Hey DLP, I figure this is a good a place as any to post some weird, but very videogame related stuff.

For an English project I'm analyzing new and evolving techniques in videogames. I'm a big fan of critically analyzing anything I see...but this was more an exercise in a lot of playing games in the name of research. But it did get me thinking about the topic. Video games as a proper media form isn't exactly a new topic, but it is new to being properly analyzed. Looking at games I've played, a ton of 'techniques' stand out.

What seems to be the central element of these techniques is immersion. Videogames and their unique fixed perspective inserts a player into a body and a situation. Therefore, things that increase immersion and things that change your state via that immersion are pretty original to videogames.

One actual technique as such is limiting the player in some fashion. This can take a heap of forms. One example is limiting the players range of motion. This can be used to effect a sense of claustrophobia, fear, or disorientation. In Bioshock, when you enter the city in the bathysphere, you can't open the door or move around. When the splicer jumps around the sphere and starts cutting into it, you get an intense feeling of fear. Movement implies control of the situation, and lack thereof implies the reverse. Even in relatively on-rails games, like CoD, a flashbang grenade will effect a sense of panic or disorientation. Similarly, in the 'No Russian' level of MW2, your walking speed is limited to maximize the impact of the massacre taking place. The inability to get out of that situation, engineered by the game, lets you experience the situation and impart emotion far better than a static film.

Another great technique only present in videogames in interaction. The ability to actually change a situation or participate in a conversation builds an emotional response not present elsewhere. In ME2, you define your relationship with your companions by your own conversation choices. By building your own personalized relationship with a character, you build a more effective emotional response to work with. RDR uses a more practical model, by acting in concert, or against, NPCs you develop a working relationship with them. Agent Fordham would have been a giant dickhead if you only took into account cutscenes, but in gameplay he's a pretty dependable ally, and his actions there coloured my opinion of him towards the better. Similarly, the snake oil dude in the beginning was kind of annoying, but his utter uselessness in combat made me hate him with a fiery passion.

Sorry for the rant like post, but this kind of thing really got me thinking. My question for DLP is what techniques do you see? What are the new ones, and how have old ones been transformed?

 

Left 4 Dead is a great example of what you're looking for/studying.

I'll be lazy and post the wiki links;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_4_Dead#Development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_4_Dead_2#Development

 

The theme covered in this project of yours isn't solely about video games. Broadly speaking, you're basically taking concepts from film-making and cinema, and applying them in a more interactive environment.

I'd urge you to have a section devoted to the effect of cinematic cutscenes and more traditional film elements in video games. Immersion in a film experience is greatly enhanced by the ability to empathize with the characters involved (well, this is true in all story telling, which is a significant part of what modern gaming is about- the other, more important bit being the gameplay itself). Devices to produce this empathy in film is limited to visual and audio stimuli- dialogue, the actors' expressions and emotions, visual effects ranging from CGI to lighting to even the way the camera is held, the setting of the scene (like the cave example you presented), sound effects (one such film example is the blaster sound effect in Star Wars- just by that very sound, you can tell you're somewhere entirely different, and that can evoke a sense of unity with your protagonists' situation), and much more.

To quote recent examples, the Uncharted franchise and the newest Final Fantasy XIII game. Both are very good examples of games where dialogue and traditional cinematic story-telling plays a huge role, for better or for worse. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is recognized world wide as a very, very, very good game- and this is largely in part to the sensation of camaraderie that the in-game dialogue and cutscenes present. Nate's character is written in such a way that the player immediately sympathizes with his plight- he's an ordinary guy (well, not really, but he's got a very good notion of common sense) who gets shoved into such over-the-top and unbelievable situations almost to the point of absurdity, and he knows it. This is shown multiple times in the game, where he expresses utter disbelief in his predicament. At once, the creators at Naughty Dog have achieved a few things- shared disbelief between the player and Nate Drake alone heighten the sense that the player is right there alongside him, and added to that traditional elements of drama and cinematic presentation, you're already well-invested in the outcome of the plot. Graphics have also progressed to the point where entire conversations and presentative scenes of crucial moments to the plot can be rendered in real time, and so without taking the player 'out' of the game, as it were, Naughty Dog can keep them inside the story at all times. From one riveting fire fight to the next, and the witty dialogue that is spitfired back and forth between the characters, and then taking you straight into a scene of splendor and discovery, then immediately into another action scene, this can be a very, very effective technique.

Conversely, too much film and not enough gameplay can ruin a game- case in point, FFXIII. It's just "walk along this one-track path and defeat some enemies, then walk into a cutscene. then walk some more and then walk into another cutscene, which then loads into another cutscene", all the way through most of the game.

Which speaks for itself, really.

tl;dr, It's probably less about 'video game techniques' (which is a horrible term for this, by the way), than it is about the presentation of scenarios in video games.

In essence: How To Make You Care About The Characters.

Pull ideas from literary plot-development and presentation, and film- then apply them to video games. They're an interactive medium, which means that not only can you see through a character's eyes, you ARE that character.

Although, doing it this way might require a 4000 word essay. So. Maybe focus on the 'video game techniques'. :awesome

 

Uh, very nice work there Lutris, but I did say 'new or evolving techniques' in video games. Your post, while being a pretty cool look at cinematic techniques, doesn't ever address the innovations of game design over and above traditional techniques. Thats what I was talking about.

