F#!% you BioWare!

DA:I, controls and immersion

The newest BioWare game RPG came out. some time ago now. I sat ready at 23:59. The clock struck midnight and Origin pointed out that Dragon Age: Inquisition was playable. I jumped right in. Excited.

40 minutes later I’m pissed. And I’m not alone.

The controls on PC are terrible. An insult to dedicated PC players. The ones the original DA and Mass Effect was made for. BioWares peeps.

The game was undoubtedly designed for and on console. But come on, you said you were going back to what made DA:O great. We thought that also meant controls optimized for PC. Or at least not the worst control scheme in the series. Oh well.

Why is it such a prob. And why are people so mad?

Controls are important for our enjoyment of a game.

If you go to the official DA:I forum a lot of people are disappointed and angry. Some even got refunds.

http://forum.bioware.com/topic/522595-just-requested-my-refund-did-you/

The user Xralius says:

“I highly doubt as PC users Bioware will ever respect us, but at least that might make them notice us.”

And

“Bioware LIED to its fans when it said it was making this game for the PC first and foremost. That is OBVIOUSLY not the case.”

Yankblan says:

“I sympathize with the PC controls problems, but the game mechanics and devs choices won't be fixed”

So the controls for PC is definitely a problem.

If you look at the forum 7 of threads on the front page is about PC problems¹. Mostly controls. About ¼ of all the threads. One thread is titled: “Entire game designed for consoles, an insult to PC gamers everywhere.” Is maybe a bit too much. Saying “Bioware has no integrity.”

But the top thread, the one with most views and replies is “The controls for this game on the PC need attention”.

Now when I explain what the biggest PC control problem is it might seem like a small thing. But it is not.

You can’t move by holding the left and right mouse buttons or click on things to move to them. Like you do in other RPGs and the previous DA games. And you cannot link controls to mouse buttons, the mouse controls cannot be changed.

But can’t you just learn the new control or use a controller? Well yes and no.

Learning the controls, the new controls, takes time and focus away from the rest of the game. Especially if you thought you knew the controls and didn’t think you needed to spend time on them, again.

Like buying a new bike, being ready and excited to give it a spin. And then finding you forgot how to ride.

You only have a certain amount of brain capacity to engage with a game, or anything else for that matter. Gordon Calleja’s model of Immersion is built on that fact.

It has six different frames: Kinesthetic, Spatial, Shared, Narrative, Affective and Ludic. What they all entail is not important right here. The point is that to be immersed you have to engage with all 6, fully. So if you have to think too much about one, say the kinesthetic, you don’t have brain capacity to engage with something else.

The important one here is the kinesthetic involvement, which is learning and using controls.

Usually good controls should disappear in the mind of the player. You don’t think about games as pressing triangle, circle and square in a specific order. There is exceptions to this, games where the controller and therefore controls are in focus. Games like Guitar Hero or Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Here a big part of the game is kinesthetic involvement so it makes sense to spend a lot of brain capacity on the controls. It doesn’t take away from the rest of the game because that IS the game.

There seems to be two schools of thought regarding the controller. One that the controller should disappear in the mind of the player. The second that the controller should be in the forefront of the game experience. Both indicates how important good controls are.

“The controller is what connects us to the game and enables us to play, but it is the part of play that we are least likely to reflect on” (Kirkpatrick, page 111)

That is as long as it works. So when it doesn’t work it messes with our ability to play.

“While a player’s attention might initially be focused on the controls whilst learning to play a particular videogame, after a certain competency is reached this attention shifts away” (Bayliss, page 100)

Until that happens you can’t fully engage with the other parts of the game.

So in DA:I I’m using a lot of energy on walking and running. I’m not appreciating the beautiful vistas of Feralden and Orlais. The narrative is for the most the most part experienced while standing still. One of the big draws for DA:I is the tactical combat and the game definitely not easy if you want to do well. But when you have to think about moving, it is hard to be tactical. You also end up making silly mistakes. Being bad at the game feels like you are being punished more than you made a mistake. And that’s frustrating.

