Tag Archives: video games

Transcribing a cultural milestone: the musical scores of Super Mario Brothers

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A pianist has developed a website where he has the complete Super Mario Brothers (the original) score including fingerings. It sounds like he went through a rigorous process:

Karam used professional engraving software and transcribed every pitch and rhythm of the original 8-bit NES game, cross-checking his work with several of the best transcriptions available on the web. He then organized the score into a readable booklet and learned all of the pieces by playing them on the piano every day for several months.
This website is apparently set up to line up with the 25th anniversary of the release of the game.
But perhaps what is more interesting is how this music came to be part of American (and worldwide) culture. I’ve heard people play this music on the piano before and it is instantly recognizable. Some of this is due to the popularity of the game and the eventual Mario series which still is going strong today. At the same time, this game, perhaps more than any other, set off a video game revolution. This music is part of the collective memory for a whole generation.

Rigging the accuracy of video games

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As video game consoles and controllers become more accurate in interpreting human movement, the designers must wrestle with a question: do they really want the machines to be 100% accurate? A Sony executive discusses why the accuracy is compromised in order to create a better gaming experience:

Wired.com: Move is much more accurate than the Wii remote, so it can be used to create much more complex games. But will those be attractive to a general audience?

Shuhei Yoshida: We never intended to use the accuracy as-is, because that makes games totally unplayable…. But people love one-to-one, they really enjoy seeing on the screen what you are doing, actually tracked. Our teams have devised a way to make you feel that everything you do is accurately tracked….

It’s taking the intent of the player by looking exactly at what he or she is doing, but assisting, filtering it a little bit, and still giving a little bit of what he or she has done. You feel like, “This is what I intended.” It makes you feel like a good player, but still allows people to progress from entry level to advanced.

You remove the assistance bit by bit. Games become more challenging, but at the same time you understand completely that if you fail it’s your fault, and if you succeed it’s your achievement.

I think that’s a new requirement for designing games using accurate motion tracking. But unless you have accurate motion tracking, you cannot create that depth of gameplay.

I’m not sure I buy into this reasoning. So playing ping-pong on the PS3 is a game because the machine assists/interprets your actions if you are really bad. Becoming “good” at the game comes with machine assistance. Playing ping-pong in real life is something different because you can fail. This is something I’ve never understood about Guitar Hero or Rock Band: wouldn’t you rather learn to play the real instrument? Perhaps the game is more “fun” and easier to learn if you can’t fail but it ultimately doesn’t translate into any useful skills.

I suppose manufacturers must do this so gamers don’t become frustrated but it seems like the easy way out. With the new Playstation Move, is there a way to turn off this assist feature?

In war, blurring the lines between video game and real life

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It is common in video games to be able to play both sides, usually as a member of some sort of good vs. bad team. Where this might become problematic is in battle zones:

Military bases across the U.S. have banned the sale of a new video game that lets a player pretend to be a Taliban fighter and “shoot” U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“Medal of Honor” by Electronic Arts, a major game developer based in Redwood City, Calif., hits stores Oct. 12. Gamers are scoffing at the decision, saying that advanced technology has made it commonplace in the gaming world to let players switch sides and play the bad guy.

After public protests, including by British Defense Secretary Liam Fox, U.S. military officials decided not to stock the game in any of the nearly 300 base exchange shops.

The game also won’t be sold at any of the 49 GameStop stores located on various military bases. Troops will be allowed to own copies, but they would have to buy them off-base.

While shooting Nazis may be acceptable, this situation is not palatable to the US military.

Note: although the game hasn’t yet hit the stores, might we saw protests in the broader American culture over the ability to play as the Taliban?

Another note: there are 49 GameStop stores on military bases? Do they do better business than typical GameStop locations?

Companies come, companies go: Blockbuster edition

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Blockbuster has been on the economic edge for a while now and is apparently close to filing for bankruptcy.

Perhaps Blockbuster is a microcosm of the economic situation in America over the last 25 years: it quickly grew in size to fill a market niche, expanded to what too turned out to be too many locations, and then eventually has reached a point where it needs to seriously regroup due to technological change and some other reasons. I remember seeing them sprout in the Chicago area. Within a few years, we went from no nearby stores to numerous locations within 5 miles (and even more of its type if we were to count businesses like Hollywood Video). They were everywhere, including suburban downtown locations and strip malls.

I would be interested in reading a sociological study about how this company expanded but then had trouble adapting to the changing market for movies and video games. How did they successfully find customers early on and then lose those customers later on? How did Blockbuster’s growth accompany general suburban growth, housing patterns, and growth of other important retailers?

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and playing Portal

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Erving Goffman’s 1959 work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is a sociological classic. “Portal” is a video game that has received good reviews (90 out of 100 at MetaCritic.com). How could they fit together?

According to a story at Mashable.com, they are both part of some sections of a required Freshman course at Wabash College in Indiana:

The game will be part of a mandatory Freshman seminar called “Enduring Questions” that will explore “fundamental questions of humanity” through “classical and contemporary works.” A theater professor named Michael Abbott is among the faculty members designing the course.

Inspired by a game theory article drawing comparisons between Portal and Erving Goffman’s 1959 sociology text The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Abbott nominated Portal as one of the works that students would be required to experience and discuss to pass the class.

He demonstrated the game for his non-gaming colleagues and was pleased to find that they appreciated and approved the plan to assign Goffman’s text and follow it up with “a collective playthrough of Portal.”

I haven’t played Portal but this sounds like an intriguing combination. I wonder how many college classes today include video games…

To the innocent, all things are innocent

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In an interesting anecdote on the perennial nature vs. nurture debate, a father lets his 4-year-old son play Grand Theft Auto:  San Andreas, to rather surprising results.