日本游戏与美国游戏的对比clash of the cultures.docx

1、日本游戏与美国游戏的对比clash of the culturesby Kurt Kalata, 01.18.2007 he United States of America is the source of a huge number of modern inventions - the phonograph, the telephone, the computer, and many, many others. And in many cases, people from other nations have added and improved upon the initial conc

2、ept, vastly expanding the horizon for each of these technologies. The same applies to video gaming. Though electronic gaming was born in America, todays industry is supported by publishers from across the globe. Still, gaming is largely dominated by just two forces: America, the creator, and Japan,

3、the nation that saved console gaming in the mid 80s. Creating a game requires more than just blood, sweat and tears. Every area of a game is heavily influenced by the culture that produced it, whether it be the visuals, the musical scoring, or even important aspects of the gameplay. Both American an

4、d Japanese cultures are very accepting of foreign ideas, but they tend to twist them around to suit their own tastes. Japanese designers watched American action movies, added in some over-the-top craziness and came up with Metal Gear Solid. Americans saw 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 and create

5、d similar but darker games like Jak and Daxter. New ideas are always being bounced around, warped, and remade, creating concepts that are both uniquely tailored to the local culture while still maintaining a feeling of familiarity. But why do gamers in each of these markets like the games that they

6、do? Why are American sales charts dominated by the likes of big, burly men with guns while the Japanese flock towards fanciful RPGs? Through exploration, research and discussion, weve stumbled onto some intriguing answers. Not all of these are proven, scientific theories, but they may offer some ins

7、ight as to why, for instance, the Xbox 360 lingers unsold on Japanese shelves. FREEDOM Americans are very big on personal freedom, which give a greater sense of individuality. Americans all have their own political or religious beliefs, and defend them vigorously. Americans love their cars, because

8、it affords us opportunities for independence that public transportation cant afford. Americans love commercial competition, because it feeds capitalism and innovation. America is a country that fought for its independence primarily to grant these kind of freedoms, a nation famous for its frontier me

9、ntality. Naturally, Americans love freedom in their games, too. Metal Gear Solid 3s fixed camera angles drew ire from many gamers. I think that most Western games are made for the audience, whereas many Japanese games are made to invite the player into the designers world, says James Clarendon of Re

10、d Fly Studios, who previously worked on Ion Storm titles like Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows. This philosophy shines through in practically every area of game design. For instance, camera control tends to be handled very differently in American and Japanese games. Many Japanese tit

11、les fix the camera for a better cinematic presentation, while good Western titles allow the player to look around the environment for better gameplay, says Clarendon. Popular games like Grand Theft Auto, Splinter Cell and Ratchet and Clank offer full camera control. Compare this to various Japanese

12、games, which tend to use established camera angles. The Japanese developed Devil May Cry games never let the gamer fiddle with the viewpoint. Dynasty Warriors, one of Japans most popular action series, only let the gamer re-center the camera (although this changed in the recent Samurai Warriors 2).

13、Many critics complained about the lack of a free camera in Metal Gear Solid 3, prompting Konami to add it in the Substinence directors cut. All of the Devil May Cry games used fixed camera angles. Why the limitations? Motion sickness, for one - a prevalent affliction amongst the Japanese. But equall

14、y significant is the fact that a limited camera allows the developer to more careful control the users experience. Most Japanese games limit your interaction with the world. They can get away with more fixed cinematic style cameras where the games internal director is in control, says Kane Shin, als

15、o of Red Fly Studios. This may be a relic of the retro gaming mentality - in 2D retro games you typically see the entire relevant playing field onscreen at the same time. Game-design wise, this simplifies the process of making a fun game by fixing what the user will have to deal with. Western games

16、have typically favored being able to interact with the world at all angles. Hiroyuki Kobayashi, producer of Resident Evil 4, as well as the original Devil May Cry, agrees. In general, Japanese development teams want to make sure the user experiences the game they have envisioned. To make sure the pl

