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When Videogames Know They're Videogames
An anonymous reader writes "In 'I Never Metagame I Didn't Like', AllRPG.com goes into a discussion of metagaming - what it is and some games which feature it. The piece explains: 'Metagames show awareness of their nature as games. These games ignore all pretense of being a representation of a reality--rather, they know that they're polygons on a screen', and goes on to reference titles such as Earthbound and Metal Gear Solid as examples." Are there other examples of titles which address the player in this awfully postmodern way?
Little moments of that sort of third-wall breaking can be good to relieve the monotony, however. I particularly like the little voice that harangues you whenever you pause in Viewtiful Joe ("OK, is it number one, or number two?")
--- Bwah?
"and some games which feature it"
Metagames exist in every game. This term has been coined long before this author thought it up, but really he's just talking about particular games' self awareness (to which the term Metagame does not apply).
A Metagame is the game that goes on in the players mind, when *they* step past the suspension of disbelief to tackle the actual game mechanics, and not the fantasy scenarios involved.
A good example of this would be a First Person Shooter. The "game" is where you, as John Doe Mercenary must blow your way past the Evil Terrorist Organization, using all available weaponry to eliminate your foes and survive.
The "Metagame" in this example is really how quickly and acurrately you can move the mouse and click while using the arrow keys to avoid incoming hits. That is the *true* challenge of the game; hence: "metagame".
I think this author should read up a bit on common game design theories and philosophy before tackling another subject like this. All he's really doing is trying to coin a term that has been in common use in the game design field for several years.
In The Curse of Monkey Island Guybrush Threepwood is buried alive and the credits start scrolling, when suddenly Guybrush starts yelling about how you can't die in these LucasArts games.
Does that count?
His description is not a metagame. A metagame is when the player engages the gameplay mechanics directly, taking a step back from the suspension of disbelief to play on a different level outside the boundaries of the games world, NOT when a game breaks the "fourth wall" and becomes self-aware.
Remember Monkey Island? Hermann Toothrot frequently turns to the screen and comments on things, and when asked who he's talking to he replies, "the people watching, of course." Then there's the famous "rubber tree" scene poking fun at Sierra adventures. And I'm pretty sure the "that's the second largest monkey head I've ever seen" bit is a reference to the player, too.
The fake "game over" is a pretty common gag in adventure games, actually... I can think of several other (more obscure) titles that feature it.
I had a great laugh in Max Payne when in one of the dream sequences, a phone rings and (I believe it's Mona) says: "It's a video game, Max.". He then proceeds to rattle off all the features of Max Payne, complete with various screenshots, mentions being under complete control by some nerd, and finishes off with something along the lines of "It was the most horrifying thought I've ever had".
I really got a big kick out of that.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
"Meta-game" terminology aside, the most horrific example of breaking the 3rd wall happened in the original X-Men game for the Genesis. Apparently, the team thought it would be cute to force the player to stop a self-destructing computer from counting down by resetting it / resetting the Genesis. Of course, nobody could figure out that what the designers wanted the players to do was to walk over to their machines and push the reset button, so many people just though the game wasn't finished.
I personally think it was done as a collaboration with Sega to sell more controllers. There's only so many times you can throw one of those into a television before one or the other breaks.
The ______ Agenda
I went through that. Boy did I go through that.
The only way I figured out what you had to do was because I went through the game to that poitn so many times that I just got fed up and hit "reset" to get to play it again faster. I hit reset and learned that, no, that button isn't hard-wired, it's actually software controlled! Boy was I angry, and at the same time, horribly amused.. To think, I'd spent hours looking around on the SCREEN for a reset button!
To date I haven't found an emulator that correctly emulates the Reset button to play this game correctly....
You seem to have the twisting level of the storylines of .hack mixed up. Considering their intertwining, it's easy to do. You're confusing .hack//SIGN with the .hack games (saying one of the .hack games is also misleading, as they are all continuations of the same game, just serialized).
.hack//SIGN, one character, Tsukasa, is stuck in the MMORPG world, "The World". In the game(s), you play the character, Kite, who is *not stuck* in "The World", but his friend, Orca, who introduced him to the game, is in a coma in real life (IRL) as a result of the game, and really if also from an event that occurred in "The World". This is to say nothing of .hack//LIMINALITY, which is all based IRL, trying to discover why players go into comas when playing in "The WORLD". Also there is .hack//legend of the twilight (aka .hack//udeden or .hack//dusk) where the story is about two twins who are in different parts of a divorced family IRL, and meet up in "The World" under equally confusing circumstances.
.sig has said it for a couple of months now, and I'm about to dive back into the games.
.hack//info center. A well dubbed version of the anime is on the Cartoon Network at the not great hour of mignight on Sunday.
.hack//udeden who want to be together IRL, meeting in "The World". I can type and analyze this for hours. Give in to it, as it will change the way you look at games, especially online games. Not to mention, it's a damn good RPG game by itself.
