Tag: video games

I started playing Saints Row IV a few days ago and am happy to say that I’m finding it really entertaining so far. I will say that unlike the previous iteration of the series, SR IV takes a little bit of time to really get into gear. I found the first couple of levels kind of meh, but soon they introduce game mechanics that are really fun to use, and the humor of the game really begins to fall into place.

To those who aren’t familiar, the Saints Row series started it’s life as a more light hearted version of GTA (I should put my cards on the table and say that I haven’t played the original game but I have played SR2 & 3). Over time the game has gone farther and farther from it’s source material, so that while SR2 was satirical take on the GTA-esq open world crime game, SR3 had developed into an almost action, sci-fi comedy open world game (to take an example, one of the opposing “gangs” in SR3 is a group of goth hackers who carry around giant anime style swords). Saints Row IV keeps a lot of the mechanics from the previous game, but the story basically escapes from the crime genre altogether, as the titular Saints have over the series built them up from a small street gang to a popular corporate brand (complete with it’s own energy drink, Saints Flow) to a world saving organization. In the beginning of SR IV the main character has become the President of the United States. Then aliens attack. Then you get super powers.

Basically what happens is that the aliens capture the most important people on earth (which includes you and your homies) and places them in virtual simulations of the world as a form of storage. Most of the plot involves you breaking the simulations programming (this is where the super powers comes in) in order to allow you and your comrades to escape. All this is presented with a glib self aware attitude that actually makes this entire scenario work. In addition to super powers you are granted access to outlandish weapons like the dubstep gun, which creates a crescendo of electronic sound as it charges up, then unleashes a lethal wave of dubstep forward, damaging your enemies and causing others in the area to dance rhythmically.

One thing I have noticed is that a lot of people (both people who have played the game and prospective players) seemed to be turned off by the silliness of the two most recent iterations of the game. For those who haven’t played the game I would like to say that while the most juvenile aspects of the game are usually the ones that are most talked about (dildo bats etc), a lot of the humor is actually much smarter and self aware than is generally appreciated. Furthermore, while the tone of the game is meant to be silly, it’s not as if it plays out as a video game version of an onion article. It actually does have a cohesive plot and a surprisingly memorable cast of characters.

I kind of think that at least in the world of AAA games, many gamers are too obsessed with games being “serious” (I remember reading on a forum about the experience of one player who’s friends were no longer interested in the Halo franchise because the game “was for kids”, basically castigating it for not being as “serious” as series like Call of Duty).  And because of this when you go to the store you see row after row of gritty military shooters or sci-fi military shooters. Many of them are actually very good but I still feel like the market is over saturated with these types of games, and there aren’t enough titles (in the AAA market at least) that are whimsical or creative or just plain fun. The truth of the matter is the plots of pretty much all AAA games are pretty silly when you really think about them, and it’d be nice to see more games actually embrace that fact. Saints Row IV does that to a T, and that is one of the games great charms.

As was easily predicted, many gamers have accused Gone Home of not really being a game (it’s one of the most common opening complaints in the Metacritic user reviews of the game for instance).

I personally consider myself firmly in “yes it is a game” camp, but I’ve also seen a lot of responses that are similar to the following tweet:

Cut out and affix to screen while playing @GoneHomeGame to minimize cognitive dissonance. pic.twitter.com/p1oxDIWzOu

— Steven Frank (@stevenf)

August 20, 2013

and I kind of think some of the defenders of the game are missing something important as well. The argument is that the reason many gamers don’t consider Gone Home a real game is that it is not the typical violent AAA game one normally associates with first person games. But is this really the case? 

Take Fez as a counter example. Like Gone Home it is a game with no violence in which the player navigates and interacts with an environment, in this case to collect a number of items and solve logical puzzles. Yet, if you look at the the Metacritic user reviews for Fez, while you will find people who think the game is boring, nobody really seems to be arguing that the title doesn’t qualify as a game.

What accounts for this difference? Let me play devils advocate for a moment and point out that when I jotted down my initial reaction to Gone Home, I noted that traditionally video games have a skill or problem solving based component as a major aspect of the game design. More specifically games have traditionally been designed with the goal of providing some sort of challenge to the player.  The challenge can be be skill/reflexed based, problem solving based, or even simply based on a system of resource management, but in almost all video games some sort of challenge that is designed to be overcome. I would argue it is this lack of challenge that many gamers are reacting to, not the lack of guns or violence.

Now, I did say above that I do think Gone Home should be considered a game. Without going too deep into the complex argument about what is and isn’t a video game, let me briefly describe why I believe this. First, I think many people get too tied up trying to bind the definition of video game with the root word of game, noting that non-video games pretty much always have a goals and rule sets and stipulating that video games need to have these as well. But I would argue that when you study languages deeply you find that definitions change over time, and the term “video game” has had an independent existence from the root word of “game” for long enough that it’s no longer clear it’s bound by the definition of the later any more than the definition “Secretary General” is determined by the definition of “secretary” or “meter maid” defined by the definition of the world “maid”. Specifically, video games pretty much always (I can’t think of any counter examples) involve the creation of simulated environments, and the forms of these environments generally have a much stronger impact on how we categorize a video game than anything else. This is why we consider both Halo and Portal first person games, while Super Meat Boy and Fez are considered 2D platformers, even though the types of challenges they present to the player (action games vs puzzle games) are very different. 

