Post by justin on Oct 12, 2011 11:35:01 GMT -5
Sorry this is going up so late. I wasn't expecting it to be needed for this week, and it ended up taking a lot more work than I expected it to.
Themes, motifs, cohesion—these are all important things to have in a video game. Without some kind of unifying concept to tie all elements of a game together, pieces end up feeling jarringly out of place. This can include graphics, aesthetics, sound, gameplay, story, etc. Because there are so many elements, I am going to take one entry to point out and explain only one game which exemplifies a good use of unifying concept and one which exemplifies a failure to have a unifying concept for each of these areas before discussing Bastion in part two.
With respect to graphics, I do not mean the quality of them, but rather the style and/or content of them. A better way to put it might be visuals. *To illustrate my point, a good example of graphics as part of a larger theme comes from an older generation of games, the original Sonic the Hedgehog series, beginning with Sonic the Hedgehog and ending with Sonic and Knuckles. Especially from the ad campaign Sega ran focusing on **Blast Processing, it is clear that speed was going to be the theme of these games, and the graphics of these games communicate that well. In Sonic the Hedgehog levels, everything is clearly shown. Even “darker” levels like Marble Zone use colors like purple to achieve a sense of darkness while still being easy to see at high speeds. Objects of interest like TVs and lampposts are easily differentiated by their relative brightness and dissimilarity from the background.
***Having good looking graphics, or even graphics that fit well with gameplay, does not ensure that a game will achieve success. Devil May Cry 4, currently the youngest in one of my favorite game series, faltered in this respect. The third major area of the game takes place in a lush forest. Now, taking a game known for its darker, gothic design into a forest seems troubling, but it need not be. In the first game, there was a large outside portion which took place in a forest ****at times. In the original game, however, the sense of foreboding and oppressive atmosphere that characterized the demonic design of the game was well served. Draw distance was limited by crumbling walls and fog (similar techniques to those used in Silent Hill), there was a lack of bright light, and enemies were *****not always expected. Devil May Cry 4, on the other hand, uses large, open spaces in a brightly-lit forest with enemies that never truly surprise the player. The entire section feels out of place when compared to the beginning's ******Middle Ages aesthetic, the *******later religious aesthetic, and the still present demonic enemies.
Speaking of aesthetic, this is very different from the graphics of a game. The aesthetic is something similar to the setting, but not the setting per se. In film, aesthetics as used here is closest to the concept of mise-en-scene. For an example of a game's aesthetic, let's look at Halo: Reach. Now, to differentiate between aesthetic and concept, I would argue that the aesthetic of *the game is “loss” while the concept is “sacrifice.” The difference lies in the fact that what a game communicates may not be what is to be inferred from its content. One might call this the difference between the referential meaning of the game (its plot) and the explicit meaning of the game (its moral of the story or attitude the designer wants to express). The referential meaning of the game is clearly concerned with loss. Throughout the narrative, we see the loss of characters, objectives, cities, and inevitably the planet itself. The aesthetic is important in helping establish this narrative. Everything from the deaths of characters to the ruined buildings to dialogue help establish and accentuate loss as the overall action in the narrative.
**While there are plenty of awful games out there that clearly have nonsensical aesthetics, I want to pick one that is at least a passable game. To that end, I want to talk about a game that was almost one of my favorite games ever, Condemned 2: Bloodshot. The original Condemned: Criminal Origins was one of the most terrifying games I have played, and the sequel was improving on every feature of the original. The referential meaning for both games seems to be concerned with abandonment. Throughout the original game, we see our protagonist Ethan Thomas all on his own after being framed for a murder. His abandonment by the people around him mirrors that of the city, left to break and decay. In the second game, we have much of the similar atmosphere. Though there is a partner, that sense of being left alone is still present, as is the slow decay of the world around you... until the last bit of the game. At that point, enemies no longer are the dregs of the city, but commandos and ***mutants (also, a bear for some reason). The levels are no longer the destroyed city, but a vacation home, a magic theatre, and a secret base. The dialogue, characters, and locations all move so far away from the game's themes that it completely ruins the experience and the game as a whole.
Sound is something that works best at the extremes, in excess and in subtlety. One of the best examples of this is the Silent Hill series. Silent Hill is a game series built entirely around maintaining both the fear of loneliness as well as well as the fear of the foreign, and the sound plays this out fantastically. The aurally iconic radio of the series is a great example of this. Its screeching signals approaching monsters, but by being something outside of you (not a radar on the screen, but a foreign radio signal) it falls into the realm of the antagonistic NPCs and the town itself, an other to be feared. However, even this danger is often preferable to the loneliness. The silence and subtly unsettling noises push one to continue forward if only because it reminds one of how oppressive being alone is.
