ROCKSMITH and the victory over gamification

Gamification is a sexy buzz word. It was born from the assumption that people value the things they struggle to obtain more than the things they freely receive. And so, the behaviorist wizard assigned points and levels to everything. His spell dictated that we would become more motivated if we became aware that every level passed or song beaten was a stepping stone, an achievement.

It was under the lure of this magic man that I purchased Rocksmith, a rhythm game you play with a real guitar and whose goal is to teach you how to play it. Perhaps now, with the ethereal motivation provided by gamification, I would be finally able to switch from the G chord to the C chord without having to stop and mentally command my fingers to do so. It was an impulse buy to be sure, but one that ended up being my most played game of 2011.

And here is the twist: gamification didn’t do a damn thing.

Stifling the medium

The tall poppy syndrome is a pejorative commonly used in Australia to describe the social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are criticized for being exactly that. It’s a ridiculous societal response that encourages people to censor their achievements

BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY and the douchebag in all of us

It’s late in Arkham Asylum. Dawn will break soon and it seems like the nightmare Joker would unleash onto Gotham was averted. The game is about to end, but, before it does, a call about Two-Face is overheard on the radio. It seems Batman: Arkham Asylum is all but over for Commissioner Gordon, you and me. But not Batman. He flies off to handle another crisis in Gotham City. He must endure. The game offers us a taste of what it is like being Bats, but just a taste. What that ending says is that never truly became him. His martyrdom must continue after the credits rolls.

Sometime after the first game, mayor Quincy Sharp, former warden of Arkham, together with the help of Dr. Hugo Strange, reallocated all criminals to a closed-off area in Gotham City and named that new prison Arkham City. The developer’s goal in doing this is pretty straight forward: to finally get the full experience of being Batman, as he scours the city for criminal activity.

In doing so, what they have managed to do was to corrupt all that understanding of what it means to be Batman that was so well-crafted in the first game. Batman is no longer a hero. He is a “video game hero”, with all game manias that entails.

L.A. NOIRE and the Story That Wasn't There

Hank Quinlan: “Come on, read my future for me.”

In some ways, a game based on Film Noir would be the anti-GTA. Ah, the GTA series! The pursuit of the American Dream! To fight that good fight requires a great deal of optimist, no? The optimist believes the future is within his grasp.

Tanya: “You haven’t got any.”

Noir Films, however, are filled with pessimists who already know that the game they are playing is futile. That what they are playing is actually a poker game of death.

“What do you mean?”

The world is merciless. It’s unforgiving. We are already doomed no matter what we do. In the search of the American Dream, the fall from glory is a surprise; in Film Noir, the surprise would be not to fall from glory.

L.A. Noire isn’t the anti-GTA. It certainly isn’t the gaming equivalent to L.A. Confidential… or Double Indemnity …or even Who Framed Roger Rabbit. L.A. Noire may be many things – but it certainly isn’t Noir.

“Your future is all used up.”

Rayman Origins is a Roller Coaster Ride

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