gamestate » Video

Getting Shot: A 103-Second Retrospective

Garrison — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:47:03 +0000

It’s Gun Week over at Kotaku (seriously, though, when are guns not an issue on a video gaming site?), and Mike Fahey has compiled a 102-second historical overview of 18 years’ worth of getting shot, First Person Shooter-style. The video is interesting, and somewhat depressing: The calculus of projectile weaponry meshes so well with the computational affordances of video games that we’ve been able to simulate bullet drop for decades but have yet to model a handshake with any accuracy.

Watch Getting Shot: A 103-Second Retrospective. While you’re at it, consider this footage, too.

Pink on Incentive and Algorithmic Cognition

Garrison — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:41:55 +0000

This semester, especially as we’re looking at material by James Paul Gee, we’ll talk about incentives to mastery, reward, and cognition. This (fun! animated!) excerpt from a recent RSA presentation by Daniel Pink is an excellent introduction to an interesting behavioral problem that the best games address in surprising ways. The dilemma is this: Economists would generally have us believe that capital is always the best reward, and provides the greatest incentive. But as Pink explains (and as my friend, D. Linda Garcia, would have told you), it doesn’t always work that way.

As an aside: The RSA Animate series is marvelous — I hope that high schools are making use of these. It even makes Zizek’s unflagging misanthropy look like fun. (Although you should know that, in my own experience as his student — consistent with stories my colleagues tell — Slavoj Zizek is an earnest, warm, and generous man).

Mona Lisa / Duck Hunt Mashup

Garrison — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:43:45 +0000

Close on the heels of the Italian government’s recent public statements on the civic and aesthetic merits of video games (and the taxable appeal of game studio revenues, no doubt), Associazione Italiana Opere Multimediali Interattive (AIOMI) has released the first of what will be several video shorts promoting interactive media in Italy.

And like a Bruno Bozzetto short, this promo is unmistakably Italian. Indeed, I think that my reaction to this video is not unlike that of La Gioconda herself: In the right light, you might believe that you saw on my face the barest trace of divertimento. But you cannot be sure: For the most part, I am ambivalent and unmoved.

Machinima, Done Well

Garrison — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:07:43 +0000

I have a feeling that most machinima is watched the way we watch a first piano recital, or a middle school production of Annie Get Your Gun

When the Macintosh computer introduced desktop publishing (DTP) to the world in the eighties, one wag observed that “Now everyone can create bad design.”

While we frequently applaud tools and technologies that promise to level the playing field, the fact of the matter is that a good toolset is never enough. Good storytelling is a craft that is not easily mastered.

Machinima provides an excellent example. Frequently praised by everyone from advocates of open source to educational theorists, I have a feeling that most machinima is watched the way we watch a first piano recital, or a middle school production of Annie Get Your Gun: With respectful indulgence, and an eye towards potential. Even the much vaunted machinima series Red vs. Blue from Roosterteeth is not funny inasmuch as it is amusing.

One recent addition to the world of machinima does little to change this state, but hints at a brighter future. It requires that we watch with that same indulgent attention, yes, but there is a sophisticated sense of movement and direction (in short, animation) that is otherwise lacking in most machinima. It is an effort that deserves attention (even if the product ends up being only a music video).

The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on ~~Vimeo~~ Yahoo!.