Category: Round 2

Earthbound: A Peculiar Case For and Against Emulation

notamod

A few weeks ago in class, we discussed the pros and cons of emulation and how emulation can be thought of as preservation. I argued that a pro of emulation is that you are preserving games that otherwise would have been lost in time. On the other hand, I argued that by emulating games, you are only preserving gameplay, not the experience of playing said game. Earthbound, released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), provides an argument for and against emulation that I want to investigate further.

I am currently playing Earthbound on an SNES emulator because it is the easiest way for me to play the game. I do not own the appropriate hardware or software in order to actually play the real game. I realize that I am not getting the full experience of playing the game but I cannot justify spending almost $200 (Price Charting) to play a game that was made over twenty years ago. That crazier fact here is that the majority of that price comes from the game, not the system! Why is Earthbound so expensive? Upon release, Earthbound was not received all too well. When advertising the game, Nintendo decided to mimic the unconventional sense of humor found throughout the gameplay.

Ads like this revolved around the stench of the game. Not a traditional way to advertise.

You have to keep in mind that this was during an era of gaming that warranted “ads with attitude”. Nintendo was in competition with Sega to win over teenagers with more mature games. Needless to say, the advertising was not very effective and the game only sold around 140,000 copies in the US (compare that to Super Mario World, which sold around 20.6 million) (www.gamecubicle.com). Though the game did not sell well, it was welcomed with a small cult following. Fast forward to today, collectors who are looking to complete their collection, or just have a fun game to play, are looking to spend about $150 to buy just the cartridge. Earthbound is not the only game in this situation. Games like Conker’s Bad Fur Day (N64) and Little Samson (NES) are perfect examples of games that just did not sell well, but are sought after for their fun and exciting gameplay. Games like these provide perfect arguments for emulation. Emulation makes hard to find games more accessible to the general gaming community. Without emulation, I would have no way to experience the quirkiness and absurdity of Earthbound. But what am I missing by digitally emulating the game instead of playing the physical cartridge?

A complete in box version of the game. It included the cartridge as well as an important guidebook.

When Earthbound was originally marketed and sold, it ran you about $70 ($115 dollars in today’s money) but you also received an important guidebook that not only taught you how to play the game, but included a lot of unique artwork and secrets that you could only find in that guidebook during the time. They even included scratch and sniff stickers that were part of the advertising campaign. The book included lore and other information about the towns you would be visiting and was overall, a helpful companion as you played through your quest. The book also gave the player tips and tricks on how to progress in the game. You have to remember the internet was in its infancy at this time and if you got stuck in a game, you could not just Google your way out. In an RPG like Earthbound, the path towards progress is not always a clear one. You can see that by emulating the game, you are missing out on the experience that the game developers intended you to have while playing Earthbound.  Here in lies the problem with emulation, you are merely replicating the gameplay, not the gaming experience. Of course I could go and spend $200 for a system and game (cartridge only), but I would still be missing the guidebook and would be spending quite the penny on a twenty year old game I could play for free on my computer. Interestingly enough, the developers of Earthbound put some interesting measures in play to combat piracy of the game.

An error message appears as you boot up an unofficial PAL version of the game.

On unofficial ROM’s of Earthbound, the game will actually display a warning message at the beginning of the game. Thankfully, the emulation software and ROM I downloaded got past the anti-piracy measures but I found some pictures here.  Along with a harmless error message, the game will actually spawn more enemies for you to fight. This was in an effort to make the game less enjoyable. But the real measure comes in a more permanent form. If you make it all the way to the end boss fight, the game will freeze, reboot, and delete all your data! Obviously, the developers anticipated pirating of their game so these measures were put into place to encourage players to purchase the real game. This is where emulation gets a bit tricky. Since you are technically not playing original software that you purchased, it is illegal to be playing said emulation. Emulation comes with a negative connotation because you are cheating the developers of the game out of their rightfully earned money. So what makes emulation excusable?

