The shallow, fanboy press is one of the chief reasons that gaming as an art form remains unaccepted, even within the industry itself. How can developers look at what they do and call it meaningful if their own community doesn't? Perhaps the word "game" is our problem. "Games" are for children. We outgrow them. They're somehow different from movies or novels in this regard; to many, a thirtysomething who expounds delightedly on the joys of a game should feel somewhat abashed; immature at best and infantile at worst. Yet anyone who bothers to actually try one of today's games realizes almost instantly that there's nothing childish about them. Disciples of Salen & Zimmerman realize that games are just methods of communicating and exploring complex ideas. Maybe the press should start treating them as such.
It is worth reading the whole thing, though, and checking out some of the articles it links to.
One thing that got me thinking was the article on Planescape: Torment, it concludes:
If you want to see game design done well, Planescape: Torment is a game to learn from. Since it uses the AD&D model there's little that's new about the underlying mechanics, but as a world to explore I think it contains the most intense concentration of creativity I have seen in any computer game, past or present.
Unfortunately I only know this game by reputation, so I can't comment on it, but I do think that this is important: "Since it uses the AD&D model there's little that's new about the underlying mechanics". Computer games are getting to a point where there "engines" start looking the same and the novelty of having specular lighting, or whatever this months exciting new tweak is, is one that's getting diminishing returns. For those games that are concerned with their narrative, though, this may not be a bad thing. Creativity can be expended on telling a compelling story or acheiving an emotional resonance.
Except this isn't always appreciated, looking at the reviews of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (KOTOR II, for short), most of them criticise the game for being built on the same (or slightly refined) engine as the last one.
The original KOTOR was widely praised as being one of the finest Star Wars products since Tie Fighter. It had a strong central story with a satisfying twist, it manages to tell quite a few other stories along the way, most of Polti's 36 plots, in fact. The games graphics, while not stellar, were adequate to convey what was needed. So why the need for extra novelty in the sequel?
OK, the original engine could be buggy, and in KOTOR II I've already managed to fall through the scenery, and the faces of the characters in close up are a bit in expressive, but I can't be the only one a bit shocked when T3-M4 is blown up early on and found HK-50 hilariously homocidal (and slightly disappointed that it wasn't HK-47, but apparently he turns up later). Then there's all the little things that refer to the earlier game(I've only just started playing, so some of these little things may get bigger) Carth's earlyish cameo, the fact that it's the Ebon Hawk and the constant echoing of the backstory that's already been established. So far, apart from my tendency to get lost, it's been fine story telling all the way.
What I feel is that the search for novelty means that games tend tell the same simplistic storys over and over again with shinier shiny than the last time. And it's partly this that is keeping them "childish". Until gamers accept that innovation in the story line is as important as innovation in the display this is going to continue to happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment