Pixelating Emotions

So first of all its been a while, I know.  But I'm hoping that I can leisurely keep up posting here through the future even though time has very easily gotten away from me.  A lot has changed in my life and this is something that I would really love to keep up because it allows me a creative release and a place to go into a deep discussions.  I cannot promise a weekly post, but I can promise more frequently than what I was doing previously.  So with that being said, lets get started.

So I really want to cover an issue that has been in and out of the spotlight pretty consistently for the past couple of years but has recently gained a considerable amount of ground.  This subject is none other than: Emotions and Video Games.  Now this subject can be quite a large mountain to tackle, especially when considering its entire scope.  So I really want to narrow it down and just talk about emotions portrayed in video games through the writing in the games.  However, just to hammer how large this subject is I would like to point out a couple of different topics and let you ponder them on your own, but you never know we might cover them later.  So outside of emotions portrayed through writing, video games deal with emotion through attachment to a players character (such as in an MMO), emotion through the artistic direction in the game, emotion through the a concept explored through both game play and story line (and this is different than what we will be talking about today).  As you can see there is a large number of ways games can possibly display emotions.

But as promised I want to look at a display of emotions through writing.  Now, this can be done in a couple of different ways, but at their cores, its all the same.  Emotion through writing is the actions, dialogue, and events of any character(s) in a game makes the player feel something other than an overwhelming sense of meh.  A great example of this is in Gears of War 2, oh yea, spoiler alert here (though that should be obvious), specifically the scene where Marcus and Dom are searching the prison camps to find Maria.  When Dom finally does find her we have a unique chance to experience something deeper than the usual tone of the game.  The way we are experiencing emotion through writing here is the setup from the rest of the game up to this point, and even earlier as well, from the books.  You see, throughout the game the writers hint at 2 very different things: 1) Maria is dead and Dom will find only despair at the end of his long 13 year search, or 2) Maria is alive, living with the Stranded, and a happy reunion awaits for them when he finds her, thus giving Dom hope for the future.  But instead neither one of these happens to be true, and yet both are true.  You see, Dom finds out that Maria is alive, and because of that he fights on only to find her broken, a mere husk of her former self.  Dom is distraught by this, and at the sight of her he realizes that he truly has lost his family.  So he decides that the only thing to do is to remember her as she was and end her suffering.  Now I'm NOT going to get into a discussion as to if this was right, but it really got to me as one of those times where I realized that even a game like Gears of War, has a heart deep down.

Seriously man, the feels.

Another well known example is when Aerith died in Final Fantasy VII.  I'm not going to go into detail with this, because I'm sure we all know what happened.  But, even more importantly, the backlash from the fans was astronomical.  I know people who have sworn off Final Fantasy completely after that, and that's just a start.  Numerous people felt betrayed when she died.  Killing off a main character like that was rarely done in such a big name title like that.

Negative emotions aren't the only thing that writing in games can make someone feel either, multiple games bring a wide range of other emotions to the table.  One of the happiest moments I ever felt was in Kingdom Hearts when, at the very end, Sora, Riku, and Kairi were briefly reunited before Riku and King Mickey had to seal Kingdom Hearts from the other side.  I mean, it was like, finally!!  Sora is reunited with his best friend again!!!  But as we all know nothing lasts forever, and yet again in Kingdom Hearts 2 we get to feel the same thing that we felt before, a overbearing sense of joy that Sora, and by extension, the player has been able to overcome everything in front of them, and prove that the power of friendship and love is nothing to trifle with, and that even the smallest amount of light can shine through the darkness.  And better yet, at the send of the second one we finally get what we were asking for: a happy ending at Destiny's Island.  Moments of pure elation are abundant in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Heart 2.  And all of them are done through writing.

At long last, a happy ending.

Now there is a second way for games to show emotion through writing, and that is a direct tie into the the characters themselves displaying emotion.  Okay, okay, I'll admit that this one should be obvious, but it is truly easy to overlook.  Most people don't think of the writing as displaying emotion this way because in games all we hear and realize as writing is the dialogue, but this couldn't be further from the truth.  In fact everything that happens is because of a writer.  Think of a movie as a visual book.  We only hear the dialogue of the book but we can see all of the events take place, we may miss out on some of the descriptors, like cool water, or searing pain, but we can take in more information faster this way.  Now lets extend that analogy to considering video games to be interactive movies (I know some people will argue about how this isn't the case, but that's not really the point here).  In a video game we experience everything that we do in the movie, except for the fact that games are usually much longer, and allow a player to play a direct part in the narrative, now if this is a main role or a supporting role depends on the game, but either way, we experience everything that is happening directly.

