The Game World

Like all stories, video games take place in a world.  That world can be fictional or a real-place and sometimes it can be based on a real place.  The game world can be a crazy place because it can be one gigantic city like in the Grand Theft Auto series or be set in many different locations like in Halo.  Whether the place is a hostile alien planet somewhere in the depths of space, a snowy wasteland, or some ancient ruins the fact is: each of these places tells a story and are an essential piece to the overall story of the game.

A great example of a video game that uses a well-constructed environment is Resident Evil 5.  It's predecessors have other places too, but I'm going to talk about this one because it's the most recent and I've been playing it for a while.  No, I don't suck it at because I've been playing for such a long time.......it's just zombie killing is addictive and something I enjoy in my leisure time.  
In the first chapter of the game you start off in an old and run down African town that reminds me a lot of Somalia's capitol, Mogadishu, as it was depicted in the film Black Hawk Down.  As you run through the levels within this first chapter the most obvious thing to notice is that there is no pavement, all the roads and paths are dirt.  The sun is blazing hot and a great indicator of how hot it is in this place is when your character stands still and you can see in the distance the waves of heat flowing.  Just a nice detail the creators added to make the environment feel arid, dry, and more authentic.

Now, as you walk through the city there are run down buildings all around, lots of shacks, and fences.  The vbuildings have imperfections of all kinds: cracks, holes, all kinds of marks ranging from scratches and rust to impalements and decay.  The shacks are made of wood planks, boards, posts, and various types of roofing.  Some of the small shacks look like they could be destroyed with a strong kick.  There is very little vegetation and some poverty-stricken local people around that don't look too happy.  At times the place feels like it's a ghost town because everything feels so lifeless and abandoned.
Inside buildings and outside others, there are boxes, crates, and barrels.  Some of them you can break, some you can't.  There are dull, beaten up, broken down cars in street corners.  Old tables, antenna TVs, furniture, and lots of junk inside pretty much every building.  Even though this place feels like a ghost town, it also feels like the ultimate junkyard.  However, all of these items, debris, materials, weather, junk, etc, all tell us about the environment we are in.  And since that this game is Resident Evil, you know that yes, this place is strikingly eerie because of how it looks and no, you are not alone......even if it seems like it.

Another example of a game whose environment can tell its own story is Grand Theft Auto.  Since all the games are based on real cities they all have rich areas, middle-class neighborhoods, and low-income neighborhoods.  The differences in each of these three areas are just as apparent as they are in real life.  In the rich neighborhoods the houses are beautiful, fancy fences, nice clean yards, and smokin' rides parked by them.  The middle-class neighborhoods are nice enough and don't look like old homes.  There really isn't anything too special about them though.  Once you get to poor areas, they look like ghettos.  Messed up yards, the houses look old, the streets and allies look old and run down and need to be cleaned up.  There's graffiti on buildings and fences.  Any cars around this area are old, ugly, models...sometimes beat up old cars that sputter and let out black exhaust.  The people that inhabit their respective areas also fit the stereotypes of real people that live in these areas.

There are plenty more examples of games that have great environments.  I just chose these two because I was most impressed by these two out of games that I have played.  Anyways, be back later.  I got some zombies to blast. >: )

Trio

Hello World

I just started my first semester of my senior year in college and let me say, I have had an awesome experience thus far. Personally, I think college is something everyone should experience because of all the new people there are and the atmosphere of being on a large campus.  It's great. I have always been one of those "close to home" type of people and my family is really close knit, so I've never been away from them for an extended period of time. Going away to school, though, has changed me in that and I am so much more open and not as timid as I used to be. Anyway, enough about me, onto the blog topic!

Just this last spring semester I was taking a class on interactive entertainment. Essentially, a class about video games. It somewhat covered the history of games, the first video games made, all the way to the present. The class got really dense with information at one point when covering philosophies of "play" and got really interesting when topics of video games being used to educate and games as art were covered. One of the sections within the class, however, had a profound impact on me and that was: could video games tell stories? I never realized that this was even a question because I thought it was obvious that virtually any game had some kind of story. One exception would be sports games, where they do have some storytelling elements that I will get into in the future, but the games themselves lack narrative structure. Anyhow, there are critics who think that video games do not tell stories.  Roger Ebert is one of them.

