Paul Henderson – Interactive Digital Narratives

Game Log #11 (Reflection): Summing it All Up

Looking on back on the various topics I discussed in my Game Logs, I am actually surprised by the lack of constant themes that tie my logs together. I find it pretty impressive that the games I chose were able to spawn unique topics of conversation that did not overlap with each other, especially when considering the fact that one of my games was Ratchet and Clank (not exactly a work renowned for its intellectual musings). There are some notable similarities, however, between some of the topics I discuss in my posts and posts authored by other members of the class. While on a base level this is perhaps not the most earth-shattering revelation, given the fact that as a group we studied the same topics and read many of the same assignments, I do find it interesting the Game Logs of my classmates actually serve to support some of my arguments and suggest that my posts were not simply incoherent ramblings.

For instance, Patrick’s post on death in Infinity Blade III relates to the concept of death in games that I discuss in Game Log #10, specifically in how we both explore how games can use death as a mechanic that ultimately leads to the development of a player’s skill. While Patrick tends to focus more on how this mechanic assisted his immersion in the gameplay, we both come to similar conclusions that death does not always act as a simple punishment for the player. Instead, it can provide a player with greater knowledge, skill, and power that will assist their next attempt. Another one of Patrick’s posts discusses the definition of a casual game in a way that mirrors my thoughts in Game Log #5, in that we both played iPhone games that defied the simplistic tropes tied to most mobile experiences. Several posts also discuss race in a manner that reflects some of the discussion I attempt to carry out in Game Log #6. Sam’s mention of potentially unintentional racial undertones in the intro of Grand Theft Auto V and Desmond’s exploration of Arab representation in Metal Gear Solid V point to the sort of conclusions I make concerning the depiction of Lee’s character in The Walking Dead.

I found Violet’s take on The Last of Us to be particularly intriguing. While her analysis tends to center around feminist critique, it also shares some interesting parallels to the popularity of zombie media I discuss in Game Log #7. I argue throughout my post that the recent decline in zombie games and the continued popularity of The Walking Dead can be attributed to a lack of public interest in the same old shoot-em-up gameplay that has characterized zombie games for years. The personal, human issues discussed in The Walking Dead are at the forefront of its appeal, with the apocalypse setting eventually fading into the background. I found it interesting that Violet’s distain for The Last of Us’ inability to accomplish anything interesting with its protagonists’ relationship resulted in her calling the game “another tired hyper-masculine experience.”

I am satisfied with the similarities that cross between my posts and the posts of my peers, as they allow me to fill in the gaps where my Game Logs fail to speak to each other. If I had to find a significant similarity that exists between two of my blogs, however, I would have to point to the personal anecdotes I use in Game Log #3’s discussion of Bioshock’s music and the gameplay of Halo I mention in Game Log #10. In both of these instances I used memories of my old gaming days that I had not thought of in years in order to prove my points. In writing Game Logs about them, I was able to determine what it was about these memories that made them so special to me in the first place. This was certainly an educational and valuable experience, as I was able to greater contextualize the joy I felt playing Bioshock and Halo for the first time all those years ago.

Game Log #10 (Ratchet and Clank): Developing Expertise

First of all, I would like to acknowledge that I recognize the tendency of my previous Game Logs on Ratchet and Clank to reflect the game in a somewhat negative light. In truth, the game is actually of very high quality and I could tell throughout my playthrough that it was made with great care. While the game’s lack of … Continue reading Game Log #10 (Ratchet and Clank): Developing Expertise →

First of all, I would like to acknowledge that I recognize the tendency of my previous Game Logs on Ratchet and Clank to reflect the game in a somewhat negative light. In truth, the game is actually of very high quality and I could tell throughout my playthrough that it was made with great care. While the game’s lack of a sense of self may have thrown me for a loop and caused me to reflect, I still found that my overall experience was positive. When the time came for me to research what has been written about Ratchet and Clank, I sought to investigate reasons behind why the game was still able to provide me with entertainment despite some of its narrative quirks.

