Tiny Subversions

So someone brought their XBox 360 to work yesterday. As I was watching someone play through Perfect Dark Zero, I watched the bad guys... stand in place and fire the gun at the player! My only comment was, "Wow. This console is amazing. For a second there, I thought I was looking at a real mannequin."

Why does anyone still care about graphics over much more interesting computational problems like AI?

Nine times out of 10, when you're blowing people's chests open with hollow-point bullets, you aren't playing as a terrorist or criminal. No, you're playing as a cop, a soldier or a special-forces agent -- a member of society's forces of law and order.

Consider our gaming history. In Doom, the game that began it all, you were a Marine. Then came a ceaseless parade of patriotic, heart-in-hand World War II games, in which you merrily blow the skulls off Japanese and German soldiers under the explicit authority of the U.S. of A. Yet anti-gaming critics didn't really explode with indignation until Grand Theft Auto 3 came along -- the first massively popular modern game where the tables turned, and you finally played as a cop-killing thug.

Why weren't these detractors equally up in arms about, say, the Rainbow Spear [sic] series? Because games lay bare the conservative logic that governs brutal acts. Violence -- even horrible, war-crimes-level stuff -- is perfectly fine as long as you commit it under the aegis of the state. If you're fighting creepy Arabs and urban criminals, go ahead -- dual-wield those Uzis, equip your frag grenades and let fly. Nobody will get much upset.

Indeed, conservatives have long been fans of the Dirty Harry beat-down. Consider what Bill Clark -- a former NYPD office who consulted on True Crime: New York City -- said about the game in a recent news report: "Marcus is the type of cop we all wished we could be. He doesn't need warrants to burst into buildings, search cars, or
people. He doesn't have to deal with politics or property damage or paperwork."

These days, Dick Cheney is fiercely lobbying to grant the government virtually the same powers. And indeed, Congress is set to re-up the Patriot Act, preserving and extending the CIA's special, magnified powers to detain and wiretap suspects -- their "extra life" upgrades, as it were. If art imitates life, maybe it's no wonder that
we've seen a rise in games that blur the lines between criminals and state authority.

The irony is that, in reality, New York's actual police have moved in the opposite direction. They've become more successful at keeping the peace by being less bloodthirsty. In the '90s, they drastically reduced the city's crime rate by "community policing" and beat walking, the sort of quiet, low-key work that makes a city genuinely secure. (Wired News: The Bad Lieutenant)

I always used to joke that iD got away with the incredible violence in Wolfenstein 3D because nobody could argue with killing Nazis. What did they do for its successor, Doom? You killed demons. Who can argue with that? But behind the joke lies the fact that sanctioned violence plays an important role in almost all violent media. Saving Private Ryan was a visceral, violent movie unlike any other, but nobody complained about it. But Reservior Dogs is a completely different animal.

Not sure if I have a conclusion here or anything. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

I direct your attention to a provactive post on Lost Garden:

Modern game design is a specialized discipline that rarely correlates with a particular technical profession. Imagine the absurdity of the following statements: The best authors are also be typesetters. The best directors are also camera men. The best product designers are also engineers. We have outgrown the need for all game designers to be programmers. (Lost Garden: The myth of programmer-designer greatness)

But I also believe that game designers need to be proficient programmers. I take issue with Danc's analogies. While "the best authors are also typesetters" is certainly an absurd statement, many excellent authors are made better by their knowledge of typesetting. Some of the most profound moments I have seen in books have been when the author was clearly working with the typesetting in mind. There was a moment in Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity! that was brilliant solely because of where the page break went. So while being a typesetter is not required, if you want to be a great author, I think it can only help to know about your craft as a whole.

Shigesato Itoi has referenced the resurrection of Mother 3, the latest in his cult RPG franchise, on his personal website. Originally planned for release on Nintendo 64, the project died alongside the abortive 64DD peripheral, but it's now planned for release as a spring 2006 Game Boy Advance title in Japan. The two previous games in the series -- only the second of which was released in the U.S., as Earthbound -- also saw a revival as Mother 1+2 on GBA in 2003. Nintendo of America, however, has never announced any plans to bring the games over to the U.S. in portable form.

(From Gamasutra - Round-Up: Atlus Shrugs, Mother 3 Returns, C Compiled)