Essay to accompany final major project

How the advancement of technology has altered narrative structure in popular videogames. By Kelly Cantrell.


In this essay I am going to talk about the rise of digital media and its effect on popular videogames, with particular reference to their narrative structures. As there are so many genres and sub genres of games, I will be attempting to focus on the first person action adventure game.
After all amongst the many gaming genres, such as online social gaming, simulation and shooter games, I would say that the first person action adventure game, (and indeed 3rd person also) has the largest and most obvious connection to narrative structures as an underlying core element within the game play.
Naturally however there will be mention of games that fall into 2 or more different genres, for example the tomb-raider franchise is most likely to be classed as a platform/strategy game, however there are also elements of it that fall into the RPG, (role playing game) and action adventure genres as well.
Before jumping to some obvious titles such as this year’s “Heavy rain” for the playstation 3, I would like to go back a bit and start with some earlier titles worthy of mention for their story-driven play, whether good or bad.
Delving into the “horror survival” sub-genre is an absolute must if we are talking about narrative driven gaming phenomena, and the immediate title to come to mind would be “Silent hill”,.
Konami’s first instalment of Silent hill began in 1999 on the playstation one and then went on to spawn another 5 sequels, a prequel, box office movie, and a remake of the first game has now appeared, 11 years after the original release.
Thus demonstrating the games narrative appeal and replay value as a franchise.
As technology advances, games are becoming more playable featuring easier controls, advanced graphical capability and better camera dynamics, thus games are reaching a wider audience and are quickly becoming the worlds number one form of entertainment, now rivalling the Hollywood movie industry with sales reaching over 300, million US dollars.
Initially game-movie tie ins were brought out as secondary sources of profit and went hand in hand with t-shirts, lunch boxes and other forms of movie paraphernalia, now however games are being produced in conjunction with movies in order to gain maximum profit, the same actors, character designers and modellers are now working on both the film and the game to produce a double package that can be released at the same time to achieve maximum sales and coverage.
Also fading away are the cheap cash in attempts of mediocre games being produced after a film with broken narratives and shoddy game play.
But what is it about a game narrative in particular that prevents it from being a smash hit movie? Look at the Tomb raider and mortal combat movies for example, each failing on different levels, then there are the silent hill and resident evil movie spin off’s, both are relatively good but are lacking considerably in the storytelling department, only silent hill can be saved because it so well retains the original feel and atmosphere from the games.
As for this years prince of Persia staring Jake Gyllenhaal I am not going to hold my breath but we’ll see, just using a white American for the starring role has made me weary enough of it, I think it will suffer from the usual “Hollywood movie” conventions of action over plot and too much lacing of patriotic heroism.
One reason for this failure to translate gaming narratives to the big screen could be that gaming narratives also rely on the player’s involvement and interaction with the game itself, gamers typically play a game for several weeks before finish, whereas movie watchers digest the whole thing in a matter of 2 hours, sometimes less.
Gamers actually “become” the character of the story, controlling their actions and movements and also the narrative itself to a degree, or at least that’s what game developers want you to think, but as long as the gamer has this feeling of control within the game, the goal has been met, whatever the non playing onlooker perceives is irrelevant.
Technology has allowed gaming narratives to be played with, altered and toyed with in a way that although achievable on other story telling platforms, does not quite reach the height’s it does on the gaming console.
For example I have read books in the past as a high school student in which the story changes based on your decisions at the end of a given chapter, the book would advice you which page to turn to depending on your choice, you would then turn to the said page and continue the story from the point of view that you had chosen.
I’m not sure if I’ve seen this in a movie, but I’m sure with the capabilities of DVD that there must have been an attempt to skip scenes in a movie, and move around the chapter layers of a disc as you would the book depending on the viewer’s choice? I have seen interactive games on DVD discs, and some very interesting DVD menu’s also that allow the viewer to take complete control of the character or situation on screen.