I ended up finding the answer to this question in James Paul Gee’s piece “Learning by Design: Games as Learning Machines,” in which he reflects on how the fun nature of games can effectively teach players specific skills. Part of his investigation discusses the reasons behind why certain games are entertaining, and a previous installment of Ratchet and Clank, entitled Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (2003), serves as one of his primary examples. Gee characterizes Ratchet and Clank as a game that is “pleasantly frustrating,” one that gives players a sense that they have the ability to overcome a game’s challenges with practice. As Gee writes, players of “pleasantly frustrating” games feel “at the outer edge of, but within, their ‘regime of competence.’ That is, these challenges feel hard, but doable. Furthermore, learners feel—and get evidence—that their effort is paying off in the sense that they can see, even when they fail, how and if they are making progress” (19). When I think back on my time playing Ratchet and Clank, I find that this sense of achievable progression served as both a source of enjoyment and the primary motivator behind why I continued to press on through the levels. In fact, I ended up playing Ratchet and Clank for double the amount of time I played Bioshock or The Walking Dead for these Game Logs, as I found myself constantly challenged by Ratchet and Clank in a way that pushed me forward. Eventually, I had to force myself put down the controller in order to take care of other work.

Gee lists Halo as an example of another game that stands in the “pleasantly frustrating” category, an assessment that I fully agree with. The original Halo is one of a my favorite games, and my ability to play through it on Legendary difficulty is one of my proudest gaming achievements. What I loved about Halo was that each level was separated into a progression of rooms, with checkpoints situated between each section. With death after death, I would come to know exactly which enemies were in the room and which actions I needed to take in order to dispatch them. Eventually, I would develop an exact routine for how to deal with a room, one that involved a series of steps that needed to be performed in a precise order (throwing a grenade at a specific angle right before meleeing an unsuspecting elite and sprinting towards a rocket launcher, for instance). Like a videogame version of Bill Murray from Groundhog Day, repeated deaths would turn me into a master of the level, and this sense of absolute expertise was incredibly satisfying when it led to victory.

While Ratchet and Clank did not give me the extreme enjoyment that Halo did, it still managed to use the pursuit of expertise as one of its primary mechanics as a “pleasantly frustrating” game. Ratchet and Clank is not a hard game, but it does offer some challenging scenarios that require multiple attempts. In these moments, like in Halo, I was forced to use death as my ally as I developed a strategy for overcoming the challenge. I think this accounts for much of the enjoyment I felt while playing Ratchet and Clank, and why I was able to look past my initial grievances and play for much longer than I had anticipated.

Source:

Gee, James Paul. “Learning by Design: Games as Learning Machines.” Interactive Educational Multimedia 8 (2010): 15-23.

Game Log #9 (Ratchet and Clank): The Meta-Narrative

One of Ratchet and Clank’s defining characteristics is its self-referential nature and awareness that it is a video game. Ratchet and Clank regularly makes strides to make this clear to player, to a point that almost comes across as excessive. For instance, the game’s narrative is framed as a story of Ratchet and Clank’s exploits told by the character Captain … Continue reading Game Log #9 (Ratchet and Clank): The Meta-Narrative →

One of Ratchet and Clank’s defining characteristics is its self-referential nature and awareness that it is a video game. Ratchet and Clank regularly makes strides to make this clear to player, to a point that almost comes across as excessive. For instance, the game’s narrative is framed as a story of Ratchet and Clank’s exploits told by the character Captain Qwark after the game’s events have already passed. The character he relates the story to, named Shiv Helix, professes that he is a “huge fan of Ratchet and Clank” and he “can’t wait to play the new video game” based on their heroic tale. The game’s sense of cynicism that I discussed in my last Game Log ties directly into this attitude, as the game acknowledges its existence as a reboot by having several characters from past installments reflect on this out loud.

From its opening moments, Ratchet and Clank makes numerous similar winks and nods towards the player. I think this may be an effort on the part of the developers to give Ratchet and Clank a carefree and fun vibe. In all fairness, the game is a colorful platformer that rarely punishes a player’s failures and features weapons like a disco bomb that cause enemies to dance to their deaths. By instilling the game with an attitude of self-awareness, Insomniac strives to paint the Ratchet and Clank universe as one of adventure, fun and a lack of serious consequences.

However, while in-game remarks about the Ratchet and Clank’ series’ high quality can be read as meta, they also can reflect a sort of insecurity, as if the game is telling itself that it is good. I do not think that this was the primary or conscious intention of the developers, but it still was one of the first thoughts that occurred to me while playing the game. As a player that has never had a significant experience playing Ratchet and Clank before, I immediately questioned why the game felt the need pat itself on the back before I even had the chance to try it.

