Date of Lies
Banned
I truly believe that somewhere, in the webs of hype, game press and enthusiasm can completely ruin a gaming experience. Wether by deceit, over-hyping, the fact that some advertisers inforce a demographic on the game, or even the previews, reviews we often read, even strict breakdown of a game's genre. People that bought Metroid Prime thinking they were getting an FPS. Sometimes it's the expectations we ourselves built up from playing the last game in the series. Going into a game with the wrong mindset, and being dissapointed.
This is a drawback of modern games. Arcades had less room for this. Generally, you got what you paid for, if the game looks fun, you will probably enjoy it. Today's console games follow a whole new suit of ideals. It's far from the "simple, short, fun" mentality of the arcade scene, we'll accept that. It's now about bringing you into another world. The greater the sense of detachement, the greater the game. Not all games are like this of course. Basically, if you want to be anal about it, you could try breaking down the percentage of gameplay versus presentation the player is supposed to pay attention to for different titles. This is the whole principal of exploration in videogames. For instance, a game like Shenmue or Final Fantasy is about 80% presentation because you are supposed to pay 80% of your "attention" to the story/characters/environment/realism/music/graphics, you name it, everything that isn't interaction. Everything you, as a player, have no control over. This is a huge contrast to what arcade games used to be. It's sometimes funny to think that, in the end, gameplay might not really be the main reason people play games anymore. What makes a game fun? Would GTA be as fun if it was placed in a futuristic setting? For some yes, for others no. In short, it changes everything. Would Pac-Man be as fun if it was happy face eating stars and being chased by squeletons? This off the top of my head example might not be as appealing as the lovable mascots in Pac-Man, but in the end, you'll still be left quarter-less after an encounter with a "HappyFace-Man" machine.
In Pac-Man, presentation does not affect gameplay, where as in GoldenEye, presentation directly affects gameplay. In fact, in a very real way, the gameplay becomes part of the presentation. It's an expansion of the game's setting. In today's games, developers first think up the setting/theme, THEN they integrate the gameplay. Not the opposite. "I want to make a scary game about shooting zombies" not "I want a game where you control the guys like tanks and shoot slow moving targets in frustrating camera angles."*
But of course, I accept that, and I love it. But does that change the fact that modern game designers are more like movie directors? Yes and no. I see these "presentation-dependent" games as paintings, and the game designers are the painters. In fact, somewhere in the end, every time you look at a screen shot of an upcoming game, all you're seeing is a part of the painting, and you imagine the rest. You'll make the informative guess that if you see a flower, the rest of the painting must be a bouquet of flowers. But what if the rest of the painting was a rotting corpse on a feild, and there just happened to be a flower in the corner as a detail? You'd be surprised. But what if a rotting corpse was the last thing you wanted to see? You'd be dissapointed. Just like with MGS2's demo, where you're left with the idea that you'd be playing snake during the whole game. How do developers and advertisers react to this? They'll make sure that if you see a flower, you'll get a bouquet in the end. What happens then? Games lose whatever chance they have of really surprising us.
What are some of the games that really surprised me this generation? Rez, for one. You go into some pretty basic shooting game and end up with a quasi-philosophy of life. Can you call it just a "shooter"? Does a single screenshot of it do it justice?
Am I the only one that wants to start a game like Shenmue. A guy walking around town, talking to people in a retarded way, ask stupid questions to pretty dumb and boring people, (a pretty 'eventless' game to some). Let's say you play it like that for 10 hours. And then wake up the next morning and see that everyone in town turned into monsters over night, so you pick up a shotgun and play the rest of the game in first person view, blasting the guy that asked you for money for the coke machine every goddamn day. Think of all that effort put into Shenmue in terms of characters interaction all suddenly blown away in wide-spread killing? The game would shock you, and if done right, mark you for a long time. It would push you to start killing people you actually 'knew' inside the realm of the game.
But what would you call this game? A dialogue-centric adventure game turn hardrocking FPS? Would a screenshot do it justice? How would you market it without alienating people? Learning to get to know people for 10 hours, then suddenly being forced to kill them. It's an emotion experience, that's the only thing I'd call it. Just maybe not one that you would personally want to experience, it doesn't change the fact that it would be something strong and real to experience.
In short, that's why media ruins games, or whatever shot at being art they may have.
For reference, Pac-Man isn't art, it's purely a game.
REZ is as close as art games can get. And you know what they say about some art, you either get it or you don't.