Following from my last point, it should be noted that reflex based action games and problem solving based puzzle games are actually very different types of activities, and both of these are very different than the activity of resource management found in games such as Sim City. It seems a little strange that such a wide breadth of activity can fall under the same classification of video game while a strictly narrative work somehow does not. After all, there is something that does tie all these different types of works together and it is that they all require a some sort of computing device to be experienced. To say that all of the ones designed with some sort (apparently any sort) of challenge is considered a video games but simulations that are designed to primarily focus on a narrative falls into some sort of undefined other category seems a bit bizarre to me.

Finally there is the practical issue of where you want interactive narratives to go if they are not considered video games (and perhaps more importantly, are not sold by video game realtors or discussed in video game focused media). Because like I noted above, these games (and I am going to refer to them as games hereon-in) require some sort of computer to function. Perhaps more importantly they require the same infrastructure that other video games do in order to be distributed to any sort of audience. It’s easy to try to lump them categorically with other forms of narrative media (movies and books etc) but the means for distributing those forms can’t support interactive narrative games, so saying they are not games (and implicitly trying to remove them from the video game space) is basically relegating them non existence.

So in short, yes I think Gone Home (and things like it) should be considered video games. But then why am I taking issue with the reactions like the tweet above? It’s because a lot of supporters of such games are taking the too easy route of accusing mainstream gamers of simply being closed minded about any game that doesn’t involve shooting or stabbing something. But the truth of the matter is that a lot of gamers are actually simply disliking the lack of a challenge component in the game, and are interpreting this dislike by seeing the game as failing to be a game. I think they are wrong in this interpretation but I also think it’s important to see it for what it is if we are going to make any headway in making more space of games like Gone Home to find a home in the video game space.

First, it is very good. I’m not quite sure I think it’s quite as great of a game as much of the twitter-verse is making it out to be but I do think it’s very much worth your time.

Second, most non-gamers should find it pretty accessible as this is an exploration game, with no combat or other dexterity requiring game mechanic that one needs mastery of (though it should be noted that it is a first person game, and in my experience some non-gamers have extreme difficulty navigating a first person environment). Also the story is one that should appeal to a wide audience, though I do wonder if it will be able to find that wider audience given it’s medium and distribution methods. It should be noted however that some machines with integrated graphics may not be able to run the game well (my 2011 MacBook Air became extremely hot very quickly and then stopped performing well, and so I needed to switch to my PC to play the game).

Third, Gone Home is an example of a type of game that has recently seen a lot of critical acclaim and examination, one which might be described as an interactive narrative (other recent examples include Kentucky Route Zero and The Walking Dead). I actually wonder if all the acclaim Gone Home has received will reawaken the debate over what is and isn’t a game, since it (and titles like it) feel very different than most other video games. Specifically most games have a skill or problem solving component which is supposed to provide the challenge to the player and are in some ways seen as the point to the game. In titles like Gone Home however, there is few or no such components, and the mechanics that are there are used to drive the narrative along instead. This generates a remarkably different experience for the player when compared to more traditional games. On the one hand this allows for a whole new world to be opened up for narrative fiction, as there are things you can accomplish with video games that you can’t capture quite as well in other media (for instance, I would argue that interactive spaces can capture a sense of place better than either the written word or motion pictures). On the other hand, the lack of any skill or puzzle solving component can potentially alienate traditional gamers who are currently the target audience for these kinds of games (though perhaps this will change in the future). Some games try to combine both a deep thoughtful narrative along with traditional gameplay mechanics (the Bioshock series is a good example of this) but in my opinion when game designers try to do this these to elements often clash with each other (I’m not evoking the whole ludonarrative dissonance debate here, I actually think narrative and skill based play are two completely different things and when both are extremely engaging they compete against each other for your minds attention). Because of this I’m really interested in seeing how well narrative only (or at least primary) games carve a niche for themselves in the marketplace.

Finally I’m kind of curious how people will react to the pricing of this game (which costs $19.99, though it’s currently on sale for $17.99). It’s an interesting exercise to think of the “correct” price for a game (or any piece of intellectual property for that matter). $20 is a normal price for a mid-level game, though the duration of Gone Home it is a bit short as far as games go. One could argue that as a narrative piece that can be completed in 3 hours, it would make sense to make the price closer to that of a movie. Of course from an economic point of view the price is really just a function of supply and demand, and since the supply for a digital product is whatever the creators need it to be, the real question is how much demand there is and perhaps more importantly how much will a change in price change the quantity purchased given the level of demand. And honestly I don’t really know the answer to either of those questions. I suspect though that a lower price will fetch a much higher volume for the reasons I mentioned above.