In the consideration of Ratchet and Clank’s meta-narrative, I am drawn to the discussions on meta games that we have had in our own class. Having played and seen some of the meta games created by my classmates, I am struck by the similarities that some of these game’s share with Ratchet and Clank. Like many of the class’ projects, Ratchet and Clank is aware that it is a video game, and therefore functions as a video game about games. Notability, however, none of the class’ games use this self-referential attitude in order to validate themselves as Ratchet and Clank does. Ratchet and Clank’s meta attitude ultimately serves to further the general uncomfortableness its seems to have with existing. While the game’s tendency to compliment itself runs counter to the cynicism and self-loathing that I have previously discussed in Game Log #8, it ultimately contributes to a general vibe of strangeness that becomes one of Ratchet and Clank’s defining characteristics. In the pursuit charm, Ratchet and Clank achieves a feeling quite the opposite. Like someone desperately fishing for compliments, Ratchet and Clank becomes defined by a disconcerting lack of self-assuredness.

Game Log #8 (Ratchet and Clank): Developer Cynicism

I’ll admit right off the bat that it was not my intention to play the 2016 reboot of Ratchet and Clank as my third game for these Game Logs. However, due to a series of technical difficulties, I found myself rummaging through a friend’s game collection looking for an alternative to Shadow of the Colossus. I stumbled upon Ratchet and … Continue reading Game Log #8 (Ratchet and Clank): Developer Cynicism →

I’ll admit right off the bat that it was not my intention to play the 2016 reboot of Ratchet and Clank as my third game for these Game Logs. However, due to a series of technical difficulties, I found myself rummaging through a friend’s game collection looking for an alternative to Shadow of the Colossus. I stumbled upon Ratchet and Clank, and decided to go for it. I had heard of Ratchet and Clank previously and knew it to be a Playstation classic, though my only experience playing it came from a brief stint trying out one of the series’ spin-offs on a PSP many years ago. I figured playing through a reboot of a classic series could give me some unique points to consider.

My first impression of Ratchet and Clank was one that really surprised me: it seems to be a game that sort of detests its own existence. The game is rife with a sense of cynicism, constantly referencing the fact that it is retreading old material. Characters that have appeared in previous installments state phrases like “oh, you look familiar,” or “see you in the next reboot,” while other bits of dialogue express a detest for pre-order content, a practice that has recently become a big-budget game staple.

While I would have thought that the game’s developers would have been happy to create an edition of Ratchet and Clank fit for a new age of consoles, the game is full of a sense of angst toward the need to start everything from the beginning. The quips appear to be directed against the corporate interests that demanded Ratchet and Clank start its story over, with the game’s main villain being a disdainful corporate industrialist that cares little for the people that consume his products. The nature of the game to reflect a distain for itself causes me to think that the developers were annoyed at the idea of tossing out the relationship between Ratchet and Clank that they have developed over the course of the series’ numerous installments. I can understand how having to scrap everything and start from the beginning could be a trying experience for a veteran game studio like Insomniac that has spent years building the Ratchet and Clank story.

There is also a chance that I am misinterpreting interpreting Ratchet and Clank’s sarcasm for angry cynicism. Perhaps the game’s tendency to reference its reboot nature comes from a sense of self assuredness that Insomniac has developed over the years as an experienced game studio. My reading of the game’s attitude, however, is one that I had never experienced playing a game before. Never before have I felt like a game was constantly trying to tell me about its feelings on the manner in which it was made, and the result left me feeling somewhat uncomfortable.

Game Log #7 (The Walking Dead): Not Really About the Zombies

Zombies are everywhere. The undead seem to have held a steadfast grasp on popular culture for years, regularly popping up in various forms of media. In the consideration of video games alone, the immensely popular Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Dead Island, and Dying Light series immediately spring to mind as franchises intimately intertwined with the zombie phenomenon. All of this zombie-based media, however, seems to have resulted in a sort of widespread zombie fatigue. Of the aforementioned titles, only Dead Rising has announced a sequel for this year, and the last interesting bits of the destroy-the-brain-with-a-shotgun trope seem to have been bled dry by recent films like World War Z. Zombies have walked, sprinted, and taken on various physical appearances throughout the years, and it seems that they can only be dismembered in so many ways before the concept begins to grow stale.