* In Katamari Damacy, it's obvious Namco thought of the aspect of gathering up junk in a ball to make it bigger and then added a story, and not "Suppose there was a King of the Universe, and suppose he got drunk and destroyed the stars in the universe and then forced his son to fix it, what would his son do?". This is an example of gameplay affecting presentation.
This is a drawback of modern games. Arcades had less room for this. Generally, you got what you paid for, if the game looks fun, you will probably enjoy it. Today's console games follow a whole new suit of ideals. It's far from the "simple, short, fun" mentality of the arcade scene, we'll accept that. It's now about bringing you into another world. The greater the sense of detachement, the greater the game. Not all games are like this of course. Basically, if you want to be anal about it, you could try breaking down the percentage of gameplay versus presentation the player is supposed to pay attention to for different titles. This is the whole principal of exploration in videogames. For instance, a game like Shenmue or Final Fantasy is about 80% presentation because you are supposed to pay 80% of your "attention" to the story/characters/environment/realism/music/graphics, you name it, everything that isn't interaction. Everything you, as a player, have no control over. This is a huge contrast to what arcade games used to be. It's sometimes funny to think that, in the end, gameplay might not really be the main reason people play games anymore. What makes a game fun? Would GTA be as fun if it was placed in a futuristic setting? For some yes, for others no. In short, it changes everything. Would Pac-Man be as fun if it was happy face eating stars and being chased by squeletons? This off the top of my head example might not be as appealing as the lovable mascots in Pac-Man, but in the end, you'll still be left quarter-less after an encounter with a "HappyFace-Man" machine.
In Pac-Man, presentation does not affect gameplay, where as in GoldenEye, presentation directly affects gameplay. In fact, in a very real way, the gameplay becomes part of the presentation. It's an expansion of the game's setting. In today's games, developers first think up the setting/theme, THEN they integrate the gameplay. Not the opposite. "I want to make a scary game about shooting zombies" not "I want a game where you control the guys like tanks and shoot slow moving targets in frustrating camera angles."*
But of course, I accept that, and I love it. But does that change the fact that modern game designers are more like movie directors? Yes and no. I see these "presentation-dependent" games as paintings, and the game designers are the painters. In fact, somewhere in the end, every time you look at a screen shot of an upcoming game, all you're seeing is a part of the painting, and you imagine the rest. You'll make the informative guess that if you see a flower, the rest of the painting must be a bouquet of flowers. But what if the rest of the painting was a rotting corpse on a feild, and there just happened to be a flower in the corner as a detail? You'd be surprised. But what if a rotting corpse was the last thing you wanted to see? You'd be dissapointed. Just like with MGS2's demo, where you're left with the idea that you'd be playing snake during the whole game. How do developers and advertisers react to this? They'll make sure that if you see a flower, you'll get a bouquet in the end. What happens then? Games lose whatever chance they have of really surprising us.
What are some of the games that really surprised me this generation? Rez, for one. You go into some pretty basic shooting game and end up with a quasi-philosophy of life. Can you call it just a "shooter"? Does a single screenshot of it do it justice?
Am I the only one that wants to start a game like Shenmue. A guy walking around town, talking to people in a retarded way, ask stupid questions to pretty dumb and boring people, (a pretty 'eventless' game to some). Let's say you play it like that for 10 hours. And then wake up the next morning and see that everyone in town turned into monsters over night, so you pick up a shotgun and play the rest of the game in first person view, blasting the guy that asked you for money for the coke machine every goddamn day. Think of all that effort put into Shenmue in terms of characters interaction all suddenly blown away in wide-spread killing? The game would shock you, and if done right, mark you for a long time. It would push you to start killing people you actually 'knew' inside the realm of the game.
But what would you call this game? A dialogue-centric adventure game turn hardrocking FPS? Would a screenshot do it justice? How would you market it without alienating people? Learning to get to know people for 10 hours, then suddenly being forced to kill them. It's an emotion experience, that's the only thing I'd call it. Just maybe not one that you would personally want to experience, it doesn't change the fact that it would be something strong and real to experience.
In short, that's why media ruins games, or whatever shot at being art they may have.
For reference, Pac-Man isn't art, it's purely a game.
REZ is as close as art games can get. And you know what they say about some art, you either get it or you don't.
* In Katamari Damacy, it's obvious Namco thought of the aspect of gathering up junk in a ball to make it bigger and then added a story, and not "Suppose there was a King of the Universe, and suppose he got drunk and destroyed the stars in the universe and then forced his son to fix it, what would his son do?". This is an example of gameplay affecting presentation.
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