One Year Later...

Apologies for not updating the blog, but I've been short on time this summer. Between helping my parents with their unexpected move, a trip to Portland, and a wedding trip to Las Vegas, I haven't had the chance to blog about my ludological pursuits. After delving back into The Orange Box and playing through Half Life 2: Episode 2 (and witnessing it's out-of-left-field tragic ending) I've finally busted open the one box on my shelf I haven't opened since I got it nearly one year ago.

Last summer I began my journey through the Metal Gear saga. Borrowing a friend's PS2 I played through the original Metal Gear Solid. I had missed out on the entire series when it first debuted, having never owned a Playstation product before. So excited was I to further explore this series, and with some new games on the horizon that I was keen on (I'm looking at you LittleBigPlantet) I did the completely rash and unexpected act of buying a Playstation 3. The Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle to be exact - the last of the PS3s to include some form of backwards-compatability with PS2 games.

Throughout the past year I've blogged on more than one occassion about the series, from it's grand statements on war, to the uniquely Kojima touches, such as funny little conversations you have to go through just to save the game. Now the time has come to finish what I started. The other night I peeled off the plastic of that case I've had staring at me for nearly a year now and popped the Metal Gear Solid 4 disc in and began the final journey of Solid Snake. I'll be sure to include my thoughts on it when I'm done.

E3 Hype

To get you in the mood for next week's E3 event, may I present to you Sony's 2006 meme-generating press conference, enjoy!

Ludology 101

Allow me to gloat for a second here. I just finished up another semester of school yesterday, finally free to run around and enjoy the sun for a couple of months. The final project for one of my classes was to create a guide to a particular subject of our choosing. Known as a pathfinder in the library biz, these guides are designed to serve as an introduction to materials describing a subject, any subject, from Shakespeare to Dada. Naturally, I chose to make mine on videogames. It's got links to websites, the Ebert/Croal debate, and call numbers for those book-things in case you ever found yourself in a real library. Since no one else is ever going to see this thing besides my professor, I thought I'd share it with you here, have fun.

On Ludology

Recently I've been working on my final project for one of my grad school classes this semester. I'm putting together a 'pathfinder', essentially a listing of all materials available (from the San Jose King library) on a given subject. I chose videogames (of course) as my subject. More specifically I chose ludology, those materials pertaining to the academic study of videogames. In my search for relevant sources I've come across many interesting materials. What's fascinating to me about these materials is not just that games are being examined in a critical light, but that the discussion is so new that reading about it makes me feel that I'm taking part in its creation. It's not like most stuff you read in school where the theories being presented are based on well established ideas, and as you're reading it you get the feeling that you're just an observer, barely skimming the surface of what hundreds of academics have thoroughly plowed. This stuff is new, raw, fresh. Just being able to find something on the topic feels like a success.

It's like the boundaries haven't even been set yet. As I read this stuff I get the feeling like this is a new frontier, it's just starting to get mapped out, and that if I'm clever enough I can claim a piece of this land and contribute to the greater whole.

Take for example the name of this new territory. So far there isn't even a real word for it. There seems to be some mass developing behind the word 'ludology', which I've taken and ran with as the name of this blog. Ludology is based on the Latin word 'ludus', meaning either 'sport', 'school', or 'game'. But what does this 'study of games' even mean? It's not the study of the actual coding and creation of these games, though parts of that creation are definitely open to discussion within ludology. Is it about the story or narrative of games? Well, it's not really that either, though narrative lends itself more easily to discussion. Maybe it's about the culture of gaming, i.e. game console wars and fanboys. Hmm, not sure. Thinking about it, while ludology isn't necessarily any one of those things, I think it might be all of those things, but with something more. It's like the old 'sum of the parts are greater than the whole'. Ludology is an attempt to discuss all of these aspects simultaneously while attempting to derive some greater meaning from the whole. It wants to answer the question, 'so what's the meaning behind all of this?' What insights into the human condition do these games give us?

Just like with cinema a century ago, when its moving pictures allowed us to take a look at ourselves away from the context of the action happening immediately before us as it had for centuries upon the stage, asking ourselves how we would react if confronted with the situations those characters face up on the screen, and creating tension, drama, and intrigue though camera angles, dramatic cuts, lighting, and music, videogames not only allow us to examine how we would react when we are faced with those same situations and cinematic devices, but asks us to go a step further and actually physically interact and carry out the actions of those characters.

