Faint Praise

Or, what I've been reading (in a way) for a long time, and never really talked about. In a way, writing for video games is a difficult and thankless task. No-one praises the writers of these games, despite the fact that they create some fantastic stories. And the stories they write are often more involving, smarter and funnier than a lot of films and books that I've sat through. I'm going to spotlight some of the finer scripts in gaming, along with the writers that deserve your love. Warning, spoilers abound.

Hiroyuki Owaku and Takayoshi Sato wrote one of the first games that really showed me how smart gaming could be. Silent Hill 2 still comes back to me in conversations about games that really know what they're doing. The story stays simple throughout, James, a widower heads to the town of silent hill after recieving a letter from his (very dead) wife asking to meet him there. The game is never really about fighting or exploring, more the build up of utter terror. There are large sections where you are simply walking down corridors, whilst the music builds up and up and voices emit from doorways. Most of the game involves you expecting something horrible to happen. The writnig really succeeds in the end in which you come to realise that Silent Hill is a kind of limbo or hell that you have trapped yourself in having murdered your wife. It's this twist that stays with you, having controlled this character, been in control of his actions and decisions - keeping him alive - and this discovery, that he's actually a pretty horrible man, makes you question all those decisions you made.

The Uncharted series of games really are the pinnacle of action storytelling, and indeed, the closest thing to really be described as an interactive movie. Just take a look at the trailers for Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 and see if they don't seem more like a film than anything. The stories themselves are close to Indiana Jones tales, each with their own macguffin that stems from the annals of history. Uncharted succeeds because its characters are realistic, funny and well rounded and above all, despite each game has the same (and increasingly expanded) cast, they are never shoehorned in. Each character has a viable reason for existing in the storyline. The highlights? Early in Uncharted 2, breaking into a museum to steal an artefact with an old friend, only for him to betray you - and later on towards the end, replicating that same event, but this time, he has a gun to your head. The way in which the game repeats certain lines as a callback from the opening scene, just shows the skill that went into crafting these brilliant titles.

Finally, Grim Fandango, one of the finest games ever to be created. With a truly brilliant story to accompany it, this point and click game is part Casablanca, part dark cartoon, with a workman-like Grim Reaper who gets caught up in a dastardly plot to extort the newly dead. The story is engrossing, epic and very very funny. It also has a method of dispatching dead folk called 'flowering', which is one of the finest ideas in a creative medium.

NaPoWriMo: Day 30

So here we are, the final day of National poetry writing month! It's been quite a challenge writing something new every day, and it doesn't seem to let up. Bad Language will be taking part in the Something Every Day challenge for the month of May, so look out for that starting later today. As for the last poem of the month, I'm going to leave you with one for the Royal Wedding. For said occasion, we went to the brilliant Northern Quarter Street Party, but went to the free one very briefly, it was pretty messy in the latter.

Royal Wedding

Thomas street teems, revellers dance on picnic tables,
swigging eighteen to thirty pints, dancing.
Men use sinks as urinals; while somewhere,
others exchange vows of chips and Union jack
shirts.

NaPoWriMo: Day 29

I'm going to save my royal wedding poem for the finale, and today I'm going to go for a combination of a one-word poem and a found poem. I think, living in Manchester this word conjures up all sorts of images and ideas.

Cottonopolis.

Until next time!

NaPoWriMo: Day 28

I worked very briefly for the News & Star in Carlisle,

Day in court, sipping flat coke while
petty criminals walk in and out;
merge into one teenager.

At lunch I sit with reporters
who talk about 'crazies' and send
them letters about God.

In the evening I walk through Carlisle
town to the bed and breakfast, curl up
on the bed and flick through battered
'Nineteen eighty four' that my dad
once owned.

The sun, it goes down and I swear,
I can hear the clocks striking thirteen.

NaPoWriMo: Day 27

A haiku about my failure to write

I've got writer's block
Portal two makes writing tough,
Now, back to the game


I do hope this is self explanatory...

NaPoWriMo: Day 26

Late night fire alarm

No doubt the flat downstairs
will blame us. One in the
morning freshmen stumble
bleary eyed into courtyard.
Still drunk teenage lovers
caught in deer headlight lamps,
her wearing his baggy t-shirt.
No doubt, the flat downstairs
will blame us.

NaPoWriMo: Day 25

A mute is not just someone who cannot (or chooses not to) speak. It is also the name for a particular person's role in a Victorian funeral. The role of the mute was to lead the funeral procession and look a bit glum, in doing this they would inform the rest of the attendees exactly how they should look. I love this, the idea that people need to be reminded they should be in mourning. Mute's were usually only employed for the funeral's of the rich, which is fairly apt. The best reference I can think of is of course Dickens, in Oliver Twist "There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear ... which is very interesting. He would make a delightful mute, my love"

Muted

They keep time, still. Keep faces the same,
lead the procession onwards.
Ever the professionals,
They do their job and show us,
how we should do ours.

We forgot, how to cry for the dead,
how to lay flowers, throw dirt
miss everyone who left us,
forgot to replace their eyes
with pennies, or rest a plate
of salt and Earth upon them.