Better Graphics Doesn't Equal A Better Game (But Aesthetic Appeal Can Still Be Appreciated)

There are few elements of a video game that are more obvious or tangible than the graphics. In order to experience gameplay, combat mechanics, story, or character development you have to play the game. But to judge a game's graphics you need only look. I'm a firm believer that better graphics don't make better games - To say games like Minecraft or Super Mario Bros. are inferior because of their pixelated physique is absurd. That being said, there's nothing wrong with admiring a game with great aesthetic appeal.

There are plenty of games that lack interesting story or depth but blow the audience away with good graphics. In fact, games like Call of Duty seem to excel at this. For some a game like Crysis could fall under this category, but I think Crysis is a well put together name. The sci-fi nature of the story pulls you in and the sandbox feel of it works really well. Even though it was released in 2007 I have yet to venture through a more realistic looking jungle.

The Legend of Zelda series is one that is not afraid to experiment with graphical changes. Over the years we've seen top down perspective, 3D games, cell-shading, and a more colorful look with Skyward Sword in 2011. The graphical tone of the game sets the mood for the entire journey. I vividly remember the night sky and bright stars at sea in Wind Waker as well as the dark and lonely twilight realm in Twilight Princess. These are great games that feature beautifully styled graphics to complement the experience.

Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite are games that both took advantage of graphical styles to help achieve the mood of the game. In Bioshock, we spend much of our time in an expansive city beneath the ocean. The style of art nouveau is used to create a dark, dingy, and campy experience. Everything from the lighting to the way the water flows adds to the survival horror aspect of this game. The sequel, Bioshock Infinite, went with a less dark art style that beautifully captures the steam punk-esque nature of Columbia. The game renders towering skyscrapers in a way that makes you really feel their monstrosity. Whether it's dodging a hail of gunfire or flying around on the skyrails, this game renders every moment perfectly.

Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are arguably the best Batman games ever made. These games take the caped crusader and give you a chance to not just play as him, but become him. The combat mechanics are perfect, and the story draws you into The Joker's insanity. The graphics of this game negotiate between realistic and comic book. There are elements that are exaggerated to give it that comic book feel: The huge moon in the sky, the impossibly ripped inmates, and the classic style of the architecture. Yet the way Batman walks, fights, and even flies makes you feel like he could exist. These two games were beautifully designed and offers plenty of visual arousal as you pummel the villains of Gotham.

The beauty of graphics is not just limited to contemporary games either. Though the Nintendo-64 era couldn't graphically compete with today's games, that system still pushed out some wonderfully designed games. Games like 007: Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong, Battle Tanks, and both The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Even earlier PC games like Doom did their best with the graphical limitations of the day. Each of these games was designed with a specific art style to help drive the point of the game. The experience of playing a game like Perfect Dark would be completely changed if the graphic style was changed. 

Graphics in games are a lot like special effects in a movie: they should be used for a purpose. Shortly after the original Star Wars movie came out, George Lucas in an interview said, " Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." This, of course, was before he was taken to the dark side and started adding rocks in front of R2D2. 

Should graphics be considered when judging if a game is good or not? Not necessarily, but rather the question that should be asked is does the graphical style of the game add or detract from the experience? Great games are often made better by the art style with which they were designed, if that style cooperates with the overall meaning of the game. I love all games - 2D and 3D alike. If a game is good, I’ll enjoy it. If it’s great, I’ll love it. Sometimes, however, a game can bring great gameplay and story with amazing aesthetics. Don’t judge a game by it’s look alone, but when the art style works well with the composition of the game it deserves to be recognized.

Harry Potter: Death, Loss, And Hope (Spoilers)

I know Harry Potter might feel like a redundant topic for a lot of people. It’s not like there’s been any lack of it for the last decade – The release of the 7^th and final book, the opening of Harry Potter World in Universal Studios, and not to mention the ending of the film saga with The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2. In addition to this there is enough fan fiction, blog entries, and cosplaying on the Internet to fill many terabytes. So please, if you have any, put your prejudices and familiarity with this topic aside as I try my hand at diving into this magical world. Specifically, I’m going to go into the themes of death, loss, and hope, and how these fundamental topics drive the story from the first book through the last.

