Evolving language

I was just thinking about language, the current trend for people to use apostrophe's to make plural's, and the nature of the study of physics.

I've been quite annoyed about the apostrophe problem, because I'm a bit of a grammar purist; I'm not entirely alone, either. I mean, I know language changes, and languages that cease to change are probably dead. But the apostrophe thing irritates me because it introduces yet another complication into English that just seems entirely unnecessary. And it's not like it makes it easier; you have to type an extra character to get it wrong.

Non-English speaker: So I add "s" to make plural.
English speaker: Yes.
Non-English speaker: And I use " 's " to make possessive.
English speaker: Yes.
Non-English speaker: But apostrophes also indicate contractions.
English speaker: Yes, you're really getting the hang of this.
Non-English speaker: And I use "s" on the end of a verb to make a form of the present tense.
English speaker: Yes, like in "he sees the dog." Very good.
Non-English speaker: So what's this I see on signs: "Dog's for sale" Does this mean "Dog is for sale" or "Dog owns for sale"?
English speaker: Well, some people use the apostrophe to indicate plural.
Non-English speaker: So the apostrophe now has three meanings, and which one it is can only be deduced from context.
English speaker: Yes.
Non-English speaker: So what about this. I saw this in a chat room: "He really need's to figure it out."
English speaker: Well, I guess there are four meanings. That's just a use that indicates that type of present tense.
Non-English speaker: So you have two ways to indicate plural and that form of present tense, and they look identical to possessive and contraction, and require a context check to figure out.
English speaker: Yes.

Wow. What a mess we've made of the " 's ." It's so pervasive, that I find myself typing it. But I'm picky, so I backspace and fix it. But I don't expect people who aren't that picky to spend the time to do that, so it's changing in the language. The purists rail, and the... relaxists say, "an unchanging language is dead. Just let it go."

Yesterday, it occurred to me while riding the Orange line Metro to work, that at some point, language must not have evolved far enough to have the words "grammar" or "verb." This struck me as being similar to life before evolving conscious thought. The language was probably complex, and able to communicate many things, but not describe itself. Before evolving the structures to describe its own structures, it still had structures. :)

So I'd say that the tools we use to describe language are, in a sense, separate from the language itself. They are only a means to describe how the language functions. Hence grammar rules don't define the language, they describe it. This is how physics works. The physical world does not "obey the laws of physics"; it is described by them. Sometimes physicists find that their "laws" are incorrect, and need to be adjusted. I would say that the "laws of grammar" must be the same.

The difference is that the ways in which the physical world behaves aren't actually changing with time. So we can just toss old physics "laws" and get new ones based on new observations. There's no one to blame, and it's not even a change in the world. Physicists just had it wrong before, and are making "progress" toward a better understanding of the universe.

What makes changes in language annoying is that language is something we've made ourselves. We should be able to make language adhere to the rules. So the final question is: Do we decide to bend language to our will, and force it to adhere to the rules we want? Or do we let it evolve, and continue to revise our description of the system by changing the "rules" of grammar?

Well, it looks like the German speaking peoples of the world are taking the first tack. In 1996, the German-speaking nations of the world (except Luxembourg) ratified a spelling reform to simplify their language. As I tend to be a purist, I applaud them. But I must say, in light of the preceding discussion, I no longer feel it is inherently wrong to just let language change and update the rule's accordingly.

Lumines != Rez

Well, as a longtime fan of Rez, I was eagerly awaiting Lumines, the next game from Tetsuya Mizuguchi. His UGA studio having been closed by Sega, he reopened a new studio called "Q? Entertainment", with much of the same staff. This studio's first published work is Lumines, for the PSP.

At first, I was entirely underwhelmed. It's a nice puzzle game, well produced, and about as original a falling-block game can get. But, remembering how subtly Rez sucked me in, I continued to play it.

About 20 minutes later, I was hooked. The way it blends music and gameplay is subtle and brilliant. For the casual reader, stop here and go try the game.

Rating - 5 stars, out of 5.

---------

Those wanting more detail about how Lumines works its magic, read on.