But what does this have to do with character emotion?  Well honestly the same way that emotions are portrayed in a book applies to a game, as a player we have to do a better job at interpreting these emotions, this is because they're not spelled out for us, but this does not mean that they're not there.  I mean, imagine if instead of playing God of War (the first one, not anything after, we don't need any rage-filled hate monsters here), you were to read God of War as a book instead.  You would not need to interpret Kratos' emotions through his dialogue or his animation in the game, instead you would have a direct look into his mind about what he is feeling.  For example, when Kratos gets impaled by Ares, we as players know that he is seemingly hopeless because he feels he has lost.  We understand this because we can interpret his reaction to this event.  However in a book we might see something like: "And the instant the pilar had impaled him, a wave of hoplessness washed over him as he came to realize that this could be the end of his quest."  As you can see, when directly told something, the emotions of how the character feels is much easier to convey than having to interpret them from their dialogue and actions.

A very powerful moment in a game often needs to be interpreted.

Now something else I would like to point out before I leave you for today is none of these four primary methods of conveying emotions should ever act independently in a game.  Can they, yes, should they, no.  To do so would be to rob the player of an essential part of the gaming experience, the unique element that only a game can allow a player to experience.  A true sense of immersion, and a true sense of experience is gained when developers use all of these tools in unison to create an experience, and not when they use one as a crutch that half heartily gets the point across.  Remember this the next time you play a game, and see if you can start to pick up on what the developers are doing, and then take time to compare it to other games.  You might just be surprised.  See ya next time!

The Gear that Keeps Turning

So first I want to apologize about all of the Gears of War posts so far but this will be the last one for a while, that I plan on of course.  Also I apologize for the delay, I've been a bit busy.  But in addition the usual spoiler warning goes into effect with this post.  So here we go.

Last week we saw the launch of Gears of War 3, and also the end of the franchise.  With this end comes a lot of questions, and a lot of answers, but not only about the storyline.  For example Gears of War was a franchise both every unique and very familiar all at the same time, whether it was the unique cover based, third-person shooting or the underlining story of the game, where there are two sets of primary dominant species on Sera, the Humans and the Locust.

Today I'm going to dissect the second of those impacts, the story.  For any of us who have read the Gears of War novels by Karen Travis you know that there really is a lot of back story to this universe.  And just by looking at the first game, before the back story became as big as it is now, we can tell that it is just hinted as to how big it could be.  The first Gears of War book, Aspho Fields, was released almost a month before the second game.  Aspho Fields, for those who don't know, covers the events leading up to the development of the Hammer of Dawn and ultimately how Marcus, Carlos, and Dom became Gears.  This is coincidentally the first time we meet Bernie, Carlos, Adam Fenix and Helena Stroud.  Like I said a lot of back story.

Aspho Fields by Karen Traviss

All 3 novels were written by Karen Traviss, and coincidentally so was Gears 3, I personally tribute her the reason that Gears 3 had such a focus on its story.  BUT the big point here is that if it were not for Karen Traviss would we have the Gears of War story we have today?  Probably not, mainly because she did do so much of it, even if Epic decided to hamper her creativity by adding limitations to her stories and forcing a lot of major elements or events to occur (which probably did happen).

Why is this important though?  It's important because Gears of War has a rather unique story to drive it, like I mentioned earlier, there are 2 dominant species on the planet.  It's almost a classic war of technology vs. nature, actually I lied, it IS a classic war of technology vs. nature.  On one side we have the COG with a very high tech military, including a satellite weapons system, and on the other theres the Locust, whose vehicles are quite literally subterranean animals with saddles.   But then we add in our secondary humans, the Stranded, they almost act like a morally grey middle ground, same goals as the COG but a lot more lawless.