For other PC players it is bad enough. But for me and others that in no way can use a controller it is disastrous. Learning the controls and achieving embodiment is more than a challenge, it is an insurmountable barrier. It becomes almost impossible to reach the competency needed for the controls to disappear and free up brain power to engage with the rest of the game.

If you can’t engage with the game it’s hard to enjoy.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

So for now, fuck Dragon Age.

Notes:

Of course BioWare is saying they get it and is going to fix some of the concerns in a upcoming patch

1: As of 20^th of november

Ludography:

BioWare. Dragon Age Inquisition. 2014

505 Games. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. 2013

Harmonix. Guitar Hero. 2005

Bibliography:

Calleja, Gordon. In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation, The MIT Press 2011

Bayliss, Peter - Toward a Sense of Embodied Gameplay

http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/07312.19059.pdf

Kirkpatrick, G Games & Culture. 2009;4(2):127-143. Controller, Hand, Screen - Aesthetic Form in the Computer Game

Hey don’t I know that guy

The secret stars of videogames

Sid Meyers, Peter Molyneux, Gabe Newell, Tim Schafer. We know these names because we care about videogames. And to a degree we have been damaged by our field of study. 

We have been forced to become videogames nerds if we weren’t before. This is another way that, for better or worse, the videogame industry has been co-opted by Hollywood and has become more like the movie industry (in a commercial sense).

They sell us the games using stars. using recognition.

The names I mentioned above will probably not be recognizable by all that play videogames. But most know EA, Ubisoft, Valve, Blizzard and Rockstar. They on the box. It is Sid Meyer’s Civilization.

Not just civilization. This is mostly for the initiated I guess, like film buffs talking about Auteurs[1] like Hitchcock, Kurosawa and Welles. But it can help in selling game as a product. Just look at Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Kickstarter story[2]. They used their fame to make the games they want, and to not be beholden to a big company or studio.

Like the famous directors that get finance from Hollywood to make what they want. Hollywood trust us to pay to see the next Christopher Nolan film no matter what crazy, amazing, convoluted and pretty film he makes. Because he made one of the most successful and highest grossing movies of all time[3].

Stars

Back to games. Now some games try to use the same tactic as Hollywood to reel us in, Stars.

Netflix also did this with House of Cards[4]. Get a famous actor and director and people will come. Make a good show and people will stay.

Now Activision just need to make you buy their product not hang around for multiple seasons. So they give you a dead-eyed Kevin Spacey playing almost the same guy as in House of Cards. This seems like a blatant attempt to get more people to buy the game.

Call of Duty have done this before, in Black Ops they had Ed Harris, Gary Oldman and Ice Cube playing pivotal characters.

It goes back to the beginning also. Using real actors in cut-scenes like the command and conquer series or Jedi knight.

In Toonstruck from 96’ we saw Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future fame in a cartoon world with a cartoon side-kick voiced by Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson)

And in Red Alert 3 they tried to entice us with pop culture icons George Takei and J.K. Simmons.

But now the technology has become so advances that we can make carbon copies of real actors and put them into games.

Like they did with Kevin Spacey.

Or in games that try to be cinematic or story telling games, like Beyond two Souls starring digitally copies of Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. All done with performance captures as is the norm in triple A games.

There is nothing wrong with that, but having a famous actor doesn’t make a game better and won’t make me more likely to buy it. Though it might work for some, otherwise why go through the trouble?

There are great actors in games already giving voices and personalities to all our favorite game characters. The last of us and all the Telltale games will be remembered more for its great moments than any Call of Duty story. But you probably can’t name any of any actors of those games.

Unknown stars

Here are some more names

Talion, Joel, Booker DeWitt, Joker and Jack Mitchell. You know these people I think, some of them at least. They all have something in common. They are all videogame characters. But they share something else, Troy Baker.

This guy:

The voice and body behind them all.

I’m playing the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Jack Mitchell, the playable character, takes of his breather mask and looks at me. I’m like, hey don’t I know you? And sure enough it is a perfect digital copy of the actor Troy Baker.

I do know that guy. First from cartoons. But after BioShock Infinite and Booker DeWitt I noticed he popped up in all the videogames I looked forward too. Turning up in some of the best games of the last 2 years (or ever: Last of Us, BioShock Infinite). Joel in Last of Us and Booker, Ok now he is going to do The Joker instead of Mark Hamill. Hmmm, all right. So finishing Shadow of Mordor I try Advanced Warfare and there he is again.