It’s no wonder that J.K. Rowling’s tale of the boy wizard became the best selling book of all time next to The Holy Bible. For one, Harry is a very relatable character. He’s not cocky like Malfoy, or extremely awkward like Ron, or a know-it-all like Hermione, or a prankster like Fred and George, or a flirt like Lee Jordan. Harry works as a great everyman and also as a great character to introduce us to the wizarding world. Having lived in our world for the first 11 years of his life, he’s only familiar with things that we know about – Muggle money, telephones, schools, and the misery of not being loved as a child.

Upon his entry into the world and throughout the books we get to learn everything through his eyes. It is through his ignorance that J.K. Rowling is able to let us know about things like the Gringtotts vaults, vampires, ghosts, moving paintings, the various subjects at Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic, the various shops in Diagon Alley, and the most feared wizard who ever lived – Lord Vol – I mean, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Well, Dumbledore did say that fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself, so I’ll say it: Voldemort.

So I mentioned I wanted to go into the themes of death, loss, and hope in this series. Let’s start with death. Death is prominent in our everyday lives as well as in this book. Throughout the series we witness or hear about the loss of Lily and James Potter, Lupin, Tonks, Sirius, Amelia Bones, Rufus Scrimgeour, Snape, Hedwig, Mad Eye Moody, Fred Weasley, Quirrel, Wormtail, Bellatrix Lestrange, Colin Creevey, Dobby, Bathilda Bagshot, Nagini, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and many many others. Some of these we are happy to see go, others are heartbreaking. Like the passage of Hedwig as she protected Harry, representing the loss of his innocence. Or the brutal death of Dobby, who was stabbed in the chest. If you have shed tears for any of these characters, you are not alone. Sometimes the death of a fictional character can be just as real and mortifying as the death of a flesh and blood person. For stories can be printed on paper and put onto film, but more than anything they take place inside our own minds. And as Dumbledore himself says, just because it’s in our minds does not mean it isn’t real.

Dumbledore never feared death. He says many times throughout the books that there are worse things than death, a concept that Tom Riddle was never able to wrap his mind around. It is this understanding that made The Order of the Phoenix stronger than the Death Eaters – The willingness and even desire to die for the safety of the wizarding world. At no point did Sirius Black or Remus Lupin or Fred Weaslely back away when death was imminent, and they paid the ultimate price. But I don’t think any of these people regret their decisions. They knew the risks, and they were more than happy to help fight Voldemort. One could argue that it was Harry they were fighting for, and this may be partially true. But it is Neville Longbottom who points out when everybody thinks that Harry is dead that this fight was never about Harry. Voldemort is going to continue to kill and torture, and they need to stop that just not for Harry but for the good of everybody.

Harry feels, as we all feel when faced with loss, great sadness. When Sirius Black is murdered he tries everything he can to find a way to contact him or bring him back. He looks into the enchanted mirror, talks to Nearly Headless Nick to see if Sirius could become a ghost,  and upon his death even tries to go after him behind the veil, which to the best of our understanding is a gateway between our world and the afterlife. The Harry Potter wiki states that the archway has been there for as long as the Ministry has.

Death brings on sadness and despair, having to deal with the grief of losing somebody you love that you were accustomed to speaking to or seeing everyday. But as Dumbeldore says, “Don’t pity the dead, Harry, pity the living. And above all pity those who live without love.” Death is something that many films or books glaze over, even with the loss of major characters. J.K. Rowling does a wonderful job of working death into her story and helping us all make sense of something that nobody truly understands. My favorite idea of this is the story of The Deathly Hallows, where the third brother meets death as an old friend at the end of his life. I think that’s how we should all view it. The Grim Reaper gets a bad reputation for taking you from this life into the afterlife, but he is a guide to help you, to accompany you. Would you really want to make that journey by yourself?

Now, let’s move onto loss. Similar to death, loss brings on feelings of sadness and despair. It can, however, bring on catharsis and closure. It is only after Harry loses his chance with Cho Chang that he is able to fully notice and pursue Ginny Weasley, his future wife and mother of his children. It is only after Cedric Diggory is killed by Wormtail that the Order of the Phoenix is able to form once again and begin working against Voldemort. It is only after Malfoy loses his wand to Harry that Harry is able to become the true master of the Elder Wand. Loss is not always a bad thing, but it can be difficult to accept at first.

Loss is something we’ve all experienced. Whether it’s our favorite video game being lost to the couch cushions, a box of our favorite books getting ruined in a flood, or our favorite car getting totaled in an accident. Loss is not just the loss of life, but the loss of things or ideals. So long as we always push forward and refuse to give up, as Harry never does, we’ll eventually find ourselves in a better future one way or another.

Now onto the final theme I’d like to touch on – Hope. Hope is one of the most powerful, and one of the most dangerous emotions in the known universe, in all worlds. It is what was left within Pandora’s Box, it is what can keep you hanging onto a crush for years when there’s nothing there. Yet it is something we must never lose, because without it pessimism and animosity will fill the void.

In Harry Potter, Harry hangs onto hope throughout the entire series. He hopes that he’ll see Sirius again, he hopes that he’ll be able to catch the snitch in time, he hopes that sneaking around the castle after hours won’t get him caught. It’s his feeling of hope, and his level of daring, that gets him into the number of situations he finds. But without these experiences he would never have stood a chance against any of the Death Eaters, never mind a Dementor, the memory of Tom Riddle, a werewolf, or give him the knowledge to retrieve a bezoar when Ron was poisoned. It is hope that keeps him fighting in even the darkest of days, even when he’s hiding out in the woods for months at a time just waiting for an opportunity to strike.

It is these three themes – Death, loss, and hope that bring us through the highs and lows of the Harry Potter story. We stay with him every step of the way, through every tragedy and every victory. Harry may get downtrodden and lose optimism at times, but I don’t believe he ever truly loses hope. If he did, he would have given up and left the country in the final book. Or he would have faced Voldemort right away and been killed to get it over with so he could join his parents and Sirius. He understands the fight is bigger than just the two of them, and he stays alive and fights for the death and loss that he has witnessed, but also to prevent further tragedy. Harry Potter is one of the most wonderful worlds to fall into. I’ve read the books countless times and I listen to the audiobooks every night as I fall asleep and many times while I’m driving. This fictional world is one of the best to visit. This is on the trifecta of things that have most influenced my life – Harry Potter, The Legend of Zelda, and Star Wars. Without these three separate and unique worlds, I would not be who I am today and I know there are many others who feel the same way. 

Nintendo's Finest Achievement: Majora's Mask

The Legend of Zelda is my favorite video game series of all time. Ever since 8-year-old me was introduced to a copy of Ocarina of Time at my Dad’s house I was hooked. Every weekend I was there I played it for hours, attempting to catch the biggest fish in the pond or working tirelessly to get through the Water Temple. From that point on I was hooked on Zelda and have been fond of the series for the past 13 years. Since that time I’ve had the enjoyment of playing and re-playing Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword. Many people complain that Nintendo has become hackneyed, that they pump out the same formulaic stuff over and over again. Have the fundamentals of games like Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Metroid changed much over the years? Not necessarily, but to say that a game like Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker are exactly the same and that’s why you won’t keep playing them is like saying you won’t see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet because you’ve already seen The Lion King. I could dedicate an article to each Zelda game, and perhaps eventually I will. But today I would like to focus primarily on my favorite Zelda game and, incidentally, my favorite game of all time: Majora’s Mask.

Many people who know me know that my favorite game is Majora’s Mask. Even if they didn’t and they haven’t looked at this blog, it’s not hard to figure out. My iPhone background is Majora’s Mask.

I have a hand painted replica of Majora’s Mask hanging on my bedroom wall. 

 

 




The background of my desktop computer is Majora’s Mask

 




The desktop of my laptop computer is a surrealistic image of the moon from Majora’s Mask looming over London

 



And even the background of this blog is currently a creepy image of Majora's Mask.

Majora’s Mask is one of the few Zelda games that acts as a direct sequel to a previous game, Ocarina of Time. Although there are allusions to Hryule and the search for a “long lost friend”, Zelda herself is really only mentioned once and the game does a wonderful job of immersing you in the land of Termina, what many people consider to be an alternate universe to Hyrule. One of the evidences of this is the recurring cast of characters from Ocarina of Time that have fallen into new roles, and many times they have new names. 