My goal over the course of this blog is to hopefully shed some light on this subject of video games being able to tell stories. I will provide evidence and examples from actual video games themselves, especially ones that best-fit the narrative structure such as, Mass Effect and Grand Theft Auto. On a personal note, I felt I should blog on this topic because my goal in life is to work at a post-production film studio doing visual effects work. I understand the hardship and the amount of time that goes in to making one polished shot and in essence, a whole film. For me to see one of the most intensive and collaborative efforts (creating video games) be scrutinized and considered inferior to cinema and literature when some of the best games could potentially be on the same level, is disheartening. Sometimes I feel that these works should have better merits than just a game, but I am worried that because it is the nature of video games “to play” that this may never happen. I hope you, the reader, enjoy this blog and get something out of it, even if you think that I may be “full of it” or you see the credibility in my thoughts.

Enjoy!

Profile Post

I had a rather difficult time trying to find blogs on my topic of video games as a medium of storytelling. I did find some posted articles that were related to it and I must say that I was a bit surprised that I did not find any blogs that were relevant, especially on the first page of the search. In any case, the post I chose to profile is called, "Storytelling in Video Games," and it was written by Felix Kemp who is studying Creative and Media Writing. His relationship to video games, based on his numerous posts, is that he writes reviews on some video games and films. His last post was in June of 2009 and he began posting in March, averaging about nine posts per month.

Once I read this article I realized that it had some significance to my blog, the most obvious being that it was about video games and storytelling. Kemp’s article suggests that video games already have stories regardless if they are good or bad and is not trying to make an argument. He mentions examples of games that have well-told stories that have been hits in the video game world to justify what makes them great stories. My blog on the other hand, will be arguing that video games do tell stories, shedding light on great games that tell great stories.

Kemp’s articles are rich in detail and informative to their audiences. I found them quite easy to read due to his straightforward style of writing and clarity of sentences.  Everything is to the point, which is the way reviews should be.  Based on all of Kemp’s posts I can tell his writing is intended for the audiences who follow entertainment, namely video games, television, and film. Since I find his posts very informative I feel that his audience is people mainly looking for some information on things, kind of like myself. He has a post on a preview of Halo 3: ODST and he basically outlines the game and mentions its basic features and his impressions of it, something an avid gamer would like to read. He also has a post on the film, Drag Me to Hell where Kemp gives his analysis of the film and his own personal thoughts about it. He does a good job of keeping his posts linear by usually having his posts’ information generated from the subjects and his closing paragraph being his own take on everything.

One thing I noticed about his writing is that it seems to be academic, not so much because of its style, but because of the dates and subjects of his posts. His posts took place from March 2009 to June 2009 and they were almost weekly posts, some being every other day. This just feels similar to what I am doing for this class, which is: running a blog for the semester. It is being written in a similar manner with the only difference being the informal voice of a blog, compared to the formal voice of an article. Plus, the subjects of the posts ranged from video game reviews, to a television series review, film reviews, and some book reviews. Nevertheless, this was an extremely helpful piece of material that I plan on making reference to in my blog, especially some of the parts where Kemp uses other games as examples of having well-told stories.

Voice Post

The blog post that I read was named "Good Stories in Games? Sometimes it happens!" It was written by Cosmos T. Mouse or "Cosmos The Mouse," and just by the title of this post and the name of the blogger, it is already apparent that this person has a distinct voice when writing online. While this blog post does not talk about how games tell stories or even "if" they do; that is not even a question. It's all in the title of the post. Cosmos The Mouse knows that games tell stories and this post consists of two game reviews that he thought told a good story. The post is not too lengthy, but the tone of the blogger is most apparent and it is easy to see that he is just a normal gamer like everyone else who is just sharing some thoughts with other fellow gamers. In the first lines of Cosmos the Mouse's post we get an intro into this blogger's voice and writing personality.

"Thanks to the good people at CheapAssGames.com I found a few games I wanted to get that are normally cheap.... but a little cheaper. I grabbed "GUN" and "Indigo Prophecy" for 9 bucks each new. That's right. New. And I do have to tell you from what I played today (and I had a lot of free time), I enjoy both. And both actually have some pretty decent stories & gameplay."

The first indicator of voice is the "dot-dot-dots" in the first sentence. Just a slight and subtle pause to show that this person types the way he speaks. The next indicators of voice are in the next couple of lines where he mentions he bought the games for "9 bucks each new. That's right. New."  This entire phrase, when reading, brings out that thought, "Whaaat? No way!" Because as both you and I know, no games in this day and age can be bought new for nine dollars. Then again, that's the whole purpose for Cosmos The Mouse typing, "That's right. New." because he probably couldn't believe it either.

The next paragraph of this blog post is basically a casual review of the game, "GUN," where Mouse mentions some of the game's basic features and compares it to two other games, Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Revolver.

"The game plays a bit like Red Dead Revolver (that I really enjoyed) mixed with an old west GTA style. [...] Riding horses to get from point A to B is a bust as any fan of GTA knows... you must jack a car. Er, I mean horse."