He is also one of the main characters in Tales from the Borderlands.

The newest Telltale game.

Now I’m sounding like a total fanboy and a big dork. Well that might very well be true but not the point. My point is that acting and thereby actors has become a big part of games and we beginning to get videogame specific celebrities. And the videogame industry is becoming more like Hollywood.

Many of these actors comes from voice acting not from “real” acting. Meaning cartoons not stage or film. And as with cartoon celebrities you would never recognize these people on the street, unless of course you happen to be a total fanboy or a big dork. Or maybe just academically damaged.

The point is: let’s not be enticed by big Hollywood names in games. Let’s acknowledge the unknown stars that already exist.

The ones that gave us the voices for Joel (Troy Baker), Nathan Drake (Nolan North), Desmond Miles (Nolan North), Commander Shepard (Jennifer Hale) and the countless other characters that have become so important in mainstream games.

Filmography:

Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight, 2008.

Netflix, House of Cards, 2013

Lawrence Shapiro, I know that voice, 2013

Ludography:

Activision, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, 2014

Activision, Call of Duty Black Ops, 2010

Lucas Arts, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, 1997

Virgin Interactive, Toonstruck, 1996

Electronic Arts, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, 2008

Sony Computer Entertainment, Beyond: Two Souls, 2013

Sony Computer Entertainment, The Last of Us, 2013

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Shadow of Mordor, 2014

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Arkham Origins, 2013

2K Games, Bioshock Infinite, 2013

Telltale Games, Tales from the Borderlands, 2014

Sony Computer Entertainment, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, 2007

Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed, 2007

Microsoft Game Studios, Mass Effect, 2007

---

[1] Is a theory in Film studies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur_theory

http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A22928772

[2] http://kotaku.com/tim-schafers-great-video-game-experiment-1228121826

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/double-fine-adventure

[3] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/?ref_=tt_rec_tti

[4] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1856010/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

DayZ

I am dead.

I am lying in an apartment block somewhere in Russia.

I was heading for the roof to have a look around. half way up the ladder I fell.

A glitch. A wrong push of the button. And two broken legs.

I crawled down for flights of stairs. I got all the  way to the door.

Two men approached, they were not there to help.they had guns.and they had bullets.

I am dead..                         

In my most successful and longest-running game of DayZ this is how it all came to close.

The game is still in its early beta so a great deal of things is going to change, hopefully.

The game does not feel complete yet. The game has not been very consistent the times I have played it. And it still suffers from untimely server crashes.

It is constantly getting improved and the things I find problematic might change in the final game.

It has all the seeds to be a great game.

The times I played it though I felt a bit like the undead I was trying to avoid. I couldn‘t quite figure out what or why I didn‘t enjoy the game I have been told was so great.

In this analysis I will try to explain why.

Analysis

 

I am going to use Calleja’ model of involvement in the analysis.

in it there is six types of involvement.

here follows a quick summary of the six types.

1:

Kinesthetic involvement

„freedom of action allowed and the difficulty of the learning curve of the controls involved as a major influence on the players involvement in the game environment“

2:

Spatial involvement

 „The spatial involvement concerns players engagement with the spatial qualities of the virtual environment in terms of spatial control navigation and exploration.“

It is also the process of internalizing the game space and giving players a sense of inhabiting the game world, basically a sense of place.

3:

Shared/social involvement

„The engagement derived from players awareness and interaction with other agents ... these agents can be human or computer controlled“

4:

Narrative involvement

„The engagement with story elements that have been written into again as well as those that emerge from player interaction with the game.“

5:

Affective involvement

„Encompasses various forms of emotional engagement that. Emotional engagement can range from the calming sensation of coming across an aesthetically pleasing space ... to the adrenaline rush of an competitive first-person shooter.“

6:

Ludic involvement

„players engagement with the choices made in the game and the repercussions of those choices.

the choices can be directed at the goal given by the game but also the goal decided by the player or a community of players.

it also encompasses choices made on the spur of the moment without relation to any overarching goal.“

Are you in the zombie apocalypse?