Saddle Up

So to me the 3 initial factions act upon basic human nature, the nature to advance, the nature to survive, and the nature to conquest.  Where we have the COG, Stranded, and Locust respectfully.  I draw this conclusion because of what each faction ultimately stands for.  While the war itself is almost a message telling us that if we want super advanced technology we can't forget about where we come from as a species.  Nature is something to preserve because it is scary.  I mean for example there are plenty of things that can kill a human, from a spider the size of your finger to a bear 3 times the size of you.

For example, this could kill you.

This historical value of the Pendulum Wars in Gears can also teach us a valuable lesson.  The lesson here is that fighting over fuel is just plain silly, as is a huge land grab or even a small disagreement.  The COG and the UIR fought mercilessly for almost 100 years to end up being attacked by an enemy that quite frankly didn't care.  One of my favorite quotes from the game is where Adam Fenix says "What if our next enemy doesn't think like us?  We need to be prepared for a situation where this is the case."  This quote really hits home the fact that no matter what you need to be prepared, and both the COG and UIR were not.

So next we enter the Lambent, they are quite literally a parasite upon the world, like a giant mushroom that can also infect people.  Very similar to the green goo in Killzone 3 encasing the entire world in poison.  The Lambent represent a more feral side of human nature, one that doesn't really conserve or care, it just consumes all in its path.  There is a lesson to learn from the Lambent however, be mindful of your actions and their repercussions.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and people need to be mindful of this.

The appropriate reaction to this is "Awwwwww"

Now I'm not trying to shove a political lesson down your throat our teach you some big humanistic lesson, because frankly I don't care, I also don't actively try to preserve nature.  All I'm trying to make a point here is that sometimes it pays to take 2 seconds to critically think about a situation before just jumping right in and trying to solve the problem.

Gears of War 3 Review

Okay guys, here it is: My review of Gears of War 3.  And just because I can I'm gonna go ahead and throw one of these in here:

Obvious warning is obvious.

Okay so now that thats out of the way and those who don't want to know anything about what happens have left I can get on with it!.

So if you remember, last week I kinda covered what happened in Gears 1 and 2 for all those who either couldn't/too high to remember or who were too lazy to go play it through themselves.  Well it turns out that most of those events were deemed "unimportant" by Epic seeing as they didn't end up in their "Previously on Gears.." video.  So eh, be glad I posted it or hate me for wasting your time.

Gears 3 on the other hand starts off with a flashback, Marcus in prison, only this time Anya releases him.  After going out side tou fight Locust in a dream about how Marcus' father, Adam, "died".  Waking from the dream Delta squad is called to action stations, this is where we meet Jace.  We go outside to see Labment stalks surrounding the ship.  Prescott lands, after a mere 18 months of being on vacation from saving humanity, and brings with him news of Adam.  The Lambent attack, people die and remember that GIANT FISH?  Well this time its back, only now it glows in the dark.  Needless to say you gotta kill it, so lets take these things called Silverbacks, exosuits with a machine gun and rocket launcher, or in other words:  fun.  You serve fish Medium Rare and cut to Cole and Baird.

Samantha Byrne

Jace Stratton

Cole and Baird were sent to look for supplies along with Clayton Carmine, the badass older brother, and Sam Byrne, some badass female gear who tries to act like she's not a girl.  They visit Coles home city of Hanover, and eventually his old stadium where he has a cinematic moment of famedom for old times.  Then onto the bridge to see Stranded Locust, and Tickers in crates, which is how they kill the Lambent Leviathan.  Act 2 goes through some clean up of the wreckage to find Delta squad and get to Prescotts dying ass to see why he came back.  Turns out there is a research base called Azura where Adam Fenix is working on a Lambent killer so we set off to a place called Anvil Gate.  And on the way we dodge Locust attacks and Queen Myrrah and here skank ass as Cole so adeptly puts it.

Queen Myrrah

After picking up Dizzy and getting to Anivl gate to meet up with Hoffman and Bernie, and Islander with a few screws loose in her head.  The locust attack, followed by Lambent and oh joy our favorite thing in the world: a Lambent Berserker.  If you thought the Berserkers had some bad mood swings the Zerker makes them look like a well behaved child in 16th Century England.  After the Zerker blows up we see what is going on with Azura, and how to get there: by submarine.  Delta goes off to get fuel from Mercy, where Dom's wife Maria is from, and Char, the first place to be destroyed by the Hammer of Dawn.  In Mercy some bad shit happened and we now have Lambent humans, oh the humanity.  Something else happens that I won't tell you as to not ruin the moment.  Next door in Char we meet up with some Griffin guy, voiced by the one and only Ice T, who runs a Immulsion factory there, needless to say he doesn't like the COG.  Myrrah attacks and everyone gets pissed and leaves to find a submarine to take to Azura. 

