The Game Critique

Designer Denouements How can the denouement be incorporated into gameplay? In literary forms, it is most often the events that take place after the plot’s climax that form your lasting opinion of the story. A well constructed denouement acts almost as a payoff, where protagonists and antagonists alike realize and adjust to the consequences of their actions. Serial media often ignored the denouement in favor of the cliffhanger, in order to entice viewers to return. Television has further diluted the denouement by turning it into a quick resolution that tidily fits into the time after the final commercial break.

But the denouement is most neglected in video games where it is often relegated to a short congratulatory cut scene, or at most–a slide show of consequences. This month’s topic challenges you to explore how the denouement can be expressed as gameplay.

(*Spoilers for God of War, Resident Evil 4, and Prince of Persia*)

The denouement, the oft forgotten portion of the story is the subject of this month’s topic. To even begin to understand how to use a denouement in a game one has to understand the climax and falling action. Most people miscategorize those two. Denouement is not just the quite moment after everything important had been resolved. It is the final moment. The moment after everything else has been resolved. It is the moment of reflection, the moment of the hero riding off into the sunset or the feeling that the world will continue on now that the story is over.

There is a problem in regarding the the denouement of a video game. Video games, those with stories anyway, tend to end at the climax. That is the moment that the whole game has been building to, where all the challenge and mechanics come to a head. It is the point in the game that the whole thing has been training you for. But then once the final boss is defeated we have a cutscene, roll credits. Were not only missing the denouement in such a structure, but the falling action, the cool down events. If they are there at all, they are portrayed in a quick cutscene meant to wrap up everything and leave nothing playable. I’m going to run through a few examples.

The original God of War is the only game I can think of that has anything resembling a denouement. Once you defeat Aries and save Athens, then what. You are treated to a cutscene about you’re crimes being forgiven, but not forgotten and you hurl yourself off a cliff. Then we are treated to one final section of gameplay of you climbing the stairs of Mt. Olympus to become the new God of War. That section of the game has no combat, no puzzles, save the hidden one, and nothing ties it to the rising action of the rest of the game. It is the game’s equivalent cool down period often found in Greek plays. It is not, however, the denouement. That section is still part of the game’s resolution and can be coupled with the falling action. The denouement would be the cutscene after you sit upon the throne.

Another example of gameplay after the final boss fight would be Resident Evil 4. The section after you fire the final rocket launcher and kill the whatever the hell it is you have to escape on a jet ski. That portion has a huge amount of action and tension associated with it, but it is simplistic compared to the complexity of choices made in the game’s combat. In this sequence the game is slowing down, but it is not a resolution. It is not a denouement, hell, it’s not even the falling action. What it is, is a prolonged climax. The falling action and denouement is then regaled to a quick cutscene with Leon and the president’s daughter riding off into the sunset.

Finally we have the new Prince of Persia. I’ve written enough about the content of the ending, but the actual structure of it does give a minor sense of a denouement. It’s just hard to pinpoint where exactly it is. If we accept the ending as is, retarded as it may be, the resealing of Ahriman is the climax, then carrying Eleka back to the alter is the falling action. The slow methodical walk  of realization for what happened is the resolution of everything that the game has been working towards. The denouement is then the action afterwords, unfortunately it’s also a second section of rising action that leads to a cliffhanger. Had the game ended with the Prince just leaving the canyon and have that be the end of the game it would have been a denouement that nicely closed the cover on the story.

These are just three examples, but they were the only examples of games I could think of that played beyond the final boss battle and climax of their respective stories. Most other games end their interactivity with the climax and let everything else run out with cinematics. We were asked to consider denouement is games and yet at this point in their lifespan I think it is difficult endeavor given that we don’t even bother with the falling action. Everything has to be taken in steps and first we have to cover that before we can really wrap it up.

[bort]

For those of you who maybe groaning at the title of this post let me assure you I am not going to declare anything the “Citizen Kane of video games” and am instead going to explain the pointlessness of the debate in the first place. And for those of you now disappointed, I implore you to please continue reading anyway.

The debate has been around for quite a while. The necessity of making this point came about thanks to the recent ABC webcast about the very subject. That’s right, ABC. It’s a short segment that can be seen here. Destructoid’s response here mirrored my own immediate reaction.

