Single.Actn.Army

Studying Interactive Storytelling, Part 2: Bioshock

Andy Lee — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 01:46:31 +0000

One of Roger Ebert’s criticisms of video games in his infamous games-as-art debate was the fact that the creators of games surrender authorial control when the game is released into the hands of the public. While this is an understandable issue, especially given Mr. Ebert’s background in film, granting the player control is an inherent part of the video game experience and can often be an important part of the narrative. While I am not interested in reopening old wounds from a tired debate, I am very much interested in understanding the effect of assuming authorial control as a player. The 2007 2K/Irrational Games title, Bioshock, is a great example of the type of experience that can actually be enhanced by the medium.

After a brief, narrated introduction, you find yourself floating in the ocean surrounded by the flaming wreckage of a downed aircraft. This is the beginning to Bioshock. You immediately have control of the main character as soon as you rise to the surface of the water. You see what appears to be a lighthouse in the distance. The game plays on your natural inclination to save yourself from this situation in order to launch your journey. Inside the structure, the lights flicker on. “NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MAN.” A crimson banner hangs before you and “Beyond the Sea” plays softly from the PA system. This is Rapture. You found an underwater civilization, created by a man named Andrew Ryan. Right from the very beginning, you are the center of the experience. Just the act of swimming over to and entering the ominous structure, as opposed to watching it happen, makes the events that will follow feel unique.

Rapture is an incredible world that is teeming with life and personality, even (perhaps especially) in its current state of complete dystopia. What brings the world to life is not simply seeing it, but being in it. The more you poke around in every nook and cranny of the anti-Atlantis the more you learn about it and the more you fear it. Corpses litter the rooms and hallways, some frozen, some pinned to the walls, some sculpted into nightmarish art. Some things you are meant to find in order to forward the narrative, but some are simply there to add to the experience.

While the citizens of Rapture were not the most mentally or genetically stable, they did have the presence of mind to record many of their thoughts in the form of audio journals. When you enter Rapture it is beyond saving. Those who are still alive have injected themselves full of gene-altering substances to the point of ferity. However, the recordings you find serve as a chronicle of the demise of Rapture. They are all supremely acted, which helps. In fact, the overall audio design of Bioshock is impressive. Every room you enter has a different sound to it. Hallways creak from the water pressure around it, your footsteps echo in the tile bathrooms, vending machines force their dying chants through tinny speakers, the mutated voice of a Little Sister simultaneously compliments and contrasts the inhuman bellows of a Big Daddy. You feel as if you’ve spent a lifetime in Rapture throughout your 10-or-so hour trip. An apt feeling, considering the tale that is told during the game.

During your time in Rapture, you are guided by a man on a radio who calls himself Atlas. Your personal exploration of Rapture is a major part of the Bioshock experience, to be sure. However, the story unveils a twist towards the end that is both an interesting narrative point and, seemingly, a comment on video games themselves. Bioshock does a great job of making the experience feel personal, but it is revealed in the game that your character is actually a genetically engineered experiment under an intense form of mind control. The trigger phrase, “would you kindly” is used as a way to make you do the speakers bidding. So, all the actions you take up until the point that this is revealed are not actually your decisions. It is not uncommon that you are told what to do in a video game. It’s hard to find a game where you are not told what to do, actually. But in the case of Bioshock, the concept of blind obedience to a disembodied voice is woven into the narrative quite expertly. It makes for an interesting feeling, as the player. You are manipulating the main character who, himself, is being manipulated within the game. It is one thing to witness the reveal in Memento that Leonard Shelby has tricked himself into thinking he has not found the man who killed his wife and caused his memory loss, or that he was the one to actually kill his wife. It is another thing to be Leonard Shelby in that situation. It is a great twist and is one that’s impact is heightened by the interaction of the player throughout the game.

However, while it is certainly one of the best plot twists in a game in recent history, it still could have been done better. I’ve praised Bioshock already for the way it rewards the player for exploring. The majority of the plot unfolds right in front of you and you remain in control of the character. The designers no doubt took a cue from the Half-Life series in the way it allows you, as the main character, to essentially view the action from the camera angle you choose. This is the case through most of Bioshock, but in when Andrew Ryan reveals to you the nature of your situation, in come the letterbox bars. The most important part of the entire game is, unfortunately, the very moment control is taken away from the player. I can understand the reasoning behind this, as Ryan uses the “would you kindly” phrase to make you kill him. But choosing to play this scene out in cutscene rather than leaving it in control of the player takes the wind out of the sails at the single worst possible moment.

