Category Archives: Science Fiction in Video Games (SFVG)

Rocket League (SFVG)

2 Replies

This week my brother Matt (a sophomore here at Bowdoin) and I have had a lot of time (due to social isolation) to play some two player games.  One of our favorites has been Rocket League, “a high-powered hybrid of arcade-style soccer and vehicular mayhem with easy-to-understand controls and fluid, physics-driven competition” (according to the game’s website).  Rocket League places players in the driver seats of futuristic laser-propelled cars that can twist, turn, and even fly through the air of sleek stadiums.  The game’s flashy visuals are full of sleek curves and vibrant neons.  These visuals, combined with satisfyingly fluid and responsive controls, make for an incredibly fun and fast paced experience.

This game certainly would not be the first thing to come to mind when thinking about sci-fi video games, but many of its elements do scream a certain futuristic element.  The cars, ball, and stadiums all radiate with a future-tech glow.  The cars can reach turbo-speeds when infused with boost scattered around the arena.  The boosts can take many forms but some of the most classic forms are laser beams that jut out from the rear exhaust.  Some boosts are references to other SF titles, like the laser trails from Tron’s iconic laser bikes.  The cosmetics for wheels, paints, and car toppers also often feature sleek glowing designs and reference SF titles like Rick and Morty, Beat Saber, Portal 1 & 2, Mad Max, Fallout, Dying Light, Oddworld, Warframe, Blacklight: Retribution, Back to the Future, etc.  Even the cosmetics that aren’t references to specific SF titles still convey a strong SF vibe.  For example, a wheel selection titled “Mothership” features rubber lined by a grid of glowing green streaks.  Antenna toppers take forms like classic UFOs or the iconic green alien heads.

The arenas are often full of neons, sleek curves, and lasers and come alive with scored goals, which are often accompanied by futuristic laser-light-show explosions that reverberate through
the stadium.

Although it isn’t advertised as a SF game, Rocket League’s premise is based on future tech-infused vehicles competing in sleek, futuristic stadiums.  Because much of the appeal of Rocket League seems to come from the fluid simple controls and the vibrant futuristic visuals, it shares similarities with many of the games that fall into the Flashy Flash category of our examination.  At the same time, consistent updates have made Rocket League a much larger and more substantial game than many of the other Flashy Flash games.  If you are looking for a fun game to play with friends at home or online, Rocket League has a lot of great content beautifully packaged in a sleek, neon, futuristic design.

No Man’s Sky (SFVG)

3 Replies

No Man’s Sky was one of the most anticipated sci-fi games of all time and promises players adventure in the form of exploring the cosmos.  The point of the game, as is stated on their website, is for players to experience the freedom and excitement of “uncovering the secrets of the universe.”

The game boasts planets, lifeforms, and galaxies that are procedurally generated, making each one a unique experience to encounter.  As of now, the game boasts a staggering 18 quintillion planets for players to explore.  18 quintillion.  In case you are wondering how many zeroes that is, this is what 18 quintillion looks like numerically: 18,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s the number 18 followed by 18 zeroes.  Each planet is a unique combination of terrain, topography, vegetation, climate, temperature, atmosphere, inhabitants, etc.  Some planets are incredibly small, others have rings, others experience the heat of being near several suns, others still prove perilous due to  their incredibly mountainous planetary surfaces.  The draw of the game isthe sense of excitement that comes with exploring an essentially endless universe of novel planets and creatures.

Players take the form of a humanoid astronaut who has crash-landed on a unique planet in a unique sector of the galaxy.  Their immediate goal is to traverse the terrain of this planet and assemble enough materials to craft the components necessary to fix their crashed ship and get off the planet.  The magnitude of the game is clear right from the outset.  You are plopped down randomly and given an entire planet to explore as you see fit.  Each bit of vegetation and minerals can be harvested for different elemental materials by using your trusty mining beam ray gun.  Different planets may have traces of inhabitants or even homes that you can stumble upon. As soon as you get off planet, the true scope of the game becomes clear.  In my experience, I barely made it off my starting planet, which just happened to have an incredibly acidic atmosphere that would literally eat through the lining and life support of my space suit if exposed for too long.  I discovered new animal species, plant types, and I explored some abandoned settlements that were nestled deep in underground tunnels (away from all the acid in the air at the surface).  Once I got off planet, I aimed my ship at the next nearest planet and
started flying at cruising speed.  At cruising speed, which could quickly move around individual planets, my ETA for reaching that next closest planet was 31 days 13 hours 42 minutes and 55 seconds.  Over a month!  Of course, that’s when you kick the ship into hyperdrive to drop it down to a cool 3 minutes of travel.  Just be careful when coming out of hyperdrive because if you happen to be in an asteroid field like I was, things might get a little messy.

