Video Games and Textual Studies

Katamari Damacy Insurance?

2007-03-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

A few days ago while I was watching tv over break, I saw a pretty interesting commercial. It starts out with a man who is walking down a steeply inclined road. He then trips, falls, and begins rolling down the hill, collecting debris as he goes. As he rolls more and more debris is collected, creating a massive ball which in turn collects more objects as it goes. This screamed Katamari Damacy to me, and I was expecting an advertisement for the game itself, guessing that the software company had decided to launch a larger marketing campaign in response to its cult following. My expectations were certainly not realized. The commercial concludes as an advertisement for an insurance company, with an SUV following from the giant ball at the end. Watch the clip here on geekologie. It seems to me that the commercial has to have been inspired by the game - this website claims that this is the case, but hardly seems a definitive source. If it is inspired, I think this is an interesting instance of a video game pervading popular media in a fairly quiet way. Katamari Damacy is something of a smash hit among a small group of players, but it is far from a mainstream game (or so it seems to me). I'm curious as to whether others have seen this commerical and/or had the same reaction to it as I did. Is it directly inspired? If it is, what implications follow about video game culture?

Final Project

2007-03-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a bit about the final project for this class, and I think that our work on Diablo II might lend itself particularly well to working on building something in the MOO. Kristin (who is in my group) had already mentioned this on her blog some time ago, and I think it's right on track. One of the benefits about taking a scholarly approach through the MOO is that we'll actually be able to emulate some of the gameplay of Diablo itself (to a certain extent). Obviously we can't do anything like building an avatar and fighting (clicking repeatedly on) monsters, but the RPG sytle should lend itself well to the program. We can certainly incorporate the emphasis on traveling from area to area, unlocking new areas, and relying on NCP's for assistance. I think we can certainly build in some problem-solving tasks, create some interesting characters to interact with, and create a whole host of items for the user to store in her inventory. Obviously more will have to be done than simply make a poor simulation of the game, but situating a thesis within the framework of the game itself I think should prove quite worthwhile. I'm sure that as we prepare for a our presentation in April, and see what sort of feedback we receive on it will inform our ideas for the final. I'm looking forward to getting a jumpstart on this and playing around in the MOO. I'd certainly appreciate any thoughts from anyone in the class on the possibilities for this format; additionally, if anyone wants to jump on board we could talk about that as a possibility.

Poetry and Media

2007-02-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

In my first post, I mentioned a poetry reading I had attended, and that it gave me some ideas concerning the combination of my studies in poetry and video games. As it turns out, I have just recently returned from another reading, this by Robyn Schiff, who is also a candidate for a teaching position here at Loyola. At the first reading, Joshua Marie Wilkinson spoke about the influence that various forms of media has had on his poetry. His poems are full of references to photography, painting, and especially cinema. Furthermore, his writing in some ways trys to actually replicate this visual forms in language. There is a strong reflection in his work of the kind of visual media culture that surrounds photography and film. After his reading I wondered what it might be like for the video game culture to find its way into poetry. I am quite pleased that I waited to post on this topic, because Schiff's reading gave me quite a bit of insight into one way that poetry and video game culture (or, at least, new media culture) might blend. She actually had a little bit of help from Dr. Jones on this one, as he asked a question that prompted a rather interesting answer out of her (I knew exactly what you were up to there, Dr. Jones). Robyn spoke of how her poetry often times winds in strange directions, dealing with one idea or image that leads to another, and then to another, and so forth. She specifically mentioned this as influenced by a "Google thought" or "internet thought," wherein ideas are literally linked together and lead to one another. In this way, her verse is kind of hypertextual, each idea linked to another in a chain that leads us forward. A kind of Myst-like poem, perhaps. Her comments really bring out how pervasive technology is in our society and world, influencing even the most traditionally "non-technological" forms of art, such as poetry. I'm excited to see what I can work out on my own in terms of immersing my own writing into the video game culture.

Question for my Colleagues

2007-02-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

I have a question for all you fine folks about the Myst series. As I've been playing through Myst again, I've been considering skipping over both the original and Riven (both of which I've completed before) and skipping ahead to Myst III, which I've never played. Does anyone know if the gameplay in the third installment relies at all on remembering things from Riven? I'm not too concerned about remembering the storyline unless it actually influences the game itself; I just don't want to be completely lost if I launch into III without replaying Riven. Thoughts?

