Temporarily public

An extract of a response I had to James Portnow’s expert blog over at Gamasutra.com

A little about myself and one of my best friends whose tastes are similar to mine; our tastes in film in particular are a little different to core popular Hollywood, yet we don’t stop ourselves from enjoying the occasional explosion-fest. I have no qualms whatsoever in watching a film that is purely about (as the marketting jargon goes), ‘sex, cars and guns’, but the level to which I am engaged, fascinated and immersed in these films will always be limitted; I never look for more than this from them. My friend and I spend much more time pursuing independent films, and are avid followers of David Lynch and Darren Aronofsky. Myself I tend to pursue more foreign language films having been brought up on them, and while I tend to be able so share roughly half of these with my friend, he pursues quirky English language indie films which are equally fantastic, about half of which he shares with me (or perhaps we enjoy roughly half of each-other’s tastes). He’s not a reader of literature in any degree but still an appreciator and lover of abstract and surreal art. I have been an avid reader of fiction in the past, but as I tend to write more these days, I read much less. Actually I don’t read at all, other than to re-visit those books which have had a lasting effect on me.

He has been a gamer for far longer than I, beginning from the Nes days (and PC probably a bit beforehand) and moving through every platform that has existed. I was originally a PC gamer in the days of Myst and the earlier point-and-clickers, moving through my Quake II heydays, however I stopped gaming around Quake 3 and didn’t return to gaming until the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox era (6th console generation?). We both now don’t play PC games, he stopped at Neverwinter Nights (1). We both have Xbox 360’s and Wii’s. (I’m trying desperately to be brief!) – To give you an indication of our gaming tastes, we both adore Silent Hill 2, and while I won’t play Fatal Frame because I don’t have the patience for punishing (and difficult but subjectively rewarding) game mechanics, I still love the ideologies present in the franchise. We have both flirted with Burnout, peaking with 2 on the ‘Cube, though we don’t play racing games any more. Eternal Darkness, Katamari, P.N.03, Okami and ICO are all darlings of ours, as well as others of the like. He loves Resident Evil (all iterations on all generations), whereas I do play single player Halo and Modern Warfare 2. Right at the minute, he’s indulging in Ninja Blade (otherwise known as QTE: The Game with wonderfully absurd set-pieces), while I’m indulging in Prototype (otherwise known as Kill Everything That Moves). There are plenty of others, and he in particular adores many niche games that most don’t play nor have heard of.

Here’s the thing; at the moment, though I don’t have a PS3, my most favourite game, quite possibly in my entire gaming history, would be Chen’s Flower. Next to that, while Myst and Eternal Darkness are two of my all-time favourite games, I’ve absolutely enjoyed Prince of Persia 2008. While it’s not perfect, I’ve been able to easily overlook its flaws because of a couple of key elements that struck chords with me. (Damn this is getting long). To put it shortly, I just love being in the game worlds of Flower and PoP ’08. There are a few key things I love about gaming; co-operative play, logical mechanics, exact translation of control input to in-game actions, then the two big ones; subtext and opportunity for abstract gratification. Subtext for me is the most important thing in any artform. Sure, it’s not necessary, sometimes, as with Prototype, it’s just fun to flail about in childish abandon while the noises are loud and the blood splatters across the screen. However subtext and abstract enjoyment are things I’ve derived most likely from my film and anime watching habits. Be aware than when I say anime, again, while I love some of the less complex and comedic productions, my most treasured are the abstracts such as Texhnolyze, and the amazing minimalism of Mamoru Oshii to give two examples. Our most recent favourite live-action film is Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York.

