philosony
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Philosony: You can listen, but you can't HEAR Big Daddy
Thanks entirely to this recent second Christmas of a deal I finally picked up Bioshock and am giving it a play through. Now you, Inconstant Reader, probably expect me to launch into some pseudo-thought-provoking analysis of the moral conundrum involving the Little Sisters, or to give the reigns to my inner philosopher who wants to debate the pros and cons of a Randian worldview. Though it may take all the will I can muster, I shall refrain from doing so. You can find a plethora of views on these subjects out there on the interwebs without my adding to the cacophony. Instead I'm going to discuss what's interesting about coming to the game having already navigated said cacophony. No real spoilers, but some talk about what spoilers - like honey - don't spoil. Wrap your head around that one.
Philosony: Will the real Alex Sheperd please stand up?
One thing that I think we all love about our chosen hobby is that the experience of a single game can be drastically different for each person. I don't mean this in the way we mean about other "static" media where we might each interpret what we read/see/hear in unique ways. I mean that though two people may play the exact same game, the cut scenes they view and the boss battles they fight may be completely different. This might be most evident in sandbox games or titles that have a prodigious amount of side quests, but sometimes even the main story can take wildly different paths depending on player input.Heavy Rain director David Cage has expressed his desire to create a game that allows you to really suffer consequences that affect the story and continue playing, always conscious of your input in the overall plot. We may be entering an era in which we gamers may not only see different stories but have to actually reflect on what the path we choose says about us as well as the story. When my recent play through of Silent Hill: Homecoming was rewarded with a less than satisfying ending I immediately cursed the game's writers for their ineptitude. But looking back I've begun to wonder: am I partially to blame? Are bad endings increasingly becoming the consequence of bad or even inconsistent decisions by players? Don't worry, the spoilers don't begin for another 300 words.
Philosony: Home from the holidays
Like many of you I've spent the holidays traveling to and visiting with friends and family. Though this afforded me ample free time with which to re-connect with my PSP (and finally get into Jeanne D'Arc), it also meant bidding adieu to my very unportable PS3. For several evenings prior to leaving I milled around in Home, trying to strike up a conversation, channeling my inner Dude, and avoiding the temptation to Quincy. I was genuinely interested in trying to make Home a social platform, a place to meet other people and chat about life, the universe, and maybe - though not necessarily - games.It didn't work so well.Home, like many other things on and about the PS3, seems to invoke highly polarized reactions among critics and players. I've seen it on recent end-of-the-year lists as both one of the best applications and biggest disappointments of 2008. As the holidays are one of the few occasions I get to re-connect (and game) with a real-life social network that I've developed over the years I spent some time with them ruminating over why I don't have anything close to this kind of network of friends on the PSN and whether Home could provide it. Basically, before making any judgments about what Home lacks or where it fails to live up to expectations we need to really think about the question: what do we want out of Home?
Philosony: Give a sackboy a level and he'll play for a day...
Teach a sackboy to make a level and he'll play for... well, an additional day. Or so it seems.I'll be honest. This post is apt to be all over the map. There's so much that could be said and yet so little that has been said about LittleBigPlanet that I'm at a loss for where to begin. I've been trying to hone my thoughts on the game into something bloggable for more than a month now, but a recent post by Michael Abbott got me teary-eyed at the thought of little neglected sackpersons crying from loneliness. I even had a nightmare dream two-nights ago of walking into a store and seeing new copies of LBP selling for $8 (the horror!).So for the sake of some kind of organization let me break down this discussion into three open ended questions:#1: Why has LBP seemingly fallen off the radar?#2: Is it possible to have truly "community made" levels?#3: Should we think of LBP as more "toy" than "game"?