Ancient Technology: 1 Jeff: 1

2007-02-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

SUCCESS! I'm sure everyone will be relieved to know that I have solved my Diablo dilemma. I gave up on installing the program on my laptop after several failed attempts, and decided to fire up my old desktop PC. Now, it's about five years old, so it's not completely ancient, but it's certainly seen better days. The installation went off without a hitch, and I'm now free to roam the countryside and strike down evil to my heart's content. On a tertiary note, all audio functions on this PC seem to have failed, so I haven't completely bested my technological adversaries.

It has been many, many years since I've played Diablo, and I was interested to see how I reacted to it. I enjoyed the game when I first started playing, but was never a die hard fan. This remains the case today. What is fascinating now, though, is how obviously pervasive Diablo's influence (and other early action RPG's) has been on RPG's that have followed it. Whenever I think about Diablo, I inevitably end up comparing it to the Baldur's Gate RPG series from BioWare. Now, I happen to prefer the Baldur's Gate universe, probably because I enjoy the turn-based gameplay of the Dungeons and Dragons format to the real time action of Diablo. Furthermore, Baldur's Gate and its sequels/expansions are generally more complex in both gameplay and plot. The point, though, is that the dialogue between these two games in particular is overwhelming. Each contains archetypal elements of the action RPG, and it is easy to see how game developers learned from Diablo. Diablo was named one the Greatest Games of All Time by gamespot.com; their entry for the game specifically references its influences in the RPG world.I'm interested in investigating some console RPG's further, and see if we can't piece together a kind of family lineage all the way up to console games like X-Men Legends I and II, and Ultimate Alliance. These games are different, to be sure, but they owe much to the games that came before.

These types of games are also noteworthy for the massive textual universes in which they reside. That is to say, a game like Baldur's Gate is surrounded by an overwhelming amount of supplementary text, or paratext (as discussed in class). For games as lengthy and complex as these action RPG's, texts like playing guides and walkthroughs may amount to several hundred pages. Furthermore, BG itself is part of the larger Forgotten Realms universe which contains several Dungeons and Dragons inspired games; accompanying each game, of course, are guides, walkthroughs, literary fiction, fan fiction, discussion groups, fan websites, and so on. As part of our final presentation, I hope that we can find time to explore the world of the RPG's paratexts.

Ancient Technology: 1 Jeff: 0

2007-01-29T18:22:00.000-08:00

I am sad to report that my initial blog entry must be one filled with disappointment and woe. I have been recently frustrated by my dealings with old software - a roadblock which we have discussed as a point of interest in class. Kevin, Kristin and I, after having been beaten to the proverbial punch in our desire to focus on Zelda for our playgroup, decided instead to turn our attention to a classic PC game: Blizzard's Diablo II. Now, I was pretty thrilled about this suggestion from Kevin, having been quite the fan of the Diablo series in my younger days. Smiting demons is something I think we can all appreciate. I purchased the Battle Chest of Diablo II at Target on Saturday, and that's about the last piece of positive news I have on the subject. After returning home I installed the game and tried to fire it up immediately after installation was complete. Immediately an error message appeared on my screen: "Please insure the Diablo II PlayDisc is in the drive, and press Retry." I humbly acquiesced with the request, and verified that the PlayDisc was, indeed, in the drive. I pressed Retry. Again the message appeared. I became perplexed. After a moment of thought I realized my blunder. "Aha! This game is thousands and thousands of years old, there must have been an absurd number of patches created since its release date; I'll go acquire the latest and get to gaming," I thought to myself. I quickly found my way to Blizzard's tech support page, and found that my trouble was indeed a common problem that could be fixed by the latest patch. One short download later, I was at it again, eager to battle the evil forces that would enslave humanity. Once again I was kindly asked to verify the existence of the PlayDisc in my CD drive. Fire and brimstone issued forth from my angry gaze, nearly destroying my monitor. I referred again to Blizzard's tech support page which includes an array of possible fixes for the problem. I tried several. Each failed. I ran a google search for "Diablo II tech support" and "Diablo II troubleshoot." These searches yielded several sites, each featuring angry users who were experiencing problems similar to mine. After quite a bit of time attempting to get around this problem, I simply gave up. I have not yet tried again, although likely will do so tonight. I believe this little problem of mine clearly demonstrates the important relationship between programmed code and execution through platform.

Reliving this experience through writing this entry has left me angry and sour, and I shall therefore retire for now. Soon, however, expect a happier and perhaps more interesting post on the following topic: I recently attended a poetry reading by Joshua Marie Wilkinson, an up and coming young American poet, and candidate for professorship here at Loyola. He spoke after his reading of the influence of other artistic media on his own work, and I believe it may have possible implications for the influence of video games on other multimedia and artistic creations. Stay tuned.