I‘m not sure I am. I‘m going to figure out why.

This is a prioritized list of the involvement types in DayZ.

It is subjective and based on my personal experience of the game.

My experience is limited to four sessions consisting of 3 to 4 hours of gameplay.

And as the game is still in beta my listing could change dramatically in the final game.

I will go through them one by one and explain why I have prioritized them as I have. Then I will see why and if the game failed to involve me.

Spatial involvement.

affective involvement

shared/social involvement

ludic involvement

narrative involvement

kinesthetic involvement

the first is

Spatial involvement:

The navigation and exploration is interesting in the game.

There is no mini map. If you find a map you can look at it, it does not tell you where you are so navigation is handled in a way like real life.

Navigation is hard you can easily be turned around so you have to look at the landmarks and signs. All the signs in Russian which complicates things even more.

A lot of the game have you exploring the countryside. the exploration is necessary for survival.

Your avatar needs to drink and eat. and scavenge useful materials and of course weapons. to defend himself from the undead and the other players.

The game engine makes the world look realistic or enough like the real world and that makes the navigation and exploration engaging. You can spot at building or maybe a crane in the distance and make your way to it. The buildings and the small towns are laid out in a familiar and recognizable pattern. We know how to navigate these things in real life and it makes the game space feel real.

It helps you internalize the game space and involve you in the game.

Some things does break your suspension of disbelief and makes the game feel very much like a game and one in beta at that.

You can walk into the house go through rooms, rummage through the kitchen, bookshelves, and take books and clothes and hopefully food.

Walk down the street into the next house and the interior is an exact copy of the other house.

When you have done this three of four times the houses doesn‘t seem like real places more like similar mystery boxes that can be filled with useful stuff on nothing at all.

A lot of doors in this part of Russia is locked for no apparent reason. Sometimes none of the entrances in the house work. Or maybe only one way in is viable.

In one of my game sessions I followed a road through the woods and apparently literally walked off the map. After running through empty and barren hills for 10 minutes. I walked back, all the way back to the forest and the game space.

You don‘t feel constrained, or at least I did, in your exploration of the game space. I did not realize I had walked off the map which can be seen as a boon and not a disadvantage to the spatial involvement.

I would have noticed if I had walked into and invisible barrier. but would have found it just as confusing. The game space seems real so it is only in the instances where it is not, that I realize how spatial involved I am.

Affective involvement:

It is by the same token the affective involvement is high up on my list.

The game‘s sense of place spills over into affect involvement. the sun on the hills, the insects and birds along with the sleepy seaside towns, the air field, factories and military bases.

It all adds emotional engagement. We know most of these things from real life and to see them abandoned with undead littered around brings the game alive.

There is also moments of adrenaline, when meeting a zombie without carrying a weapon. Or the moment when you meet another players avatar and you don‘t know whether they will be friend, or Foe.

that neatly brings us to

Shared/social involvement:

The interaction with other agents in the game is a huge of what the game is about.

In the zombie fiction the social aspect and group dynamics are important. people together fighting against the end of the world and each other.

In the game of DayZ it becomes part of the game.

The other players will want your stuff, or sometimes they will want to help you to increase their own and your chances of survival. I never met anyone who tried to help me.

Every meeting with another player was interesting, and a bit scary. I only met a group of people once, and they shot me immediately.

But all the other encounters and it would be running away with killing the other player which is not the most interesting outcomes.

The social aspect is a big part of the game as it is and will be an very important part of the final game.

It will be very engaging to survive in the game world with your friends. If you manage to find them.

The only other agents in the world are the undead. And every interaction with them are the same. You either fight them and die or survive or you can just run away.

But always know that the undead can pop up at any time. As long as you don‘t have a weapon that is scary and engaging but as soon as you get a moderately good weapon the thought of meeting a undead is nonproblematic, even trivial.

next is the

Ludic involvement:

Planning is also a big part of the game. The immediate problem that faces the player is getting food, water and a weapon.

Food can be found but it has not really to do with the choices you make. It comes down to blind luck.