Earthbound provides ground for and against emulation. It is one of the few games to do so as well. Emulation has a time and place in the industry, for preservation of older hardware and software that cannot be easily accessed. It is important to keep these relics of gaming history as a way of preserving the culture surrounding these games; almost like a time capsule. But emulation should be used knowing that it is not replicating the experience of playing the game, merely the gameplay itself. Additionally, emulation should be used responsibly and not in an effort to scam developers out of money. I believe my use of emulation is justified because I am a broke college student who does not have a few hundred dollars laying around to spend on “prehistoric” video games 🙂 I would argue however, that if you have the means to do so, to buy an official emulation of Earthbound on the WiiU’s Virtual Console eShop.

 

Source: Earthbound: A Peculiar Case For and Against Emulation

INSIDE: CONTROL AS RESPONSIBLITY

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Inside is a fitting title for a game with such a focus on the diegetic world. The game does not employ a narrator, nor does it furnish the player with instructions. As I averred in my first game log, Inside eschews anything extra-diegetic (excluding, the menu and sparse audio) that could divert the player’s attention from the gamic world. To use one of Alexander Galloway’s terms, Inside flourishes because of how much weight it places on “diegetic operator acts.” This notion of a player’s control plays into a theme of the game: the loss of individual agency in a state led by a militant, malevolent force (the black, white, and red color scheme are, to me, an allusion to the Nazis and to Schindler’s List).

A ravenous canine chomps away at the protagonist’s neck. Shifting to a diegetic machine act, the player, without the ability to skip, must watch the gruesome scene.

Encountered in select places, a brain-control device hangs. The player can attach the boy’s head to the device, endowing him with the ability to control nearby husks (humans that cannot do anything without someone attached to the aforementioned device). When the player, for example, presses the right arrow key, the boy, legs dangling and head connected to the apparatus, moves his legs as if he were walking right; the husk actually walks to the right. Here, there are levels to this control: the player-operator inputs the command for the boy to move right, and by doing so, sets off a command chain that results in the husk’s movement. This moment bespeaks the relationship between the protagonist and the gamer: we are controlling the boy, a husk that needs a player to animate him.

The mind control apparatus that the player must use to progress through the game.

Yet, while the power dynamic appears in favor of the player, one should not forget that the husks allow for the boy to progress: they are necessary for his salvation. Now, as players, our lives are obviously not dependent on this child. Nevertheless, we cannot gain access into the game without the child; our experience hinges on his survival. To me, this reads as quite selfish and returns me to the game’s theme of control. I ended my first game log on the thought that the player feels responsible for every time the protagonist dies. While I have not finished the game, I find it interesting that the boy’s survival depends on how well we can control him. Perhaps, this is a metaphor for the great influence we have on others’ lives.

Copy the husks or be killed. The player, while still in control, must act according to the others.

Source: INSIDE: CONTROL AS RESPONSIBLITY

Can you hear me now?

Ethan Steinbacher

In my continued play through of The Last of Us I have realized one thing. I forgot just how much I loved this game, and how I wish I was truly experiencing it for the first time on this play through. This time around on the game blogs I decided to narrow my scope of focus slightly and tried to explore more into the impact of the game’s audio.

In The Last of Us the player’s willingness to stop and listen throughout the game is a very important given how the player character Joel, has supersonic hearing and the ability to echolocate enemies through multiple walls. However, regardless of that particular game mechanic, the in-game audio serves several functions that the player may take for granted without specifically looking for them. Many stealth games use sound to provide a sense of foreshadowing to the player and warn them of when they are about to be discovered (Collins 130). The audio during combat/stealth sequences is very useful in filling out the peripheral senses of the player. For example, whenever the player is out of cover and within the line of sight of an enemy, the game will play a loud white noise that feels very out of place, thus giving the player a jolt to realize that they need to move or they will be discovered. While playing I decided to make a comparison in playing with and without this game audio. I found that playing without the sound forces the player to be much more active in scanning their surroundings and using Joel’s echolocation ability, turning what were usually fairly simple levels into a more disorienting and difficult experience.

