The genius blind spot

He achieved what no other known man has achieved. To watch his work is like being witness to the beginning of melody, or the first conscious use of the lever or the wheel; the emergence, coordination and first eloquence of language; the birth of an art: and to realize that this is all the work of one man. --James Agee on D.W. Griffith

Hideo Kojima is a genius and will always be so. He is the epitome of videogame creativity and a revolutionary of the art.  --comment post by grilledcheese345 on 1UP user blog.

                

Few critics or scholars would question D.W. Griffith's stature as a genuine artist of the cinema. His profound impact on the history and evolution of motion pictures is well documented, and filmmakers from Eisenstein to Spielberg have sung his praises as a true genius of the art. That James Agee quote lays it on a bit thick, though. :-)

Despite "grilledcheese345's" proclamation, the jury may still be out on Hideo Kojima. Nevertheless, it's not hard to find all sorts of game writers, enthusiasts, and fans of the Metal Gear series who believe Kojima represents the best of what video games can do. The requisite-but-utterly-unscientific Google search of "Hideo Kojima genius" turns up a whopping 175,000 citations, which proves nothing but suggests plenty of people are interested in the question. Few game designers have been so thoroughly and publicly vetted, with no shortage of opinions on either side of the "genius" question.

I'm not terribly interested in proving Kojima a genius, but I believe we can accurately call him an auteur, and it's this aspect of his nature as an artist that has me thinking about D.W. Griffith and some interesting parallels between the two. My focus here is on process and the ways an artist's approach and sensibilities can shape and define the work they produce. In the case of both Griffith and Kojima, I believe they both possess a certain blind spot that prohibits them from fully achieving their artistic ambitions.

Drawing parallels between Griffith and Kojima is fairly easy because they're both Type-A artist personalities. They're both legendary perfectionists, demanding the highest quality work from their collaborators and famously willing to discard weeks or even months of work if it is deemed inferior. Beyond personality, both men are attached to the epic, attracted to big, sprawling stories spanning decades of time. Both see storytelling and empathetic engagement to characters as the central focus of their work, and both are drawn to multi-character narratives with numerous subplots.

Both artists harness the very latest cutting-edge technologies - often requiring specialized innovation - to serve their needs. Despite the achievements these technologies enable, both lament their limits, wishing for tools that would enable them to realize the full scope of their ideas.

Finally, both Griffith and Kojima see themselves as singular authors of their work, creating films and video games as forms of personal expression, exploring their own ideas and beliefs - social, political, theological - through the language of their respective media. They are evangelical pioneers pushing their young industries forward, beyond novelties and amusements, to be acknowledged and respected as art.

But I'm most interested in another connecting point between Griffith and Kojima. I believe both artists suffer from a particular aesthetic blind spot - one that emanates from their inabilities or unwillingness to shed the limiting conventions of a pre-existing dominant art form that clouds their visions and restricts their power. For Griffith it's the Theater; for Kojima it's Film.

Though he didn't invent any new techniques, Griffith did more than anyone before him to establish a unified language for film based on the unique power of continuity editing. He understood how to use closeups, cross-cutting, and a variety of focal lengths to communicate meaning to an audience. He was a true filmmaker in ways his predecessors were not.

But Griffith was a product of the theater. He began as a playwright (mostly unsuccessful) and continued as an actor. Griffith's concepts of performance and characterization were derived from theater, and this fact is painfully apparent in his films. His actors are frequently overblown and highly gestural. Their performances, drawn from 19th-century melodrama conventions, are out of place and incongruent on film. Throughout his work we find theater actors giving stage performances on screen. Griffith clearly didn't yet understand - or simply wasn't equipped to know - that this new form of presentational art would require a new style of performance. As a former actor, he relied on what he knew, and what he knew was theater.

Of course, many early silent films contain such stilted performances. It was a transitional period. But it would be a mistake to assume these were unavoidable conventions of the era. Other filmmakers of the same period - most notably Abel Gance and Ernst Lubitsch - made films that look much more "modern" by comparison. They somehow understood better than Griffith that film acting required an entirely different approach than theater acting. It's telling that Sergei Eisenstein - the one filmmaker more influential than Griffith - borrowed, refined, and evolved everything he saw from Griffith...except the acting style, which was apparently of no use to him whatsoever.

As I've made my way this week through Metal Gear Solid 4 - which I consider a brilliant and inspired game - I keep coming back to this notion of a blind spot. In my view, Kojima's design for the game is marred by his inability or refusal to break free of a cinematic paradigm that both defines and ultimately limits his work. Despite all the terrific gameplay, compelling storytelling, and plain old great ideas that MGS4 contains, Kojima's decision to deliver significant portions of the experience as passive movie-viewing undermines the player's interactive engagement. It's a jarring aesthetic collision, not unlike the acting in Griffith's films.

Interestingly, both Kojima and Griffith nearly overcome these issues by their savvy in other areas. His theater training may have impaired him in some ways, but Griffith always hired interesting, talented people. Lillian Gish almost single-handedly rescues several of Griffith's films from the ham-fisted performances of most of the other actors.

Similarly, Kojima's reliance on cutscenes can be tiresome, but he is a fine and gifted filmmaker. One can easily track his maturation from the original MGS. Unlike other so-called cinematic games like Mass Effect, the filmmaking in MGS4 is visually creative, high-caliber stuff. As with Lillian Gish, it's almost enough to make you forget the blind spots.

