game to have captured my attention in technology, the Holy Grail of gaming is, Enjoy. that way - merely the most efficient. of course, total immersion - creating a world so believably realistic as to The sun was shining - it was a beautiful All of us who play games or have played perceptibly blur the line between the day, but I didn’t know it. I’d raced from games have experienced immersion. It’s game and reality. Perhaps some day school to bike to house in record time, the stated goal of many developers, but we’ll get there. If so, I’ll be waiting in barely feeling the physical weight of the is not unique to videogames. Movies, line to grind all of your asses to paste books on my back or the mental weight books, even conversations can be (and, in turn, have my own ground to of the homework assignments I’d no immersive. Where games differ is in the paste) in Halo 237 (or whatever), but intention of completing. I dumped the possible depth of immersion, the sheer until then I console myself during the dumped bike in the yard, my books on scope of the engagement of one’s brain long wait with the knowledge that even a the bed and my troubles out the window in the activity. Whereas television, simple, 8-bit game starring colored In The Escapist Issue 54, “In Spaaace!”, and fired up my Nintendo Entertainment movies and books are passive in nature, blocks can be just as immersive, if not we published an account of the creation System and Tetris. often requiring little more on the part of more so. of Chris Roberts’ popular space combat the consumer than a willingness to sit simulator, Wing Commander, written by Day turned to night. Nine hours later, I still, videogames engage the mind In this week’s issue of The Escapist, “In long-time contributor Allen Varney. In sat up from my chair and could no longer actively, putting the player into the Too Deep,” we explore the subject of addition to becoming one of our more feel my toes. I hadn’t eaten, spoken or experience in a way many other forms of immersion, tackling both the good and popular articles, Allen’s account of Wing moved. My eyes felt glued in place, my entertainment simply can’t. bad aspects of digital escapism. Allen Commander’s first showing at the 1990 head throbbed faintly and my fingers Varney shines the bright light of reason Consumer Electronics Show has drawn were cramped from holding the NES’ As videogames, and the technology on the ongoing debate amongst academics sincere criticism from a number of fiendishly square controller. That night I driving them, have evolved, so, too has over the very nature of immersion; developers involved with Wing would dream of falling blocks as my the nature of video game immersion. Gearoid Ready talks Havok, the leading Commander’s leading competitor in the mind rotated and revolved the events of Fully-rendered 3-D worlds, authentically purveyor of physics technology; Tom space-sim arena, LucasArts’ X-Wing. the past few days in order to fit them textured human faces and emotions, Rhodes wanders back into Arcadia; Lara into place in my psyche. I would even dynamic lighting and environmental Crigger confronts the aftermath of The Escapist once, for lack of sleep, begin imagining effects, surround sound, and more have Hurricane Katrina, DS-in-hand; and yours people as Tetris blocks, and wonder been employed to put the player further truly shares a theory on the fate of To the Editor: I was surprised by some how to go about fitting them, too, into into the game than ever before. The adventure gaming and the creation of the statements in the recent article by Allen proper place. This has been called The inevitable conclusion of this mad drive world’s most popular game. Varney entitled “Wing Leader”. I was the Tetris Effect, but Tetris was not the only for bigger and better immersive producer on Battlehawks 1942 and worked closely with its main creator, Larry article on Wing Leader. I entered the X-Wing owes nothing to Wing Holland, who was responsible not only for industry as a tester at Lucasfilm Games Commander. We were building on a the line of WW2 flight simulators but also in 1991 and at that time Larry Holland successful engine that predated Chris the X-Wing line of games at LucasArts. was working non-stop on completing Roberts’ efforts by 3 years. I think it is Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (which pretty clear who influenced who. It’s true that there was rivalry between shipped that year). Work on X-Wing did Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts and Origin, not begin until December 1991. I left - David Wessman but it was friendly and full of mutual Lucasarts and joined Larry’s team in admiration. We would go to the June August of 1992 when X-Wing was still Author’s Reply: In my article “Wing and January Consumer Electronics pre-Alpha. Leader,” I mistakenly described Lucasfilm Shows and happily show each other our Games as showing X-Wing at the 1990 latest advances - in fact, often discussing Now the story I’ve heard from a few Consumer Electronics Show, when the technical aspects that weren’t even different sources is that Chris Roberts record shows it was Secret Weapons of public, as there was a strong respect and pitched a Star Wars flight combat game the Luftwaffe. I regret that error. With healthy rivalry between developers at to Lucasfilm and was turned down. It’s that correction, the CES anecdote both companies at all levels. In fact not surprising – he had no experience happened as I related it in my article. there were several discussions about with flight combat games, while Lucasfilm direct collaboration, including a Star already had a partnership with Larry - Allen Varney Wars RPG from Richard Garriott, and the Holland that resulted in 3 very successful possibility of Chris Roberts doing an X- World