's be serious:  It's not that I don't like the system; I don't like Nintendo's handling of the system.  To me, the only difference between the Wii and the Gamecube is that the Wii became popular.  A little too popular.

But the Gamecube was a good system.  It didn't have motion controls, but in that sense, it was free from the pretentiousness of shallow gimmicks and dreaded "Wiimake"-style ports.  Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Wind Walker, and Eternal Darkness were all incredible, innovative titles.

So please know that I have nothing against Nintendo as a company, nor do I have anything against their hardware.  Nintendo has proven time and again that they are a smart company that makes tidy profits off of solid game ideas... even if they run some of their ideas into the ground at the expense of others.

Some folks--we on the Internets call them "fanboys"--dismiss the system entirely as a platform for "little girls and old people."  I see it as a mismanaged property full of potential.  Sure, it sells.  But does it convey fresh ideas?

I have found the 360 and PS3 to be far more successful in terms of sponsoring fresh ideas and rennovations of old, solid ideas.  For every World of Goo on the Wii, there are two or three Flowers, Pixeljunk Edens, Braids, and Castle Crashers on the 360.  I think this is unfortunate, but Sega's recent Wii releases give me hope that off-kilter game development lives on.

None of these consoles can match the sheer ubiquity of the PC indie scene as a wellspring of fresh ideas, particularly in Europe and North America.  But their handful of quality, creative software available readily on download services represents the latest iteration of what had been largely ignored, terrifically offbeat products in years past. There have been far too many console games I've been saddened to see fall by the wayside in past years.  Among them:  the Panzer Dragoon series' take on the rail-shooter genre, Jet Set Radio, the much-forlorned Psychonauts, Deathrow, Shenmue (talk about sandbox before sandbox was popular!), The Thing, and more recently, the brilliant Darkness.

Again, like the Wii's supposedly revolutionary motion controls, not all of the aforementioned "forgotten" titles represent the death of fresh ideas so much as the mismanagement of innovative potential.  There was nothing inherently revolutionary about Panzer Dragoon Orta, but it brought fresh ideas and a unique aesthetic that spruced up tried-and-true gameplay mechanics with a new layer of pathos and poise. 

It was elegant.  Even the squalidity of Deathrow was elegant in a sense.  It was brazenly unpretentious and came off as a breath of fresh air.  The reviews for these games reflect this.

The sales do not.  No one was willing to stand up for these games and the creativity they represented with the fervor generally reserved for the consoles themselves.

This is why I'm always puzzled when fanboys tear down one console in favor of another.  Who cares which platform succeeds?  We don't experience the plastic and circuitry when all is said and done; we experience the software.  And when we gamers aren't showing off Wii Tennis to our partner in crime, we typically thrive off of fresh ideas and fresh takes on old ideas.  I end up playing House of the Dead: Overkill and Madworld on my Wii more than I do the system's requisite party games.  (Parties are great in concept... but no one has a party every day except Hugh Hefner.)

So for the clamoring hordes out there, I offer this:  Enough about the companies and their hardware.  Defend undersold games.  Defend XBLA community software.  Defend Wiiware and PSN originals.

Defend fresh ideas and their delivery mechanisms.

How does one do this?  Through sophomoric trashtalk and flaming?  Here are some ideas:

• I'm a firm believer that in order to look forward, one has to look back.  So take a cue from some of the online gaming sites out there and start a classic game club.  Get interested in the overlooked gems of the past.
• Tell your friends about a particularly unique game that they might not have heard about, but you have enjoyed.  Ask them to share one with you.
• Write to the game developers in support of their mechanics.  Tell them what works, and even what doesn't.  More importantly, let them know that you're out there.

Gesture as Meaning... or Gesture as Artifice?

Ian Bogost put up an excellent post on Gamasutra regarding the rhetorical meaning inherent in using real-life gestures as game interface.  He provides the example of the (in)famous indie experiment/board game Train, in which players emulate the logistical planning of sending people to die at Auschwitz:  In this board game, it isn't simply the result of physical action that is important, but the action itself.  The action represents a psychological complicity in the heinous act, and thus forces the player to reflect, possibly with a degree of disgust, on his/her actions.  It's that sort of postmodern ah-ha moment that only the most innovative and ingenious of games are able to create.