Along with its direct impact on gameplay and mechanics, the audio of The Last of Us was very effective in creating a sense of different environments and phases throughout the game. This game is a combination a handful of intensely stressful combat/stealth sequences followed by long stretches of either narrative development or simply scavenging for supplies in every nook and cranny you can find. However, The Last of Us plays through like a cinematic experience in many ways, in that there are no breaks for loading screens and few breaks for cut scenes. Therefore, in most instances, the best way to tell if you are bridging from one sequence to the next would be if there was a change in the background audio (Collins 132). As you approached a combat scene the music would gradually rise until it is eventually playing a very dramatic symphony as you engage in a fight for your life against a horde of zombies. Then provided you either kill everything that moves in the area or you sneak past them, the music will quickly fade out and return to the ambient noise of your environment, letting you know the time of danger has passed. Relying on this did result in me falling for several jump scares, but it holds true for the large majority of the game. In conclusion, given that audio is one of the only two senses you utilize in a game, I am amazed at how often I underappreciated and took for granted the in-game audio, especially in stealth games such as the Last of Us.

Works Cited

Karen Collins, “Gameplay, Genre, and the Functions of Game Audio” from        Game Sound (2008), pp. 123-137

 

Source: Can you hear me now?

GT-Audio

Lawrence King

Lawrence King

Digital Narratives

Sample

March 2, 2018

In this game log, I want to focus on the audio of GTA V. I’m going to talk about how the sound of GTA V affects the game. I’ll focus on the diegetic sounds of the game. I’ll also talk about the effect the audio had on me personally while playing the game during my session.

GTA V has a lot of audio. It’s a free-world game and there’s an entire city full of people and they all have something to say. When I’m walking the streets, I hear people talking about their problems and casual topics. I can hear the cars passing, the waves of the water and the animals. When I’m driving, I have the option to choose from multiple radio stations. I can play music from multiple genres like hip-hop, rock, and Spanish music. There’s even one station that is hosted by real-life comedian and actor JB Smoove. He’s mostly known for his recurring role in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” starring Larry David.

In addition to music, there’s also the sounds of the weapons. The gunshots are clear and authentic, the roar of a car’s engine, the explosion from a rocket-launcher, etc. All of the sounds make the GTA world more realistic and believable. These sounds are sounds that you hear in real life and so you expect to hear them in this kind of game otherwise the immersion spell is broken, and you believe the game’s story a little less.

The audio in this game did have an effect on me. Hearing the popular music from today made me happy and set the mood for me. Listening to some of my favorite comedians, like JB Smoove, speak on the radio made me laugh. Listening to the slang of some of the characters made me feel like I was in my old neighborhood. The sounds from the weapons made me focus more on the game and the environment and put me in survival mode. Without the audio, GTA V would not be as immersive or realistic. It’s an important aspect of the game that would drastically affect the game’s popularity and appeal if it wasn’t included.

Source: GT-Audio

The Plot Thickens! – Narrative Architecture in Rusty Lake: Roots

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Henry Jenkins, in “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” considers the relationship between games and story.  He examines the tension in the scholarly community between those who wish to privilege the mechanics of games in their studies, the Ludologists, and those who focus on the storytelling aspect, the Narratologists.  Jenkins proposes a middle ground, one that asserts that many games tell stories while acknowledging that they tell them in ways unique to the medium.  Rusty Lake: Roots, is a highly narrative driven game, and I believe it departs from Jenkins’s characterization of typical video game storytelling in its clearly linear and unchangeable narrative progression.  In doing so, however, it may limit the freedom and exploration players come to associate with games.

Rusty Lake: Roots, is an epic family drama, spanning across generations.  Each level contains its own narrative, telling the story of a key moment in the family’s history.  These stories range from birth to death, marriage to betrayal, conspiracy to rescue.  Jenkins characterizes traditional video game storytelling as episodic.  He explains that “Each episode…can become compelling on its own terms without contributing significantly to the plot development and often, the episodes could have been reordered without significantly impacting our experiences as a whole (7).  Rusty Lake: Roots somewhat defies this description of video games.  The narrative of the game, while occurring in individual episodes, has a clear arc and could not easily be reordered without losing a great deal of coherence.  For example, in one early episode, Albert throws Emma’s baby into a well.  In a subsequent level, Emma hangs herself due to the heartbreak of losing her child. Several levels later, the player finds herself in that well helping the now-grown child, Frank, to escape.  In another level, Frank kills Albert.  This sub-plot is but one of several narratives that follow a more traditional literary plot structure.

