Saints Row 2 - A Final Worth Mentioning!

Greetings fellow humans!

This piece will be the final post for Literature (Link) 220.

Humble Beginnings

To start off, the game that will be examined is Saints Row 2 (Link). I know that this most likely doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone as I’ve mentioned this particular game multiple times while in class. But there’s a reason for that: Saints Row 2 has done everything right to ensure that it is a creative and economic success. Volition, the game developing company who created Saints Row 2, has included many options and features to expand the enjoyment and engagement of the player. This post will examine what Volition did to make the game such a wonderful success. Specifically we’ll look at the multiplayer options in Saints Row 2 and find out whether such options were a vital part.

A Biased Word of Warning

Before I write anymore on this topic, I must share that I am completely biased toward this particular game. In a word, I love it. For the majority of my lifetime, I’ve been a gamer. Whether it was friends at the arcade, family time on the weekends playing board games, or messing around on a old 286 computer (Link), gaming has been a way of life. Further, having owned and played many hundreds of various titles for consoles and the Personal Computer (PC), it could be safely stated that I am no amateur gamer. Yet, in the past couple of months since playing with Saints Row 2, I’ve had more fun that I have in a very long time. Sure, I’ve enjoyed many of the other titles and they each have presented a challenge but Saints Row 2 was different. What made it so?

Volition – the Act of Willing, Choosing, or Resolving

To start off let’s talk briefly about the developer company, Volition, Inc.(LINK) Volition is no stranger to game developing. Its roots began back in 1993 as Parallax Software, maker of the popular Descent series. Parallax Software (Link) eventually split into two companies one of which was Volition, Inc. Volition was later purchased by the mega gaming publisher THQ and still continues to this day as a THQ subsidiary. All of this boils down to the fact that Volition is no stranger to game developing, having developed many other critically acclaimed titles such as the Red Faction series, The Punisher, the Summoner series, and now the Saints Row series.

What’s In the Game?

Saints Row 2 was created in a non-linear (Link) “sandbox” world with light roll-playing (RPG) elements. Essentially, players create a completely unique, personalized character and then go anywhere and do anything in an extensive fictional city called Stillwater. The storyline and side missions are highly entertaining and certainly designed for the adult gamer. The side missions and activities are many and varied including base jumping, helicopter, plane, and jet flying, drug running, ambulance and fire truck missions, fight clubs, mayhem destruction missions, demolition derbies, boat and car racing, streaking, insurance fraud, and many others. There’s even an amusing mission where you drive a septic truck and spray sewage on pedestrians, homes, and businesses to devalue property. The list goes on and on but what makes all of this unique is that each and every single player mission can be played with a friend.

Maniacal Multiplayer

The multiplayer is where Saints Row 2 really shines. Imagine doing all of the above missions in a free-roaming environment with friends. Specifically, Saints Row 2 four specific multiplayer options: Cooperative, Gangsta Brawl, Team Gangsta Brawl, and Strong Arm. (Link) The Cooperative option is simply playing through the entire single player game with one other friend. Gangsta Brawl is a free-for-all mode of mayhem and destruction across the entire city of Stillwater with Team Gangsta Brawl being identical except there’s multiple teams vying for supremacy. The last multiplayer mode, Strong Arm, pits multiple teams against each other to complete various missions and be the first to earn $100,000. What makes all of these options unique and fun is that the game itself never takes itself or the story very seriously. As such, humor is spread liberally throughout each step of gameplay.

Nothing but the Facts

All of this creates a few questions: How vital are these various multiplayer modes to the critical success of Saints Row 2? Are they even important at all? And if these multiplayer modes are indispensable, which option is played the most? To find the answers to these questions, fifteen random individual gamers were queried. The first graph asked the players why they play or would buy Saints Row 2. Out of the fifteen, twelve stated that multiplayer was key in the decision to enjoy the world of Stillwater.

The final graph simply asked which multiplayer option was most important to each player. Ten responded that Cooperative gameplay was most important to them, three said Strong Arm, one for Gangsta Brawl, and one for Team Gangsta Brawl.