The same can be said about water and weapons.

You can also survive for a long time without food and water.

The game does not give you any goals, really. And I never felt I had to make any really meaningful choices.

I just mostly wandered around. And that is not that interesting.

Next I put the:

Narrative involvement

There is no scripted narrative in the game.

It is possible to experience interesting moments in the game. And that can constitute a story, as is clear in my intro.

The spatial and affective involvement could also be experienced as a emergent narrative.

But most of the time when I have played the game, not enough interesting things have happened.

Nothing that could constitute a narrative, or an engaging one.

Lastly we have the:

Kinesthetic involvement

The kinesthetic involvement is not something I would highlight as positive. The game lets you do a wide range of things. But knowing exactly what button to press can be hard and frustrating to figure out. And mastering these controls is not something that would give not a huge amount of involvement or pleasure.

The controls are still clunky and being good at controlling your avatar will not give you a huge advantage against zombies or the other players.

Looking at the game in this way has helped me understand why I did not find the game very engaging.

I feel the gameplay is clunky and not really that engaging. Wandering around the Russian countryside while being hungry and thirsty, is about as much fun as it sounds.

The undead and the other inhabitants of the world should serve to make the experience more interesting. But the zombies is not something you need to plan for and are not that big of a threat.

And other players few and far between and I have always been able to run from them. Except when I broke both legs.

The game mechanics are still a bit difficult to figure out, it is not always clear what you can do and how. That will hopefully be fixed when the game actually comes out.

An End

What I found interesting and engaging was the game world itself. The world is realized very well it feels and looks real, trying to figure out where you are and where you can go and more important where you should go is the most engaging part of the game.

Looking at real map of the place I was walking around with my virtual counterpart was the part that gave me most pleasure.

Just trying to figure out where I was planning where to go.

And the desperate hope of reaching a far-flung part of the world to get that one piece of supply was what kept me going through the desolate and quite frankly boring Russian countryside.

Survive

Don’t Starve is a game about survival. It came out in 2013 and was made by Klei Entertainment. The goal is to not starve, of course. Well it’s harder than it sounds.

I’m huddled by a fire. In the dead of night. I ate some raw monster meat. That was bad for my stomach and my mental health. I might be going mad. I’m being hunted by some kind of demonic shadow hound.

It’s circling me. It’s is not shadow anymore, It is real. I ready my homemade spear. The Hound pounces.

I die.

That’s how I died in my longest running game of Don’t Starve. I survived for about two weeks.

The Game-structure, Game-world and Gameplay works together and underlines the theme and creates a real experience of survival.

This in a beautiful, odd and creepy world.

Don’t Starve is a really good game…

Don’t Starve

In the beginning of the game you can only play as Wilson the Gentleman Scientist. You unlock other characters the longer you survive.

When you start a game you wake up in a field with a man standing over you saying: “you better find something to eat before night comes”. That is the only information you get. Now it’s all a matter of surviving.

In the top right corner you have a clock counting down to evening and the night. It also tells you how many days you have survived thus far. There is also a counter showing your health, hunger and sanity.

In the bottom of the screen there is an inventory and a map. The map only shows what you have explored so far. In the beginning it’s a depressing sight filled almost exclusively with black.

There is a toolbar in the left side of the screen with different menus: tools, light, survival, science, fight and dress.

And that is all the information the game-world gives you. That’s a problem if you want to live… And that is one part that makes the game great.

Survival

Survival takes skill, knowledge and luck.

The gameplay doesn’t require much skill. The skills are represented by what you can craft. But you have to figure out what to craft and why.

The game doesn’t give you any knowledge about anything. You don’t know what things are good for what, you only know what can be used to craft things.

Luck is represented by the random generated world.

The game gives you minimum information about the game-structure. At first you don’t know that will happen and why.

It is not that the gameplay is particular hard. It consist of running around collecting things and interacting with objects.

When the cursor hovers over an object some text appears. It tells you what you can do. Like “pick grass” or “examine”.

When you have collected enough of a resource it can be used to craft new items.

In the different menus you can see what can be crafted from what.

In tools you can build an axe from sticks and stones. This in turn can be used to chop down trees. The wood can then be used to build a fire.

