Book Review: Grand Theft Childhood
Today marks the retail release of Grand Theft Auto IV. If many analysts are to be believed, the latest installment in the lucrative but notorious franchise will sell as many as nine million copies. And if certain politicians and activists are correct, it will almost certainly lead to widespread youth depravity and violence. But if the authors of Grand Theft Childhood are right, parents actually have very little reason for concern.
Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Video Games and What Parents Can Do is a thoughtful look at videogames and youth violence, authored by husband and wife researchers and media columnists Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson, Cofounders and Directors of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Mental Health and the Media. As its subtitle implies, the book’s authors intend to offer parents sound guidance and advice in response to current anti-gaming sentiments.
(Read the rest of this article over at The Escapist)
Wiimorse
I bought a Wii on release day, seduced by its reasonable price, magical controllers and family-friendliness. General tech lust and the promise of a new Zelda title didn’t hurt, either. Now it sits atop my entertainment center, blanketed in a layer of dust. Cold, unplayed and unloved. I haven’t switched it on in weeks.
It took nearly a year and a half, but buyer’s remorse has finally kicked in.
(Read the rest of this article over at The Escapist)
Orchestrations of Play
The violinist cradles his instrument beneath his chin, and as he deftly draws the rosined bow across its strings they begin to sing. His fingers dance across the fretboard with mathematical precision. He coaxes emotion from wood and sinew. It vibrates in the air around him as he listens, thinks and acts in a cycle of purpose and meaning.
The gamer embraces her controller as she guides her armored avatar through Rainbow Six Vegas. The tips of her thumbs gently nudge the analog sticks and her fingers snap down over buttons and triggers. She wonders, watches and responds as the image on the screen before her twists and turns. The controller pulsates and rumbles in time with the staccato gunfire that emanates from the speakers. Process, imagination and emotion intertwine.
In each case, the world around them disappears as they succumb to the union of action and reaction generated by their unique relationships with these devices. One plays a musical instrument. The other plays a video game. But, in the end, they’re both playing.
(Read the rest of this article over at The Escapist)
Scattered Notes on Games and Storytelling
Over the last few days an interesting idea has been popping up in various places. Not a new idea, but it seems more refined and widely circulated of late. It’s in Ken Levine’s GDC presentation, via Gamasutra, and I heard it articulated in a recent 1up podcast in which N’Gai Croal was a guest. I can’t remember where else I’ve heard/read it, but here it is, in a sort of nutshell:
Games are lousy vehicles for traditional narratives, but they’re still excellent vehicles for emotional storytelling, provided that the story is shown, rather than told.
Here are a couple of quotes from a summary of Levine’s presentation (via Gamasutra) that illustrate this point:
Levine showed a short demo of the prototype for BioShock — it looked very much like a game that could be released on the 360 right now; a convincing corridor-crawler with creepy monsters to shoot and smashed crates. Levine’s take? “The world is not saying very much to us.”
I read that and then considered the finished product. In Bioshock, every corner of every room tells a story. A tragic, horrific, amazing story. Exploring Rapture, the player is a sort of archaeologist, continually piecing the story of the broken world together through its found remains, aided by careful, emotionally powerful art direction. Portal is another example of a game that does the same thing, to great effect.
More Levine:
“What is mise en scene? Literally, to present or make a scene. Film does this. How did BioShock use this? To tell a story without words.” Rapture was designed to sell the story, and this was accomplished via mise en scene.
Bioshock also told its story via other means, of course, including through found audiotapes which provided plenty of more traditional exposition. But those materials were supplementary. They’re an adjunct to the much more visceral, emotionally compelling story delivered via the presentation of Rapture’s environs.
Shadow of the Colossus and Ico are also perfect illustrations of of how games can effectively show, rather than tell, incredible stories.
Lawyer Highlights Challenges Facing Game Industry
Gamasutra has the rundown of a GDC presentation by game industry attorney Larence G. Walters, and it’s an interesting read. Walters notes that despite the steady shutdown of game-regulation laws on First Amendment grounds, the industry isn’t out of the woods yet. Of particular concern are the ongoing “junk science” attacks on gaming from pro-regulation groups. Walters argues for a more proactive, research-based approach from the industry, and says it should be in the business of advancing scientifically valid counterclaims:
The video game industry needs to clearly and overwhelmingly debunk these theories with its own extensive research on the subject. To the extent that the industry can develop a research bank and debunk this junk science and addiction theory, it should do so before it needs it and not at the 11th hour.
And, he argues, it’s a PR battle as much as it is a legal battle, for “the hearts and minds of consumers.”
Before I forget, Colleen Hannon recently wrote an excellent article on the subject of the unsettling relationship between junk science practitioners and media regulation groups over at Gamers With Jobs.
Nintendo Reveals WiiWare
LevelUp has the dirt on WiiWare, the now officially dated (May 12th!) downloadable game channel for the Wii. N’Gai’s also got an interview with Frontier’s David Braben, who provides some details about his upcoming game for the service, LostWinds:
The main character is a guy called Toku, a young boy who’s discovered this wind spirit that’s trapped in a stone. You control both Toku using the device called the nunchuck. He’s actually quite vulnerable, in terms of where he can go–also there are things in the world that are threatening–but you also control the wind spirit that he’s able to release which is called Enril. And the wind spirit is controlled by the Wiimote.