So how to account for it? Arrogance? Stubbornness? Or is it really just a blind spot? A certain inability to see the strangling grip of an old mode on a new one. An infatuation with the pretty girl who won't love you back. If the very thing that limits the artist is also the artist's primary mechanism for delivering content - as it is for both Griffith and Kojima - that blind spot is a very pernicious thing.

Griffith and Kojima can't be ignored. They both do so many things so very well. And the sheer ambition and personal commitment to excellence they demonstrate is beyond laudable. But I think it's possible to see Griffith as a necessary artistic forerunner to the filmmaker who finally turned on the light. If Eisenstein was that filmmaker, I wonder who that game designer will be.

Comments

[Chris]

Wow!

[Denis]

I am curious about the mention of both feeling limited by the technologies at hand, thereby not allowing their creative vision true form.

Considering they both rely on former media, does this mean they're just set on one creative vision? In such a case, it seems pure tunnel vision and stubbornness that limits both parties.

Even if a perfectionist is willing to abandon a large amount of time's work, this doesn't mean s/he won't continue in the same path, but vary it only slightly to achieve a better result, however not actually making any significant gains. This does mean they polish their visions and provide something at which one can marvel, but is also not really visionary.

Therefore, they improvise the use of the tool rather than the tool itself.

Of course, the problem here is money and time spent. As someone's whose artistic interests largely lie outside of large capital investments or gain, I often take for granted these restrictions.

[gamasutra podcast]

A fine summary, Michael.

Both Griffith and Kojima were and are stuck in that nebulous transition between media. Referring to your earlier entry on the Citizen Kane of games, I believe that in order to create an exemplar of the form, an artist has to be at least partially aware of the differences in creative expression that separate one medium from another, and make effective--and exclusive--use of more than one.

Orson Welles was very observant in his application of cinema craft. He set a kind of vernacular of film in his creation of Citizen Kane by the use of such techniques as screenwriting, camera angles, dynamic camera movements, and others in the service of storytelling.

In screenwriting structure, Welles' clever use of non-linear temporal storytelling through the effective use of flashbacks illustrated the ability of film to visually and immediately juxtapose situations in a different manner than live theater.

He was one of the first filmmakers to realize the need for the construction of full sets, including ceilings and drop floors to accommodate the low camera angles on Charles Foster Kane that subconsciously evoke a feeling of heroism and grandeur in the earlier portions of the film, and high camera angles to illustrate the helplessness of the magnate in the latter portions of the movie.

He also made use of push-ins and vertical pans to great effect. That great dimensional camera move through the rainy skylight starting the interview scene between William Allard and Dorothy Comingore, and the pan up to the two workmen in the rafters critiquing Comingore's performance at the close of that scene especially stand out.

Welles, in collaboration with cinematographer Gregg Toland, was showing off his virtuosity through the structure and application of these techniques. More importantly, he was making use of cinematic practices that were unique to the language of film in the service of effective storytelling. It's not that any one of these was distinct to film at that point in history, but more that Welles put them all together in one place, and applied each one appropriately.

Kojima is a fine and gifted auteur, but I feel he doesn't quite grasp the various techniques that are unique to the language of games. At least, not well enough to use these in appropriate balance against the benefit of his obvious comfort in cinematic presentation. I often felt an odd dissonance between watching in-game cinemas and active game play sessions; I wanted to play the sections I just watched. I'm not saying that such a desire is even possible. Just the fact I felt that way is an indication of the blind spot to which you refer.

There are perhaps a couple more factors which might come into play before a game developer makes their own Citizen Kane. These are audience and subject matter. Most games are still mired in adolescent male power fantasy. I happen to enjoy them as much as the next gamer, and I believe that even games that don't aspire to art can be considered culturally interesting. But before any single game can be held up as an exemplar of the form, I believe the audience has to be ready, too.

Not that developers need necessarily strive to create "art" games, but I feel the general appeal of a title should embrace themes that are more widely relevant to audiences outside of the core gamer demographic.

There's obviously a lot more to say on the subject, but I'll leave it at that for now.

[KingMob]

I really enjoyed this post. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite gaming blogs.

Besides for the dialogue (most of the voice acting itself is excellent), the cut-scenes in the MGS games are technically marvelous. Kojima uses perspective, camera angles, and other cinematic techniques quite well, suggesting he may have spent some time studying these methods, even if only informally. From what I understand he has always aspired to be a film-maker, and with the right script he could probably succeed as one.

The major issue I take with the MGS games, as it sounds you do as well, is the frequent non-interactivity of them. Snakeeater does add additional perspectives that some sequences if the player holds a button, but that's about it. Kojima seems overly constrained by the complexity of the story he is trying to tell. Some stories do not seem well suited for gaming at all, but exactly the kind of narratives that do work is not yet clear. Perhaps the medium just needs *someone* to solidify the mechanics of storytelling in video games perfectly, either in one marquee game or more likely over the course of a career. Or maybe we need a clear critical luminary to make these techniques more easily graspable by the design community. The sooner, the better, I say.

[namekuseijin]

As much as I love MGS and Kojima's long heritage of incredibly effective use of cinematography to wrap kickass storytelling around action games play mechanics, I don't think he'll be remembered as the D.W. Griffith of videogames when so little of this specific medium is used by itself to try more than just the usual move-object-around-screen. There certainly are effective, powerful creative uses of interaction in the game during key moments that are about as powerful as the non-interactive ones for conveying emotion and drama, but they are far too few and decidedly a lot less frequent than either the cutscenes or the meat of usual action-fare gameplay.

