The Old Republic feels weird in good ways and bad

                 I've finally made my way to The Old Republic and let me tell you, I was surprised. I didn't expect the narrative depth to be akin to the KOTOR series I loved so much. I didn't expect many of the characters to be memorable and fun to return to. This wasn't mindless grinding, it was changing a world. Or at least that's how I took it. In all honesty it amounts to mindless grinding. But the variety of missions! From ritual rites to investigations, you feel like you're actually accomplishing things in TOR. As opposed to WoW where you were just told to kill 10 of this, then 15 of this, then bring me 8 of this after escorting x. There I just gave you every WoW mission ever made. TOR is fun. So what's the downside? Why isn't everyone rushing to TOR? I think the combat system is overly simplistic. It's never clear whether I actually need my teammates in flashpoints. Perhaps I'm too low of a level to see it, which if that's the case then that's fine. But one critical tension I saw popping up stems from what's excellent about the game.

             I didn't want to play with other people. Why share my quests with other people? I want to make decisions. I want to convince others of my valor. I want to decide things for my world. Sharing it with other people who may disagree with me or worse, who may be on the darkside, seemed just wrong. It may be my natural narcissism when it comes to stories, but I honestly just wished the game was single player. However, that changed when I did a flashpoint.

           Flashpoints give you a unique social opportunity. Though the one I did was clearly made from the KOTOR mold, the multi conversational aspect of the flashpoint allows me to interact with my fellow republic troops in ways I couldn't even imagine. Now RolePlaying is a thing in TOR. For the first time I get a tiny glimpse into how my teammates view their character in this world. Are you brash? Are you defiant? Are you an evil asshole. All of these traits can be revealed about your character through a flashpoint. Couple that with the intense difficulty of going through a two hour to three hour ordeal and you have the recipe for incredibly meaningful gameplay. I'm still a low level in TOR, so if anything new and interesting pops up, then I'll definitely keep you posted. But the verdict is out. TOR is fun. I am super biased as I love Star Wars, so there's that. 

Digesting Ego Raptor's new Sequelitis

            If you love Zelda, especially if you love Ocarina of Time, then I really suggest you watch the 30 minute long critique of OOT done by Ego Raptor. While I don't agree with some of his criticisms, the ideas and analysis he applies to the game cultivate a robust conversation surrounding what the purpose of a Zelda game should be. Many people have been trying to mechanically debate Ego Raptor's argument, by refuting his entire video point by point. I can tell you that those attempting to do this did not understand the main argument that Ego Raptor was trying to put out there. Ego Raptor's video is not only concerned with Zelda, but an overall philosophy regarding video games.
        Before you engage with Ego Raptor's critique of OOT, you need to address his quasi-critique of Link to the Past. He argues that a shift occurs from the original Zelda and LTTP. Zelda in his opinion is oriented around free exploration. This free exploration is inhibited in LTTP because there is a clear order one must follow in the exploration of dungeons. He laments in the end about the conundrum of the shift, claiming that he doesn't know which philosophy is better, but this sounds a tad disingenuous. It's pretty clear from the video that he feels gameplay in Zelda should be as unrestricted as possible. Given that bias, he enters into OOT with a critical framework which equates freedom with good game play.Those who are attacking his point by point are doing so incorrectly. When he discusses the fragmentation of the exploration and the combat sequences of Zelda, he is making an argument within his original framework that one should be free to experience all facets of the game at the same time to have the best experience. People routinely argue that the fighting was: "not boring", "not repetitive", "did not have that much waiting" and so on. But what people fail to realize that the overall issue with the Z targeting system is a lack of freedom. The camera's fixed and restricted paradigm runs antithetical to Ego Ratpor's framework.
     One Zelda fan uncovers a difference in philosophy between himself and Ego Raptor when he tries to refute him point by point. In this post, he says, "story is fine as long as it doesn't replace gameplay." He doesn't realize that all of the hard work he put into his post was misdirected and instead he should have spent more time focusing on the notion that when a story acts as a supplement to game play, it is fine. This argument runs counter to a freedom framework. This argument says one can restrict the imaginative contours of the video game's narrative to derive more meaning as long as those restrictions don't serve as stand ins for the intended game play. I personally don't think this argument goes far enough. Regardless, if he can convince EgoRaptor that games can and should be restricted in a narrative sense in order to derive more meaning, then he would be well on his way to converting him into an OOT lover. But just plainly saying "the combat wasn't as bad as you think it was" isn't very convincing.
    The philosophy given by Ego Raptor is fascinating because it seems to be following a trend we can see in the Video game literature. The notion that video games intend to be simulations rather than representations is the vein of thought Ego Raptor is drawing from when he argues that players make their own narratives through game play. He isn't opposed to story, plot, etc. He just doesn't want those things defining his experience. He wants them to serve as sturdy metal skeletons, which he will flesh out with his own actions and achievements. I'm going to suggest a new critical framework. Enter new criticism.
   The notion that the text dictates the meaning of a text is one that has ushered in the wave of "close reading" and other scrutinizing activities we see in the classroom. I believe that video games should be criticized in a similar manner. Formal elements and specific game play details need to be taken into consideration. From there you need to ask what kind of experience does this make? The question of whether a game intends to simulate or represent is answered by the game, not by the critic. Some games will simulate and try to recreate the experiences germane to the game (e.g. Skyrim). Other games exist for representation and really are just peddling a story that you passively shape (e.g. Ace attorney at law). There is no better between them, they come from two different philosophies. I personally enjoy narrative oriented games, while my little brother enjoys simulation oriented games. OOT tries to do both and is very successful, but for purists it will never pass the test of unrestricted free game play. Link is the every person here, but he is still Link, He still has his own destiny and you playing through it in an attempt to live vivaciously threw him constantly become torned between wanting to be the hero and seeing the story unfold for Link. 