The gameplay is thus a race to gather resources. To obtain new resources. To be used to gather new resources.

A race because you always have to build a fire when night comes.

If you don’t have a fire at night something bad will happen you don’t know what.

The game-world is divided into Day and Night. At night the character is forced to make a fire and stay close to the light. Or he will die. You don’t know that untill it happens.

So you never know the rules of the game you are playing.

Which is the problem with survival in the real world. You never know what can happen and what consequences your choices will have for your chances of survival.

But you learn the more you play. And when you die you are dead and have to start over.

The game is puzzle. An interesting Puzzle albeit the same puzzle every time.

You know nothing

That is not true you know some things. You know you have to eat something or you will starve. It’s in the title. And you know you have to have a fire at night. Your avatar will tell you if you don’t have a fire and night is coming.  Other than that you have no knowledge. The game-world tells you nothing about how to play the game. It’s hard to know what you should do. Harder still to know what is best to do. You only know what you can do.

That’s is the one thing the game does to help you. You always know what you can do.

When something in one menus can be crafted that particular menu turns green.

The game-world always tells you as little as possible about the game-structure. So there is nothing to inform your gameplay.

That is what makes the game so hard which fits perfectly with the theme and title.

The gameplay in the end becomes trying to figure out the game-structure and that is what you use to form strategies. Every time you die and you are going to die a lot you learn something new and can probably survive a bit longer next time.

When you have died a couple of times you will form your own strategies for effective survival.

You will know what to do. Find particular resources and craft certain items in order of importance. According to your strategy.

When you have done whatever you set out to do. You have a new problem. What to do next.

The world

The world is a cute cartoony looking world.

All the animals, the plants and the avatar have the same cartoony look. But something is a bit off.

You come upon weird altars with pigs’ heads on spikes. And you can find things like evil flowers and wormholes.

Your avatar and all other creatures in the game is drawn in the same cartoony style. But it looks more like it was drawn by a disturbed kid than Walt Disney.

The game world shows you and tells you that it’s a dangerous place and surviving will be hard. And you believe the avatar when he tells you that you should build a fire.

But again you don’t know what the different things does. You don’t know the rules of the world or the game-structure.

You figure this out by playing the game. The pig-altars brings you back from death. So basically gives you an extra life. Which comes as an unexpected but welcomed surprise the first time that happens.

The look and style underlines the inherent danger of the world.

You never know what tree is really a monster waiting kill you.

It all fits together

The gameplay quickly becomes figuring out strategies for survival. You try to figure out the game-structure to “beat” the game.

The style and look of the game underlines the dangers and the sense that you don’t quite know what’s going on.

The puzzle that is the game becomes the fight for survival. It’s always the struggle to get the upper hand and “beat” the game that makes the game so interesting.

The sense of superiority and accomplishment when the timer ticks across to a new day is a fantastic feeling.

PS:

Now the game have a excellent expansion called Reign of Giants. Buy it!

tilbage med ændringer

jeg vil begynde at skrive herinde igen.
Men det meste vil nok være på engelsk fremover. det er sådan mit studie foregår.
Alle mine tanker omkring spil, mit studie, er dog ikke lige relevante på et universitet.
så That's no moon, vil være mere eller mindre ufiltrerede tanker om spil, spildesign, rollespil, film, tvserier, tegneserier og general popokultur

så here goes...

Nobody's Fault

house 8.11
"Nobody's Fault" 6 feb

Sæt et kryds i kalenderen tv fans, den 6 feb. 2012 toppede House. Det tog dem omkring 8 år, men denne 8, og sidste, sæson er den bedste indtil nu.

Efter denne sæson er Hugh Laurie færdig med House og da dette så bliver den sidste sæson virker det som om holdet bag tør tage nye chancer og udforske nye ting, eller i hvert fald se tingene fra nye vinkler.
Lisa Edelstein der spillede Cuddy valgte at lade være med at forlænge sin kontrakt til en 8. sæson og derved blev hendes karakter skrevet ud.
Med Cuddy væk, er der ingen love interest for House og derfor bliver vi tvunget til at udforske andre sider af House. Forfatteren bliver rent faktisk nødt til at finde på nye ting og kan ikke bare falde i Ross og Rachel fælden.