War II flight combat games. In Response to “You Got Your Race Wing game. So when Allen Varney in My Video Game” from The describes the “fear in the eyes” of the As for the technology in Wing Escapist Forum: I don’t claim to be a Lucasfilm staff, it is specious speculation. Commander, Chris Roberts openly sociology expert or anything, but I do I remember a lot of cross-fertilization of boasted to Larry that he had reverse- have a minor in the field. I don’t think ideas and inspiration, but not fear. engineered the code from Battlehawks race is the most important divider 1942. I’ve heard from former Origin among the real world or a videogame - Noah Falstein coders that this was not actually true, world. Class is way more important in that the engine code was original – just today’s society than race, although we To the Editor: I wasn’t at CES in 1990, that Chris didn’t write any of it. Either hear about race-related incidents but I have to question the veracity of way, it’s not a terribly flattering picture happening in the United States and some of the statements in Allen Varney’s of Mr. Roberts. around the world. It isn’t that nothing is racially charged, but that class classroom might be at a university. But relevant, but totally anecdotal out their matchmaking by age. I know I stratification should be what people games aren’t there to make people observation to add to this, Dean. I yearn for those days of the 360 launch focus more on. better citizens, more moral or ethical. noticed it immediately upon picking up when, “hey, passing on your left, man” They’re there to entertain you. In a way, the Xbox 360 on launch day and logging was much more common than, “bleep - Yadam Siegfried games are similar to prostitutes. You pay on to Xbox live. Perhaps it was the pure your bleeping mom on the wall bleep!” it money, it pleases you without question. joy of unleashing the power of a new In Response to “You Got Your Race system, or some kind of honeymoon - Jacob.pederson in My Video Game” from The - shihku7 period of Xbox Live Love, but whatever Escapist Forum: I’m glad the Escapist the cause, the effect was a kind of eerie published this article, as racial issues in In Response to “You Got Your Race calm. Players were actually nice to each video games is an important topic to in My Video Game” from The Escapist other. Common practice in Project discuss and has for far too long been Forum: Ignorance is bliss and we - as Gotham Racing was to warn your buried. I think we need more talk about gamers - like to ignore issues of race in opponents if you were pulling out of a how political messages are in our games. games so that we might blissfully enjoy draft maneuver to pass them or (gasp) the game itself, free of such concerns. even apologize if you bumped their car My first take on the topic is that this is into a spin on the way by. On two just how capitalism works. If people are - theCardinal occasions I even got into real racist, it is inevitable that consumer- conversations with other players I’d driven media will be racist as well. And if In Response to “iMob” from The never met before. a richer group of people are racist, then Escapist Forum: My big worry is that it’s inevitable that more racist media will people will start forming iMobs for When did this strange calm period end? be produced for them than for poorer offenses not done. This kind of When did Project Gotham players start groups. There’s simply more money to vigilantism is all very empowering, but slamming you into a wall and cursing be made. it’s problematic when innocents are your mother on the way by? Why being harassed because some 12 year December 25th of course, when What most people want is to be old is good at feigning crying foul to the hundreds of thousands of pounds of constantly patted on the back. To be right people. teenagers ripped the wrappings off their cheered on, and to not be criticised in shiny new 360’s and joined the fray. any way. It’s the nature of the - geldonyetich Perhaps the solution is as simple as entertainment industry. Games may be requiring a mandatory verified birthday “interactive”, but few are interactive in a In Response to “Live Disruption” entry somewhere in the signup process, way that, say, a political science from The Escapist Forum: I have a and allowing players the option to filter November 24, 2005. 6:00 p.m. 10,000 without a war, a battleground of feet over New Orleans and descending. castaways, driftwood and foam. With Below the plane, most of the I-10 East hundreds of thousands homeless, bridge has vanished into Lake residents here have become refugees in Pontchartrain, swallowed by the gray, their own city. It is almost December, invariable flatness. More than five miles and the Red Cross supply trucks still of lonely, sun-baked highway now lie patrol the streets twice daily, doling out submerged, fighting tidal waters that still MREs and clean drinking water to refuse to ebb. families camped in FEMA trailers. Immense, ancient oaks still lay in and on Land curves into view, and through the roofs, where bright blue tarps have smudged windowpane, I notice a black, bloomed around them. And on every creeping mass on the beachfront: power street corner waits a mound of refuse outages threatening a loose and rotted wood, guarded by broken confederation of sodium streetlights. toilets, washing machines and “That’s Lakeview,” says George, my refrigerators. boyfriend. Slouching in the window seat next to me, he casts swift, tightened That people still live here, that some of glances at the ravaged earth below. the evacuees have returned to their Somewhere, down there, is his family. homes, that must mean something. But “Over there,” he gestures vaguely. what home can stand firm on a “That’s where the levee broke.” foundation of mold and tears?

