Creating Your Own Story and KOTOR

I know we've talked in length about how every time you play a video game, you're creating a new story. That not only is each play through unique, but your actions tell the primary story, while the plot the game provides is like the backbone or path to follow. I was reading about this idea again this weekend and it reminded me of my experience the first, and only time, I played KOTOR (for those of you not in the know, "Knights of the Old Republic.")

KOTOR is a Star Wars game that's set well before any of the movies. It also has a fairly complicated leveling system, multitudes of side quests and overall, the choice between good and evil. There are many aspects throughout the game that promotes multiple gaming adventures. You can create a new and different character every time, you don't even have to be a jedi if you don't want to. Why you wouldn't is beyond me, but the option is there. There are nine side characters that you can choose from to fight beside you throughout the game, but not all of them are on the main path of the story, you have to go looking for them. In fact, there was one, I don't remember her name, but she was a dark jedi and my test was to bring her back to the light side. Ultimately I failed and had to kill her. If I would have succeeded, she would have joined me, but instead, she left a silhouettes and a big question mark in the box her character profile should have been in. All of this brings me to my main point, Bastila.

She hates you at first but is assigned to be your guide by the jedi council. Later the two of you fall in love. Toward the end of the game, she is led to the dark side and you have to fight her. Now, after you defeat her, there's a bunch of options of things you can say which leads to more options and so on. The easy thing to do, is to just kill her, but if you choose the right responses, you can eventually lure her back to the side of the good. Now, try as I might, I couldn't convincer her to come back to me. I pleaded with her again and again but I couldn't find the right responses. I accepted the love story given to me so much, that I wasn't about to let it end. I needed my character to be reunited with his love and her soul to be soothed. Her reactions to my responses weren't mean, they were just bitter and filled with despair. She had given up on life and saw no other course for herself and now beaten, thought that she deserved death. It was heart breaking. I had two choices. I could start again from my last save point, which was hours ago and through some very, very difficult encounters and fight Bastila again (I was ambushed by the original fight, I had no idea it would happen) or I could kill her. I tried so hard to win her back. I fought for the love of the characters and the goodness in them, but for some reason, I could not find the right words to say, so I was forced to kill her. There was no victory celebration after that series of events.

I thought that I could take my depression and turn it into rage against the main villain Darth Malek, reason being that he made her into a dark jedi and tricked her. He's the real one that destroyed her, but ultimately that brought no respite. Even after I killed him and saved the galaxy, I felt nothing. It was a Pyhrric victory. Everyone was celebrating and I even got the "good" ending, but it wasn't worth it because to me I had lost.

I know this sounds like I'm over dramatizing things, but I was seriously crushed at the end of this game because to me, this was the story I experienced. I even told this to my friends down the hall who thought it odd I couldn't save Bastila, they apparently had no trouble, and joked that I just couldn't save dark jedi. I tried replaying the game multiple times through incredibly different paths, but it's not worth it. I never get very far. I had my original story and nothing comes close to it. Even if I were to make a new character and do it all over again and save her, what would be the point? She's not a just a nonthinking NPC. She was an avatar for something else. My initial interactions with her gently shaped her character and told the A.I. which storyline path to "place" her on and my mind filled in the rest.

I've never had another experience like this. There are plenty of games that have stuck with me and I love their stories, but KOTOR is different. Somehow, it was more than a game to me. It transcended and got to me in a way that I think would make the developers proud.

Video Game Music

Remember a few weeks ago when we had the discussion in class about video game music? We talked about listening to it out of context. Well, I shared that because of my love of Final Fantasy VII, I have the three disc soundtrack on my iPod, but don't listen to it that often. I was going through my music the other day and I discovered that I have another album on there, I don't remember where I got it or how it got there, but it's classical versions of many of the Final Fantasy VII songs. Listening to them not only filled me with nostalgia, but also with the desire for the Advent Children (the movie sequel) soundtrack because it possess many of these same songs but they're redone (yet again) to sound "harder" i.e. guitars and rock band. So I don't remember my initial stance on the people who listen to video game music without needing the game, but I'm officially one of them now (if not before) because I absolutely love these songs. I've spent the last few days listening to their various versions.