There was a game that came out for the Playstation 2 in 2002 called Gungrave. It was a fairly mindless (but, admittedly, stylish) action game where you played as a man who has risen from the grave to seek revenge on the man who killed him. The game was very short and not very challenging, but the very end of the game has stuck with me ever since. After you have finally reached the man you’ve been mowing down thousands of others to get to, he drops to his knees and admits defeat. As my friend and I sat on the couch at the conclusion of the game, we both looked at each other and wondered why nothing was happening. After a moment, my friend picked up the controller and pressed a button. That button press caused Grave to fire a bullet right into his killer’s head. Our jaws dropped and we looked at each other again. Somehow, after several hours of making Grave fire unlimited amounts of ammo into every single thing in his path, this one last bullet into the man we’ve been trying to kill this whole time was unsettling. Maybe it was because he was unarmed and had accepted his fate, but we felt guilty. That simple act of making the player pull the trigger was all it took to create an impactful moment. The reason that one moment in a largely forgettable game is so effective is the same reason this one moment in a supremely memorable game is not.

I understand the concept of mind-control. You, as the protagonist of Bioshock, have been unknowingly taking orders during your time in Rapture. But even though you didn’t necessarily “decide” to take those actions, you, the player, still did them. You, the player, do not kill Andrew Ryan. Instead, you sit back and watch. Presumably, the designers of Bioshock wanted that scene to play out a specific way. You could not “fight” the mind-control by running in circles around Ryan’s office as he asked you kindly to kill him. Bioshock’s creators have regained authorial control, if only for a moment. Isn’t there a more elegant way to accomplish this? Playing the game a second time, I wished that when Ryan spoke the words, “would you kindly,” any button pressed on the controller became a swing of the golf club. After all, I was the one being brainwashed the whole time, make me the one to kill him. I could try to turn around and run, but attempting it would have the same result as deliberately hitting him. As twenty-plus years of video games have shown us, controlling the action is a powerful feeling.

You do have some level of control over what direction the story takes in Bioshock. Rescuing a Little Sister is “good” and harvesting one is “bad” in the game. Choosing to do one or the other has little effect on the story until the very end. Save all the Sisters you find and you and they will live long, happy lives. Kill one or more and you become that which you have been defending yourself against in Rapture. Other than the different endings, your decisions have little bearing on the story proper. Bioshock is certainly an example of the “it’s not about the destination, but the journey” theory. Ultimately, your interaction within Rapture is very important to telling the story. Bioshock is an experience that could only be done in the video game medium and is a valuable example of interactive storytelling.

Studying Interactive Storytelling, Part 1: Mass Effect

Andy Lee — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:25:25 +0000

The 2007 Bioware role-playing game, Mass Effect, along with its 2010 sequel, is an impressive example of the power of interactive storytelling. The player has an enormous impact on the events that take place throughout both games, thus making it a great jumping off point for my research. Mass Effect takes you beyond simply controlling your character as the story plays out around him (or her) and instead allows you to make decisions that dictate the narrative. In doing so, the people behind the game have managed to take a massive universe and make it feel surprisingly personal.

On the most basic level, Mass Effect becomes a personalized experience from the moment you start the game. You are prompted to create your version of human Alliance soldier, Commander Shepard. You choose everything from gender to facial bone structure. You give your Shepard a first name, but his or her last name will always be Shepard. The trade off here is the ability for the non-player characters in the game to vocally address your character by name. You then choose the combat abilities of your Shepard as well as a brief history of his or her life prior to Mass Effect. The latter is a simple but effective way to essentially make the first big decision of your character’s life. Although it feels hokey when the paragraph you just read about your own history in the character creation menu is paraphrased by your captain in the first moments if the actual game, this is (fortunately) not the last time it is mentioned. There are multiple times throughout both Mass Effect games where Shepard’s history is referenced, and it always felt appropriate. Are you talking to a character about their parents? If you chose the “colonist” history, there’s a good chance Shepard will mention how his parents were killed on his home planet. If you chose the “spacer” history, Shepard might gab to other soldiers about his lineage in the service. It’s not something that is constantly in your face, but rather a subtle detail that stays in the back of your mind.