All of this data conclusively leads us to the idea that cooperation and social interactions were vital to the success of Saints Row 2. However, fifteen Saints Row 2 game players are a small microcosm of the whole gaming community. What do others have to say?

Final Paper!

Greetings all!

The all scary final paper is soon to be due and for this week's assignment, we are to come up with a bit on what our paper is about.

My brief synopsis is thus: the focus will be on the multiplayer aspects found in the game Saints Row 2 and how those multiplayer options are vital to the economic and creative success of games in general. The idea behind all of this is to show that social fun equals success. If there is no socializing, than the game becomes less fun and is short-lived at best.


What are y'all's thoughts? Any opinions?

Military Games and Propaganda

Greetings all!

This week was an examination of games and how they are impacting the way the military propagandizes, recruits, and trains soldiers. In addition to all of that, there was a brief bit on how the future of combat is going to involve game console controllers (LINK & LINK). Everything written followed along the lines to a logical conclusion: gamers grow up and the military gives them the tools that they are most familiar with (LINK). Military action games, such as Full Spectrum Warrior and America’s Army, are used to train soldiers in tactics and other military operations as well as being useful propaganda tools for potential soldiers.

The controversy surrounding this issue is whether using games is right or legal. Technically, these games could be enjoyed by all ages, even minors who cannot join the military yet. One particularly well researched editorial, written by Michael Reagan (LINK), is of the opinion that such actions are illegal and are not justifiable. Of course, well-meaning Mr. Reagan is also heavily biased, considers high school teenagers to be children, and disobedient, mutinous soldiers such as Lt. Erin Watada and others like him to be heroes. My response is that anything created or sponsored by our military branches for the use of propaganda will be biased and pro-military, that it is idiotic to consider high school students to be children, and that soldiers who disobey military orders are simply not heroes.

Another sore point of contention was the game Six Days in Fallujah. This particular war game was created around the real life 2004 military operation of the Iraqi town, Fallujah, and was to tell the story of the soldiers who participated in the action. This of course has prompted quite a bit of discussion and debate about whether we should be dramatizing events which happened only a few years ago. Many have pointed out movies and music as examples of why we should while still others use the games as an example of why we shouldn’t. (Sources for more info on this debate and game: LINK, LINK, LINK, and more LINK)

My perspective on these debates and arguments is that everyone is forgetting the overarching purpose of gaming: to simply have fun. Yes, yes, it is the modern medium through which propaganda and biases can be shared; gaming can be training tools for educational purposes; gaming console controllers can be used to manipulate million dollar equipment. But even still, when things are boiled down to their base essence, gaming is supposed to be about socializing and having just plain fun. If we as individuals want to know more about the Iraqi War, learn more about history, or fully understand all that our faithful military soldiers have to go through then there are many sources to draw from (such as books and documentaries).

I say, keep gaming as fun and leave education and propaganda to other sources better suited.

Cheers!

Living Dangerous in a Digital World

Greetings all!


In this week’s readings there seemed to be two different vein of thoughts the first being cheating and the harmful effects cheaters have on playing games (links found here and here). The second vein of thought dwelt on a practice known as “gold farming” and how it has evolved the economics both in a virtual world but also in the real world (links found here and here). The discussion on gold farming was particularly interesting to me as the articles dealt with particular emphasis on two different thoughts: politics and economics. Politics because the authors strove to show how what was happening in a digital world happened in the real world many years ago; Economics because money is being transferred between real-world nations but also changing the digital world and the value of the gold itself through inflation.

All mummery of politics and economics aside, I feel that gold farming is harmful both in the digital world and, more importantly, the real world. How so you might ask? One of the important parts of economics is how the common person creates value through increasing in skills and then using those skills for the betterment of the community, the nation, and the world as a whole. This idea of being able to create value is vitally important especially to the individual as it is a good indication of the growth of the person. In gold farming, it is literally creating a market of digital workers who earn real world money.


