Types of Games?

So I've been researching for my final paper and I've found that there has been little done in the field of Video Game Theory, at least towards developing a language similar to the one found in animation and film theory. It is my personal belief that not all objects can be art unless put into the proper context. In most cases of traditional art, that context is within a gallery setting and the paradigm of art criticism. But video games are particularly problematic. It's difficult to even truly pin down exactly what a video game is. It's such a broad term for many, many different kinds of interactive media.

I do not believe that Counter Strike or Street Fighter are art. I don't believe this because I know they do not fulfill several very important elements that all art share. But I do believe that Shadow of the Colossus and Half-Life 2 could be art. I say could be because I'm not sure how to place them within the art paradigm- how to actually analyze them as art. These objects are not created as art, they are created as pop-culture. But in the same vein that film theorists can speak about popular film, we should be able to analyze and interpret these games through theory. But what sets these games apart from the first batch is they are narratively driven, with a goal that is not about winning so much as it is about 'completing.' I don't think anyone would say that Football is an art, and even if someone did make that claim I highly doubt they could actually support it. Well, I would say competitive games are more akin to sports in this case, and as such are not to be discussed as art. The same goes for most 'arcade' game classics, though if placed in a gallery I'm sure we could find something to say about them. I just doubt it would be derived from the gameplay.

So what does everyone else think? When analyzing games, should a specific set of games be set aside for consideration? Should we do away with the term video game altogether to find a more fitting name for non-competitive games?

Happy easter everybody!

I'm posting from my phone, as I'm riding back to carbondale, so sorry for the brief post.

So I was preparing for my final paper, and I started reading up on video game theory. The field is largely undeveloped when compared to film and litterary theory, and as such there still is a lot of work to do when it comes to defining the unique properties that games have. So, I have a question for everyone: what makes games unique from other mediums? Can you define it? How would you go about describing and analyzing it?

On Limited Animation

Upon finishing the limited animation chapter of Art In Motion, I found myself reminiscing the cartoons and animated films I had seen throughout my life. And as I look back through them, and frequent youtube videos, it has become apparent that limited animation has become so ordinary that I fail to notice it. No, even more than that, I've been conditioned to actually like the techniques used in limited animation.

Perhaps it was my interest in anime over the last ten years of my life, or my love of old Hannah Barbara cartoons, but anymore I find myself drawn to the aesthetic qualities that come from limited animation. Not only have I come to expect background characters to remain still, I enjoy the technique my more than if the characters were constantly moving.

In the past, I've seen cartoons, games, and 3d animations that look to replicate a certain realism by animating everything in the frame. I often see this in motion captured 3d animation and rotoscoped animation. I can't stand it when the characters are needlessly fidgeting or moving when they are not the focus of the shot. It drives me crazy.

For instance, remember the movie Monster House? The mo-cap in that movie is so difficult to watch because the characters wobble all over the place. If they had just kept them still and used some limited animation I would have greatly preferred it.

Also, though it's sort of cheesy and definitely used to cut corners, I like the dramatic still shots that they use in anime. The shots of mouths smiling, or two men staring each other down, are great in my opinion. They put more emphasis on the composition of the shot instead of the movements. I think this is one thing that sets Japanese animation so far ahead of American- they understand the image as well as the movements. But that's a post for another time.

My Short Stop Motion Animation.

My and Cyrus put together this short little stop motion using iStopmotion, my DVX100A, and a metal armature I had left over from my Production 2 Film. We found that doing stop motion digitally is practically hassle free, as iStopmotion has a ton of productivity tools to keep us consistent and on track. Also, being able to play the clips back, as we work, in real time was a huge help in keeping our armature in place and keeping the motion fairly lifelike. The entire shoot took only 45 minutes, but me and Cyrus are also both practiced in this form of animation, and us working together cut down production time considerably.

But the truth is that stop motion is almost always more time consuming in the Pre-Production stage because of all the character creation, shot planning, and set production. Actually animating the characters is the fun part, as it's relatively intuitive and generally hassle free as long as you're not shooting on film (which brings with it a very large load of hassles and worries). The one thing I still have difficulty with is timing the gestures in a way that seems lifelike. I often put in a few seconds of buffer room inbetween motions in order to give the audience a moment to breath. This drags the animation out a bit, but I think it diminishes the robotic feel that you often see with lower quality stop motion animation.

Chapter 5 of Understanding Animation

The chapter Issues with Representation spoke about how forms and characters are used both positively and negatively to represent human traits, ideas, and abstract concepts. The form of the character takes place of the 'actor' in the framework of an animated film, but animated forms are not subject to the same laws of physics that actual, physical characters are. In their contexts, animated forms are able to carry powers of abstraction and symbolism that human beings cannot. In this way, animated characters can surpass and ascend their social, biological, and political limitations.

Something that is becoming more and more apparent throughout this course is that animation cannot be analyzed in the same manner as traditional film. It's hard to imagine Mickey Mouse or Tom and Jerry as objects or things rather than "people" or "characters." But that's what they are. They're formal entities made of line and paint. Mickey Mouse is an idea before he's a mouse or a man. This is both disheartening and liberating, as it allows an analysis unique to animation, but it also dehumanizes my favorite characters and destroys the suspension of disbelief. After reading the section on gender bending, especially, I doubt I'll be able to simply ignore the underlying gender tensions any longer. It's difficult to not see the overtly sexual undercurrents within many classic cartoons, especially as my own personality and sexuality are constantly being defined and developed.

What about everybody else? Does anybody else resent the fact that the more theory that is read, the further from the material the viewer is pushed?

Animation and Fighting Games

This is something I've wanted to write about for some time now, because, as a psuedo-animator, I find this highly technical talk very fascinating. I don't think there is genre of video game in which animation is more important than the fighting game. The fighting game is such a technical, well oiled machine that even the slightest inconsistency will make or break an experience.