Through the foggy glass, I can make out For weeks I’ve grappled with guilt and other patches farther inland and to the fear, at a loss for how best to prepare south, and the Lower Ninth Ward is like a myself for this trip. I knew, for instance, thick, dark nebula nestled among orange that I wanted - needed - to give terrestrial constellations. In the George’s family a gift; not just deepening twilight, the water glistens. something to replace what was lost, but also something for peace of mind: a Three months after Katrina, the greater housewarming present for a home re- New Orleans area is still a war zone occupied. But gift giving in the South is a tricky, subtle beast, especially in times of But even when lying to myself, I am true guilt: No matter how fleeting or neighboring parishes, and therefore, the need; charity is the worst offense to to my word. Not long after we arrive in momentary your escape would be, you waters stayed relatively low. Southern pride. How I should reconcile Louis Armstrong International, I feel you just can’t leave everyone convention and my want to help, I did reluctantly present my DS to the boys. else behind. not know. Could I bring clean sheets? But both appear politely yet Dishtowels? Plungers? A toaster oven? fundamentally uninterested - bored, So, despite how much he talked about it even - as if I’d offered them Prada last spring, the DS is utterly irrelevant to I couldn’t decide. So I brought my DS. handbags or hairdryers. They exchange a 14-year-old whose school opened two glances, and I realize that my offer is so months late, whose girlfriend now lives The Nintendo DS had only been out for a absurd, so tangential that it would be in Alabama and whose house now bears few months, and not many games had rude, if it weren’t so clueless. As it is, I a permanent line of demarcation 24 inches been released for it yet. But I figured it know they’re thinking of me as yet high. For a life uprooted, videogames lose might appeal to George’s younger another nice but ridiculous person who their glamours, reverting back into plastic, brothers: two sturdy, weedy teenagers just doesn’t get it. silicon and dust. who, when I last saw them, had prattled on in tandem about the handheld’s They’re right, of course. I don’t get it; *** impending release. They’d lost most of not at all. their gaming devices in the floods, and When the 17th Street Canal levee broke perhaps a round or two of Mario Kart We assume that in times of crisis, people less than a mile from George’s family’s might ease their minds, if only for awhile. will flock to diversion; that we’ll deify our house, most of the water flowed books, TVs, computers and other southward and to the east, infamously At least, that’s what I told myself as I escapisms like modern messiahs. The pooling in the concavity that is stuffed the DS into my carry-on. But who truth is, only the safe, comfortable downtown New Orleans. As for the am I kidding? The DS is really for me as people can do that, the ones saddled western side of the rift, events my last resort; it is a warm hat into with the luxury of survival. The rest transpired differently. Luckily, the which this rabbit may vanish should become painfully conscious of the Metairie canal wall held, and the suburb there be a need. It can be my reserve of transience of frivolity, growing heartsick managed to avoid most of Katrina’s sanity, just in case I close my eyes and am at the thought of having fun when there tragic aftermath. Although the town still unable to erase afterimages of this broken is a city to rebuild. This self-reproach is experienced significant flooding, it is city, this graveyard of mud and jazz. like some secret breed of survivor’s situated a few inches higher than the