I'm also bringing Portal to this thread as many people find it awe-inspiring and artful. Well, it's really just a FPS with some weird-physics-based puzzles thrown in the way of a plot which is essentially a pretty linear last-moments-of-HAL-while-David-turns-it-off stretched. Hey, at least we have hilariously depressing lines by OldManMurray Erik which are a perfect fit for the psychotic AI. Not to mention cakes.

I myself would vote on Andrew Plotkin for best use of the interactive electronic medium to convey plots by putting the player on someone else's shoes and letting them act it out with sheer joy. Perhaps someone in the future digs his works out of the relative obscurity of IF right now and find them to be pure interactive poetry. I know I do and it's like being next to Chaplin in the 1930's. :)

Don't believe me? Try these in a modern browser:
http://parchment.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/parchment.html?story=http://parchment.toolness.com/if-archive/games/zcode/Tangle.z5.js
http://parchment.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/parchment.html?story=http://parchment.toolness.com/if-archive/games/zcode/shade.z5.js

No, I'm not him under disguise, just a honest admirer. The guy would never employ such lame tactics as astroturfing, specially as he's already had his fair share of critical acclaim and recognition inside the IF community. Besides, I'm sure he's got better things to do, like writing the next big thing in interactive storytelling. :D

[Duncan Fyfe]

Oh man. I might come up with a brilliant response to this post eventually, but I'll selfishly reserve it for my blog. Suffice it to say this is great stuff, Michael. You have been on fire lately.

[Michael Abbott]

I appreciate you all taking the time to read my lengthy post.

Thanks, Chris! :-)

@Denis - I think it's hard to crawl into the minds of artists to figure out what they're thinking or why they choose certain things and not others. I avoided suggesting Griffith or Kojima purposely refused to do this or that because I just don't know. I think it's more likely they're like the great early filmmaker Georges Melies who never moved the camera from a fixed position for the simple reason that it never occurred to him. A paradigm is a hard habit to break. ;-)

@Tom - You raise so many interesting points, as you are wont to do. :-) I'm especially keen on your point about the way Welles and Toland put it all together. It does seem to me that's a huge factor when it comes to creativity in the arts. It isn't always about inventing something new. In fact, it rarely is about that. More often, it's about assembling what we know in ways that speak loudly and persuasively, with the shine of something new. To be sure, Toland and Welles did some very original stuff (Toland even had to come up with some new lenses), but when I see that film I always think of two guys (3 if you consider Manckiewitz) just playing with all their cool toys and having the times of their lives. I mean, in a way they're just showing off in this film - and I mean that in the best sense.

@KingMob - Thanks for your nice words about my blog. I'm glad you've become a regular. :-) I agree with your notion that Kojima has worked hard to train himself as a filmmaker, but I sometimes wonder if he's perhaps taken on too much. I think he could use a steady veteran hand with his writing, especially dialogue scenes. This sounds horrible to say, but most of the best video games would be laughed out of the theater with their simple-minded construction and hammy dialogue. I think we have a long way to go in this regard.

@namekuseijin - And speaking of dialogue...! Yes, Plotkin is up to some very interesting and ambitious things. I truly admire him and as you may know, I'm a nut for IF. Having said this, I simply don't think this experience has much relevance anymore. Hardcore text adventure fans like you and me can get our kicks, but let's be honest...we're a minuscule group of gamers. Now, if we could incorporate Plotkin's writing into a modern visual interactive experience - that makes me very excited. But it would be a very tough fit, I think, because of all the things such a writer would have to give up to accommodate the limitations of modern games. Perhaps I'm underestimating what's possible. Anyway, thanks for the links, which I hope others will check out.

@Duncan - Thanks. Yeah, save it for your blog. That will give me a chance to visit your neighborhood again...which I've been negligent about recently. Very busy, but things are opening up a bit. I appreciate the encouragement, especially coming from you.

[Richard Terrell]

Everyone seems to be so quick to claim that MGS4 has great gameplay. I don't think the game play was very good at all. The controls were still overly complicated, the environment set ups were stale (low amounts of interplay/interaction with the primary mechanics of the game), and the enemies were so simple, plain, oblivious, and straight forward, much of the gameplay harkens back to the age of SNES and N64.

The game certainly looks next gen. But the story telling is an absolute mess. I've seen this kind of thing happen to many animes. I feel that Kojima wants to be a movie-man, and he doesn't realize that he's working with the videogame medium. Even if he was making a "movie in a game," it seems that Kojima doesn't understand the movie medium either. What ever happened to "show dont' tell." We don't watch movies to have all the characters standing around different rooms telling us about things we'll never see, or interact with. This crippling flaw was the most egregious at the end of every boss battle. Do we really need Drebin to give us 4 long winded, non essential, repetitive background stories on the boss characters? The tone/diction of Snake and Drebin seemed to indicate that these vignettes were intrusive and annoying.

I do believe that when most people say the story telling is "compelling" they just mean it contains interesting ideas.

That is one thing I will give Kojima. He is quite an idea man. But he seems to have taken many steps back from th gameplay/design that was present in MGS3.

Kojima could have really used and editor. The cut scenes were almost entirely far too long winded. Getting into the moive-mechanics is a whole issue in itself. Fortunately, I specialize in story telling and game design. For those who want to call Kojima a genius (at least in the gameplay department), they should really brush up on the importance of interplay, variation, and counterpoint.

