Praise Be to the Glory of Wii!
In Remediation this week the authors (so far) have written extensively about the way that the medium tries to erase itself from our awareness of the material. If I am looking at a painting on the computer it should be like I am experiencing the painting face to paint, rather than face to screen. If I am reading a story the ultimate goal is for me to forget I am reading and be in the text. We can see this theme, this idea of direct contact, "authentic" experience, in lots of our texts. For example (very dorky example) D&D the Movie, in which the players of a D&D game get sucked into the "world" and become real, fleshy participants. Or several your adult books that I have read in which the young characters become part of the text (movie, video game, book) that they are reading. For art, creation, to come out of the medium and become reality.
Most of the ways that this is accomplished in our current media is through the visual. Bigger movie/t.v. screens with better color. Sharper images, better graphic, seamless experience. When our media try to make the experience physical it often is more disconcerting than realistic: think about smell-o-vision or the "virtual-reality" rides at theme parks where you get in and some bad animation plays and you get rocked around. Or you have to put on bulky weird goggles, which just isn't cool at all.
The Wii however skipped trying to put you in a "reality" and moved the "reality" to us. Instead of trying to make a bunch of fancy graphics that will never look right anyway, they simply make your movements be the movements of your AVATAR: which isn't you, it never has been, its a metaphor- and now it looks like one. Instead of trying to give you a vast and complex story line, the Wii lets you move around your world and interact with the world on the screen.
Something about it feels very novel to me, and very smart. The Wii is not trying to sell you anything real, but is, at the same time, making your very real physical actions count for something. Very cool. It is the first game system I have ever given serious thought to buying...
Comments
Knit-Picking
I would add that part of your assessment is the games you were likely playing (making an assumption here). For example, Metroid Prime or Legend of Zelda:Twilight Princess for the Wii both have huge, "complex" storylines and those "fancy" smancy graphics. So it's not that the Wii doesn't have those things, but that the Wii has made games that don't have those things a more legitimate and enjoyable market for the first time in a while.
Baby steps to gaming
Morgan,
I wanted to respond to this comment because I've been thinking similar things about the Wii. Like you (at least I think like you--correct me if I'm wrong), I have little experience with video games, and I've never felt like I'm missing a whole lot. When I was a kid, we had an Atari, so my brother kicking my ass at Frogger and Pac-Man is about the only experience I have of video games. I guess I play Tetris on my phone sometimes. That probably counts.
The main reason I don't play video games isn't that I'm completely disinterested in them. They've just always seemed like a lot of cash to spend on something I'm only mildly interested in. This whole Wii thing sounds like something I wouldn't mind getting my hands on, though.
In Friday’s class, we talked about the difference between playing a sport versus playing a video game version of the sport. I mentioned in class the pain and suffering I’ve endured since I began playing golf as a teenager. The most painful part of the process is from around November through March (or January through June—crazy Midwestern weather), when I have to put the clubs away, so having a Wii to play in the cold winter months sounds appealing. However, the best part of golf for me, and for many people who play, is being outside. A Wii version of golf (if there isn’t one now, there will be, I’m sure) just wouldn’t do because I wouldn’t get the experience of roaming around the ponds (usually while searching for my ball), smelling the grass, and enjoying the weather.
This response is starting to sound like something my students would write for “how I spent my summer vacation.” My point is that, even though I agree that the Wii makes “your very real physical actions count for something” (very good point, I think), it still lacks the connection between human and environment, like the feel of the tennis court beneath your feet or the wind that always blows in the wrong direction right when I go to tee off.
I’m not arguing that the Wii or video games generally are deficient, necessarily. They are what they are. But it’s interesting to me that while the goal of many modern video games, as Bolter and Grusin argue, is to erase our awareness of the medium, they are also lack awareness of a surrounding environment. Awareness of a surrounding environment is an essential part of playing a game like golf, in which awareness of the environment is essential. You have to know where the pond is, for example, to not hit your ball into it. A player must also interact with the environment, like when I hit my ball into the sand trap and have to hit the sand behind the ball—rather than the actual ball—if I have any prayer of getting it the hell out of there.
Jaci
Real (games) vs (video) games
Jaci, you bring up a point that goes a long way to explain why I too have never gotten into playing video games.
I was an athlete in college. I was recruited to pitch for the softball team, and for me, there are 2 things that make me prefer the real (game) over the (video) game:
In section II, Bolter and Grusin discuss making the interface transparent or minimal enough that it mimics reality or the authentic experience. However, for me, it is the mere existence of the interface (albeit transparent) that precludes these authentic feelings.