Contextual Analysis ~ Devil May Cry 5: 24/02/20
In this lesson, we took a look at the game, "Devil May Cry 5", which was set in an area that was based partially off of London. When analysing the game's use of semiotics, we noticed that it mainly consisted of environmental features, such as the architecture and colour scheme of many buildings and shops as well as some more fine details that are unique to London, such as the the "wait" box that are generally on the traffic lights in London, the design of the barriers, the bin designs and even down to the interior colour of the buses in London. Another thing that was quite prevalent was the mixing and matching of modern architecture and more traditional architecture, which is commonly seen in London. For example, there was a section based off of Piccadilly Circus with neon lights etc, while the roads and lamps around it had some design based off the older times in London, like the Lamps.Contextual Analysis ~ The Order 1886 & Modern Warfare 3: 25/02/20
Today, we continued with our contextual analysis of games that are either based off of London or are set in London.
The first game we looked at today was "The Order 1886" developed by Ready at Dawn Studios and published in 2016 on the PS4.
The game was set in Victorian London and immediately, the player is presented with a view over an area of London and from the architecture that's used, it very accurately represents the era this game is set in and based off of. Alongside the use of the architecture, the language used in the game is particular to the time, with the use of words such as "Bedlamite" meaning a sick or mentally ill person. There were also quite a few details regarding the residents, which very clearly portrayed the different statuses amongst the people at the time, through the residents' clothing and manner of speaking. Another little detail I noticed was the style of handwriting, which was very particular to the time when they wrote with ink and quiver. Even some of the guns in the game were accurate to the time while also having some more fancy and less realistic guns.
The game also utilised the heads up display to inform the player of what area they were entering as they progressed to make sure the player knows their whereabouts more specifically in this historical game, since the player would automatically be able to tell their somewhere in London from all the visual information they have and will be receiving throughout the game.
The second game we looked at was "Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3" developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision in 2010.
Overall, the level that we covered in Modern Warfare 3, was quite an accurate representation of London at around 2010. But that was mainly the case if the player simply glances at the larger chunks of the level, and upon further inspection, the player can see that the designer's took a little creative liberty when it came to the finer more minute details of the level. An example of this was the train that the player starts on at the beginning of the level, since when looking at the outside of the train and looking at the platform, everything looks about right, but the interior of the train itself was not in line wit the layout of the seats that are present in modern London. Another, more comical, example of this was the tube maps within the platform of the train station. Much like the rest of the level, at a glance, the map looked to be quite accurate but when looking further into it, the player can notices that the designers had a little fun with the names of the places that were on the tube map.
One other thing that stood out as an inaccurate representation was the level of variety in ethnicity within London, because throughout the level, the background characters were basically all white people, while only seeing one person of an ethnic background as a police officer at the end of the level, plus those caucasian background characters didn't have much variety amongst themselves either since they consisted of roughly 2 or 3 different skins for each gender.
From this, the main thing I feel I could take, is that I don't have to be exact when representing London as long as I get majority of the look and feel true to the city. This will in turn save me quite a large amount of time that could've possibly ended up being spent on making somewhat unnecessary details accurate.
This was our 4th game to look at and the game was "Zombi U" developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft in 2012 on the Wii U.
Straight off the bat the game starts off with a cutscene that showcases the area the player is going to be in and within this cutscene they used Shadwell Station, which is an actual train station in London. As well as this use of an actual existing station, the area was also represented and laid out quite realistically and accurately to what a normal Londoner would see on a normal day, instead of a super fancy design or really wealthy and traditional architecture that was common in the previous games we analysed.
During the actual playing of the game there were also many details that were incorporated into the design, and this attention to detail was probably due to the game being a horror game, which is slower paced than Devil May Cry 5 or Modern Warfare 3, so that means the player is much more likely to actually notice the smaller details that the player may generally not pay much attention to in a faster paced game.
Also one thing that stood out quite a lot in the game was the level of diversity regarding the demographics of London that was represented a lot more accurately than in the games we analysed prior to "Zombi U". The only game, from the batch we analysed, that I would say is close to matching the demographic representation in this game is "The Order 1886". However, because "The Order 1886" is set in Victorian London and not modern London like "Zombi U" it lacks the diversity in ethnicity amongst the population of characters when compared to "Zombi U".
Overall, "Zombi U" was the most accurate and realistic when representing the areas of London since it covered the more average areas instead of just the wealthy areas and landmarks, although it does cover the landmarks further into the game, as well. But we did find one inconsistency in the beginning of the game where the player is said to have entered Shadwel Station but when going further in to the station the platform information board indicates that the player is in Mile End Station. They possibly did this to back up the size of the station since Shadwel Station is a particularly small station, whereas Mile End Station is on the larger end. Other then that the only inconsistencies were regarding the branding of shops and a little bit of the colour scheme for certain details on police car for example, however these don't take away form the feeling that the player is in London at all.
