Why I Love Games, Part 1

Every week or so, I would really like to explain why I love games with examples of ones I have played and ones I have made with the fantastic teams I have had the honour of working with. Depending on university work I hope to update fair regularly, thanks for reading!

I have just submitted my dissertation; it was an exciting critical analysis of how videogames use mise-en-scène to convey narrative within a game space. I was first intrigued by this subject by Henry Jenkins’ amazing paper: Game Design as Narrative Architecture (2002), he spoke about how games use the space to convey a story and not just through cut-scenes but with the environment itself.

Since the first year of university, I knew my dissertation would focus on narrative because it is really important to me, I like being spellbound by a game story, beating the game just to find out about the characters, their predicament and the resolution. However I didn’t know I would focus so much on the visuals until I read Henry Jenkins, Jesper Juul and Gonzalo Frasca’s brilliant papers, I began to think “there must be some way of not using cut-scenes, I mean; I think they are great but they are usually not interactive and integrated narrative would be great too!”

Another thing which stirred this idea of visual communication as narrative was a few moments in games that I could point out to my friends and say “yeah, that was unexpected/clever/intriguing/surprising” even though I didn’t do anything, it was something I had seen while playing.

Gun fire everywhere, it is a cacophony of noise and I’m looking over the balcony railing to see my team being gunned down by the enemies. I am being shouted at to head downstairs. Down stairs?! Goodness! So I creep along the corridor to the stairs, readying myself for the ensuing battle, reloading both primary and secondary weapon, when to my right I see a figure by the empty staircase. He is a teammate, knees up to his chest, hands clasps around them, his head is down. He is broken. What has he seen?

These were my thoughts while playing a particular level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011), so while I was playing the role of a battle-hardened soldier, fighting for glory, I was hit with this reminder, a very clever and subtle one, of the brutality of war, quite poignant I think. And all of this was created with visual communication, I didn’t need to be shown it, I just saw the figure as I ran down the stairs, so it was placed in a particular place for the player, to evoke a certain emotion.

I thought it was incredibly effective and I applaud the decision to include that. Another game moment which comes to mind is Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain (2010). Beware of spoilers please! The game certainly knows how to pull at the player’s heart strings by way of emotional pleas of help, suffering and friendship, dialogue and animation that makes you want to find the Origami Killer, however the simple placement of some cardboard boxes evoked an array of emotions for the main character Ethan Mars.

Cardboard boxes did she say?  Yes, boxes. Not just any boxes. Cardboard boxes. Ethan Mars, as you know, separated from his wife, you didn’t know? Beware spoilers! Not many games give you a loving family, perfect home and great job, but Heavy Rain hands them to you on a plate, how kind, however, tragedy strikes and Ethan now inhabits a dingy house, it’s dreary, dark and sad. By using the thought mechanic, whereby I can listen to the inner monologue of the character, I could hear that he has his son for a few days per week. I walked around the house and did a few missions, making your son some dinner, finding cough medicine, helping him with his homework. But as I was traversing the home, I kept noticing the boxes. Yes, those cardboard boxes.

I wasn't sure when the character had left his old and more awesome home, seriously check it out, great set design, but I could see the remnants of the character’s life in the boxes. I must have analysed too much I suppose, but I felt quite sad for him, almost pity, of course boxes aren't bad or terrible things to have in a home, but the juxtaposition of the dark surroundings, drab interiors and the subject matter of his eldest son’s death had created a connotation of despair and that was effective as I had associated the boxes with his downward spiral, the designers were clever, all that over some boxes!

Well that’s it for today, next week: more exciting insights into my dissertation, mise-en-scène and Why I Love Games, Part 2, thank you very much for reading!

Below are the games and articles I wrote about and mentioned.

References

Heavy rain. (2010) Directed by David Cage. Quantic Dream: France. [Videogame: Blu-ray].

Call of duty: modern warfare 3. (2011) Directed by Jason West. Infinity Ward: U.S.A. [Videogame: Blu-Ray].

Frasca, G. (2001) Simulation 101: simulation versus representation. [Internet] Available from: <http://www.ludology.org/articles/sim1/simulation101.html> Accessed: 16/12/12.

Jenkins, H. (2002) Game design as narrative architecture [Internet] Available from: <http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html> Accessed 15/12/12.

Juul, J. (2001) Games telling stories - a brief note on games and narratives. [Internet] Available from: <http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/> Accessed: 18/12/12.