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Genre Analysis:
I am aiming to be able to develop responses to media products within this overview.
I have been given the opportunity to use high level forms of analysis in order to decipher how media products are put together. Specifically in the area of Genre and its development in line with technical, representational and cultural expectations. With that, I have decided to take a peek into two very different genres, analysing and contrasting the two.
I have choosen the RPG game genre and the FPS game genre:
To my knowledge, I know of a few minimal FPS’s that take a spin on counter types, within the FPS category, we are given a range of characters that are not given much thought. An example of a counter type would be a “Woman” who is a brute, or a “hard” man who is a coward, a good film example would be the characters in The Wizard of Oz, like the Lion who doesn't have any courage or the Tinman who is heartless.
Within Video Games, FPS’s per say, I know of only a few counter type and that would include some from Half Life. Gordon Freeman, a scientist who has a good aim. Taking away from the geeky guy who is always cowering or hiding away and instead making him a decent character. The Game franchise: Borderlands also engages with the ideal of counter types too, with its strong female and funky male protagonists, the majority of the characters feel quite original instead of the typical stereotyping used in such FPS's. As I have declared before, I much prefer counter types to stereotypes, especially within the Games Industry.
Typically, FPS's are renound for emphasizing combat and shooting as a whole, portrayed as a character that the player will engage with. Granting the immersion of the player actually being or feeling apart of this character/game. Stereotypically the main character is a battle hardened male, examples. Battlefield, CoD, Bioshock etc.
Minimal developers escape the stereotype, even though games that have had this other main characters ranging from age, ethnicity and race have considerably changed the scale of FPS’s. Games like Portal, Mirror’s Edge, Left 4 Dead etc. Even though the ideal of escaping the stereotype is a fine one, in reality, it is so much easier for the player to understand this "1 sided" character and actually relate on some spectrum.
Instead of having so many complex, non-stereotypical characters that would otherwise be impossible to follow, they stick to quite generic characters because they actually work. An example of which the characters are all non- stereotypical would be True Detective, in which you think you understand the characters, but you would be far from wrong. In my opinion, I'd love to see a lot more non-stereotypically characters within FPS's; on paper, I love the idea, but realistically I understand that it is a hard endeavour to flesh out mixed and non-bias characters that we are supposed to relate to, so therefore, I understand that stereotypes are nessicary in some cases.
Stereotypes
First Person Shooter Genre
Countertypes
Going back to the stereotypes, with our battle hardened males and such. Commonly within World War games, the protagonists and surrounding characters are fully equip with battle gear and heavy armours filled to the brim with greens and marons. The colour maron is actually the sane colour as dried up blood relating to the fact that blood shall be spilt, which brings tension in some aspects of what your expecting for the story and in which direction its going to take you through, hopefully the not to gory path. Often with FPS's, the idea of a colour against another colour is a symbolic reference that is often used, typically with war games like blue Vs red, aka British Vs Germany. Giving the player an obvious indication for who you ought to shoot. Also, Blue resembles: faith, trust, support and purity, whereas red is more brutal like: blood, death, energy and power. From just the colour pallet it makes the player give a pretty good jurisdiction to why they would want to be virtually killing these fiends.
Characterisation
Emotional themes within media as a whole is quite an outstanding form to miss, emotion is practically portrayed within every media: books, movies, film, video games etc. So potential it is quite a hard thing to miss. Looking beyond the obvious,” character pulls out a guitar and starts singing bringing a feeling of nostalgia and reminiscence “ cut-scenes, Emotions are spread across a game throughout game play and story. Looking over at EARL, the emotion annotation representation language. I would like to examine a FPS close to heart, Bioshock Infinite, that practically trumps the majority of FPS's as far as feels go.
