Author Archives: Taylor

The Relaxation Debate

I was thinking about the debate yesterday about using games as a form of relaxation and during class it seemed like a lot of people disagreed with Bogost that videogames can be relaxing.  An example of this was Bogost’s own game Guru Meditiation, originally designed to help people meditate.  Despite its goal, many people felt having to focus on being completely still and worrying about the Guru falling was more stressful than relaxing.

However, other students agreed that games can be used as mindless distractions.  These types of games are hard to categorize because they depend highly on how they are played.  Take Temple Run for example.  A person who is competitive and actively desires a high score will attempt to stay focused and attend to every turn and obstacle the game presents.  With ruined pathways and hurdles at every turn and a pack of demonic-looking guerrillas at the player’s back, this can be an attention-grabbing and even stressful experience.  However, if someone who is only looking to focus their attention on something other than the environment around them—a busy train, a long car ride, or even a long evening lecture—and not on the score, then the experience becomes much more simple.  The player tunes out the guerillas, reacts almost automatically to the obstacles, and feels only a slight inconvenience when his character plunges into the swampy water after a fatal mistake.  He may lose more, that doesn’t matter as long as he is distracted.  Psychologically, this involves the use of schemas and scripts, blueprints for automatic thinking that come from previous experience.  When our minds depend heavily on these mental shortcuts, very little conscious thought is involved.  A popular example of this is the idea that car accidents happen more often within close proximity of one’s house.  Because we become so used to driving the same roads day after day, we pay less attention to the things around us.  Most importantly, we are distracted from our environment.  However, distraction can also cause us to forget our troubles, separate ourselves from an awkward or stressful environment, and make time appear to move a little faster.  I argue that this phenomenon is ultimately a form of relaxation, albeit not in the sense of lounging by a pool in a ritzy resort in Cabo.

 

Seeker: Assassin’s Creed and Reverence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPONUm9K14&hd=1

This clip, from the highly popular Assassin’s Creed series, combines a lot of the aspects of videogames Bogost describes in the introductory chapters of his book.  The protagonist, Ezio, stands atop one of Rome’s most famous buildings, the Casetl Sant’Angelo, looking out over an artistic computer-generated rendering of Renaissance Rome.  The city glows with light despite the dark night sky and subtle, but emotional music plays in the background.  This is art, in the sense that art attempts to capture aesthetic beauty.

Reverence also plays a major role in this scene, as it does throughout the entire series.  Ubisoft, the game’s developer, has put a lot of effort in creating believable open-world models of famous cities, including Jerusalem, Venice, Florence, Istanbul, and Rome.  This process of rebuilding a period-accurate and fully explorable representation of cities and their major landmarks has been a trademark feature of the Assassin’s Creed games since the beginning.  It is this feature that gives the player a chance to become intricately familiar with many of the world’s most famous landmarks.

Lastly, there is even an achievement for parachuting off the top of the Castel Sant’Angelo, something that is likely only possible in a videogame.   The name of the achievement is a reference to a song by the Steve Miller Band, “Fly Like an Eagle,” a sort of easter egg prank much like those Bogost describes.

Videogame Music and Immersion

Whalen emphasizes in his article the point that music, whether diegetic or non-diegetic, plays a powerful role in expanding “the concept of the game world.”  I found it very interesting that he used the game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, because for me personally, it was one of the primary reasons I took up studying music as a child.  When I learned to read music, I quickly used my skills to learn how to play the various themes from the Zelda series, many of which are used in game to “magically” transport the player around the expansive game world.  I still have some of them memorized, and when my suite mates and I replayed Ocarina of Time last year, they were surprised that I still remembered the various traveling songs that are integral to the game.

In other words, the music in the Zelda series created a kind of connection to the game and the fantasy world that encompasses it.  Every time Link learns a new song in the game, it is deeply connected with the location to which it corresponds.  Hence, the “Bolero of Fire“ and the “Serenade of Water“ musically portray the locations, the volcano and the lake respectively, to which they take the player.  The “Bolero of Fire” is an upbeat march with a chorus of drums in the background and the “Serenade of Water” is a simple, gentle melody.  Playing those songs outside of the game, for me, was a nostalgic experience that evoked memories of playing the game.  Therefore, music, at least in the Zelda series, is a salient force in connecting with the game environment.

Cut Scenes and the Operator-Machine Relationship

http://www.thenextgreatgeneration.com/2011/12/storytelling-in-video-games-how-cutscenes-get-it-done/

I found it interesting during our class discussion that some people felt videogame cut scenes were often too long, and that like bugs or lag, they can detract from the operator’s diegetic experience.  This article defends cut scenes as an important mechanism for advancing narrative, but also describes them as essential to the “single-player experience.”  The author, Justin DiCozo, notes the frustrations of players who feel cut scenes usurp their control over the videogame, as well as how many modern game developers have played with the cut scene mechanism to make it more interactive.  I found this relevant because it relates to the tension in the “operator-machine relationship” that Galloway describes in his book.  In Galloway’s view, cut scenes are the machine’s chance to control the game, almost completely ignoring the operator.  As DiCozo notes, some games rely more heavily on cut scenes than others.  How important, then, is the aspect of “control” to the operator’s gaming experience, and at what point do cut scenes blur the lines between games and movies?