[JV Andres]

When Duncan brought up Portal I wasn't too surprised. It's interesting how Valve keeps coming up in these discussions about being true to the medium. I don't understand why emphatically refusing to use cutscenes hasn't caught on more. Maybe it's because of the invention of the quick time event? Anyway, besides moving beyond the cutscene, I like what you mentioned in an earlier post about moving beyond protagonists with guns. Every time I'm enamored by a new game I'm hit by how far the medium still has to go. What an exciting and frustrating time.

[namekuseijin]

Michael, allow me to rephrase what you just said:

"Yes, Bach is up to some very interesting and ambitious things. I truly admire him and as you may know, I'm a nut for classical music. Having said this, I simply don't think this experience has much relevance anymore. Hardcore barroque music fans like you and me can get our kicks, but let's be honest...we're a minuscule group of music lovers. Now, if we could incorporate Bach's composition techniques into a modern audio experience - that makes me very excited. But it would be a very tough fit, I think, because of all the things such a musician would have to give up to accommodate the limitations of modern music."

I don't give a rat's ass if there are just about 10 people in the entire world listening to Bach, or reading Virgil, or watching old B&W silent Charlie shorts. These are some of the finest moments in mankind artistical expression and I don't think they are less relevant just because the so-called "common man" enjoys dumbed-down fun/entertainment because it is what talks about "our times". F*ck that!

I'm sure in about 5 years of history, mankind was able to produce some true gems that surpass and transcend anything our mediocre "here, now" has to offer. I could care less about the masses eating grass and wondering about life like a bovine.

I didn't want to sound harsh, but, alas, I did. Sorry, but it's not a grudge against you, of course.

[namekuseijin]

Hmm, now re-reading my rant, it may sound like I was implying Plotkin and other top-notch interactive fiction writers are doing the equivalent to composing harpsichord music today or filming B&W silent shorts, but that's not what I originally had in mind.

The IF media is old -- just as the romance book media is old -- but it's such a simple vehicle that all that really matters for a work to shine through is good storytelling and good interaction, in equal measures. Something IF authors like Plotkin or Emily Short excel at. There's absolutely no reason to wrap dolby surround and 3D environments around it more than there is to do it to any written fiction. Other than pleasing a vast majority of people who won't read a book if there's a movie poor translation for it.

Do I sound elitist? Whatever. My point is that IF is just about as much a viable media for artistic expression as is the romance book format. It won't die just because we're now able to concretely narrate events visually, specially as evocative, sarcastic, poetic, subjective written narration is not possible to convey in a purely visual media and voice-over all around is not the answer.

Summing up, different mediums, not obsolete vs improved medium.

[namekuseijin]

Oh, gosh! That's 5000 years of history, not 5!

[Michael Clarkson]

It's funny you would bring up Bach, since many of Bach's compositions written for the harpsichord and organ today have their greatest popularity as pieces for the piano and the orchestra. That is, Bach is relevant in part because his music has been accommodated to more modern presentations. If zealous purists restricted them to only being harpsichord pieces or organ pieces it is likely that he would be far less well-known and relevant. And that's not to mention the ways in which Bach gains relevance through the re-expression of his themes in rock and other modern musical forms.

Moreover, his music was actually rather obscure in Europe until Felix Mendelssohn repopularized it in the early 1800s. If Bach had been less important to Mendelssohn, or Mendelssohn himself had been less influential, Bach's great music might not be remembered at all. Your use of that example essentially hinges on a chain of happy coincidences. That's the difference between J.S. Bach the great composer and J.S. Bach the obscure 18th-century organist nobody has ever heard of.

IF faces a similar obscurity, and probably WILL die (as much as any artform can die) because so few are interested in it. Perhaps Plotkin will find his Mendelssohn some time in the future. But if he does, his relelvance will come in the form of the instruments and media in use at the time.

[namekuseijin]

Ok, if piano and orchestra are examples of modern presentation, I feel confident IF will survive. If not by some benevolent Mendelssohn in the future looking back and beyond the ruthless dictatorship of a market geared for the lowest common denominator.

Besides, Bach keyboard music is not lost when played in any keyboard instrument. Bach music is pretty much as pure absolute abstract music that it doesn't matter what instrument is used to interpret it, as long as all notes are there. This is kinda like what happens with IF: it doesn't matter if you use a whizbang modern IF interpreter complete with stunning graphical gimmickry or in a Linux terminal. The result is the same: you read a story and interacts with it.

Presentation for IF has most definitely coped with the times: we are no longer playing in slow dumb terminals with huge monospaced green fonts against black background, but with fully subpixel anti-aliased, smooth, book-quality fonts. On the content front, most modern IF games moved away from the simplistic treasure hunts and maze exploration from early games and on to quality personal writing, clever plots and ingenious gameplay which actually follows the maximum "show, don't tell". Great works have expanded the medium immensely and yet, remain confined in it, just as much as in any art. Movies are movies, novels are novels, IF is IF.

I hope you're not implying that the equivalent of playing Bach on a piano would be playing Plotkin games through an interpreter with Automatic Graphical Generation (TM): it reads descriptions of places and creates in real-time a 3D environment for the scene, perhaps with real-time music consistent with the plot so far. It'd be as much of a cheap gimmick as coloring old B&W movies to suit modern tastes. And doesn't bring rejuvenated interest either.

"Moreover, his music was actually rather obscure in Europe until Felix Mendelssohn repopularized"

It doesn't matter. He had direct influence in the musical education of Mozart, Beethoven and many others influent figures. Both artists, when matured, looked back and suddenly became aware of how much of an impressive composer he was. They suddenly became very much obsessive about polyphony when in contact with works other than just WTC, specially his intricate and massive vocal works.