Philosony - Ryu's Episteme
This Thanksgiving I want to give the bulk of my thanks to one company for helping me answer a question that has been bothering me for over 15 years. The company? Capcom. The question? Put simply, do I really have preternatural Street Fighter skills?I still remember the first time I saw a SF2 arcade machine. It was at Walley World Six Flags Magic Mountain in the Spring of 1991, and the first character I chose was Dhalsim. The inspired lovechild of Iyengar and Reed Richards got me hooked and my freshman year of high school was a non-stop deluge of fierces, roundhouses, and quarters. There was no practice mode, no free play, and no internet to turn to for tips and tricks. Becoming a BAMF in a fighting game back then took nonstop on-the-job training. And I trained well - so well, in fact, that I soon ran out of people willing to sacrifice their money for my amusement. Even when the home version arrived my friends soon tired of me whupping on them. Being able to defeat them with my eyes closed probably didn't help. The thought of being a big fish in a small pond never occurred to me. All I knew was that I had a gift and no one could prove me wrong.* Would that natural talent hold up if I ever faced real competition?
Philosony: Colossus, reign over me!
I recently sat down to watch Reign Over Me, a drama with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Not a bad movie, a tug-at-your-hearstrings affair about about a man whose wife and daughters died on 9/11 and the friend who, running into him 5 years later, tries to help him cope with the reality he has withdrawn from. Somehow I managed to miss the discussion during the film's release about the role of Shadow of the Colossus in the film, so I was a bit surprised and delighted at what I assumed was a mere cameo. At the same time in the back of my mind I thought this might be another gross misrepresentation of games that further promotes gamism - negatively stereotyped portrayals of video games and video gamers. Doesn't this send the not-so-subtle message that games are escapist tools that players use in a mentally unhealthy way to ignore the reality around them?
Philosony - The beauty of problem-solving
Being the upstanding PSFanboy that I am I have been devotedly playing, creating, and (not quite) sharing since I got my grubby, cotton-filled sack paws on a copy of LittleBigPlanet. As we are all well aware this season is particularly pregnant with A-list new releases, but I think it safe to say that Media Molecule's monster is the game to play if you want a uniquely PS3 experience (sorry Bioshock, Fallout, and Dead Space - there will be time for you in the next life I suppose).We all know the selling points of the game. It's not just a cute, side-scrolling platformer and despite it's graphical style and E for Everyone rating it's not necessarily a targeted "kid's game". The real appeal of Sackland is in creation, making us as much game makers as game players. But here's the rub: how is it feasible that there is market among consumers for something that essentially makes them producers?
Philosony: Gamers - natural born learners
Bear with me as I'm about to list all of the games I played for the first time in the past two weeks: Team Fortress 2, Puzzle Quest, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Linger in Shadows, Lego Batman, Warhawk, Supersonic Acrobatic Overly Superlative Adjective Cars, and Motor Storm: Pacific Rift. The last four of these are demos, but as inconstant readers of this column may remember I have a bit of a "thing" when it comes to demos, so I spent a fair bit of time with them. This list only includes PS3 and PSP games - there have also been a good half dozen little browser-based games vying for my attention. Why am I spilling out the sordid details of games I recently deflowered myself on to you? Because in learning how to play all of these games I made an interesting if obscenely obvious discovery - I learned how to play no less than 12 games in a mere 14 days! While that may not sound strange for an avid gamer it sounds odd put in other contexts: learning to play 12 musical instruments in two weeks, learning 12 new sports, learning the ins and outs of a baker's dozen worth of operating systems. Such feats are certainly doable, but rarely does anyone have the drive to add that many new wrinkles to their brain. What is it about games that makes us so willing to learn entirely new systems of play on a regular basis?
Philosony: Raise high the downloads, gamers!
