Games

Scott Pilgrim vs The World uses a video-game-like series of boss battles as a thinly veiled metaphor for relationship drama. It has been compared to Mario’s video game series, in which the hero fights giant gorillas and dragon turtles in order to win back his lady love. The Legend of Zelda is another famous example of this trope. What other video games and game-related movies portray relationships with this kind of drama? What are the pros and cons of the different portrayals? Are these relationships healthy? If not, is that made clear enough to dissuade people from following their example?

I, for one, love the irreverent humor of the Borderlands Franchise. But part of that humor comes from revelry in casual violence. While violence is common in many other videogames and other media, it is commonly only funny when that violence is non-lethal. Nevertheless, in Borderlands 2, for example, we might laugh at Brick praising you for killing all his men, and at Tiny Tina torturing and murdering the psycho while having a pretend tea party with him and her stuffed animals. The game attempts to justify and authorize laughing at murder: bandits infinitely spawn and the villains’ cruelty makes us feel better for killing them. The Borderland’s Presequel seemed to introduce nuance to humor in murder by showing the descent of Handsome Jack into evil even as he (mostly) tries to do the right thing, but the story, as many critics have said, was weak by comparison to the others.

I’m wondering if there is more nuance to humorous murder in this game, or if part of the fun of it is that there is no nuance to it. How might the series make us think it’s okay to laugh at murder in other ways? Does the franchise succeed in justifying this laughter in violence? Does it deliberately cause laughter at murder only to show us our own guilty pleasure at laughing at the worst humanity is capable of? What are your thoughts on the franchise’s take on violence?

When Facebook first came out in 2007, social games came with it. Most of us played these games hoping to build connections with friends and improve our standing in fantasy worlds/virtual lives.

One of the biggest provider of such games was Zynga. From Farmville to Cafe World to Hidden Chronicles, they churned out plenty of games with plenty of connections and worlds to explore. Yet in a few years, most of these games vanished. Hidden Chronicles, Cafe World, and others are now just Wikipedia pages, although you may find some Facebook groups still asking for the games to be brought back. Meanwhile, other games similar to these, such as Pearl’s Peril, are either floundering or closed.

Examine some of these games and discuss why they didn’t last. Compare and contrast them to some games that are popular on social media now. Are the newer games easier? If yes, how? Are they more fun or satisfying? What problems might they still share with the old games? If older games were to return successfully, what improvements would they need to make?

Movies based video games have a fraught past. From the goofy live action Mario Bros movies to the more modern and highly divisive Assassins Creed film, the level of success has not been high or constant for that matter. For the piece you could research a short history of some prominent video films and their failings, as well as any successful video game films, and give some insight on why the movie industry has such a strong disconnect from the gaming world.

Is it because studio execs don’t think the gaming community wants movies based on their games? And do they?

How does this relationship compare to the relationship between books and film? Why is it so easy to adapt a book but not a video game into film?

One could be quick to jump to the idea that it’s simply economics: studios don’t think the video game adaptations will make money. But this all changes in 2020, with the video game market being worth more than film and sports as of recently. Video games are where the money seems to be, so why aren’t these films put in the right hands with the right funding?

Most games these days are released as either one finished piece at a final price or at an earlier stage at a reduced price. But occasionally – as with the newly rebooted Hitman trilogy – a finished game is instead divided into pieces and sold separately over a period of time, resulting in a sort of TV/Video Game hybrid wherein players experience shorter segments of gameplay over a long period of time. Could this style of release pose new creative opportunities for games, and if so, what might they be? Does a game have something to gain by releasing in this way?

Video games have seemingly been on an endless march towards total realism since their earliest days over 70 years ago when they were little more than repurposed radar equipment. Modern technology has managed to make games more realistic than ever before. However, in recent years, there have been murmurings around popular titles that they have stepped too far towards realism, to the detriment of the game. Red Dead Redemption II and Kingdom Come: Deliverance have both been subjected to criticisms that they are ‘too real’; the systems and mechanics meant to enhance the experience have instead diminished it. At what point does realism in gaming stop being desirable? Is there such a thing as a game being ‘too real’ to enjoy? Where does this mysterious new boundary exist, if one believes it to exist at all?

Recently, The Last Last of Us Part II won Game of the Year, while, last June, a few weeks before the official release, journalists and critics praised it highly. On Metacritic, critics score is high: 93/100.

However, the user review is way less eulogistic: only 5.7/10, with almost as many negative critics than positive ones: about 35 000, against about 36 000. (As a comparison, there are no negative critics among the critics’ reviews.). It is also worth noting that, on both sides, there are relatively few mixed critics: around 4 000 for users and 8 for critics.

The Last of Us II is, then, a very polarizing and cleaving game. But why is that?

Critics and players almost unanimously praised the graphics and the technical aspects of the game. The divide seems to lies with the narrative and the storytelling of the game. To some, this new opus made bold choices, cleverly subverted expectations, and carried powerful messages. To others, it utterly betrayed the first game and is filled with character inconsistencies and clumsy shortcuts.

How can we, then, explain the gap between those two antagonistic standpoints?

(To do so, one may examine the different plot tricks, gaming devices, or filming effects the game uses, more or less subtly, and the emotional and psychological reactions it is supposed to have on the audience. Plus, as one of the bones of contention is Abby’s character and her narrative arc, empathy is one of the meta-themes of the game: what kind of empathy characters in the game may or may not build towards each other, but, more prominently, what type of empathy a player may or may not develop towards such and such character. Indeed, at least three different kinds of empathies may be at play in the game: emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and rational empathy or compassion. The kind of empathy one may develop, or, on the contrary, loose, towards such or such character can influence their appreciation regarding the game.)

With the launch of the PlayStation 5 also came that of Demon’s Souls, the remake of the 2009 PlayStation 3 original to be precise. Reviews have generally praised Bluepoint Games’ attempts at revamping the graphical assets to show off the PlayStation 5’s increased horsepower. But some critics also pointed out that in the process of updating the art design, Bluepoint also sacrificed a bit of the original’s feel and atmosphere, the increased detail depriving the art of the lack of clarity that lent the original its eerie tension.

In light of these observations, it’d be fitting to have an article that takes a closer look at video game remakes/remasters, particularly the tug-of-war between updating assets that may not hold up well to scrutiny on more modern displays and preserving as much of the source material’s original atmosphere as feasible. Other examples of game re-releases that attracted scrutiny for their reinterpretations of the original art design, such as the Silent Hill HD Collection and BioShock: The Collection, can be mentioned and explored.

The potential article’s main line of inquiry could be the following: Why is there an appeal in preserving a game’s ambiguous details—particularly those stemming from technical limitations on original hardware—in the face of visual touch-ups for remasters/remakes? In the case of games with eerie ambiances, for example, could such an appeal lie in wishing to preserve the uncanny valley and fear of the unknown (e.g. unclear details on characters and environments that heighten the fear of the unknown and make players fill in the blanks with their imagination)?