George’s family’s house sustained lonely Zebian desert reflected in her moderate damage, mostly from the visor. Only 2,000 were ever made, and initial hurricane strike. At its highest, the he has #1,968. But it is more than some water only rose two feet; not collector’s item; this poster is a tintype inconsequential, but minor enough that of the first girl to ever steal his heart. George’s mother and brothers refused a Like every man (and most women) of his FEMA trailer (opting instead to live in the generation, part of him still loves Samus second floor of their house until the first Aran. She is his adolescence, his coming- could be repaired). Aside from a ruined of-age, a symbol of permanence and porch and a fugitive shed, the only power and invincibility. What would it structural damage was located in mean if she had been destroyed? George’s old room. The drive to his house seems to last During the ride home from dinner and longer than usual. When we finally the airport, George is like a pillar of arrive, George immediately shuffles Grecian marble, pale and blank. That upstairs, walking with awkward and water has warped his old Magic cards forced slowness. Our luggage leans and wrinkled his high school yearbook against the stairs, completely forgotten. doesn’t bother him, not really. If anything, it’s the possibility, the I follow him into his old room where a unknowing, that does. But there is one musky, sweet pungency hangs in the air; object about which I know he’s it is the smell of water stagnated, concerned: A childhood treasure, one evaporated and re-condensed over many he’s had for more than a decade. months. Perfectly nonchalant, George glances at the wall by the window. He Hanging close to a window now smashed pauses. Clearly, it takes him a few in by Katrina is a limited edition poster of seconds to process the swirl of red and Samus Aran, circa Super Metroid era. yellow, to register that, indeed, Samus Gleaming in her Varia Suit, she kneels Aran still crouches on his bedroom wall. among sand and rocks, with her smoking His eyes linger on her for many arm cannon raised upward and the moments, until quietly, privately, he sighs and looks away. With furrowed Abruptly but hesitantly, the youngest brows and a frown, he turns to survey brother asks George if he’s played Half- the damage to the rest of the room. Life 2 yet. George looks confused but relieved. No, he answers, he hasn’t; it Maybe some talismans really are magic. just came out and he’s still a little leery of Steam - and then the older brother But as we clean, I can’t help but feel chimes in, saying that now that they’d something indistinct and odd has gotten their internet connection back, transpired. I notice he avoids looking maybe they could get it soon. Which Samus’ direction. Even as he carefully prompts the younger brother to make packs away the poster to be sent by mail to some comment about how much he our apartment up north, he does not look loved the first game, and George adds, too closely at her, and he does not idle in “Except for the headcrabs,” and then his task. Briefly, I wonder if he might blame like a crashing tide, they all begin to talk her somehow for surviving the hurricane. at once. Or, in light of his subtle detachment, if she had really survived at all. I watch them parley in the language of brothers, laughing and one-upping and *** pontificating over videogames, as if there weren’t water stains on the ceiling Late one evening, the five of us have or a faint brown line on the wall. gathered in the dusty, empty kitchen for Through the thickening dialogue, I can dessert. George sits with his brothers at see the burden gradually lift, ever so a shabby card table, dining on pre- slightly, for the three of them. It is still wrapped cookies and warm Coke. there, of course, hovering in the hollows Valiantly, he tries to make conversation, once occupied by furniture. But it is less but his formerly gregarious brothers are dense now, separating from their bodies now sullen and quiet. I can hear the like oil from water, skimming the surface frustration creep into his voice. Maybe of the conversation but never truly there’s no use in even trying anymore. penetrating it. I turn to George’s mother, who stands Thus, life is distilled into your you have played a videogame and loved beside me. She has tears in her eyes relationships with ideas, not objects; it, that happy fact remains with you that her sons do not see. She places her family, friendship, emotions and when you need it most. It is a promise Styrofoam cup of black instant coffee on memories. These abstracts are what that no hurricane can destroy: You once an empty box, and suddenly, I’ve never remain significant. Everything else is were happy; you will be again. felt more like an intruder in all my life. washed away.

But as I watch these three brothers Videogames retain importance only in Lara Crigger is a freelance writer whose chatter so happily, I think I now the impressions that they’ve made on work about videogames has appeared in understand the rejection of my DS offer us: Memories of playing them, opinions Computer Games Magazine, Gamers and George’s strange reaction to finding of their value, hopes for the future, how With Jobs and The Escapist. his poster unharmed. we relate to other players. Therefore, the pursuit of electronic escapism is, at its Hurricanes destroy more than just core, an internal one. What matters property; they destroy the sense of more than videogames is the idea of property, as well. They smash that videogames. universal belief that objects intrinsically carry some emotional gravity or weight. From this logic, there is only one Acts of destruction remind us that conclusion, and I can see it now as I physical substances are only equal to the watch George’s family growing, if not exact sum of their parts: Plastic and happier, more peaceful: Once done, the cotton, metal or wood. What’s left over is act of escapism lasts forever. Your mind a painful buoyancy, an unbearable files it away in some remote corner, only absence of feeling; you mourn not just to retrieve the moment later and replay your lost PS2 games or your Xbox it, cherish it, when the time is right. Even controllers but also the fact that these at your lowest point, you will never be once precious things have been proven abandoned by your memories of happiness. completely meaningless. Even if they do remain intact after the storm (like the You will never forget a videogame you’ve Samus poster), the only entity that really played. You may forget the plot and the survives is you. characters and even the title, but once It’s a situation we’re all likely to face solutions to outlandish puzzles in the eventually: There’s a hooker upstairs, world of the adventure game. behind a locked door, and she’s waiting, willing and … waiting. Problem? A burly In Leisure Suit Larry, the drunk at the bouncer bars the way. He wants a bar, for example, will give you a password before he’ll open the door and television remote control if you lubricate let you find your own personal nirvana in him with enough whiskey, and a graffiti- the arms of the woman-for-hire. But even encrusted bathroom stall will reveal the if you were to somehow find the magic password if you look at it long and hard word, he’s not likely to step aside and let enough. Whisper the password through you ride for free. You’re broke, see, and the door, then, once you’ve penetrated you seem to have left your marketable the inner sanctum, use the remote skills in your - erm - other pants. control to turn on the TV and BAM! Bye- bye bouncer. He’ll be too busy leering at What to do? the boob tube to pay you any mind. Now, mount the stairs (but don’t forget your Well, if you’re playing Leisure Suit Larry condom) and you’ve got it made. Literally. in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, the solution is simple: examine Released in 1987, Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit everything. Upon doing so, you will find Larry was not the first of the great that a number of everyday household adventure games, but it was the most objects may be used to solve seemingly salacious. It was also graphical, which insurmountable puzzles. This, after all, is the earliest of the genre were not. the magic formula for adventure gaming. Games like In Search of Dr. Livingston, Long before MacGyver macgyvered his released in 1980, were text-based and, way out of every tough spot imaginable in lieu of a high-end graphics card, (using only a thumbtack, a piece of required instead that the player have a chewing gum and a leaf), adventure high-end imagination. Players had to gamers had been using a similar mentally visualize the scene being assortment of “found items” to construct described in on-screen text in order to insanely complicated Rube Goldberg-ish arrive at (often through trial and error) the best course of action. To make your merely updated versions of old text LucasArts focused on the possibilities of various characters. But the innovations character look to the left, for example, adventures, but some quite literally more cinematic entertainment. Not didn’t stop there. Sensing that gamers had the player would type “LOOK LEFT” into created new worlds. surprising from a company built on the become frustrated with the tired mechanic the game’s text entry box, which would back of the most successful film of guessing and typing, LucasArts then (if you were lucky) trigger a The first of the graphical adventures was franchise ever made. In 1987, LucasArts simplified the text entry command response from the game. Some of these Ken and Roberta Williams’ Mystery (then known as Lucasfilm Games) structure by reducing the number of valid games added a bit of extra frustration House. Based on an Agatha Christie released Maniac Mansion, offering commands to just a few verbs and through persnickety parsing of mystery novel, Mystery House was little gamers a number of radical departures identifying objects with which the commands. In Dr. Livingston, for more than a text adventure game with from the standard adventure game character could interact. It was, in effect, example, the player (on a quest through overlaid static images, but the resulting formula. Among them: multiple playable a prototype of a point-and-click interface. the African jungles to find the elusive Dr. immersive effect was startling. Gamers characters and multiple endings. Both And in simplifying the act of playing the Livingston) was required in most cases ate it up and demanded more; which the introduced the concept of replay-ability, game itself, LucasArts opened the door to to input text in all caps, but occasionally Williamses and their company, Sierra allowing players to experience the game a whole new market for the adventure (and inexplicably) the game would On-Line (originally On-Line Systems), from the multiple perspectives of the game genre while simultaneously require lower-case text input. It didn’t were happy to deliver. Sierra would go pounding nails into its coffin. tell you when to use which - you just had on to make hundreds of adventure titles, to guess. including the innovative and award-winning King’s Quest and Space Quest series, and Still, like a book, these