In these two sentences, we the reader, see a couple more context clues that inform us to the voice of the blogger. The parenthesis show us that Mouse has probably played many games since he is able to reference games as a side note when talking about another. The second sentence has the short pause once again like the first lines of the post, but because Mouse references Grand Theft Auto, he says, "you must jack a car." He then realizes his mistake being that his review is about the game, "GUN," and goes on to say a short phrase, "Er, I mean horse." This is a humorous little phrase that tells the reader so much about the voice of this blogger. So far the blogger, has a conversational voice, meaning that he seems to type the way he talks. He also can be humorous and use short sentences. Such as the instance in which he bought nine dollar games or the GTA and GUN mix-up.

Mouse's last review is that of Indigo Prophecy where he actually claims that the game is like, "Alfred Hitchcock meets X-Files meets Silent Hill." and that, "You would really have to play it to know what the hell I mean," because there really isn't another game like it. For the rest of the review, Mouse explains what the game is like and how you can tell one story, but play the game through three different characters/perspectives so that you get a different part of the one story. He then ends the blog post with, "If it werent so late I would go on about it. But I'm tired." Which does make sense being that he posted this at 1:36 in the morning. Yet again, humorous with short sentence structure.

In another post that Cosmos The Mouse wrote, but at a much more recent date
(August 14th, 2010) than the post I analyzed (June 15th, 2006), we see that Mouse has kept his sense of humor and despite his hiatus due to being ill, he never lost his voice.

"For all the people wondering....No i'm not dead, i've just been out a while. Aside from being out, sick with colds / flu's and other fun things, I've been working on a few of the games i've had that I didn't get much time with."

In the first sentence and the sentence after the "dot-dot-dots," there is a sense of short sentences even though they are one, maybe two (whatever). In any case, this area seems to go along with Mouse's conversational style of speech.  Short phrases.  And being funny.  At the same time. I chose to compare his early post to a later one just to see if there was any change that took place in his style of writing. Only to be fair, I looked for a small part that showed as much personality as his earlier post did so that they would be comparable. Since he has been posting for years now, people like his stuff.

Cosmos The Mouse uses a mix of things to characterize his blogging voice. When he is explaining something in detail he will use medium to long sentence length. It seems when he types the way he talks or wants to be funny he will use short phrases or even just words and then a period. Mouse also feels the need to pause between to phrases or sentences just because it gives more feeling into a sentence, especially when that sentence is read aloud in the right tone of voice. His style of speech is also conversational and he places asides, noted with parenthesis, to show his train of thought at the time.

Why Story is so Important

Story is probably the most essential thing to entertainment and the media in general in this world.  It is what keeps television and films interesting to watch.  It is what creates the atmosphere of video games, henceforth giving them an awesome game play experience.  And now the most obvious of all, stories make books "books."  Why is story so important, do you ask?  Because "story" is what happens every day of our lives.

When we turn on the television to watch the news what's usually the first thing we hear?  "We have a late breaking story/news coming to you from Downtown..."  or something along those lines.  Whether the news is televised, printed on a paper or magazine, or written on the Internet, it is a story.  News is basically a story or stories made to inform.  If you hear a story about a traffic jam or a current weather condition, you are hearing stories about them and being informed to avoid them or be cautious if you are caught in them.  There are also stories in which we hear a lot of negative things, such as: murder, robbery, assaults, accidents, kidnappings, deaths, and other things.  All of the aforementioned things are stories from everyday life placed in the context of news and information.

If television shows like Lost, 24, I Love Lucy, Law and Order, The Sopranos, or American Idol did not have good stories would they be as popular as they are or considered "such good shows?"  I think not.  There's a reason why shows get pulled after a few weeks of air time and it's because the shows (as the viewer might say) "are stupid."  Which actually means, the story sucks.  If you ask someone why they don't watch a particular show they might say it is dumb, stupid, gay or retarded (if you're asking a teenager).  Ask why...... and they might say something like, "...because it doesn't make sense why anyone would do this (or that) or go searching for something, or try to find a drug dealer, that's dumb."  Obviously these are made up, but what he/she is commenting on is the general idea of the story.  Ask yourself why you don't like a certain show and you'll realize that what you said is what the show is about.