This makes me philosophical because these songs are ably to evoke a pretty good emotional response from me. Every time I hear "Aeris' Theme," I still get choked up. I get sad over the loss of this fictional character (for those of you who don't know, she dies about a third of the way through the game, but it's so unexpected and well done, it's one of the greatest moments in video game history). And when I hear "One Winged Angel," my heart beats a little bit faster and my breathing increases, as if expecting a fight (this is the song at the end of the game, when the main bad guy, Sephiroth, is unleashed and about to destroy the world). So with the general sense of nostalgia aside, I started thinking about why these songs get to me so much. Is it because those moments were done so well that they really have a way of making the gamer care? Or is it that, because I love this game so much, I've built it up in my head so much, that I've given them power?

I think it's probably a combination of both. I think the game developers did a great job with story and characterization, so that when these moments do come up in the game, they really stay with the gamer because you're really connected with the characters and have so much invested in them. Maybe that's commentary on the effectiveness of the original songs. With that said, I think that remembering my initial experiences has caused me to build up these emotions in my head. I've actually sort of removed myself from the real experience and I dwell on this one I've constructed. In a way, I've made myself care about what happens so that when I hear these songs, I'm almost not reacting to them anymore, it's more like they're the switch that starts the memory in my head. It's a little abstract and I'm not sure I've worded it in a way that makes complete sense, but I think you get the general picture.

The same thing can be said for all music I think. We link it with certain memories and emotions so that when heard again, it's supposed to trigger these things in us. It's the reality bending nature of music, but that's another post. I never expected a classical version of old midi file fight music make me so philosophical.

Escapism

Two posts in one day, I know, what can I say. Dr. Jones called me out and made me feel officially like a slacker, but don't worry, I'll get caught back up. So, without further ado...

There's always talk about video games mimicking reality and the consequences of that. Video games get blamed for making kids violent and desensitizing them and maybe to an extent this is true, maybe there are people out there who honestly can't tell the difference, but I think for most of us, video games serve as an escapism. And the realer the game sometimes, the better.

Take first person shooters or any of the GTA games. We know we're not actually killing anyone for real, that's the point, but who, in all honesty hasn't been so frustrated at someone that, even though you weren't serious, you thought about killing that person? This sounds morbid, but it's normal. Hopefully you don't actually want that person dead, but you're so frustrated, you need the release. Video games provide this. You can kill enemy soldiers in Call of Duty or go on a rampage through the city in GTA 3, you're not actually committing these acts, but they offer some sort of output for you negative energy. It's a little bit easier than reading a book to accomplish this. There are times when I'm frustrated and want to be alone so I can just open a good text and read, but I can never remember wanting to read a book out of anger. Slamming buttons and squeezing the controller sometimes get the stress out better, then flipping pages as hard as I can.

It makes me wonder if the fantasy/escapism aspect is a reason why the Japanese are more involved with video games then other countries. I say this, not to sound racist, but I'm generally interested on a cultural level. Generally, as a culture, they're a very humble people, who put themselves are great physical discomfort to appease each other. They hold back much of how they feel for the sake of politeness. So, it's no surprise that some of their movies are so violent and sexually explicit, it's a release of all of the building tension. So, the countries proficiency with technology in general aside, is this synonymous with the escapism of video games? I haven't done much looking into it, but I would suspect that it is. I don't intend to create a label or channel the person preaching that video games are making our children violent when that same person hasn't ever played a game or done any study about them. I just want to do more of a general musing about escapism.

It's liberating to be able to "get away" for a while. To leave all of your thoughts, worries, and frustrations behind and just forget. I think that video games allow for this. I have no problem hitting a prostitute with my car while escaping from the police in GTA, but I'd never do that in real life. Legal problems aside, I find it morally wrong, so why would I do it for pretend? Because I know it's fake. I know I'm not actually killing someone. The experience doesn't even feel like I'm actually killing someone, I wouldn't want it to. I escape from my world and enter the world of GTA where the rules let me get away with something like that, because in the end, they're all just pixels. The problem obviously arises when someone can't tell the difference between them. It comes back to the age old problem of personal responsibility.

