Geographic Discussion of an Element of a Game
The game chosen for this assignment was Fallout: New Vegas. Set 200 years in the future in an alternate universe where the Cold War was prolonged for decades more and ended with an all-out nuclear exchange, the game sees the player character wander the post-apocalyptic desert wasteland of the Mojave desert and related locales. While the game does have a story (and one with myriad branches), it naturally has a strong emphasis on exploration and wandering the desert. Throughout the desert the player can find the ruined remains of retrofuturist gas stations and other such buildings, the rotting skeletons of the old world that evoke a bygone era. The world presented is both familiar and foreign; the style of the 1950s still lives on in many buildings in America, but seeing it permeate a world of post-apocalyptic ruin creates an interesting sense of dissonance. The presence of real-world sights (or their copyright-free analogues) in the form of places like Las Vegas proper, the Hoover Dam, Interstate 15, and other such locations also accomplishes a similar goal. They invite the player to both examine and recoil from the landmarks provided as they become unsettled by the alteration or destruction of something familiar, and allow the player to potentially attach meaning to a place because of that unsettling nature.
The game chosen for this assignment was Fallout: New Vegas. Set 200 years in the future in an alternate universe where the Cold War was prolonged for decades more and ended with an all-out nuclear exchange, the game sees the player character wander the post-apocalyptic desert wasteland of the Mojave desert and related locales. While the game does have a story (and one with myriad branches), it naturally has a strong emphasis on exploration and wandering the desert. Throughout the desert the player can find the ruined remains of retrofuturist gas stations and other such buildings, the rotting skeletons of the old world that evoke a bygone era. The world presented is both familiar and foreign; the style of the 1950s still lives on in many buildings in America, but seeing it permeate a world of post-apocalyptic ruin creates an interesting sense of dissonance. The presence of real-world sights (or their copyright-free analogues) in the form of places like Las Vegas proper, the Hoover Dam, Interstate 15, and other such locations also accomplishes a similar goal. They invite the player to both examine and recoil from the landmarks provided as they become unsettled by the alteration or destruction of something familiar, and allow the player to potentially attach meaning to a place because of that unsettling nature.
A Game with an Interesting or Powerful Sense of Place
Here we examine a game with a sense of “place” that is strongly grounded in the real world. The 2012 game Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat, based on a Source engine mod of the same name from years prior, is set in the middle of the US-Iraq War of 2003-20011. The game takes place in various locales that strongly resemble the war torn urban and rural landscapes of Iraq and Afghanistan during the US occupation, and pits two teams consisting of “security forces” (clearly meant to represent US armed forces) and “insurgents” (consisting of player characters who look and sound vaguely Middle Eastern) against each other. The game offers two modes (multiplayer player-vs.-player and cooperative player-vs.-environment) with various game types that revolve around scenarios that could, with varying degrees of plausibility, occur in an actual warzone. The equipment seen in the game also has a degree of historical and realistic accuracy, speaking relatively for a first-person shooter; the game only features weapons that would have been seen in actual use by the depicted factions in the time frame portrayed. The game’s mechanics also place emphasis on teamwork, patience, and strategy; guns are almost as lethal as they are in reality and a player can usually only take one or two hits from the enemy before they are killed, forcing them to wait a significant amount of time before they respawn in the form of “reinforcements”.
The game is very obviously a simulation of the highly-publicized and televised Iraq War. Everything about the setting places the player into an imagined – though very imperfect – replication of the stereotypical environments from that conflict. There is little if any mistaking the game for anything but an Iraq War game; the player models, weapons, environments, team names, team-specific announcers, diegetic voice lines, even the game’s “cover art” (though it was digitally distributed) and title are all evocative of the conflict, and flawed though they may be when examined with a strict eye for realism, they work together extraordinarily well to create the idea in the player’s mind that they are watching or taking part in a simulation of military operations in the Iraq War. It is a theme park-like game, but it is one that easily makes you forget that you’re in a theme park.
Here we examine a game with a sense of “place” that is strongly grounded in the real world. The 2012 game Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat, based on a Source engine mod of the same name from years prior, is set in the middle of the US-Iraq War of 2003-20011. The game takes place in various locales that strongly resemble the war torn urban and rural landscapes of Iraq and Afghanistan during the US occupation, and pits two teams consisting of “security forces” (clearly meant to represent US armed forces) and “insurgents” (consisting of player characters who look and sound vaguely Middle Eastern) against each other. The game offers two modes (multiplayer player-vs.-player and cooperative player-vs.-environment) with various game types that revolve around scenarios that could, with varying degrees of plausibility, occur in an actual warzone. The equipment seen in the game also has a degree of historical and realistic accuracy, speaking relatively for a first-person shooter; the game only features weapons that would have been seen in actual use by the depicted factions in the time frame portrayed. The game’s mechanics also place emphasis on teamwork, patience, and strategy; guns are almost as lethal as they are in reality and a player can usually only take one or two hits from the enemy before they are killed, forcing them to wait a significant amount of time before they respawn in the form of “reinforcements”.