Den nye sæson viser rent faktisk ændringer i House. Det er ikke nye sider der kommer frem, men vi får set tingene fra andre vinkler og på nye måder.
Der har været rigtig gode sæson åbninger og sæson afslutninger før, hvor House er blevet nødt til at ændre sig og derfor udvikle sig. Det har for det meste været noget med hans misbrug at gøre.
Men han er næsten altid faldet tilbage og gået tilbage til bare at være House igen.
I den nye sæson kommer vi mere ind under huden på House.

Det nyeste afsnit “Nobody’s Fault” er et rigtig godt eksempel og et rigtig godt afsnit.


8.11
Plottet er et mysterium, eller rettere to.
Et mysterie og en sag som altid.
Afsnittet starter med et billede af en vild scene uden lyd. En hospitalstue i kaos og blod på gulv og vægge. Mysteriet er så at vi prøver at finde ud igennem afsnittet hvad der sket.

Som sædvanlig er der også en patient med et problem.
i afsnittet er House og de andre læger midt i en diciplinær høring foretaget af en anden læge spillet af...
Høringen prøver at fastslå hvis skyld det der er sket er. Vi får forskellige vidneudsagn fra de forskellige læger på holdet, der alle fortæller om en sag der er gået grueligt galt.

Mysteriet ligger i at finde ud af hvad der er gået galt og hvorfor, samtidig med som sædvanligt at finde ud af hvad der er galt med patienten.

Først efter 20 minutter finder vi ud af hvad der i virkeligheden er sket. Det gør dog ikke spændingen mindre. Spændingen i at finde ud af hvad der er sket bliver afløst af forventningen eller frygten for hvad der skal til at ske.
Dels fordi det der sker er spændende, men også fordi handlingen sætter karakterene på prøve og deres reaktioner og svar under høringen og deres handlinger senere i afsnittet siger os rigtig meget om dem.

Det er noget helt andet at se dem sætte ord på deres følelser og handlinger i stedet for kun at se dem gøre det.

Gæstekarakteren; Dr. Walter Cofield spillet af Jeffrey Wright (Quantum Of Solace, Source Code) er vigtig.
Hans spørgsmål går tættere på karakterene end sædvanligt da hovedpersonerene er i en presset situation han kommer til dem som ligeværdig, men også fra en position med magt.

De fleste gæste karakterer plejer endten at være patienter eller pårørende og kommer derfor fra et helt andet sted og har en helt anden indvirkning på hovedpersonerne, især House.

ved hjælp af Cofields spørgsmål bliver handlingen uddybet. når vi som seere ikke kan interagere med serien kommer vi igennem hans spørgsmål tættere på. Han spørger, så og sige for os.

Humoren er stadig en stor del af serien og også af dette afsnit. Her træder det bare mere i baggrunden og det klæder serien rigtig godt synes jeg. Det er stadig vigtigt og helt klart også meget til stede, bare på en lidt mere afdæmpet måde.

Cinematografien har også ændret sig igennem sæsonerne, her i 8. sæson er den blevet mørkere. Det er afsnittet et godt eksempel på.
Det er som sagt mørkere og farverne er mere afdæmpede, det hele er filmet noget mere thrilleragtigt. I flashbacksne er lyset anderleders og farverne er lysere og hele cinematografien er mere diffus.

Vejret bliver også aktivt brugt ligesom i mange kriminal thrillerfilm. Brugen af vejret minder ret meget om Se7en.

Meget af afsnittet der foregår i “nutid” foregår på hver sin side af et skrivebord. Det kan virke knap så thrilleragtigt, men fungerer faktisk rigtig godt og for mig til at tænke på The Social Network.
De to David Fincher film jeg nævner er begge to fantastiske film og jeg tror aldrig en tv-serie vil kunne leve op til sådanne film. Det er kun for at give et bedre billede af hvordan afsnittet er lavet og hvad det handler om. Det er dog rigtig modigt at folkene bag House tør at sigte højt og lave ændringer så sent i serien.