This is the second of a two-part column on digital distribution and its effect on the psychology of your average gamer. In part one we discussed the pros and cons of replacing physical discs and game boxes with digital downloads. This week we discuss the way our gaming habits themselves, from the type of games we play to the time we spend playing them, may be affected by digital downloads.It looks like Sony Japan has finally gotten hip to the idea that when it comes to portable systems digital distribution is the way to go. Heck I've taken plenty of advantage of the UMD Legacy archives for my PSP. After all, there's nothing portable about lugging around a physical library of discs just in case you happen to get the urge to bludgeon an undead abortion in public. There are many arguments in favor of digital distribution for handhelds, particularly as handhelds fit well with the type of "quick-fix" games that most original property digital downloads tend to be. But this column isn't about what makes a good handheld title. It's about what sort of games we want crowing up space on our 80 60 40 20GB hard drives.
Philosony: Where's my box art?
This is a two-part column on digital distribution and its effect on the psychology of your average gamer. In part one we look at the change from the aesthetic of a well-stocked gaming shelf to a digital software library and what is lost or gained by it. Next week we will look at the they way smaller, quick-fix digital game downloads may change our gaming habits.Sorry for the brief hiatus, Inconstant Readers, but I was too busy making repeated trips to the store to pick up more Dramamine and an extra Dual Shock 3 after the PSN update last week. Let's just say that what Wipeout HD lacks as an epileptic stimulant it makes up for with motion sickness at 60fps. Mega Man 9 should also carry a warning about possible "controller malfunction" - here's a tip kiddos: the original Sixaxis is slightly lighter than the Dual Shock 3 and thus has a smaller chance of cracking televisions and denting walls when thrown. Still, I wouldn't have traded this weekend's gaming experiences for anything short of an LBP beta key. Generally after some frantic gaming and letting my house devolve itself into a special level of disarray I rather savor picking up the pieces - smoothing out the crumbled instruction manuals and reinserting them into their cases while finding the perfect organizational spot on the shelf for the box art (alphabetically? by genre? producer?). Imagine my lament when come Monday morning I realized I had nothing but broken controller pieces to pick up. The game's I'd spent my weekend with were all digital downloads!
Philosony: The demo cometh
It's Thursday as I write this, a day that most PS3 owners (and perhaps a small number of well-connected PSP owners) look forward to as PSN update day. I too love Thursdays but not without a small amount of anxiety. I'm a bit of a completist (yea really, a gamer that's a completist. . .) and much like my obsessive drive to own a mint package of every Kool-Aid flavor ever made, each week when new game demos and vids are uploaded I am preternaturally compelled to download them. The videos are no big commitment, generally a quarter hour of passive watching and they're sufficiently digested, but demos are a real time sink. You see, I don't just download the demos of games or genres that interest me. Nor do I spend a few minutes with each demo, just long enough to decide if the game has me hooked and I should commit myself to buying it or not. Ladies and gentlemen, fanboys and fangirls, I present for your toxonomic consideration the newest discovered species of gamer - homo sapeins completus demotaris.
Philosony: Who let the - uh - simian out?
Pet simulators have come a long way since our English teachers were giving us detention for trying to feed our pathetic, whimpering beeping Tamagotchi in class. Now we've got simulated dogs for our handhelds and virtual animals to keep our virtual people company on our PC. With the development of better robotics we've even seen geek's best friend jump through the LCD and follow us into tangible world. By this time next year (hopefully!) we should have a new kind of digital cuteness to keep us amused when no one is watching - the EyePet. I recently wrote about some of the difficulties beyond realistic rendering that developers face when trying to make us emotionally attached to a character. Human behaviors and emotions are so much more difficult to mimic than those of animals, no matter how abstract. You'd find me silently weeping for the destruction of little Metal Gear Mk. II long before I'd be shedding tears for Solid Snake. Why is it easier to evoke a nurturing and protective instinct in a virtual pet than in a virtual human?
Philosony: Yea, though I walk through the uncanny valley...