As in Rez, all game actions are timed to only occur in time with the music. When you move a piece left or right or land a piece, the sound it makes is delayed to occur on the next 16th note in the music. It might check nearest 32nd note, or triplets, but you get the idea. If you hold the pad left or right to move the piece quickly, you get a different sound.

The goal is to make 2x2 squares of color. In an ordinary game, these would disappear immediately. But Lumines has a vertical "trace" that sweeps across the playfield ever eight measures in the music. The trace marks any 2x2s found for deletion at the end of the sweep. So, when you get 4 or more squares in one sweep, the bonus sound plays at an 8-measure boundary.

Every 3 levels, the background graphics, music, board graphics, and sounds change. The backgrounds animate in time with the music as well.

What makes the game subtle is that none of these effects are terribly blatant. So they are able to affect your perception of the gameplay almost (but not quite) subliminally.

In this article, I have ignored how the game actually plays. It's a good, solid puzzle game. But I recommend it for the experience.

Manhunt

Just finished Manhunt. For reference, I only played it on Hardcore, so I had no radar. I played the PS2 version.

As sort of an overview, I liked the game. It presented a challenge, was atmospheric, and had excellent voicing. I didn't like the basic premise of getting more style points for more gruesome murders, but this is an aspect of the game I ignored; more on this later.

The story is that you are a criminal to be put to death for a crime, when Mr. Starkweather rescues you (unbeknownst to the public) so he can film you murdering people. It is Starkweather's running commentary that motivates your actions.

This is a basic stealth game, where you hide from your opponents until the opportunity arises to kill them. The fundamental play mechanic involves hiding in a shadow reasonably far from your opponents, hitting the wall to attact them, then picking them off one-by-one. As I was playing without the radar, this generated a goodly amount of suspense. The AI didn't always produce exactly the same behaviors, so it didn't feel entirely scripted, either.

There isn't a numeric score, as your performances are rated per-level on a 1-5 start basis. Well, it might be 0-5 star, but I never got less than 2, so it's hard to say. This rating is based on a combination of the time it took to finish a level, and the style rating. The style rating is based on how gruesome your murders were. When you sneak up on someone, you can hold the "kill" button while standing behind your opponent to make the kill more gruesome.

The reason this is rewarded is because of the game's premise: you murder to satisfy Mr. Starkweather's bloodlust. As I had an adversarial relationship with him from the start, I personally felt impelled to kill as quickly as possible, to reduce the satisfaction he got from it. Hehehe. I'm not sure if the game's designers intended you to buy into the system early on, then become disgusted with Starkweather over time. That would make sense, and fits with the increasing level of perverse comments he makes about your kills.

For being a game that trades heavily on its level of gore, it has quite subtle and slow-moving game mechanics. This is interesting aspect of the game, as other games in the past that have traded on gore were rather simple games, in the interest of allowing players to easily take part in the blood sport. A good example of this is Mortal Kombat II. I found its core fighting engine to be rather simplistic when compared with Street Fighter II, a concurrent fighting game. It seemed half the fun of MKII was the execution of Fatalities and the level of blood generated from normal hits.

The atmosphere was very dark and grim, as most locations in the game are run-down industrial city-areas, with few or no signs of civilization. This was brought across well through level design, texturing, and a grainy renderer. I've seen grainy renderers before, but this one really has an authentic look about it.

The voice acting was superb. The bad guys wander around and say things that real people would say in such a situation. Like, "Hey, I ain't goin in there without at least some moral support..." or "You go first, I'll cover you." "But I went last time. Now it's your turn!" The characters had so many quips in their sound banks that it took around a half-hour of gameplay before repeated sayings were common. Some of the quips were downright hilarious; this is the only element of the game that lightens the otherwise disastrously grim mood.

The voices contribute to the general quality of the AI. As this game has no platformer elements (the player can't even jump), there are very few interactions in the game that are not with AI characters. For a game to rely entirely upon its AI requires one of very high quality. This game certainly has that. Aside of the problem the guys can't see you more than 2 feet way if you're in a "shadow", they behave in a relatively realistic manner. Of course, a stealth game doesn't work very well without making shadows effectively darker than they really are.