Metagaming

One of the small features that can be found in the Phoenix, Loyola's newspaper, is a little thing called "Mixed Tape." It's essentially four songs linked by a common theme and then each entry has a little joke written about it. Well, this week's upcoming theme features songs about music. I was writing it last night and needed a title, so I settled on calling it "Metamusic," based on my interest in "Metatheater." For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "Metatheater," it describes the action or idea of a play within a play. For instance, the play performed in Hamlet would be considered "Metatheater," because it's both another play, but also comments on the structure of theater. So, last night, I thought I was being clever with calling my Mix Tape "Metamusic." Now moving on from that and thinking about how video games affect my life, I got to thinking about video games who, through the game, make the gamer aware that he is playing a video game. Kind of like how the play in Hamlet makes the viewer aware that he is watching yet another play. It breaks the fourth wall so to speak. So, just like invented (or like to think that I have) the term "Metamusic," I would like to talk about "Metagaming."

The first game that came to mind, was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It was an new game based off of the original Final Fantasy Tactics design, but made specifically for the Gameboy Advance. The reason it's important is because it was being developed at the same time that Final Fantasy XII was, and the same person directed both games. Now in the beginning of FFTA, you take the persona of a kid who literally gets sucked into the game he's playing (the idea was that the kid was playing FF12, but because FF12 was delayed and came out years later, this relationship between the two and the effect of being inside of the game was greatly lost). So, from then on, you interact with new characters and this creative fantasy world, but in the back of your mind, you're a real person, playing a "real" person, who's playing a game. It's like a game within a game.

It's interesting because when you think of most games, not video games, you're consciously aware that you're doing something else, you're engaging in an act of play. You set aside the duties of your real life and have a good time. Video games tend to evoke Colridge's "willing suspension of disbelief." They like novels and films, want the person playing them to get lost in the created world. Of course we know that what we're doing in a video game isn't real, but we set that aside in a way we don't, when say playing Monopoly. So it's that a game like FFTA tried to capture that complete game immersion, by setting up two fictional worlds. The "real" one and the "game" one. It blatantly tells the gamer that he is playing a video game, but then, moves away from that and tries to make the gamer buy into this new virtual world. It's playing off of the fantasy that I'm sure all gamers have had, of actually being inside his favorite video game. Especially, since the game the character is playing in FFTA is available in the real world.

Then take a game like Myst, where the player, you, is taken from your world and into the world of a book. The way that book is experienced, the interface, makes it yet another game. So that was a much earlier attempt of what FFTA was trying to accomplish. But then there are still puzzle games and sports games, where the gamer is playing just for the fun of the interface, not for the story element. Or mini games that can be found inside the larger game, aren't these just more examples of games within games?

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance acknowledges not only that video games are created works of entertainment, but also the desire to fully immerse yourself in that entertainment. It plays on the drive behind the Sims and Second Life, without the "real world" interface, it is aware of the desire for fantasy. It's interesting because we're starting to see games becoming commentary like Bully on Columbine. I think it's easier for one media to critique another, but I think it's more effective when one media critiques itself, as I see FFTA doing. This isn't a concerned parent of a philosopher commenting about gamers, it's a video game made by video game player for like minded individuals. I know that sounds generic because let's face it, most games are made by other video game players, but the difference is that FFTA is tearing down that wall between reality and fiction. It's one step closer to suspending that disbelief. You're still starting out as someone other than yourself, but at least it's in the real world.

So what does that say about video games in general? I think FFTA points out their entertainment value as more than just interacting with the puzzles and conquering levels. I think it exposes the enjoyment gamers have with just the idea of video games and their love of the method.

Video Game Legislation

I brought up the discussion about restrictive legislation in class because I had come across it in my research for my "Resistance: Fall of Man" presentation. Although it pained me a little bit, because I was saving it for a blog entry, but I digress because it fit in nicely with the presentation. So here I want to cover it in a little bit more detail though.

Essentially, in originally I read states, but now I've found global laws, that limit the amount of video games one can play and the type of video games. The gaming industry has its own rating system from "E" for everyone to "M" for mature. The people who make the games are the ones who rate them. The problem with the legislation, is that others in congress are deciding that games need to be limited based on hearsay and their own beliefs. They aren't actually playing these games and very few studies have been done to test the legitimacy of the claims made to bring about stronger restrictions.

