Last week, I shook my fist at what the kids these days are calling movies. Today, I take on video games. If movies are Porn Without Plot, then video games are Violence Without Plot. *dramatic wave* Oh, won’t someone think of the children?
Actually, there’s a bit of optimism to follow. I heard a recent report (on live radio, so, sorry, no link) that we spend four times as much money on games now as we do on movies. Gaming is growing as a mainstream pastime, so game creators are bound to add depth and breadth to the gaming experience. In a growing market, the last thing you want to do is ignore a group of potential loyal customers. Therefore, the floodgates are opening, not just for more games, but for new types of games that will engage new types of gamers.
This shift will be different from the ones precipitated by technological advances. For example, the motion sensor input that was brought to us by the Wii* brought us a new form of gameplay. However, the games themselves were not so different. There were still the same stories and interfaces, with the exception perhaps of sports games which were more immersive due to the player’s imitation of the actual motions.
However, I am describing a set of gaming genres that advance beyond the watching-an-action-movie experience.** A recent tweet by one Justin Marks goes, “[the] difference between a video game hero and movie hero: a vidgame hero is expected to do what he’s told – a movie hero is supposed to defy it.” This may be about to change. Nowadays, when we play a video game, we play as a hero on a mission. The guide or mentor character lays out the instructions plain and simple, and we as the hero follow them. However, as games branch out, they become freer to experiment with different storytelling methods and create a more immersive experience. That includes more decision-making power to be given to the player.
It’s high time for that. Historically, the most successful games were those that gave players a rich world to engage with and an interesting character identity to adopt. Take for example, Pac Man, which revolutionized arcade gaming. It was the first game to put an identifiable character on screen, whereas before, “Player One” was just a self-insert. Having an actual character took the imaginative experience to a new level. You didn’t just get to DO something cool, you got to BE someone cool. Have a look at the Mario and Sonic series, which both offered sets of unique characters and settings as well as engaging gameplay. Since their release, many have copied the platform style of gaming, but they have not matched the immersive worlds.
Please tell me I’m not the only one who wanders around in RPGs, making up alternate stories because I’m just so into the game’s untapped fanfic potential.
It’s a good sign. A game where a player just shoots aliens or zombies for a while will get boring fast, but a game that lets the player foster an emotional bond with the character and their mission will make it big and go on forever.***
But sparking the imagination by offering a cool character to be and a fun world to play in is only the start. What about changing the gameplay itself to affect the storytelling? This has already begun with games such as “Rez” and “Amnesia: The Dark Descent.”
Rez (Sega/PS2, 2002) was essentially an FPS, but it was designed as more of an artistic experiment. The graphics were based on the art of Wassily Kandinsky, a painter who had synesthesia (a cross-wiring or corresponding of sensory information). The physics of the game were designed to induce a temporary synesthesia in the player, as the sounds and images and even the presentation of the player’s actions pulsed in synch to the music.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC, 2010) is a horror game designed to scare the bejeebers out of you. Most horror games give the hero a modicum of security by providing a gun or something. But Amnesia offers the main character no way to fight back. You avoid death by sneaking around and hiding from the monsters, which is probably how it would go down in real life. I like to think I’d get my Bruce Campbell on and go after them with a chainsaw, but I have to admit, I’ve never so much as seen a real chainsaw – so running and hiding it is! The other touch of freaky realism added here is that the protagonist suffers from witnessing scary stuff. That is, there is actually a “sanity bar” that decreases when you see monsters or even stay in the dark too long. What’s more is that the game was purposefully designed without an in-game save function, to prevent the player from breaking out of the experience to save whenever a scary moment comes up. Just as if the plot were occurring in real life, there are no guarantees and you just have to push on through.
Pulsating robots and zombie-filled castles aside, the gaming experience is due for a revolution. We are ready to expand beyond the stereotypical connotations of war games and zombie shoot-em-ups. Today, mainstream culture defines video games as “those expensive computer things that keep my teenage son from doing his homework.” In the years to come, this will shift to something more like “what we’re going to do tonight.” There will be no such label as a “gamer” in the way that there is currently no such term as a “TV watcher.” The markets will favour those companies that go out of their way to offer new experiences. Those that stick to zombie shoot-em-ups will be left for dead.****
*Or, arguably, the Power Glove… if it worked.
**Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I loves me a good action game.
***/Cough/Final Fantasy/cough/
****That was a pun. I’m not taking a shot at Left For Dead.*****
*****That was another pun.
-Tamara Hecht