This is harmful to the gold farmer as well as to the economies. To find out why this is first, answer the question “what real world skills are being developed to create economic value?” The answer is gaming skills of course but games in general are very short lived in comparison to the lives we live. Furthermore, the skills developed are shared by 10-12 million other players. I would hypothesize that the gamers who participate in gold farming are actually digging themselves into an economic hole in which eventually they will find themselves unable to retreat from, having developed no marketable skills during that time and created nothing of real-world value. The game goes away, as it surely will in the future, and there goes the market.

The second vein of thought is cheating and how it has impacted gaming. I personally thought that the ideas were amusing and interesting but ultimately an exercise in futility. We are raising our generations to be winners, to accomplish great things whatever the costs. We are also raising our generations of people on the idea of getting ahead using the “quick and easy” way (for a good example of this, see the US economy and the bank industry). Continually we are promised perfect bodies with minimal amount of time (via a diet and exercise) or a beautiful home or expensive car with very little sacrifice of time or money. These all correlate to cheating, as cheaters are interested in quickly and easily getting ahead in a game. Why sacrifice time and put effort into a game when you can just cheat and be the top?


My ultimate answer to this is that nothing of value or worth ever came easy and that the things of greatest value take time and sacrifice. Gaming is for fun and in the grand scheme of things not of the greatest value. This leads me to the conclusion that I really don’t care if others cheat as putting everything into perspective lessens the need for perfecting a game character or the experience of the game itself.

To be completely honest, I’ve cheated on many games but they were only single-player games so no other players were effect except for me. “Why did I cheat” you may ask. The answer is quite simple:


When I play a game, I do so for the unique story. I play games as simple diversions in between all of the many real world activities I’m involved in. I do not have the time to invest in a game to experience the many hours of long drawn out, sometimes frustrating, gameplay. Interestingly enough, I’m not the only one with this particular mindset as there are many gaming developers which are now creating games designed to be enjoyed in bite-sized chunks.

In conclusion, how we play our games is ultimately a reflection of what we have going on in the real-world and not the inverse.

Cheers!

A Reiteration of Last Weeks Articles

Greetings all!

I feel that I need to re-enforce and clarify what I stated last week as a precursor to this week’s wise words. Last week was focused upon how gamers and the online world are impacting real world activities, such as civic and political activities.

I would like to say that, in regards to the civic/political activities of gamers, it would be a logical fallacy to conclude that because gamers may participate in such activities online, then those actions are going to be carried on in the real world, that gaming alone causes individuals to participate or even that gaming had any effect at all on gamers decisions to be participants in the real world community or nation.

These conclusions are drawn from first hand experience when dealing with the gaming community. Most of the time, when I attempt to encourage civic or political engagement from individuals who game heavily, the response is one of disinterested apathy. All the while, these same individuals will be often more than willing to socialize and help out fellow teammates or clan members from one game or another.

What I am suggesting is that, depending upon what we use as a measure of civic or political activity, gamers in general can be skewed as having very high or very low civic/political engagement.

I personally disbelieve the idea that gaming had anything to do with individuals participating or encouraging political or civic duties. If these individuals weren’t doing it before gaming, then there isn’t really any reason to believe that they will while gaming or in the future.

Cheers!

Greetings all!

This week we examined "Games as/ in Life". First off, what the heck is up with the slash in the title?! It has nothing to do with the games in life but yet it's there....weird...

Our week was particularly interesting because the articles were specially forward thinking. First was an article by a Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn titled "The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy"(LINK for the Article). As you can tell from the dynamite title, very heavy information followed such as whether the Internet has caused a revolution or evolution. Thorburn and Jenkins focused on the "big picture" using examples from real-life political events. The other articles tackled equally big picture and weighty topics such as "The Civic Potential of Video Games" (LINK), "A Socio-Technical Vision of Democratic Knowledge Exchange" (LINK), and "Young Adults and Virtual Public Spheres." (LINK)

Alright, to be completely honest, even though I found these articles informative and very interesting, I found myself thinking that these highly educated individuals were taking the idea of gaming to a level which gamers do not typically want to go. Most people that I know who are heavy gamers are not that interested in politics or civic duty anything. They play games, on- and off-line, as a simple hobby or as a way to socialize with good friends.

