Monthly Archives: July 2006

“Grown?! What bollocks!”

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The TARDIS is clearly engineered in the original series (just look at it!)

According to Davies in a DWM column, the TARDIS interior can be “skinned” rather like Winamp — which is probably a function of something like a chameleon circuit, I’ll wager to speculate. Though not ever stated before, this seems at least consistent with the established lore — especially given how easily various Time Lords seem to reconfigure the insides at will.

For the rest of your argument — well, uh. There’s nothing to say there’s no element of engineering in TARDIS construction. If anything, a TARDIS seems largely an artificial construct — one that involves a certain controlled organic development, presumably for the most basic architecture and… “spirit”, if you will. Then things get bolted onto that, taking advantage of more overt Time Lord technology, like the chameleon whatsit and the console controls and whatnot.

I don’t see anything particularly far-fetched for a stage of controlled organic engineering, especially given how far ahead Gallifreyan technology is. If anything, it sort of makes sense, given how complex and seemingly random the darned thing is. The Time Lords never seem to have absolute control over the machines — which probably is due in part to their treating them completely as machines (if partially organic ones), under their will. The Doctor seems relatively unique in having come to terms with the apparent sentience of his TARDIS — though even he often forgets that he’s not always so much in control of the thing as giving it general suggestions.

That his TARDIS is so persnickety — so insolubly “broken” — might, and here I’m wildly speculating, be a result of its will having become much stronger than usual for a TARDIS. It’s too spirited, and doesn’t always obey orders just because they were given by its “owner”. Thus, it’s broken. A flaw in its system. Sounds very Time Lordy to me. There are parallels in many other works of fiction, of course. Popular anime in particular (Ghost in the Shell, Eva) keeps coming to mind.

No More E3: Now that’s what I call a duck!

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Wow, yes. This is a good thing! Both Tim and I have been arguing for a while that this circus should have been behind us years ago. That it still existed was a symbol of sorts of the whole inward-tuned wankathon that has been the game industry for a number of years. Sort of an embarassment, really. And it’s not the booth babes that were the problem, either.

It seemed clear that the changes this past year were a sign of desperation: either clean things up and change, or the expo will become completely irrelevent. The industry has actually started to move again, the last couple of years, and E3 really didn’t seem necessary anymore in its current form. The basic conclusion, from the people I’ve talked to, is that E3 really wasn’t any different this year. Maybe a little less annoying — and yet without the most ridiculous excess to distract a person, it became clear just how tedious and ill-conceived the whole thing was. It seemed clear that E3 was on its way down.

That they should have pulled out so abruptly is a surprise, though. Not an unwelcome one, mind! I just expected a more gradual, kicking, screaming, choking death until nobody cared anymore. I’m impressed, frankly. This is one of the more heartening things I’ve heard in a while, in regards to the industry in general — not just the “death” of E3; the boldness in simply pulling the plug like this, rather than clinging. The whole change in attitude that this suggests — well. It’s good! I like it!

The Crying Game

  • Reading time:14 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part six of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation under the title “Can Videogames Make You Cry?”.

A few weeks ago, Bowen Research published the results of a survey, on the role of emotion in videogames. Hugh Bowen polled 535 gamers on their own views and history, with the end goal to rough some kind of an objective analysis out of their subjective experiences, and thereby maybe to shed some light on what emotional effect videogames have had in the past. The paper is well, and humbly, written; its conclusions, though, are less than revelatory: the only genre that tends to elicit reasonably complex emotion is RPGs (presumably Japanese ones), while other genres all inspire at least some basic kind of motivational urge in the player – be it rage or fear or what have you. Meanwhile, the paper is full of comments about Aeris, and the profound affect of her death on people who had never played Phantasy Star II.

The problem, I suppose, is in the question being asked: “Can videogames make you cry?”. It’s a binary question about a complex issue, much like asking whether Americans are happy and then concluding “sometimes!” And indeed, Bowen’s answer seems to be “well, yes… probably. In theory.” A second issue is the way Bowen approached the issue as a matter of statistics – and then based his analysis on the subjective responses of a skewed sample. “Gamers”, as with any obsessives, have by nature a peculiar perspective of their medium – a medium which, furthermore, is not yet refined as an expressive platform.