The same things in television shows can be said about film.  Great movies have great stories, notably, some movies are inspired by novels.  The Godfather, The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Inception, The Dark Knight, Saving Private Ryan, Gone With the Wind......God, the list goes on.  If all movies were as simple as comedies and horror films, films would suck.  In general that is.  I am not knocking these two genres of film (I love comedies and like horror films), it's just that they don't get the same praise that drama, action, or romance films get.  Drama and romance can have interesting plots, love triangles, secrets of some sort, a homicide, anything really.  Action movies can have all those things too, mixed with battles, explosions, car chases, runaway trains....you get the point.  The contents of these genres outweigh the simplicity of movies like The Hangover (which I love), Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Superbad, Wedding Crashers, and Pineapple Express.  Even if they are funny as hell.

This is why it is so hard to make horror films now because all of the slasher films, ghostly apparitions, zombies eating people, big bugs wreaking havoc have all been done.  Scary movies consist of killers killing people.  Yup, that's right.  Sounds like an Oscar-winning script to me.  That's the reality though these filmmakers face when they tackle this genre, how to be creative in a horror film.  This is also why just about every horror film that has come out in the last twenty years has been cheesy or just plain sucked.  Scream, Saw, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are exempt from this (first three to pop in my head).  Those were pretty bad ass.

Great stories also make exciting video games.  Metal Gear Solid, Star Craft, Mass Effect, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, and how can I forget Halo.  I know I've missed some titles in here, but these games have intricate plots that enhance the game play and can make you feel like you are impacting the story.  Since my blog is about this I won't go into too much depth here, but a storyline is just as relevant to a video game in the same way that a good story is relevant to an animated movie.  The animation/graphics of a game can be sick as hell, but if the story isn't good......it's a waste.

Story is also prominent in the music that we listen to, whether it is an individual song or a concept album.  The rappers 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G. are still considered the greatest rappers because their lyrics told the stories of their lives on the streets.  People are able to relate to these things and build a connection with their music and thus, the artist.  Some of the greatest songs of the rap and hip-hop genre are these "life songs" which are biographies that sometimes have messages to their listeners.

So as you can see, story is everywhere.  Stories are happening all around us and the connection that all these forms of entertainment and media have is that in some way, the stories that drive each one of them have elements that are derived from life.  They can be portrayed as directly as a movie with real people or as creative and fictional as possible like in a video game.  Stories come from the human experience, which means all people have a story.  So what interesting story do you have to share?      

    

          

 

Voice Post

The blog post that I read was named "Good Stories in Games? Sometimes it happens!" It was written by Cosmos T. Mouse or "Cosmos The Mouse," and just by the title of this post and the name of the blogger, it is already apparent that this person has a distinct voice when writing online. While this blog post does not talk about how games tell stories or even "if" they do; that is not even a question. It's all in the title of the post. Cosmos The Mouse knows that games tell stories and this post consists of two game reviews that he thought told a good story. The post is not too lengthy, but the tone of the blogger is most apparent and it is easy to see that he is just a normal gamer like everyone else who is just sharing some thoughts with other fellow gamers. In the first lines of Cosmos the Mouse's post we get an intro into this blogger's voice and writing personality.

"Thanks to the good people at CheapAssGames.com I found a few games I wanted to get that are normally cheap.... but a little cheaper. I grabbed "GUN" and "Indigo Prophecy" for 9 bucks each new. That's right. New. And I do have to tell you from what I played today (and I had a lot of free time), I enjoy both. And both actually have some pretty decent stories & gameplay."

The first indicator of voice are the "dot-dot-dots" in the first sentence. Just a slight and subtle pause to show that this person type's the way he speaks. The next indicators of voice are in the next couple of lines where he mentions he bought the games for "9 bucks each new. That's right. New." This entire phrase, when reading, brings out that thought, "Whaaat? No way!" Because as both you and I know, no games in this day and age can be bought new for nine dollars. Then again, that's the whole purpose for Cosmos The Mouse typing, "That's right. New." because he probably couldn't believe it either.

The next paragraph of this blog post is basically a casual review of the game, "GUN," where Mouse mentions some of the game's basic features and compares it to two other games, "Grand Theft Auto" and "Red Dead Revolver."

"The game plays a bit like Red Dead Revolver (that I really enjoyed) mixed with an old west GTA style. [...] Riding horses to get from point A to B is a bust as any fan of GTA knows... you must jack a car. Er, I mean horse."

In these two sentences, we the reader, see a couple more context clues that inform us to the voice of the blogger. The parenthesis show us that Mouse has probably played many games since he is able to reference games as a side note when talking about another. The second sentence has the short pause once again like the first lines of the post, but because Mouse references "Grand Theft Auto," he says, "you must jack a car." He then realizes his mistake being that his review is about the game, "GUN," and goes on to say a short phrase, "Er, I mean horse." This is a humorous little phrase that tells the reader so much about the voice of this blogger. So far the blogger, has a conversational voice, meaning that he seems to type the way he talks. He also can be humorous and use short sentences. Such as the instance in which he bought nine dollar games or "GTA" and "GUN" mix-up.