Writing the blueprint for your character is only the beginning, of course. Shepard’s personality is something that forms throughout the course of both games. Many of the dialog options in the game fall into one of two categories: paragon or renegade. This is a similar concept as the morality systems that have become fashionable in video games in the past few years, but with less of the black and white feeling that can often accompany them. The paragon dialog option is not necessarily the “good” answer, just as renegade is not always “bad.” Choosing paragon generally means a kinder, gentler Shepard who is more likely to solve a problem with words rather than bullets. Renegade Shepard is less concerned with consequences and more with results. The more you lean one way or another, the more persuasive Shepard becomes, albeit in different fashions. Trend more towards paragon and you will have opportunities to persuade people with reason and eloquence. Conversely, a strong renegade character will be able to get his or her way using intimidation. The real beauty of this system is not feeling the need to choose only one way or the other. You can be the tough-as-nails, stiff-upper-lip captain who takes orders from no man (or alien), but you can still value life and show some compassion here and there. Maybe you hated taking orders from the Citadel Council, but that doesn’t mean you won’t try to save them at the end of the first game. On the other hand, maybe you just gave them the old nod-and-smile routine and then sat back and watched them burn after the climax. It is rare that an action you take feels out of character because the game is so successful at making the tale personal. This system is built upon in ME2 with the addition of interrupting actions during conversations which allow you to change the tone of a conversation physically rather than verbally. A paragon can act as a shoulder to cry on while a renegade might, well, shove someone out a window. Though you will shoot countless enemies in Mass Effect, the conversations in the game shape not only the way you perceive Commander Shepard, but the way nearly everyone in the universe perceives him or her.

The most important people to converse with are your crew members. You team up with many allies throughout both games and your interactions with them are key components of the narrative. Each member of your team has a distinct personality. Between away missions, you have the opportunity to talk to those aboard your ship. These conversations contain information about their back stories, their evaluation of the mission you just finished, even flirtatious exchanges (depending on the character). The more you get to know your crew, the more you further Shepard’s personal narrative. There is a mission in Mass Effect that ends with you having to choose who of two team mates is not making it out of the mission alive. If you never talked to either of them, it might not be a big deal. If you’ve taken the time to get to know them, it becomes a much bigger deal. It’s not a choice you want to have to face, and the results aren’t just getting X amount of points instead of Y. Making this decision has the potential to impact you as a player just as much as it impacts any fictional character in the game. This is expanded upon in Mass Effect 2 where each of your crew members has an individual loyalty mission. After a few between-mission conversations, each character will open up to Shepard and request that you help them take care of some personal business. Not only do these missions add depth to the lore of that character, but successful completion of the mission makes them more loyal to Commander Shepard.

Both your success and enjoyment of Mass Effect 2 rides on your ability to, essentially, be a good captain. If you take the time to talk to (and listen to) your crew you will be rewarded. The completion of a loyalty mission also provides you with an upgrade to make either that character stronger or your ship stronger. ME2 culminates in a point-of-no-return suicide mission in an uncharted and feared inescapable sector of space. Any and every member of your crew can permanently die if the proper precautions are not taken. As with whomever you could not save on Virmire in ME1, anyone who dies during this mission will not return. There are decisions to be made leading up to and during the final mission that are crucial in determining the outcome. Who do you trust to lead the B-squad, away from your control? Who has the biotic strength necessary to protect you from swarms of Collector wasps? Even the amount of time you spend between the moment your crew is captured to the moment you embark on that final journey determines whether people aboard your ship live or die. After watching the first Normandy ship get destroyed at the start of Mass Effect 2, you want to take every precaution in making sure that the decisions you make don’t allow history to repeat itself.

At the very core of both Mass Effect titles are the choices you make throughout and the effect (no pun intended) they have on your story. The effects you can have on the world(s) around you are even more evident when importing your data from the first game into the second. Continuing the journey of the very same Shepard is a surprisingly powerful experience. Whether it’s an asari slave trying to get her life back together after you saved her from the enigmatic Thorian or just a simple “thank you” e-mail from someone you helped out, the game constantly reinforces the fact that you make an impact. Even more personal, Shepard has a little framed picture in his or her quarters or whomever he or she became romantically involved with in the first game. Get a little too friendly with a new crewmember, however, and that picture ends up face down on the desk. If you decide not to pursue a new relationship in the second game, that picture stays up. On a less personal level, there is alien technology you can either save or destroy, entire species you can either help or make extinct, mercenary groups you can fight or ignore. The influence you have in Mass Effect is unquestionable.