"Bach's great music might not be remembered at all."

Someone, somewhere, millions of years from now, will find a small spaceship from Earth containing a recording of Bach. I wonder what such music will mean to them. I hope they have ears for the right frequency and do not play it in the vacuum.

"Your use of that example essentially hinges on a chain of happy coincidences. That's the difference between J.S. Bach the great composer and J.S. Bach the obscure 18th-century organist nobody has ever heard of."

The proof to me that God exists is that someone was able to recover the Brandenburg Concerts sheets from their ultimate fate as bread wrappers. :)

whoa! So much for offtopic!...

[Chasmang]

I would consider Kojima a genius in the medium, but I don't think he's the best we've seen.

Shigesato Itoi, for example, has done so much with so little in the MOTHER series. It's sad that the series hasn't picked up more than it has, but it's also good in a way. It gives the games this special appeal that can't be matched. It's easy to see that Itoi put more thought into small portions of MOTHER 2/EarthBound, than some designers put in their entire games.

[Michael Abbott]

Bach, Beethoven, Itoi, Plotkin - whew! One can never predict what roads will emerge off the beaten path, eh? Thanks for the civil but provocative conversation.

Just a quick clarification about interactive fiction and its place in gaming. I don't mean to suggest by any means that IF doesn't matter or ought to be ignored. I wrote a mini-series of posts devoted to Steve Meretzky's "A Mind Forever Voyaging" awhile back, and Steve was kind enough to stop by here with a supportive comment. I love IF and have used it in my courses.

But even Meretzky will tell you (I know, because I was in the room when he said it) that IF is basically a dead end today. That doesn't mean no more good IF will be written or that this genre of gaming is a waste of time, or any other similar nonsense. It simply means that from an industry perspective (and Meretzky has always worked in this industry) nobody is operating under the illusion that IF is waiting in the wings for its big comeback. Video games have moved on, and this is a good and necessary thing.

Having said all this, I think we're still waiting for video games to adopt the kind of intelligent writing and sophisticated themes that IF helped pioneer. IF still has much to teach to those who are willing to listen (or read, I should say), so I suppose in this sense, the genre is still very much vital.

And, of course, IF designers are still free to create terrific new text-based games, and I will continue to happily and gratefully play them.

[namekuseijin]

"It simply means that from an industry perspective (and Meretzky has always worked in this industry) nobody is operating under the illusion that IF is waiting in the wings for its big comeback."

And I certainly did not imply that. I was merely pointing out that IF seems to do better the interactive bit of gaming and storytelling than most cutscene-geared bigbuck games.

In fact, I'm grateful that the only IF written today is highly personal works by independent authors outside the for-profit realm and modus operandi. This way it doesn't get dumbed down to please the Wii-playing common man.

[Anias]

namekuseijin, I understand you feel passionate about IF, and you're welcome to your opinions. But when you sling around statements like "This way it doesn't get dumbed down to please the Wii-playing common man" you needlessly offend people like me who might otherwise feel inclined to be receptive to your ideas.

I'm one of those Wii-playing common men, and I resent the implication that the games I enjoy on that system are dumbed down. I'll spare you the list of excellent Wii titles that defy your description, and I'll avoid the temptation to list all sorts of IF games that are poorly written, poorly constructed, etc. Rants and over-generalized statements don't promote discussion. They mostly only polarize.

All I'm suggesting is that you consider toning down the rhetoric a notch. Your credibility will rise as a result. I hope you don't receive this as unwelcome advice. My intention is to be constructive.

[namekuseijin]

Thanks, Anias. I enjoy criticism as much as criticizing. I know I'm an ass sometimes, but without my rhetoric, sarcasm and eventual harsh tone, I'd feel lost and not in my right self. Yes, I over-generalize a bit and feel sorry for the folks who resent it. OTOH, I may lose a friend, but not a joke. See ya.

[Lee Sherlock]

I'm a bit late to the conversation here, but I just wanted to post a NY Times article by Dave Itzkoff on MGS4 that actually ties in very well with this thread:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/weekinreview/22itzkoff.html?_r=1&no_interstitial&oref=slogin

It starts out by considering the political "messages" that are at stake in the game and in players' interpretations of the game, but it takes an interesting turn to the very "blind spot" that Michael discusses. What I find interesting here is that Kojima's overreliance on cinematic modes of production (long cutscenes and the like) interferes not only with general enjoyment of the game, but also the game's effectiveness in delivering its political and philosophical points, at least in the minds of some gamers.

For instance: "Even as gamers ponder what this symbolism means (an allegory of war in the era of Blackwater Worldwide and stateless enemy combatants?), they are also debating whether the story of Metal Gear Solid 4 is a satisfying one, and if its storytelling techniques are used effectively."

I think this really ties together the issues of using conventions of the game medium effectively alongside Kojima's auteur sensibilities and the ideology behind his games. One of the problems here seems that being an auteur requires a high degree of control over one's work (I'm putting it nicely here--I originally considered "obsessive control" :). I think a lot of people have rightly pointed to the tension between maintaining this auteur stance and the interactivity that "good" game design calls for, which holds the threat of undermining that stance.

[erty]

MGS4 mentioned in the same context as Citizen Kane is an enormous INSULT to that utterly mold-shattering film, as well as film as a medium.

Im sorry but MGS "story" is stupid(for kids) and blatant.

