Addicted to Structural Coherence in the World of Concern

So I'm facing some kind of mutant pig, the ones with their hind legs on backwards - probably a result of the radiation poisoning. I have a gun in my hand, pointed at this thing, but as I pull the trigger all I can hear is a pathetic click: no bullet comes out. All the while this beast is charging at me. I'm not quite sure what to do now - do I try to reload my jammed gun or get out my pathetically weak pistol and try to take it down that way. I decide on the first option, and as I do I see the mutant animal, along with all the rolling hills of the background, merge into one out-of-focus blur. The only thing I can see is my hands as they release the jammed bullet, replace the magazine and cock the weapon.

STALKER - Clear Sky is one of those games that goes to painstaking lengths to make the virtual world of gameplay one that is as structurally coherent as possible. When I am in combat, the only elements that make up my world of concern are the enemy, my surroundings and my weapon. By jamming the my gun, right when I need it most, it seems makes the game oh-so-realistic (surely guns malfunction every now and then), and thus acts as part of that feedback loop which keeps me immersed in the game.

I only really noticed these features when I went back to one of my old PS1 games - where it became so glaringly obvious that I was playing a videogame. After becoming accustomed to these types of structurally coherent features that are simply not there in earlier games I found it more difficult to become one with the game environment. The realism was stripped away, and with it was my enjoyment of the game - I was addicted.

But all is not lost! This was true for when I played Medal of Honor: Frontline, a first person shooter which, at the time, was designed to be as realistic as possible. When playing the fantastically-awesome piece of amazingness that is Klonoa: Door to the Phantomile, a platform game drawn in Manga-style which follows a 'dream traveller' through various magical lands, I couldn't care less about its realism. It is precisely because it does not try to be real, i.e. reproduce the real world, that it becomes realistic, according to the world of concern in which you operate. Everything in it is make-believe, so it is easier to believe in a world of totally different, rather than a half-baked version of real-life.

Peter Ruddell