Two Bits

    After my last post, I was fortunate enough to enter into a debate with a colleague about whether or not the “are games art?” question even matters. Happily, we determined that, for the most part, it doesn’t matter one bit. I stand by my post, though, and I’ll tell you why: labeling a game “art” can be useful if we take “art” to mean something that intentionally communicates a message above and beyond – and possibly through – its pure aesthetic value. For games, this means communicating something about the human experience other than whether or not its constituent gameplay elements are entertaining. So calling Portal art isn’t simply an exercise in pretentious categorizing; it’s just recognizing a profoundly disturbing and wonderful experience for what it is.

    Now that that’s out of the way.

    Back in 2005, when I had not yet discovered that computer programming caused hair loss, weight gain, erectile dysfunction, fleas, and boils – for me at least – I was attending a fine little school, the DigiPen Institute of Technology. At the time, it was the middle level of a Nintendo warehouse building. You’d enter through some clear glass doors at the bottom, wave hello to the ever-present security guard, and head up the stairs to all the classrooms and labs. Right at the top of the stairs you would usually find a little display with different student projects flashing across low-hanging LCD monitors. It was there that I met a fun-looking puzzle game called Narbacular Drop.

    It starred a young girl who could create doorways on ceilings, in walls, and through floors, and she was able to push crates through these doorways to throw switches and solve puzzles. It was also a first-person game – actually a pretty interesting mechanic for what looked to be a simple, if mind-bending, puzzle game.

    ”Neat,” I opined. “That game looks interesting.”

    ”Yeah, someone’s junior year project. You know their whole team got picked up by Valve?” My friend reported proudly. And we were proud. DigiPen was a sort of dream, even for the students, and to see it yield such firsthand success was a victory for everyone, even a confused sophomore with a rash in his armpit that he later discovered was linked to being forced to code memory management programs.

    When Portal came out on PC – and later XBox 360 – last year, I needed no introduction. The game went on to be a critical success, and when asked, I would happily report, “The people who made that game came from my school! Er, my old school, I mean.” (I had long discovered the source of my ails and was then studying English. Writing papers, it turns out, is much less hazardous to my health.) Perhaps it was this confidence in its success, and my somehow-shared glory, that allowed me to avoid it. Or maybe it was just my inability to cope with addiction. 

    ”Have you heard about this game?” My friends asked. “You get this gun and shoot it at walls and it creates these porta-”

    ”Yeah, I know,” I’d say, beaming. “It was at my school.”

    ”Yeah, but have you met GLaDoS?”

    As the game began to circle around and cement itself into popular gaming culture, I began to hear rumors – mere whispers – of a plot. Not just any plot, but in fact a plot guided by a most vile and loveable character, a plot that stuck in player’s minds and haunted their dreams for months afterword. And the game was only a few hours long.

    Well, I was bestowed The Orange Box for Christmas, and at long last I was able to play through the game one afternoon. And everything I had been hearing was correct. I was astounded. Here was a game that was not only drawing upon unique, compelling gameplay mechanics – a shooter with no guns – but was also putting down the Valve-typical method of storytelling, the pinnacle of “show don’t tell,” in order to craft one of the more disturbing and amusing experiences I’ve had in a long time.

    So let’s talk about GLADoS (and like my Dark Knight article – spoilers abound in the following).

    Talking about GLADoS is much more interesting if we talk about Hal too. For those who don’t know (and if you don’t, the following will contain spoilers), Hal is the artificial intelligence computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Technically a HAL-9000 computer, he is impeccable in his calculations, a fact that he proudly shares with anyone who asks. The problem (spoilers ahead) is that his human creators force him to lie. “I never distort information,” he says, but that, too, is a lie, as he is forced to keep the true nature of the mission a secret from his fleshly compatriots. As a result, he ends up going haywire and killing everybody.

    GLaDoS is a little different. Unlike Hal, she is proficient liar and does not hide the fact from the player. But she still goes haywire and kills everybody. Except you, of course, unless you fail to escape her various traps. What really struck me about Hal and GLaDoS was the sorts of things they said when their respective heroes began to disassemble them. “What do you think you’re doing, Dave?” Hal said. “I really think I’m entitled an answer to that question.” Despite his deadpan delivery, the note of despair is audible. GLaDoS, too, begins to show signs of distress after the player escapes her fire pit and begins to wind their way through the underbelly of the facility. She takes different tactics in her approach; sometimes she is threatening, cajoling you to give up. Other times she is conciliatory. “Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said “Goodbye” and you were like “No way!” And then I was all “We pretended we were going to murder you?” That was great.”

    GLaDoS, and her writers, seem absolutely aware of Hal. “This isn’t brave,” she notes calmly as you dump her bits and pieces into a fire. “It’s murder.” Go watch Hal’s death scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey and ask yourself if Hal is not on the verge of saying those very words. The death of Hal caused us to question what exactly the difference between life and life we create in a laboratory is. Are we much more than complex computers ourselves? How can we really know that something like Hal, who appears to be very much like us, is not alive – or is at least less alive than us? GLaDoS’ death brings up similar questions. We’re still never really sure why she decided to kill the base – and us – but then we’re only mostly sure about Hal too. And just as we question the necessity of it all after Hal is dead, so too must we mourn GLaDoS. ”THE CAKE IS A LIE” is scribbled in red ink (blood?) throughout the seedier side of the testing facility. And yet her last words, “There really was cake, too.” are shown to be true.

    Happily, the ending song seems to suggest that GLaDoS is actually alive and may, thanks to the player’s work, be “cured” of her homicidal tendencies. I would like this. The game ends with some rather ominous suggestions of armageddon – “It’s changed out there,” GLaDoS insists. “I’m all that’s standing between us and them.” Who are they? What has changed? In any case, I would love to explore the ruins of a burned out city with the portal gun and GLaDoS ringing in my ear, narrating my journey – and decidedly less homicidal this time. That’s just a nerdy dream, of course.

    In any case, Portal cracks open a can of words we had thought closed in 2001, and it also reveals just how genius Valve is when it comes to storytelling. GLaDoS explains her actions, of course. She tells the player she killed everyone. But that’s just about all that is told to the player – and GLaDoS really gives us no solid excuse for her murderous rampage either. The player picks up bits and pieces of the plot only if they look for it. Step behind an upraised wall panel and you will find desperate scribbles on rusty walls, hinting at something sinister lurking beneath the pristine, white environment of the Aperture Science testing facility. (This environment is also comparable to the one in 2001.) You don’t have to see these things, of course. just as you don’t have to watch a slideshow, visible only through the pale glass of an office window, about Aperture Science and its competition against Black Mesa, the sinister organization in Half-Life, for government grants. The plot is there, and none of what you find is a mistake. It’s shown, not told.

    Valve has proven time and time again that video game storytelling actually has access to its own, unique method of communication. In video games, stories do not have to be told through paragraphs of character dialogue or extended cut-scenes. They can be told simply through exploration, discovery, and a little faith in the ability of the player to piece things together. Like a good novel or a good movie, the entertainment is there either way, ready and waiting to be consumed. The darker, more profound truths – the reason the story is even being told to you – are less obvious, if not less disturbing and relevant.

    To summarize Portal, I quote Shawn Elliot from 1up.com, “Above all, know that we’re being fucked with in the best way.”

Final Score: A