After fixing the sub up and having a nice fun little moment of fishing with rocket launchers we get to Azura, and let the revelations hit the fan.  I won't ruin all of them so don't worry.  Delta proceeds to turn off the Malestorm generator that protects the island in order to land some backup from former enemies UIR state Goryasna.  You climb a tower to get to Adam Fenix where our favorite Queen tries to stop you while she bitches that despite working on the Lambent problem for twenty years he has had no success and she wont let her "people" die.  After wiping out the Locust guarding Adam you reach the top of the tower and proceed to turn on the "Weapon" which is like a giant microwave emitter that combusts Lambent cells all over the planet.  Turns out the Lambent are actually a parasitic mushroom that kills its host because its not a very good parasite.  Long and short you stab the Queen, watch Adam die and see Carmine Live/Die (come on, did you really think that I was going to ruin this one?).

Clayton Carmine: Professional Badass

The only downsides to the campaign is that they figured that you would have read the books before playing the game, which makes sense but not everyone is a reader (Insert plea for a Gears movie here).  They also seem to forget that killing Lambent takes up a lot of ammo and that more ammo boxes would really help.  Also if anyone seems to recall your favorite non pistol/Lancer/Gnasher weapon and you decide to pick it up, just be smart and conserve ammo, or you will run out.  The large ammo boxes no longer fully restore your ammo to max, or even give you ammo on all guns so it forces you to play smart.  The Retro Lancer makes its debut in Gears 3 and its does give itself a good showing.  While its melee is really good and powerful, aiming with it while shooting feels like trying to steer a charging Rhino while being attacked by a chimpanzee.  The Hammerburst and Longshot also both take on a new feature; The Hammerburst shows off its Iron Sights while the Longshot brags a non zoomed focus where you click RS to zoom on in.

Delta fighting the Lambent.

The Silverback and Civilian Loader both control rather similarly but the both boast a melee attack that can hardly be called effective, or at least under fire.  Two new "turret" weapons make an appearance: the One Shot and the Vulcan.  The One Shot is just that, a high powered sniper rifle that probably shoots bowling balls where the Leveler is a 2 man gun that is fast on the feet but needs a second person to load.

Now, no matter what you thought of the campaign you do have to give them props for everything else, more multiplayer based achievements, community events, 4 player Co-Op, and Berserkes in Horde mode.  Thats right, Berserkers in Horde mode, also did I mention that they come in the Lambent variety too?  Overall all of the multiplayer is really good, people just need to learn how to not leave the damn game after dying one time.

As I said before Horde mode had a total overhaul where you can build barriers and turrets to help defend yourself against attack, or you can save your in game money to buy ammo and weapons, unless the enemies are being generous and drop theirs on the ground for you to loot.  You get money for every point you earn and thats how you get upgrades to your turrets and weapons, and even a second life.  Every 10 waves there is a boss fight that can range from anything from a Brumak to a Zerker (fun).  Every so often you'll get some Lambent and Locust and then its a 3 way fight where you still want to get in close and personal just so you don't loose any chances to make money.  Now opposite to Horde is a mode called Beast mode.  In Beast mode you play as the Locust to kill humans.  Now thats an interesting twist, you play as the underdogs for once, wait, wait, in the whole campaign don't they always complain that Locust are so much "more powerful" and "better equipped" than humans?  Well Beast mode doesn't feel that way.  This may be because you're timed, and all the barricades are pretty much fully built with auto-turrets.  Its pretty fun, but its also pretty hard, yet again making you think.

Lambent Berserker

Overall Gears 3 is a great way to end a great series.  Going out on a high note on almost every aspect of the game, with stress on the almost part.  The graphics and sound keep up from the last games and like I said the gameplay is almost the same.  However I do thoroughly enjoy it and will keep playing it for a while yet to come.  Gears of War 3 gets a blood-gushing 9 curbstomps, out of 10.