Bogost also uses the example of Manhunt 2 for the Wii, and this is where he and I part somewhat on what makes for a meaningful gesture.  I write in the comments section:

[...]there is a fine line between a game interface that highlights the mechanism (in this case, the use of gestures as representational of agency) and one that highlights the rhetorical exigency (in the case of Train, the seeming complicity of an entire industrial complex in the deaths of millions). Take, for example, the aforementioned Manhunt 2, and let's compare it to God of War: Chains of Olympus. Is the act of moving one's hands in real life to execute a digital person any more a sign of agency and complicity in the imagined act than rapidly pressing the X button in GOW:COO to force Kratos away from his one love in life, his daughter? Unless Manhunt 2 gives the player a chance to make very real associations between the gesture and the act--to use the Wiimote to interact in a way that can ONLY be accomplished through gesture--the presence of the gesture can be taken as mere gimmickry that marginalizes the perversion inherent in the act.

To put it another way, in Trains, you are actively planning as those complicit have planned. There is no separation between semantic agent and semantic instrument. You, alone, are agent and you use the instrument (the set) to act. In Manhunt 2, as with GOW:COO, the instrument is still the agent: "It's not me executing that person, it's the controls, and through the controls, it's the character."

If there is a way around this on the Wii, I'm not sure what it might be. The Wii's controls always take center stage by the very nature of the paratext that surrounds every game ("Now with motion controls! Wowzers!"). Perhaps a game that invites others to act as witness to your supposedly heinous interaction with the game and then somehow report their opinions interactively?

The Eyetoy, Project Natal, and the PS3's forthcoming Eye-based motion control wand may be able to break that one dissonant step by crafting imagery in which the player is indeed making 1:1 connections between the interface and the act. By seeing oneself onscreen, acting upon others, the agency produced by gesture will not simply be a *facet* of the gameplay, but the focus.

To clarify:  I'd argue that the Wii controls are essentially a more complex version of "rolling the die," linked more to the result than the meaning inherent in the gesture.  Sure, the player is physically using the wiimote to emulate murder, but there's a whole layer of artifice stacked upon the Wii's controls that distinguishes the agency of the player from the agency of the instrument itself.  The emphasis for the Wii version of Manhunt 2 is placed more on the supposed brilliance of the "immersive" Wii motion controls than on the complicit nature of voyeurism.  This is partly a fault of Manhunt 2's design, and partly the fault of Nintendo's marketing mentality for the Wii that has trickled down to most developers.  The controls are rarely used to make a point that can't be made with regular controls.  Whereas Train sheds light on the significance of an act, Manhunt 2 reflects only the self-important significance of game design.

Eff the Police?: Do Video Games Vilify the Boys and Girls in Blue a Little TOO Much?

Martin Nerurkar posted a short opinion piece on his personal blog and Gamasutra that I think most gamers can relate to.  He describes his frustration with a certain ethical quandry posed by Kane and Lynch: Dead Man.  The game's introduction provides the player with a seemingly empathetic, redeemably flawed protagonist and then forces the player to kill several no-name police officers during the course of story.  For Nerurkar, this didn't just represent a narrative disruption, but a gameplay one:

And right there the immersion broke for me because when my version of Kane crawled out of the ruins of the wrecked armored car, he was still a repentant criminal. I (as a player) just didn't want to shoot at the police. I wanted to get away without killing anyone. And I did manage to stay in cover and evade them (and have my allies mow them down without regret). At least until the scene with the Donut Shop.

Again my image of the protagonist as the narrative had presented him to me was diverging from the game mechanics. My Kane was not a peaceful man and he'd have no qualms about gunning down "bad guys" but he wouldn't shoot cops. The problem though is that the game forces you to kill cops. A LOT of them. Almost the entire first half of the game is entirely made up of firefights with the police.

The first thing that came to mind when I read this was my recent playthrough of Grand Theft Auto IV, in which protagonist Niko Bellic is presented as both morally ambivalent and wildly sadistic, sometimes depending on the supporting cast present in a given scene.  Even the two similar endings of that game (**SPOILER ALERT**) stress the irony of this inconsistency:  Niko rants to the dying baddie about how either Kate or Roman (depending on who gets killed prior to the final mission) never meant anyone harm and didn't deserve death.  But how can someone who has taken so much innocent life in the name of money and vengeance claim a moral stance?

