Technology, like time, never stays still, and it stands to reason that gaming is subject to the same laws of progression. Where once we used a separate device for contacting people, another for watching TV and another for the internet, now we have mobiles and tablets that do it all. While we’re all well aware of this turn of technological integration, it’s worth taking some time to ponder how far away we are from the integration of video games with TV and film. We consumers are a demanding lot, and year after year we demand more from our entertainment. Bigger shocks, more gore, more sex, more life-like CGI and special effects. Our consoles now possess the ability to support incredible graphics and gameplay like we’ve never seen. Still we want faster framerates, more detail, more life. We’re on the cusp of Virtual Reality and suddenly a passive experience isn’t enough. We want a say in our games. We want to affect the reality on our screens. Suddenly, we want to make all the decisions.
Visual novels have been around for a while and there’s no better place to find them these days than on the Vita. The likes of Danganronpa and Virtue’s Last Reward have been feeding our interactive urges with minimal action and lots of lovely reading and decision making. The endings of these games are determined by the choices you make. There are good endings, bad endings, horrific endings and, usually, a one true ending that’s a complete bastard to find. We love these games because of the causality elements. We love that we’re directly responsible for the lives and deaths of the characters. When Nathan Drake falls off a log and plunges to his death, the usual reaction is ‘oh shit’ because the game has tripped you up. You’ve died and now you’ve got to get over that log again, and watch out for the guy with the shotgun because … ‘oh shit’. When a character dies in a visual novel, it feels different. You haven’t been tripped up. You made careful decisions and those decisions led you to that moment. The game doesn’t stop and go back. Your character is dead and the game and the story moves on like it was just meant to be.
The Telltale games are probably the most obvious examples of interactive games and with The Walking Dead and the recent addition of Game of Thrones to their library of best-sellers, this leads onto some important observations. Unlike visual novels, the Telltale games offer more movement and physical character interactions. Your characters move around, they run, hide, attack and defend each other. The reality at the end of your controller just got a little bit more
by SJ Hollis
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