How does a player react in the game Bioshock when he is given the decision to save or kill the genetically altered, deformed girls known as 'little sisters'? How does the player feel in Metal Gear Solid 3, when near the end of the game, after a lengthy cinematic cutscene in which the main character's mother/mentor figure asks for you to mercy kill her, the game gives control back to the player and demands that they physically press the controller button to carry out the action? These are just some of the questions that ludology asks.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Kojima, 2004)

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a commentary on the ever-shifting state of the world's superpowers and on how the wars and grudges these countries hold against one another are ultimately meaningless when history is viewed as a whole. Widely regarded by fans as a return to form for the series, Hideo Kojima not only continues to expand on the mythos of the world he's created, but continues to explore his distinct storytelling style and unique take on the American action-military genre.

Snake Eater is the third game in the Metal Gear Solid series, though it takes place first in the series chronology as it serves as a prequel. Kojima takes us back to the height of the Cold War in 1964. The tale Kojima spins deals with everything from the Cuban Missle Crisis, power struggles between Kruschev and Brezhnev within the U.S.S.R., to discussions about then-current films and ramen noodles.

We meet Snake about to be sent off to the swampy jungles of the fictional Russian province of Tselinoyarsk to retrieve a defecting Russian scientist. Upon his retrieval this scientist explains how a certain faction of the Russian army was forcing him to work on a terrible weapon called 'The Shagohod'. It's obvious to us, the player, that this Shagohod is a precursor to the future 'Metal Gears' which we've so lovingly encountered in the previous two games of the series.

As is usual a twist happens in Snake's plans, as just as he's about to escape with the scientist, Snake's mentor shows up - only ever referred by her codename 'The Boss' - and takes the scientist with her, and says she's defecting to the Russian side and joining an elite group of fighters known as 'the Cobras'. She then proceeds to throw Snake off a bridge to what should be his death, with Snake only managing to grab a hold of the bandana the Boss was wearing - the bandana that becomes Snake's familiar signature headpiece.

For the player this sets up the mystery that drives the game - why is the Boss - Snake's mentor and hinted-at possible lover (and even mother) and number one soldier in the U.S. - defecting to the Russian side?

Snake manages to survive falling off the bridge and is rescued, taken home to heal up, and given his new mission - eliminate the Cobras, rescue the scientist, and kill the Boss. This third time through a Metal Gear game this is all somewhat familiar. Kojima enjoys this style of splitting the narrative. Just like in MGS2, first there's an initial sequence of gameplay that lasts no more than an hour, a first act if you will, which functions as a sort of extended prologue. This is then followed by a second act, where the real 'meat and potatoes' of the story occurs.

By this third outing it might be useful to talk more specifically about Kojima's style and his use of certain motifs which carry the story. One such element Kojima likes to employ is what I'll call the "ritual game save". In all three games whenever the player wants to save their progress in the game they have to go through a certain in-game routine. The player must essentially 'phone-in' to headquarters, speak to someone (always a female) to tell them he wants to save. This is always followed by some sort of conversation with the female, usually with a lot of flirting.

In the first game it was Mei Ling, a cute Chinese-American girl who always told Snake these useful proverbs that at first seem somewhat serious but by the end of the game got a little wacky (an example of Kojima toying with the player). These proverbs usually fit with the context of what was happening at the moment. So, for example, if there were a lot of enemy patrols in the vicinity she might give a proverb saying to the effect of "it's better to avoid confrontation and be sneaky rather than fight".

In Metal Gear Solid 2 in the opening 'Tanker' chapter the save is carried out by Snake's scientist buddy Otacon who attempts to emulate Mei Lings proverbs but doesn't quite get them right, functioning as a kind of subversion of Mei Ling's advice (watch here). In the second act these game saves are carried out through conversations between Raiden and communications officer/girlfriend Rose, where they discuss their relationship and what it means to be in a relationship (watch here).