COD Advanced Warfare looks like it has some major flaws

   The gameplay for COD Advance Warfare hit E3 and it seems my Halo got mixed with my COD. Your super soldier has a suit (well I guess they call it an exoskeleton) that endows the soldier with the ability to jump really far away. Now I haven't seen the other advantages to the suit ( though I've heard it can be treated like armor and so on), but just from seeing the jumping ability, I became very skeptical of the fluidity of the gameplay. Call of duty play style is very slow compared to other shooters like TitanFall. The game is meant for a duck and cover system where you scurry through a map, looking for enemies, then proceed to kill those enemies without your own cover being blown. Sometimes you'll engage in full on fire fights, but often in COD the enemy kills you before you even know the enemy is there. Perks such as Marathon and lightweight allow you to move quicker, but even that speed is a brisk walk compared to the sprinting found in Titanfall. I'm not saying COD should be Titanfall, I'm just using Titanfall as an example of a game that uses superhuman capabilities to make for a thrilling game play experience. You haven't lived till you walked on a wall to the other side of the map, promptly falling behind the enemy sniper that tried to pick you off several times, then proceeding to snap his neck, while hitching a ride off your buddy in a Titan. It's euphoric. Something tells me that COD won't be having those kinds of acrobats in its core gameplay. So my issue becomes one of practicality. Why would I use my ability to jump high if it will blow my cover immediately? And it's not like I have significant armor (unless they's what they're adding, which may be the case), so chances are if the enemy sees me froffing about in the sky, my exoskeleton is about to become swiss cheese. Halo/2/3/Reach were fun games because you had significant armor that allowed you to take risks. You could potentially jump in the air, exposing yourself to multiple sources of fire, just to land that perfect sticky grenade. Is that the route COD is going? If it is, then good for them I suppose. I'm unsure if that's what they're fans want, but I feel we've had enough realistic shooters for this decade. Time to get all futuristic. Also, did anyone see Splatoon? It looks awesome. 

The flaws of Jade Empire

Jade Empire is a Bioware RPG consistently finding itself on the top 50 lists of RPGs of all time. Unfortunately before its release, it was hyped to be one of the best RPGs ever made. So what happened? Well there are a few critical mistakes I think were overlooked when developing the game.

1. The vastness of the Empire was never established-
        The driving mechanism of Jade Empire is twofold. The first driving mechanism stems from your own personal quest to find out your fate as a spirit monk/help your peers achieve their long term goals as well. The second mechanism is to save/rule the empire. When you reach the end of the game you essentially decide whether to save the empire or rule it. Unfortunately while the game tried very hard to convince you to care about the Empire and prove how large it is (think of the progression of areas, small town, to medium size city, to large city) it doesn't provide you a diversity of culture one would expect with such a large place. We need to go to the Prosperous East or the North to view how the Empire is from the eyes of others. The fireworks ending of the people applauding your victory is only sweet if you actually believe you saved something massive. The sheer scope of the Empire is never proven to the player, making it hard for the player to leave the game with chills when they finish it.