The game is very obviously a simulation of the highly-publicized and televised Iraq War. Everything about the setting places the player into an imagined – though very imperfect – replication of the stereotypical environments from that conflict. There is little if any mistaking the game for anything but an Iraq War game; the player models, weapons, environments, team names, team-specific announcers, diegetic voice lines, even the game’s “cover art” (though it was digitally distributed) and title are all evocative of the conflict, and flawed though they may be when examined with a strict eye for realism, they work together extraordinarily well to create the idea in the player’s mind that they are watching or taking part in a simulation of military operations in the Iraq War. It is a theme park-like game, but it is one that easily makes you forget that you’re in a theme park.
Maps in Video Games
One interesting example of maps in video games is the in-game map in Fallout 3, set in the ruins of Washington DC and its surrounding areas. Like its previously-described successor Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 3 places great emphasis on wandering and exploration. To this end, an in-game map is absolutely vital, but in the game, the map is not only in-game – it is a part of the character and setting. Each player character wears a device on their wrist that is effectively a personal computer, granting the character (and its player) access to things like inventory management, statistics tracking, the ability to tune in to the radio stations present in the game space, and among other things, a map that keeps track of the locations the player character has visited. The wasteland is extensive – in Fallout 3 there are over a hundred locations to visit, many named but some unnamed and unmarked. Each of them is unique and tells a story, or suggests one to the player who then is able to construct one in their own imagination. Players will frequently regale each other on sites such as forums and image boards with stories of their encounters in the game world, such as how they felt upon discovering a fallout shelter full of skeletons, or how they took several playthroughs to find an out-of-the-way or outright hidden location, or even how the same location was experienced in vastly different ways in different playthroughs.
The game map aids in two things: the maintenance of presence in the game and the creation of story maps. Because the map is presented as an object in-game and the player is never fully removed from the game environment, their immersion is not affected like it would be in another game. The map also provides a kind of visual framework for the player to understand and contextualize their experiences in the game world; without a map, they would be left to construct relationships between locations and narratives on their own.
One interesting example of maps in video games is the in-game map in Fallout 3, set in the ruins of Washington DC and its surrounding areas. Like its previously-described successor Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 3 places great emphasis on wandering and exploration. To this end, an in-game map is absolutely vital, but in the game, the map is not only in-game – it is a part of the character and setting. Each player character wears a device on their wrist that is effectively a personal computer, granting the character (and its player) access to things like inventory management, statistics tracking, the ability to tune in to the radio stations present in the game space, and among other things, a map that keeps track of the locations the player character has visited. The wasteland is extensive – in Fallout 3 there are over a hundred locations to visit, many named but some unnamed and unmarked. Each of them is unique and tells a story, or suggests one to the player who then is able to construct one in their own imagination. Players will frequently regale each other on sites such as forums and image boards with stories of their encounters in the game world, such as how they felt upon discovering a fallout shelter full of skeletons, or how they took several playthroughs to find an out-of-the-way or outright hidden location, or even how the same location was experienced in vastly different ways in different playthroughs.
The game map aids in two things: the maintenance of presence in the game and the creation of story maps. Because the map is presented as an object in-game and the player is never fully removed from the game environment, their immersion is not affected like it would be in another game. The map also provides a kind of visual framework for the player to understand and contextualize their experiences in the game world; without a map, they would be left to construct relationships between locations and narratives on their own.
Sound in Game Spaces
While there exist many excellent examples of sound in game spaces, the game I want to discuss here is Portal 2. The game, set in the remains of a scientific testing facility, involves using a “portal gun” to open interconnected portals on flat surfaces, allowing the player to abuse physics to solve puzzles and escape from the facility. Throughout the facility there are various tools and environmental objects that form parts of the puzzle or its solution, and each of these things has a musical cue associated with it. These musical cues, which sound off when the player is near to or engages with that object or part of the environment, are woven in to the game’s music but also help to serve as functional indications of the space the player is operating in. The soundtrack of the game itself is procedurally generated and reacts to the player’s progress through a level. Each additional interaction with a new object as well as its successful utilization in the puzzle adds successive components to the soundtrack, culminating with a “finished” piece when the player has solved a puzzle.
Ultimately, Portal 2’s soundtrack blurs the line between the functionality of sound effects and the mediation of music. Not only does the music itself become a sound effect, but the functionality of sound effects become a part of the emotional mediation provided by the soundtrack. The game ties together mechanics and music in a way very much unlike that of the numerous games which have done so before it, such as DDR or Guitar Hero.
-Fisher Shattuck
While there exist many excellent examples of sound in game spaces, the game I want to discuss here is Portal 2. The game, set in the remains of a scientific testing facility, involves using a “portal gun” to open interconnected portals on flat surfaces, allowing the player to abuse physics to solve puzzles and escape from the facility. Throughout the facility there are various tools and environmental objects that form parts of the puzzle or its solution, and each of these things has a musical cue associated with it. These musical cues, which sound off when the player is near to or engages with that object or part of the environment, are woven in to the game’s music but also help to serve as functional indications of the space the player is operating in. The soundtrack of the game itself is procedurally generated and reacts to the player’s progress through a level. Each additional interaction with a new object as well as its successful utilization in the puzzle adds successive components to the soundtrack, culminating with a “finished” piece when the player has solved a puzzle.
Ultimately, Portal 2’s soundtrack blurs the line between the functionality of sound effects and the mediation of music. Not only does the music itself become a sound effect, but the functionality of sound effects become a part of the emotional mediation provided by the soundtrack. The game ties together mechanics and music in a way very much unlike that of the numerous games which have done so before it, such as DDR or Guitar Hero.
-Fisher Shattuck