Mouse's last review is that of "Indigo Prophecy" where he actually claims that the game is like, "Alfred Hitchcock meets X-Files meets Silent Hill." and that, "You would really have to play it to know what the hell I mean," because there really isn't another game like it. For the rest of the review, Mouse explains what the game is like and how you can tell one story, but play the game through three different characters/perspectives so that you get a different part of the one story. He then ends the blog post with, "If it werent so late I would go on about it. But I'm tired." Which does make sense being that he posted this at 1:36 in the morning. Yet again, humorous with short sentence structure.

In another post that Cosmos The Mouse wrote, but at a much more recent date
(August 14th, 2010) than the post I analyzed (June 15th, 2006), we see that Mouse has kept his sense of humor and despite his hiatus due to being ill, he never lost his voice.

"For all the people wondering....No i'm not dead, i've just been out a while. Aside from being out, sick with colds / flu's and other fun things, I've been working on a few of the games i've had that I didn't get much time with."

In the first sentence and the sentence after the "dot-dot-dots," there is a sense of short sentences even though they are one, maybe two (whatever). In any case, this area seems to go along with Mouse's conversational style of speech. Short phrases. And being funny. At the same time. I chose to compare his early post to a later one just to see if there was any change that took place in his style of writing. Only to be fair, I looked for a small part that showed as much personality as his earlier post did so that they would be comparable. Since he has been posting for years now, people like his stuff.

Cosmos The Mouse uses a mix of things to characterize his blogging voice. When he is explaining something in detail he will use medium to long sentence length. It seems when he types the way he talks or wants to be funny he will use short phrases or even just words and then a period. Mouse also feels the need to pause between to phrases or sentences just because it gives more feeling into a sentence, especially when that sentence is read aloud in the right tone of voice. His style of speech is also conversational and he places asides, noted with parenthesis, to show his train of thought at the time.

Profile Post

I had a rather difficult time trying to find blogs on my topic of video games as a medium of storytelling. I did find some posted articles that were related to it and I must say that I was a bit surprised that I did not find any blogs that were relevant, especially on the first page of the search. In any case, the post I chose to profile is called, "Storytelling in Video Games," and it was written by Felix Kemp who is studying Creative and Media Writing. His relationship to video games, based on his numerous posts, is that he writes reviews on some video games and films. His last post was in June of 2009 and he began posting in March, averaging about nine posts per month.

Once I read this article I realized that it had some significance to my blog, the most obvious being that it was about video games and storytelling. Kemp’s article suggests that video games already have stories regardless if they are good or bad and is not trying to make an argument. He mentions examples of games that have well-told stories that have been hits in the video game world to justify what makes them great stories. My blog on the other hand, will be arguing that video games do tell stories, shedding light on “great games telling great stories.”

Kemp’s articles are rich in detail and informative to their audiences. I found them quite easy to read due to his straightforward style of writing and clarity of sentences; everything is to the point, which is the way reviews should be, I think. Based on all of Kemp’s posts I can tell his writing is intended for the audiences who follow entertainment, namely video games, television, and film. Since I find his posts very informative I feel that his audience is people mainly looking for some information on things, kind of like myself. He has a post on a preview of “Halo 3: ODST” and he basically outlines the game and mentions its basic features and his impressions of it, something an avid gamer would like to read. He also has a post on the film, “Drag Me to Hell,” where Kemp gives his analysis of the film and his own personal thoughts about it. He does a good job of keeping his posts linear by usually having his posts’ information generated from the subjects and his closing paragraph being his own take on everything.

One thing I noticed about his writing is that it seems to be academic, not so much because of its style, but because of the dates and subjects of his posts. His posts took place from March 2009 to June 2009 and they were almost weekly posts, some being every other day. This just feels similar to what I am doing for this class, which is: running a blog for the semester. It is being written in a similar manner with the only difference being the informal voice of a blog, compared to the formal voice of an article. Plus, the subjects of the posts ranged from video game reviews, to a television series review, film reviews, and some book reviews. Nevertheless, this was an extremely helpful piece of material that I plan on making reference to in my blog, especially some of the parts where Kemp uses other games as examples of having well-told stories.

Storytelling in Video Games - http://www.suite101.com/content/storytelling-in-videogames-a102922


Halo 3: ODST - http://www.suite101.com/content/e3-2009-halo-3-odst-preview-a122926


Drag Me to Hell - http://www.suite101.com/content/film-review-drag-me-to-hell-a124006