tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post4379655870512566672..comments2024-03-28T07:16:05.720-07:00Comments on Experience Points: Ambiance Saves the DayJorge Alborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04857765716032886965noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-89380067289963826622010-01-05T14:05:22.697-08:002010-01-05T14:05:22.697-08:00First off, awesome conversation.
I am not familia...First off, awesome conversation.<br /><br />I am not familiar with the 'mise-en-scene' idea, but I like it. This is why I should read more film theory works. The suggestion Simon mentions, that low-budget developers focus on establishing a consistent atmosphere, is excellent too. The work Tale of Tales does accomplishes that philosophy nicely.<br /><br />The conversation you're all having about realism and an the uncanny valley is interesting. For those looking for complete architectural realism in AC2, Ubisoft fails. That being said, I think they succeeded because they "only took the good bits." My memory if Italy is not great, but it is good enough to remember icons. The Venice they make in the game is the Venice of post-cards and brief tourist adventures.<br /><br />Simon's waterways rivulets comment is indicative of this. I remember getting lost because of inconvenient bridges more than I remember the wide streams between buildings. AC2 mirrors my own memory of the experiential Venice.<br /><br />That doesn't say much for the 'new way of learning history' Scott mentions. Experiencing history though, is an altogether different claim.<br /><br />With the inclusion of these 'evocative objects' Simon mentions (btw, I love that term), even evocative objects that are not realistic, support the mis-en-scene. The MW2 example is a good one. It's a failure, but not an uncanny valley. <br /><br />What about that scene in MW2 where you come upon an enemy soldier rifling through a fridge for something to eat? It's a tonal departure, which I'm ok with, and intentionally plays with normal domestic behavior skewed in a war zone. <br /><br />I think started rambling a bit there, but so many good comments has that effect.Jorge Alborhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04857765716032886965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-819030735952814782010-01-04T23:31:54.363-08:002010-01-04T23:31:54.363-08:00@Michel:
Blargh, I didn't mean to write your ...@Michel:<br /><br />Blargh, I didn't mean to write your opinion off or simplify it quite as much as I did there with the Yup Italy thing. I wanted those two words to stand in for the compelling personal experiences you and Jorge have already shared.<br /><br />I can't wait for your fully-fleshed out argument about how the cities work based on your architectural and city planning knowledge, but I'm a bit curious how you think mise-en-scene leads to an uncanny valley. Really it's just a matter of placing objects that belong... where they belong. You want to avoid clutter, but the key "evocative objects" (as Sherry Turkle, I believe, calls them) that compose how you relate and live in a space need to be there.<br /><br />There's this one scene in MW2 where you're fighting in suburbia, and you can go inside the houses. You'd think American game designers would know what the interior of an American house looked like, but it's completely unrecognizable. That's a mise-en-scene fail.Simon Ferrarihttp://chungking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-79115593287195481832010-01-04T21:46:32.107-08:002010-01-04T21:46:32.107-08:00@Simon
"Yup, Italy" isn't the reaso...@Simon<br /><br />"Yup, Italy" isn't the reason I enjoy playing in these cities. I've never been to Italy. I can understand how lame they must feel to someone looking for pieces of the real thing--I felt the same way about GTA4's Liberty City.<br /><br />I'm going to write something longer within the next few days, promise, but I just want to suggest that adding realism or a more accurate mis-en-scene would lead to uncanniness. I believe game worlds work the same way as robots and 3D animation. If it looks like a real city, the fact that it doesn't behave (or is inhabited) like a real city would be disconcerting.Michelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00302937491137230150noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-70944227303265712292010-01-04T21:22:03.767-08:002010-01-04T21:22:03.767-08:00You're not off your rocker Eric. We should rem...You're not off your rocker Eric. We should remember, though, that medium-specific terms aren't always strictly required. Ambiance is a general term, perhaps most used in interior decorating... but it's still obviously useful here. Mise-en-scene comes from staged theatre, but it works just as well in cinema and (some) videogames.Simon Ferrarihttp://chungking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-41470501130881093842010-01-04T21:12:31.655-08:002010-01-04T21:12:31.655-08:00Me again.
