Roger Caillois (1923-1978) is the author of the book 'Man, Play and Games", in this book he talks about the sociology of play and games. He also provides categories in which he thought all games belonged to they are agōn, alea, mimicry and ilinx.
Agōn: a category of competitive games.
Alea: games of chance.
Mimicry: games of imitation (avatar games)
Ilinx: (vertigo) voluptous panic, bike games, skiing.
He also created a scale on how game playing should be based.
Paedia: meaning no rules, playful structuce
Ludus: playing by rules, limiting your options
I was asked to choose 5 games and decide which category they fell into.
Grand Theft Auto V: is the latest of the Grand Theft Auto gaming franchise. Its main category I would say would be Mimicry, as it follows our three protagonists, (Michael, a retired criminal trying to escape his past… by committing more crimes. Franklin, an up and coming street hustler, who drops more N bombs than Django Unchained. Trevor, the first character who’s personality matches the way the average gamer plays GTA). Their missions are to pull off extreme elaborate heist’s, but only after you spend hours planning every single detail. The games secondary category will have to be Agon for the incredibly huge amount of mini-games that you could spend playing for days of end; such as tennis, golf, yoga, darts, swimming, diving etc. Its final category I believe is Ilinx because throughout the game, wherever you are on the map, you get a choice of different races to do such as dirt bike, street racing, swim racing etc. But not forgetting the most memorable part of the GTA saga, the violent murder spree, car chases that mostly end with your brutal death… then walk out of a hospital five minutes later with no repercussions.
Pokémon: is one of the longest running game franchises out there, which spawned five generations of sequels, five TV series, one trading card game, seventeen movies, AND A GOD. The main category of the games are Mimicry, as you step into the shoes of a Pokémon trainer, an immortal child who never eats, sleeps, or talks. Your objective is to become a Pokémon master, by catching wild Pokémon with poke balls, and force them to battle other Pokémon for money. In the games you get to do all sorts of things a ten year old should never do like, wander alone through the woods, talk to strangers, gamble in a casino, hang out in a cemetery, beat up other kids pets for money, and single handily try to take down the mafia, other than that the games are amazingly enjoyable. (Praise Helix). The trading card game is completely Alea in my opinion because of the chance of drawing the right card at the right time, (I have lost a number of times because I was unable to draw the right card). The game also features Agon a lot due to the massively popular online battle mode where you can battle with anyone from around the world online.
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim: is a game developed by Bethesda Game Studios, the game itself is mainly in the Mimicry category, it’s a first or third person world game. Your character is called a dragonborn, a hero who speaks the language of dragons, uses the ancient magic of dragons, and has the soul of a dragon… but spends most of the time killing said dragons. At the beginning you choose which play style you want your character to be; A Warrior, who swings their sword while running around like a crazy person. A Mage who unlocks dozens of spells, which they’ll only end up using once. Or a thief whose sneak skills upgrade the gaming play time to be 100 hours longer than it should be. The game company has released some great DLC’s to go with it, which make the game that much better, especially the DLC which lets you ride a dragon, (defiantly worth that extra £5). There are some traces of Agon in this game due to the vast amount of side missions which all have their own puzzles to complete, which can also lead you to complete hundreds of other challenges. I also like the fact that you can go back to where you first picked what class you were and change it at any time if you what to. However the part I hate most about this game is that Played Out Meme you here every time you go to Whiterun.
Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag: is my personal favourite out of all the Assassins Creed games. It’s main category is Mimicry as you step into the shoes of Edward Kenway; a man who can pull off aerial takedowns, parkour roof jumping, and ridiculous blade skills, (despite having no actual training as an assassin). There are traces of Ilinx in the game as most of the time the main character is always getting wasted, tipsy, sloshed, and hammered in every cut scene, which sometimes leads to the level starting out very tipsy and swaying about a lot. Some levels contain you playing as a first person player through the abstergo game industries as you hack into their system’s to find out about their plans for world domination, making them the second most evil game company ever (you know the first one). The game’s final category I believe is Agon, as well as playing the main storyline, you can explore and find the mini games such as base capturing, assassinating people, looting cargo ships, taking on the Man-O-War ships, (they are crazy tough), treasure hunting, and fulfilling your secret desire to put sea beasts on the endangered species list.
Super Smash Bros Brawl 3DS: is a game that was recently released by Nintendo. It follows the basic rules of the previous smash bros games in which you fight in an arena as a popular character from the Nintendo gaming franchise against other popular characters, e.g. Mario from Super Mario vs. Link from Legend of Zelda. The game features traces of Agon as its mini games allow you to experience new challenges and unlock different trophies. Some of its features can be categorised into Alea, such as the home run challenge, where you have to hit the sandbag at the right moment for more points. There is one section of the game that follows a storyline, so I’m counting that as Mimicry. Finally the overall battles that you during the game can be categorised as Ilinx because of the whole items and battle changes which can turn the battle around in any way depending on the right item.
Essay Research
L.A. Noire
When and where is the game made?
L.A. Noire was developed by Team Bondi in Sydney, Australia, and published by Rockstar games in New York, America. It is a neo-noir detective videogame, and was released on 17 May 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, later becoming available on PC on 8 November. It was the first game to be shown at the Tribeca film Festival, the game received positive reviews for its advances in storytelling and facial animation technology.
How did the cultural background of the game influence it?
The game draws heavily from both the plot and aesthetic elements of film noir, this gives the game more of a cinematic view, using the technology known as MotionScan, it helps to pick up realistic facial expressions and movements to give the game more of a cinematic experience helping a push the gaming industry into the new age.
What happens in game?
The game is set in Los Angeles in 1947, and follows detective Cole Phelps, unlike most video games developed by rockstar, you don’t play as a criminal running wild, randomly killing, stealing, and causing destruction. You play was a cop who has to restore order to the violent streets of Los Angeles unlike previous rockstar games this game is a slow paced, meditative experience, the main focus of the game is to determine how good you are reading a suspects face
Is play meaningful? How does the players interaction effect the rest of the game?
It is difficult to say whether this game has meaningful play or not, in my opinion it’s half and half, it is still an open world game like the last ones, you’re free to deviate from a case and explore 1947 Los Angeles, and take on side missions, however you can’t run around freely doing whatever you want liking grand theft auto, because you place a cop you have to follow the law. In some parts of the game it works well, when the threats from multiple cases leads to a darker ringleader. But most of the time it’s always doing the same repetitive process but changed a slightly differently.
Does the game offer player opportunities for transformative play?
No, the game focuses entirely on Phelps like with previous games.
Where does the game fit on Caillois ‘scale of ‘Paidia’ to ‘Ludus’?
On Caillois’s scale I would put it in the middle of the Ludus side, even though you’re free to explore you have to follow the story and once one mission ends, another automatically begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment