Indigo Prophecy: Week#4

I was a little rushed on time this week and I didn't get to sit around to much even if it was to do my "homework", but I managed to queeze in a little time with Indigo Phophecy. Unfortunatly, nothing really important happened. Some new game mechanics were interesting, one of the characters, Carla, is claustrophobic and to keep her from freaking out I had to balence a meter in it's center without deviating too much to the left or right. I also had to do a "find this crap" for a NPC mission which was tedious and boring, but the NPC I was doing it for, a little chinese guy with a big Brooklyn accent, was pretty funny. Other than that, nothing terribly exciting... I did get the chance to do a chapter over again; the one where Lucas's ex comes to pick up her stuff. Yeah, third times a charm. I was able to woo her with my guitar playing and then she was putty in my hands, and then it was off to the bedroom. HAHA! Kind'a makes me wonder why they broke up in the first place. So far, she was the easiest thing about this game. ^.^

Aerial Rave

Taking into consideration the topic discussed in "Space in the Video Game" by Mark Wolf, the maximization of space within the relm of the program is used in mostly every modern gaming experience. One instence that comes to mind, other than the games that imploy continuious 3d processing, still resides in the land of the 2d fighting game. Though most thought that the 2d design of yore would be replaced by spiffier looking 3d fighters, the proof is in the pudding, most 3d fighters flop while 2d continues going strong. The examples I'd like to use are Guilty Gear XX and the Marvel vs. Capcom series. The traditional boundaries of the 2d fighter were restricted to a surface (something that represented the ground.) Over time the onscreen view of the genra was able to incorperate a pan from one side of the screen to the other. The pan opened up areas (though small) that gave the player less of a claustrophobic feeling and gave the players more space in which to fight. With the next generation of 2d fighters, the bar remains consistantly raised; taking a que from elements introduced in games like Mortal Kombat 3 where players could hit opponants into new areas by knocking them through walls or cielings, the empty space above the avatar's head is no longer safe. Through the advent of the "launcher" and the "aerial rave", game makers have opened a new demention for players to pummel their opponants in. The use of the space above the avatar's heads became a battle field that was no safer than the one on the ground. This space was now included in the level design (along with the paning sides) and could be reached whenever the player felt like taking the fight to another level.

Indigo Prophecy: Week#3

This week in Indigo Prophecy..... things were rather slow. Not only had I played through some of the scenes earlier such as the police station scene and the park encounter, but in some cases I botched the more interesting aspects of the "choose your own path" gameplay the second time I played through it. It wasn't as much fun if you can get Tyler and Sam to do their early morning wake-up dance (I didn't get to see what happened at the end the first time because I switched back over to Carla and then interupted their love making with a rude phone call), and this time, I didn't get to see it at all. Total bummer. Oh well, I did do better this time around with Lucas's ex-girlfriend. She got loose with a glass of gin, then I got to play her a song on me guitar, but when the time came to kiss her I botched it again and told her to leave, lol! I think that aside from the horrible camera and player control scheme, I have found something else that irks me about this game; the labeling system. Here's an example, when Lucas's ex-girlfriend comes in you have a list of subjects to choose from. One says "drink", the next says "stuff" and the last one says "news". I automatically though that the option "stuff" was talking about unimportant events in their lives. This seems to happen a lot throughout the game, I feel hindered by not knowing the "right" answer when I misinterperate the selection of answers presented to me.

I, Avatar

While reading "Playing at Being" by Bob Rehak, an arguement that the avatar that takes the place of the user in an interactive vitual space is not only controled by the user, but literally becomes an extention of the user's conscienceness. In turn, the represented avatar gives free licence to the user, allowing the user to live (and die) through their virtul representations. Appartently the avatar, being an extention of the user's conscienceness, not only represents the user visually but also as a missing piece to their own ego. Even in situations where the avatar only mimics the user's input, outputting it back to the user in a slightly different way (ala Weizenbaum's ELIZA, page 122 of The Video Game Theory Reader), the user is still compelled to study the responce of the avatar even though they are already privy of the result. The part that I don't seem to understand about what the author is relaying involves the field of his study in general. When did people start thinking about the psychological aspects of taking control of a vitual "I"? When did Freud get involved? Did people really think about the "why" when they created these devices? Can't the same affect be attained in a less visually stimulating game of chess?