In Snake Eater saving happens with the communications officer codenamed 'Para-medic'. This time instead of proverbs or relationships, Para-medic likes to talk about films and usually tries to relate those films to what Snake is encountering in the game. Here's one discussing Godzilla. Watching this clip clues you in to Kojima's fondness for self-referential jokes, like how Para-medic bets they'll still be making Godzilla movies in 2004. In another conversation Para-medic tells Snake about a new movie she's just seen called From Russia with Love. The Major in charge of the mission is apparently wild about the movie and, with the writers playing completely to the audience, the Major says "007 is the biggest thing to come out of England since the Mayflower. I wouldn't be surprised if they made 20 more of those movies!" The James Bond references are further explored during the opening title sequence, a brilliant send-up to all 007 movie openings.

It cannot be stressed enough that Kojima enjoys borrowing heavily from film. Just watch the opening scene, complete with an initial quote which sets up the theme of the game, the opening shot of the airplane flying through the clouds, and the starring credits fading in and out. It looks like something straight out of the Hunt for Red October. Also in this scene you'll notice Kojima subverting players expectations again. When we first see Snake here he's wearing a mask that makes him look like Raiden from the previous game. He even dons the same breathing apparatus that Raiden wore as he made his initial swim into the Big Shell.

I mentioned in the beginning that most fans of the series considered Snake Eater to be a return to form. What I meant by that is that fans were disappointed with MGS2 because they wanted to play as the hero, Snake, but instead had to play whiny voiced hero-in-training Raiden. I, for one, enjoyed playing as Raiden. I believe those fans who found themselves disappointed with the previous game missed the point that Kojima didn't want us to play as the hero, but instead wanted us to experience the narrative from the perspective of an outsider observing the hero.

When the player initially sees Snake in this opening scene looking like Raiden the initial thought is "Oh no, am I playing as Raiden again?" The answer is of course, no, Kojima is just having his way with you.

This method of making the player aware that the game is playing with them is endemic of Kojima and the Metal Gear Solid series. From the British Film Institute's 100 Videogames Screen Guide:

What is most interesting about Metal Gear Solid, however, is that for all its filmic intentions, it is a game that is supremely confident with its game-ness. At various points, characters draw attention to their presence in a videogame, or even to the paraphernalia of videogame hardware and interface. Where intuition might tell us that rendering the interface transparent or even invisible might be the most effective means of creating immersion or presence in the narrative and world of the game, Kojima and his team brazenly remind the player of the constructedness of this experience. This is postmodern media in playable form.

Whereas the theme of the original Metal Gear Solid was genetics, or 'gene', and the that of its sequel being a discussion on the nature of information, or 'meme', Snake Eater's theme is 'scene' - the climate in which events occur and the impact it has upon them. From the Metal Gear Wiki: "Scene deals heavily with Relativism, the idea that concepts such as right and wrong or allies and enemies are not absolute or eternal; but instead are personal and transitive, shaped by our cultures and the times we live in." Unlike past games I was aware of what the theme was going into this game. Funny enough I didn't really catch any major strands of the theme until near the end of the game when the Boss gives her big speech. This speech is typical of Kojima's style in that he wants the player to understand his intention so he tends to lay it down rather heavily when he does.

In this speech the Boss describes a realization she had while on one of the first manned missions into space. Having witnessed the Earth from so high she realized that national boundaries are just a figment of our beliefs, and over the course of time those nation states that define those boundaries slowly change their relationships with those other powers. Examining history as a whole those relationships that define the current political 'scene' are rendered meaningless, as today's enemy is tomorrow's ally, as she makes the point when speaking about Russia (and 'prophesizing' that one day the Cold War will be over when we're fighting a new enemy). From the Wiki: "The Boss is a victim of circumstance. Her "scene" - Cold War Era America - forces her to, ultimately, give her life. Snake is forced to kill his former mentor due to a "scene" he not only has no control over, but has no knowledge of." By realizing she's only playing a part in this Cold War 'scene' she realizes the meaninglessness of defining things in absolutes, in terms of right vs. wrong. She realizes that her actions as a solider are rendered pointless, leading her to accept that the wars she fights are ultimately futile.

