The Player Is and Is Not the Character 152
Jill Duffy writes "GameCareerGuide has posted an intellectual article about video games which argues there is no such thing as 'breaking the fourth wall' in games. Written by Matthew Weise, a lead game designer for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, the article considers the complex relationship between video game players and characters. Weise says that, unlike in theater and film, video games don't ever really break the fourth wall, as it were, because in games, there is no wall. Players are always tethered to the technology, and the player is always just as much the main character as not the main character. Weise looks at both modern experimental games, like Mirror's Edge, as well as old classics, like Sonic the Hedgehog, to defend his point. He writes, 'Both avatars and the technological devices we use to control them are never simply in one reality. They are inherently liminal entities, contributing to a mindset that we, as players, exist in two realities at once. It's just as natural for a player to say, "I defeated that boss," as it is to say, "Snake defeated that boss," since Snake is and is not the player at the same time. It is likewise natural for a player to say, "I punched an enemy soldier," when in reality, she punched no one. All she did was press a button.'"
Re:Immersion... (Score:4, Interesting)
And I don't agree with you at all. I frequently refer to characters as opposed to myself - not usually in actions, as I'm much more in control of the action, but in terms of properties ("He's got good magic skills but terrible agility") or narrative ("She was Light Side and destroyed the Star Forge") I usually prefer to speak in the third person. I'd say that this is because I'm more interested in the story than in immersion - I actually find it uncomfortable to be immersed too much in the game. I'm me, not some fictional character, and I don't like losing track of that, even briefly.
Multiplayer game avatars (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A rebuttal in (Score:1, Interesting)
Author of your the parent's parent (#25895863) responds,
Now that is a good question. Mostly we're against "Loading..." because it kills the suspension of disbelief. Even changing 'Loading' to "Traveling to next world..." or a few pictures of a guy cooking dinner and then sleeping by a fire waiting for the next day, or in an elevator with flashing lights passing the characters face as the zoom up the next floor, or a comic book that develops the story, or a replay of exciting moments that the player just went through, or ... well, you get the point.
Or as people have said you can probably preload the next level as you reach the end of the current one, the Amiga game Saint Dragon did this, for example.
What we're against is the lazy idea of displaying "Loading..." which kills the mood and any tension that the game might have had.
It's annoying, so everyone stop doing it.
Snake, check the back of the CD case... (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually, the fourth wall is notably and clearly broken a couple of times in Metal Gear Solid. Once when Campbell tells you to look on the back of the CD case to find Meryl's codec frequency and once when he suggests that you use the player 2 controller so that Psycho Mantis can't read your mind.
There are many more sophisticated ways of breaking the fourth wall than "having a character look out at the screen and engage you". I think the point of the article in question is that the player is always actively engaged by the technology - it requires out input in a way that no other medium does.
And if you want to say that there is some fundamental difference between being told by the game to search the CD case for a code and being told by the game "you press A to fire - now kill these guys" then you are in a much stickier position.
Re:Snake, check the back of the CD case... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the fourth wall is notably and clearly broken a couple of times in Metal Gear Solid...
There are many more sophisticated ways of breaking the fourth wall than "having a character look out at the screen and engage you".
Yeah, Eternal Darkness was a bitch for using the "Sanity meter" to F*ck with the player...
What!?!?! I went to save! Why is it erasing my file? Why is it back to the Title screen!?!?!?! Oh Shit Oh Shit Oh Shit... Oh, thank GOD that was an illusion...