Category: game log 10

Shadow of the Colossus: The Hamlet of Videogames

This is my final game log post in FMS 321 for my games. I could not be happier given the research I found for Shadow of the Colossus. Nick Fortugno wrote Losing Your Grip: Futility and Dramatic Necessity in Shadow of the Colossus which describes exactly what I discussed in the last Shadow of the … Continue reading Shadow of the Colossus: The Hamlet of Videogames →

This is my final game log post in FMS 321 for my games. I could not be happier given the research I found for Shadow of the Colossus. Nick Fortugno wrote Losing Your Grip: Futility and Dramatic Necessity in Shadow of the Colossus which describes exactly what I discussed in the last Shadow of the Colossus log entry. Using his material, I will discuss his writing and how my experience may or may not verify his findings.

Fortugno opens with a discussion of Hamlet and its relevance in discussing videogames which means I already like where he takes his analysis. He expresses interest in agency in videogames, a topic that interest me as well. He asks, “is it true that agency invalidates the possibility of dramatic necessity? Isn’t it possible that agency in an interactive narrative can be used to create the tension between expectation and inevitable outcome?” This question blew my mind. And this applies not only to Shadow of the Colossus, but for a large majority of videogames.

As he builds up to futile interactivity, a topic I would like to address later, he hits a few points I covered in the last post. One was the tragic story of Shadow of the Colossus. After looking into the ending of the game, this game seems quite tragic for Wander. His devotion to saving the maiden, Mono, forces him to commit forbidden acts that transform his being. Though he does not die, he becomes a horned baby, echoing the cursed existence of Ico and the horned children from ICO.

“The player can control the character and is set to an implied or stated objective that appears accomplishable.  However, the scene is designed so that the goal is impossible to achieve,” according to Fortugno’s idea of futile interactivity. In tackling agency in videogames, Fortugno has described what essentially drives the tragic elements in Shadow of the Colossus and other games. They present false agency, but they cannot avoid their destiny.

It has been a joy reading about tragedy in Shadow of the Colossus. Most people describe it as an epic game where you fight monsters and try to rescue the “Damsel in Distress.” And if Anita Sarkeesian did not use Shadow of the Colossus in her videos, she missed a great chance. I do not disagree with her here. But I digress. With Fortugno’s futile interactivity in mind, a more comprehensive analysis of videogame mechanics and narrative cause a strong emotional reaction with the protagonist. The player is not watching the struggle of the protagonist, but is taking part in it and learning the inescapability of their circumstance. It speaks to what videogames can do regarding emotions and empathy, and Ian Bogost would probably support me on that.

Check out Fortugno’s piece!

http://press.etc.cmu.edu/content/shadow-colossus-nick-fortugno

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.