My question for this author is about his reference to Freud's explanation of the fort/da. The fort/da, as I am to understand it, is the entity that takes the place of the nurturer when the nurturer is absent (such as a doll, a stuffed animal, or in Freud's grandson's case, a spool.) The explanation the author gives is that, if and when a fort/da is nessecary to represent loss, it will sure inturn represent retreival. By becoming accustom to loss, the child can begin to develope coping mechanizims to aid them in the, far to often than not, lonely road of life ahead of them. The way the author uses this description is that a user can become attached to the avatar representing them in the virtual space within the absence of other nurturering individuals. Is this a positive or a negetive aspect of behavior? Should the idea of a fort/da even be relevent when describing the intereaction between a user and an avatar? Doesn't the avatar empower the user as apposed to reling on the user's coping abilities to eventually come to terms with reality? Though the idea between the two is similar, I'd have to say that their execution fall in to two different catagories, the artificially empowering avatar, and the realistic epowerment of the fort/da.

The gamer sub-culture and the next generation

I found the article "Archetypes on Acid" by Rebecca R. Tews very interesting. I was enthralled by everything from the inaccurate studies performed on the gamer populus to the Jungian references of character archetypes. The only thing that confuses me about this article is the title. Archetypes on Acid? The context in which the only reference to the drug is used was on page 176, "Here they (the archetypes) appear as if on LSD--caricatures of the traditional images, highly transformed by technology, color, speed and sound, but elementally the same." I understand the need for an eye catching title, but I highly dout how the comparison between story archetypes of old and more modern story archetypes can be referenced to the act of experienceing a highly mind altering hallucinagine.

If I were to comment on one of the logical aspects of this author's arguement, it would have to be on the ability to automatically become interested in a subject that a child might observe a parent participating in. Since the generation video games were made for are now adults and have children of their own, will the use of video games become an inherent trait that will now be passed through generations? Maybe, but history has already shown us that when children come of age, they usually move away from their parents in mainly every aspect of their lives. Does this mean that the next generation will shirk off their learned childhood activities in light of something cooler than what they're parents (us) enjoy doing in their free time?

WARTIME!

The article "Gametime" by Patrick Crogan (The Video Game Theory Reader) is an interesting and complicated article that flows back and forth between strong arguements. Though different, they share the common thread of their own purpose, why they are what they are. One point of interest would be the definition of "pure war", the act of retaining the interests of war by promoting and glorifing it even in times of peace. This is a very interesting subject to me, why would we need to excite the masses with the drums of war if they have no where to march to? Is it to keep them on the perpetual edge so that they are more willing to heed the call when the time comes?

What about the consequenceless act of killing the image a man in a virtual space. Does this act alone prepare to us to pull that heavy, metal trigger on the battlefield? Will the particle effects of a real time game engine desensitize us enough so that when we actually do have to wipe what's left of the enemy's grey matter off our faces, we'll take a certin delight in seeing a high definition, real time life extiguished before our very eyes. Will this become the ultimate thrill?

On the other hand, what kind of history can we learn by being entertained by simulated events from the past. Is it possible to consider what life as the enemy would be like? Will historical facts leak into the already determind status quo. Will the simulation allow us to think as individuals instead of gun totting, virtual soldiers of fortune?

Indigo Prophecy: Week#2

Ok, so this week was interesting because there was no space on my memory card last week, and I had played til I got to the part with Lucas and his ex girlfriend, and when I went to exit the game all my progress had been lost. So... I started over, no big deal, right? I did a couple things different this time around in the restroom (I still got caught a couple times by the cop *grr!*) but even though I knew what to do, there was still a sence of ergency, probably brought on by the horrible character control (nothing like running into walls when your trying to get away.)

Oh well. I'll continue from the point at which I get to play as the investigators. So you can play as both, but you'll have to switch off from one to the next to notice different things about the crime scene. Tyler (one of the investigators) was feeling tired, so I had him go into the kitchen and get himself some coffee. So, afterwords, I interegated the waitress. I was a little more demanding this time around (nothing different appeared to happen from it though.) I checked out the restroom again, found everything I had hid as Lucas, ie, the body and the knife. Then I went out to talk to the vagrant, my line of questioning still bore a fruitless conversation (hint: don't be so concerned about his well being), after that, I got in the car and left.