I wrote a few weeks back about the uncanny valley and Hideo Kojima's possibly telling observation that war machines of the future may exploit the creepiness of robotic simulations to instill fear in their prey. I want to turn my attention now to a discussion of the valley as it applies more directly to us as gamers - overcoming the creepiness of computer generated people. Quantic Dream has already boasted of successfully traversing the valley with its upcoming (and secretly acclaimed) PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain. While realistic graphics are one thing (and it's up to interpretation whether they succeeded in the tech demo almost two years ago), is there more to escaping the valley than mere realistic modeling?
Philosony: Carpe Trophaeum
Kylie Prymus is the first columnist for PS Fanboy. A Ph.D candidate in philosophy, Kylie specializes in the sociology of technology. Through this new weekly column, Kylie will explore the impact of PlayStation on thought and culture.My PSN profile tells me that I am a Trophy n00b. An abysmal 1st level collector. I've acquired most of the trophies that you average primate could gather with ease, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get many more. I have a paltry 8 trophies, all of them from PixelJunk Eden. That puts me at a 33% completion rate, firmly in the middle of category: l-o-s-e-r. Still, I didn't download Eden for the Trophies any more than I downloaded it hoping it would teach me to finally get my snozzberry* plants to grow. I downloaded it because it was a much lauded and quirky, not to mention exclusive, PSN title and I happen to have a soft spot for such qualities (particularly the exclusivity). Being able to collect Trophies through the game is just a bonus, a diversionary side quest that makes the whole package slightly more appealing. As I venture for the first time into this whole trophy business I've had to ask myself why I should even bother. What is the appeal of achievements Trophies? Do they add to or take away from a game? What is it about the Trophy system that made it such a sought after addition to the PSN? Milestones? Bragging rights?
Life is a side quest -- I wanna ride it all night long!
Kylie Prymus is the first columnist for PS Fanboy. A Ph.D candidate in philosophy, Kylie specializes in the sociology of technology. Through this new weekly column, Kylie will explore the impact of PlayStation on thought and culture. I have returned, noble fanboys and fangirls! Yes returned to the land of milk and honey - if by milk you mean PixelJunk Eden and by honey you mean Soulcalibur IV. As I sat in my car staring at long stretches of side quest highway for hours, drooling at the though of returning home to days upon days of new games and DLC (not to mention resolving the heart-wrenching gamus interruptus of a few key titles ), I couldn't help but wonder if my extended absence from the PS3 had taught be anything. Besides the hard lesson that I most definitely need to invest in an HDMI capable monitor - or even better, a PS3 laptop - what did I learn from 6 weeks of quality time with naught save my PSP?
Warning: This dog bites!
Kylie Prymus is the first columnist for PS Fanboy. A Ph.D candidate in philosophy, Kylie specializes in the sociology of technology. Through this new weekly column, Kylie will explore the impact of PlayStation on thought and culture. I'm talking about this dog. Not just any dog. The Big Dog. It may not have teeth (though I'm sure those servo-motors could put a hurtin' on) but when I was shown this video earlier in the week I felt sure it had taken a few nips at my soul. Cut the dog down to two legs and increase its size tenfold and you've got a nearly perfect real life version of the Geckos from MGS4. While I've mentioned MGS4 to a greater or lesser degree in previous columns, thus far I've avoided tackling anything in the game head on. This is largely because, as readers of my last post are aware, my PS3 is several states away and I haven't been able to watch play the game through to its conclusion. Don't worry, I'll pick up Snake's saga in a couple weeks (he's at the front of the line just ahead of Niko and Zack), but I should be able to make a few observations about the game given what I have played (up to the middle of Act 3). If you haven't yet done so I suggest you hit the first link above and check out the video of Big Boss Dog.