****When the sound design fits badly or is merely average, it more often than not falls into the background. As a result, picking out a game with bad sound design is somewhat difficult. It may be the case that a game soundtrack that fails to add anything substantial, even after listening to it separately, is the worst a soundtrack will get. *****In that respect, Blade Warriors comes to mind. While I would not claim that this fighting game has a grand theme per se, being based on a series focusing on essentially samurai combat, the music is repetitive and unimpressive and the sound effects sound more appropriate for the game it clearly took cues from (Super Smash Bros.) rather than a samurai fighting game.
Gameplay is clearly one of the most distinctive features of a videogame, so gameplay can set the tone for the rest of the game easily. Protect Me Knight, a game developed by Yuzo Koshiro (music composer for the Streets of Rage series) on Xbox Arcade's indie channel, is a great example of this. Protect Me Knight is a game essentially about minimalism. Like many older titles it takes its cues from, Protect Me Knight has nearly no story, characters, or setting. All background information is put up on screens at the title menu that fade out too fast and most likely will be skipped. Gameplay consists of a hack-n-slash formula reminiscent of old school titles like Might & Magic, but squished into about 10 minutes. Leveling up goes very quickly, the switch from a sword swipe to a spinning blade tornado taking place as early as level two. Of course, this works as the game is trying to fit the entire game experience into a short period of time, and one of the best ways to experience the leveling up that takes most games hours is to become a spinning whirlwind of death in about seven minutes. On the other end, we have Alan Wake. Regardless of whatever else Alan Wake was trying to be, it is obvious it was supposed to be a horror mystery game. Unfortunately, gameplay consists almost exclusively of shooting things that are not scary and walking around large environments not solving anything. I'm not saying Alan Wake is a bad game, just that its gameplay is at odds with most of the game. While the atmosphere does a good job of setting up the horror and mystery elements, the enemies are indicated every time the are coming to attack, the dodge is easy to use, and the weapons and flares do enough damage that the game poses little challenge unless one is playing on the hardest modes. Being able to survive that easily takes away much of the horror feel of the game. The mystery aspect is also weakened by the games focus on action, extending the nighttime sections where there is little investigation into the events of the game.
Themes, motifs, cohesion—these are all important things to have in a video game. Without some kind of unifying concept to tie all elements of a game together, pieces end up feeling jarringly out of place. This can include graphics, aesthetics, sound, gameplay, story, etc. Because there are so many elements, I am going to take one entry to point out and explain only one game which exemplifies a good use of unifying concept and one which exemplifies a failure to have a unifying concept for each of these areas before discussing Bastion in part two.
With respect to graphics, I do not mean the quality of them, but rather the style and/or content of them. A better way to put it might be visuals. *To illustrate my point, a good example of graphics as part of a larger theme comes from an older generation of games, the original Sonic the Hedgehog series, beginning with Sonic the Hedgehog and ending with Sonic and Knuckles. Especially from the ad campaign Sega ran focusing on **Blast Processing, it is clear that speed was going to be the theme of these games, and the graphics of these games communicate that well. In Sonic the Hedgehog levels, everything is clearly shown. Even “darker” levels like Marble Zone use colors like purple to achieve a sense of darkness while still being easy to see at high speeds. Objects of interest like TVs and lampposts are easily differentiated by their relative brightness and dissimilarity from the background.
***Having good looking graphics, or even graphics that fit well with gameplay, does not ensure that a game will achieve success. Devil May Cry 4, currently the youngest in one of my favorite game series, faltered in this respect. The third major area of the game takes place in a lush forest. Now, taking a game known for its darker, gothic design into a forest seems troubling, but it need not be. In the first game, there was a large outside portion which took place in a forest ****at times. In the original game, however, the sense of foreboding and oppressive atmosphere that characterized the demonic design of the game was well served. Draw distance was limited by crumbling walls and fog (similar techniques to those used in Silent Hill), there was a lack of bright light, and enemies were *****not always expected. Devil May Cry 4, on the other hand, uses large, open spaces in a brightly-lit forest with enemies that never truly surprise the player. The entire section feels out of place when compared to the beginning's ******Middle Ages aesthetic, the *******later religious aesthetic, and the still present demonic enemies.