2. The moral scheme doesn't work-
     Now there has been a series of critiques placed against morality schemes in general, especially when it works with the good/evil (open palm/closed fist) dichotomy, but barring all those critiques the morality scheme still falls flat in the game. That's because being good is favored in terms of character relationships. What I mean is that the characters in your entourage tend to all lean to either morally good or morally ambiguous backgrounds. The only real "evil" companion is Ya Zhen and he is literally counter balanced by Chai Ka, making most of the companions not very willing to support your heartless lifestyle. I know you can turn some of your companions to the darkside, but most of their background stories just don't make that kind of switch coat behavior plausible. Sky: saving his daughter Sagacious Zu: on a journey of repentance Silk Fox: Concerned with Father and Country. The rest of them are either clearly good (e.g. Dawn Star, Wild Flower, etc.) or ambiguous leaning on the side of good (e.g. Whirlwind, Hu). The point is that as a player you grow with these characters and the thought of treating them like shit the entire game makes no sense. It makes no sense that they stick with you and it makes no sense for you to have them around you. We face a similar dilemma in KOTOR 1 (Gasp did he just criticize KOTOR 1, blasphemy!). Nobody in your crew seems inherently bad except for maybe Canderous and even then that's dispelled to be a tough guy on the outside, soft on the inside ruse (HK is just an ass). KOTOR 2 is far more accommodating, allowing various companions who are both good and bad to join you. The point is I don't like being bad in JE because then I look like an ass to my companions.

  Furthermore, one might argue well Closed Fist does not equal evil. And theoretically that'd be true. And philosophically that'd be true. But your normal closed first interaction proves otherwise. Honestly all I do is pick the option that results with more people dying and that's how I get my closed fist points. Sometimes Closed Fist even leads you to senselessly killing people. Bladed Thesis' ghost makes it pretty clear that Closed Fist isn't senseless evil and must have purpose. But often it just feels like as long as you act like a complete ass, then you will consistently get closed fist points. A good way to demonstrate the nuance of the morality scheme would be to bait players into doing things that removed Closed Fist points. All of a sudden you can't kill willy nilly, you need to be purposeful in your evil deeds.

3. Broken Gameplay-
The gameplay in JE is tons of fun, until you realize how easy it is. The game tries to make combat difficult, but when you can jump out of any enemy attack, block nearly every enemy attack and do twice the damage of any potential enemy, then the game becomes a joke. By the time you reach the halfway point you're pretty much indestructible. Also, the lack of styles is pretty apparent. I guess a wider diversity of everything would have made this game better.

Jade Empire felt like a trailer to a much better game. I'm unsure if they ran out of space or simply wanted to cash in, but the game was clearly rushed out too early. 

Video Games and Intertextuality: Paradise Lost in Fallout 3

                         Time for my English major side to bleed into my interpretation of games and this time I have an excuse, we're talking about literature. Now every good Easter egg hunter knows that games make sly references to classical literature all the time. Hell, some guys are essentially video game versions of classical literature (e.g. Dante's Inferno [however regrettable that may be]). But when video games embed classical literature (or any literature for that matter) into a game, it opens up an interesting interpretative question. How does the game change the way we read that particular text and how does text change the way we experience that particular game. The theory of video games is a young one, but the literature seems to be in some sort of agreement that the difference between interpreting a video game and interpreting a piece of literature is in how one perceives the medium. We do not "read" games, instead we interact with them, making the action of "play" the central focus of a game. Now narrative structures can relate to play insofar that they embed meaning into our actions. For example, the entire Final Fantasy franchise uses narrative to make what is at best a lackluster turn based combat system meaningful. It's also the reason why games like Modern Warfare were given such high praise: shooting at people is far more gratifying when you know why you're shooting. But what happens when we work in reverse? How do we change the way we read a text given its new intertextuality within a game. Do we read it in a hierarchical sense, meaning we interpret the text in solely in the context of game? For example, the mere mention of the word "paradise" in Fallout 3 has huge connotations. Paradise is the yearning for all residents given the post apocalyptic setting. However, quite literally, the Capital Wasteland represents a Paradise that was lost. Furthermore, the Eden creation kit shows a yearning to regain paradise, much like how Adam and Eve wished to stay within Eden. Furthermore, the action of accessing the text requires you to gain "bad karma", so the text is turned into taboo for the player. What does it mean to read Paradise Lost as a text that is taboo?  Do we continue down this line of interpretation, drawing parallels between the vault 101 wanderer and Adam/Eve or do we work from the opposite direction? We can examine the interpretations of those passages and then ask how does this change the meaning of the game (or reinforce meaning). Or perhaps we can use the interpretation of the passages as the organizational structure for our interpretation of its intertextuality. What I mean is if we take a critical lens to the first excerpt from Book 2, anyone who has read Paradise lost knows this is one of the angels that followed Satan in the war against God. Book 2 serves as a role call for all of the demons in hell and Moloch specifically is cited to be deceiver. What does this deception mean in terms of the game? Who is the deceiver? Are you deceiving people within the game.? The questions are endless and there is a fruitful literary and video game oriented conversation to be had. I unfortunately am no longer a college student who has the time or resources to explore these questions (ehhh I probably have the time and will probably look into it more myself), but had I been allowed, this would have probably been my senior honors thesis for English. Soon our classics will be embedded in code, used to serve as foils for a new non linear story. The quicker our scholars recognize that, a new life of interpretation will exist for video games and literature.