In the next scene I once again played as Lucas Kane. I awoke in bed thinking that the whole affair had been a dream, then I noticed the blood stains on my sheets from when I had cut myself in the restroom of the dinner. I got up quickly tring to clean up my appartment so that if anyone came visiting, they wouldn't think that I had just killed a man! I ran to the bathroom to bandage my arms, wash my face and take a leak. I knew there that a cop was going to be coming around soon, so I didn't waste any time like I had the first time I played this scene. Lucas has a hallucination about a cop coming to the door and you get to play a fun little "simon-esc" mini game where you have to get the combination right to know what the police officer is going to be looking for, mainly the bloody sheets and the sweater I was wearing the night before. Crap! I left it on the floor! I picked it up and threw it into the washing machine. After tuning down the sheets of the bed, I was ready for the police officer's surpirse visit. When the cop showed up I was able to maintain an air of innocence and the cop didn't suspect a thing, (lol "killer" me 1, "cops" me 0)

Mr. Bungle lives in us all...

This is dangerous territory we're stepping into here; is there really a difference in actual harassment and virtual harassment? The arcticle "A Rape in Cyberspace" by Julian Dibbell makes mention of an incident that occured in a textualized virtual space (commonly refered to as a MUD or a MOO) that he was able to bear witness to it's execution, punishment and the "social" ramifications that occured during what is commonly known under the title of the virtual rape. This study involved a vitual entity know only by the name Mr. Bungle. To keep a long story short, Mr. Bungle was able to use the objects, tools, rules, ect. of the virtual text based space known as LambdaMOO to assult other characters in this space. Most users found his actions extreemly offensive, and his victims felt violated. The only remedy to this horrible crime was the proposed execution of the Mr. Bungle persona. For more detail on the steps that were taken to disapline the Character know as Mr. Bungle, I encourage you to read the article, but as someone who has knowlege and experience in and of the virtual space, I can only make a judgment on the grounds of the information of the article and of my own experiences. I state that Mr. Bungle lives in all of us, because, like him, we have all felt the urge to test the boundaries of the virual world. As the person behind the character stated, "It was purely a sequence of events with no
consequence on my RL existence." That is one of the freedoms of existing in the virtual space. Granted, such a concept was still young in December of 1993, rules had not been defined and consequences were issued in an unruly, dictorial fashion, but it takes time to bring order to chaos. Even though most portrayed themselves in a civilized manner, there was still an urge to commit acts that would be punishable in reality. I myself can relate to what Mr. Bungle feels, because I had felt it too when I was young. A sence of freedom in a place where I could test the limitation of the "socially" acceptable. How many times had I experienced a thrill from getting another person so worked up that they would actually threaten to "find out where I live and kill me." That's a bold statement even in the virtual world. Just think, someone was about to dedcate time, money, even a life imprisonment or death just because of some ridiculous words uttered by a child. That reaction alone is worth throwing a virtual chair into a crowd of virual people.

The Sims: still bound to the standards of reality?

In "It’s a Queer World After All: Studying The Sims and Sexuality" by Mia Consalvo, the lifestyle of the Sims is brought into question. Though the Sims environment can be thought of as a virtual space in which users can create a virtual exsistence for their avatar regaurdless of the societal norms, Mia Consalvo has picked apart the open minded ideas and discovered that there are still limitations that seem to be inforced by the physical world. One such limitation involves "shade", or in the real world, race. Though the Sims has equal opportunities for all it's make believe people, Consalvo has brought to light the issue of the limitations placed on the physical appearence of an individual avatar based on what "shade" color their skin is. Another issue raised was the sexual orientation of an individual avatar. Though sexual orientation isn't a fixed element in the Sims, the actions of the user through the avatar can sway or erase any feelings toward another character, regaurdness of their sex or race.

Fair Play: Violence, Racism and sexist depictions of women!?! The gaming industry should be ashamed of themselves...