The zombie genre is one that has been well explored, and seems to no longer offer anywhere else new to go. However, despite this general zombie fatigue, new zombie media also continues to spring up. Not only does The Walking Dead continue to crank out new television seasons, but it has also spawned Fear the Walking Dead, an independent spin off. The Walking Dead video game series has also seen the development of three “seasons,” with the most recent installment set to be released in a week’s time.

So the question remains: why, despite expectations, has new zombie media continued to come out and find success? Such is a question explored in Kyle William Bishop’s Contributions to Zombie Studies : American Zombie Gothic : The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. In this work, Bishop directly investigates the manner that zombie media has continued to be a major part of popular culture. One point raised in the book’s foreword by Jerrold E. Hogle is that zombies are “a symbolic field in the Gothic tradition calling forth and examining in a fictional guise some profound cultural debates and the fears and hopes about them over 70– 80 years” (3). In essence, Hogle points to zombies as a way for storytellers to explore broader, more interesting and intriguing concepts that go beyond various methods of decapitation.

I think that this point relates specifically to the longevity The Walking Dead series has enjoyed in its various forms. While viewers and players of The Walking Dead certainly derive some of their thrills from zombie-based, guilt-free carnage, the game and show are ultimately about the people that navigate the apocalypse. This is particularly true of The Walking Dead game, as the gameplay is largely restricted to occasional taps on the screen, and the zombie-infested world eventually becomes a backdrop for the relationships the player builds as they navigate the game’s narrative. The Walking Dead, therefore, represents limitless possibility when in comes to the discussion of human topics, accounting for why it has largely failed to become stale. Other series that rely on headshots to maintain the public’s interest have understandably fallen by the wayside in comparison, as one can only see a virtual head explode so many times before it begins to lose its novelty.

Bishop, Kyle William. Contributions to Zombie Studies : American Zombie Gothic : The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.

Game Log #6 (The Walking Dead): Race and Expectations

Telltale’s The Walking Dead is not a game that overtly discusses racial issues throughout the course of its narrative. While the game’s main protagonist, Lee, is African-American, this is a fact that largely goes unmentioned by the other characters he interacts with in his story. Racial undertones are on display in The Walking Dead from its opening moments, however, … Continue reading Game Log #6 (The Walking Dead): Race and Expectations →

Telltale’s The Walking Dead is not a game that overtly discusses racial issues throughout the course of its narrative. While the game’s main protagonist, Lee, is African-American, this is a fact that largely goes unmentioned by the other characters he interacts with in his story. Racial undertones are on display in The Walking Dead from its opening moments, however, and are largely utilized by the game’s developers in order to subvert the player’s expectations.

As the game begins, the player is introduced to Lee as he sits in the back of a police cruiser on the way to jail. Though it is not revealed until later in the story that he is being hauled away for the murder of a man that was sleeping with his wife, The Walking Dead still situates Lee in a position that fits with the sort of stereotypical position one would find an African-American character in modern media. Running immediately counter to this, however, the player can learn through conversation that Lee previously held a job as a professor at the University of Georgia, a position in life that runs counter to the standard, base criminality the player intially expects of Lee. From these opening moments, The Walking Dead exploits the player’s expectations about race and directly subverts them, foreshadowing the unexpected nature of events to come. As if to answer this calling for the unforeseen, moments later the police car hits a zombie and runs off the road, setting the game’s story in motion. Ultimately, The Walking Dead relies on these unspoken racial themes and biases in order to establish its tone.

Lee’s backstory as a murderer is not one that I personally have a problem with. In fact, I would guess that the developers gave Lee this portion of his backstory as a way to make his transition into zombie-slaying survivor a bit more believable (Lee does, after all, shoot a zombie in the head with a shotgun shortly after the police car crashes). His role as a murderer also has the potential to cause narrative conflict as Lee is forced to defend his relationship with Clementine, a young girl that he takes under his wing at the story’s outset. In this way, Lee’s murderer backstory creates a reason for the player to lie to other characters, causing tensions later on as more life-and-death situations present themselves. Furthermore, the murder that Lee commits is “sympathetic” in a way, fueled by a relatable passionate hatred for a man sleeping with his wife. As far as murders go, Lee’s is on the more understandable side, which prevents him avoid complete alienation from the player.

