As the years pass, video games become more and more sophisticated, from both a technological standpoint, and from an artistic one. Very often, video games are given a bad reputation for being violent and mindless, or are simply dismissed as being “just games,” when they have potential to do so much more, especially in the realm of storytelling and narrative. Narrative is an important component to most video games, even in games that focus primarily on the gameplay element as their primary draw. For example, the extremely popular Call of Duty games that are being released year after year are filled with narrative, such as the story structure in Call of Duty: Black Ops, where most of the events of the game are retold and experienced from the perspective of captured U.S. agent Alex Mason (the player controlled protagonist) in the midst of an interrogation, during which he suffers post-traumatic flashbacks to his experiences, which constitute most of the gameplay.
As an interactive medium, video games possess a peculiar power of immersion unrivaled by books or film, and allow the player to effect the narrative in ways that books and films cannot match. They possess similar narrative tools to both, but also have their own, unique toolset. This paper seeks to identify and discuss a small sample of these narrative devices and techniques, and why they are important. At the same time, this paper seeks to analyze and discuss another, increasingly important element in video games: gender presentation. The video game industry is rapidly growing and expanding, becoming one of the single greatest sources of entertainment in the United States, having already surpassed Hollywood in terms of profit. Yet as feminist media critics like Anita Sarkeesian have displayed, video games have remained painfully immature in their treatment and presentation of gender roles, with heavily sexualized male and (especially) female characters, rely heavily on stereotypes for female characters, and generally do not present or approach topics of gender and sexuality in a mature manner. That does not mean that the medium is devoid of well written, strong female characters or is completely incapable of discussing gender and sexuality, only that it is difficult in the climate and expectations of the gamer community, as shown by the harassment and personal attacks by male gamers on Ms. Sarkeesian when she proposed her web series “Tropes vs. Women in Videogames,” seeking to identify and evaluate these stereotypes and problems in the medium.
For my own case studies, I like to turn to the Mass Effect series. Mass Effect pioneers and pushes the limits of player interactivity and immersion with the narrative. At the same time, it engages, utilizes, and deconstructs many of the gender stereotypes utilized by the video game medium in different ways. It is not immune to the immaturity common to the medium as a whole, but is also self-aware of its use of these tropes, poking fun at itself through dialogue and deconstructing several common science fiction conventions regarding gender. Mass Effect possesses strong, compelling female characters that react to these conceptions of gender, and provides examples of how characters can be conveyed and presented in a video game format. It is also one of the few series willing to address and portray same-sex and bisexual relationships and characters in a mature manner. In short, Mass Effect is an ideal case study in the ways that video games can convey narrative, and in the many ways games present female characters, both good and bad.
-William Clifford.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU1Rus70ns0[/youtube]