This seems to solidify the story writers' point when we are presented a final shot of the Statue of Liberty against the Liberty City skyline:  The American Dream requires compromise, sometimes of one's morals.

Yet I left that game largely irritated by Niko's waffling.  I think Nerurkar's post hit it home.

Don't the police matter?

Of course, there's never the pretense that Niko Bellic is a good guy, or even a particularly sympathetic one.  We get flashes of compassion, but that is always quickly extinguished when Niko feels threatened.  Still, the game has a heavy moral presence, even if it's not always bought into by the protagonist.  Many characters in the game talk about right and wrong; sometimes this is satirized (as in the case of the fame-hungry Manny Escuela) and sometimes it is presented very straightforwardly (via Kate and Mikhail's wife, Ilya).  It would be incorrect to assume that GTA IV never puts the idea of innocence out there for the player to consider.

Unfortunately, the police are never factored into this.  As in many similar crime games, GTAIV's police are enviromental obstacles--nameless, faceless cardboard cutouts (with the sole exception of the extremely corrupt Francis McReary).  During the bank heist mission, Niko has to kill A LOT of them... and never once does the game compel the player to reflect on this.

Sure, supporting characters are killed off and the situations are either played for bittersweet moral gravity or black humor.  But what about the cops?  If the game were skewed more towards dark black humor as with the previous entries, this might be forgivable.  In GTAIV, however, a game in which the consequences of one's actions are all too often the subject of long cutscenes, the absence of such reflection about killing police officers rings particularly false.

Okay, so these are crime games....  What about other types of games?  I began to think about how many games seem to lionize the exploits of the common military man--in the age of Rainbow Six, SOCOM, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the military squad shooter has become a genre unto itself.

But what kind of roles do police officers play?  On the villain side, you have your standard dirty cops, symbols of oppressive government, or cardboard cutouts.  On the hero side, you tend to have rogue or outcast cops (Max Payne, Death to Rights, Condemned, True Crime) and/or completely unrealistic superhero cops (Crackdown, NARC).  I strained to think of a game that portrayed the police as a heterogeneous group of individuals, many of whom can be considered heroic.  The only ones I could come up with were the Sierra Police Quest/SWAT series... a series born largely out of the Dirty Harry films and the flashy cop dramas of the '80s.

How did this happen?  If a game had a character kill hordes of U.S. soldiers, you would think it would also give the player pause to reflect on the severity of this task.  But gamers are often forced to dispose of police officers without a second thought.  Why aren't police officers ever really considered one of us?

The first answer I could come up with was that an ordinary police officer was considered too banal to be a protagonist.  Game heroes are either superhumans or tortured souls, right?  But then I came back to the military example.  Ding Chavez does some extraordinary things in the Rainbow Six games, but no one could accuse him of being a despondent, suffering drunk or a pumped-up Schwarzenegger ripoff.

The way I see it, it comes down to two things:

1. We just don't romanticize the police force in a positive way anymore.  The days of CHIPS and Miami Vice are gone, replaced by the turgid melodrama of Law and Order and CSI.  On the other hand, despite counterprogramming like the brilliant war film Jarhead, the life of a soldier is still romanticized... probably because that's how we still recruit many of our children to get excited about the prospect of dying for the whims of old men.  (Before you write in with hate-mail, please consider this a criticism of the impetus for modern warfare, not a condemnation of the brave men and women in our military.)

2. Games are too often marketed as countercultural and subversive (ala the GTA series) to buy into the idea of trust in authority.

These are just theories.  I don't pretend that everyone will get on board with these ideas or start rallying for more games with cop heroes.  After all, not all cops are heroes.  They're human beings, with very real flaws, just like your average soldier.  And it's much easier to see the flaws of the ever-present police authority if you're, say, a rebellious youth or an oft-castigated minority... prime targets for entertainment marketing.

But many cops can be considered heroic.  Every day, men and women of our police force are asked to do things that would test the boundaries of other citizens, and they are compelled to do their jobs with the utmost dignity and courage.  (Side note:  Have we so quickly forgotten the public sentiment following 9/11?)

I'm reminded of a Communications class I took as an undergrad.  During one lecture, the professor claimed that the police department was an inherently racist construct.  I argued that that was too broad a generalization to cast upon a group of individuals who often have to make crucial decisions individually.  While police are indeed asked to adhere to a common code, it would be unproductive to imagine every officer as an amoral pawn in a collective.  (Incidentally, that college class was the only one I ever got a non-A grade in.)

