Results of Ruminations

There is great difficulty when approaching the Everyman that is supposed to be Solid Snake. His appearance in subsequent games--most canonical, some not ( Super Smash Brothers Melee and the Ac!d games come to mind)--has slowly, almost reluctantly revealed the explosive past and personality of a character who was originally designed to be more transparent. Hideo Kojima explains in an interview: "When I created the main character [Snake], I knew he is essentially the player...I wanted the character to be vague. That way, players will project their own personalities onto the character, and form a stronger connection with Snake." This technique is not unique to games, yet the tropes of transparent characters rarely see such success. Few narratives can readily rely on a blank Everyman, though some do ( Moby-Dick is perhaps the greatest example). The result is perhaps crucial to Snake as an avatar. That isn't to say the character doesn't have personality or a past. The tr...

NOTE: As always, there's a standing spoiler alert for any game I discuss on this blog. Here, I will be talking about Metal Gear Solid for the first PlayStation. Most of the discussion will focus on and spoil only that storyline, but because the five games that comprise the saga (as of this writing, with MGS: Portable Ops taking a necessary place) are linked, it's important to know that some things may get spoiled if you haven't played everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On Liquid In a certain sense, Metal Gear Solid is Liquid's game. Ever one to want to emulate the Patriots--albeit a type of radical, hate-twisted emulation, similar to the one that he has for Big Boss--Liquid takes it upon himself to manipulate, control, and twist Snake's progress. If anyone controls Snake, it should be Liquid, not the gamer. The controller in the hands of the audience is happenstance, for the entire ballet of Shadow Moses is...

NOTE: This one is best read as a follow up to the one about violence and the one about the next level of gaming. I am, admittedly, rather disappointed in this particular essay, but I want to see what others think before I scrap it entirely. Particularly the end—it smacks of being too preachy. You tell me. Also, there is a footnote. Just FYI. Death of the Avatar Roland Barthes in 'Death of the Author': “Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing” (Image, Music, Text, 1977). Replace 'writing' with 'gaming', and we have a new instance of death within video games--indeed, may very well be the only death within video games that matters. “[Gaming] is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body [gaming].” Much has been said about t...

Games As Narrative or Play? Narratology versus ludology, an old question in a new medium of theory, has become stale and stalemate. Wark plays on this in Gamer Theory (67): But where gamer theory gets stuck is in the tension between thinking games through the forms of the past and the desire to found a--somewhat hasty--claim to a new 'field' or 'topic' of scholarship around some 'new media.' Is the game about story or play? Is the authoritative method 'narratology' or 'ludology'? Questions too ill-framed to answer. Theory cannot answer the question of which is better; the medium, though new, is touching upon a long-held understanding of both concepts. We have never been without play. We have never been without story. The melding of the two is not new, nor is it novel. For fear of sounding tautological: What it is, it is. The game rests on three pillars, as Stephen Dinehart explains. In his article " Dramatic Play ," he explores the thr...