Tangle of Bushes (Love has not given up)

In reply to 'Rules of the Game' by Daniel Golding

Note: In 2012 Hyper magazine published an article by Dan Golding titled 'Rules of the Game'. I'm not sure (that is can't remember) what position he was taking in the article but this was my response. Having discovered this in my files yesterday, I thought it was written well enough to be posted here.

I think we can safely say, and agree upon, that video-gaming is not a sport. Sports, in my opinion, require physical activity beyond twiddling your fingers and exercising the synapses in your brain. I believe that a game needs competition, and that competition must be an adversary of some type. This begs the question, is chess a game if you are playing against yourself? Well, I would argue, yes, because you are facing the adversary who just happens to be yourself. Fair game, I guess.

It's easy to view sport orientated videogames such as Wii Sports and Tekken or Street Fighter as games because they inherently take the forms of sport and apply them to the computerised world, thus taking out the 'sport' but retaining the game. So by that definition, game is form, not activity.

Any sports-modelled videogame still requires a competition-based form to involve yourself in the playing of: whether you are playing against your flatmate or the computer, you are still playing against an adversary that you may not win against.

When we enter the world of story-based videogaming, we are not entering a game, as there is no other competition, no one I am competing against; I am simply taking part in an exploration of a story-based entertainment. By picking up a console controller, customising my character and deciding which reply my character will answer with, I am no longer a passive viewer accepting another person's story as it is told to me, but an active part of the story who makes sincere and often involving decisions about how another person's story is going to be told to me – that is interactive entertainment. It is not a game, there are no rules, but there is a specific storyline that must be adhered to to get the full entertainment value out of.

The problem with viewing story-based videogames as a 'game' is knowing that it is a forgone conclusion that you will win, when essentially, all you are doing is concluding the story that you begun by opening your videogame box and inserting the disc – practically no different than picking up a DVD and inserting the disc, or via a different medium, picking up a book and opening the first page.

No matter what setting you play the story-based videogame on – even on the hardest setting – you can win if you put in enough time. The reality of the true game is that another player just might be better than you no matter how much time you put in. In that sense, only the videogame itself is your adversary. Can I really beat Dead Space 2 with only three saves allowed? I certainly can! (The question is, can I be bothered?)

Online is different though. Online we have competition. We have many players playing against each other, racking up high scores and at times competing for prizes. And, although I have never played online, are there not rules that accompany how you play online? Or perhaps, codes of conduct would be a better phrase.

A game of chess, or tennis, dictates how you play simply by the rules that have been created to accommodate the form of the game. Yes, it is possible to cheat, and there in lies the necessity to acquire a judge or adjudicator to impart impartiality.

Videogaming requires no referee, no adjudicator to check if I am cheating or not. That, assuming cheat codes are available, is entirely my choice, and at the end of the day I only answer to myself.

When playing a traditional game in competition with another, you cannot afford to stand around and do nothing, otherwise your adversary will take advantage of your slack and begin scoring points against you. Many videogames I have played, I have allowed my character to stand around doing nothing, or hide in a corner to generate more health.

I believe that developers need to ask themselves whether they are building a 'game', or an 'interactive entertainment'.

If developers really want their products to be viewed as games, they need to stop making every mission and quest so easy to complete by providing instructions, cues, markers and arrows that make the story and puzzles nothing more than a walkthrough.

On the other hand, if developers are only making interactive entertainments, then it is the attitude of gamers themselves that need to change. The reason Prince of Persia (2008) flopped was not because of the game, which was a beautifully rendered semi-cell shaded enjoyable romp through an imaginary fairytale land, but because of the voices that decried its 'easiness' and the resulting criticisms towards the gameplay (and rather thin plot). For once, I had an interactive entertainment that obeyed its own internal logic – if the story requires my character to win-out in the end, then it makes complete and utter sense that he doesn't die during the story. PoP (2008) I believe, is the first true example of an interactive entertainment through the videogame form without relying on the actual 'game' element whereby it is necessary for you to try not to die or be 'beaten' by the computer.

• 2012, Whangamata

TROPES VS. MOVIEBOB (The Big Picture)

Monday 1st December, 2014

What’s been happening Mr. Stubbs?

Far Cry 3 has been happening, that’s what.

Was it any good?

Well, it was a lot of fun once the story pissed off. The worst thing about this game was being locked into missions. Second to that, I think, was the story itself. I felt so bored by all the cutscenes. I did like Vaas as a villain though, but like some forum commenters, I too thought he was under-developed. Hoyts turned out to be nothing interesting so it would have been far more interesting to see Vaas still alive and trying to kill Hoyts as well. The player then could have had the choice to let Vaas do it himself, but making him more powerful, or to try to kill Hoyts first to stop Vaas from gaining power, but having to deal with Vaas at the same time as a consequence. Or something like that. Overall, the story theme, that of slave-trading, was fine, but I thought the whole mushroom tripping and amazon-warrioresque aspects were generally pretty dumb and pointless. So many times through a cutscene I was pressing buttons on the controller in hope that the apparently non-mapped ‘skip cutscene’ button would suddenly spring into existence. But it didn’t, and I was left to voice my non-caring attitude out loud.

The story might have had more impact if the player character was one of the local islanders themselves and had to pick up weapons to save a bunch of white-American holidayers, or even make them a bit of a mix-up: French, Canadian, American, etc. In some ways, it could test the player as to how much they need to care about some random people opposed to their own fellow local inhabitants who were also in danger of being kidnapped by Vaas and his pirates. Or even, if the fellow inhabitants were getting disillusioned and slowly going over to Vaas’s side, so then some of the missions would revolve around collecting evidence through the kidnapped holidayers, or otherwise.