I think that the most important aspect of gaming is providing a way to escape reality temporarily. It is a method of telling an engrossing story; escaping today's headache for something, or someone, else's reality. Playing games is a way to enjoy a world which may only exist in the imagination. Why muck it all up with real world issues? Doing so destroys the reason for playing!

Follow the Logic - Thoughts on Racism in Games

Greetings Everyone!

This week's discussion is on "Racism in Games" and, much like the topic of racism in other entertainment and artistic venues, it is a very divisive subject which can be, and is, hotly debated.

The following is a list of websites which editorialize this topic:

-A Pacific Citizen article titled "In Video Games the Bad Guys Come in All Shades of Stereotypes" and focuses upon Robert Parungao and his honors paper discussing research and his opinionated conclusions.

-A small blog post from Gamasutra about GTA Chinatown Wars.

-A Demographics Report on diversity within game developing companies.

-Lastly, a Gamasutra News editorial about racism in Resident Evil 5.

I would like to counter all of the above articles with a video by Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation:




(NOTE: Yahtzee talks about racism toward the end of the video and there's also some swearing).

While his video is supposed to be a humorous roast on games and everything within those games, I feel that he does have a valid point.

But above and beyond what others have to say let me make a very strong, compelling point which I feel is the clincher when it comes to the topic of racism in games:

In mainstream, games are considered to be entertaining "toys". Until they become recognized as something more than toys (such as works of art, methods of communication & instruction, a way to express the freedom of speech) then games will be constantly relegated or thought of as simple amusements. This prevents serious debate or discussion because then people will simply say "but it's only a game and shouldn't be taken seriously".

Additionally, once they are taken seriously, then games move into the realm of 'protected' under the laws of freedom of speech/freedom and therefore game creators now have a constitutional right to express such freedoms through games even if, or especially if, the content is offensive to some individuals. A good example of this is movies: many movies are created with intense racism/ageism/sexism yet are protected and often times encouraged because it creates points of views and opinions which are not of the norm.

It is vitally important to remember that when examining concepts of racism/sexism/ageism, these concepts can become social norms by widespread cultural acceptance. These stereotypical 'isms, though often times misleading and false, can become true by justifying said stereotypes through action and/or behavior. Once this happens, instead of being derogatory and demeaning, these 'isms become merely the truth told in a perhaps hurtful and crass way but truth nonetheless.

If games gain constitutional rights under "art" and "freedom of speech/expression" then new questions are raised such as where to draw the line on limits of expression/speech...as much as we hate to admit it, limits are placed upon our freedom of expression/speech all the time (i.e "do I have a right to shout 'fire' in a crowded theater?").

I think that our wonderful capitalist market will determine whether such material becomes mainstream acceptable or not. It's quite a simple economic fact that if a game is not acceptable to the market, it will be rejected and therefore a financial flop. This alone dictates a limit as to how far a company will invest in $100 million dollar projects

Is this bad taste or really good marketing? I can't tell....

I think though that the blog post from Gamasutra summarizes the issue at stake relatively well:

"I'm a proponent of mature content in games, but I don't see the difference between trading drugs and trading vegetables. GTA is famous/infamous for its depictions of illicit activities, but I've developed an indifferent attitude towards games of its nature, because I don't see them as particularly new experiences. Call it insensitivity towards violence or drugs, but if you shoot someone or trade a bag of coke in a game, I don't find that shocking." - Jaime Kuroiwa

This is the problem and benefit inherit with games and movies in general: It can sensitize or desensitize the individual/s participating. Bottom line, games do have an influence but what sort of influence do they exercise? We the consumers decide that and not the game developer companies.



Peace!

Gender and Gaming

Greetings my fellow earth creatures!

I have to say that every single time I hear "feminist" I automatically have a stereotypical image pop into my head of a strong, vegetarian, neo-Nazi female burning her bra with a very loud voice yelling at everything and everyone who disagrees with her particular point of view.