This clear narrative structure is due in large part to the family tree structure by which the game is organized.  After each level, the player returns to the tree and a branch grows, displaying a new level to play that quite literally stems from the previous one.  The narratives, therefore, follow a clear chain of cause-and-effect, as I identified earlier with the Frank narrative.  While this structured approach to storytelling allows for a fascinating, easy-to-follow narrative, it certainly constrains players’ freedom.  Jenkins identifies this concern, explaining that too much plotting can detract from the exploratory nature of games.  Rusty Lake: Roots falls into this trap.  Players can solve the puzzle on each level, but ultimately have little to no control over the outcome of the narrative.  The choices the player makes have no impact on the story, which may be frustrating to players who prefer freedom within a game world.

The game’s family tree displays how each narrative episode progresses from the last

Rusty Lake: Roots is not a traditional game.  Everything, from its graphics (stylized two dimensional drawings), to its mechanics (simple pointing and clicking), to its structure (a clear narrative progression with little player agency), departs from the usual big-budget video game conventions.  However, as an indie game, Rusty Lake: Roots is able to take risks and experiment with storytelling.  The result is a rich, sprawling story worthy of a Gothic novel enacted in a video game.

Source: The Plot Thickens! – Narrative Architecture in Rusty Lake: Roots

Questionable Representations of Race in Kingdom Hearts 2

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Though Kingdom Hearts one of my favorite franchises ever, I have always been bothered by the representations of race in the game. This has always been questionable territory for the game, and can be tricky to argue for or against because the races of the characters are generally intentionally ambiguous. This is due to the fact that the main trio travel across worlds and visit nondescript original locations (alongside the more familiar Disney worlds) and their home is an equally nondescript island paradise in the middle of nowhere. Though it seems to be a common opinion that Sora, Riku, and Kairi are of Japanese descent due to the production company being Japanese, there is no concrete answer to this question, Regardless, it is obvious that the majority of the characters in the game are depicted as light skinned.

In Kingdom Hearts 2, however, it becomes more apparent that there is a specific usage of dark-skinned characters to depict evil, or the ability to be corrupted and ultimately become evil. Though the main argument for this aesthetic choice is that they represent humanoid embodiments of darkness—a key concept in the game—the implications of this choice are still inherently problematic in suggesting that people with dark skin are also more likely to be devoid of compassion, sanity, or complex emotions. One example that stands out to me from the beginning of the game is the early representation of DiZ, a mysterious character who appears for the first time as a manipulative bad-guy. Since I’ve played through the whole game before, I know that he is actually on the side of the heroes, but what interests me about this reveal is the way his character is portrayed when he is assumed to be evil, and how he is portrayed when he discloses his true persona.

DiZ at the beginning of the game (assumed to be evil) versus his “true form” at the end of the game after being proven good.

As you can see from above, DiZ is originally shown as a character who is mostly concealed, but the little visible skin is notably dark. However, when he takes off his disguise and becomes “Ansem the Wise”, this persona is dropped, perhaps indirectly (and very problematically) suggesting that a black character can be neither wise nor good.

Another prickly example is the appearance shift of the character Riku. As the anti-hero protagonist, Riku has perhaps the most complex character arc across the course of the games, but the most drastic shift of his characterization is in Kingdom Hearts 2, where he gives up his physical form to the darkness in order to become stronger and save his friends. This is what happens:

Riku’s appearance in KH1, the first big chunk of KH2, and the ending of KH2 when he relinquishes the darkness from his body.

There are hints dropped every so often in the beginning of the game, but the big reveal of his new form is not until much later, and the power of friendship manages to revert him to his original appearance (and give him not one, but TWO vests). However, it is safe to say that this shift is questionable at best. In the first game, it was already clear that he was the most susceptible to negative emotions, so the change in his appearance seems unnecessary and doesn’t do much but reinforce the idea that dark-skinned bodies are inherently villainous, and light-skinned ones are in some way more pure or more worthy of redemption.

Though these are thoughts I’ve had for quite some time, Anna Everett’s Power of Play article reinforced my thoughts, particularly when she said: “these games draw heavily from racist discourses already circulating in popular and mainstream culture and arguably intensify these messages and lessons of racial difference through the power and allure of interactive gameplay” (142). Though she was technically talking about a different kind of game entirely (the urban street game vs. a JRPG), I think the statement is still very much applicable to Kingdom Hearts. It is not an uncommon trope for dark bodies to be demonized in media, and seems particularly potent in a game aimed at younger audiences. Though the game is pretty dated, it’s unfortunately very unlikely that this is a problem that will be fixed in the long awaited Kingdom Hearts 3.