And with that idea in place you could even throw in the twist of if you save the foreigners, they call their parents/family to say that they are okay, but if you don’t, the families come in with their ‘big foreign weaponry’ (government sanctioned, or private) and completely fuck shit up but in doing so bomb you and the locals, thus turning them into the new and more powerful enemies.

Hmmm. Sounds like a completely different game now.

Far Cry 3 just needed to stick to its basic slave-trading template with one insane villain who was growing more and more powerful.

Here’s another way of getting around the “white guy saving the locals” colonialism aspect of the game:

1. Player is local guide that takes holiday foreigners on their trip,
2. Player is kidnapped with the foreigners,
3. Player is constantly being taunted by Vaas to become a pirate like him,
4. Player is constantly asking themselves how important saving the foreigners are, opposed to the player-character’s local community who are also in danger of being kidnapped, or losing faith and going over to Vaas,

This would have then given greater impact to the final choice of taking the life of the foreigner at the end, especially if she was the first one you saved and became a love interest who actually fought along side of you.

But then, in this version there’s no mushroom tripping either, so that choice might not work as well.

But it could.

Imagine if the syringes that the player crafted became the trip sequences whenever they were injected, and the game twisted everything around so it felt like you were fighting your own people until the effect wore off. Some players might enjoy that and do the syringes heaps, others would never use them again, but the final mushroom trip you were given took you over the edge forcing you to question everything and making that final decision more potent.

As it was I just wanted to throw my controller at the wall because the designer or writer had dared to expect me to think a final choice was hard to make when throughout the entire time I was completely invested in saving the lives of my friends. Liza’s whining throughout did nothing to change that.

The Escapist : Game Theory : Watch_Dogs Warning!

Watch_Dogs Warning!

Draft Version

As I fall again into Depression,
This weight is something more than I can stand.
And again, Gravity will play the robber,
        again and again and again.
        The thief persuading me to fight against it
        like I had a chance.

I’m sorry for the bruises
I inflicted upon you,
I never meant harm
only to have you with me.
        Just in case.

Creases and folds of your pages,
Slight tears to the edges,
Shoved into my bag with my shoes
So I can walk the beach
        an observational disaster,
        Lucky for the reprints, Barber

Here I sit 7km out
to do some writing,
But I can barely hold this pen.
        Dribbling across the page
        38 on an infant stage

If the strength of my calves,
Could be transferred to these fingers,
If some kind of inspiration
Could ravish my brain

Instead of the sunken skin across my face
Pulling at my bones, dragging down my crown
Threatening to reveal the tears sidling under the balls of
        my white eyes.

If there was another way, Marlowe
To survive the death,
And still be remembered
Would the pseudonym fit the words?

Or would they bleed another lie from the quill,
Like all half-truths when distilled?
        Begging for more explanations
        As though rational deductions
        Could change the outcomes.

        I was a summer squall
        Crashing waves upon the shore,
        Ignoring the heat of the beating sun
        Exiting my return with a plumb

A life in verse
Remember the lines,
        remember the lines,
Avoid the curse,
       It was all for naught.

• 18/01/15, Gisborne

Springtime Carnivore: Springtime Carnivore

60s reverb is all over this album with an obvious nod towards everything else that was good about early 60s pop – up tempo beats, bright flowing harmonies, and lilting female vocals. While it could be classed as sunshine pop, it resembles more closely the musical styling of psychedelia but completely void of any drug infused influences such as wah-wah or chorus pedals (unless they’re heavily buried in the mix somewhere).

A number of sixties female vocalists can be detected, but most prominently Dusty Springfield might be the first that comes to mind. On songs like ‘Collectors’ and ‘Name on a Matchbox’ singer Greta Morgan never attempts to emulate these greats, but sings lines like “I’ve got your name on a matchbox, I need your face in the past” with her own relaxed but distinctive tones - with a non-intrusive whistle whistling out the chorus hook, this third track is easily one of the strongest songs on the record. ‘Sun Went Black’ charges through the door with full force deserving to challenge the popularity of anything by Lana Del Rey whose similar fusion of retro pop with contemporary production catapulted her into stardom. Springtime Carnivore is less reliant on studio tricks though, opting for a far more organic sound and a stronger sense of rhythm that would make anybody dance to the line “Living without you is no life at all”. ‘Foxtrot Freak (Something in the Atmosphere)’ signals a relaxed groove with the opening line “Smile, smile, shuffle, the pompom parade, we all danced backwards when the skies went all grey” taking us on a fun trip to the ‘Other Side of the Boundary’ where things seem to get a bit more complicated with strained emotions and suitably a drop out of instruments leaving just an acoustic guitar on the right and a strumming electric on the left supporting the vocalist up in the middle singing “Every time I ever tried walking to the edge, my tired heart would compromise and I would miss my chance. But I will run now. . .”

‘Keep Confessing’ belts out “I already know your secrets” like vocalist Greta Morgan is serenading us with a late eighties rock ballad by Heart, while ‘Last One to Know’’s kick drum and thin treble vocals hint at nineties alternative pop in the vein of The Cardigan’s ‘Lovefool’.

The album soars when it’s up-tempo and all instruments join in on what feels like a celebration of all the reasons for making music, but occasionally drags a little towards the end as the tempos move closer to setting-sun moods. ‘Creature Feature’ tries to rectify that but never soars as beautifully as the first three hit tracks, instead the album opts for a gentle goodbye with the solo keyboards of ‘Low Clouds’.

This is an album I like for its fullness without ever feeling like there is an over indulgence of nostalgia, though nostalgic it is – songs bathe in the glory of the 60s but with a strong sense of moving forward rather than backwards. Production is slightly below the more mainstream quality of Lana Del Rey, but still throws a punch when turned up. A strong début with catchy songs, appealing vocals, and an excellent sense of self.

Soundblab.com/Springtime Carnivore