Overall, the level that we covered in Modern Warfare 3, was quite an accurate representation of London at around 2010. But that was mainly the case if the player simply glances at the larger chunks of the level, and upon further inspection, the player can see that the designer's took a little creative liberty when it came to the finer more minute details of the level. An example of this was the train that the player starts on at the beginning of the level, since when looking at the outside of the train and looking at the platform, everything looks about right, but the interior of the train itself was not in line wit the layout of the seats that are present in modern London. Another, more comical, example of this was the tube maps within the platform of the train station. Much like the rest of the level, at a glance, the map looked to be quite accurate but when looking further into it, the player can notices that the designers had a little fun with the names of the places that were on the tube map.One other thing that stood out as an inaccurate representation was the level of variety in ethnicity within London, because throughout the level, the background characters were basically all white people, while only seeing one person of an ethnic background as a police officer at the end of the level, plus those caucasian background characters didn't have much variety amongst themselves either since they consisted of roughly 2 or 3 different skins for each gender.
From this, the main thing I feel I could take, is that I don't have to be exact when representing London as long as I get majority of the look and feel true to the city. This will in turn save me quite a large amount of time that could've possibly ended up being spent on making somewhat unnecessary details accurate.
Contextual Analysis ~ Zombi U: 26/02/20
In this lesson, we continued our contextual analysis of games that are either set in London or having sections that are based off of London.This was our 4th game to look at and the game was "Zombi U" developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft in 2012 on the Wii U.
Straight off the bat the game starts off with a cutscene that showcases the area the player is going to be in and within this cutscene they used Shadwell Station, which is an actual train station in London. As well as this use of an actual existing station, the area was also represented and laid out quite realistically and accurately to what a normal Londoner would see on a normal day, instead of a super fancy design or really wealthy and traditional architecture that was common in the previous games we analysed.
Also one thing that stood out quite a lot in the game was the level of diversity regarding the demographics of London that was represented a lot more accurately than in the games we analysed prior to "Zombi U". The only game, from the batch we analysed, that I would say is close to matching the demographic representation in this game is "The Order 1886". However, because "The Order 1886" is set in Victorian London and not modern London like "Zombi U" it lacks the diversity in ethnicity amongst the population of characters when compared to "Zombi U".
Overall, "Zombi U" was the most accurate and realistic when representing the areas of London since it covered the more average areas instead of just the wealthy areas and landmarks, although it does cover the landmarks further into the game, as well. But we did find one inconsistency in the beginning of the game where the player is said to have entered Shadwel Station but when going further in to the station the platform information board indicates that the player is in Mile End Station. They possibly did this to back up the size of the station since Shadwel Station is a particularly small station, whereas Mile End Station is on the larger end. Other then that the only inconsistencies were regarding the branding of shops and a little bit of the colour scheme for certain details on police car for example, however these don't take away form the feeling that the player is in London at all.
From this game, I'd mainly be able to make use of the thought process behind the design aspects of the game depending on the pace of game, since the pace of the game will play in to how much accurate detail would be necessary.
Comparisons of Modern London: 05/03/20
Today, we went on a trip around London to gather references of modern London for our project, as well as get comparison photos to check the contextual accuracy of the games we analysed.
When it came to the accuracy of Modern Warfare 3 semiotics of London, the building placement was proven to be quite accurate as the iconic building, Big Ben, is situated in roughly the same position as the real thing, the road side next to the buildings are also accurate to the real thing, however, when it came to the finer details like the demographics and the frequency of telephone boxes in London, they were very far off in terms of accuracy.
For Devil May Cry 5, the accuracy of certain things that the game had based off of London were very similar to the real thing, for example the replica of Piccadilly Circus in Devil May Cry, as well as the mixture of modern and traditional architecture that is seen quite frequently in modern London although not shown in the exact same area in the game as Piccadilly Circus.
In regards to Zombi U , from our contextual analysis of the game we already knew that the game was much more accurate with its semiotics of London from what we see in our day to day lives but we still decided to go deeper and get comparisons for Zombi U and real life London. And although I wasn't able to get much evidence regarding Brick Lane due to my phone dying on the trip I was still able to get a comparison for the looks the train station in Zombi U and in real Life. The picture of the barriers I took are more updated, however in other stations the barriers match what is shown in the evidence gathered from Zombi U.