Works Referenced: 

Anna Everett and S. Craig Watkins, “The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games” from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning (2007), pp. 141–164

Source: Questionable Representations of Race in Kingdom Hearts 2

When World’s Collide: Audio and How it Effects a Game’s “Presence”

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In  “The Psychology of Immersion,” Jamie Madigan claims that there are a number of factors that can contribute to a games “immersiveness.” Among the most important factors are audio, visuals, cognitively demanding environments, and a strong narratives. Madigan further posits that a game that has “multiple channels of sensory input” or more of these factors working at once, the more immersive said game will be.

While it is true that a game that operates within multiple channels will typically be more immersive, I would argue that with Fortnite gameplay, auditory stimuli becomes the predominant factor that drives the games “presence.”  In Fortnite, the audio doesn’t merely exist as a “channel” that adds to the gaming experience, as Madigan outlines. It is basically a requirement to play the game well and therefore becomes its own living breathing thing that drives the gameplay. With a form of sensory input driving your experience rather than just being a part of it, its hard not to accept the gameplay as reality.

For example, the sound in Fortnite is engineered in a way that live sound from other players in the game helps construct the 3-D space around you.  If someone is walking on the floor above you or someone shoots a gun from your right side, you can clearly tell where they are and how far away.  Without a map that shows enemies on it in real time, these auditory clues are all you have to piece together an image of the game space as it relates to other players, effectively creating a world where auditory stimuli is basically operating as part of the “cognitively demanding environment.”

If you look at Fortnite’s cartoonish elements and other formal aspects of the game’s design on their own, it’s very easy to take yourself out of the game, especially considering that the game operates with a third person view of your avatar rather than a first person one.  However, since the auditory aspect of the game drives the high level of cognitive demand , you can easily forget about the fact that the game doesn’t have photo-realistic graphics because you are too wrapped up in making sure you are aware of your surroundings.  In addition, even though some of the sounds in the game aren’t ones you would hear in the real world, the way you interact with the game’s auditory stimuli is so in tune with how we experience the real world, it is seamless enough as you step into this game world that you almost can’t tell the difference (or at least don’t have time to think about it while your in the game).

Here is an example of auditory stimuli in Fortnite is integral to the gameplay.  There are glowing chests all over the map that contain “loot” (guns, ammo, health objects, etc.) and  this video demonstrates how you can hear the chests and other players in the game even before you can see them. If a chest is hidden behind something or on the floor above you, you can easily tell exactly where it is because of the auditory cues. Without this audio, your gaming experience would be extremely incomplete and a complete experience equals an immersive one.

 

 

 

Source: When World’s Collide: Audio and How it Effects a Game’s “Presence”

Not Just Another Clone

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In many of today’s video games women are viewed in a negative light, whether they be overly sexualized, weak, or the victims of violence; however, Star Wars Battlefront 2 helps to push back against this more traditional way of viewing women in video games. While Star Wars Battlefront 2 does not explicitly deal with race it certainly makes some comments about gender portrayal in video games, akin to some of the racial and gender comments made by Anna Everett in Power of Play.

As Everett says, “An area of growing concern is the role of games in the learning experiences and environments of youth,” which is perpetuated by the stereotypical and over sexualized ways women are viewed in video games (141). Traditionally in video games, women are viewed through a sexual lens and/or as weak, disposable characters, which is emphasized in GTA where “[. . .] women remain marginal and generally figure as props, bystanders, eye candy, and prizes to be won” (Everett 148). This description that Everett provides is similar to my experience of female characters in any video game I have played or watched. It is in this area that Star Wars Battlefront 2 is vastly different from the countless video games that help perpetuate these stereotypes.

In the campaign mode of Star Wars Battlefront 2 the player plays as an Imperial trooper, Iden Versio. When the player first starts the campaign mode he or she will almost immediately notice that the main character, and the only human character the player can use is a women. Unlike other female characters in video games Iden Versio is the protagonist, and the player cannot select a male lead if he or she wants to. Additionally, Versio is in no way sexualized. She has the same uniform as her fellow imperial troopers, and when she removes her helmet her face appears like that of a normal human woman.