Or at least that's the popular opinion today. Interactive media entertainment has become the whipping boy for a new generation of the unspeakable. The images and characters depicted in games are found by some to be ultra violent, extreemly sexist and racially biased, and the study composed by the Children NOW organization is more than helpful in pointing out the inadequacies portrayed in the now mainstream culture of interactive entertainment. Even though I may agree with some of their subjects mentioned in the article, such as "E" isn't for everyone, It's hard not to get the feeling that the Children NOW organization is attacking the gaming industry about an issue that has existed long before it even was recognized as a problem.

Since the gaming industry is rather new to the sphere of acceptable entertainment, we must remember that it is still in it's infancy, and everyone knows that children don't just inherit bad habits, they learn them from their parents. Am I suppose to believe that racism wasn't running rampant before "Grand Theft Auto" was invented? People weren't viewing women as objects before "Tomb Raider's Lara Croft"? Violence didn't exist before "The Warriors" took to the virtual streets and beat the crap out of other gang members to protect their turf? "The Warriors"!?! The movie alone promoted and glorified the ultra violent, and that was back in 1979, before the videogamer even became a subculture.

Even though I'd love to talk about the sexist portrayal of women in every sphere of our existence creating a fictional image of what women are suppose to model themselves after (I'm looking at you, Barbie!), there is one part of the Fair Play atricle that really catches my attention, and that is the issue of race.

The article mentions that the prodominant character users are able to play as in video games is more likely than not a character that could be considered "white". The article clocks in with 52% of male playable characters are white and 78% of female playable charaters are white. The runner up to the white playable character is the black character with men taking 37% and women taking 10%. They continued to pick apart the "important" races till the remainder could be thrown into the "others" catagory (I guess my race isn't important enought to be considered anything but other) but I found something very curious, they had marked Native American men down as 0%, the other 0% went for Latina women. Now this must be some kind of mistake because I can think of three playable charaters of Native American decent right off the top of my head, Turok (Turok: Dinosaur Hunter), Night Wolf (Mortal Kombat 3) and T. Hawk (Super Street Fighter II). One other that might be conidered is Tak (Tak and the Power of Juju) though I'm not sure of his true origins (and that the game might have been published after the article was written). So I took a look at the list of games reviewed in the back of the article and to my surprise, there were only 70 games reviewed as source and the three I just metioned were not on the list (Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament has a half Native American half Chinese woman, Julia Chang, but that:

1. falls under the womans' playable character catagory and
2. might bring to light the atrocities commited against the Chinese and the Native Americans in the days of the early west.)

(Face!)*

With thousands of games to choose from, this review was comprised of a meer 70 games, with similar, if not repeating titles;

Tekken 3 (Playstation)
whose characters are also included in:
Tekken Tag Tournament (PS2)

Pokemon Gold, Silver and Yellow (GBC)
Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Stadium 2 (N64)

The Sims (PC)
The Sims: Livin' Large (PC)
The Sims: House Party (PC)

Tony Hawk Pro Skater (GBC)
Tony Hawk Pro Skater (Playstation)
Tony Hawk Pro Skater (Dreamcast)
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (GBA)
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (Playstation)
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (Dreamcast)

With this in mind, I could not, in good faith, consider the Children NOW organization's report to be a fair evaluation of the entire gaming industry's alleged lack of morals and deconstuctive methods that may be influencing children by considering a large portion of their games rated under the "E" for everyone. It is becoming more and more apparent to me that the scare tactics used by some organizations to insite mob rule is based on faulty or half baked truths. Can one really count Tony Hawk as a reference six times?

*message from the author

Indigo Prophecy: Week#1

I chose "Indigo Prophecy" to report on in my Game Journel based on my personal knowledge of the gaming industry. I had known about it since mid summer 2005, and at that time I had no desire (or time) to branch into foreign territory. But, with the introduction of the Game Journel, it became my first choice because of all the good things I had been hearing about it. The only real negetive aspect of the game was that it wasn't selling. I know how difficult it can be to get a great new idea into the hands of an audience, but the unknown is usually pushed aside for the familiar. So since I had to choose, I chose "Indigo Prophecy", I'd hate to see it go the way of "Beyond Good and Evil" (Another great, innovative, and unforgetable game. I own it now, but it tanked in the sales department and was quickly swallowed by the sea of the familiar and the kitch.)

