Gaming will probably become the dominant form of entertainment within the next decade. With games now beginning to hit the mainstream, expectations continue to grow with respect to the entertainment experience provided. It’s no longer enough to throw a couple of monsters in the way of the player’s crosshairs to shoot – a rich visual and narrative experience is expected as well. This creates choices for the game designer that are not decided with ease. In particular, a tension is created between the desire for a rich narrative experience, as opposed to player freedom to determine their own experience. This post will be an exploration of that tension as it plays out in the Half Life series of games. I’ll look at how narrative is constructed in the half life games. My argument will be that while games are capable of providing a rich narrative – this is generally at the expense of gameplay; and secondly, that if this decision is taken then a very strong and rich narrative is required to ensure an enduring an memorable experience for the gamer. The half life series serves as an example of this sort of game – where gameplay aspects are sacrificied for the sake of the narrative. While Half Life 2 had perhaps the best narrative of a game I’ve ever seen, it’s sequels have lost the depth that made Half Life 2 so great. With Valve continuing to limit player freedom (irrespective of their claims for the latest episode), along with the shorter episodic content – this combines to give a fairly shallow gameplay experience – limiting replayability. In what follows I will attempt to demonstrate why I think this to be the case.
More…
One of my interests is in emerging art forms. Various kinds of new media have the potential to be the greatest vehicles of artistic expression we have yet seen. I consider gaming to be one such platform – and have explored the art of gaming narrative previously on this blog (and will do so again shortly). Another emerging art form is the demo – which garners considerably less attention because it lacks a mass appeal. While the demo scene has been around for a considerable amount of time (it grew up around c64 gaming scene where those providing cracks and trainers would preface the game with a short loading screen which would attribute to themselves the credit for the crack), it is yet to fully mature as an art form. Nevertheless, I believe its potential can be seen in recent work by some of the top demo crews on the scene today. This post is a review of three examples of such work. While many will refuse the label of ‘art’ for such work, I will nevertheless consider them as such and provide my review on such a basis.
More…
Carl Sagan has to be one of the greatest popularisers of science we’ve ever had. He fascinated an entire generation with his documentaries and perhaps inspired many of the scientists who work throughout the world today. In the clip below I think we get a sense of the motivation he had for his efforts. He knew full well that the achievements of science and culture could all be swept away in an uprising of the ignorant and the stupid. He deeply felt the importance of his popularising work – and this video shows why.
More…
Update
I’ve written a more extended reaction to these photos and the police operation which you can read: here.
—–
I went into the city today to watch the APEC protest and took some photos. I was absolutely amazed at the size of the police presence and the lengths to which they had gone to prevent the organisation of an effective protest. It seems they had totally surrounded all entry points into Hyde Park where the protesters where trying to gather – allowing them only one entry and exit point. They then set up stations blocking off various streets. It really looks like massive over kill – which will only fuel the negative public perception of the event. We the ordinary folks just watch on in childlike wonder while our leaders swan around playing ‘Nations’ with their friends.
More…
A while back I wrote about the brave new revenue sharing world that is fast approaching. I argued that in order to infiltrate word of mouth distribution channels, companies would begin to share revenue with their users. I predicted that the result would be the total commoditisation of our social lives and I painted nightmare scenarios where we were paid to influence our friends, colleagues and loved ones for the sake of a share in the profit. I want now to explore the deeper connections between those forces which propel us toward this brave new world, and those that resist it. I argue that the revulsion we feel toward the idea stems from a deep philosophical view that has its roots in the Romantic movement. This romantic sentiment is in danger of being swallowed up and destroyed by those forces it has for so long opposed. Is it capable of maintaining its oppositional stance – and is it even a sentiment that we value any more? Or is it now just an empty myth used for entertainment and empty amusement?
More…
Unfortunately I am neck deep in my philosophy work right now and can’t afford the time to write proper full length articles. So instead I will compromise and writer shorter tidbits so that I ensure that I keep posting regularly. They will also be exclusively on the philosophical topics I am researching. Today I’ll look at a particular argument for the existence of objects that don’t exist. Sounding a little spurious already? Then read on!
More…
The Following is a draft of an essay I am working on. I’m not convinced the argument works so if anyone can show me why it’s wrong please do!
Quantified modal logic often plays a central role in the debate between those who believe in the existence of possibilia (possibilists) and those who deny their existence (actualists). Traditional logical and semantic theories, when applied to the subject of modality, make the derivation of the Barcan formulas possible. These theorems serve as an affront to common sense intuitions that deny the existence of objects that are merely possible, or that objects have necessary existence. Recent contributions attempt to either render the validity of the Barcan formulas irrelevant to the broader metaphysical issues, or to sate actualist intuitions in a variety of other ways. I argue that these attempts are failures. The possible worlds framework is the proper theoretical apparatus of the possibilist – but not the actualist. The actualist must find some other apparatus to underwrite their intuitions. I argue further that this is not as bad for the actualist as it sounds, since the possible worlds framework cannot itself be used as a motivation to adopt possibilism.
More…
This is perhaps a little lazy of me to just post a youtube video – but this is truly worth seeing. My good friend Hamish got me onto these guys and I generally go to their gigs now whenever I get the chance. Everytime I see Jess play I’m absolutely in awe of her violin skills. The crooked fiddle band sure knows how to put the rock into folk rock. Trust me, this vid will blow you away.
More…
 |
In my last post on the topic of names, I examined the referential theory and explained some of the classic difficulties that it has faced. The descriptivist theory of names attempts to avoid these difficulties by denying that the semantic content of a name is the object to which it refers. Instead the theory claims that some kind of description of the object is included in the semantic content of the name. The first person to propose this kind of theory was Frege – and the descriptivist theory was to remain the dominant view up until the second half of the twentieth century. It was displaced as the dominant theory and replaced once again by the referentialist view, thanks largely to the criticisms of Saul Kripke. Given the failure of the descriptivist theory, we are left in a somewhat baffling position, with no theory being entirely satisfactory. We are left in the position where the process of reference, something as familiar to us as eating, remains an unsolved part of larger mystery concerning how we use language.
More…
Most of us wouldn’t think there was anything problematic about the meaning of names. When I use the name ‘Brad’ to talk about my good friend, we wouldn’t think to question what I actually meant by the name ‘Brad’. After all, I just mean Brad – that guy who pops up on MSN chat to distract me from my studies. But it turns out that a workable semantics of names is one of the most elusive goals of the philosophy of language today. In a very real sense, we still don’t know what names mean. There is still no agreement on how it is that we manage to use names as we do, or even how it is that we can refer to objects at all. At this point, your commonsense ideas are probably causing you to scoff. Of course we know what names mean – they mean whatever object they stand for! And maybe they do. By the end of this article, you might still think as you did at the beginning – but I doubt you’ll remain so confident.
More…