Out of every game that could have been chosen and explained…Metroid Prime, doesn’t even make my top 20, but regardless of that even the explanation for why it is the “Citizen Kane of video games” is completely absurd as is the whole idea of a “Citizen Kane of video games.” But first…

For those who do not know, the idea of the “Citizen Kane of video game” is the concept that there will be a game that when it comes it will mark the point when games will have reached maturity and legitimacy on the level of cinema. This mythical game is also supposed to be the culmination of all that gaming has been up to this point and bring about a revolution and be haled almost universally 40 years from now as the best game to date.

Having to write that out makes me realize really how utterly stupid the concept is. Sufficed to say Metroid Prime doesn’t meet those standards.

Also the argument that something has to prove itself as artistic is a very American idea. Film was always thought important, but nothing more than a curiosity at first. The Russians, French, German, Italians and others all thought movies were artistic. The Japanese presently think of video games as artistic. To them there is no debate.

Next, to paraphrase DemonicMurry from his twitter feed: Citizen Kane is a good movie, but highly overrated. I agree, it is a good movie, but not the greatest (Casablanca IMO). To quote him from elsewhere “Even Citizen Kane doesn’t exists as Citizen Kane.” The movie has been over hyped through out the years. Yes it is a tremendously great film and phenomenally important, but the repetition of those phrases a couple of dozen, hundred times and suddenly you aren’t looking at a film anymore, but the inflated vision of a film. I reckon few people clamoring for a Citizen Kane have ever watched the movie. After all the hype it does not live up to the leviathan of expectations. The mythos and aura that surrounds Citizen Kane has long since exceeded the actual movie and it has become this unattainable ideal. If you’ve ever heard someone that has watched recently for the first time ask ‘what is the big deal?’ That’s because it has morphed into far too big a deal. The idea that a video game can live up to that ideal is laughable, especially when Citizen Kane can’t live up it.

It is overrated in the effect it had towards the cinematic medium for another reason. Time for a little history lesson. When it came out it was refused advertising by William Randolph Hurst, who owned most of the newspapers in America at the time. Other papers followed suit. He was powerful enough that what he said went. The man launched a campaign to kill the movie; he practically held a vendetta against it, before it had even finished filming. It was refused showings from movie theaters around the country and no one could publicly support the movie for fear of suffering the same fate. Orson Wells was blackballed for directing because of it. Hurst even tried to force RKO pictures (never heard of them, now you know why) to destroy all celluloid copies and was thought to have succeeded. It was only found in a forgotten canister a decade later. Some filmmakers and critics at the time saw it, but the majority of the public didn’t. See Citizen Kane couldn’t change public perception of film because NO ONE SAW THE FUCKING THING. It wasn’t haled as a masterpiece until the French rediscovered it almost 10 years later. It certainly did not revolutionize the industry overnight like so many people seem to think.

Finally, using the argument that Metroid Prime resembles the thematic elements of Citizen Kane, while interesting and definitely an arguable point I wouldn’t mind reading an essay on, is like saying that one is culturally equal to the other which is absolutely stupid. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein has the same general thematic message as Plan 9 from Outer Space, but I would hardly call the latter equal to the former. Don’t believe me, look it up. Plus, Citizen Kane is important and celebrated for its formal contributions to the medium, not for its conceptual ones, no matter how deep and profound they may be. The argument is about what a single video game can show us about the medium not a theme.

There are other things that point against the whole debate of the “Citizen Kane of video games.” Like the debate being completely pointless and unhelpful. The arguments produce only hot air and no actual theoretical or practical foundations. That one game can’t provide cultural legitimacy; it takes movements to change perception. That there are more important things to fix in our insular culture than finding a nicknamed video game, like the piss poor journalism, sequelitis, weak mainstream coverage (that this video happens to be apart of), horrendous portrayals of women and minorities, juvenile and rather insulting marketing ploys, etc. etc.

Critically it is important to look to those works that our medium is founded upon. It is important to look at those works that did blaze the trail and try new things with the elements that make video games a unique medium. I find that to be a much more valid discussion, because it actually creates discussion instead of a flame war. Instead of Citizen Kane we should be asking what were our Lumieres brothers, A Trip to the Moon, The Great Train Robbery, Battleship Potempkin, The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and so on.