The Cucku Lady in Ocarina of Time

Anju in Majora's Mask

These people are the most important parts of Majora’s Mask. Although this game did a lot of things right - The gameplay, story, dungeon and enemy designs, etc., the people are what make this game so unique and special. Everybody you come across is living under an understanding held in their collective conscious: that the moon is steadily getting bigger in the sky, and some say it will even crash into Clock Town. It is under this imminent threat that the entirety of the game is played, re-living the same 3 day cycle over and over again.

The brief 72 hours you spend in Termina are some of the most memorable and precious you’ll ever have. In that time you not only defeat monsters, cure the lands of curses, explore dungeons and acquire unique items - You get to know the people in the game. They’re not just backdrops or there for scenery, every single person has a personality that you can choose to ignore or get to know better. From helping Kafei and Anju reunite, to teaching the dancers their new routine, to healing the soul of Pamela’s father, and helping the invisible soldier become well again. These are mostly optional parts of the game, but they’re also the most special and rewarding. 

The storylines of every Zelda game deal with performing good deeds and helping others, but Majora’s Mask takes this theme and makes it a central part of the game. Skyward Sword applies this same model by allowing you to acquire gratitude crystals by helping people. These quests in both Majora’s Mask and Skyward Sword are entirely optional but they do help you to get the know characters on a level that you wouldn’t otherwise. In some instances, these side quests open up parts of the world that are closed off to you.

Hundreds of articles have been written about Majora’s Mask, and many of them deal with the dark nature of the game. The apocalypse that occurs if you don’t succeed or turn back time, the fact that everybody - literally everybody - will be dead in 72 hours if you don’t do something about it. Those Deku Scrubs in the palace? Dead. The Zoras in Great Bay? Dead. The Gorons in the mountains, including the Goron baby? Dead. Anju, Kafei, Sacon, The Curiosity Shop owner, The Bomb Shop woman, the blacksmiths, the frogs. All dead. It’s up to you to save them. 

A huge, not so subtle theme of the game is healing. There is even a song you learn on the Ocarina titled “The Song of Healing”, possibly my favorite song in the entire series. You can listen to this song here.

As you go through the game you heal Termina of it’s date with doom, but you heal the characters you come across as well. You heal the troubled soul of Darmani the Goron, you help Lulu get her eggs back and help return her voice, you save Pamela’s Father from his cursed form, you help Mikau fulfill his last jam before he dies, you unfreeze the Goron Elder from his icy tomb, and you save the monkey in the Deku Palace from being boiled alive. These are all the good things that come out of the darkness of Majora’s Mask. 

Majora’s Mask has held a place in my heart ever since I played it. It’s amazing that Nintendo spent only one year of production on this game and yet it stands as one of the most loved Nintendo games. Operation Moonfall is a movement to try and get this game remastered and released on the Nintendo 3DS, a movement that I am a huge supporter of. I own this game in it’s original form on the Nintendo 64, but I also have a digital download from the Nintendo E-Shop on the Wii. Everything about this game makes me happy everytime I pick it up - Collecting the masks, helping people, getting Epona back at Romani ranch, helping Romani fend of the aliens at night, drinking Cheateau Romani, fending off the robbers in pursuit of Cremia’s milk delivery, and watching as the Skull Kid becomes more possessed by Majora’s Mask and loses himself in the evil of the mask. This story in itself is tragic, for the Skull Kid is just a mischivous prankster who steals the mask for fun, but once he puts it on it has similar effects to the One Ring in Lord of the Rings. This game definitely shows that out of the darkness can come a silver lining.

Anybody who has ever played Majora’s Mask knows how wonderful the game is. For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check it out, no game comes with a higher recommendation from me. Though you might be able to appreciate it more if you play Ocarina of Time first, it certainly isn’t necessary. Majora’s Mask, similar to Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock Infinite, is static in it’s story in a way that you don’t need much outside knowledge to play the game. So what are you waiting for?

