All The World Is A Stage - Theatre and Games

So I was talking to an online friend about games and how they compare to the average theatrical production recently (and by recently, I mean about twenty minutes ago). He asked me what the difference was. I countered with the idea that not all games have that barrier that dramatisations have - there is a clean break between you and what happens onstage, despite audience interaction (and yes, I've played Return of the Phantom).

I went on to say that the average RPG is like a theatre production - while the player has a small amount of input, the game determines pretty much everything that happens. You just have to fulfil a number of conditions; buy the game/ticket, sit down, press buttons/watch quietly...

On the other hand the average FPS seems to have more invested from the player's perspective. Look at something like Borderlands. You have objectives to complete and there are milestones, but you choose your own pathway there. There aren't requirements that you take a certain route (generally). I'd say the same for something like Lock's Quest (while not strictly a FPS, it's not really a RPG, either. I'd say it was more like a simulator). You have objectives, but how you complete them is up to you.

There's a little-known episode of Doctor Who that I believe was called Attack of the Grask, or something similar. During it's airing in Britain, viewers were offered a chance to really be the Tenth Doctor's companion and help him discover information about the Grask. I can't remember it really well - I watched it on Youtube - but what stuck in my mind was the potential for this form of entertainment. It was almost game-like, yet it wasn't.

I also postulated that perhaps the FPS isn't really a genre, but an extension of the RPG... or at least some of the games on offer are. If the player is not themselves and cannot customise their avatar in their own way, then by default it is, in fact, a role-playing game in which they take over the persona of someone else. The same holds true for acting. If it is not you as yourself treading the boards/strutting for the camera, you are role-playing. It's not rocket science.

In unrelated news, I'm finishing Tree of Tranquility soon, so will be back with a review in the next week or so. Also, SoulSilver, the rerelease of Pokemon Silver is out this week, so I plan on heading out to my EB Games where I preordered it and playing it ASAP. Also, I really want to try out that PokeWalker.

Music of the Night II - Further Perambulations into the Sound of Games

To pick up where I left off regarding music in games... since Phantom of the Opera, music has occupied a fair chunk of my concentration. I watched a bonus clip about the musicology, or study of music, in the musical on the DVD of the movie (starring Gerard Butler).

I'm working on something different to a game, yet maybe not so different. It's a script, a sequel of sorts to Phantom. I've discovered (through that ever-nonreliable source Wikipedia), that a game of the book was in fact made. Pah, bet it was a PC-game. I really have a problem with PC-games. They annoy me. Give me a console game anyday. I work at my computer, I'll play away from it.

But I digress. The themes that recurr through the music in Phantom intrigue me. Each character has his or her own melodic injection that announces their arrival or presence. I've noticed this with certain video games. When fighting Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts, there was a uniquely composed piece that isn't heard anywhere else in the game (and I should know. I've spent hours playing the gummi routes so I could finish at 100% completion).

I've also noticed a correlation between musical composers. In Phantom, Andrew Lloyd Webber allows the Phantom's theme to encroach on other musical pieces, giving the impression of his invasive presence. This is also apparent in the Star Wars films, when Anakin Skywalker is growing up. The Darth Vader theme is there, but muted. It becomes more pronounced throughout the series of films. In games, possibly the most foremost in my mind is the gentle theme that plays whenever Sora comes close to finding either his friends Riku and Kairi or King Mickey in Kingdom Hearts.

Themes in game music tend to become iconic. The Super Mario Bros. theme is known across the world, even the songs featured in games like Final Fantasy X-2. Similarly in Phantom, the crashing chords that play in the titular song The Phantom of the Opera are iconic, as is the line that is repeated sung and said throughout the performance:

The Phantom of the Opera is there, inside your mind.

Which could mean a number of things. The Phantom could exist, in which case he is able to read and manipulate minds. If he doesn't exist, the power he expends is all in the mind, something to be believed in to be real. Or maybe it's a combination of the two, or neither. Such is the nature of the character.

We give things power by believing in them. A lesson learnt from the master works of Terry Pratchett.

Maybe it's the same with video games. We believe in certain characters, they become real to us. A certain theme played at a certain time evokes emotion, causes belief.

Just like Phantom of the Opera.