The government is taking the responsibilities out of the hands of the parents. They are trying to dictate what one does, but ultimately, for gaming, it should up to the parents to decide when to allow their child to play a game. Singling out video games is unfair. In an interview with CEO of Insomniac games, he said

"Despite the fact that the content we create is as artistically relevant and varied as film and television, we're not being afforded the same constitutional protection. Under much of the legislation that has passed or is being considered, games are treated similarly to controlled substances like alcohol, drugs and tobacco. As a content creator, I believe that's inappropriate."(http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10207)

Most of the people behind the legislation are making assumptions and trying to control how people act. Here are some of the examples I found:

Australia: Games are screened by the Office of Film and Classification, which rates other media. They have no 18+ or "mature" rating, so if a game goes beyond their 15+ limit, it's banned. Sometimes games can be re instituted if they're modified by the company that created them to fit the 15+ standards.

China: Online gaming is huge there and it plans on instituting a feature that must be coded into all games that if someone plays the game for more then 3 hours, their stats and abilities are decreased. If they play for more than 5 hours, their character is greatly decreased. These abilities don't go up unless the gamer doesn't play for at least 5 hours. This is to deter excessive game play. There is also talk that after a player signs out of the game, he won't even be able to log back in for an extended period of time, because the game will remember his IP address and won't allow him access.

Japan: Focuses on excessive violence and pornography. Sometimes games are banned and other times, they're edited to fit their criteria. Often, their games are never exported to other countries.

U.S.: There have been many attempts to ban different games over the year. Usually the bills have a specific game in mind, but most of the time, these bills are denied or struck down and seen as unconstitutional, but it doesn't stop anyone from trying again.

(Most of these facts were taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy - I know it's not the best source, but I needed an overview)

The argument against video games has become a kin to the old "pornography" label. Where they "know it when they see it." Sometimes a game be seem obviously offensive. There was a game created in 1986 in Japan, called "177," where gamers take the role of a rapist. The name of the game actually comes from a law criminalizing rape. It was banned, but then later rereleased with more conservative gameplay and scenes. It wasn't even the first time rape was the topic of the game. Now this is obviously offensive to most people, but should the game have been censored? Movies have rape in them, even characters who are rapists, but they're still released. So why is it different with a video game? Is it because you're fingers are orchestrating the actions? Is it really THAT much different from merely watching someone do it on screen? The creation of the game is tasteless, yes, but not illegal.

It's a shame that video games are being criticized the way that they are, but I don't think it's the games' fault. Setting aside the potential outcome that the game itself is instrumental in the gamer's mentality, the games themelves are just a product of our culture. These are things we are interested in. The sales of "standard" toys like action figures and dolls have declined, because they're being replaced by video games. Our society is moving into a technological age, so claiming that game are "corrupting the country's morality" is ridiculous. Maybe they're helping, but they're not the ones responsible. Sex and violence is all around us: The news, movies, music, it's almost inescapable. Instead of looking back at how things were, we need to see how things are and deal with them that way with the future in mind.

Living the Experience

It's pretty obvious that games want their users to connect to the experience, to "live" it in the way of suspending their disbelief. Just like books create elaborate worlds in order to transport the reader, video games, like movies, show them the world. The user interacts with the game in a way that he can't with a book or film, but the interesting thing is that the game functions as sort of hybrid of novel and movie.

On one hand, you have the graphics. Developers spend most of their time rendering environments and building a coherent and believable world. Since the game is meant to be seen, the visuals are greatly important. On the other hand, the story of the game must be addressed. Often, the story is written separately and then integrated with the graphics. The story gives the plot and general course the game is to take. It's like combining the text of a novel with the images of a film. Of course, there are many shades in between.

Some games focus primarily on the story. The visuals are just enough to show what is meant to be seen, but most of the experience comes from the actual text. Then there are games who have a basic plot outline and everything comes from interacting with the world around the character, which leads us to the actual experience.

Gamers experience the setting in a way that can never be reached in either of the other two media. The game transports the user, by means of an avatar, to this fictional world and then not only does it tell the player what to do, it allows the player to make his own decisions and figure things out for himself ... most of the time. The user wanders around and discovers important elements on predetermined roads. This always leads to the conversation about how "linear" the story line is. Meaning, does the game tell the player exactly what to do next, or can he complete the game however he wants to?