To start this blog post, let me start by saying I have the highest respect for womankind. My mother taught me compassion and how to care for others; my father taught me the old style of chivalry (i.e. ladies are always first, stand up when a lady enters the room, etc). I was taught these things not because women are helpless but because it is a way to show respect. I share this so that you all can understand where I come from and why I say the things I do.

Mr. Gonzalo Frasca's article on Super Princess Peach (found here) had some interesting things to say but overall, my personal assessment is that the game itself is ridiculous...seriously what is up with girls/women and the color pink?! Frasca points that out as part of the stereotype but I just finished up a study group with 3 other women....one had a pink hand bag and the other had a can of pepper spray which was in a pink container (no she wasn't threatening me with it).

Is Super Princess Peach a sexist game because it places so much emphasis in the color pink and all of the things Peach can do are the results of emotions instead of real-world attack moves (punch, kick, etc)? I would suggest and argue that the game itself is not sexist but it is a very good example of popular stereotypes which women in general have not done very much to change (pink peppers pray for crying out loud!).

Sexism is defined as "the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to or less valuable than the other". I would like to point out that this game is targeted toward women and girls...it would be very foolish to create a game whose target audience is being demeaned. Not only foolish but economically unfeasible....who would buy the game?!?! No, I proclaim that the game itself is ridiculous based upon the idea of what it is...a button-mashing, no-story, brain-numbing, stupid-making, pitiful excuse of a game which has been created with the sole purpose to try and capture a demographic that has been woefully under-estimated and under-marketed.

In the college class Media and Society (Journalism 100), there is a section where the topic discussed is how popular media reflects society and also how society reflects the popular media. As an example, who came up with the whole "white picket fence home" idea? Movies were created with the idea of the "perfect home" and that perfect home had a white picket fence. Thus, everyone thought their house should have a picket fence. This idea works both ways: media reflecting society and society reflecting media.

What I am getting at is that games, movies, books, literature, etc. in general reflect what is acceptable to the society. Let me repeat that this is a generalization and not to be taken as universal law. If there is something stereotypical or sexist and we're upset about it, then the strongest statement that could be made is how we will live our lives: do we take a stand? Do we join a rights-movement group? Do we speak out against the offending material? Do we teach our children through our actions the correct and proper way?

That last is the most powerful way to change things: Live our daily lives as examples to our children. Then it doesn't matter what trash Nintendo tries to pawn off on us or what neo-Nazi feminists scream as "the way it should be".

Personally, I’m deeply offended at the game Super Princess Peach on the grounds that it is a moronic, mentally defective attempt at freshening up a franchise because Nintendo can’t come up with better ideas.


Cheers!

An Examination of "Genre and Affect" - Week 3

Greetings my fellow Earthling!

Today's post is an examination of an article written by Diane Carr titled "Genre and Affect in Silent Hill and Planescape Torment"(http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/carr/). To begin with, I would like to specify that I have never actually played Silent Hill (Konami 1999) but I have immensely enjoyed Planescape Torment (Interplay 1999) in times past and continue to do so today.

First, I was really intrigued that Diane Carr would compare and contrast two games whose seemingly only similarity is the year in which they were released. Silent Hill is a horror while Planescape Torment is a Role-Playing Game (RPG) based upon the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons pen, paper, and dice game. Silent Hill is a 3D survival horror game in which the player strives to find where is the protagonist's daughter and solve the mystery of a small town of horror.
The following video shows a brief bit of gameplay in Silent Hill:


Planescape Torment on the other hand is a 2D isometric, fantasy role-playing game wherein the protagonist is a scarred amnesiac traveling across a foreign world accomplishing goals and objectives, gaining followers, and striving to figure out who he is.
A brief video of Planescape Torment is attached:


The difference between the two are contingent upon the goal of the creators of the game. In Silent Hill, the goal is a horror genre game in which the occult and paranormal interrupt and interfere with a normal fellow living in our day and age. On the other hand, Planescape Torment is a fantasy world where the occult and paranormal ARE the normal and the main character is as foreign to us as our world would be to him.

