A game is still a static line of code; what you are doing in it is based entirely on how it has been composed. You cannot do what the developer does not want you to do, so what you are doing is just as linear as supposedly linear forms of media. An abstract painting  may be far more open than a sandbox game; it depends on the use of the medium, rather than the medium itself.

So in other words, umm agreed, except I disagree that it's actually something unique to the medium of video games.

Foolz3h

I'm not saying that games are the only medium like this. I am saying that writing is different from games.

And yes, there are of course boundaries on the game which is why it is a shape and not just empty space between point A and point B. But these boundaries are too complex. We're talking strictly theoretical, because trying to draw one of these diagrams accurately would be impossible. I don't think the human mind could handle the finite but still massive possiblities.

Games are static pieces of code that create an environment, and tha environment and the controls together set the boundaries for the game. What the player does within that environment is largely up to them, as long as their actions fall within the shape of the game. Linear games like Call of Duty 4 are very strict in their boundaries, but there's still room to move around - if there wasn't, it would be a movie, not a game. Even rail shooters have even a slight degree of variation.

As for abstract art, I'd say that most is experienced without a beginning and an end, which makes the comparison hard to quanitfy.

I would have thought you would have given me some of this before you posted the editorial! Now I'm starting to feel like your heart's not all in it. Or did you just invite me on to make your essay part look better? :(

You just confused me so hard.iloveflash

Oh no! :( Let me try again.

A piece of literature, or writing in general, is a line. A to B. 

A game is not a line.

A game has a beginning and an end, A to B. But the path between the two points is a shape with space inside of it, not a line. Think of a football, with the beginning on one tip and the end on the other tip.

These shapes contain the finite possibilities that a gamer could possibly explore within a game. For most games, this is a very substancial amount of space.

A playthrough of a game is a line that travels through this shape. It is only straight if the gamer wishes it to be so. It's usually not.

A review is a line and therefore is ill equipped to describe and mimic a shape, in all of its complexity and space. Most games are so enormously complex these days that the shape is indescribable and almost impossible for anyone to actually deduce, much less convey with any authority.

However, it is equipped to describe a playthrough, because a playthrough is a line.

And this is why I argue that discussing playthroughs and perspectives derived from that playthrough is a superior way of writing a review.

"The problem with writing about games is that reading is linear, while games are generally not."

The thing is, this is a rather subjective statement. Reading can be linear in action: as a vehicle that takes us from point A to B, but that doesn't force a review to be linear in execution or even conception. Foolz3h said some time ago that he likes to write reviews in the way he feels about the game. Linear points leading up to his conclusion about the game, sure, but how is that a problem when he can be creative in how he presents those points? How is that a problem at all? Subjective statement, there, and objectively speaking, it's a jawful one.

iloveflash

Once again I'm going to post a lot of text and this is only because I feel that I have been misunderstood, probably because my essay was floofy. Sorry. If this was all clear to you from the start, I apologize. I'm not posting this to be argumentive, I'm posting to clarify my position.

When you play Planescape Torment, the classic PC RPG, there are lots of different paths which all start at point A and end at point B (though there are some differenciations in point B - just pretend for now). The way these are connected is through a large football shaped object. The path one takes through this football is largely based on the player's actions in the game: talk or fight? Good or evil? This path through the football is not only not straight, but it's also not linear in the least, in that it stops and goes back through the football to past missions, twirls around a bit, meanders through more beloved parts of the game, and altogether is an absolute mess.

What the modern review tries to do is explain the football shape. I propose in my essay that reviews would be more effective focusing on the line within the shape.

The reasoning behind this is that a review is not a football shape at all. There's a point A and a point B and there's a line leading from the beginning to the end. Sure, reviewers make it interesting by chopping up the line and putting it in different positions, making it sound interesting and such. But you cannot construct that football shape out of these interesting lines. If the football shape is big enough, you can't even begin to convey, with your little line, just how many possibilities there truly are. You can describe the football shape all you like, but it just doesn't really make a full picture. We end up with a fuzzy sort of odd looking thing that's sort of a football shape but doesn't really give us the information we need.

However, the line within that football shape? That's unique. It's a product of the football shape, certainly. But it's also a product of the writer himself. The way in which we perceive games is affected by the line.

Describing the line, through lineaer plot or just bits and pieces scattered across a review - this is what I argue is worth writing about. We can get a full line, full of meaty flavor and stunning skill, that's different from any other line. If it's a good game, we will be able to tell through the description of the line, because it's a perception. Perceptions are never objective.

The structure of a review is that it is a line. It starts in one place and ends in another, and the reader experiences it as one single, untarnished line. The author decides the nature of this line.

A playthrough of a game is a line. It starts is one place and ends in another, and the player experiences is as one single, untarnished line, even if on a global scale it's an absolute mess. The structure of the game decides the nature of this line.

A game is not a line. Depending on the game, it can be line-like (say Half-Life 2 or Final Fantasy XIII) or it can be a vast oval or circle (Fallout, Oblivion). But regardless, it is never a line. It is a shape within which lines are created.

I hope this made sense, and illustrates exactly why I have no idea what you're talking about.

EDIT: That wa sprobably the best way I have ever described this. I will draw some diagrams in GIMP and post it as a blog tomorrow.

EDIT2: I made the diagrams, and they look so awful that i'm not making a jaw pun this time.

Picture one

Picture two

God of War II

I've written a review of this game before, but I think I nailed it this time.

Sci-fi=you have me as a reader automatically. I am definitely interested in seeing this thing come together. You got an ETA on when we'll be seeing this up and running?Sharpie125

Within the next week. I already have a few more pages typed but not added to the Google Docs, so I might finish that section off and give it a shove.

I'm not sure Aberinkulas' jaw can handle it.iloveflash

I tried to think of a clever jaw pun, burt the best I could come up with was "you must be jaw-king" which was horrible.

Also, I realize I'm a hypocrite for not taking my own advice, and also that I probably should have tried harder to make my position a little less floofy than it was. Quite a floofy piece of mine. Not so great. So go ahead and rip it to shreads, and I'll attempt to make puns and we'll laugh about it some day.

Interesting opening. I'm not sure if you want to go for a realistic or fantastical form of space opera, but I'll just let you know that the protagonists can't have "hidden" in space like they appear to have done here. Any vessel capable of supporting human life would be showing up on thermal sensors for light seconds around, and I don't think the wreckage is quite that large. Barbariser

The field messes with those. The field creates actual objects in its space, not holograms or whatever, so all a thermal sensor would see would be hundreds of dots of all the clutter and cruft that the field had created. The only way they were noticed was when the field pointed them out visually.

No plot holes here, buddy! :D

Linkage and whats.

I cranked up some random electronic music and just bloody wrote, which felt great. I've been meaning to incorporate several of the ideas that I have here into a story, and there's more to be added down the line.

Notes:

-I intended to make the work a sci-fi book in the more c1assic fashion, yet make one that wasn't bogged down with pointless character thinking and badly written exposition in the opening chapter, which they all seem to have. I'd rather start it off with explosions and gunfire. Yet I do feel that the stage could be set a little more carefully here, so I'm interested on comments on the pacing.

-The field = the internet of the future, in the most basic terms. It's physical, controlled by powerful men, and quite a massive force to wield.