Thursday 15 February, 2018

For this final session of the game log, I wasn't really able to come up with any new meaningful reflection. But I did have some musings about underdog character and characters perceived as evil in general. I haven't consciously thought about about it before, and I am lacking examples for that reason, but I wonder what the feelings are towards those types of characters both evil and good. Its something I will probably be cognizant of in stories going future because of it. Last time I had left off with a question about the attachment people may or may not feel towards these characters in this form of entertainment, and one of the first things I did today was look at the captain listings to decide which one to go after. I was quite close to an upgrade I wanted so I figured I would grab that really quick. My immediate thought was to make sure Ratbag was not implicated in any power struggles, and then because he was I went after the opposing captain first. Which is what brought up the musing on the underdog earlier, he is clearly defined as an underdog character, "evil", and he is also the comic relief.A well done comic relief character I might add, which I think is why I enjoy that character more than the others introduced so far. I'm pretty sure he can't die outside of what is probably going to be a main story mission down the line, but the fact that it was my first instinct to check that out was interesting. (not a huge fan of Gollum, heresy I know.)

writing this also makes me reflect on stories that made me feel something in a game context, and I realized most of the games I play are not very memorable to me, although it doesn't help that my memory is abysmal in general. I know it is possible to make characters and stories that have an impact, the most memorable for me are actually short stories nestled within Lost Odyssey, but games themselves that I can think of are probably Final Fantasy 9 and Dragon Age: Origins. Which I realize are my favorite games for other reasons, so maybe that is a bias or rose tinted spectacles. Either way, I wish I had more time with this game in particular for these logs, I'm sure I will have some interesting things to say once I've beaten the campaign. (Sorry this one ended up being more stream of consciousness than I meant it to be! Gotta go deal with some things at work else I would revise it a bit.)

Great job on these gamelogs! You take these gamelogs as opportunity to explore several interesting topics, such as how tropes in Shadow of Mordor’s design (giant open worlds, repetitive encounters etc) are utilitarian and how much players tend to identify with game characters. Exploring the moral implications of utilitarian game design and consumer patterns, such as player’s who can only afford one game a year, would be an interesting topic to explore further in your OPA if you so choose.