Of course, everyone first has to realize this is only a metaphor, which is the main problem with the original idea behind “Citizen Kane of video games.” That too was only a metaphor, but most people discussing it didn’t realize that and the mythos of Citizen Kane moved in and derailed the whole discussion. If we change the title without that understanding we’ll end up producing the same drivel. The ‘Citizen Kane of video games’ is a metaphor for the concept I detailed above, a rather pointless one that I just reasoned why.

I gave a lot of reasons why the “Citizen Kane of video games” is a fundamentally flawed idea, but here’s the most important one of all: One medium should not have to draw comparisons to others for any reason, because no two mediums are alike. Each has its own unique materials and formalistic basis that require the work based in that medium to fit those foundations and standards. It means one medium is not better or worse than another and certainly not equal, just different. In other words, books are not plays, are not movies, are not video games.

I listed a bunch of movies that each contributed something to the formal development of film as a medium. If you need to use a metaphor of film to video games for a comparison, use those I listed, because then there will be some thought put into it. When you think of what those movies did fundamentally to their medium, comparing them to a video game will force you to think of what it actually contributed to the formal aspects of the video game medium, rather than a best game ever debate. Honestly, when anyone tries to engage me in the Citizen Kane debate I counter with the Birth of a Nation question. They look at me quizzically, which forces me to explain what I mean and I actually end up in a fascinating discussion. One I’d like to have more often.

Over at the Creative Fluff design blog I’ve started a new, hopefully weekly feature called, in case you couldn’t guess, is Indie Game Spotlight. I’ve decided to highlight a different indie game each week. These games don’t have the huge marketing push of the AAA titles so they can use any and all attention they can get. These aren’t reviews or critiques, just bringing attention to a title I think deserves some attention.

A note to the future of the series. I’ve done cross concept posts between this site and Creative Fluff. I hope to make as many of the Spotlights such posts. Highlight them there and then do a critique of it here.

For the first Indie Game Spotlight I decided to use No More Fun’s Norwegian Wood. Game helped come into existence thanks to the middle circle’s own Quixotic Engineer.

As for Norwegian Wood, there’s not a lot I can say about the game itself. It has solid and challenging gameplay and the use of the song is inspired. It only uses one song, so I can’t really call it a unique new way to experience music like Guitar Hero and Rock Band were. I did notice something every interesting emerge in the community after it was released. Several people that are on twitter got a little obsessive of the game. They played the thing relentlessly trying to get the high score (which has since doubled in the last week). Even with only one song, it wasn’t the music that kept people coming over and over to the game, as good as it is. Nor was the gameplay in itself addictive to the point that it was the main draw. It was the leaderboard. Even after all these years and innovations it is still a huge motivation to play. To systematically and numerically prove that you are better than everyone else. Except now with the internet it is not longer about being the best in the arcade, it really is about being the best in the world. Though my score has since fallen off the top 30, I see many familiar faces. There are many repeats on it. Nearly all the scores there are new since I last checked about a week ago. People are still playing the game. It only lasts a little over two minutes, but since no one has mastered it the scores will continue to accumulate.

I wonder if that would have been true had they chosen a longer song. Does the briefness of the experience allow the player to be more willing to try again? People on twitter noted the fact of it being limited to a single song alters there experience. Ben Abraham noted how there would have to be multiple learderboards had there been multiple songs and even a second leaderboard would have ruined some of the competitive nature. Each arcade cabinet had only one leaderboard, because there was only one game and that what everyone was playing. Aristotle talked about unity of time and unity of place for the medium of theater. I wonder if, for critical purposes, games should add their own: unity of rules. Not just that everyone has to play by the same rules in an argument of fairness, but within the game structures themselves there should be a unity of rules, as a manner in which to fight against the complexity curve that games have fallen into.

Then again that is all well and good to talk about simplicity when it concerns a simple game about avoiding notes when it comes to song choice, but a very different one when it comes to epic RPGs or tactical shooters. Audiosurf also proved that multiple scoreboards can exist for many different modes and songs. But then the best Audiosurf stories have been about very obscure tracks being played by only two people trying to one up each other. It’s the same there. Everyone is trying to one up each other on a single track. It isn’t all about competition, but the close knit community that get formed in that competition. So in the end I’d have to say, yes the game has one song and is better for it.