Many new components have been added since the game’s launch in 2016 in order to give all your exploring more of a point than simply going where no person has gone before.  Players can harvest rare and expensive materials to do many things.  They can upgrade their ships to be either fighting ships that can dominate in galactic battles (with or against other players) or trading ships if they wanted to be interplanetary merchants or they could dabble in fighting and trading if they wanted to become a type of space pirate.  Beyond ship enhancement, players can actually claim a planet for their own and build sprawling home bases to show off the many things they have found from the places they have discovered.

No Man’s Sky is a quintessential exploration game.  Its novelty is its massive and sprawling scale and the fun comes from the adventure of discovering the galaxy.  Jumping from planet to planet, each one different from the last, gives you the digital experience of exploring space like your favorite sci-fi movie characters do.

Science Fiction in Video Games (SFVG) (A New Series)

5 Replies

Last week we touched on the topic of sci-fi in video games. A fun fact about me is that I love playing video games.  So I thought this would be a great opportunity to examine my growing interest in sci-fi through the lens of my long time love of video games.

In looking through a list of famous sci-fi video games, some patterns already start to present themselves in the types of games that define the genre.  Many of the most famous games tend to focus either on specific themes of sci-fi.  Some themes popped right away: conflict, exploration, and flashy flash.  Each with varying degrees of incorporating story and humor.

Conflict is an incredibly broad collection of games that can be further categorized.  Many of the most popular sci-fi games center around conflict (this may be because the types of games that focus on conflict, sci-fi or otherwise, are typically very popular).  These games typically put the player in dangerous situations, heated wars, or all out battles.  First-person shooters (in which players experience the game first hand through the eyes of a hero or a soldier experiencing the dangers of a hostile world or all the visceral action of being on a battlefield) are an incredibly popular type of video game and fall under this category.  Famous examples include the Halo (futuristic intergalactic warfare ft. laser guns, grenades, and swords), Borderlands (space western setting)  and BioShock (retrofuturistic and more gritty settings of underwater or flying cities) games.  Strategy games (which often emphasize empire building and give players an overhead view to control many units) are very different from first-person shooters but can still fall under the broad category of conflict.  Instead of experiencing conflict through the eyes of an individual, players often are the ones making the important strategic decisions, directing troops, and building up resources.  A famous example is Stellaris, which “revolves around space exploration, managing an empire, diplomacy, and space warfare with other spacefaring civilizations” (from the game’s wikipedia page).

Some sci-fi games focus on exploration.  The gameplay for these games often emphasizes discovering the beauty and unfamiliarity of other planets.  A famous example is No Man’s Sky, which has players travel around an infinitely generating universe of planets with unique atmospheric properties, topographies, and inhabitants.

A much smaller group of sci-fi games is what I am calling ‘Flashy Flash.’  Flash games are typically simple or limited in their scope and can be played via a web browser.  The games that I put in this category have very simple gameplay and content (often arcade style) that is conveyed through a very flashy futuristic design (often lasers, neon colors, and themes of space).  Therefore, ‘Flashy Flash.’  These games have simple, smooth mechanics and draw people in using very appealing bright designs.  Some examples are Starwhal (essentially low gravity jousting between space narwhals), ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS (space dogfighting between neon rockets), and Robot Roller-Derby Disco Dodgeball (the title actually pretty much sums it up: a dodgeball contest between robots who use roller wheels to travel around arenas that have the funky music and flashy lights of a disco).

Of course, this is a very simple initial breakdown that only barely begins to scratch the surface of sci-fi video games.  There are many categories of sci-fi games beyond these three and these categories of games include many titles beyond the ones I listed here.  Many games can’t be defined by a single category.  Some of the most famous sci-fi games ever don’t fit into these categories.  For example, the Portal games (which feature puzzle solving and story surrounding the Aperture Science company and their famous Portal Gun).  Science fiction games vary greatly in their level of action, tech, setting, humor, and storytelling.  Like sci-fi stories, sci-fi games also sometimes incorporate references to other famous games of the genre.

So, as part of our Journey Through Sci-Fi, I am going to play and post about sci-fi in video games.