The Metal Gear series has always been about the futility of war, each game examining that futility through a different lens. The original game was about how we pass on our culture through our genes. The second game examining how we define our culture through its accumulated knowledge. Now this third game deals with how we define our culture through our relationships with one another and the meaninglessness of defining those relationships as right or wrong.

A few final notes. I should point out how well the game pulls off being a prequel. Whereas other more well known prequels deliver a sense of inevitability - we already know Anakin will turn into Darth Vader for example - Snake Eater managed to completely surprise me. It wasn't until about two-thirds of the way through that I began to realize that I was witnessing the birth of a major character, arguably the most important character in the entire series, and I hadn't seen it coming at all, yet when it finally came together it happened so naturally that I was pleasantly surprised with how well it was pulled off.

I also have to give a nod to Harry Gregson-Williams' score. The Metal Gear series has always had amazing music, but Gregson-Williams manages to outdo himself in this game. From the bluesy take on the Metal Gear theme titled 'Old Metal Gear', to the previously mentioned over-the-top opening song performed by Cynthia Harrell, Gregson-Williams delivers a dramatic and exciting score. Adding an infusion of some Spanish guitar into the stirring Metal Gear Solid theme gives us one of the most memorable music pieces to ever come out of videogaming.

That's it for my look at Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Now that I've completed these three games I can finally play the game that got me interested in starting this series in the first place, the fourth and final part of the series, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Until then, happy gaming.

Why I Hated the 2008 Game of the Year

Last year a small title made it's way onto the Xbox Live marketplace. This small indie game named 'Braid' was developed by Jonathan Blow, a new pioneer in the games-as-art movement. The story behind the making of Braid is a tale all it's own. Blow worked on the game for three years by himself and funded the entire project with his own money. Jonathan Blow is of the new school of game design. From Wikipedia:

In a speech at the Free Play conference in Australia in September 2007, Blow suggested games were approaching the level of societal influence of other forms of art, such as films and novels. One example that Blow cites is World of Warcraft, which he labels "unethical", stating that such games exploit players by using a simple reward-for-suffering scheme to keep them in front of their computer. In his view, developers need to think about what reinforcement the games are providing players when they reward them for performing certain actions. He emphasized that there was a need for developers to design inspiring new games using "innovative, ethical and personal art.

When Braid was released last year it instantly won over nearly every game critic out there. It also found great success with gamers, becoming one of the most downloaded titles through the Xbox marketplace. It eventually won the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences "Casual Game of the Year". Everyone loved it.

Not me. I pretty much fucking hated it. As you're probably aware if you read this blog I'm a bit of a proponent of games-as-art. Braid was the game that was supposed to cross that magical barrier into art land and make Mr. Blow and all the other gamers feel that their medium had finally reached that magical realm of 'art' next to sculpture and cinema. But I would beg to differ. I thought the story was poorly written, difficult to decipher, and the game itself was just too difficult to derive any meaning from it. There were many oppotunities for Blow to be more open with his narrative by giving the player an understandable and meaningful story, but it seems that at each opportunity to do so he purposefully hides the narrative through an obnoxious and pretentious writing style that only further obfuscates its intention. Why did Blow make this game and write this story if he didn't want anyone to see it? I think he might as well have just written the story in his diary if that's the case.

An annoying aspect about Braid is what's occured outside of the game itself. Because it's received such critical praise, because of the "Indie developer makes it big" story of its creation, and because of Blow's stature as an "Indie darling" most people seem hesitant to critique it. Critics think it's great because it has some sort of "mature" story and gamers think it's neat because it references older games such as Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong, but for all I care Jonathan Blow can just go... blow himself (ok, that one was too easy).

At it's core Braid is a platformer, like Super Mario Bros. You play the character 'Tim'. The one difference is that you have the ability to manipulate time, by pressing a button you can rewind everything in the game world, like hitting the rewind button on a VCR where you get to see everything happen in reverse. This is also where the game derives its story. Tim is looking for 'The Princess', and there's a story told through books at the beginning of each world describing Tim's journey. Each level is basically a puzzle where you're trying to obtain a hard to reach jigsaw puzzle piece to complete a puzzle which reveals some aspect about the story and allows you to move on to the next world. These puzzles become increasingly difficult as you progress. By halfway through the game they're Grade-A Mensa level difficult. I'll admit, the puzzles can be fun and there's a nice rewarding feeling when you get when all of a sudden a puzzle 'clicks' in your head and you're able to solve it. It's akin to figuring out that really tough crossword clue.