I'd ask game developers to remember the same thing.  Over-generalizing or marginalizing a group of people for the sake of cheap action is just that: cheap.  There's a certain amount of generalizing that has to be done in order to create a game's "bad guys," but if we truly consider video games to be a socially relevant medium, it's time to reflect on all aspects of society, even the seemingly banal and hard-to-market ones.

Game Changers: Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII's recent breakthrough success on PSN brings to mind what a truly monumental achievement this game was for Squaresoft back in the '90s.  It's somewhat fashionable nowadays to deride the game for things that are easy to nitpick roughly 12 years later: the graphics, wonky (albeit heavily celebrated) storyline, and Cloud Strife himself.

But would as many Americans even KNOW about Squaresoft and their other RPGs if not for Final Fantasy VII?  Sure, Final Fantasy IV and VI (II and III in the U.S.) were considered moderate successes on the Super Famicom/SNES, and Chrono Trigger still has a raving group of fanatics behind it.

Final Fantasy VII was something else entirely... a phenomenom.  It sold millions within days after its release in Japan, and the hype spread like a virus until the game's success exploded into North America, making it the first Japanese RPG to reach cultural icon status on a global level.  How else can one account for the game's continued success?  10 million sales as of 2005 easily place it as the highest-grossing Final Fantasy game... and the story was selected among the many other Final Fantasy tales to be continued in spinoff games and a film.

I remember Final Fantasy VII in the way many American teenagers do:  It was the first real epic game we sat through.  It took me around fifty-two hours to complete (obviously, I wasted a great deal of time playing in the cutesy casino and looking for the legendary Knights of Round summon), but the payoff was a spectacular, bittersweet finale in which our heroes experienced both enormous loss and salvation.

No matter what you think about Final Fantasy VII as a game, it's hard to deny that for many gamers, and particularly many Western gamers who were previously only minimally familiar with JRPGs, it was a momentous experience.  One we're still trying to find in the other Final Fantasies, I think.

Even if the stories have improved in subsequent Final Fantasy titles (and they have!), there will never be the perfect storm of factors that played into Final Fantasy VII's success.

You had Aeris, a truly wonderful and sympathetic characterization that took the best of Squaresoft's other "innocent girlteen" creations and made her into a martyr for the ages.

The score by famed composer Nobuo Uematsu was equal turns haunting, poetic, and catchy... a feat I'm not sure he has ever repeated.

Most importantly, it was one of the first games that really combined epic fantasy cinema with gameplay successfully.  The Playstation itself was a remarkable product in that way:  It took a kid's medium--the video game--and for the first time truly legitimized it as a platform capable of satisfying mature intellects in a way that Mortal Kombat and Night Trap couldn't.  And if that is the legacy of the PSOne, then Final Fantasy VII still stands as its crowning achievement (even more so than the arguably superior Castlevania: Symphony of the Night).

Surely, we've all heard friends and other gamers recount the tears shed during Aeris' death cinema.  It wasn't a particularly good LOOKING full-motion cinematic, even for the mid-'90s.  But the spectacle of it all... the shimmering lighting of the caverns, the ninja-like stillness with which Sephiroth pierces Aeris with his blade, the heartbreaking Uematsu score that followed.  Even today, the cinematics and in-game cutscenes stand out as something of an anomoly:  They move poorly, but they move us. 

For a generation of gamers who were fresh off of the cheap, detached gameplay of supposedly cinematic titles like Battle Arena Toshinden, Loaded, Ace Combat, and Warhawk, I'm not sure any of us were prepared to be moved.  We all knew Squaresoft could pull off an epic, but an emotionally-involving and cinematic fantasy that actually made good on the Playstation's promise to usher in a new era of advanced gameplay?

It was damn good timing.  And it changed the way we look at RPGs forever.

When Gaming and Activism Collide?

Citing a post from blog Game Politics, Majed Athab of Joystiq noted today that the Iranian government has blocked all online activity in the country except gaming.  Naturally, Athab went on to put 2 and 2 together:  Can't gaming provide a forum for protest?

Certainly, the miscreants at PETA know it can.  Only time will tell if the citizens of Iran take advantage of gaming's unique form of online community.  Frankly, I'm surprised the theocratic government hasn't cracked down on online gaming already, albeit for other, less nefarious reasons.

The Best Game Architecture

Today, my beloved Kotaku RSS feed pointed me to an article in the Architects Journal in which the editors select the ten "finest" examples of architecture that video game worlds have to offer.  Their picks:

10. Marioland
9. Castle Wolfenstein, Return to Castle Wolfenstein
8. Tetris
7. Architecture Island, Second Life
6. The House, Jet Set Willy
5. Scumm Bar, Secret of Monkey Island
4. Halo I, II
3. Liberty City, GTAIV
2. The City, Sim City
1. Azeroth, World of Warcraft

A close reading of the descriptions reveals that some of these picks are serious and some--for reasons unknown--have seemingly been made in jest.  I mean, on a technical level, Tetris makes sense... but it's not really what most people would consider to be architecture.

So what is game architecture?  Is it the overarching level design?  The shaping and texturing of buildings within the game worlds?  It's probably a mixture of the two, and I don't think an actual architect is any better a judge of what "works" in a video game than the average gamer.  Quality game designers and environmental artists work together to make sure that game architecture functions in a way that normal architecture cannot:  It must be aesthetically pleasing while also functionally inspiring exploration.  Low on the list of qualities for these imagined buildings would probably be "structurally rigid," "economically spaced," or "sustainable."  You know, qualities that go into real-world building design.

That said, some of the above picks are actually pretty good.  Azeroth is a tour-de-force of fictive architecture and environmental design.  The worlds of Halo 1 and 2 also strike the right mix of beauty, ugliness, strangeness, familiarity, and fun... and are unmatched by most first-person shooters.

Here are some other of my own choices for great video game architecture:

Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox) - I plugged 50 hours into the world of Jet Set Radio Future, far more than I spent in the world of its Dreamcast predecessor or any subsequent skate-based video game.  Smilebit did an extraordinary job of creating a city scape that was both cruel and colorful... hyper-surrealistic yet plausibly traversed on foot.  And the sheer amount of secrets nested among those beautiful cityscapes still boggles the mind.  It's a world that's distinctly Japanese--a hyperbolic version of Tokyo--but the architecture of JSRF would capture the imagination of any culture.  By no means should any real architect ever emulate these bizarre designs... but for a video game, they do just fine.

Mirror's Edge and Half-Life 2 (multiple platforms) - I lump these two games together, not because they are mechanically similar, but because the architecture present in these games represent two very different yet equally successful interpretations of "dystopia."  Mirror's Edge approach is aseptic to a fault:  You could imagine this city of Big Brother if he were an OCD neat-freak and every citizen was his unwilling cleaner.  Beautiful primary colors stand out among neat lines and lots of glass surfaces; it's almost a shame your pursuers have to destroy so much of it while they chase you.  In sharp contrast, Half-Life 2's dystopic City 17 steps away from the tech labs and alien worlds of its predecessor but creates a more compelling, lived-in cityscape than the barren wilderness of Fallout.  As with Mirror's Edge, Half-Life 2 portrays a city controlled by a militaristic regime (albeit an alien one), but for all the dilapidated apartment buildings there are gothic water towers, dense forests, and toxic beaches.  The diversity of the environments and the buildings housed within them is simply stunning, and is just one more element that makes Half-Life 2 one of the most authentic sci-fi experiences ever crafted.

The God of War series - It's typically pretty easy to throw together a bunch of classic Greek and Arab buildings and call it an "epic" landscape... but God of War outdoes the ambitions of your average Prince of Persia remake or Assassin's Creed by packing every ancient structure with a consistent sense of danger, as if any building could topple on top of you at any time (and sometimes it does!).  The last third of God of War I, which takes place almost exclusively on top of an enormous moving titan, is even more imaginatively and coherently constructed than anything seen in ICO or Shadow of the Colossus.  "Epic" is an overused term when applied to video games... but the architecture of God of War is exactly that: epic.

LittleBigPlanet - What makes for compelling game architecture?  Sometimes, it just comes down to sheer imagination and inventiveness.  Just tour a few of the best-rated structures created by avid LittleBigPlanet designers and you'll find more creativity and ingenuity on display than you may find in many an architecture firm.  Best of all:  You can invite your friends along.

