I’m wondering – would either of you be interested in being contributing writers for a ‘zine about video game theory?

I went to a wonderful little self-publishing center in Portland, and I had been thinking about some sort of project dealing with ‘theory on video games’.

I probably wouldn’t make very many copies unless it caught on (like 50-100), but I thought you two might be interested.

Too bad more people don’t feel the same way about using their imagination to construct characters in games. At least people in the past could argue they were reading while they played RPGs, now almost all of them have voiceovers (which often totally blow). The value of interpretation is why Nintendo has never done voiceovers for Link, let alone any text. Do you think a character should at least have text or does that also impose ‘violence” over the character? Then again, the emotion held within Link’s face in Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess have given the games the emotional depth that make them into such favorites.

Even games like Mother 3 (only in Japanese at this time), which has comparatively poor graphics, has tremendous emotional pull because of the music and character direction. Personally, I think text/voice are less important in (most) video games. I’d prefer a move more toward a cinematic experience in which the player is in control–for instance the feedback of the rumble, the modification of music as you enter battle, the hallucinations as you lose health (as in Eternal Darkness).

I’ve been more interested in the representational values of “violent” games, such as those that immerse people into the battlefields of WWII and Iraq, or in the case of Grand Theft Auto, a made-up city. Do those games present an uncanny experience? Do first person shooters create more of one than a third person shooter. Ho do they construct/represent war, violence, and the “enemies”? Do they sublimate the “death-drive,” carry one through a healing experience (as Kristeva describes horror lit), or merely tools to control the masses minds as Adorno might have it?

A-Dubs

I certainly think that many games, particularly the (as of recent) ill-fated PC game industry, have tried way to hard to work towards depiction. I don’t understand what video games gain from it. They are almost entirely constructed realities. The only things that are directly attributable to reality are probably the voices of characters. Everything else is a construct. Why try to make games emulate our reality? Let them create their own world.

Here.

The other problem with depiction is that it depends on people recognizing it – take, for example, To The Lighthouse. These are not feelings or people that, in specific, we would recognize as being kin to our American, 21st century perspective. It’s the overall representation that lasts – everyone knows someone like Mrs Ramsay in general.

Representation appeals to our very human need to see patterns, to be able to classify people into groups. Literature that tries to take that away from us… I just can’t see it working. We will, by necessity, start saying “oh, I know someone who has that trait. And that!” and so characters become corollaries to real life.

I’m not quite sure how to relate this back to the art side of things, mainly because I am not an artist who works with visual media. But! Have thoughts.

(I have now commented, Gordon. So there. :P)

Good point about literature having the same problem, too. I hadn’t consciously made that jump. Of course literature is caught between the same rock and hard place of depiction and representation. I guess I’m too invested in representation to remember that some authors try for depiction.

I liked Batman Begins. I don’t think Christian Bale wasn’t the best choice for the role, though; somebody more emotive — specifically angrier — would’ve worked better.