I'm glad you used that word. The la...Me again.<br /><br />I'm glad you used that word. The last two games I played were glaringly flawed, but I loved both of them despite them. Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend, however, don't fit the Killer 7 argument, so there has to be another explination. Ambiance is a good word. Atmosphere was the word used previously to explain the appeal of the early Resident Evil games and the Silent Hill series. But it isn't an all encompassing term, merely part of a larger whole.<br /><br />Like Simon brought up, it could be the equivelent of film's mise-en-scene. A lot of people seem to barrel over game's flaws because of what they try to describe as you do the ambiance of a game. Before I took the introductory film course last semester I could understand film's grammer, but not articulate it. I feel that is where we as a whole are in games. We understand them, because we grew up with them. But I'm begining to think we don't understand the gammer of modern games, merely the tropes, the conventions. And if we do understand the grammer we cannot articulate it properly. We have moved on to the point where we can look at games as something more than programs and now we (read I) are fumbling to described them as creative works, using a language unique to the medium's unique characteristics.<br /><br />Tell me if I'm off my rocker.TheGameCritiquehttp://www.thegamecritique.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-90897593035752351292010-01-04T20:44:52.119-08:002010-01-04T20:44:52.119-08:00@Scott:
James Ranson-Wiley, whoever that is, shou...@Scott:<br /><br />James Ranson-Wiley, whoever that is, should have given you this link: <br /><br />http://www.shinyspinning.com/docgames/documentary-games/<br /><br />Enjoy!Simon Ferrarihttp://chungking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-62903136293226354172010-01-04T20:42:48.736-08:002010-01-04T20:42:48.736-08:00Jorge,
Thank you for taking the time to craft suc...Jorge,<br /><br />Thank you for taking the time to craft such a thorough rebuttal. I'd been hoping for something like this since the day I wrote the piece.<br /><br />I'm glad you took me to task for the Sims comment. It was definitely one of the lines I popped in there explicitly to be hyperbolic, and, yeah, your counter is exactly right. Those who enjoy this game, like Michel in my comments, like it because they become engaged in the environment and say, "Yup, Italy."<br /><br />Now I'll go on the defensive a bit. I agree with your concluding statement, that ignoring what you call ambiance is a critical oversight. I come from a film studies background, where we use the term "mise-en-scene." Theorists like Andre Bazin thought of mise-en-scene, in conjunction with penetrating camera movement and lens-based depth of field, as composing the "objective reality" of cinema. And, as you've argued, it's just as important with games. <br /><br />In fact, it's almost completely overlooked in the games studies articles that I've sifted through. Raph Koster had a blogpost a few months back where he referred to it as "dressing," which I found remarkably dismissive. I recently wrote a chapter about documentary games, and one of my main arguments was that mise-en-scene should be the core focus for designers with a limited budget and access to outdated 3D-engines. Mise-en-scene explains why I played Fallout 3 for 80 hours even though I despised the core combat and most of the basic level design.<br /><br />So my defense is: I'm not ignoring this stuff, I just don't think AC2 captured the mise-en-scene of these Italian cities in a particularly remarkable way. The brute fact of San Marco's existence in the real world *is* impressive, but I don't find Ubi's modeling of it to be. That is why, in the comments, I argued that they captured the architecture but not the texture. Perhaps it was the lack of John Woo flocks of doves? (joking)<br /><br />And even that is giving them a bit too much credit. When I visited Venice, my primary takeaway were the canals. Right when you get out of the main railway station, you usually take a boat trip to whatever section of the city you're heading to. Yet most of the canals I encountered in AC2 were these tiny rivulets with a stepping-bridge over them. Is it possible that this is in fact historically accurate, and somehow the water has eroded away at the land mass to make the canals larger over time? Certainly. Yet I think they could have done more to make the gondola and exploration of the canals a core feature.<br /><br />To return to the estate, my biggest problem with it was that most of the upgrades I bought had no effect on gameplay other than unlocking two little treasure chests on the top of each tower. If I fund a bordello or thieves guild in my city, I should be rewarded for my patronage in some concrete way, no?<br /><br />Your inclusion of UC2 in this piece makes me wonder if I should write about it. I'm finally making my way through it now, and I'm fairly certain I could complain about it just as much as I did AC2. Maybe it'd be best to sit this round out, though. Thanks again, you've given me food for thought!Simon Ferrarihttp://chungking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3967694277763110629.post-24527740951205460682010-01-04T20:33:42.532-08:002010-01-04T20:33:42.532-08:00First, lulz!
But seriously:
James Ranson-Wiley a...First, lulz!<br /><br />But seriously:<br /><br />James Ranson-Wiley at Joystiq speculated that AC 2 <a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/01/joystiqs-top-10-of-2009-assassins-creed-2/" rel="nofollow">previews a new way of learning history</a>. While I will always prize function over form, this idea is extremely intriguing and exciting.Scott Justerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11775296635863850847noreply@blogger.com