The level designs were plain, but well-designed in that over the course of the game I didn't find myself bored. It would be quite easy for a game with mechanics this simple to degenerate into a very repetitive experience. As another reviewer has stated, this game has a "narrow depth." Its mechanics are simple, but they are explored fully by the level designs.

Humorous Nitpicks: As a game produced in Britain, its American feel is entirely believeable, with only the most tiny slip-ups. I will list all of them, as there weren't many. "Dammit. the lift is broken again!" Sawed-off shotguns are called "sawn-off"; probably the correct term, but never used in America. "Wanker" was written on a wall.

It must be said that this game deserves its 17+ Mature rating, and should not be in the hands of children. But I think its bad rap in the popular media is undeserved. If this game were to push a player over the edge to commiting real acts of violence, then that person had serious problems to begin with. It is my firm opinion that this game is more than a simple gorefest, and as such is not by any means an experience of pure perversion. I will give more details supporting this opinion below, but that section contains spoilers.

In summation, I recommend this game, but with hesitation. Only delve into it with the knowledge that the places you go (both literally and figuratively) will not be pleasant ones. But as an exploration of the potential depravity of some human spirits, it is quite interesting in that it involves the viewer more directly than a movie does.

Rating - 4 stars, out of 5.

The following section discusses some elements of the game in more detail, but contains spoilers. If the reader does not wish to ruin any surprises in the game, he is advised to stop reading here.








--- SPOILERS FOLLOW ---








Violence against the police is often a hot topic, as they are in general a force set up to keep order in our society. Several levels of this game require you to kill police. I felt bad about this to begin with, particularly due to their voicing. They really seemed like ordinary guys. Moreso than the previous gang members at any rate. But it turns out that the police are involved in the depravity. A person with unknown rank in the city government actually pays Mr. Starkweather to snatch death row inmates and use them to clear criminals from the city. This doesn't really help a lot, as individual cops in the game are just doing their job.

An odd thing is that once free of Starkweather, the ratings for your killings remain. I would have liked to see that aspect of the game removed once the main motivation for it is removed.

During the course of the game, I developed a deep dislike of Mr. Starkweather. He was a truly perverted character, in that watching gruesome murders was a source a major sexual satisfaction for him. This was hinted at in the early levels, but becomes more clear as time goes on. I felt a genuine sense of relief when I escaped his grasp halfway through the game; and I felt a genuine sense of dread when he recaptured me. Soon after, I began to truly hope that I would get to kill him in the end, and I was happy to do it in the most gruesome way possible as payback.

This desire for revenge partly arose from what he did to my family within the game. He tied them up, and would have one of them killed each time I was seen. A nice gameplay element in that it forces stealth, and a serious motivator in that I wanted to accomplish something Good for a change. I managed to rescue all four of them, and felt pretty good about that. A few levels later, Starkweather killed them. That made me mad; what a scumbag he was. But it fits in the game perfectly: nothing you do in the game really makes you feel good. Perhaps the only exception to this was protecting the journalist so she could report to the world on Starkweather. However, her motivations were selfish, as she was looking to make her mark in the news world to guarantee a good career.

I felt a genuine desire for revenge. When I finally passed through the last door, and found Mr. Starkweather; he was scared. He turned a gun on me: one no different that I had been against previously. I chainsawed him in the gut. His innards spilled out, he tried to hold them in. He died. The game ended. It was satisfying for only the most fleeting moment. I was left then with the emptiness that can accompany real vengeance killings. This was even matched by the end-credits music. It played some heavy metal for a while, which had a tone of rejoicing. Then halfway through the credits, the metal faded, just leaving quiet, subtle, empty sounding ambience.

The fact that he was no more than a man, able to be frightened, and easily killed was the perfect ending to the game. This is perhaps the best, and most subtle way to complete the grim picture painted. The worst serial killers, the worst despots, the worst people anywhere in our world are the same: they are only men. To feel the desire for a bloody vengeance killing showed me that aspects of these hated people reside within me as well. That was perhaps the hardest thing to take. Perhaps I have gone too far with this, but I did feel all of this during the course of the game.

Manhunt is Game Noir, and shares much with Film Noir. Because of that, I feel that it really is an accomplishment in the art of game design and production.