I remember one of the first games I played on the PS2 was one called "The Bouncer." At the time, it was receiving a lot of hype for it's graphics and story, but when you played the game, it was like watching a computer generated movie, but then only controlling the fight scenes. The player would watch one cut scene after another, a fight would break out, the mini movies stop, and then the player would be forced to beat up a bunch of random thugs. All of the fighting was explained in the movies, but it really didn't create the most desirable environment. At the time though, it was one of PS2's launch titles and was created to show off what the new engine could do visually but now, to ease the contention between obvious cut scenes and actual gameplay, many games now use the same graphics of regular play and then add the dialogue on top of them. This way, the transition isn't as jarring.

Then you have games like "Resident Evil 4," which was created primarily for fun gameplay. The story is severely lacking, the graphics are decent, if not good, but the real spotlight is on what your character can do. Another example is "Dead Rising" on the XBOX 360. It was celebrated for having a completely interactive environment in which the player was stuck in a mall filled with zombies and anything he saw could be used as a weapon. The options were limitless.

And finally, there are games like "Resistance: Fall of Man" which puts a huge emphasis on the story. It does pay careful attention to graphics and gameplay, but for this example, what it does with story is incredible. It takes place around WWII, but in this world, that war never happened. Game developers rewrote history, starting around 1898, in order to bring about the world in which their story takes place. They made their story around actual events and then once re imagining those events, thought of the next logical steps. It's like writing a historical fiction novel.

All three media whether they be book, movie, or video game, seek to transport the user into a newly created world. Each one goes about it in a different fashion, but usually the goal is the same. Each has things over the other, books can delve deeply into psyche, movies can literally show things, and games provide actual user experiences. It's interesting to note though, just where and how they continuously cross over with each other. While earlier I claimed that video games were hybrids of books and movies, it's important to note, to use Dr. Jones' "Lost" example, that show (which is essentially nothing but mini-movies) wouldn't have come about if not for video games. The characters behave like a game, the story unfolds like a game, and it's essentially a larger version of "Myst." But, "Myst" was essentially a larger version of Verne's "Mysterious Island." So, in this instance, book lead to game, which lead to show. This isn't the only time we see this. Movies and games become books and games become movies. They're constantly overlapping because they run on familiar themes.

A story is told, a world is created, and a user experiences both.

Code, Hacking, and Authorship

I brought up the issue of authorship earlier, when I discussed the ramifications of gamers incorporating their own mods to change the game to their liking, but upon further thought and reading, I can do you one better. What about when the gamer alters the actual code? A mod is a small program that changes the interface for the user. It's true that they're designed to alter the code of a game, but that's a difference from someone opening up the programming files on their computer and typing in new code.

As I'm not much of a computer game player anymore, I'm not sure how much this still happens, but this was something that used to go on all the time. Many cheat codes or special abilities, required the gamer to open the program files and alter lines of text, telling the game to do something else.

Now first and foremost, this is an obvious revising of what the author had intended. It would be like writing additional sentences between the lines on a page to add extra meaning, or crossing something out to change the intended impact. The author certainly didn't want this because if he did, he would have written it that way in the first place, so why change the writing to suit your personal benefit? It doesn't make much sense, because you're not interacting with it on the same way you are with a game. With a book, you don't believe the revisions because you know they're not real, but in the game, you interpret it a different way and can make do with the changes. So, by doing this, is the gamer taking authorship away from the original author?

But, here's the second part, often when you type in new code, it's something simple, only an extra line or two. It either tells the game to use a preexisting action at a different time, or it unlocks a hidden function. If the code was to lets say, create any object in the game, then the user is actually limited because he can only make objects recognized in the existing code, it would be like copying a paragraph from a previous chapter to insert it in a new one. And then, the ability, the interface in the game, to type in the command to "copy" would have also had to already exist somewhere in the code as well. So, this new code, is only using old material, but in a new way. Maybe the author intended something like this would happen, so he embedded certain source files in the code that could be accessed later if the user knew the right command texts.

If this were the case, then it would mean that this is a different relationship. In the first example, the gamer was taking authorship away from the original, but in the second one, the original still has the power because he created everything and knew how it would be used, so in a way, he's offering up some of up power as the author to share it with the gamer. He recognizes that things can change and helps the gamer bring them about, by making it possible. The original author also makes these changes optional, since he doesn't put them in the original version of the game, or publish the command cheats with the game, it has to be up to the gamer to find them and incorporate their use.

This sort of shared experience is something akin to the "choose your own ending" books, where the options are there, but it's up to the reader to put them all together and use them. It gives the user/reader more control over his world and allows for a deeper level of personal experience.