By moving the Wiimote around, in different shapes, you can create gentle breezes of wind or strong gusts, or even by twisting it around, little sort of water sticks. The game overall is designed to be a really sort of graceful, beautiful experience where you’re using these essentially two separate characters in combination, and that brings us all sorts of possibilities in the way the game works, which makes it feel very fresh.
That actually sounds very cool.
From the Nintendo press release, their vision of WiiWare:
Through WiiWare, Nintendo hopes to offer developers a virtual laboratory that serves as a breeding ground for new games, which encourages great ideas that creators always wanted to develop. The combination of low development barriers and unique game experiences found only on Wii should enable developers to try new ideas with lower risk in a quicker, more creative and affordable way. Meanwhile Wii owners can download a multitude of cool new games from different genres, including some that are unprecedented, which can be purchased from home at a dynamic price range.
Though it lacks the democratized aspects that Micorosft claims their XNA Creators Content will have, WiiWare still sounds very cool. I think I’d spend a lot more time with the Wii if it had an ever-growing library of modern casual games, specifically designed to compliment its unique hardware.
N’Gai also pushed Nintendo on the subject of demos for the new services’ games. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
High-Resolution Hindsight
AREA 1 LOG-IN
CU-1
CU-1
FIRE_[2X]
PROGRESS NODE-
FIRE_[1X]
DOWNLOADING…
UPDATING SCHEMATICS
And with that, it all came rushing back. A few seconds earlier I’d been flicking through the menus of Xbox Live Arcade. Now, almost instantaneously, Rez HD had me revisiting the same vivid emotions I experienced a half decade prior.
I’ve heard gamers complain that new revisions are little more than easy cash grabs by an industry afraid to introduce new content. And so they may be, in some cases. But publishers and developers who abuse beloved intellectual properties obviously do so at their own peril. Frankly, I’m more worried about the industry’s penchant for cranking out phoned-in annual sequels than I am about their potential for reworking proven gaming experiences. Though it’s not going to happen, I’d much rather see Ubisoft remake Beyond Good and Evil before they build another Assassin’s Creed. It would probably cost them less, and I expect I’d enjoy it more.
(Read the rest of this article over at The Escapist.)
A Moment of Silence
For the HD-DVD format.
…
With Toshiba officially conceding defeat, it’s over.
For Sony, who with the PS3 now have the most desirable video playback device on the market, this is huge. The 360’s lower price, online features, and exclusives won’t be enough anymore.
If Microsoft wants to stay competitive, a substantial 360 price cut better be on the way. Or a new 360 that matches the PS3’s hardware features, to include a Blu-Ray drive, built-in wireless, and a sizable hard drive, for a lower price.
Coil
Veteran Flash designer Florian Himsl and artist Edmund McMillen recently released Coil, one of the more fascinating and disturbing Flash games I’ve played. Like a twisted version of Nova’s Life’s Greatest Miracle, it begins with the player piloting a sperm into an ovum and just gets weirder from there. It’s beautifully done, and employs some brilliant programming. But it might give you nightmares.
1up Scoring Schooled
Newly crowned 1up EIC James Mielke discusses his outlet’s reorganization in a lengthy post over at his 1up blog, and just happens to drop this interesting little tidbit:
Also, don’t know if you noticed this or not, but we’re going to be switching our reviews scores from the old 1-to-10 scale to a letter grade format. Some of you will undoubtedly feel dismay at this announcement, but it’s for the better good. Here’s what the official press release says:
“In addition to the reorganization, 1UP Network is making changes with its game scoring system on 1UP.com, in EGM and in GFW. Games will be graded on a letter scale, A+ to F, rather than a numerical scale. All previously scored games on 1UP.com will also be converted to the new letter scale. Look out for these changes in March on 1UP.com, in the April issue of EGM and in the April/May issue of GFW.”
It’ll take some getting used to, but we feel it’ll more accurately convey how we feel about a game. I mean, we knew a 5 out of 10 meant ‘average’ to us, but no one else seemed to get the clue. So we’re changing things around so that anyone who’s gone to school will instantly know how we feel when they see our letter grade on a game review. Feel free to discuss this at your leisure.
Not exactly surprising news. One need look no further than Tom Chick’s defense of his 4-out-of-10 score for Hellgate London, or Hsu’s recent revelation of 1up’s pariah status among certain publishers, to see how the “5 equals average” scoring system drew the ire of gamers and industry types alike.
The bottom line is that if you want to weigh in in the era of review aggregators like Metacritic and Gamerankings you’ve got to skew your scores accordingly. Which is what 1up’s new letter grading system accomplishes, as letter grades neatly translate to percentage scores. The old 1up average was 5. Now it’s C. Which is 75%, right where “average” games fall when their scores are aggregated.
The decision makes sense. The fact that 1up needed to make it shows just how ridiculous this whole game review scoring business has become.