The Inside Job

Jeg ved ikke meget om finans, det har aldrig rigtig interesseret mig og jeg har aldrig følt et stort behov for at vide mere om det.

Det ændrede sig dog da det vi idag kender som finanskrisen indtraf. I perioden lige efter kunne man ikke undgå at høre om finans, finanspolitik osv.
Alle nyhedsmedier fortalte og prøvede at forklare hvad der var sket, hvordan det var sket og hvorfor.
Jeg som så mange andre så til med lige dele forvirring og forargelse.

Hele finansområdet er mere komplekst og globalt end de fleste havde forstillet sig.

I nyhedsmedier fik vi at vide at det var problemer i den amerikanske finanssektor som havde skabt den største finansielle krise siden den amerikanske depression.
Jeg forstod aldrig helt præcist hvad der var sket, jeg må ærligt indrømme at jeg stadig ikke helt har styr på hvordan det gik til.

Sidste år (2010) udkom den amerikanske film “The Inside Job” Filmen gik senere hen og vandt en Oscar for bedste dokumentarfilm.
Filmen prøver at undersøge og forklare præcis hvad der skabte finanskrisen i USA og derved resten af verden.
Filmen forklarer ikke bare hvad der skabte finanskrisen i USA, men også hvad der ligger til grund for at det overhovedet kunne ske og hvorfor at der ikke blev gjort noget for at stoppe det i tide.

Filmen er en klassisk undersøgende dokumentarfilm som dem vi kender fra nyhedsindslag og fjernsyn generalt.

Filmen er rigtig flot især i sin blu-ray udgave med rigtig flotte billeder af skyskraberne i New York.
Vigtigere giver den også et rigtig godt indblik dens emne og forklarer alting grundigt uden at det bliver for belærende.

Der er rigtig mange interviews uden at man nogensinde ser intervieweren, hvad man også kalder talking heads.

Filmen starter med en slags rammehistorie der handler om Islands store økonomiske opsving og følgende kollaps, et kollaps der skete før selve finanskrisen og næsten ruinerede den Islandske stat.

Rammehistorien fortæller hvordan kæmpe investeringer fra private bankmænd og deregulering fra statens side endte katastrofalt for den islandske befolkning.

Historien fungerer som et spejl på situationen i USA. Selvom USA og Island er meget forskellige lande er der mange ligheder mellem begge finanskriser.

Først efter ramme historien starter filmen rigtigt og bliver ved indtil den har undersøgt næsten alle aspekter af den amerikanske økonomis krise.

Matt Damons stemme er brugt som fortæller. For mig et lidt mærkeligt valg, men det fungerer fint og man tænker ikke videre over det efter de første par minutter.
De mange talking heads er fra begge sider af sagen, hvis der overhovedet er to sider i en sag som denne.
Der er folk fra bankverdenen og forskellige regeringer. Der er folk fra de store bankfirmaer der var med til at starte krisen og folk hvis job det var at regulere sektoren.
Behandlingen virker rimelig fair, selvom det som altid er svært at sige.

Intervieweren virker som om han har den samme blanding af forvirring og vrede som de fleste andre “normale” mennesker fik pga. krisen. Samtidig virker han også meget vidende og ingen slipper afsted med at tale udenom eller sige noget direkte forkert. Alle interviewsne virker også rimelig fair og alle får lov til at tale ud.

Interviewsne svinger fra højtprofilerede personer så som, den tidligere guvenør fra New York, Elliot Spitzer, til det noget mindre glamourøse. Der er f.eks. et interview med en bordelmutter.

Filmen er delt ind i dele som dækker tidsperioder, så man får et godt indblik i hvad der er sket og hvordan det udviklede sig som det gjorde.

Der er også gode grafiske fremstillinger der forklarer hvordan de forskellige lån og finanstricks virker.

Jeg mener helt klart Inside Job fortjente sin Oscar.
Det er en vigtig film især i den tid vi lever i, men endnu vigtigere er det en god film der kompetent beskæftiger sig med og forklarer sit emne.

Jeg blev efterladt mere vred og chokeret efter jeg havde set filmen, men til forskel fra før ved jeg nu hvorfor.