Today was the first time I struggled to find a seat in the Norris Theater. The theater seemed overwhelmingly huge last semester during my 190 class, but today it was packed with students, parents, and professors that all shared a common interest with the man on stage. Everyone in the theater loved animation.
Yuri Norstein took the audience’s breath away with his dazzling animated films. After the event I heard animation students talk about the incredible facial expressions he achieved with just cutouts. A few production students were amazed that the gorgeous animation was made possible without the use of a computer at all. Everybody found a different aspect of the films to admire most. For me, the films’ emphasis on space was their most intriguing element.
Norstein told the audience that space is as important of a character as any other character in animation. While I am no expert on animation, his idea can be applied to other mediums as well. The characterization of space has become increasingly prevalent in video games. It can be found in games as early as The Legend of Zelda, yet I believe the enhancement of atmosphere is this video game generation’s greatest triumph.
In 2007, we were introduced to the city of Rapture. BioShock’s disturbing underwater dystopia has been hailed as one of the greatest settings to ever grace a video game. The calls for help written in blood on the walls, the banners denouncing altruism, and the countless flooded hallways were just a small portion of the space that the developers so carefully constructed. It was the characters that brought this space to life. The deranged citizens and the city’s crazed architect occupied the unforgettable setting to create one of the most fulfilling games of this generation. In this regard, it is not alone.
At the end of 2007 Mass Effect demonstrated that even outer space can be given life and character. In 2008 Grand Theft Auto IV established two of the series’ firsts: a relatable, well-developed cast of characters and a city that felt like it could actually exist. Fallout 3′s post-apocalyptic vision of Washington D.C. may have been incredibly bleak, but players were captivated nonetheless. Dead Space brought an unprecedented amount of personality to a single spaceship, made altogether more frightening by its horrifying inhabitants. In 2009 Batman: Arkham Asylum proved that even previously imagined settings can be given new life in video games. Uncharted 2 tasked players with engaging the protagonist with a space and its inhabitants in a remarkable chapter entitled “Where Am I?” Flower created a space in which setting and character were indistinguishable, and the latest Call of Duty presented a realistic and engrossing depiction of the modern battlefield.
I apologize for the history lesson, but it is important to realize how much space has changed in just the past few years. The improved technology cannot be solely attributed to the newfound characterization of space in video games, but it certainly gave game designers a larger palette. It is now an expectation for the setting in a video game to create the impression of a living, breathing world. With the constant influx of new technology, settings should soon come to life in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine. Who knows what we may see once Project Natal hits at the end of this year? Norstein was right. To be effective, space must be a character in itself. Look back at this generation so far and you will see that game developers have taken note.
I know it has been a really long time since I last blogged, so I am going to conclude with a little connection to my last entry. Back in October, I used Dante’s Inferno as my example of how not to do an adaptation. Well now the game is out and I won’t be playing it (I could barely stomach the demo), so I will leave you with the last line of IGN UK’s review. “And, sadly, aside from its excellent combat system, Dante’s Inferno misses the mark in almost every way.”
Told ya so.