Star Wars: A Timeless Galaxy

May 25, 1977 is a date that changed the course of the entertainment industry. From the mind of a young director and the talents of producers and actors who had yet to make it big came one of the greatest movies ever to hit the big screen: Star Wars. Today Star Wars and Lucas Arts is a brand name worth over $4 billion (Which was made evident with it's recent purchase by Disney). With the evolution of the studio comes the promise of Star Wars XII and new stories to be told. So how, after 36 years, has this movie still managed to touch the hearts and imagination of people around the world?

The original Star Wars trilogy has remained timeless for many reasons. For one, it does not set itself in any specific time-frame. By existing outside of our world it's impossible to look at a scene and say, "This is New York City in the 1970's" or "The dialect they're using shows it was filmed in this part of the world." No, by taking place on foreign planets and introducing bizarre alien races, Star Wars has managed to hold the attention of it's audiences across generations. I was born in 1991, a full 16 years after the release of the original film. I saw it for the first time at a young age on VHS on a small tube TV in my living room, and I fell in love with it. My parents took me to see the special edition re-releases in theaters in the late 90's. Every birthday and christmas I received Star Wars action figures and video games. As I sit here now I'm a couple of weeks away from my 22nd birthday and Star Wars is still my favorite movie of all time, and I'm not sure that's ever going to change. People, especially children, will forever be able to watch Star Wars and relate to the characters, the dilemmas, and the action. In the first movie in the cantina we are faced with dozens of aliens that speak different languages. Thanks to the crude development of CGI at that point, instead of green screen and animations we are watching real people in expertly designed costumes. This is a world we don't understand, but thanks to Luke Skywalker, our typical archetypal hero, he guides us and introduces us to this world.

The story is a classic one - Good vs evil, right vs wrong. The movie is not complicated on the surface. The Empire is bad and tyrannical and the rebels are good and struggling to survive. The main antagonist in the first film, Darth Vader, is a person devoid of humanity without even a human face to try and reason with. He terrifies everybody, even the officers that work under him. As we travel across the universe through the first three films we find ourselves growing with the characters. Luke Skywalker growing from a subdued farm hand into a Jedi Master. Han Solo going from a rogue and selfish smuggler into a compassionate and formidable asset for the rebellion. Princess Leia Organa, always on the forefront of the rebellion's attempts to take down the Empire, helps coordinate the battles of Yavin IV, Hoth, Bespin, and in the final film assists in taking down the shield generator on Endor, allowing Lando Calrissian to fly the Falcon in and save the day. These characters are tenacious and represent something that most people wanted to be at one point. This is why the story of Star Wars never feels dated, and why to this day episodes of Family Guy, Robot Chicken, Castle, How I Met Your Mother, and countless other shows make references to it.

With no apparent time frame in the film - All we are given is that it takes place "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away", people of all ages and interests can enjoy it. I've met many people who the only thing we have in common is that we both love Star Wars. There are concerts dedicated to it, conventions, rides in Disney World and talks of a George Lucas cultural museum being built. In 1989 the original Star Wars film was inducted into the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. In 2010 The Empire Strikes Back was also inducted. The registry exists to preserve culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films.

The films show us a cast of characters that are both lovable and relatable. Princess Leia as the strong independent woman, Luke Skywalker as the everyman, Han Solo as the handsome rogue, Chewie as the indiscernible but reliable side-kick, and we can't forget our Greek chorus: The two droids C-3PO, who is bumbling and anal retentive, and R2-D2, who is small but brave and is responsible for helping fix the Millenium Falcon on more than one occasion.

The original films still contain a lot of heart. Even the blu-ray editions which are riddled with new CGI add-ins and deleted scenes are capable of keeping the integrity of what the public saw in 1977, 1980, and 1983. CGI is a great tool, and I have no problem with movies that use it extensively - 300, Avatar, and Sin City continue to be some of my favorite films. But the fact that Star Wars had so much grit and reality added to it shows in the final product. People fall in love with the films, but they become even more special when you find out Anthony Daniels would frequently pass out from heat exhaustion inside the C-3PO costume when they were filming in the desert, or that two different people worked together to bring Darth Vader to life - A Scottish actor by the name of David Prowse, who was in the suit, and James Earl Jones who provided the voice. It's the classic story and mode of storytelling that initially made Star Wars so successful and why people are still buying the films on DVD and blu-ray over 30 years later.