I cannot help but think, however, of the class discussion we had concerning race in video games. Specifically, I am reminded of the piece we read on race and video games by Anna Everett and S. Craig Watkins that discusses the ability of games to express racial bias. The article puts forth the idea that games can act as learning spaces, and so they have the potential to perpetuate ideas of racial bias and otherness through the regular utilization of stereotypes. While Everett and Watkins heavily rely on examples like Grand Theft Auto that include overt racial themes, I do see some parallels between the argument posited by the article and the racial undertones of The Walking Dead. While Lee may be a college professor, of course he is also a murderer. It is as if this typical racial trope was unavoidable given his African-American identity. As I have expressed above, I do think that Lee’s violent backstory is incredibly important to the game’s narrative and I do not consider it to be a poor choice on the part of the developers. However, I do think that it warrants consideration that Lee is characterized as a murderer despite all of the elements of his character that run counter to stereotypes. While I certainly do not think that this was done by the developers with any sort of ill intent, it is interesting that the game’s attempt to give Lee depth ultimately falls in with racial cliches that accomplish the opposite.

Game Log #5 (The Walking Dead): Is This a Mobile Game?

I played Telltale’s The Walking Dead on my iPhone. Despite the connotations that typically surround mobile games, The Walking Dead is anything but a simplistic, time-wasting experience. Instead, the game functions as a sort of next-generation choose your own adventure, with the player’s decisions and relationships with in-game characters shaping the course of the story. Beyond this, actual gameplay … Continue reading Game Log #5 (The Walking Dead): Is This a Mobile Game? →

I played Telltale’s The Walking Dead on my iPhone. Despite the connotations that typically surround mobile games, The Walking Dead is anything but a simplistic, time-wasting experience. Instead, the game functions as a sort of next-generation choose your own adventure, with the player’s decisions and relationships with in-game characters shaping the course of the story. Beyond this, actual gameplay is limited to occasional swipes to navigate and interact, and The Walking Dead ends up sharing more similarities with a movie than it does with anything else. It even progresses in a series of episodes in the spirit of The Walking Dead television program on AMC.

Is The Walking Dead a mobile game? Intially, I would have to say that no, it is not a purely “mobile game.” While I played it on a mobile device and had the ability to be physically mobile while I played, its length and price run counter to the short and sweet characteristics typical to most iPhone games (I recognize that countless hours can be poured into certain mobile games, but I am referring to how many of these games are designed to be played in short, incremental sessions in moments of boredom). At a length of 5 episodes and a 22 dollar price tag to purchase all the installments in a bundle, the The Walking Dead certainly resembles a full-fledged game experience that one would find on a PC or a console. This is due to the fact that the game was made for these platforms along with the iPhone version that I played.

On the other hand, I also have trouble defining The Walking Dead as a purely console or PC game. The fact remains that I did play it on a mobile device. While I occasionally played it in long stints, I also used it as a time killer just as I would utilize Angry Birds or Bloons Tower Defense, with some of my gaming sessions admittedly occurring during visits to the restroom. The mobile version of The Walking Dead also has an in-app purchase system for acquiring the different episodes, and I will profess that this turned me off from playing beyond the first episode. In-app purchases tend to push me away from continuing to play a game as I feel as though I am missing part of the experience due to a paywall. The reaction I had to The Walking Dead was similar to ones I have had to countless pay-to-win apps that I have downloaded and quickly deleted in the past.

So the question remains: is The Walking Dead a mobile game? I would have to conclude that in this case, there is not a real distinction to be made. In the same way that viewing a film on a phone may not be as “full” an experience, will lesser visuals and sound, the film can still be watched on the device regardless. The movie, at its core (title, dialogue, plot etc..), remains the same movie regardless of the screen it is watched on. I think this is an effective way of thinking of The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead treads the line between console and mobile categories, but in this case there does not seem to be any reason to make a distinction. Telltale interactive even designed The Walking Dead with an engine specifically designed for multi-platform compatibility, and I think it is safe to assume that to them, the game was never strictly meant for one platform over another. To the developers, multiple platforms ensured maximum players and profit.

While I understand this may not be the most revolutionary of conclusions to make about the game, the fact remains that The Walking Dead is neither a console nor a mobile game. It’s both.