Prince of Persia has a very simple story, yet I loved being in the game world with Elika. I loved that every action involved her and that subtly, the game (for me) is about being in a beautiful world with her and doing everything with her. I loved the quanity of dialogue shared between them, in particular when they challenged each-other on their personal ethos, but more delightful than that, when they became more relaxed with one-another and discussed things almost non-relevant to the games’ story, something games rarely do; portray characters at play. The main story for me was merely a contrivance to bring two people together, and then to immerse myself in their lives and actions, their thoughts and developing relationship. I found the final movement to be amazing, as the player is guided towards making a decision based on selfishness rather than altruism, something I’ve always enjoyed seeing, and now for once, playing. I don’t spend a lot of time reading the reviews and responses of other players, but there are very few responses I’ve seen about the place that have a similar experience to what I derive from PoP ’08. I loved many of the things they hated, and didn’t enjoy many of the things they did. Many people hated having to stop to talk to Elika, whereas for me I was absolutely delighted with the necessity to actually stop to give her time. I really enjoyed doing that as I had the choice, didn’t have to, but was rewarded upon doing it. I sense my history with literature and film play a big role in why this is gratifying for me. Other than the dialogue, to this day, I still boot up PoP ’08 simply to move about the gameworld with Elika. I just love how simple and fluid the inputs and animations are, with wonderful visuals and ambient soundtrack. On my second play-through I actually only collected the minimum light seeds required until the very end so that I could spend the bulk of the end-game revisiting every environment, moving about and collecting seeds. It connects with a very subtle but deeply emotional part of my brain.

Flower amazed me because I’m such a massive fan of minimalism and naturalistic narratives. While I’ll do it if a game is enjoyable enough, I generally have no interest in saving the world or defeating any bad-guys. I’ve long left the ideologies of good and evil behind in my personal life, and I have never been one to celebrate fictional heroism. I have nothing at all against these ideologies and we should always make games about heroic acts, with themes of good and evil, I just don’t find them interesting is all – from a strictly personal perspective. I’ve played Flower on a friend’s PS3 and its rewards all come from being in the gameworld. No time incentive (that I know of, though it is delightfully condusive to speed-running should you wish to attempt it), and almost no threat at all. Like PoP, it has so much more to offer than merely its primary objectives, or as the gamers put it, ‘beating the game’. I have replayed the first level of Flower over and over again, each time spending more and more time in the game-world,simply because its actions and visual expressions are so beautiful.

To make this relevant to your article… I’m not entirely sure that the gaming market as a whole are into subtext. I certainly don’t go into every gaming experience desperately in search of the multi-layered symbolism of an Oshii film, or the abstracts of Lynch, or the socio-political (and eventually emotional) subtexts of Texhnolyze or Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but I am quick to start reading these things into any film or game should the slightest hint of it be there, whether it’s intended by the creators or not. I actually have no concern whether subtexts are intentional or not, I have no idea to a greater or lesser degree whether the director of PoP ’08 intended it to be so emotionally rich; for me it was, and I am grateful for it.

The thing is, I don’t want to sound elitist at all, I don’t have some withering view of people who don’t get into subtext, it’s great. People should get into whatever it is they identify with and feel gratified by; I guess I have a holistic view of it, that the market is what it is and it shouldn’t change. Whether someone gets into dense symbology is no indication of their relative inteligence, it’s just a matter of taste. I know that I’d love to see more of it, but I don’t mind if I don’t. I understand and appreciate the necessity for Hollywood summer blockbusters and AAA FPS/JRPG games, and at the same time, there will always be these little indie gems that are enjoyable for the people that enjoy them. I guess that’s not really very helpful from a market perspective! If you’re asking me how you can make detailed, multi-facetted and interpretive games more financially viable, I’m sorry, I’m not sure. I don’t know if gaming will ever mature to a greater extent beyond groking game-mechanics, and perhaps it shouldn’t. The idealist in me leaps in the air and shakes a fist, ‘Of-course it should!’, but perhaps games for most people are about the mecahnics afterall. I know plenty of people who would scoff at my love of PoP, Flower, Katamari and the emotional subtleties of Twilight Princess, yet will still sit beside me and thoroughly enjoy Kaufman or Lynch. I suppose time will tell, and the people will decide.