I thought I would write about an unrelated topic to DeLillo and the criticism this week since they seem to be pretty well covered. I am thinking about writing my term paper on the video game Fallout 3 and how the game’s setting, gameplay, and story all immerse the user in postmodernism. This got me thinking about video games in general as postmodern art forms. Not all games are alike, but I believe that video games in general are a very postmodern tradition.<\/p>\n
One of the first things about more modern video games is the mix of high and low culture. Games require brilliant coding and engine design from some of the top programmers in the field. Many computer programs, like the one I am using to write this blog, provide a service and others like encyclopedias and Microsoft Office applications allow knowledge to be assembled and disseminated. However, for the amount of brilliant programming that goes into a video game, the function, more often than not, is to allow the user to navigate his way through a virtual world killing just about anything he encounters. In a game like Bioshock, an incredibly well written story about a Utopian society gone wrong (complete with repeated imagery and themes like love, power, and family) guides the gameplay, which mostly centers around killing. I think that is one perfect example of what games are becoming capable of these days. They do not just provide stunning environments and the opportunity to kill Nazi zombies (Call of Duty: World at War) but some also weave fascinating tales, the likes of which previously only occurred in literature.<\/p>\n
It is also worth noting that many of these new first-person-shooter games owe their creation to a game called Wolfenstein. This game combined two previous traditions and pretty much paved the way for an entirely new genre of game. Driving simulators frequently used the first person before Wolfenstein, but most shoot-em up games where third person. Wolfenstein combined the two traditions and some of the most popular first-person games ever (Halo 3, Call of Duty, Resident Evil) are members of that fused genre.<\/p>\n
The technological aspects of video games are clear when one looks at the software and hardware design needed to create such complex worlds, but since the creation of online gaming (first with computers, now also on consoles) we have seen a new level of postmodernism come in. I can play a game with my roommate while we both sit in our own rooms because of online connectivity. Users across the world come together to play against each other and receive world-wide rankings in the process–a kind of constant Olympics where medals can always be lost. This has also allowed the video game space and time to become completely fractured. Games still have beginnings and ends when it comes to single-player campaigns, but with games like World of Warcraft the multi-player experience literally never ends. The game exists and the story just continues and continues. You may not always be playing in a game like Fable, but the time keeps ticking. So every time the user signs back in, their time frame has been fractured by however much time they have been away. They could leave a game after completing one mission, and rather than having the experience pick up again where they left off, they could sign back in a few days later to find a friend has robbed them of all their gold and items. A point in which they will actually move backwards in time because they now have to play catch up.<\/p>\n
These are just a few of the things I’ve been thining about as I prepare to write my paper. Games have always been pretty postmodern, if for no other reason because of the inherent use of technology, but as games move online and become deeper and more robust, they are beginning to encapsulate more than just technology with thier postmodern tendencies.<\/p>\n
-Jared<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought I would write about an unrelated topic to DeLillo and the criticism this week since they seem to be pretty well covered. I am thinking about writing my term paper on the video game Fallout 3 and how the game’s setting, gameplay, and story all immerse the user in postmodernism. This got me … Continue reading Postmodernism and Video Games<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-11-mao-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}