Myst - I think this is a pretty obvious choice.  Myst was for the 3D adventure what Zork was for the text game.  What you had only previously imagined as compelling architecture came to life in the stills (and later, fully 3D models) of Myst's puzzle-based and almost Dr. Suessian structures.

There are so many more great examples I could name.  Off the top of my head: the eponymous castles of Dark Castle and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the sepia-stained huts and towers of Morrowind, and even the ultra-cubist playground of Q-Bert.

For anyone who may come across this post:  What are some of your picks?

Upping the Dialogue: New Study on the Benefits of Gaming Saves Its Most Significant Suggestion for Last

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop held a policy briefing in Washington, D.C. today where it unveiled the findings of a recent study regarding video games and child health.  The nature of the findings--largely coming out in support of renewed investigation and attention to the positive aspects of childhood play--is hardly surprising given the Center's mission.

The Executive Summary reveals five key recommendations targeted at Washington, the media, and parents:

1. Implement R&D initiatives at federal and state levels
2. Create innovative partnerships
3. Support adult guidance for children’s digital activities
4. Modernize public media
5. Initiate a broad public dialogue about digital media and games

The first four recommendations, while commendable for their scope, are hardly new.  Pedagogical scholars such as James Paul Gee have been arguing for years that our culture needs to take a long, hard look at the positive, educational benefits of video games; it naturally follows that our largely public education system would rely on the support of media, community leaders, politicians, and parents to initiate expensive programs that invest in games as a valuable resource.

The fifth recommendation, while brief and ambiguous, is perhaps the most important:

Public dialogue on children’s digital games often focuses on violence, sexual content, inappropriate language, and safety. We need to engage the public on the potential benefits of digital media. Engagement efforts might include:

• Creating and publishing parent guides to digital media in magazines and newspapers;
• Holding “town hall meetings” and “summits” for parents and the general public;
• Expanding media literacy curricula in schools.

I'm not as enamored with the overly specific bullet-points as I am the larger message here:  We need to raise the level of dialogue regarding video games and children.  It's one thing to roll out a list of suggestsion for the naysayers to criticize as new age academic mumbo-jumbo.  It's another to talk about re-approaching the way we view and talk about video games as a culture.  In fact, this suggestion probably needs to foreground and supercede the others.

Despite the statistics that show that an overwhelming portion of the adult-aged American populace plays video games on a regular basis, many in this country are still stuck on the idea that games alter a person's personality... not the other way around, that an individual brings their personality to the game.  When children are the object of a gaming culture, they are too often portrayed either as guinea pigs for shallow educational programs or victims of violent media.  But if we reposition ourselves as the subjects of a gaming culture, and our children as the primary nodes of knowledge to be distributed across multiple formats--writing, speaking, civic engagement, and even interactive learning--then that empowers children to be active participants in the subject matter that compels and enlightens them.

It's a simple idea, really, and one that's not new to pedagogical scholars: learner-based outcomes rather than teacher-based outcomes.

Let's change the way we talk about video games:  They're not a self-aware entity that thrusts itself upon its audience.  Rather, they are valuable and dynamic tools that we can use to educate ourselves... about life lessons and about each other.  We can't ask simply ask, "Is it healthy that our children are having fun?"  Instead, we must ask, "How do our children have fun, why do they have fun in this particular way, and what can we build upon that foundation of fun?"  I'd like to see that kind of creativity and reflection--not naysaying--at a PTA meeting.

Snark: "More like World of BOREcraft!"

(No, that's not me playing.)

I'm not one to dismiss a true internet phenomenom enjoyed daily by tens of millions of people around the world, but the Massively Multiplayer genre just ain't for me anymore.

I say "anymore" because there was a time when I was content to do the requisite grinding, crafting, and endless searching for groups and guilds that comes with the MMORPG territory.  I played City of Heroes quite contentedly for two years and belonged to many a Supergroup (that game's version of a guild).  I dabbled in Star Wars Galaxy very, very briefly.  The less said about that game, the better.

In addition, I played the ubiquitous World of Warcraft for around a month or so, and while I enjoyed my time in it, I didn't find it as user friendly as City of Heroes, so I stopped.

Now, over two years and one impending marriage later, I have returned to the imaginary land of Azeroth to do research for my dissertation.  It's just a shame that these games have left such a sour taste in my mouth.