Starting the story of any FPS you are often given a dab of context and then plunged into gameplay, often giving the incentive of discovery and intrigue. A lot of colour representation is uncovered in BI with a certain colour setting the scene, within the first 5 seconds of the prologue, the mood is set by prophetic fallacy, its raining cats and dogs. In the shoes of your character, you feel drenched, over worked and want shelter. A lot of these emotions and moods pay the way to setting up the game play and giving the story feels, in other words, making you relate.
Heading straight into the middle of the game, the mood changes as far as the story has been conveyed. The scene is underground, darker colour pallet, characters that you care about distressed making the player stressed building tension and worry, making the player stride on quicker as they don't like this feeling of anxiety. BI has a lot of these prophetic fallacy moments that engage the scene completely, one moment you are immersed into the city of Columbia, sun beaming bright. You turn around a corner and suddenly outbreak, rain and storms pouring down. Giving the aspect of unpredictability and that you are never safe, that you cannot just settle, making the player feel unease and filling you with the emotions of frustration and doubt, the game is so clever in its representation of emotion, Bioshock is not the only FPS that just does this there are multiple that uncover prophetic fallacy and explore deep emotions, like Far Cry.
Emotional Themes
Visual Style for FPS's are commonly Photo realistic so the secular can easily relate to the environment and stereotypical characters. A few FPS's that have challenged the secular would yet again be Bioshock Infinite with its Art Deco visual style that takes inspiration from Egyptian lore.
Art Deco has been used; as far as my knowledge extends, to represent the complexity of the game and story and show that the game is set in the past or different universe?
One other would be Borderlands with its Cell-shaded art style to represent the colour pallet and the moods/vibes that are given off each character/environment.
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Art Style
Target Audience:
FPS's are targeted towards the casual gamer, East & West sides of the world, typically they focus on a story or a multiplayer driven experience. Games like CoD, Battlefield & Titanfall follow a fully multiplayer approach whereas other games like Bioshock, Far Cry and Mirrors Edge take the story approach which is typically 10 - 15 hours of gametime due to the target audience of a casual gamer.
Role-Playing Game Genre
Stereotypes
Within The RPG genre, the player is typically plunged into a role of a character during a fictitious setting, often the narrative follows the actions of the player. RPG's range from MMO's to Single player experiences. Stereotypically, the main protagonist of an RPG is up to the player within a character customisation tool. Focussing on RPG's in which this is not the case, the protagonist is often portrayed as someone who knows minimal about the current state of the world, this is for the narrative to unfold and so the player/character gains an understanding of whats going on. Therefore, in most RPG's the player is just a normal civilised person, like a farmer (something quite secular). This is certainly the case with games like Fable, Kingdoms Of Amular etc. Events unfold, the protagonist is on some ambiguous quest to save the world.
Following the stereotypes, during your quest the player will most likely pick up companions along the way, typically a healer, warrior, rogue, mage, etc. In most RPG's the characters are often stereotypical, a few RPG's do however allow counter types like: Dragon Age, Mass Effect. An example is within Dragon Age there is a female who goes by Cassandra and is a sword and shield warrior with a heart of stone. An example of a stereotype within an RPG would be that the women is the prize at the end of the game; objectifying a lot of moral and ethical standpoints, this can be the case within The Mass Effect and Dragon Age Franchises even with its counter type characters.
Counter Types
Counter Types are picked up on in a few RPG's, not the majority but a good example is Dragon Age Inquisition. Dragon Age's prime goal has been to save the world from either dragons, civil war and ancient races out for bloodshed. Within Inquisition, you create your own hero, male or female then your adventure begins. Your come across a wide variety of characters that have been fully fleshed out, non too typical. For instance: there is a female mage who is most likely in her 60's, a dwarf with a hatred for mining, Elves that despise tradition, a thug with a cause... and so many more the game does not present stereotypes lightly, along with this, Inquisition incorporates romance. One of the biggest issues for India were the homosexual legalism, therefore the game was not sold in India as a whole. Inqy even has transsexual characters and pans out to practically every person in the world so they can somewhat relate on some aspect.
