Video Games

Yeah, I'm probably one of the few girls who actually does play video games. But the ones I usually play aren't violent or pornographic or bloody or gory or anything. Although some of the games I've played sometimes do tend to have a little violence in them. Here are some of my favorite games:

Jet Li: Rise to Honor

In this game, you play as Kit Yun, an undercover Hong Kong police man undercover in the Chinese Triads. When his boss is killed, he gives Kit a letter saying he must get it to his daughter Michelle in San Francisco, and while there, he runs into old friends. Chinese actor Jet Li provides the voice and motion capture fight scenes for the game. 

Pictures from the game

The Godfather

In this game, you create a guy and join the most notorious crime family in all of New York, the Corleone family. Work your way up from low man on the totem pole to the most coveted position, the Don of NYC. Extort business owners, collect payoffs, and watch your empire grow!!! Flirt with women, dress to impress, you name it!

Pictures from the game

This is always the fun task, lol!

Befriend members of the family from the movie

Destroy All Humans! This 1 is hilarious. You play as an alien named Crypto and you have to and get to cause as much destruction and damage as humanly possible, it's fun!! This game takes place during the 1950s, so if you play this and you see old Model T Ford trucks and old Studebakers or any car that was popular during the 1950s, there ya go!

Pictures from the game

Destroy All Humans 2
This one takes place in the Swinging 1960s. You get to go to Albion(London in the game) Bay City(San Francisco in the game), Takoshima(Tokyo in the game), Tunguska(Moscow in the game), and Solaris(the moon in the game). This one has hippies in it! YAY hippies!!

Pictures from the game

The Sims games

This one there's so many. My faves are the Urbz Sims in the City, The Sims 2 Pets, The Sims 2, The Sims Busting Out and The Sims Castaway.

From the Sims 2 Pets game

From the Sims 2 game, the level Mesa Gallery, an art gallery

From The Sims Castaway, in this game, you can have your sims befriend chimps. This is the level Airplane Jungle

The customize sim menu, where you can choose what your Sim wears

Interaction Vs. Story

As I mentioned in class I had the thought yesterday that perhaps stories and interactivity are incompatible. That maybe we are trying to force it, maybe stories are inherently un-interactive. Now that of course would be blasphemous and make this course awkward, but let's look at it. In a sense what makes stories such a powerful and enduring medium is that the user/listener is passive to the active storyteller (be it a person, book, movie etc...) An incredible story completely enraptures you.

A quick example: I finally saw Toy Story three last night; the movie took me in and created a an experience. I laughed, I cried, and I marveled at Pixar's ability to reveal elegant truths through the use of story. All of this emotion and realization came from a masterfully constructed combination of storytelling, sound, and visuals.

So this leads me to the topic; is it actually possible to create a story as compelling as the one i just experienced if I was forced to make decisions? But free will and choice are always good things right? I'm not so sure when it comes to stories. When you must interact, that is make a decision on the conscious level you are immediately ripped from the visceral flow of the story. When you read an enthralling novel you first lose conscious awareness of the page turning, than the pages themselves seem to disappear. However in the format of a modern interactive sory such as a video game, the constant high level decision making ultimately pulls you out of the narrative and lessens it's effect on you. That is why I have seen plenty of people cry over movies, books, or theater, but not over videos games (well not for the same reasons).

However, I did re-read some of Jesse Schell's game design book and he did bring up some interesting emotions in chapter 2 that games can engender that maybe other formats can not, such as feelings of accomplishment, or of responsibility.

So computer or video games are not at a complete loss as a format for an interactive story. They can create some experiences and emotions in the user. However, the challenge than is, how do we make the action or decision making process in interactive stories become so non-demanding that it can become as unconscious as turning a page. Sorry the post got so long :) (bonus question: can we keep users from making bad stories and still call it interactive?)

Jesse Schell on Making Everything a Game

Jesse Schell is an interesting guy and a very insightful game designer, I have read his book "The Art of Game Design: a Book of Lenses" and found it applicable to more than just games. Most of the principles in his book can be applied to any sort of experience or interaction design. Here's a video of Jesse ranting about turning everything into a game; give it a watch he has some interesting and maybe even scary ideas: