The sound of feeling

There is an ongoing debate in the gaming industry about the mediums ability to be viewed as an art form. One of the cornerstones of the debate is how games convey emotions. Games are struggling to invoke a whole pallet of feelings. They excel in expressing competitiveness, violence/excitement and accomplishment but they seldom express sexuality, love and spirituality and when games try to go there, like Mass Effect 1 famous “sex scene” it’s most likely to start a heated debate.

  ,
Shooting people in the head are “normal” game mechanics that hardly raises an eyebrow but a kiss and a tender touch from a love interest is viewed as adult gaming that must be kept away from children.  The “violence” versus “sex” debate has been going on in the film industry for many years, but it’s only recently the gaming industry have been part of that discussion a sign of the gaming industry trying to express other emotions.

Gaming as an art form is still very young compared to books and movies but recently there has been evidence that games are coming of age and try to go in new directions, instead of copying the way movies are telling stories and express emotion. Flower being one example.

But in one respect I find that gaming could learn more from movies and that is in the use of music and the way it helps express emotions. Games have a tradition of mostly using epic orchestral scores in the likes of John Williams and some have turned into gaming classics like the Halo score.  But what if games dared to use piano pieces similar to the soundtrack from The Hours by Philip Glass, a jazz inspired soundtrack like Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks or even a musical soundtrack like the one from Moulin Rouge?

I came to think of this while I was playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Every time I come by one of the guys playing the guitar:



I stop and listen to their tune and that little piece of music puts me in a mood that a not even the most lifelike graphics can achieve.

I think there is a huge potential in using a broader range of music in videogames in order to explore the possibilities of invoking all kinds of emotions in the player.

We have seen some great examples; Bioshock wouldn’t be as powerful in creating an atmosphere without the use of 50’s songs, driving a stolen car without being caught by the police in the Grand Theft Auto IV are truly epic when it’s done to a Genesis song. The Vangelis inspired soundtrack to Mass Effect and Jesper Kyd’s soundtrack to Assassins Creed 2 are wonderful examples of gaming soundtracks that shy away from the traditional orchestral scores that we are so accustomed to.

My hope is that more people in the gaming industry will understand how music can take a hold on my gaming heart and bring my emotions to new and unexplored heights.

Note:
After I wrote this I found the post "Dial me up some emotions" on the “Brainy Gamer” on the same topic. A recommended read!

The beauty of "man made hell"

Games set in a post-apocalyptic environment have been present since the mid 80s. Fallout 3 is one of the latest examples. It’s a bit weird how much fun you can have roaming around in world devastated by nuclear holocaust and your next door neighbor has turned into mutants. The ever present sound of the Geiger counter when you get near nuclear radiation never stops to raise my heartbeat. I love the Fallout series and have spent many hours looting bottle caps, talking to megalomaniacs and shooting mutated dogs that wanted a piece of my pretty legs.

But up until now I’ve never really truly been afraid in post-apocalyptic game world. The 50s setting in Fallout made the whole world seem bit “silly”, kitsch and “tongue in cheek”. The genuine scares I got from time to time when the super mutants ran after me, wasn’t enough to make the impression that the world truly was a “man made hell”.

Enter S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl, a game set in the wake of the real world accident of the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl. The game is from 2007 and I’ve wanted to play the game since release, but my computer anno 2007 couldn’t run it. The game has been in and out of my mind for the past 3 years, but after it was mentioned in an article in February edition of Edge magazine, I decided to buy it and give it a try on my new laptop.

A now I truly understand what it is to wander around in a “man made hell”, and trust me it’s no walk in the park.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R game world is a not cheery place with posters of nuclear families and robots inspired from sci-fi movies from the 50s. It’s a gloomy, dark and depressing place where you almost can smell and taste the radiation in the air even the Geiger counter is silent.

I won’t go into great detail about the game mechanics but the developer didn’t want you to fell like a super hero on a killing rampage in world full of mutants. Instead you’re a very fragile human being, and in order to survive a good use of wits is needed alongside your guns. Planning is the key to success a careless move and your most likely to end up dead by a single bullet to the head.

I had a really hard time in the beginning and was almost ready to give up. The game is truly merciless and after lot of console FPS gaming my playing style has adapted to a run and gun style. A couple of bullets normally don’t hurt you that much, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R is more in the likes of Thief series where you lurk around in the shadows waiting for the right time to strike. And the inventory had me yelling at the screen. I’m so used to be able to loot and carry everything I want but S.T.A.L.K.E.R won’t let me do that. You’re no American hero.

And that may be the reason I loved the game so much and the why the atmosphere is so dreadful. You are playing a lonely human being trying to survive in a game world based on a truly horrific real world event. From time to time I stop and look around on the environment and play with the thought that this could be a real place, where real people worked and lived but it was all lost when a human error made the place into a “man made hell”.  And the game mechanics won’t let me play a gamers game but forces me to act and think like a real life person would.