Or should I say control to the degree specified by the creator, so that regardless of which outcome you get it is still a result of the story tellers own desire to tell a story, no matter which angle you get it from it is still their story and you are not actually changing anything, you are just altering which ending or viewpoint you will ultimately end up with.
I find this to be a very fresh and innovative way of telling stories and find the gaming system to be one of the most dynamic and engaging systems in place today to tell a story with.
Take Heavy rain for a good example, for me, heavy rain was more of a story than a game, an interactive movie that allowed you to control characters thoughts, movements and choices to a degree set out by the developers and writers involved.
You are given a multitude of choices at any given time, some minor and some with larger consequences, the characters are very well fleshed out and you can even go as far as deciding if your character will get a shave or brush their teeth before going about their daily chores.
Of course the player feels they have control but everything that happens has already been carefully thought out and scripted so that no matter what you decide to do the conclusions are already in place. However to the gamer this does not necessarily matter, because they are getting a fresh gaming experience and a new way of inhaling narrative through game play.
I am not one to complete games on a regular basis, because I am a story-driven person I often loose interest in a game because of lack of a gripping narrative, for me it is not about how many head shots I can get or how many puzzles I can solve, but getting to the next instalment of the story and uncovering another piece to the puzzle and this is the reason I enjoyed heavy rain so much and would play it again and again, despite already knowing the outcome and the main “twist”.
Although heavy rain has come under a lot of fire from hardcore gamers who either get bored before the game kicks off due to lack of action in initial scenes, and some who have criticized the story claiming the creator is nothing more than “a wanabee film director with no talent” and “let’s hope he stays where he is”, the narrative has even been compared to the works of M.Knight Shamalan with similar negative responses.
Why the outrage? Well some gamers and movie buffs alike are claiming that the story is weak because you are allowed inside the characters heads, therefore you can see their thoughts at the press of a button, so when it turns out that the killer is a playable character gamers were outraged as throughout the game the “killer” thinks as though he is trying to fool the player into believing he is not the killer and is simply a concerned bystander.
Ok, I think with any movie and game a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required and also narratives should not have to explain every single little detail to you, some level of imagination is also required in many cases to make a good story, (hence the reason Japanese/Korean films are better than most American blockbusters) I mean, did it ever occur to “any” of these gamers that the main character was actually convincing himself that he did not do it? That it was the father’s faults for not saving their children? He is after all, only a deranged killer?
Some gamers felt it unreasonable to show this character, as being compassionate in some scenes, only to later find out he was the killer. Why is this so unreasonable? He is clearly not of sound mind, and clearly felt in his mind he was only searching for a good father, unlike the one he had, it was not his intention to kill the boys, he felt it was a necessary sacrifice in order to find something he felt strongly about. Of course I’m not saying he was right, only that people want these interactive games, they want this added control, and enjoy the experience on a whole new level, (even these “critics” have said they still enjoyed the dynamics of the game) so why then, can’t people be a little bit more open minded and willing to use their own imagination in the equation as well? If you want interactive, how about being a little more interactive with your mind for a start!
Another title set to be a big hit this year and also focussing on narrative but with a bit more freedom in game play and more of an action shooter experience is “Alan Wake” for the xbox 360 console.
Here you get to play a writer on vacation who discovers that one of his fictional characters has come alive in this small town and is seeking to wreck havoc on Alan wakes existence, this reminds me of Jonny Depps character in “secret window”, a movie about a writer who also is being terrorised by one of his fictional book characters. So although nothing new in terms of story, games like this are raising the bar for video game narrative standards and thanks to this we can only hope to see more and more tighter, deeper, interwoven stories coming out of next generation games that will rival if not take over movie standards and become the leading output for some of the most innovative writing yet to be seen.

