Morallity in Video Games

There are various levels of narative in some games, especially in ames in which players can choose on evil or good path to the story.
Even when there is an evil side to play, designers are always careful to keep the morals high. As quoted from a Game scholar, Rune Klevjer, he writes: "Sniping a Columbian gangster in the head in GTA III is one thing. Doing the same, say, a little girl would not be the same (Consequently, there are no children in Liberty City)" Meaning that Rockstar (The developers of GTA III) had sacrificed authenticity and realism to keep thier moral standard.

Games History

I started playing games when I was roughly 3 years old, the first consoles we had were the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Sega Mega Drive.

I focussed more on the SNES as a kid as we had more games that appealed to me at that age then we did on the Mega Drive, for some reason the console in general seemed to scare me a bit, might have been the fact it was in complete black and we had some more difficult games.

I remember that the first game that grabbed me was Super Mario Bros. 3, I remember the overworld with a selection of where you could play, the stores where you could collect power-ups and items. There was also a lot secrets hidden in the levels to see that me and my brothers enjoyed to collect.

Another game that was always in our SNES was Super Mario World which was very similar, an identical overworld where you could chose your path but had gotten rid of the item inventory system and just overlapped your power ups, I remember this game having a lengthy play period and very difficult spike in challenges.

I eventually moved onto the Mega Drive with the Sonic Series, I loved Sonic and Tail’s look and the colourful and vibrant environment. The music was pretty addictive too having you sing them for the rest of the day.

Another game I remember fondly was Zool, The character you played as was a Space Ninja who travelled to the most bizarre worlds. The gameplay had all of these insane power-ups like doing cloning techniques and playing as multiple clones of yourself.

Super Star Wars was a definite addition to my collection and fed my obsession all the more, the paced gameplay and brilliant spite work made me cherish the cartridge.

One particular game had me and my brother in hysterics due to the hilarious animations and situations, It was called WWF Royal Rumble and the throw your character could perform send opponents flying, the music was very memorable also

Super Bomberman for the SNES had plenty of playtime with friends coming over to make the most of its multiplayer modes, It had that core gameplay that made it incredibly addictive.

A game that I really shouldn’t of been playing at my age was Mortal Kombat 3 for the SNES, But the characters and new style of visuals dragged me in. Like many young kids who played this the fatalities did scare me from time to time, especially when the weren’t mine.

Super Metroid’s dark environments and characters, including the enemies scared and intrigued me through the whole game. Samus inspired a lot of artwork in me as a kid whilst playing through this game.

When I obtained a GameBoy, The inevitable happened and Pokemon had plagued it for years on end, having the lengthy story, customisable (to a certain extent) and collectible monsters to capture. This game was a must have for GB owners.

Donkey Kong Country is a game I appreciated for it music and massive step up in graphics. Along with this it had a really solid gameplay and catchy music. Only things that didn’t appeal to me were the character designs.

When I got my Playstation 1, the first game I acquired was Crash Bandicoot. After first playing this game anything 2d based was near off dead to me at this time.

The sense of humour and smooth controls stuck me to this game and the series as a whole. I just wish they had kept Crash as the mascot of Playstation.

I then discovered the sheer brilliance of Final Fantasy VII, One of the greatest masterpieces in gaming. The characters, story, dialogue, gameplay graphics. Everything was above and beyond what was before it. The series continued on strongly and never disappointed.

Vigilante 8 wasn’t a well-known game, but had a unique and clever twist to standard driving games. It set the players in these weaponised cars and the aim was to destroy until you are the last man standing. Some of the character designs along with the vehicles made me keep my interest through to the finish.

Soon after my Playstation 1 I got my hands on a Nintendo 64, This console had a vast amount of exclusive titles that really tipped the console war in it’s favour, One of which being Super Mario 64, Being Mario’s first debut into 3D, Nintendo wanted to make it count by having a long and challenging single player mode that was impressive to play and look at all the way through.

The other title that really possessed my N64 was Super Smash Bros. Rare occurrences in gaming where several game characters amass to break the 4^th wall and collaborate into one title.

After the time of the Nintendo 64, the Playstation 2 took its place. Games like the Timesplitters series had a fantastic story with a dark sense of humour with brilliant characters and designs to go with it. It’s a shame that the license has been dropped with the now bankrupt developers.

Transformers Armada fulfilled my childhood desires for a decent game based on the franchise, The game had great graphics along with a in-depth system to tune up your characters attributes. All the menu’s and interfaces were presented in a clever and unique way as well, I’ll never forget navigating them and being amazed as I explored.

After the PS2, Microsoft’s Xbox landed and dominated the living room selves with it’s massive self.  For me the Xbox’s games inspired me the most.