The question should not be whether videogames are capable of eliciting complex emotion – as, given the complex analog weave of our brains, anything can result in an emotional response of any depth and sophistication. Rather, what Bowen might have asked is how innately bound any emotion is to the current fabric of videogames (that is, whether it has anything to do with what the medium is trying to accomplish), how much emotional potential videogames might ideally hold, and – assuming some degree of innate potential – how best to insinuate emotion into the framework or theory of a videogame. Or rather perhaps, how best to cull emotion from that same framework.

Headspace

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In case you’re curious, most of my “culture” columns on NextGen have been renamed for headline-grabbing power. Here are some of my original titles, with links to the articles, so you can see what (if anything) changed:

The Ends of the World (Original article)
And Then There Were None ( Original article )
Home of the Underdogs ( Original article )

They’ve been growing less artsy, as I’m getting a feel for what will and won’t be changed. Generally the subdivisions remain intact, though. You can probably tell when a header isn’t mine.

It’s-a Heem! Again!

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So far, New Super Mario Bros. isn’t as annoying as I expected. Kind of flavorless, yes. Well-made, though. Some nice ideas in here.

I like how they’ve stripped down everything except the mushrooms, fire flowers, and turtle shell — and then refocused the game so it’s basically all forward momentum. There’s plenty of stuff to dink around and find; that’s kind of peripheral, though. The overworld map pretty much drives the point home: it’s a straight line from the first level to the final castle, with only the occasional tangent to access an alternate route or a special item. The levels themselves are much the same. And the way the secret routes and items are hidden is nice and old-fashioned; reminds me of Mario 1 and Sonic 1.

Likewise, the focus on Mario’s size-changing is interesting. In past games (except Mario Land), there’s never been much point in being small. Here, not only is being small occasionally of value; you can also be smaller than small. And to trade it off, you can be bigger than big. Conceptually, it’s definitely got its stuff together; this is kind of like how Gradius V focuses on the Options. In execution — well.

The problem, as Toups pointed out earlier, feels like a lack of confidence. That seems to be an issue with a lot of Nintendo games these days. A shame. I mean. With more confidence in its own ideas, Wind Waker could have been really amazing. And again, whoever conceived of this game was a really clever person. You want to revive an imporant series, you break down what defines it and you build upon that. In this case, you focus on Mario’s growing/shrinking ability and on forward momentum; ditch all the suits and playground design and as much clutter as you can get away with, then slowly build back up with an eye toward the central themes.

Even the level design is often quite snazzy. Same with the very limited treasure hunt aspect, and how that ties into the world map: spend the coins however you like, whenever you like; go back and dink around to find the other coins whenever you feel like it. No pressure to complete everything; to the contrary, the game’s constantly pushing you forward. Yet it allows leeway if you want to explore. Again, sorta reminds me of early Sonic. Heck, Mario even runs like Sonic now.

Partly because of all that, I really wish this thing felt less generic. Less… cardboard. Whereas Gradius V and OutRun2 almost supplant Life Force and OutRun, this comes off more like a tribute game than something important in its own right.

EDIT: Actually, I want to say it reminds me a lot of a milquetoast follow-up to Super Mario Land. You’ve got some of the same ideas in it: better use of Mario’s size and working it into level logistics; more thematic enemies, and levels with memorable one-time quirks. I keep expecting the fireball to work like the Power Ball, and bounce all over, allowing me to collect coins. Instead, it just creates coins. (Not sure of the in-game logistics there. I think the Mario Land model would have fit better.) What Mario Land has that this doesn’t is a bizarre and quirky personality of its own, allowing it to stand as a response to Super Mario Bros. rather than just a new take on it.

Home of the Underdogs

  • Reading time:13 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part five of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, then reprinted by BusinessWeek, under the title “The Lasting Impact of “Failed” Consoles”.

The videogame industry is usually portrayed as a battle of titans: Xbox versus PlayStation versus the Nintendo Whatever, butting heads over the biggest market share. The winner, by virtue of winning, will lay the law for future generations. This is a tough industry, where the ruthless survive and the weak or incomprehensible are savaged and devoured.