17、ayer sees what the developer wants them to experience, the fixed camera angles are more common. If the fixed camera angles are done right, the player shouldnt feel the need to constantly move the camera around, and thats part of the challenge of designing the game. Keiji Inafunes action title seems

18、aimed towards the Western audience. Keiji Inafune, producer of Dead Rising and Lost Planet, and long time employee at Capcom, elaborates further. The Japanese dont really feel the need to control the camera. For instance, Japanese gamers playing Lost Planet at Tokyo Game Show sometimes had trouble c

19、ontrolling the camera, and it was clear to me that they are simply not acclimated to this sort of control. In traditional Japanese games, such as a 2D side-scroller or an RPG, there is absolutely no need to move the camera whatsoever. Japanese people, who prefer to have a very focused idea of what m

20、ust done, prefer this way of doing things because they can focus on the actual game play. Western audiences, I feel, are much better at multitasking, and adapt to the freedom and requirements of a user controlled camera much better than Japanese gamers.The difference in culture also manifests in the

21、 handling of games saves. Many Western games implement a save any time mechanic, allowing gamers to create their own checkpoints. On the other hand, many Japanese games tend to use save points at predetermined spots. This particular issue is, in part, a holdover from the setbacks of older technology

22、. Many Japanese games were on cartridges, which didnt have nearly enough memory to save all relevant data at once. Many Western designers began designing on personal computers, which offered much more memory. Its only been within the past generation of video gaming that consoles have had enough to s

23、pace to allow precise game saving, yet the Japanese tradition of save points continues. I think Western developers, who are used to PC development with much larger amounts of RAM and persistent storage, aim to architect their games such that they can save them anywhere and reload them, says Clarendo

24、n. Primarily this feature is for the players, and we see Western developers writing titles to accommodate the audience. Shin offers a similar explanation. Being able to save anytime, anywhere is a pain in the butt to implement, and if your audience doesnt expect it, then you really dont want to supp

25、ort it, so maybe the Westerners do it as a throwback to the expectations of evolving PC gamers. Dead Rising is another game from Keiji Inafune that draws from elements of Western game design, while implementing some Japanese philosophies. Inafune explains the Japanese persepctive. American designers

26、 do not view the save system as part of the gameplay experience. In Japan, the save system is viewed as part of the game. In previous generations, designers took what should have been a negative for the game due to technical limitations and turned it into a gameplay positive. For instance, in Reside

27、nt Evil, part of what makes the game fun is knowing there might be a zombie between you and the save room. It adds tension to the encounters. If you could save anywhere in Resident Evil, it would not be the same game. Manipulating the save system is one of the many details that Japanese designers ta

28、ke very seriously, he adds. For instance, with Dead Rising, Japanese gamers would be turned off by the save anywhere approach. They would feel that the game is not challenging, that it isnt really a game. Knowing your status, what kind of weapon you have or how far away the restroom save point is in

29、tegral to the tension and fun of Dead Rising. Some people understand this and enjoy it, others do not. Harvest Moon is essentially an RPG-lite, where you gain gold by raising crops instead of bashing monsters. The Western focus on personal freedom has given birth to entire genres. One of the earlies

30、t genres to put players in full control was the God game, made popular by the likes of Populous and Sim City. Both of these games allow players to take on the role of an omnipotent being who could mold the land to their whim. Although the gameplay was carefully balanced to ensure there was some chal

31、lenge, these games focus on the player building a unique experience for him or herself. Sim City in particular was quite popular in Japan, where it was turned into one of the first titles for Nintendos Super Famicom (Super NES). Creator Will Wright has expanded the series into hugely successful spin

32、-offs like The Sims, while the Japanese have spun it into more niche titles like Natsumes Harvest Moon. Its easy to see why the Japanese might enjoy a farming game - the nation has a strong agrarian tradition. But Harvest Moon involves the same concepts of nurturing and caring that made the Tamagotchi so popular. Likewise, this could be one reason for the national obsession with role playing games where gamers put in hours of hard work to level up their characters. Rather than reaping a bountiful harvest as their reward, however, a gamer would have a max le