Speaking of aesthetic, this is very different from the graphics of a game. The aesthetic is something similar to the setting, but not the setting per se. In film, aesthetics as used here is closest to the concept of mise-en-scene. For an example of a game's aesthetic, let's look at Halo: Reach. Now, to differentiate between aesthetic and concept, I would argue that the aesthetic of *the game is “loss” while the concept is “sacrifice.” The difference lies in the fact that what a game communicates may not be what is to be inferred from its content. One might call this the difference between the referential meaning of the game (its plot) and the explicit meaning of the game (its moral of the story or attitude the designer wants to express). The referential meaning of the game is clearly concerned with loss. Throughout the narrative, we see the loss of characters, objectives, cities, and inevitably the planet itself. The aesthetic is important in helping establish this narrative. Everything from the deaths of characters to the ruined buildings to dialogue help establish and accentuate loss as the overall action in the narrative.
**While there are plenty of awful games out there that clearly have nonsensical aesthetics, I want to pick one that is at least a passable game. To that end, I want to talk about a game that was almost one of my favorite games ever, Condemned 2: Bloodshot. The original Condemned: Criminal Origins was one of the most terrifying games I have played, and the sequel was improving on every feature of the original. The referential meaning for both games seems to be concerned with abandonment. Throughout the original game, we see our protagonist Ethan Thomas all on his own after being framed for a murder. His abandonment by the people around him mirrors that of the city, left to break and decay. In the second game, we have much of the similar atmosphere. Though there is a partner, that sense of being left alone is still present, as is the slow decay of the world around you... until the last bit of the game. At that point, enemies no longer are the dregs of the city, but commandos and ***mutants (also, a bear for some reason). The levels are no longer the destroyed city, but a vacation home, a magic theatre, and a secret base. The dialogue, characters, and locations all move so far away from the game's themes that it completely ruins the experience and the game as a whole.
Sound is something that works best at the extremes, in excess and in subtlety. One of the best examples of this is the Silent Hill series. Silent Hill is a game series built entirely around maintaining both the fear of loneliness as well as well as the fear of the foreign, and the sound plays this out fantastically. The aurally iconic radio of the series is a great example of this. Its screeching signals approaching monsters, but by being something outside of you (not a radar on the screen, but a foreign radio signal) it falls into the realm of the antagonistic NPCs and the town itself, an other to be feared. However, even this danger is often preferable to the loneliness. The silence and subtly unsettling noises push one to continue forward if only because it reminds one of how oppressive being alone is.
****When the sound design fits badly or is merely average, it more often than not falls into the background. As a result, picking out a game with bad sound design is somewhat difficult. It may be the case that a game soundtrack that fails to add anything substantial, even after listening to it separately, is the worst a soundtrack will get. *****In that respect, Blade Warriors comes to mind. While I would not claim that this fighting game has a grand theme per se, being based on a series focusing on essentially samurai combat, the music is repetitive and unimpressive and the sound effects sound more appropriate for the game it clearly took cues from (Super Smash Bros.) rather than a samurai fighting game.
Gameplay is clearly one of the most distinctive features of a videogame, so gameplay can set the tone for the rest of the game easily. Protect Me Knight, a game developed by Yuzo Koshiro (music composer for the Streets of Rage series) on Xbox Arcade's indie channel, is a great example of this. Protect Me Knight is a game essentially about minimalism. Like many older titles it takes its cues from, Protect Me Knight has nearly no story, characters, or setting. All background information is put up on screens at the title menu that fade out too fast and most likely will be skipped. Gameplay consists of a hack-n-slash formula reminiscent of old school titles like Might & Magic, but squished into about 10 minutes. Leveling up goes very quickly, the switch from a sword swipe to a spinning blade tornado taking place as early as level two. Of course, this works as the game is trying to fit the entire game experience into a short period of time, and one of the best ways to experience the leveling up that takes most games hours is to become a spinning whirlwind of death in about seven minutes. On the other end, we have Alan Wake. Regardless of whatever else Alan Wake was trying to be, it is obvious it was supposed to be a horror mystery game. Unfortunately, gameplay consists almost exclusively of shooting things that are not scary and walking around large environments not solving anything. I'm not saying Alan Wake is a bad game, just that its gameplay is at odds with most of the game. While the atmosphere does a good job of setting up the horror and mystery elements, the enemies are indicated every time the are coming to attack, the dodge is easy to use, and the weapons and flares do enough damage that the game poses little challenge unless one is playing on the hardest modes. Being able to survive that easily takes away much of the horror feel of the game. The mystery aspect is also weakened by the games focus on action, extending the nighttime sections where there is little investigation into the events of the game.
