After reading Montfort’s analysis of Combat, which predates most of our gaming experiences, I thought about some of my earliest childhood memories of videogames. My cousin had a Sega Genesis and my favorite game was Bomberman. Here is some game play . This is from the original Genesis.
This is about as simple of game I remember playing. Whats interesting though is that last semester I saw my roommates playing Bomberman via Xbox Arcade. I played the game, of course, and here is a video of the updated game play . Clearly the interface has changed drastically. My question is if the interface changes to the degree that Bomberman’s has been in the Xbox version, does that change the game entirely. Does making it more complex, by adding additional players, intricate interfaces and 3-d gameplay change what we “get out” of the game? To tell you the truth I felt like I was playing a different game, yes the concept and the goals were the same, but everything else had been changed to match up with the modern videogame. Users are able to change their character images incorporating details as minute as eye patches. Montfort says, the interface “sits between the player and the game form, connecting them.” Since the interface has been changed drastically in Bomberman’s modernization, I think that remakes of classics could be considered entirely different games. In Montfort’s article he cites O’Connor who says, “t’s refreshing to see a videogame that pares down creativity, revealing the very essence of gameplay.” Well in this case the reverse has happened. The interface has been revved up to make the game more appealing to players who are used to Call of Duty and Halo whose intricacies are unmatched.
Sidenote: If anyone wants to try and take me on in Bomberman consider yourself challenged
This is a really good question: how changes in the interface change the game? Some might argue that the interface is only eye-candy, or the “wrapper” of the game, while others might argue that the interface directly impacts the core elements of the game itself. These questions can bring us to the idea of “demakes” of games, which are remakes of a contemporary game but for an older platform. Say, designing a version of Resident Evil that would run on the Atari VCS. Is the demake a new game entirely, or is it still Resident Evil?
Another radical example of this I would say are the Grand theft auto games. The original one was completly from a bird’s eye view and now with the new “re-makes” or expansions whatever its an entirely different game, I would argue.