The initial load screen for campaign mode featuring Iden Versio

Another interesting feature is that Versio is a commander within the Imperial army, she is privy to information that her subordinates are not, and she leads important, dangerous missions. While Versio is not quite an example of “femme disturbance” in the manner that Amanda Phillips discusses the term with Bayonetta, she is an example of a woman breaking into the male dominated arena of warfare (111). While Star Wars Battlefront 2 takes place in a fictitious universe with a contrived plot, it takes an important step forward in confronting the stereotype of women in video games.

This is a photo of Iden Versio without her helmet

Source: Not Just Another Clone

The Art of Murder

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source

disclaimer: This game is different from the game I had chosen as the console game in the first round of game logs. I realized I hadn’t play the game enough to get a good grasp on it and it would be awhile before I am able to play it again.

Hitman: Blood Money is extraordinarily juicy game that has absolutely terrible immersion. Rather than playing through a series of maps or advancing through different areas, Blood Money forces the player to on several missions that often have nothing to do with the previous one. First, I have to talk about perspective. The game is naturally set in third person which already eliminates most of the immersive element. The objectives for each levels are explained by a disembodied authoritarian figure, similar to a Bond girl feeding information into 007’s mic. There are extensive cut-scenes filled with details and narration that take away from any realistic depictions.

While the actual framing of the game is fairly poor, one of the good immersive aspect is the gameplay itself. Although we are given who to kill and why we are killing them, there are numerous ways we can do it. The game doesn’t show you the best way to sneakily assassinate somebody or where any of the weapons and shortcuts are. What a player does, excluding the killing of the target, is pretty open ended. You don’t have to kill any civilians or non targets, but are given the option to. Most of the time you are allowed to use any weapons you want and you must complete a series of task efficiently through a series of trial and error. While there are plenty of diegetic sounds, the game would not be completed without dramatic music whenever you alert a bunch of guards or the glorious sounds of “Ave Maria” during the final sequence as you slaughter all those who betrayed you. Although it is not most immersive game in an aesthetic sense, the choices and freedom that you are given while playing makes up for all the shoe-horned cut-scenes.

Source: The Art of Murder

Dark Souls? More like Mod Souls

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When starting up Dark Souls for the very first time on a PC, it quickly becomes very apparent that the game was not initially intended to ever be ported over to PC. The control scheme for the mouse and keyboard is exceptionally terrible and seems to have been created with no previous thought. If players did not have an Xbox or PlayStation controller they could connect to their PC, they could kiss their dreams of playing Dark Souls goodbye. Certain areas of the game are so horribly optimized (an issue that consoles also experienced but to a lesser extent) that the framerate is barely able to maintain a constant 30 frames per second and often drops far below that. In short, the base PC port is a terrible experience that many eager PC players were initially disappointed with.

Keyboard layout for PC players

On September 19th, 2012 the PC Dark Souls community rejoiced. An individual that used the name Durante released the father of all Dark Souls mods, DSfix. DSfix allowed players to actually change graphics settings that were causing the game to run poorly. The player was finally given the opportunity to mess around with different settings such as the motion blur, anti-aliasing, rendering width and height, and much more to their individual likings. Unfortunately, for players who are not as savvy, modifying the settings to their liking might seem a little more intimidating because the modifications are presented in the form of a text document. Mistyping just one setting might make the entire game unplayable.

Text document where the modifications take place

Luckily other individuals have made this process easier for players by creating their own modifications that aim to make the base modification’s interface much more user-friendly. User Morten242 created their own mod which they named UI for DSfix which creates an interface that allows the player to modify their version of Dark Souls with clear separations between each section.

Interface that Morten242’s mod creates for the user

The ability to mod Dark Souls is what allowed for the founding of a dedicated fanbase to the series within the PC community as discussed in the Postigo piece. The DSfix mod essentially worked as a massive patch that addressed most of the foundations within the design flaws present in the PC port of the game. They were able to bypass and improve on many of the issues that were present in the base port and in doing so, could finally just enjoy the game itself.

Source: Dark Souls? More like Mod Souls