Guilty Gear Accent Core

Like other older video game genres, the original fighting games were defined by their art design and animation. In many ways, fighting games at their inception were interactive cartoons. You choose an animated character and you choose what animations to play out. You have to react to your opponents decisions and counter his attacks in order to deplete his life bar. The scene that plays out often appears as though it could be taken directly from an anime.


Case in point: BlazBlu

But what makes fighting games, and the professional community, so interesting is the knowledge that one must have in order to be competitive. Fighting game pros often analyze specific character animations down to their frames and the speed at which the movements play out. This is incredibly important when trying to plan and memorize a combo for actual use during a tournament. In some ways, a true fighting game master has to know almost as much about animation as the actual animators. This makes it especially easy for people with an understanding of animation to understand the terminology of fighting games. Here's an example:



In order to parry (the blue flashing animation), in Street Fighter 3, a player must hit forward at the exact moment of impact. This makes parrying risky, as missing means you are certain to get hit. This is simple to see and perform when blocking a slow moving or predictable attack. What makes the video so famous is that Daigo (Ken) was able to block multiple attacks from Justin (Chun-Li) in quick succession. The first hit would be difficult enough to time, as there are multiple frame variables to keep in mind when attempting to parry (which is hard to do, and after a successful parry a player is stunned for several frames which resets the animations) Daigo had to press forward once for each specific hit of that move. That means not only memorizing the animation, but also knowing the exact timing of each individual kick.

People might find it hard to believe, but in fighting games people really do look at frame and animation data. I can't say for certain that Daigo studied the data (though he is currently world champion, having beat Justin *USA* AGAIN this year and I wouldn't be surprised if he eats and breathes stuff like this) but it is vital to know because it helps show potential openings in combos and specific moves. For instance, if an opponents punch takes 12 frames to complete, and the move hits in the opening 6, then the other player has those 6 frames to launch a faster attack in order to cancel out the first one. This is very important in knocking an opponent out of a combo string. And all this information is literally useless if you don't actually know a bit about how the characters are animated in the first place.

Still, it's not like a player HAS to know the frame information in order to play, it's just extremely helpful at higher levels of play and when planning and testing combos. For everyone else, the animation is, if anything, simply fun to watch.

Heavy Rain Impressions: Immersion and Animation

I recently had a chance to download and try out the new Playstation 3 game Heavy Rain, an adventure game created by ___, the studio behind ___. Though the demo is short, it illustrates a type of video game that seems to focus heavily on cinematic storytelling and player interactivity. Yet, as I play the demo, I'm not sold that this form of gameplay is actually as immersive as it presents itself to be.

E3: Heavy Rain 'Casting Call'

As for what the game does well, the animation in the game is a level of realism that is absolutely incredible. I don't quite know how to emphasize this properly, because there have been many games before it that have toted lifelike visuals, but this is the first game I've seen that actually uses motion capturing (which I find generally comes up looking awful and unnatural in video games) to an extent that presents realistic facial movements and body gestures. In this way the game does very well in suspending the disbelief of the viewer, and pulling the audience into its world. Every detail in the game has been absolutely slaved over, as nothing in the environments seems unnecessary or trivial. The developers clearly put a lot of time and effort into building their virtual mis-en-scene elements. For instance, in one scene of the game, you find yourself in a woman's apartment- every bit of the environment can and should be meticulously analyzed, as it all helps to build character and solve the mysteries within the storyline. Compare this to a game like Halo where more often than not we see the same rooms, textures, and objects repeated over and over again in order to bring variety to a game that's based upon repetitious, action based problem solving.

So the game is visually impressive, but what about the gameplay? Well, the honest truth is that the gameplay serves to run opposite to the visuals. Before I continue, I should note that there is room in the world for many times of games and gameplay mechanics, and I'm sure that the game I'm going to describe will seem appetizing to some players. But when I see the excellent character models, settings, sound, and animations, I am baffled that they would structure a game model around such stilted mechanics. In the game, you rarely have direct control over your character. When presented with an action, or a situation, you are given few options for interactivity. We have several types of actions available, first being ratations. Rotations of the thumbstick that are used in place of motion controls. An example would be pressing up on the right thumbstick (when indicated) in order to push open a door or even rotating the stick to simulate turning the doorknob. Another action is pressing the R2 button in order to walk forward. The movement is awkward and clumsy, as turning a character like a car is difficult in claustrophobic environments. Finally, we have quick timed events that use the shoulder and face buttons during choreographed sequences. Missing buttons in the sequence changes the outcome of the scene, but it's a fairly disconnected way to interact with the game.

What all of these mechanics have in common, however, is that they serve to disconnect the player from his character. More often than not, I feel like I'm simply directing the player character in a specific direction and watching the action take place. Though what's happening on screen is often interesting and exciting, it's not a terribly immersive experience. I have to ask, when playing this game, why this story was not just made into a film. I can't help but wonder how having more control over my character would have hurt my gameplay experience. In fact, I don't see why the right thumbstick controls were implemented at all over industry standard button presses.

Still, I only played the demo, and I hold onto hope that the final product will provide an experience that is more than an interactive film. Video Games have a lot of potential for interesting storytelling, and they probably still have a long time to mature, but games like this beg the question: Specifically what is a video game, and what is it that games do best? Is it interactive storytelling? Is it delivering an experience through immersion? The problem I see with this kind of storytelling is that subjectivity is lost when the player becomes detached from his avatar. You are mostly an observer at this point, and I believe a certain amount of empathy is lost when in this disconnection. It's a much different experience actually controlling and becoming your character rather than simply pointing your character in the right direction.