Essay

How the age of digital media and technology has influenced and toyed with our perceptions of human identities.

By Kelly Cantrell/Bruce.

The Internet has played a phenomenal role in the ways we interact and communicate with one and other as a society. This has also had a direct effect on our approach toward communication and the perceptions we have surrounding identity and belonging in a technologically changing world.

If we examine today’s world of online social networking and 3D virtual communities, (such as facebook, twitter, bebo, myspace and second life) it is immediately apparent how attitudes surrounding personal identity have changed over the last decade, thanks to the internet of course…

“The medium is the message”, is a quote that was famously coined by communication theorist ‘Marshall Mcluhan’ back in the 1960’s, suggesting that the content of a medium is often less important than the difference it makes in us by just having it around.

People are now willing to share close, sometimes deep personal information about themselves online, seeing it as merely “sharing information” after all the internet seems to be all about sharing information and giving and receiving feedback from your peers, giving out this type of information a decade or so ago would have been considered completely absurd and rather “uncivilised” almost, whereas today’s youth are growing up in this world of social networking so writing a status on facebook about what music you are currently listening to or what you had for dinner the night before is now considered completely normal, an everyday occurrence in day to day life.

So is it the safety of sitting at home behind a screen that makes people act so differently? That makes us loose our inhibitions and shed our media induced idealogical skins in favor of being able to live out our ‘true’ idenitites online?

Thinking about this does beg the question, “are we really living false lives in the real world and being our true selves online? Or are our online identities the fake ones?

James Harkin, London based freelance writer believes that: “The internet allows one to define themselves rather than being defined by others”, whilst some critics would argue that the Internet actually encourages anti-socialism and is a contributing factor toward an increasingly unfit population.

In fact studies have shown that over four out of five young adults under the age of thirty now prefer to spend time on the internet or their mobile phones than sat in front of the TV. (study published in Autumn, 2007, Cyburbia, p167, James Harkin) These statistics demonstrate how rapidly the internet is taking the lead in the publics main choice of media indulgence, it may be mostly popular amongst a younger age group, but of course they will become the future generation and the new generations will also grow up in a world of social networking and cyber culture.

The Chinese government have even gone as far as to ban the opening of cybercafés in China and to legally limit the amount of time teenagers are permitted to play games in such establishments, in an attempt to protect their young from becoming addicted to online games.

However it is not just young consumers that face the possibility of Internet addiction, take for example the BBC documentary: “Virtual adultery and cyberspace love”, which showcases the story of Carolyn, a thirty seven year old housewife in the United States who has a virtual affair with Elliot, a British male who is over five thousand miles away from her.

The documentary is initially very funny and one is not certain if it is to be taken seriously or not, is this really what future communications and identity has come to? Another BBC report has stated that there are now “cyber detectives” who actually work in second life for “real” money by setting up what’s known as “honey traps” to try and catch a particular spouse out in the act of infidelity, although virtual some would argue that this is still unfaithful rather than harmless fun, like in the “alleged” case of Amy Taylor who apparently filed for divorce after twice catching her husband having virtual sex with another women in second life, (this is done using avatars that the user controls) when confronted about this her husband told her he no longer loved her and that it was over.

Hearing this kind of news is very difficult to digest in any form of seriousness, but this crazy world of second life is actually real and home to over thirty thousand residents.

Johnathan Mostow’s 2009 feature film: “Surrogates” staring Bruce willis further explores this threshold of virtual identity, in the film over 98% of the population have what is known as a “surrogate”, a highly advanced robotic double with lifelike skin, eyes and mouth that a user controls from home by laying in a pod that is then wirelessly connected to their surrogate which they have full control over. The user can feel through their surrogate, have sexual relations with other surrogates, run faster, and look younger or slimmer and live out their fantasies through another model rather than risking their own bodies.

This seems to emulate what people are already doing now with their identities online and in virtual worlds, It’s just taking it another few steps further, and with the ever advancing state of digital media these seems highly possible.

“All media are extensions of some human faculty-psychic or physical. The wheel… is an extension of the foot. The book is an extension of the eye…clothing, an extension of the skin.” Marshall Mcluhan.