This would be fine, but there's many problems. First off, the puzzles can be excrutiatingly hard. I stared at some for hours trying to figure them out. I think Blow went a little overboard with some of them. He's also quite adamant that the player figure out the puzzle with no help. On the official walkthrough there's basically no walkthrough. Blow only says "Figure it out for yourself". Like I said though, the later puzzles are really, really tough. I'll admit watching a few Youtube videos for some of the answers.

What's worse though is that some of the puzzles are just finicky as hell. For example, one puzzle piece is tucked away up high. If you jump off of a ledge there's a cloud that looks like you should be able to land on it and make your way over to the puzzle piece. I tried jumping from this ledge multiple times but was always just a little too far away from the cloud to land on it. I thought, "Well it would be too easy if all I had to do was jump on the cloud to get the piece", I mean, that's not really much of a puzzle. So I tried for hours to find some other method to get that puzzle piece. Finally I gave up and went to Youtube... only to discover that I was right all along, it's just that the game demanded you be standing on the very last pixel of the ledge in order to land on the cloud. Oh come on! That's not a puzzle, that's just overly demanding game design.

Hey it looks like Donkey Kong, it must be brilliant!

But that's not the worst aspect of the game. The worst part is the story. Critics said it was a mature story that really made you think. The story, told through the books, is written in this completely obnoxious prose that sounds like it came out of a high school writing class. Yes, it's trying to be deep, but it comes off as pretentous. Here's a typical passage:

“But to be fully couched within the comfort of a friend is a mode of existence with severe implications. To please you perfectly, she must understand you perfectly. Thus you cannot defy her expectations or escape her reach. Her benevolence has circumscribed you, and your life’s achievements will not reach beyond the map she has drawn.”

And it doesn't get any better. After completing the game I still have no idea what the game was about. Was the Princess even a real person, or did she just represent some sort of ideal? The problem is that Blow leaves the story so open to interpretation that it ceases to have any real inherent meaning. There's really no concrete aspect of the story that you can point to and say "This is what I think the story is about." Is it about the loss of a relationship? Is it about the perils of nuclear weapons? Is it about the loss of innocence? Is it a commentary on the state of the medium? Only Jonathan Blow knows.

There's an interesting disussion over at The Brainy Gamer between the writer of that blog and another about the meaning of Braid. I have to say, I was delighted when I read Mr. Brainy Gamer's response where he too wasn't the biggest fan, and he's a much better writer than I. Check out what he says. Braid comes to the PC on March 31st.

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Well blogging friends, I'm off to Reno to celebrate my 30th birthday with a bunch of friends (LE was too cool for school to come). When I get back on Sunday I'll be 30, so you'll no longer be able to trust me, as I'll now be part of 'The Man' trying to keep those young rapscallions 'down'. If you want to join the party we'll be at the El Dorado in the Player's Spa Suite (sounds awesome, eh?).

One Billion Games Played (not by me!)

According to Bungie studios' website, as of last Saturday over one billion games of Halo 3 have been logged. Here's a brief blurb from Bungie:

"Saturday night, while many of us were stuffing food into our faces, plenty of folks were still playing Halo 3. At precisely 6:36pm PST, in a three minute and nineteen second game of Infection on Foundry, four players participated in Halo 3's one billionth match.

One Billion. It's a giant number, one that's difficult to understand without the proper context. Our first thought was to put it into perspective by comparing Halo 3's total games played with its predecessor, Halo 2, a title that we are still super proud of, and one that's topped the original Xbox LIVE Leaderboards since its launch through to present day - over four years of online gaming.

But there's a problem with that comparison. Halo 2 has yet to achieve one billion games played. As of right now, it's sitting pretty at 798 million total matches played. Surprised? We were."

For the record, as of this writing I've contributed 1,661 games of those billion (see here). That's 1,661 x 5-10 minutes of my life playing this damn game. Funny enough, I still haven't passed the mark on how many Halo 2 games I've participated in - 1,780. Congrats Halo 3, here's to another billion!