A curious thing about videogames is that, underneath the bluster, you’ll nearly always find that the “losing” platforms – from the Sega Saturn to the Turbografx-16 – are in many ways either objectively superior to or subjectively more intriguing than what “won”; what they typically lack is balance. Like root beers or politicians, typically the top candidates rise to the top not out of pure excellence; they rise because they serve the basic desires of the greatest audience while offending the fewest.

Rose = (Susan + Ian + Barbara) x 2005

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Somebody like the Doctor – an ageless, lonely wanderer – he can’t be that desperate can he? You would think that with his wisdom and experience, the last person he would want to get his leg-over with was Rose.

Since that’s the same thing as love, yes.

Rose “saved” the Doctor when he was at his most vulnerable, his most miserable. Therefore, he became attached to her in a way he rarely allows himself to become attached to others. She became attached to him because, well, she’s a silly little kid and he showed her the world. Though in the short term they bettered each other, eventually the two of them had to part ways — for reasons illustrated in both School Reunion and Girl in the Fireplace (the one on Rose’s end; the other on the Doctor’s).

The Doctor’s fixation on Reinette, if anything, helps to illustrate the nature of his relationship with Rose. All it takes is that rare person at the rare moment who can break through and touch him, and he’ll latch onto her. Rose did it by being stubborn at the right time, then worming under the Doctor’s skin, showing appreciation, nurturing him. By giving him a certain regularity, and a family of sorts. Reinette did it by literally crawling into his head, seeing things that he normally doesn’t show anybody. When he lost Reinette, and he reacted that badly after having only known her for a few hours, that set up just how much of an effect it would be on him when Rose left.

At least Rose is safe, though. In a way he gave her what she always wanted, before he came around — and what he could never have. Though the TARDIS will feel very empty for a while, the Doctor will… well, not get over it. He’ll put it behind him, though; chalk up the sadness to just one more illustration of his curse — how alone he innately must be — and move on. It’s kind of like ditching Susan all over again.

I don’t think we’ll see him that ga-ga over another companion. I get the feeling the Doctor isn’t about to be so dependent on anyone again, if he can help it. At least, that’s the way he always used to work.

Dalek Bay

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Unless I missed something, I don’t think the location being called Bad Wolf was a revelation.

One way to read it — and I think perhaps the way intended — is that this beach is the original “bad wolf”, explaining the phrase getting scattered through time last series. This is what Rose was really trying to tell herself, in the moment when she could see all of time and space: she saw that this was the end of the road; the precise time and place that will allow her to “get back” to the Doctor and say her farewell, and so she scattered the clues backwards to lead her there. The earlier “bad wolves” are all backwards echoes of this.

Either by coincidence or design (on Vortex-Rose’s part), the situation in Parting of the Ways works as a really good early metaphor for the true “bad wolf” situation that will arise one series later — a metaphor aided by the “DÃ¥rlig Ulv” business. (Dalek = bad! Yuk yuk!) Though maybe Vortex-Rose also meant it as a trail to lead her back to the Doctor in that moment and create herself, that now seems like a secondary effect.

I mean. She could have used anything, any phrase to lead herself back there — and yet instead of any old phrase from out of a hat, she chose to use the ultimate “you can get back to him” phrase. This suggests that the phrase was less intended to get her to that precise moment (since, hey, she was there already!) than it was to impress unto herself its future significance. Which in a sense is slightly less paradoxical (and arbitrary) than the action seemed last year.

Still a little weird, of course.

EDIT:

Because what’s presented on-screen and in the dialogue of Bad Wolf/PotW clearly indicates it?

All that TARDIS-Rose says there is “I take the words, I scatter them” — at which point the words on the sign literally rip off the wall and fly off. Clearly the latter isn’t meant as a literal depiction of her transforming those particular physical objects into the Platonic forms they represent, and then scattering them — so I don’t know that it really means anything other than as an illustration of what she’s talking about: scattering the words “Bad Wolf”. Not neccesarily those particular tangible letters that she ripped off the wall; just the words themselves. Nowhere in the episode is it stated that the words originate at the station.

Because it’s the only way the plot arc makes sense?