LittleBigInsideJoke
Kylie Prymus is the first columnist for PS Fanboy. A Ph.D candidate in philosophy, Kylie specializes in the sociology of technology. Through this new weekly column, Kylie will explore the impact of PlayStation on thought and culture. I believe I owe it to you, Inconstant Reader, to let you in on a little secret. I haven't booted up my PS3 in nearly 3 weeks. There's no opportunity that I foresee which will allow me to press that glorious PS button for at least another month. Most summers I spend 6 weeks away from home teaching existentialism to high school students (don't be ashamed CTYers, I know at least a few of you reading this were once one). This summer a series of logistical difficulties forced me to leave my beloved system behind, though I shouldn't complain as this may have prevented an inadvertent bricking. Aside from a few softly stolen moments with a dozen warmongering eyeballs, my sole interaction with the Kingdom of Sony consists of several hundred RSS feeds per day and the occasionally glimpsed television commercial on the dining hall's plasma screens. While thoroughly enjoying my undercooked homefries one morning I happened to hear the snippet of a rousing pre-battle morale speech the likes of which long preceded the Mel Gibsons and Viggo Mortensons of the world. Lifting my head to peer through the digital window I caught the tail end of Sony's most recent commercial for the PS3. You know the one - I call it Acronymial 2008 - with the MGS4 and the GT5:P and the LBP and the spiritually affected voice of KB. It certainly showcases a good lineup of exclusive titles, two of which I own and one which I assuredly will, and it brought a tear to my eye to see them, ever so briefly, in all their high definition glory. But then it got me thinking (because I certainly didn't want to think about planning that morning's class): What does that particular trio of games say about our beloved product?
Give me a reason to fight!
Kylie Prymus is the first columnist for PS Fanboy. A Ph.D candidate in philosophy, Kylie specializes in the sociology of technology. Through this new weekly column, Kylie will explore the impact of PlayStation on thought and culture. This may not sound like a paradigm shattering piece of news, but I'm excited about Soulcalibur IV. Virtua Fighter may hold my heart for technical fighting games, but that tale of souls and swords, eternally retold still manages to bring out the button-mashing kid in me. You remember transcending history and the world, don't you? You don't?I remember that tale. I remember long nights debating the merits and flaws of the Soul Edge and Soul Blade and trying to understand the metaphysics behind good and evil swords transforming to fit their wielder. It was a mighty fine fighting game too, but it was the story that kept me coming back to complete the game with each and every character. Back then I could tell you the motivations of just about every character in every fighting game I played. Nowadays you're lucky if you even get endings.
Echochrome - the new Brain Age?
Kylie Prymus is the first columnist for PS Fanboy. A Ph.D candidate in philosophy, Kylie specializes in the sociology of technology. Through this new weekly column, Kylie will explore the impact of PlayStation on thought and culture.Any gamer who has spent a significant amount of uninterrupted time staring through a 2D screen into a 3D game world understands the strange perceptual shift that takes place when returning to the truly 3-dimensional space of the real world. There is a disorienting effect, a sense of unreality, in coming back to a place where perspective changes are achieved not by the subtle movements of an analog stick, but by actually shifting the head which houses your ocular apparatus. I first experienced this 10 years ago after a marathon session of The Ocarina of Time, giving my not-yet-21 self a taste of the post-college-party vertigo to come. A similar effect can be achieved by long stretches of reading, focusing on a purely 2D plane for hours and then trying to adjust to the vividness of reality. Games also have a deeper effect on our perception of the world, one which far too much press has declared detrimental to gamers and society at large. Our actions in the game world can and do affect our real-world thoughts. Who can claim not to have had at least a small desire to put the pedal to the floor after playing Gran Turismo, especially when one of the licensed songs comes on the radio? How often do you think about the alternate routes through the grocery store a Portal gun would make possible? Beyond being whimsical fantasies divulged only in conversation with individuals at or above yourself on the gamer-nerd scale, some games can actually change the way you think in a positive direction. The intellect enhancing possibility of games has been exploited most successfully by Nintendo with their DS selling Brain Age series (despite a recent Wired article claiming it has no such benefit). Echochrome may well be Sony's answer to the Dendrite Stimulation genre. There's just one problem: what exactly does it make you smarter at?
