泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Hit effects of video games

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Hit effects of video games

 

Anyone who likes a movie probably knows Nowhere to Hide, a 1999 South Korean film. Most people, at least, would have heard of the movie title and watched the trailer with the two main characters' punch scene in the rain and the murder scene on the stairs. The murder scene on the stairs, which is one of the film's most famous scenes, is a tribute to the best-known sequence 'Odessa steps' from Battleship Potemkin, a 1925 Soviet silent film.

The reason I describe the scene tediously is that it is very useful to explain effective directing. Before explaining it, first, let me talk about hit effects led to mentioning directing.

A term 'hit effects' is commonly used in the gaming industry. Although it literally means a feeling of a hit, the point of the word is to make a gamer feel quite real watching action scenes of characters inside the game where nobody actually beat up. It is a very important factor for a fun game, especially in action games.

Hit effects include character movement, hit-effects directing, and sound, etc. Recently a lot of local mobile games focusing on actions have been released. These games show splendid images and spectacular effects which are incomparable to the previous ones thanks to the big advancement in hardware technology. But it is hard to find a game with excellent hit-effects once I play the games.

The biggest reason among lots of causes, as I think, is a problem of directing. With getting back to the 'Odessa steps', in spite of numerous meanings and undertones hidden in the sequence, one of the most important things is good editing to maximize effectiveness. Montage, a technique in film editing in which a series of short static shots and dynamic shots into a sequence, is a very important method for current films. A fighting scene in slow motion in a martial arts or action movie probably help you to understand it. The normal-speed scene after slower speed one increases much more excitement, makes the sequence look faster than it is, and particularly emphasizes the slow-motion scene, which makes motions of the fighting scene much stronger.

Let's get back to the video games. Game developers also need to make an effort to show good directing to highlight the hit effects. Of course, I don't think that this is the only way and hit effects guarantee all the fun from playing the game. But one of the reason there are many hit-effects-lacking games among recently released ones might be developers' lack of efforts to present great directing for animated hit effects. South Korea already has world-class game-resource-related techniques. But I cannot help but think that we are still very far from looking at the whole process. I expect to play an action game which will give me a thrill with exciting and intense fighting scenes.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Realism in video games

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Realism in video games

 

A film Obsessed was released not long ago. I usually have many chances to watch movies because I sometimes invest in films as a venture capitalist. The movie reached about 1.5 million views nationwide. It was not a total failure when it comes to box-office record, however, there was harsh criticism for low-grading acting of the main actors. Especially I thought that Song Seung-Heon looked very awkward due to his too dry acting skills.

Recently, at a gathering, I met someone who really loved his performance in the film. He has a similar experience with Colonel Kim Jin-Pyeong—the colonel had to kill numerous enemies—played by Song and he commented that Song portrayed the character very well.

An idea crossed my mind at the moment; What is 'realism' for content? Of course, I don't want to mention realism and hyperrealism here. Including the film at the very beginning, there are developers' reality and user's reality in video games and I'd like to talk about the differences between them.

Did Song act well in the movie? It's very subjective so that there is no right answer to this question, however, his performance has unsuccessfully met the subject which I want to deal with in this column. If the film's intention was not to plainly portray a senior officer who was in a life-threatening situation on the battlefield, it's more important to make the audiences feel like they are watching the war hero suffering metal breakdowns and nightmares due to post-traumatic disorder from the Vietnam War.

If so, what about realism in video games? In spite of some reality distortion to entertain users, it would be within the limits of customer-acceptable realism. Settings—a game character falls to his/her death from a cliff or a sword used for a long time doesn't perform well—make a game more realistic, however, being realistic isn't always a good thing because settings—a gamer cannot enjoy playing the game so that a game character should go to bed from 12 pm to 7 am or the character should go to the bathroom every two hours—disturb a user's playing and wouldn't be fun elements of the game at all. Some game developers try to make an extremely realistic game to show off their technical skills. Of course, some developers fail to do the basics to lower the difficulty of the development and accelerate the project.

There is a literary term 'artistic license'. The poetic license includes the distortion of fact and the alteration of the conventions of grammar for an artistic purpose. Game designers try lots of different attempts in order to entertain users. Some are unrealistic—on the contrary, others are excessively realistic. Unlike truth reality, some scenes seem to be plausible. But, if it is one of the methodologies to please users, it can be called "artistic license for games". Academic discussions are needed to make video games be taken as one of the art genres.

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Cultural industry and acknowledging cultural differences

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Cultural industry and acknowledging cultural differences

 

In recent years, with playing some local video games based on Samgukjji (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), I have seen a couple of transsexual game characters from man to woman. The trans characters for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms have been already created in Japan several times, which made me be interested in the concept. But until recently, they were not be seen in the Korean video games. We usually regard Japan as a standardized country with pervasive school bullying. But let's look back. Isn't Korea much worse when it comes to cultural diversity?: macho remarks, revised historical figures, reference to politics and thought, etc. For this reason, I'd like to discuss acknowledging cultural differences and cultural industry in this column.

I think that bullying cultural diversity prevents CT (Culture Technology) development and idiosyncrasies; It might be a sensitive issue to say cautiously. Most local animation films deal with bright and sound stories starred children and I remember that old adult animation films with a 'revealing' scene were only limited to grown-ups. Besides, domestic subcontractors which have been worked for Japanese studios, based on their numerous experiences, made animation films with full of colorful pictures which are meaningless. The Korean gaming industry seems to change the existing framework step by step, on the other hand, the national cultural industry still seems to have a negative perception of expanding cultural diversity overall. Why, like Japanese game companies, can't we depict Cao Cao as a hero and Liu Bei as an indecisive leader on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Why can't we switch the roles of a hero and an evil? What about a game developed by a domestic game studio with new stories?; Admiral Yi Sun-sin is a woman who loves Seonjo, the King of Joseon Dynasty, and a general Won Gyun who feels a secret love for Yi bears a grudge against her because she doesn't love him and Japanese generals try to abduct her because they also love her. What about a story?; the Admiral uses black magic to protect Joseon with the help of evil and he raises the Satan when he defeats the Japanese Navy. Probably the embellish stories with a different interpretation of historical facts would raise lots of questions and it is most likely that some groups would take the case to the courts. What if it could happen in a game?; Jang Bogo is a Sillan rebel to go on to conquer Japan, Silla, and Tang dynasty and Yeom Jang is a hero who defended Silla against the enemy. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to make a game based on the adapted stories—A comment like this is necessary. Ninja is a popular and widely known character representing the island nation than Samurai and it contributes to making various cultural products, even though very little historical materials are available and very little is known about it.

Cultural industry is to generate new added-value based on enlarged reproduction of the country's cultural grounds. The cultural grounds may be a traditional culture of the country, an alien culture, or pop culture. It can be constantly re-created on an enlarged scale only in a society where people stress the freedom of individuals from cultural norms and acknowledge diversity. But we have easily ignored unusual interpretation and not accepted the diversity. Idiosyncratic interpretations have disappeared in the society where nonconformists are not really accepted. Are we use crude oil only as energy sources like gasoline and diesel? We may have obsessed with the interpretation that crude oil is only a source of energy although we can create lots of new products by using various components in it. I hope to see a variety of cultural items, especially in the gaming industry, which bring pleasure to me with a distinctive story.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui