by on

Jen Bosier wonders about movie actors vs. voice-actors playing roles in video games. It’s a good article, but I take issue with one thing:

“Voice work is, undeniably, shorter, easier work than shooting a live-action movie (hours in a sound booth as opposed to months on location), and as major talent your only job is to show up and be, well, you. Take for instance, Mass Effect 2 and Martin Sheen. Truly, I can think of few better actors for such a role.”

 I can think of one who backs up Bosier’s larger point quite well. Fred Tatasciore plays the very similar role of Henry Leland in Obsidian’s Alpha Protocol, and in my opinion he does a spectacular job. Nothing against Martin Sheen, but I’ve always felt his performance is dry and dull compared with Tatasciore’s oddly likeable corporate villain.

Still, it’s an interesting read.

by on

Via Hacker News, an interesting article by Linda Holmes, pointing out that there isn’t enough time in the world to see all the works of literature and art:

“After all, you can eliminate a lot of discernment you’d otherwise have to apply to your choices of books if you say, ‘All genre fiction is trash.’ You have just massively reduced your effective surrender load, because you’ve thrown out so much at once.

The same goes for throwing out foreign films, documentaries, classical music, fantasy novels, soap operas, humor, or westerns. I see people culling by category, broadly and aggressively: television is not important, popular fiction is not important, blockbuster movies are not important. Don’t talk about rap; it’s not important. Don’t talk about anyone famous; it isn’t important. And by the way, don’t tell me it is important, because that would mean I’m ignoring something important, and that’s … uncomfortable. That’s surrender.” [Italics hers.]

I understand this. For example, I listen to almost no currently popular music and I watch very little television. I also see few new movies, preferring to watch classic old movies instead.

This is not because I assume all the new things to be worthless, however. I go by the rule of thumb that much of the currently popular stuff is awful, some of it is mildly enjoyable, and a very small portion of it is destined for immortality as great Art.* It seems probable, at any rate. Besides, I’m not absolutist about not seeing or hearing anything new. It’s a general policy, not an iron law.

But why do I choose to spend less time on “current” art and more time on older stuff, and not the other way round? The reason is that I believe it sort of helps you be less susceptible to fads in general. It’s similar to the phenomenon Paul Graham wrote about in his essay “Taste for Makers”:

“Aiming at timelessness is also a way to evade the grip of fashion. Fashions almost by definition change with time, so if you can make something that will still look good far into the future, then its appeal must derive more from merit and less from fashion.

Strangely enough, if you want to make something that will appeal to future generations, one way to do it is to try to appeal to past generations. It’s hard to guess what the future will be like, but we can be sure it will be like the past in caring nothing for present fashions.”

Obviously, the major (but not only) exception to my avoidance of current art is the video game thing. Part of it is simply that I like games and that’s that, but another part of it is that most people don’t think of them as “Art” yet, and I’m hoping to be slightly ahead of the pack on this.

Having said that, I can think of lots of reasons one might choose to ignore old Art and focus on the new. There are pros and cons to both.

*This is why I’m sensitive about people condemning video games as unintelligent, immature, juvenile entertainment. It is true that most video games are just that, but not all of them. Some are truly brilliant, and I don’t like to see them condemned.

by on

Well, maybe that’s too harsh. Let me rephrase it: I am forced to like Role-Playing Games  (henceforth “RPGs”) because they are the only type of game which provide the things I want in games. These being: interesting, complex and realistic characters, well-written and intelligent dialogue, and a deep, thought provoking story.

The games that have all these things are all RPGs; the only possible exception to this that I am aware of is the Metal Gear Solid series. It seems that if you want anything other than a boilerplate storyline, you have to go play an RPG. Which isn’t bad, but the whole building stats/feats/abilities thing I could do without.

There’s no actual reason this should be the case, that I can see. You could make a game that played like Call of Duty except with some sort of dialogue system and give it a really interesting story and deep characters. But this never seems to happen. (Half-Life is a step in the right direction, but not a terribly big one.)

Mass Effect 2 was, technically speaking, almost exactly the sort of game I am describing; its RPG mechanics were almost non-existent, and it had an excellent character interaction element to it, coupled with great graphics and voice-acting. It only fell down in the “deep, thought provoking story” area. But it fell badly here, enough to knock it down from “one of my favorite games ever” to merely “a very good game”.

It’s true that, in games like Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, you can specialize your character for combat, but this comes at the expense of having the dialogue skills needed to find out the subtleties of the characters and story. Again, I want to stress that this is not a bad thing; it is a fine style of game and I would not want people to stop making games like that. But where is the alternative type of game; that lets you essentially “have it all”?

by on

Probably not. But, via Hacker News, Scott Braddock relates an interesting anecdote about how the game might promote international co-operation. He concludes somewhat hopefully:

“Boys love to play soldier. They like to shoot guns and hunt targets. Maybe someday the fights will only happen in their video games and their opponents will really be their friends, even if they live in different worlds.” 

by on

I’ve been replaying Obsidian Entertainment‘s game Alpha Protocol, and I have to say I’m coming to like it more and more. I defended it even on its release, but now I’ve come to appreciate subtleties I missed at the time. Specifically, the characters. They aren’t all uniformly excellent, but those that are fully realized are truly well-written.