Characterisation is used a lot within an RPG; from the very start, within ones that have character customisation. If the protagonist is male/female, age, hair colour and all these attributes that effect the appearance of your character that will impact your game. For instance, being a male in Star Wars: The Old Republic (MMO) blocks of a lot of content that a female character could have: like romances or engaging in specific quests. RPG's often follow a good vs bad approach, very rarely there are anti-heroes or villains with a good cause. The player is often the good guy against the bad guy. Normally it is also very obvious who the antagonist is. “Ancient being sends out army that destroys your home/sanctuary go kill it” Dragon Age Inqy has a very interesting villain, that almost makes you repulse at it, just from the characterisation you want to kill the creature. The main protagonist is often dressed in some fine armour of something finesse, whilst the villain looks twisted and corrupt. It follows the blue Vs Red ideal all over again. From just how the characters are designed/ or which colours are exploited in that character, it sheds light on their personality and goals.
Characterisation
Emotional Themes
Emotions are explored in RPG's quite a bit, typically following the hero's journey, analysing parts of an RPG, there is always a sad/distressed/worried prologue that makes the player want to get around the hurdle (Mass Effect 2, Witcher 3). Then there are moments of learning and harnessing your blame., in which you feel tested, teased, annoyed (DA:I(The Haven Scene) Skyrim (Greybeards). There are brief parts of fear, tragedy and scarce that follow on the games narrative, these moments are their for the player to feel defeated when they should press on instead (Mass Effect 2 (Crew Captured) Witcher 3 (Certain death of a certain character) . Then there are times of joy, happiness, hope. Perhaps the player has defeated the antagonist or they have rescued what they treasure. (Epilogue of a lot of RPG's, Witcher, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 1, Fable, KoA, SWTOR)
The most loved feeling within an RPG, is the one that makes you feel like you are awesome, this is played towards the epilogue, maybe even before, were you risk it all and take the giant leap into the lions den, the feeling of fear, yet intense euphoria at the same time. At the end of our journeys within this worlds, a few RPG's like to show a little farewell sub-plot, were all the characters gather together and slowly leave the player after some epic-est mission. This has been demonstrated in the DLC's of Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect 3, granting the player that nostalgia, yet hankering to want more. Maybe a marketing strategy, or maybe they just want to leave you in tears?
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RPG's have had quite a load of visual styles to speak of, with your eastern devs taking inspiration from their cultures, the western going more photo-realistic there is an in-between. The idea of using a somewhat different art style is a good one and the use evermore so. Using a unique art style for an RPG is an easier escape so your perception of reality can be unfolded quicker, if it were modelled as real life it would be harder to believe but because its a cell-shaded art style, it looks comical and funny, less realistic so your perception of reality can be deceived in some way. An example? Fable, KoA, Star Wars KOTR/SWTOR.
Western Devs has stuck with the Photo-realistic style because it is so widely used with other genres and a lot of gamers these days care about the graphics, they like the idea of photo-realism, therefore the dev teams use it because it can sell and does work. Eastern Devs stick to this animé style due to the culture in Asian country’s and because it is a successful business for the liking, whereas a new art-styled game that is cartoony may have trouble due to the popularity of photo-realism and animé. In my opinion less is more.
Art Style
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Due to the art style following, the target audiences can vary for RPG's unlike the FPS casual gamer, the RPG genre can fit into a lot of characteristics within gaming. For example thier is the hardcore gamers that delve into the massive RPG's and complete everything within the game, on the other side thier is a massive LGBT trend within the past years and of course thier is the casual gamers who just keep coming back to the RPG genre every now and then. RPG games are also MMO's invoking yet another cultural group into the fold. Therfore the RPG genres has one of the biggest and varyied audiences, which I think is great!
Through this report, I've attempted to contrast two genres that I am quite fond of, I hope you have enjoyed this report, my next report is comparing two games within the RPG genre, just go back to the blog homes and click on the two genres blog.