Games such as Fable, with its deep story that allows the player to weave it to their actions and their characters can reflect upon said actions, it really was ground breaking.

It also boasted a degree of brilliant Star Wars games such as Battlefront, one of the greatest of the series, Knights of the Old Republic which was a deep RPG with tons of dialogue and places to explore in the SW galaxy and Republic Commando, a first for the Star Wars franchise to base the game in a gritty environment in the view of a hardened Clone Commando, utilizing an advanced AI engine for your allies.

And last but not least, Microsoft managed to claim Bungie’s Halo series, still running strong to this day; this game had inspired me to bring my artistic skills to the newest edge. Inspiring me to take myself to digital illustration and hone my drawing skills to get to the standard of the Industry today.

Even though a vast majority of critics dismiss it, I personally found this game as a massive inspiration.

Guest Lecture. 08/10/10

Chris Goodswen, a Character artist who had studied at NUCA’s Games Art and Design course had visited to give us a lecture on his journey to his way in the business and his story of going through further education and working on projects that would be useful for actual studios.

When he had first started at NUCA he mostly wanted to develop his skills in drawing and digital illustration. Learning the importance of things like Colour theory, anatomy and Architecture and Perspective for landscape and environment images.

Also learning the benefits of research and understanding of gathering resources to back up your work and enjoying the freedom in creativity he had while it lasted. As when you’re working for a studio you’re under a strict brief most of the time.

When he had reached his BA Honours year on the course he had to have a solid foundation in research, knowing what to look for and gather what he needed for his work.

He also had to study anatomy, not only in the sense of muscle structure but also the skeletal bone structure. Chris was not confident in his 3D skills and felt safer in 2D work, but he has realised that working in 3D is a valuable asset and jumped into learning and developing his skills for it.

Along with sculpting and modelling in 3D, learning to animate is crucial as well, to make the model compatible and flawless for animation rigs to be compatible with the model.

At the end of his year he helped with his fellow course mates build and help with the exhibition. After the exhibition (and plenty of drinks) he had achieved the results he had desired and applied to Abertay University for a Masters Degree in Games Design.

Throughout this course Chris developed further technically and artistically, in his first semester there was tons of writing to be done on research case studies and theories on game design, along with learning low poly modelling and 3D animation.

He learnt that on making games it was a tough learning curve to achieve, having to design, model, texture and animate everything and really harsh crits to coincide with them.

When moving onto his second semester, Chris was placed into bigger teams for projects, being assigned to focus on characters.

He had started to use UDK (Unreal Development Kit) for his work on the projects, using the unreal engine to create their ideas, not to mention more harsh crits to their work.

Along with these massive projects each member of the team had to write narrative theories and professional specialisations, explaining the roles of each member of a team and how cooperation can create more efficient and high quality work. Each being at 4,000 words each. At the end Chris mentioned that all the work was over 13,000 words, not including development work.

Reaching his third and final semester, Chris was assigned to his last project on the course and it was the final stretch, No modules were needed and there was a focus on just one game. Students were put into groups and teams of 15 and Chris had been given the role of 3D modeller and temporally taking Art lead.

Most of Chris’ work for this project takes place in his final portfolio now.

When working on Character designs, Chris suggested producing a vast amount of thumbnail sketches of the character, rows of heads and face displaying emotions to see the variations of image that you can produce for the character. One when you have chosen a handful of strong designs from the batch you should go on to develop full body images, in case you do that first and you receive a bad crit for your hard work, making sure to display your character in an interesting gesture rather than flat and dull poses.

Chris went on to explain the situation of the Games industry today, saying that when looking for work, other jobs are needed to sustain you as jobs in Games can be quite difficult to come by.  Saying that in the mean time looking for jobs you should always keep developing your skills to keep yourself sharp and inspired.

Suggesting to make friends in the business everywhere and whenever you can, times can change when you have a friend on the inside who can get you a boost over others going for a job.

Big “Triple-A” industries like Ubisoft, THQ and EA will not employ juniors anymore, insisting that years of experience are needed for their work frame and schedules, again proving the point that making friends can get you places, if you have someone on the inside of where you want to get employed, it can really get you a step up ahead of others.

Amongst working for Studios, in between jobs Chris said that working freelance is always a good option, it may not be always Games related but its enhancing your skills and earning money, two major bonuses.

Overall he said that in the first years of getting into the industry, getting yourself involved with smaller scale studios is the best plan, gather years of experience under your belt and then try and spread out to bigger industries and get your name out there for people to recognise.

Overall, I found Chris’ lecture very awe inspiring, briefly shocking from the amount of work that is needed for the work and even more amounts for getting into the industry. But in all forms this boosts my desire to get there, seeing the hard work and portfolio’s of images showing years of hard work, fun and experiences he’s had on the way to where he is now.