Game Log #4 (Bioshock): Cultural and Scientific Significance

While researching literature that has discussed Bioshock, I came across an interesting piece by Adam Briggle and Meera Lee Sethi that discusses the relationship between narratives and scientific understanding. Briggle and Sethi illustrate that stories can frame complex ideas in ways that make them fathomable to a wide audience, making them an essential educational tool. Illustrating this point, the article looks to … Continue reading Game Log #4 (Bioshock): Cultural and Scientific Significance →

While researching literature that has discussed Bioshock, I came across an interesting piece by Adam Briggle and Meera Lee Sethi that discusses the relationship between narratives and scientific understanding. Briggle and Sethi illustrate that stories can frame complex ideas in ways that make them fathomable to a wide audience, making them an essential educational tool. Illustrating this point, the article looks to a quote from author David Foster Wallace: “Human beings are narrative animals. That is how we understand science” (35).

Briggle and Sethi focus particularly on a presentation given by David Rejeski, in which he made this point by looking to several particularly influential narratives that contain scientific concepts. One of the main examples given by Rejeski was Bioshock, along with Spiderman and Captain Marvel comics and Michael Crichton novels. Rejeski refers to these works as “deep, deep narratives” that served as the primary source of scientific understanding for many people: “the thing that scientists have to understand is that people will fall back on these narratives long before they will ever pick up a biology book” (37). While the dark themes of science fiction narratives like Bioshock and Jurassic Park have the potential to create a sense of scientific risk and unease, they also tend to instill readers with a sense of scientific fascination.

My initial reaction to Rejeski’s claims was directed towards the lack of actual science involved in Bioshock’s narrative. Many Michael Crichton novels, while fantasized in certain degrees, at least make attempts to ground themselves in the scientific world. Bioshock, on the other hand, takes place in a world of pseudo-science, where fantasy and magic has sprung out of “scientific” discovery. The scientific basis behind Eve and Adam is never actually explained, and is instead passed off as the result of the unfettered scientific progress allowed in Rapture. Similar claims can be made about the comic book examples that Rejeski refers to. However, Spiderman and Bioshock both fuel the human fascination with scientific possibility whether or not they are grounded in reality, and according to Rejeski this is makes them incredibly culturally significant regardless of the actual facts behind their subject matter. Ultimately, I have to agree with Rejeski’s assessment on this level. Wether the science behind Star Trek’s warp drive, Bioshock’s plasmids or Westworld’s hosts is ever truly explained is not actually that relevant. Instead, they instill an audience with a sense of scientific possibility that has the power to inspire.

All of this leads me to a final consideration: Bioshock’s inclusion in Rejeski’s list of culturally significant narratives. Bioshock has been significant to me for years, but does it occupy the same space in the public consciousness as Jurassic Park or Spiderman? My initial assumption would be that it does not. I doubt that many of my friends who do not play video games (which is most of them) have ever heard of Bioshock, while nearly everyone I have met has come across Jurassic Park at some point in their lives. However, some considerations still lead me to believe that Bioshock holds an important place in the public consciousness. For example, in previous posts I have mentioned the extensive internet communities that have sprung up around the game, and the well-recognized phrase “would you kindly.” Bioshock is also often referred to as a blockbuster in the gaming world, with 4 million copies sold across various platforms by 2010. While it may not hold a place in everyone’s minds, Bioshock has still managed to reach a broad range of consumers, enough to have scholars like Rejeski, Briggle and Sethi discuss it. In the end, the points rasied by the article point to the significance behind our class, as scholars can consider as games culturally important art forms that can affect societal change.

Source:

Sethi, Meera Lee and Adam Briggle. “Making Stories Visible: The Task for Bioethics Commissions.” Issues in Science and Technology, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2011, pp. 29-44.

Game Log #3 (Bioshock) – The Dissonant, Diegetic Soundtrack

Bioshock’s underwater city of Rapture is an environment that physically embodies broken dreams. Built by the visionary Andrew Ryan, the city was meant to represent the high-minded ideals of creative and scientific freedom, along with the optimism of 1950’s America. The freedom that Rapture offered ultimately lead to its downfall, however. The invention of Plasmids and Adam … Continue reading Game Log #3 (Bioshock) – The Dissonant, Diegetic Soundtrack →

Bioshock’s underwater city of Rapture is an environment that physically embodies broken dreams. Built by the visionary Andrew Ryan, the city was meant to represent the high-minded ideals of creative and scientific freedom, along with the optimism of 1950’s America. The freedom that Rapture offered ultimately lead to its downfall, however. The invention of Plasmids and Adam gave citizens new, powerful abilities, but ended up driving the populace into a state madness and obsession. The once-pristine, rusted and flooded environments of Rapture stand as a testament to what Rapture once was and how the errors of man caused everything to quickly go awry.