You see, I've been through all the extremes that accompany avid MMORPG gaming: the "dieting" (forgetting to eat after a multi-hour instanced group mission), the boredom of "camping" (waiting around for a high-level enemy to spawn so that I could complete a mission or gain experience), the  vast loneliness of not being able to find anyone online at 3:00 a.m. who is willing to team with me for another three hours.

I mean, none of this sounds like fun, but for those of us who have experienced the sheer addictiveness of these games, we all know that on a certain level, it is.  It definitely is.  For those several hours at a time, you LIVE in that world.  It's freeing in a way.

But it's also terribly restrictive.  It all begins to feel like a job, a series of endless chores with butt-numbing amounts of real-life sitting involved.  And while the payoffs for these tasks are sometimes thrilling in the oddest ways--getting to re-spec your high-level character, wield a new weapon or spell, or "roll" a new class--you can only take so much of the same running around static backdrops, no matter how aesthetically pleasing, and talking to NPCs.

Almost every MMORPG event can be boiled down to one of three types:

• Fetching/delivering items or another character (i.e., escort missions)
• Killing a group of creatures or boss
• Competitve raid or battle

Competitive aspect aside (this is usually reserved for the highest-level characters and is thus a factor that comes into play only at the very end of a character's "lifespan"), the first two mission types are pretty much the same exact ones you'll find in a Bethesda game such as the revered Elder Scrolls series or Fallout 3.

The difference, however, is that because these games are built for the solitary gamer, they keep the player plugged into the world, not through repetitive grinding, but through narrative-building and environments that can change, albeit subtly, based on the player's decisions.  For example, a fetch quest in World of Warcraft may require you to deliver a magical object to someone in a different land.  You'll get on your mount, take a shortcut, or stroll all the way over there and then click on a person.  Then you'll go all the way back and collect your reward and/or XP bonus.  The object in question may be very important to an arching or episodic storyline, but it's never YOUR storyline.  People all around you are completing the very same quest, collecting the same weapons, waiting for the same "epic drops."

In sharp contrast, much of what happens in a Bethesda game (many of which are jokingly referred to as "massively single-player" games) is so intricately crafted and tied to the player's own way of accomplishing a task, even if the storyline arc is relatively small, the player gets a sense of "ownership" of the consequences.

Part of this is accomplished through meticulous level design, something sorely missing from MMORPGs.  Part of it is outstanding dialogue writing, something else that MMORPGs have yet to learn from.  But most of it is the feeling that what happens to you actually happens to you.  It isn't forced upon you, it isn't a requirement to get to the next step in a fictitious job ladder (and this is something from which sandbox games could learn a thing or two as well).  It is a singular event with singular outcomes.

The question, of course, is how one brings this to the MMORPG experience.   I'm not sure you can.  MMORPGs are inherently social games, and much of the fun that occurs is based on players' interactions with one another.  In fact, I'd argue that most MMORPGs would benefit from having all levels of character development depend less on stat-building and equipment-gathering and more on the consequences of one another's actions.  Player-based economies and City of Heroes' new "level architect" feature are a small step towards this goal of fully "multiplayer" experiences.

As it currently stands, however, these games are still shadows of the complexity present in a regular RPG.  For too long, MMORPG developers' goal has been to create a world of stories in which the individual player feels that he/she can make a difference in a stratified community of thousands or millions.  That just isn't realistic.

And maybe that's why, for all the months spent inhabiting virtual worlds and taking on hour-long quests, I'm left with more memories of the job-like parts than the adventure ones.

Sorry, Peter: There's "Moore" to Children Playing Outside than Fitness

In response to President Obama's recent remarks to the American Medical Association that children should put down the video games and go outside every once in awhile, EA's Peter Moore commented that Obama obviously needs to give the company's new EA Active game a go.

From Moore's own blog:

As a father of three and someone who spends many a morning or lunch hour out on a run and/or in the gym, I applaud the President urging Americans to get off the couch and get active.  Of course, I can’t resist pointing out that while I’ve always wholeheartedly endorsed moderation in anything you do, including playing games, it may be time for the President and his family to put their Wii to good use and fire up the 30-Day Challenge with EA SPORTS Active.  This is a “game” even the President may not want to “step away” from.