So is social networking an extension of the soul? Stelarc, the Greek performance artist states that: “Man is beginning to wear his brain outside his skull, and his nerves outside his skin, new technology breeds new man.” Stelarc believes that it is only the next natural stage of evolution for man to become one with machine, one of his performance art demonstrations involved hooking himself up to numerous muscle stimulators on all of his major muscles and then allowing his body to be controlled by internet users around the world- simply by clicking a button.

Another famed performance artist known as Orlac, has attempted to merge traditional art with a new form of contemporary performance art. Using digital compositions of faces from famous renaissance paintings, Orlac has undergone several plastic surgery procedures live on the internet, whilst fully awake in order to “Bring into question the standards of beauty imposed by our society”, Orlac is objectifying herself as a piece of artwork, changing her physical identity by using digital media process’s in order to meet her artistic desires.

However her work has caused speculation amongst critics as to her motives. Art critic James Gardner stipulates that Orlan is just a deleterious example of “the French obsession with refinement and feminine beauty”, another critic, Barbara Rose contends that Orlan is simply acting out “the madness of a demand for an unachievable physical perfection” and Mark Derry, (Escape velocity) hints that Orlac’s description of going under the knife as a cathartic experience “would not sound out of place on the lips of a plastic surgery addict”, Derry concludes that Orlac’s professed feminism and her manifest posthumanism cancel each other out, after the artist stated in a written interview that “we must accept ourselves as we are… but in an age of genetic manipulation, this is a primitive outlook”.

The age of digital media has not only affected national statistics for watching TV, but it has also altered our expectations of film and TV narrative structure.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film “The killing” was panned by critics and audiences for being too non-linear and confusing. Today’s society on the other hand look favourably on these types of films, yearning for dynamic and non-linear narratives that will capture and engage their attention whilst challenging set conventions and perceptions of identity and self.

Films such as “Pulp fiction”, “crash”, “The butterfly effect” and “memento” to name a few also follow this route of non-linear story-telling, there is usually a play on identity and the viewers sense of time is muddled up and non-conformist resulting in lots of little overlapping connections that eventually convene into one giant conclusion… or sometimes leave the viewer clueless and requiring a second or third view of the film.

Because digital media has changed the ways in which we see others, and ourselves. Audiences are now demanding more engaging and less predictable film narratives that actually challenge rather than conform to a set of clichéd conventions.

Because of this, there has also been a major rise in the popularity of world cinema as movie-goers are now seeking out something new and different to a genre that they only know too well. Actors and actresses are now lending their voices and body movements to computer generated characters on screen, movement-tracking technology can now track their movements and thus incorporate these movements into their virtual characters or avatars on screen body language.

Robert Zemeckis 2007 fully CGI movie “Beowulf” replaces actors with realistic virtual doubles of their real selves, (of course using this technology means signs of age can be removed or added as required, actors will no longer need to hit the gym to play a specific role, and the use of make-up and more practical ways of creating special effects may eventually be eradicated or become a rarity.)

Does this mean that we are tiring of pre-virtual identity? Are we now embracing the idea that science fiction may not be science fiction anymore but is a very possible reality?

The Alcor Life Extension Foundation was founded in 1972 and is a world leader in the phenomenon of cryonics.

They believe that “Death is a neurological process that begins after the heart stops. A stopped heart only causes death if nothing is done when the heart stops. Cryonics proposes to do something.”

Alcor also state on their website, (www.alcor.org) that: “Cryonics is not a belief that the dead can be revived. Cryonics is a belief that no one is really dead until the information content of the brain is lost, and that low temperatures can prevent this loss.”

Does Stelarc’s famous quotation “I sing the body obsolete”, now have more truth behind it than ever with the rise of digital media and technology?

Shirow Masamune’s “Ghost in the shell” franchise which consists of manga comic books, feature length animated movies and 2 spin off series, revolves around the idea of cyber terrorism, brain hacking and the notion that people’s minds can be uploaded and downloaded into various computer databases and artificial bodies.