And not to be a douche, but I'd rather not talk about essay writing here. Besides the fact its the wrong section, I don't want to be asking DLP to do my homework, or even imply that. Its sort of a fine line, so I'll leave it alone. Also, four thousand words? pffft, This has to be 5000-6000, including a reflection statement. My highschool is full of asshole teachers.

And thanks for the links Jormungandr, cool shit.

Another technique I think is cool is the use of HUDs to present a lot of information in an almost subconscious way. Like visual, interactive cues taking the place of explanation. So instead of a big text announcement, or zooming in on a sign a la movies, you can just get a notice in a corner and the information is passed on quicker. Also, things like the death animation from CoD, which is an organic, clean method of indicating danger and precipitating a response.

 

You did ask for techniques that we saw, and the merging of cinematic and gameplay aspects is one such technique. I probably went overboard on my analysis, but as you say, I'd never presume to do your work for you. On the contrary, I only meant the above post as presenting one example of a tool for immersion that wasn't listed in the thread yet.

Not to insult your intelligence as well (and I'm sorry for bringing essays and writing techniques up when you just did away with it), but while new and evolving video game presentation techniques are your topic, most of your examples center on the idea of immersion in a video game. I assumed that your topic went something like: How the progress of presentation techniques in video games have affected the immersive experience of the player. Again, I apologize for presuming too much if this isn't the case. I only wanted to suggest another avenue you might look into for research, since you hadn't brought the particular idea up.

Also, to insinuate that cinema in video games is not an evolving presentative technique is simply insulting. Look at Heavy Rain. The game is like one gigantic interactive movie with plotpoints that change with every choice you make- and the choices can be subtle. Like choosing to initiate conversation while you're walking by a man. Or really impacting, life-on-the-line choices like the choice between screaming for help or trying to fight off a murderer while being strapped to a cutting table. All I'm saying is, there are aspects of video game presentation that you probably haven't thought of yet, and I'm just suggesting one that wasn't in your first post.

Edit: Gameplay vid for Heavy Rain, for reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnck2oXdxMo

 

If you're looking for new techniques rather than stuff that's familiar from cinema, you might want to consider the use of physics engines. From around HL2 onwards they've been pretty central to many games. Before that most puzzles seemed to consist of "find item X to overcome obstacle Y". Now the player really is immersed in an environment which they can interact with in a manner much more analogous with the real world, and solves problems in the game-world in a way which we might in the real world.

 

Its an interesting progression to do that, but do you think that its applicable to an English perspective? I have a very basic understanding of physics and forces, and I can see how the engines are the core of the game, but I'm not sure its a technique in the analytical sense.

But there are some damn cool things that can be done with modern physics engines.

EDIT: Lutris. Yeah, I see what you mean, and I didn't mean to say that you were wrong, merely that the techniques you said were cinematic. Yes they may be evolved, but they would have the same effect in a film that they would in game. Your second example, Heavy Rain, is closer to what I was thinking, with the vidya aspects being prominent - choosing your own paths, and immersing (yeah, I know I use it a lot, but it is a central element here) a player better. What I was looking for was examples that are not in other medias. And there really isn't a question, its a freelance sort of deal. Your guess of 'presentation techniques' was the problem - I'm more looking for 'interactive techniques'.

 

...so you only want to look at techniques that are unique to videogames, but you want to analyse them from a literary perspective?

Seems to me that if those techniques are to be found in literature then they're not unique to videogames...

 

I certainly don't want to beat what is, in some circles, a dead horse, but the developers of the Amnesia and Penumbra games are masters at the art of immersion and at the forefront of the horror genre today. Physics engines are a perfect example of immersion. When you can "touch" your environment, it adds another sense to the game, alongside those of sight and hearing. Penumbra and Amnesia take the roles of physics engines and the effects of helplessness to entirely new levels.

 

You could play around with the idea of authorship as well.

Games like Minecraft and Little Big Planet are hugely successful because they're creative. The idea of author (developer) and reader (player) becomes blurred as the consumer becomes the producer and creates their own content.

(Also found in role-playing literature.)

 

Okay, Poobah that sort of tells me how to look at physics engines. Thanks. And thats also a really good one, thanks Taure.

Just a quick explanation of my aims for this. I want to look at these techniques as adding the 'Video Game' media as a form of dramatic expression, in the same way Literature or Film is. Each of those has their own techniques, and they are unique to each. But Video Games have really only been looked at from a traditional eg. Cinematic and Literary perspective. So, camera angles, lighting, or straight plot and writing.

I want to look at the mechanics of games in a fashion similar to the way a professor looks at a movie. So instead of watching the editing, I look for Motion Limiting. So what I am looking for is more of those new genre techniques.

Right now, as Taure did, people can look at a Vidya specific mechanic and it is just another feature. But looking at it as a proper technique, and mapping it in the fashion of a traditional technique can lend a sort of legitimacy that I want to explore.

And I just realized that the previous was me being an English douche. Sorry.

 

Expanding on the previous point, you could tie it in with modernism. Say that create-your-own-content games are the ultimate expression of the death of the author. It's all about the interpretation of the reader (the gamer). Sure, there is a basic framework given by the author, but other than that it's entirely down to the reader. And often the reader may come up with an interpretation that the author never anticipated, but it's no less an interpretation because of that.

You might also tie that in with modding of games. Many games provide modding support that encourage players to change the game.