The fascinating thing about these two games is, to accomplish the goals of horror or fantasy RPG fiction, two different methods of presentation and gameplay are involved. As you can see from the video clips, Silent Hill works with creepy music and sound coupled with an at times hurried, frantic pace and gory scenes to build tension. Death equals failure.

Planescape Torment uses extremely descriptive dialogue and details which paint a world of pure imagination. The pace is not frenetic but instead is more meandering from location to location. Because the world is foreign, every effort is employed to immerse the player into the avatar.

Essentially, Diane Carr's overarching objective is to clearly specify differences between the two games and why the differences exist at all. But the lines between genres and game play styles are becoming more and more blurred. For example, Dead Space (Electronic Arts 2008) is a 3d survival horror, third-person shooter lovingly crafted and built with a plethora of RPG elements. These atmospheric conditions are utilized to engulf the player in the sheer horror of the situation and environment.

It really worked well too! I played for about 5 minutes, all alone with my surround sound turned up, at night...yup, just about peed me pantaloons....

A King of Kong (Documentary)

Hello my fellow Earthlings!

Before I begin, I would like to preface my comments with a brief bit of information about my own personal views. I will leave it in italics so that, if you would like to skip my magnificent moralizing, you may do so.

An acknowledged truth is that our time on Planet Earth is (relatively) brief in the grand timeline of mankind. This means that while we are here, each and every day should not only be treasured but should also be spent accomplishing and doing things to the very best of our abilities. While we are accomplishing these things, there are some achievements which are greater than others. Certainly it is to be understood that this is a very subjective point of view yet it is generally accepted that some actions have a greater impact and benefit on mankind than others.

Therefore, the conscientious individual will not only perform with a maximum of effort at all times, but will also be actively identifying where and how those actions will have the greatest impact and benefit on mankind as a whole. There are individuals in the world who expend a huge amount of effort and have unbelievable talent yet their efforts were not for the benefit of human race. This being the case, all of their accomplishments become nothing more than a tiny foot-note in history which pale in comparison to the consummate completions of others who have given all for the greater good of humankind.

With this foundational understanding of how I personally view the world, it becomes clear when I say that the documentary "King of Kong" displays absolutely one of the worst selfish squandering of skill, talent, and effort which it has been my misfortune to witness.

In short, "King of Kong" is a documentary which follows briefly the history of early arcade gaming and then brings the viewer along to see how it is currently being played out. The majority of the documentary dwells laboriously upon the finer details of the arcade game "Donkey Kong" and how one individual, a fine fellow by the name of Steve Wiebe (last name pronounced "WE-BEE"), practices very hard to achieve the World's Highest Score. The previous score, held by archaic arcade gamer Billy Mitchell, was earned in the early 1980s and has stood strong until Mr. Wiebe's unfortunate waste of effort. I won't spoil the ending, but it will certainly have you sitting on the edge of your seat...sort of.

Do not construe that I am suggesting that gaming in general is a waste of effort. I myself am a gamer and have been almost from the time that I could walk. I treasure games. I treasure what we can learn from them and how games can impart a wonderful story.

But this documentary not only showed how gaming can suck many hours from your (short) life, it can also royally ruin social skills. The film displayed how the game ceases to simply be a game and instead grows into a reason for being and a self-identifying label.

The sad truth is, even if someone wins at Donkey Kong and achieves the World's Highest Score, they are still the losers in life because life is not in a game. Life is something that passes an individual by as they are playing the game.

I could only recommend "King of Kong" to viewers as a cautionary tale of what happens when bad film editing is combined with a horrible time-wasting pursuit. In some ways I suppose this film is a double time waster: a waste of time watching a waste of time. The irony would be hilarious if it wasn't so very sad and pitiful.



EDIT: My instructor stated that this brief wasn't supposed to be a review on King of Kong but a response to the concepts and how they relate to the course. I quite like my review so let me simply add that I really hope that King of Kong does not relate to anything in our course or this is going to be a very long quarter.

The Beginnings

Everything needs a beginning and here is my blog's beginning. And I looked around and saw that it was good.