You probably already guessed it but, SPOILER ALERT!!
(There, nice and big so no one can miss it)

"Indigo Prophecy" begins with you playing one of the main characters in the restroom of a New York City dinner. A short movie plays and afterword, you find yourself tring to escape from the restroom because while in a trance, the character you play kills a fellow paytron of the dinner. Not knowing what is going on, you must make your escape.

I really liked this part because there were so many things I could intereact with in the restroom. I tried to wash the blood off my hands, I was able to dry them with the electric hand drier as well. I tried to hide the body in one of the stalls, but there was a trail of blood left behind. In a panic I tried to mop up the blood but there were still streaks. I took a leak (which had an effect on my emotion bar, +5! sweet!) I even shook the condom machine, maybe some freebies would fall out. I had to do something, and fast, because there was a cop in the dinner as well and a little side screen showed that he was heading to the restroom. I tried to get out the window but there were bars across it. I didn't know what to do! So the cop came in and noticed the streaks on the floor. I didn't wait around to see what he was going to find. I ran out the restroom door and began a mad dash for the front door. As I opened the door, the waitress yelled after me "hey! what about your bill!". I was outside now, the snow was falling. I had to keep running. Apparently I couldn't get to where I needed to go on foot and the only way out was by car. Luckly, cars were passing by and I could highjack one, right? Well.....I could, but I thought I'd take a look at my other options, I was in enough trouble already, wasn't I? After a little looking around I found a cab. Sweet, no car jacking for me. The cab took me home and the scene ended.

In the next sence, I got to play as the two investigators who were assigned to the murder case. This was interesting because as the inspectors, I got to piece together clues about what happened just as though I had been at the scene of the crime, which is wierd, because I was.

This game is a lot of fun. I only have a couple gripes about it. the first thing being the old "tank style" control system of the characters and horrible camera that only reposistions when you tell it to. Move, turn camera, move, turn camera, it's hard to do when your in a hurry. The next gripe I have is about the dated graphics. They are very remenisent of the more recent "Grand Theft Auto" series (3, Vice City, San Andreas) where the character and scene models could be scaled back because the content of the games was so great. Most players didn't notice that the models where almost pre-PS2 because they were so busy allegedly doing the back seat bounce with a prositute, who was later run over so the player could recollect their money.

These problems aside, "Indigo Prophecy's" multiple narrative choices make it fun and interesting, I'll be reporting more on this later, because now I'm hooked.

Paradigms and Syntagms...

In the case of Paradigms and Syntagms, both can be measured on a X and Y axis. The syntagmatic axis (running horizontally) defines the body of the of the subject while the paradigmatic axis (running vertically) defines the context of the subject (the action; the event.)

Signs.....

In this reading, it discusses Saussure's original interest in the study of signs was focused around the linguistic attributes of communication, ie literature and the spoken word. The reading also discusses the importance of the signifier and the signified and which, if either, were more important than the other (does the signifier define the signified, or does the signified define the signifier).

The section of this reading I found interesting was the comparison between the French and the English word for sheep. The French word mouton is used to identify both the animal and the meat of the animal, where as in English, we call the animal a sheep, but it becomes mutton when the sheep makes the transfer from animal to food. I guess the same thing can be said for fish. In the English language both the animal and the food are refered to by the same name, fish.

Intro to sign-ology?

Apparently, the main idea of Semiology is the study of "signs" and the affect they have on their viewer, listener, experiencer, ect. It sounds like an interesting subject but, unfortunatly, those who appear to have a vauge understanding of what "it" is, these semiotologists, can still only concieve a idea of their own through postmodern babble which was first spewed out of the mouth of their predicessors.

In regaurds to what actually grabs my attention in the area of the introduction article isn't the one, but the many times the author and his kind try to explain to the reader what semiology is. There is, in my opinion, no better way to scare your audience than to talk over they're heads just for the sake of making it seem like you know more than they do. Can the "study of the sign" not simply be explained as {an action/event that causes a predetermined/instinctive reaction in an individual or in a society}? It sounds pretty simple to me once I was able to trim the fat off this word apon a pedestal. It certinly didn't need a 15 page introduction.

PS. Postmodernism is (has become) a tool used by those who have absolutly no idea what they're talking about to confuse their audience. They are the magicians of the artistic world, appearing to become something they are not........intellegent.