HNRS 353

As I played through each game assigned for next week, I found myself the most interested in “I made this you play this. We are enemies.”  At first glance, the game seemed like a complete joke; totally sloppy, loud and obnoxious, complete definition of nonsense.  I tried reading everything on the page in an attempt to make sense of the abomination happening on my computer screen.  Yet, as I kept playing, the game began to develop a theme.  Each level’s design is based around a website or franchise.  When I got to level 3, I began to understand that Nelson was attempting to send a message to the gamer.

I view Jason Nelson’s creation as a work of art first, and a video game second. Like most works of contemporary concept art, I would assume that the average person would spend roughly one minute playing through “I made this you play this” before getting a headache and moving on to another website.  However, those who brave the next few levels should notice the real concept of this game.  I believe Nelson has created an abstract contemporary work of art, not unlike works by Jackson Pollack and Marcel Duchamp.

Galloway states in his text that countergaming has few game rules and replaces play with aesthetics.   Though this game’s aesthetics are not particularly attractive, I support the assumption that Nelson has “dumbed the design down” purposely to further support his views of franchises and society’s materialistic nature.

I found Galloway’s article extremely interesting. I did not know that the genre of mod games was out there. I find it extremely interesting that people take aspects or codes of games and turn them into something completely different than what is their original form. The game I chose to look closely at is Evidence of Everything Exploding. At the beginning of the game it tells the reader it’s all about conspiracy theories because that is what Hollywood is obsessed with. When I started playing the games for this week I noticed that aesthetically they don’t resemble the typical game. According to Galloway, “countergaming often has no interactive narrative at all and little gameplay supported by few game rules, if any. In this sense, countergaming replaces play with aesthetics.” This was clearly evident in Evidence of Everything Exploding because they game was simple, because all I had to do was to open boxes and make it to the end in order to move on to the next level. The game also had visual artifacts, which are “undesired cosmetic disturbances such as jagged edges or dirty patches in an image file.” The game had multiple red lines that would pop up randomly and get in the way of my view. There was also excess noise and noises when I would hit an object. Although the game is a countergame, it does have some characteristics of a conventional game, such as having different levels and some of the same movements, such as jumping. I’m not exactly sure as to what the cultural or political message to this game was but it was definitely not like any game I’ve ever played and showed me a completely different genre of videogames.

I played Game, Game, Game, and again Game and I thought about Galloway’s chapter about “countergaming”, and I started thinking about how the the six differences he listed apply to this game. Some of the things Galloway listed were very relevant and were obvious differences in this game compared to mainstream games I have played in the past.

The first think I noticed was the background of this game. Like Galloway lists as Aestheticism, this game did not focus on rules very much. At the beginning, we are given very simple instructions on how to move through the levels, but that’s it. And you do not have to do much to pass a level. Basically you just roll through to get to the door and it requires very little thought. Much more emphasis is put on the images seen in the levels. Each level has unique pictures and a link to open a home video, or “video proof” as he called it. Every level is just a flash of moving words, creatures, and random pictures somehow linked to the name of the level. For example, “The Faithful” level has a cross. On the opening page, Nelson even wrote the words “design, design, design”.

I also noticed how there was some “invented physics” in this game. For example, on one of the levels, you have to roll up a hill. If you stop halfway, you do not roll down like realistic physics would predict. You instead just sit there in that spot.

There were some visual artifacts also, where you get sent back to the beginning if you hit the creature that it is “not alive” as an example. Also when the screen jumps to a random picture or word when you hit a certain spot. This breaks the illusion of representational modeling that conventional games have.

There was one thing that I noticed was not common of countergames and that was interactivity vs. noncorrespondence. In this game, I could see a player-game relationship where I was in control and could see my movements instantly, which Galloway said is more common with conventional games versus countergames.

This game and the others we were supposed to play were the first “countergames” I have ever played. From what I noticed, the biggest difference was the lack of reality in many of them. It is not about the best, most realistic visuals. These games instead use words, videos, made up creatures, and anything else they can think of to make their statement.

I had trouble trying to figure out what the underlying social statement was though. The flashing of words and pictures was hard to follow and gave me an instant headache. Can anyone help me out here?

This latest chapter from Galloway described countergaming and its prevalence in mods throughout the span of blockbuster game titles.  I would like to challenge the restriction of countergaming to just mods and offer the possibility of a form of countergaming being within certain mainstream games.  Now I do not mean that the user takes actions to simulate countergaming, I meant hat the user, by exploiting certain glitches and/or bugs in the game, transforms the space into a form of countergaming and an abstract expression to be explored.  My example is from 2004 the highly anticipated game, Halo 2.  At first glance this game just appears to be a normal shooter genre game that was very successful.  In my experience with the game as well as a sizeable part of the fanbase, there were many glitches that could be exploited to amusing effects such as the “super jump” shown here: Halo 2 Super Jump.  Using this and a variety of techniques, a player could work their way “outside of a level.”  This space being defined as going outside of the designed space by developers.  This led to interesting consequences.  When outside of the level, the game stopped acting as a game.  This is where it transformed into a counter game instead of a game.  Transparency was lost.  Instead of being in a continuous virtual world, you could plainly see how different parts of the game were constructed and used to create the illusion of a unified space.  Both gameplay and aestheticism were lost.  Controls often did not function as usual due to invisible walls, disappearing platforms and other events that cannot be explained.  The space was covered with artifacts, buildings and scenery all turned into 2 dimensional flats with no little to no detailing and gaping holes in them.  In this chaotic space, the machine was in almost complete control.  players could die or be shot out of the world in an instant.  This space contains many of the main descriptors of countergaming and thus I see no reason to not consider it a form of countergaming.  The only missing element, although substantial, is purpose.  This however is not essential to be considered countergaming.  In the following image the player is looking outside of a level shown by the gap in the building.  Once in that space, the countergaming begins.

Looking outside a level

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http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/05/18/dr-sally-satel-promotes-virtual-reality-war-games-as-a-treatment-for-ptsd/

We mentioned in class the use of video games and virtual reality to help war veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  I found this article online about it.  Make sure to read some of the blog comments, I found some of those to be more interesting than the actual article.   I did read that the high amount of blog comments created a lot of buzz about the topic in general online.

The point in essence, of both the articles was that video games are powerful teaching tools.  In the first article the authors made the argument that video games train the people to kill people.  While people might gain skills, such as shooting or hand eye coordination from playing these games i don’t think that there is a proven causal relationship between playing video games and going out and shooting people.

I as a player of these games i don’t feel any desire to kill other people.  The games might teach some skills that aid in the killing of other people but they certainly don’t prepare people to kill other people mentally and barely physically.

The other article is on the moral implication of simulating historical events in games.  I think the controversy comes from the fact that people really don’t talk about non controversial events that are simulated.  Columbine and the JFK assassination are things that people consider bad things and playing as the person who commits these events is very controversial.  The same argument is implicit in these arguments that playing games are more likely to commit these these actions.  People don’t like to think these things because they already have a narrative of these events and playing them out can change how they are perceived.