In Dr. Lerner’s Film Music course, I learned a great deal about how music is used to compliment film, and I find that many parallels can be drawn between video game and film soundtracks. In the case of Bioshock, dissonant, diegetic music can regularly be found playing from phonographs and radios within the game’s world. I am drawn to one particular memory from my first time playing Bioshock, when I found myself pinned between one of these radios and a horde of angry splicers. As Bobby Darin’s rendition of “Beyond the Sea” played in the background, I desperately used the last shells in my shotgun to dispatch my attackers that dashed at me from the dark. When the cacophony of my firing had died down and the splicers lay dead, I finally could take a deep breath. All the while, “Beyond the Sea,” kept playing softly.

Not only did the diegetic soundtrack serve to draw me into the world, but it served to highlight the broken dreams of Rapture just as the broken physical environment does. “Beyond the Sea” embodies late-40s-early 50s American optimism, with its melody and lyrics conveying a sense of cheerfulness and comfort. The splicers that attacked me, on the other hand, were a reflection of Raptures failures and the monster the city had become. The music served, therefore, as a dissonant soundtrack (or a soundtrack that does not match the actions on screen). Dissonant soundtracks are a common filmic technic, and they often emphasize particular themes or emotions by choosing music that purposely counters what is expected in a scene. Like the once-shining statues of Rapture, the diegetic music represents what could have been. Rapture was founded on optimism and creation, and the contrast between the music and reality confirm this. Ultimately, Rapture’s decaying physical environment and the game’s music work together to solidify that Rapture is a land of tattered dreams and corrupted potential.

Game Log #2 (Bioshock) – Player Choice

Bioshock is often pointed to as an example of a game that turns the mirror back onto the player, making them question the very nature of the game following its major twist and conclusion. As Bioshock nears its final chapter, it is revealed to the player that the phrase “would you kindly” was used throughout the game to … Continue reading Game Log #2 (Bioshock) – Player Choice →

Bioshock is often pointed to as an example of a game that turns the mirror back onto the player, making them question the very nature of the game following its major twist and conclusion. As Bioshock nears its final chapter, it is revealed to the player that the phrase “would you kindly” was used throughout the game to get the player character to perform specific actions. Both the character and the player were subconsciously controlled throughout the entire game without realizing it, a revelation that functions as a reflection on games themselves. In most games the player is expected to obey the game’s instructions without question in order to complete a mission/task, and Bioshock highlights this specifically. How much choice does the player of a game like Bioshock really have? While the player has control over their weaponry, powers and approach to each mission, ultimately the phrase “would you kindly” draws each player of Bioshock to the same confrontation with Andrew Ryan.

It should be noted that Bioshock’s self-questioning nature is a well-covered topic, and the game is regularly pointed to as a “deep” or “thought-provoking” video game (for example, I’m sure several members of our class will be examining Bioshock in Game Logs this semester). The phrase “would you kindly” is a particularly well-recognized term in circles familiar with gaming, and it has become a sort of video game meme on the internet as a result. I have played Bioshock through once, and my play through this semester allowed me to view the game with new eyes. I was aware of the game’s twist and message from the beginning, and so this allowed me to observe the game’s functions from an alternative point of view. Ultimately, I realized that the game directs the player in many more ways than just with the “would you kindly” phrase. For instance, a large, yellow navigation arrow looms at the top of the screen, constantly directing players to the level’s end goal. While I chose to play Bioshock without the arrow because I enjoy exploring the entirety of each level, the arrow functions in the same way that “would you kindly” does, always pushing the player towards a singular goal and inhibiting exploration. The game’s on screen prompts also suggest a similar lack of player choice. Text phrases like “PICK UP EVE” can be read almost as commands, partially explaining why I tended to bound through levels picking up everything I could get my hands on. While it was almost always beneficial to do so, my compulsive collection of items may have been spurred on by the game constantly telling me what to do.

Bioshock’s “would you kindly” phrase works in conjunction with several game mechanics to guide each player of the game in a particular direction. While Bioshock does offer different endings and multiple ways to tackle each level, players are guided down a particular path that leads to the same levels in the same order. In more ways than one, Bioshock questions player choice and the very nature of games