Friday, February 12, 2010

The "Daddening" of games

Not exactly a post about Japan, but video games are, uh...often Japanese? Anyway, here's a pretty fascinating article from Kotaku about how games have begun to trend toward putting players in the role of father. When properly executed, it's certainly an effective way to engage players and amplify both motivation and emotional response.

I haven't played Bioshock 2 yet, but I find the idea of playing as a Big Daddy and protecting Little Sisters to be an interesting and not unwelcome twist.

4 comments:

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  2. BioShock 2 is amazing! Chris is playing it now. I can't, because it's an FPS and things jump out at you after pretending to be dead. This guarantees I will have a heart attack while playing, so I just watch him.

    The things with Big Daddies and Little Sisters is the Big Daddies are altered and "bonded" to the Little Sisters. If they lose them or are without them, they will either go into a "coma" or kill themselves. It's pretty nuts. Not to mention the Little Sisters are just regular little girls abducted from their families with slugs placed into their bellies. You CAN choose to kill them, like the first game. To me, that sort of "kills" the daddy element. It's still cute, but the whole thing is more satirical and than actual depiction of "daddy values". Especially when you light someone on fire and the LS says, "ooooh... marshmallows, daddy!"

    The entire game has that humor to it. Makes it great.

    (Bah I keep forgetting google automatically logs me into blogger... damn google buying everything!)

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  3. ...or then there are the moments when you shock/electrocute someone and the Little Sisters say, "He's dancing, Daddy! Dancing!"

    The girls are really sweet, in a creepy, glowy-eyed sort of way.

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