General gaming

General gaming

Would You Kindly?

Posted: 31 Jul 2012 06:25 AM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 30 | NARRATIVE IN GAMES

Would You Kindly?

Cover Story: How unreliable narrators exhibit the unique potential of falsity in video games.


Note to concerned readers: this piece contains a spoiler-filled discussion of many different games, movies, and novels.

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ioShock begins as unassumingly as any game could. The player is goaded by a passing glance of the main character lighting a cigarette while parsing through photos of an unknown woman. Other passengers can be seen sleeping and talking amidst the dim lights of a vintage airplane cabin. As the scene fades into the game's title screen, the sound of passengers screaming can be heard as the plane suddenly and inexplicably crashes. But as dedicated gameplay begins, it's obvious that our main character survives. Even stranger, the plane crashed near a lighthouse which implausibly resides in the middle of whatever ocean the player finds themselves in.

If there were anywhere else to go, it's impossible to know as the fires of the crash lead the player singularly to the foundation of that lighthouse and to the beginning of BioShock's surprising and oft disturbing adventure. But the forced contrivances of this intro are only a small part of why BioShock has become a primary example of progressive game design and how it introduced the interactive medium's most famous unreliable narrator.

Cover Story: Narrative in Games

Posted: 30 Jul 2012 01:19 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 30 | NARRATIVE IN GAMES

Cover Story: Narrative in Games

This week, 1UP tackles all manner of interactive storytelling.

Most mediums are capable of delivering a story, but video games are alone in their ability to bestow users with the tools needed to create our own narratives. These tools are by no means new -- just take a look at the cover art above this text to see that narrative and storytelling in video games have existed for about as long as the medium itself. Even a game as simple as Tetris has an inherent mise-en-scène (a cinematic term from a story or mood portrayed through the arrangement of visuals) that helps enhance the experience.

I'm always up for a good story. It doesn't matter if it's a woefully dense novel, a catchy concept album, or the recounting of a particularly memorable Friday night. I tend to set benchmarks one amazing yarn at a time. So I guess it's lucky for me that I write about a medium that can tell a story in so many different ways. There are games like Metal Gear Solid and Mass Effect that present their stories with the flourish of a Hollywood blockbuster. On the opposite end of the spectrum are subtle experiences like Super Metroid and Ico that create atmospheric worlds and leave many of the details up to the player. Hell, stories even exist beyond the boundaries of the games themselves. Is there any better feeling than gathering around a group of friends and discussing a game, only to realize that each of you experienced completely different events and have wholly unique stories to tell?

Review: Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time Gives the PSP One Last Gasp

Posted: 30 Jul 2012 12:56 PM PDT

It's ironic that people who complain about the Japanese RPG's inability to break free of its current, unfortunate condition seldom give lesser IPs a chance. Everyone expects famed series like Final Fantasy to go back to their former glorious pasts, or maybe even pave the road to a brighter future, but, truthfully, plenty of games have been shaking the dust from "mainstream" RPG staples, trying to provide original and enjoyable experiences, one small step at the time.

One such is Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time, an enhanced port of the fourth chapter (originally released in 2003) of a saga few ever cared about. It is understandable, as limited budgets, lackluster sequels, and otaku-oriented art direction have sealed this series' fate in an abysmal little niche, unable to be noticed from the outside for anything but Satoshi Urushihara's pinup girls. But, take note: this game offers much more than shiny gaussian-blurred cleavage.

Deadlight Review: The Zombie Apocalypse Via a Throwback Genre

Posted: 30 Jul 2012 09:48 AM PDT

"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

From the 1978 classic film Dawn of the Dead, no single line has better encompassed the relatively infantile genre of zombie horror. When you hear those words calmly delivered by a stoic survivor, the true scope of the terror comes into view. No matter where it lays in the genre's history, the iconic sentence fully encapsulated the essence of artists like George Romero, Shinji Mikami, and Robert Kirkman. With a sudden influx of undead media over the past few years, it's been tough to differentiate the prosperous from the poseurs, and it's with that weary eye that we submerge ourselves into Deadlight, the newest Xbox Live Summer of Arcade title.

Over the past few years, the Summer of Arcade has earned itself a sort of Sundance vibe in terms of the wildly creative quality exhibited from relatively unknown artists and studios. The annual festival has premiered some of this generation's finest, most fearless titles, such as Braid, Limbo, and Bastion. Microsoft has cultivated an impressive slew of summer titles in the past, but with gamers finding themselves in the thick of warm weather once again, all eyes are on what the platform has in store this season. It's with these wildly large shoes to fill that that we cross paths with Deadlight, the first title from Spanish development house Tequila Works.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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