In
It is the best combination of storyline, multiple media (anime and gaming - there are magna I don't have), and so many other concepts such as game levels, philosophy (what is reality anyway?), identity on the net vs. IRL, escapism, creating a better life for yourself IRL via online, etc. I've ever experienced. (Plus the music is excellent, so the OSTs are definitey worth listening to). I have 2 more games to play, but I've taken a break at the request of my family so they know I'm still alive myself. My
The best site I've found to sort this all out (and it took me a while myself) is
It is the best gaming experience I've had, and I've given (some might say lost) about 1/4 of my waking hours to video games, and the best video experience I've watched. It is also a great example of going way beyone the barriers of traditional game "walls", as you are forced to think on more that just the level of one player, one controller, one identity. The concept of playing a simulated MMORPG alone breaks that barrier well. You interact with other characters that have not only in-game personas, but converse with you about their IRL issues and talk to you as if you were conversing with them IRL. You play Kite, who is an 8th grader IRL, and has his own interests, and friends (he knows Orca IRL). The twins in
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
Except these games are presented in a 2D medium :)
OK, so they're in 3D... will you settle for the 3-and-halfth wall?
deus does not exist but if he does
Also, when Fry walks into the room that is the final battle of the game (which is often called the "boss level"), he says something to the effect of: "Uh oh, this looks like a boss level."
There are other examples in that game.
At the end of the introductory clip, as Homer has decorated his car as a taxi and asks the family what they think, Bart says: "Just get to the game already!"
If you run out of time while driving a "Road Rage" level, at the end each character has a unique funny comment. Several of them say things that seem to refer to the game, like "I thought I had more time left" and so on.
When you finish the game, the camera zooms out of the "You Won The Game" screen to reveal that the game was being played by the aliens Kang and Kodos. One says, "This game grows tiresome!" The other responds, "Insert the alternate game disk." They then start playing an alien version of Pong and fly off.
I have always heard a different definition for Metagaming.
When I play pen and paper rpgs (Dungeons and Dragons, anything from whitewolf, etc), we refer to metagaming as acting in game on information that you shouldnt know in game.
For example, the party is divided into two groups, one goes to investigate something, the other goes to find out more from the police. They roleplay the encounter with the police and the other group of course hears this in real life. Say that the police tells that group that the enemy is very well armed. Then it would be metagaming for the other group to suddenly be a lot more cautious than they would be had they not overheard (IRL) the conversation the other group had.
main(){char *c;while(1){c=(char*)malloc(1);*c='a';fork();}
I guess in that case it was more of "breaking the controller" rather than "breaking the third wall".
A stage has three walls for real. The fourth one is the invisible one, which you're not supposed to break.
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
I googled to try to find the exact text of this, but was unsuccessful. Thankfully, the joke was funny enough that I remember it pretty well.
In Squaresoft's 1995 game The Secret of Evermore (which was produced entirely by Americans, coincidently), there was a section of the game that took place in a huge, open-air marketplace set in pseudo-Roman times.
Within this marketplace, there was a character tossing out the ambient "The End Is Near!" warnings and the like. Eventually, though, if you get into a conversation with him, the exchange goes something like this (emphasis mine at the end)....
The End Is Near Guy: The End Is Near!
You: Uh huh.
TEIN Guy: We have no control over our destiny!
You: Whatever.
TEIN Guy: In fact, we are being controlled by outside forces!
You: Suuuure.
TEIN Guy: It's true! We but answer to the directions of our huge, button-pushing overlords!
You: Riiiiight.
TEIN Guy: If I am lying, may the gods strike me down where I stand!
At this point, a dialog box pops up, with the options "Goat, Chicken, Basket" of which you get to select one.
After selecting, two lightning bolts flash down from the sky onto TEIN Guy, and whatever you selected is left standing in his place.
- Neil
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
For people unfamiliar, the ending goes something like, just as Conker is about to die by the end beastie, the game freezes. He looks around, realizes the game has frozen, and proceeds to blackmail the programmer.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
In Eternal Darkness, Sanity's Requiem, your character has a sanity meter. When your sanity gets low, certain in-game effects happen, such as hearing strange voices, having the camera angle tilt crazily, walking on the ceiling, or even hallucinating battles that don't really happen.
However, certain effects break out of the game. In one, for example, the screen goes black, it looks like the game system reboots, and displays a "controller error" message screen. The first few times things like that happened, I thought my game had malfunctioned, but later I correlated these to losses of in-game sanity. I think this was very effective in making sanity loss seem real, by making the player (as well as the character) think he's losing his mind.
...had numerous references to the player, the game itself, the developers (lionhead studios), and even south park. Ingame the player has a good and an evil conscience, and the two constantly bicker.
Some of the more amusing conversations between the two occur when you don't touch the keyboard for a while. Here are some samples:
Good conscience: "Jeez, our Boss is inactive. Let's rock from side to side."
Evil conscience: "Maybe we can tip over the monitor!"
Good: "No, you red fool. We're part of the conscience. We're inside our god's head!"
Evil: "Okay. Let's rock and tip over the Boss's mind!"
Good: "Hmm. You are the weirdest demon I've ever shared a skull with."
---
Good: "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with B"
Evil: "Brain."
Good: "Yes."
Evil: "OK. I spy with my evil eye, something beginning with S"
Good: "Skull."
Evil: "Yeah."
Good: "I spy with my little..."
Evil: "Shuddup! Sorry. I just can't take it any more. Skull, brain, brain skull.") Good: "You're right. We should get out more."