There is only ONE TYPE of people who can say taht Koijma's games are "GREAT" Who? One's without PROPER EDUCATION

[gh]

Brainy gamer? Maybe GAMER but no brain sorry

[who am i]

Most game genres just aren't very good for storytelling. There's always a jarring distinction between gameplay and cutscenes in games like Metal Gear, and the two often undermine each other. I also don't think there's any point in having hours and hours of cutscenes constantly interrupting action gameplay. System Shock and Half-Life have shown us that there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Fortunately, we already have a genre that, when done right, would allow a seamless and natural transition from gameplay to cutscenes and dialogue. I am, of course, referring to adventure games. We no longer have technological barriers preventing us from making a truly cinematic game where gameplay and storytelling blend together effortlessly. Imagine Grim Fandango but with a 3D engine that allows different camera angles, combined with motion captured animations, lip synching, facial expressions and other modern marvels. The idea would be to have the camera remain consistent, mostly by using static shots, so that there's a minimal visual difference between gameplay and cutscenes. Adventure games are also very fun and challenging to play, so it's not like we're talking about those infamous interactive films of the nineties.

The full potential of adventure games was never unlocked. They died prematurely. With modern technology and some fresh thinking we could do some seriously cool shit, both with storytelling and gameplay. I also think adventure games had a much higher quality of writing than the vast majority of modern games, and I don't really know where all that talent disappeared to.

Games, unlike films, are largely transient. How many 15-year old gamers of today know about or have played the likes of Grim Fandango, not to mention very old stuff like Infocom games? The great adventure games of the eighties and nineties are forgotten, practically belonging to a pre-historic era. We already have abundant amounts of games with stellar storytelling, but nobody knows about them. I guess that's why drivel like Metal Gear can be so highly regarded, or maybe it's just because the fans are mostly teenagers or otherwise simple-minded. I don't know.

As a medium for storytelling, video games are on par if not even superior to films, but this potential has not been realized and likely never will be, considering the way things are going. You could pull of stunning storytelling in a video game if you had a good writer and someone who understands films, and of course a good game designer as well. Maybe these could all be the same person.

Even if developers aren't going to start making adventure games again, there's obviously a lot of room for improvement as far as storytelling goes. I think Kojima is overrated and it's really a sign of the times that he's so highly regarded by the masses.

Sorry if some of this was off-topic.

[OmarDa]

Dear Kotaku readers: Welcome to the neighborhood. I'll bet you're putting a jolt in Michael's traffic stats. That's awesome. Just one request: please read the actual post before popping off a comment.

To "Erty": Nowhere in the post does Michael compare MGS4 to Citizen Kane. In fact, a few days ago he devoted a whole essay to proving why we *should not* compare any video game to Citizen Kane. Your rant makes no sense because you're responding to Kotaku's post, not Michael's.

To "gh": Why be so mean? If you disagree, explain why and be part of a conversation. Michael is a genuinely nice guy who obviously loves video games. What is served by coming over here and throwing a rock at his head?

I don't want to come off as a scold, but this is one of the best places on the net to read about and discuss games, and that's because Michael writes interesting stuff and has attracted a community of readers who respect each other even when we disagree.

So in other words, Kotaku readers, welcome to the neighborhood, but please don't throw garbage in our yard.

Apologies to Michael if I've overstepped my bounds. I really dig this site and want it to continue.

[AndroidKing]

There's a quote about technology that for the life of me I can't remember where I heard it or exactly how it went. But it was something like "Once technology becomes technically boring it then becomes socially interesting". It was in reference to the internet and things like myspace, online shopping, and blogs. I bring it up because it goes perfectly with the all but dead genres of games some people are bringing up along with excellent story telling. Once the tech and ways to play the games were boring and set, it freed the creators to focus on story. Or more likely allowed story focused people to enter the medium.

If we draw an analogy between game genres and earlier story telling methods, you guys are essentially comparing early movies to books and the theater story wise. I should clarify the genre I am drawing an analogy to with movies is 3d games in general.

There are two hurdles 3d games have yet to overcome. One is graphics. The first impression you always get from a game trailer is how pretty/detailed it was. As long as conversation about a game can revolve around the graphics it will take the focus from other things. I'm not talking about art style either, I'm talking about tech stuff like if the creators used bump mapping or whatever shaders were used. This has more of an effect on art direction than story and is why most games are different shades of gray and brown. But any time spent on the technology is time not spent on socially interesting things like story and art. This will eventually no longer be an issue. Most likely by the end of this generation of consoles graphics will level out.

The other sticking point and I'd say rightfully so is the game play mechanics. The main hurdle here however is the basic playability of the game. Games still get released with bad camera controls that can get you killed. This is the rightful competitor with story and given the way games are now, the champ.

These hurdles may not even need to be leaped before good stories are more common. As game budgets and staff rise it's really an eventuality that there will be more dedicated writers for games and better stories. Really something gaming doesn't get compared to often enough is porn. All most people want to do is get their rocks off and for the game designers the story is just there to facilitate the action.

[Tom Cheng]

It is a very good article, and I think putting DW Griffith and Kojima together is very interesting. I like how you use blind spot to explain how both fail to completely master each medium. In short I just want to say the story of MGS certainly is a good one, but it is highly overrated by the media. I mean the story is way too over-complicated, and the storyteller often resort to using the deus ex machina of reviving characters to push the story forward.

[AndroidKing]

I think Kojima was a prisoner of his own epic story this go round. It was clear from MGS2 that the only person people wanted to play as was snake. This means any sub plot involving other characters could not be told from or played from their perspective and required a cut scene. The Vamp Raiden fight is a perfect example of this. Everyone wanted to be Raiden this time around. Also this being the final chapter everything needed to be resolved so more cutscenes for all of that. I'm not saying the man doesn't love cutscenes just he didn't have much choice this time.