That influence is a big factor in what makes the entire universe feel so personal. The saga of Commander Shepard and the crew of the starship Normandy is something that no two players will experience identically. Interaction in this story is paramount. In the theme song to the seminal sitcom, Cheers, songwriter Gary Portnoy theorized that, “sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.” In the Mass Effect series, seemingly everyone in the galaxy knows your name. Why they know your name, however, is entirely up to you.

My First Week in New Vegas

Andy Lee — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:49:21 +0000

I spent a lot of time playing Fallout 3. I found every bobblehead. I did (almost) every quest. I played every expansion. It was the first thing I wrote about on this site. To say I was looking forward to New Vegas would be an understatement. Now, a week in the Mojave Wasteland under my belt, I feel many of those fond, old feelings rushing back.

In Fallout 3, you spend the first hour or so in a montage of your character’s life in Vault 101. It was a fun take on the traditional “tutorial” level of a game’s beginning and it also sets up the find-your-father storyline pretty well. That being said, I also appreciate the accelerated pace that New Vegas takes in dropping you into the game. After being left for dead in the opening cinematic, you are dug up by a robot and nursed to health by a doctor who allows you to tell him what your face looks like. You then grab hold of a stat-setting Love-Tester machine and take a quick Rorschach test and pretty soon you’re out meeting the locals.

You’re also quickly introduced to the improved combat. In Fallout 3, it was hardly worth pulling a trigger if you didn’t have the Action Points required to fire a shot in V.A.T.S. mode. While gun fights in real-time are still a bit of a gamble in New Vegas (no pun intended), the iron-sight you can now look down adds some much-needed accuracy. It’s nice to be able to fire off a sneak attack critical from a good distance without ever hitting the “V” key.

New Vegas also brings with it the addition of “Hardcore Mode.” Enabling the option introduces hunger, hydration, and sleep deprivation meters to manage as well as giving ammunition weight. The game itself tells you that something special will happen at the end if you enable Hardcore Mode and never turn it off, so I did. Honestly, I haven’t had it inconvenience me too much. It has changed what I pick up and consume, though. For instance, I’m not using any energy weapons, so I haven’t been picking up any energy cells. I also pay more attention to what food and drinks I’m picking up. There are campfires throughout the wasteland that you can use to cook up some recipes, but I honestly haven’t felt the need to cook very many things. Hardcore mode also makes it so stimpaks now heal over time and do not restore limb condition, which has really been the biggest game changer for me. If you don’t go into a confrontation carefully, you could get overwhelmed and die fairly easily. Overall, Hardcore adds an extra layer of survival that I’m actually kind of enjoying.

Your character in New Vegas has a level cap of 30 right from the get go. At first, I was thankful to not have to wait for an add-on to raise my stats a bit more and snag some more perks, but New Vegas only grants new perks on even-numbered levels. I’ve definitely had to think a little longer about which perk I was going to choose since I knew I was going to have half as many. It’s a blessing and a curse, really. It’d be nice to snag as many perks as possible, but being limited has also made me narrow down my play style. I knew going into this game that I wanted to be a silver-tongued soldier with a heart of gold, so my choices of perks have all been with that in mind. It has helped me narrow down my inventory, also. Not only do I not use energy weapons, but I also ignore one-handed guns in favor of two-handed rifles. I feel a little more human now than I did in Fallout 3.

Part of that humanity also comes from the companions of New Vegas. So far I’ve met Boone and Veronica in my travels and felt good about both of them. I loved having Fawkes by my side in the Capitol Wasteland, but outside of his absurdly powerful gatling laser and mutant-caveman-lawyer attitude I felt he was under-characterized. I like the back-stories of both Boone and Veronica and I like the way more and more information about them trickles out as they wander the wastes with you. I haven’t done any quests unique to them yet (save for what you do to get Boone on your team), but I’m looking forward to doing just that.

So far it has been a good journey. I’m about 15 hours deep and just starting to get into some of the faction-related quests. I’m also about to enter New Vegas proper for the first time. I’ll put up an update next week, hopefully with a good story or two from the wastes.

Play it again, Johnny Guitar.