While Moore goes on to admit that his family still places emphasis on going outside and staying fit, and the blog itself is little more than a coy sales pitch, I think there's a significant element here that Moore and even Obama forget to include: mental health.

For all our human simulations of outdoor exercise and other outdoor interactions, we can never truly emulate the psychological experience of inhabiting a place... bonding with the nature and environment of a given space, whether it is the pastoral ideal or an urban renewal project.

It's especially important for our children to become connected with their given spaces, for those spaces to become places.  This enhances a sense of cultural belonging and provides fundamental growth experiences in terms of one's interaction with the natural world, no matter the scale.

It may be odd to see this on a blog largely devoted to electronic simulacrae, but part of loving and learning about a given medium is knowing its limitations.  And this is definitely a limitation for games:  They can never replace the real thing.  Your kid could become a superstar in EA Active, and that's fine.  It will probably keep them happy and in many ways healthy.  But there's a difference between swinging a virtual bat and tossing a ball around with friends at the park... essential tactile and psychological differences.  The earth beneath one's feet, the smell of the dirt mounds, the warmth of sunshine, the sound of wind or even traffic.  Do you want your kids to one day feel nostalgic for these things, or for the living room?

Of course, not all kids are fortunate enough to live in places that enable outdoor lifestyles.  There exist very real dangers outside the home, both human and environmental, for too many of our children.  And you know, the sad thing is that EA Active may be the best solution at times for the kid who has to run home from school to avoid dealers, for the child who has developed asthma from the air pollution, and so on.  Many of these same children don't even have the technological affordance to experience EA Active.

But if your kids are lucky enough that they can push aside simulation for the real thing, perhaps they should be able to reflect upon and celebrate that fact every once in awhile.  May I suggest a trip to the park?

From Past Files: 5 Great Green Games

I posted the following to my Facebook account on Earth Day... in part to convince myself that, even if we gamers spend the majority of our time playing Playstations that suck more juice than a refrigerator, we can do our part to reflect on our connection with nature.  Or, you know, make cool stuff grow.

Grandia II (Dreamcast, PC, PS2)

As long as there have been overly sentimental, sappy fantasy role-playing storylines in Japanese games, there have existed the requisite "save the planet from polluting civilization" storylines. Grandia II is a doozy: What seems at first like a very barebones and basic game in the Japanese RPG mold turns into a rather complex morality fable. God saves man, man gets bored in Heaven, man creates Devil to kill God, Devil wins... man lies about it ever since. And that's just the religious side. As the game progresses, the protagonists learn that while faith can be a boon to mankind, zealotry can leave a culture and nature in shambles. Slightly pantheistic themes of "do what you can to save the Earth and Nature while you're here" ensue.

Pixeljunk Eden (PS3)

New-agey indie platformer Pixeljunk Eden has you playing as a grub on a mission to grow, grow, GROW that garden to new heights! No joke. Placid, lovely atmosphere, stunningly fluid graphics, and addictive swing-climbing gameplay make this an accessible way to celebrate organic growth at its most unpretentious. And trust me... it beats playing Spore, Harvest Moon, or Sim Earth.

Flower (PS3)
 

Lauded indie sensation Flower was developed by a small group of USC grad students after an accidental animation flaw created an explosion of swirling petals on-screen. This turned into the core game mechanic, which has the player bring lush life back to sparse, sepia-toned fields. Meanwhile, one's progress in the game is represented by a cityscape that becomes leaner and greener over time. Huzzah! Navigating the game's levels is an indescribably wondrous experience.

Super Mario Sunshine (Gamecube)

Underrated entry in the Mario series of Nintendo game features the lovable plumber in a toxic-sludge cleanup role. First a plumber, now a janitor? Mario needs a better placement service. In any case, this makes for a fun, addictive pollution solution for all ages.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

Team ICO's phenomenal Shadow of the Colossus can be examined on many levels, although one of the rarest critical approaches I've seen is simply taking the story at face value: You're an unnamed hero tasked with killing relatively peaceful, one-of-a-kind beasts in order to sacrifice them for the life of a loved one. This, of course, presents a terrific sort of moral quandry as the game goes on and the player witnesses the protagonist become increasingly sullied by a metaphysical darkness taking hold of him. Is the life of one human being worth the destruction of some of the world's most precious and magnificent lifeforms? How's THAT for environmental moralizing?