I bring this up not to be an apologist for Kojima but to say I think he is coming around and has improved. First off the codec as a major story telling device is pretty much gone. In the briefing sequences where they are just talking on the Nomad, you can look through the security cameras, read every stat, and explore with the mk II. Not to mention you can pause or skip any cutscene you want, so it's not really an issue anyways. This is just fixing unnecessary flaws from before.

He also increased the sensation of you being snake. All the times you can press L1 to see through snakes eyes even some hidden ones. There is the part where you fight on one half of the screen while a cutscene goes on in the other. Snake wouldn't be able to watch the fight and protect himself so neither can the player. The struggle near the end when I was pushed to the point where it was as much can I make it as can Snake make it. The times where you have to think and analyze the situation or you don't move on.

Points like these remind me of a short story about fighting in Vietnam where the author purposely made the story repetitious, boring, and quickly glazed over and belittled something like a comrade being killed. The point was through the reading of the story to have an idea of what it was like to be a soldier in Vietnam. I think Kojima does this sometimes and doesn't get credit for it. I think a better example of this would be MGS3 with things like the camo and having to hunt food for stamina. It wasn't fun it wasn't glamorous but it was just a taste of what snake was going through.

I don't recall a point in the game where control of Snake was unnecessarily taken out of the players hands. Nothing would have been added by being able to control Snake in scenes where the story was progressing. I've played games where control was left in my hand and felt like it detracted from the narrative that was going on.

One reason I think there is a split on the cutscenes is the speed people go through the game. If you charge through it there may well be an imbalance of gameplay and cutscenes towards cutscenes. Leading to cries of "I just want to play the game". Personally I enjoy both the story and the cutscenes as well as all the Metal Gear games.

Basically while I agree Kojima does have this blind spot I think he's starting to work it out.

[Grey]

Bah, second page of comments. =(

Kojima is NOT that forerunner. Oh god no.
Fumito Ueda is...or rather, he would be if you people would start buying Team Ico's games. That is to say, start paying attention to them.

Kojima does nothing with the interactive medium. Nothing. He empowers cinema through his use of cutscenes to convey narrative, and, while this is infinitely better than current "substitutes," it doesn't do anything for the medium.

Griffith was brilliant in utilising cinematographic techniques, and telling a story (insert shots are a key component of that early narrative film, and nothing similar exists in Kojima games, or shallow gameplay oriented uses of the medium in general). Kojima does not use interactive elements for narrative purposes. Without cinema, Snake would be nowhere.

Moving on:

Half-Life 2's story rooms are FAR less effective than these Kojima cutscenes. There's nothing worse than being able to throw a computer at Dr. I-don't-care-what-his-name-is while he monologues away (because Freeman has no personality or say) and having that action be completely ignored in the world of the game.

Expression without the use of cutscenes = Good
Valve method of disguising cutscenes = Worse than using cutscenes.

I'm a huge fan of HF's more basic exploration based interaction (1st Breencast, giant treks through the wastes, the highway) to communicate themes, as long as they're compulsary - that's crucial. It's also why I ignore the Metroid and Shock series' logs as examples of good storytelling. There should be no "reward" for exploring, nor should someone have to go out of their way for the story.

That basic exploration for thematic purposes has been done before by many others and done better than the rest by Fumito Ueda, but it nevertheless seems to me to be the defining early 'word' in interactive language. It's something the interactive medium can offer uniquely (though uniqueness isn't a prerequisite for establishing an interactive language).

As for Portal's apparent sole dissenter:
The function fits the form. It's not necessarily a good way to go, but it's above and beyond most games. You are a test subject, you must go through several tests using the portal gun providing this gameplay mechanic, and after inevitably obeying GLADos and command signs, you are betrayed. The tests provide a scenario, GLADos provides the story. In retrospect, it perhaps isn't a great example of the medium, but it does provide an interdependence between player and AI (or instructor, as in most games) that is broken purposefully. A better example would be its use of exploration - "The cake is a lie" written on the wall behind cubes you must pick up to progress, a discovery that comes before increasing promises of cake. The clinical feel becomes more sinister, and GLADos' voice deteriorates. A big complaint I have is that the ending, post test sequences goes on for far too long. This combination of visual and interactive mechanics, I believe, is wholly intentional - which is what seperates it from any similar game that is infact commercially oriented, and focused on spectacle and shock rather than art.

Ultimately, story should be told through interactivity, with story/expressive ideas coming first.

Mass Effect's inconsistency is a direct result of its inability to control interaction. By offering choice, we can have an at times psychopathic, at times loveable Shepherd, whose companions flip-flop their opinions to empower the player and his godly choices. Revolting.

It's a complex choose-your-own adventure book, like the IF posted earlier. Though the IF is better written than Bioware games, it isn't emblematic of the medium's potential.

Another example of a failed use of the medium as artistic expression is "emergent" narrative. That is, creating your own adventures. While it could be fun, until each scenario is planned out (and at that point it's merely a smorgasbord of irrelevant choices - or back to being a choose your own adventure book - how ironic) we will have the designers providing the canvas, not the painting. The camera, not the narrative. That is not art. What people create within the limitations of these tools could possibly be art, but Spore, The Sims etc. would not be (via that method).

AndroidKing is correct that control of Snake would add nothing to the current 'cinematic' story discussions Kojima provides, but that's an issue of poor use of interactivity to provide narrative. Tell the story without giant conversations and maybe there's a place for Snake.