Take Conrad Marburg, for instance: (Spoilers follow, and if you haven’t played the game, you won’t know what I’m talking about anyway.)

Marburg acts like such a jerk through most of the game, not to mention that he’s working to thwart Michael Thorton (the player character) in one major mission; and yet you still kind of feel sorry for him because you know why he’s so upset—in important respects he was Thorton, as he says, “twenty years ago”.

And then there’s his awesome scene in the Roman museum. His line “Deus Vult” is all at once an ironic reference to his status as a corporate lackey, a reference to the Roman locale and the surrounding exhibit, and sort of an “It’s Chinatown” moment between him and Thorton, (“Deus Vult” being an organization that treated Marburg much the same way “Alpha Protocol” is treating Thorton.) That’s three layers of meaning in two words from a dead language. That’s brilliant writing.

Now, admittedly, it’s not that great throughout. And it has many other flaws that many players may find irritating. I can’t quarrel with most of the criticisms of the game, be they of its graphics, gameplay, or plot; but nevertheless, such high-quality writing in games is something that ought to be highlighted, lest games really become the shallow things non-gamers think they are.

by on
[I was looking through my draft posts, and I came across this one. I could have sworn I posted this  already back in October, but apparently I didn’t, or at least I’m unable to find it in my archive. So, here it is now.]  

As I’ve said before, what I generally like in horror stories is atmospherics; I find the gore and violence which saturates modern horror fiction to be not in any way frightening, merely grotesque and unpleasant. Unfortunately, many alleged horror video games take their cue from the rest of the genre on this, and ratchet up the violence and ratchet down the suspense and the atmosphere. Even the best horror games, such as F.E.A.R. and Doom 3, only just manage to establish a pretty good spooky atmosphere, only to undercut it with fast-paced run-and-gun levels. (Ravenholm, from Half-Life 2, inverted this by putting a survival-horror level in an action game, which made for a pleasant surprise.)

The most successful scary moments in games are usually to be found in games that aren’t actually  in the “horror” genre. The graveyard area from BioWare‘s unfairly underrated Jade Empire is one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever seen in a game. Practically every locale in Black Isle’s fantasy epic Planescape: Torment has about it the feel of weird, cosmic fear. Neither of these games are really considered “horror”, but both are far superior to the mindlessness of many supposedly “scary” games.

The overall story of the first Mass Effect was very Lovecraftian, but it shied away from emphasizing the cosmic fear engendered by the Reapers as much as it could have, which in my opinion was a mistake. The element of mystery and the Unknown were sadly removed from the Reapers in Mass Effect 2, and the cosmic horror elements played down even more. Which was a pity, because it contained a rather well-done horror level in the part set aboard a “dead” Reaper. (Note the Lovecraft reference: “Even a dead God can dream” in one of the crew logs.)

I suppose what it all comes down to is my taste for actual stories in games. In so many alleged horror games, the story is nothing but a bunch of foolishness cribbed from zombie movies. Most of the games I’ve listed above as liking are either BioWare or Black Isle (later to become Obsidian Entertainment); game companies renowned for their storytelling. Which, incidentally, reminds me what a pity it is that Sega canceled Obsidian’s Aliens RPG, which might have been a truly great horror game.

by on

It is the oldest battle in the history of video gaming: graphics vs. all the other stuff. By “all the other stuff” I mean writing, gameplay, story, music etc.

Yes, EA’s new Battlefield 3 looks very nice graphically. But–and maybe I’m wrong here–it appears to be, in terms of gameplay and subject matter, a great deal like Call of Duty. This is all very well, and if that’s what you like, well, I hope you enjoy it. But I personally just can’t get excited about a graphical update for another war game like everyone has been playing for the last decade.

by on

Permit me to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five: “Listen: The video game industry has come unstuck in time.”

With Duke Nukem Forever on the verge of being released, coupled with announcement of the reemergence of Spyro the Dragon, (who was, admittedly, never really gone) your average gamer might think it was 1998 all over again.

Who knows if it’s a good thing. The Duke Nukem franchise never interested me, and Spyro is a kids’ game–thought the new technology it’s using sounds interesting.

Still, 1998 marked the beginning of what many consider a golden age of gaming. 1998/’99 saw the release of: Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Valve’s Half-Life, Black Isle’s Fallout 2, LucasArts‘ Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid, and of course, Black Isle’s Planescape: Torment.

So, it might not be bad to revisit the old days, if it kicks a cycle like that off again.