BioShock designer Ken Levine says for better or worse, violence as a story device has been used since "the dawn of narrative."
In the wake of the December Newtown, Conn. shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, Ken Levine has responded to the ongoing violence in games discussion. Speaking with NPR's radio program, Levine said violence being used as a narrative device is nothing new.
"Violence, for better or for worse, is#133;going back to the dawn of narrative, is a part of the story teller's toolkit," Levine said.
Levine then brought up an example of his childhood, explaining that he had a tough time making friends growing up and so he spent a lot of time playing Dungeons & Dragons. At the time, this game was linked to murders and suicides, though Levine said it did not have a negative effect on him.
"I think there's a couple questions here. I remember when I was a kid; I was not a very popular kid. I was a nerdy, little kid. And I didn't have friends because I wasn't very good at socializing," Levine said. "And I found Dungeons & Dragons and if you remember, back in the 70s there was this big human cry about Dungeons and Dragons; kids were going off and killing themselves and disappearing into caves. And that happened with comic books and that happened with rock and roll music."
Interviewer Tom Ashbrook then interjected, pointing out that in the case of the Sandy Hook shooting, the loss of life was immediate and overwhelming to the world at large. Levine responded to this, saying for him, games were a shield, in a way, from violence.
"My point is, for me personally, games were a way around being 'that kid.' I'm not speaking as a scientist here; we can argue the science, but I'm#133; not the best guy to do that," Levine said.
"I think the other point is they call them first-person shooters; F-P-S. There's the F-P, the first-person aspect of being, inhabiting a character's role," he added. "And then there's the S part, which is the shooter part. And I'm not sure that they're necessarily one in the same."
BioShock designer Ken Levine says for better or worse, violence as a story device has been used since "the dawn of narrative."
In the wake of the December Newtown, Conn. shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, Ken Levine has responded to the ongoing violence in games discussion. Speaking with NPR's radio program, Levine said violence being used as a narrative device is nothing new.
"Violence, for better or for worse, is#146;going back to the dawn of narrative, is a part of the story teller's toolkit," Levine said.
Levine then brought up an example of his childhood, explaining that he had a tough time making friends growing up and so he spent a lot of time playing Dungeons & Dragons. At the time, this game was linked to murders and suicides, though Levine said it did not have a negative effect on him.
"I think there's a couple questions here. I remember when I was a kid; I was not a very popular kid. I was a nerdy, little kid. And I didn't have friends because I wasn't very good at socializing," Levine said. "And I found Dungeons & Dragons and if you remember, back in the 70s there was this big human cry about Dungeons and Dragons; kids were going off and killing themselves and disappearing into caves. And that happened with comic books and that happened with rock and roll music."
Interviewer Tom Ashbrook then interjected, pointing out that in the case of the Sandy Hook shooting, the loss of life was immediate and overwhelming to the world at large. Levine responded to this, saying for him, games were a shield, in a way, from violence.
"My point is, for me personally, games were a way around being 'that kid.' I'm not speaking as a scientist here; we can argue the science, but I'm#146; not the best guy to do that," Levine said.
"I think the other point is they call them first-person shooters; F-P-S. There's the F-P, the first-person aspect of being, inhabiting a character's role," he added. "And then there's the S part, which is the shooter part. And I'm not sure that they're necessarily one in the same."
onPause writes:
Ken Levine, the creative director of BioShock Infinite and Irrational Games, went on the NPR radio program On Point Radio this morning and the Audio Recording made its way onto the Internet.
BioShock Infinite takes the unorthodox step of being entirely unconnected with its predecessors, and is instantly better for it. A fresh experience from the off, it tells the tale of ex-Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, knee-deep in debt and forced to travel to the floating city-state of Columbia to collect an unknown girl. By immediately giving you a shady objective, Irrational set Booker as a man who will save his own arse despite any moral obligations, and that makes him instantly teresting than your average hero.
Columbia is a well-known independent state ran by the apparently prophetic Father Zachary Comstock, with a troubled past involving the Boxer Rebellions and an emancipation from the United States. Dumped at a lighthouse that will be familiar to BioShock veterans (although Ken Levine assures us its not that lighthouse), Booker quickly enters Columbia and this is where the story really kicks off.
Ken Levine is a champion of this medium and, twice now, he has profoundly changed the way we view and discuss plot in video games. He understands the interactive component of the medium so well, his incorporation of it into his stories is foremost in his telling, and are deft to say the least.
We all knew the PC version of BioShock Infinite would be a unique experience when Ken Levine said it would not be a typical PC port. The game recommends 30GB of installation space on your hard drive, a GPU that Irrational suggests should be an ATI Radeon 6950 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 or above, and at least 4GB of RAM. That being said, we have a video that you should be running on 1080p that shows off some of the more beautiful scenes and sets of one of the most visually pleasing games weve ever seen.
"When Ken Levine speaks, people listen. After getting a flurry of high praise reviews, the creative director and co-founder of Irrational games can say that he is chiefly responsible for two of the greatest games in this console generation. " | Exploion.com
"When Ken Levine speaks, people listen. After getting a flurry of high praise reviews, the creative director and co-founder of Irrational games can say that he is chiefly responsible for two of the greatest games in this console generation. " | Exploion.com