In some weird way the game is playing with me and my emotion. Even if I try really hard it won’t let me slip into the comfort zone of “I’m just playing a game” and the result is a truly terrific gaming experience that makes me feel a bit guilty because I take great pleasure in enjoying a game world based on a real “man made hell”.

The secret weapon of the gaming industry!

The way I purchase games have changed radically in the last couple of years. Before e-shopping I went to the local gaming store and spent some of my hard earned money on the game of my desire. Normally I could only afford one game so I was completely dedicated to a single game.

The web made game shopping a lot cheaper and therefore it altered my gaming slightly. Instead of one game I could now buy two or three games each month. But the time I had to play a game didn’t increase the same way as my game collection. The consequence is a shelf full of games wanting to be played. My goal is to play every single game to the end, but that’s pretty hard when so many good games are released every single month.

Therefore I’ve decided that in order to get a decent return of investment of my game shopping the solution is to rent them. A Danish website GameScribe has just opened business where it’s possible to rent games for as long as you want for a small amount of money.

Phew… problem solved I thought.

But somehow the gaming industry has found out my little secret of renting instead of buying. And I think they are a bit pissed off because they lose some of my hard earned cash. The solution for their problem is that they have invented a weapon they plan on using on me! A weapon that will strike right in my heart and make me want to go back to buying games that can collect dust on my shelf.

And what kind of weapon could that be you might wonder?
You probably already know the answer….I’m talking about Special Edition!

I just love Special Edition…even games I wouldn’t normally consider buying…end up on my shelf if they come in a special package with books, soundtracks or avatar items.

Last addition to my Special Edition collection is Bioshock 2 Special Edition and I think it ranks as one of the best Special Edition I own.


Why? See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUVPK_z8vfk

Special Editions waiting to be brought are:

• Assassins Creed 2 Black Edition
• Alan Wake Special Edition

Damn you inventors of the Special Edition! 

I hate you but love you even more!

The art of not breaking the flow of a game

After I read my last post I wondered if I somehow played the game “wrong”?!

Let me explain. 

I’m that kind of gamer that wants to search every nook and cranny of a game if I’ve fallen in love with it. Mass Effect is one of those games, where I must do absolutely everything before I finish it. And in the pursuit of that goal there is a danger of spoiling the fun and flow of a game. 

I’ve never thought of it before, but when I wrote my post I could see that maybe that was the reason I somehow thought the storytelling was a bit of a treadmill. Maybe it was my own fault? I wanted to find all the companions, do all the side mission and upgrade all the weapons and that made me fall out of the natural flow of the game and it become more a “job” that me having fun and following the story of the game.

I’m not sure that I can change my play style cause I do find it immensely rewarding to know that I gotten all out of a game. But maybe I should save the “find and do all” for the second playthrough?

*spoiler alert*
I finished Mass Effect 2 last night. The ending was quiet satisfying and a great setup for the last and final chapter. I loved the way almost everyone in my crew had a part to play, that made the effort of finding them all worth the time it took. And they all survived so now I’m the proud owner of the “No one left behind” achievement :-) 

And the ending left me wondering if I would have had a different experience if I haven’t upgraded The Normandy SR-2? A thing I have to try out when I play for a second time with a renegade female infiltrator.

Mass Effect 2 versus Mass Effect 1

I've been playing Mass Effect 2 for the last week, and the game certainly deserves all the praise it got. The game mechanics work much better second time around, but what about the story?

The first chapter had all the ingredients of a classic sci-fi space opera and I was lost for many hours trying to fully understand the universe commander Shepard lived in. Bioware did a damn good job in making a truly believable setting for the game.

I replayed the first game again a couple of months ago to prepare myself for Mass Effect 2, so the universe was fresh in my mind when I took my first step on board Normandy SR-2.

I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 immensely, but after I've explored the universe 100% and got all the companions and done their loyalty mission, I can't help to think that the story is a bit of a let down. It roughly follows the same pattern. Do the "find companion" mission, talk to them when they are onboard the Normady, then the "loyalty" mission becomes available, do that and your good to go for the next companion and that's repeated eleven times. The mission themselves are different though and mostly are well done and gives you a good understanding of the companion and the main story arch is good and the side missions is fun...but there isn't enough of it to "break" the pattern and give you the illusion that the story could go anywhere.

Another thing that I miss is the small talk between your companion. In most mission they are silent and when they speak it doesn't really make you feel that they are alive. Dragon Age Origin did a much better job. Alistar and Morrigan being my favorites.

But I still have the suicide mission left to do, so that might change my view on the story and the middle part of a story is by nature difficult to pull off.

What ever happens after I've finish Mass Effect 2, the first and second part of the Mass Effect trilogy will always be some of my most treasured games. A true space opera game of this generation.