Now, that’s clearly not so. Again, the arc would make more sense (and be more dramaticall fulfilling) if the words had some significance beyond simply the name of the owners of the TV station. Even within the episode, everyone assumes the TV station’s name is just another instance of the “repeated meme” (if you will). And frankly, the entire situation feels unresolved: why was the company called “Bad Wolf”? Well, it just… was. So why did Rose latch onto the corporation name as a “code” to send through time and space? Well, she just… did. The connection is tenuous and not really satisfactory. This isn’t an elegant place for a causal paradox.

Now, had the name an actual origin — were it to actually mean something significant to Rose or the Doctor (or better yet the relationship between the two of them — then we’d be onto something. Then the plot arc would make a little more sense, and it would be a little more satisfying as a piece of drama.

What to some degree makes the most thematic sense is if the original “bad wolf” is the final one, which is then projected backward. And as it turns out, this “bad wolf” is probably the most significant individual instance of all, as it refers to a time and a place at the end of everything where Rose can find the Doctor — where that last dimensional anomaly happens to be located.

Logistically, there is no reason why this could not be the origin of the phrase — and I don’t see how, as a retcon, it particularly complicates the events as played out before. Again, Rose had access to all of Time and Space. She would therefore see her entire arc with the Doctor; she would know when she left him, and would know the significance of that last meeting where they admitted their love for each other. TARDIS-Rose is, to an extent, a being formed of pure love for the Doctor — therefore, “I am the Bad Wolf: I create myself” makes sense in that context. Likewise, “Bad Wolf” as a message to spread throughout time to lead Rose to the Doctor carries a great metaphorical weight that would not otherwise be present.

It’s not impossible, either, that the bay is just one more thing she renamed way back in Parting of the Ways — except, why? Again, it just becomes arbitrary. If she was able to look forward enough to randomly rename the bay back then according to the name of the owner of a TV station, then how is it any less plausible that in looking forward that is where she originally found the name? Again, thematically that has the greater dramatic resonance; it’s not really any more complicated; and I don’t recall anything in either series that would logistically negate it as an option.

Bad Wolf Bay

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Dear God.

…

Well. The series could end perfectly well here. Even with that final ten seconds or so. Actually, it would have been kind of interesting had the show ended like that in 1989.

It would be fruitless to even begin discussing the details.

Though… I like how long they held off with the 3D glasses, and the way Davies finally explained them. This is almost certainly his most clever, best-written work for the show to date. Almost nothing wasted. Almost everything introducing something new to the mythos or the characters, even as it’s ending an era. And it’s all so sincere. It’s a real shame he’s been cutting down on his scripts.

Indeed, this pretty much makes up for the earlier meandering.

Maybe after I dwell a bit…

Mascots and Messages

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by [name redacted]

Part four of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation under a different title; something like “The Problem with Mascots”. Somewhere between this article’s completion and its publication, one of my more vocal “fans” started a forum thread about Sonic the Hedgehog. He felt a few of the points were similar; I think something in my description of Sonic. Considering this is one of my least favorite articles, I sometimes wonder if it was worth the bother. Still, here it is again.

I wrote a while ago that there’s maybe one good Sonic game for every two flops. At the time I was halfway kidding, setting up the premise for a silly “top ten” list. Where I wasn’t kidding, I was speaking from a historical perspective rather than a contemporary one. As much as I have loved the guy, I’m aware that Sega hasn’t done too well by Sonic for a long time – to the point where he’s now the butt of dumb jokes on semi-respectable business websites. Since the Genesis we’ve seen, what, one truly great Sonic game?

When Sonic and Sega came back with the Dreamcast, they did it with a collective bang. Everyone cheered at his return, and at Sega’s. Then came a less interesting sequel. Then Sega went out of the console business, and suddenly there didn’t seem much point to Sonic anymore. More games kept coming out, each worse than the last, each building on the least compelling parts of Sonic Adventure. People stopped caring about the character, then started mocking him. Sega tried to address the problem with Shadow: a grittier, cooler answer to Sonic. Without even playing the game, people immediately wrote off the character, Sega, and everybody involved with the franchise.

The problem wasn’t really Shadow, or his game – even the concept behind it, for what it was worth. Heck, people didn’t even have to play it to dismiss it. The problem was that it didn’t seem like Sega knew what the hell it was doing anymore.