I understand that my views on the medium are very strict, but that's the way I think it needs to be. I naturally welcome all arguments against my points, and hope that I've been reasonable in stating them.

As for my favourite, SotC is not perfect, but it's as close as we have in the current climate. Still, the roof for this medium's potential is far beyond SotC's head.

[who am i]

"Once the tech and ways to play the games were boring and set, it freed the creators to focus on story."

If adventure games had been boring, people wouldn't have played them. The gameplay and tech weren't "set" either, as there were many different ways of doing an adventure game. The graphics gradually improved just as they have always improved and continue to improve.

"As long as conversation about a game can revolve around the graphics it will take the focus from other things."

It's only going to revolve around the graphics if there's something special about them.

"I'm not talking about art style either, I'm talking about tech stuff like if the creators used bump mapping or whatever shaders were used."

Only a very small segment of the gaming population cares or even knows about such things. Bump mapping and shaders are standard technology anyway.

"This will eventually no longer be an issue. Most likely by the end of this generation of consoles graphics will level out."

Not a chance. It'll be a very long time until no significant graphical improvements are possible. Also, the better your graphics are the more work you have to do. Models, textures and levels don't make themselves, and as their complexity increases so does the time spent creating them.

"These hurdles may not even need to be leaped before good stories are more common. As game budgets and staff rise it's really an eventuality that there will be more dedicated writers for games and better stories."

Good stories were being made a long time ago when budgets were much lower and there were fewer people involved. Now budgets are enormous and hundreds of people can be involved in creating a game. Clearly, money and staff are not the reason why most games have lackluster stories.

[namekuseijin]

Excellent comment, Gray!

"Kojima is NOT that forerunner. Oh god no.
Fumito Ueda is...or rather, he would be if you people would start buying Team Ico's games."

Kojima is not bad at all, but I agree about Ueda.

"Kojima does nothing with the interactive medium. Nothing... Kojima does not use interactive elements for narrative purposes. Without cinema, Snake would be nowhere."

I don't agree with that. He's not just a creator of cutscenes in animé flavor. There are many crucial moments scattered around in MGS where it is plenty interactive and yet go well beyond the usual stealth gameplay. To speak frankly, I have not played MGS2 and Snake Eater's setting, in a jungle, is a bit unusual for a MG game so I didn't feel compelled enough to play it extensively. And I don't own a PS3. I'm salivating over MGS4, though.

But the kind of moment I'm talking about is, in the case of MGS1, like when you're going through the air duct and is able to hear bits of what's going on around the complex, or seeing Psycho Mantis demoing his telekinetic powers (breaking the forth wall barrier), or while fighting Sniper Wolf only to find out it's very difficult hitting her without taking the medicine to stop shaking (one of those a-ha moments), or when, in a very potent dramatic and interactive situation, you have to choose between shooting Gray Fox while he battles the Metal Gear (you try to but Snake refuses going into a self-conscious conflict). In all of them, it's very obvious the author hand, but it's also very much in the player's hands rather than just passive storytelling.

I'm sure there are many more moments like that in the other games as well. For pulling that alone, I praise Kojima. I just wished the games consisted more of that rather than just move-around-hide-and-shoot.

"Half-Life 2's story rooms are FAR less effective than these Kojima cutscenes. There's nothing worse than being able to throw a computer at Dr. I-don't-care-what-his-name-is while he monologues away (because Freeman has no personality or say) and having that action be completely ignored in the world of the game."

Yes. It's not just HL: Goldeneye and Perfect Dark in the N64 also featured the same lameness.

Games should not be about too much freedom nor about too much constraints. But you know it's terribly difficult achieving that. That is, achieving great storytelling and allowing too much player freedom. As someone said already, cinema was built around 2000 years of narrative expertise. Interactive storytelling is something very much new.

"It's also why I ignore the Metroid and Shock series' logs as examples of good storytelling."

Logs are a staple of backstory being sticked into a game after the game itself was completed.

Oh, Metroid was really only good as the 2D open-ended, mostly storyless, exploration games behind Yokoi's direction. SM is one of my favorites of all time.

"There should be no "reward" for exploring, nor should someone have to go out of their way for the story."

It's even worse in JRPGs where you pretty much have to talk to everyone in town for clues or items, even those who will get you nothing.

"The function fits the form. It's not necessarily a good way to go, but it's above and beyond most games."

I agree. Which is why it's so depressing. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game with interesting play mechanics.

"we can have an at times psychopathic, at times loveable Shepherd, whose companions flip-flop their opinions to empower the player and his godly choices. Revolting."

Indeed.

"It's a complex choose-your-own adventure book, like the IF posted earlier. Though the IF is better written than Bioware games, it isn't emblematic of the medium's potential."

Why not?

"That is, creating your own adventures. While it could be fun, until each scenario is planned out ... we will have the designers providing the canvas, not the painting. The camera, not the narrative. That is not art... Spore, The Sims etc. would not be (via that method)."

Bingo. I hate those "games" as well. You are the artist, they give you a camera and you act it out. I'm paying for being a mediocre artist, not wondering about a true artwork.

"As for my favourite, SotC is not perfect, but it's as close as we have in the current climate."

Of course, everything is easier when you don't have a complex plot or NPCs around. When you do, given today's AI limitations, you gotta have that rigid author's hand.

Doesn't matter, I love Ico and SotC too.

[bruce]

How about we just put down our controllers and read Hamlet?