Re:Nakatomi Space
by jl6 on Saturday October 21, 2023 @02:43AM
(#37964643)
Games are unlike films because in a game, players have agency that separates them from the characters they play. In a film, characters interact only with the in-universe architects and can only subvert the intentions of those architects, not those of the author. But in a game, the player is not the character. The player can make out-of-universe choices too, and can subvert the intentions of the architects (developers) of the game.
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Uh, yeah, and those are all reasons to reject the conclusion that games (like Deus Ex) merely offer second-rate "illusory" Nakatomi Spaces compared to movies.
A human deciding to pile crates and sneak in through a ceiling window--even in a game--is a more authentic subversion of plans than reading a a tale where the author dictates the fixed story.
Beyond that, the freedom to glitch/hack/mod the game merely raises the ceiling, it does not lower the floor.
I don’t think it is all that subversive to use a route that the developer built for that purpose.
Then it is even less so when it is a route a screenwriter or author placed as the only possible route that could ever be taken for all time.