The lead female Character, Motoko, but referred to in the Anime as “major” is more machine than human in terms of her body, the only parts of her that remain organic are her brain and spinal cord, and in one episode she is shown to be having herself “uploaded” into the system and then “downloaded” into a replacement body within minutes.

A statement taken from the Alcor life extension website claims that: “we do not believe revival of neuropatients will involve anything as primitive as cloning or transplants. It seems much more likely that the patient's own cells will be prodded into regrowing the body that belongs around the brain in a reprise of the natural process that made the body in the first place. This could be done by combined natural and specialized growth programs, and also augmented by direct synthesis of scaffolding and cell placement by nanomedicine.”

Although this technology is not yet in place, and is mainly talked about in science fiction movies and books, it does not mean that in the future it will not be a possible and very viable option. In fact, looking at the ways in which medicine and technology are being combined and utilized in research facilities and hospitals presently only further endorses Alcor’s statements regarding nanotechnology and future medicine having every possibility of preserving human life.

As Alcor themselves have stated, they do not believe in the practice of reviving “dead” people, what they are doing is “preserving” the information and memory content of your brain so that future technology may be able to restore your identity in a newly grown and healthy vessel.

Alcor’s home page states the following: “Alcor seeks to prevent loss of information within the brain that encodes memory and personality identity, which is the true boundary between life and death.”

This brings about some serious questions about who we are as human beings, are we merely machines with data chips that can be transferred and copied onto another hard-drive when the first one breaks down?

Religion stipulates that god made man in “his” own image; so one could argue then that mankind has also made machine in our own image… so it is very possible to theorize that god may too have been merely some primitive form of biological or even spiritual machine that created humanity in it’s own image?

James Cameron’s 1984 hit feature: “Terminator” emulates this idea that men make machine, and then machines becomes “self-aware” and declares war on mankind, this theme can be seen perpetually in a myriad of science fiction movies to date.

Human physical identity as well as our psychological identities is already in a state of question as more and more people are experimenting with artificial bodily replacements such as pacemakers and artificial limbs, even reconstructive and plastic surgery has altered our perceptions of identity and let’s not forget the effects of the media, photo-shopped imagery and airbrushed supermodels that barely resemble anything close to what a real person looks like.

Cynthia Jackson who appeared on the Jenny Jones show in 1993 is a perfect example of how the media has taken the structure of “female” identity and severely misrepresented it by re-structuring it into a one dimensional and ideological re-imagining of how a female should look in the eyes white western society.

Cynthia has undergone 19 cosmetic operations in order to look like mattel’s famed “Barbie doll” in an effort to ‘expand her possibilities’ and live a better quality of life. Jackson herself stated “she cannot walk down the street in L.A because everyone is a Barbie over there”.

It seems that people will forever seek to change their bodies and thus their identities as humans as there will always be commodities to be consumed, it is doubtful that there will ever be a limit to body modification with the constant development of cosmetic surgeries, liposuction, collagen injections, laser treatment, breast, buttocks and calve implants, face-lifts, etc, it is highly possibly that gene splicing will be next and probably a whole new level of microbiological body redesign will follow.

Joanna Zylinksa, writer of “The cyborg experiments” claims that the body is “invested as a fetish, and is used as a fetish in a desperate attempt at identifying oneself”.

The body is no longer seen as “I” but as an “it” to be improved, and the rise of digital media has only further helped to encourage and redefine human identity as two separate entities, the body and the mind. And with the advancement of technology, digital media and the media’s obsession with pushing a generic standard of beauty on top of a population already hooked on superficial identity, It is highly likely that in the next hundred years or so human-kind will have completely and totally obliterated our natural form of identity and belonging within the human race in favor of custom made beauty and genetic alteration that is enforced by ideological standards of beauty, it is in fact very possible that if this were to happen, humanity will end up being the very opposite of what they set out to be.