games had the naturally, imitators followed suit. redeeming virtue of offering experiences limited only by the player’s imagination Some, like MECC’s Oregon Trail, and and are fondly remembered to this day Broderbund’s Where in the World is as creative masterpieces, often before Carmen Sandiego? attempted to capture their more graphically advanced the rapidly-growing educational software descendants; frustrations and all. market, blending newly-immersive game experiences with adventure gaming’s Show Me, Don’t Tell Me storybook roots to create a whole new As computers became more powerful, genre of “edutainment.” But the most game makers began throwing their successful and innovative game efforts behind graphical adventures, like manufacturer to follow in Sierra On- Leisure Suit Larry. Some of these were Line’s footsteps was LucasArts. id Software and the Decline of the from its humble beginnings as a leaps of ingenious item combination in a new sensation; a meta-game, an Attention Span moonlighting gig conducted on the sly order to solve. Just running, gunning extension of quest-driven exploration As is the case with so many stories into the realm of successful and dying. id’s games were blockbusters into the very fabric of their lives; a new about the game industry, the next entertainment software enterprises. and at retailers across the country they form of entertainment unlike anything chapter in this tale begins thusly: In literally pushed adventure games off of the world had ever seen. 1991, four guys started a company to Having thus made their mark on the the shelves. The four brains behind id make games. world of PC platform games, id then would go on to gaming stardom, and Spinning the Web turned their attention to the next their games would change the world. Concurrent with id Software’s gaming The company was id Software, and the frontier: 3-D games. Their first, revolution - changing the world, one games they created - on the back of Wolfenstein 3D, was so successful it The reign of the adventure game was gruesome animated death at a time - technology chief John Carmack’s attracted the attention of none other over, but adventure gamers were having personal computers were rapidly innovative game engines - were than the king of adventure games the time of their lives. Instead of going becoming more powerful and less dreamed up primarily to relieve the four himself, Ken Williams, who in 1992 quietly into the dark night, they’d found gamers’ boredom with the current state offered to purchase id for $2.5 million of PC games, which by-and-large moved and add the four young men to Sierra’s slowly and weren’t all that colorful. Like prestigious stable of high-profile game adventure games. designers. id declined, opting instead to carry on as independents. The next year, Their first official product was a so-called they released Doom. “action-platformer” liberally copied from the successful Super Mario Bros. series For PC gamers bored and frustrated with for Nintendo’s NES home console. It was, the clunky, imprecise and bland games in spite of its relatively simple of the early ‘80s, id’s offerings hit just appearance, a programming coup. No the right spot. Few could deny the thrill one, anywhere - ever - had been able to of “running” through Castle Wolfenstein, make images appear and move as fluidly sending a hailstorm of bullets into on the PC as Mario moved on the NES. zombified Nazis, who would then die No one, that is, until John Carmack. horribly detailed deaths, clutching their Over the course of six installments, id’s hearts and saying “Mein leben!” There Commander Keen made PC gaming was no story to speak of, no mysteries to history and helped launch id Software solve and no puzzles requiring quantum across multiple sources. Imagine reading step. Working from Berners-Lee’s a book, then clicking on a single word to foundation, Andreessen developed a produce a definition of that word, more user-friendly method for viewing without ever once taking your eyes off of pages constructed using HTML. He the page. Today, this method of created Mosaic, one of the earliest web “browsing” information via the world wide browsers, and the first to run with web is as natural to most westerners as Microsoft Windows. Andreessen then breathing air, but in the ‘80s, few had used his Mosaic technology to found a even conceived of the idea, much less company (Netscape) and re-launched his thought of how to make it happen. Tim pioneering web browser as The Netscape Berners-Lee was different. Navigator. Initially distributed for free, Navigator had finally made the internet’s In 1991 Berners-Lee produced the store of knowledge readily available to world’s first “web site”: essentially an anyone who could click a mouse. explanation of the work Berners-Lee had Images, text and soon even video and done at CERN, instructions for how to audio files were accessible via the use his new invention, and a growing list internet by anyone anywhere. Navigator of web sites, all of which (including the forced software behemoth Microsoft to technology responsible for making it develop its own browser, based on earlier entire volumes of books worth of data on happen) he offered for free to anyone versions of the Mosaic technology, which, a single, shiny disc. But the most who wanted to use them. Berners-Lee’s when combined with Microsoft’s best- exciting development driving the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) selling Windows 95 operating system, popularity of computers in the ‘90s was provided a framework for creating, propelled the web into the mainstream the World Wide Web. managing and interconnecting vast consciousness practically overnight. stores of data, and it was so simple that Tim Berners-Lee, working at the CERN almost anyone could use it. Almost. By the mid ‘90s, Berners-Lee, expensive. Consumers were practically laboratory in Switzerland was building Andreessen and Microsoft had made lining up in droves to take the odd, beige upon the theory of “hypertext,” a method At the University of Illinois’ National good on the promise of the information boxes home with them. The invention of of linking multiple documents together Center for Supercomputing Applications, superhighway, developing a system by the CD-ROM had as much to do with this by keywords or “links,” to create a whole an undergraduate named Marc which an ordinary person, with little or as anything else, offering consumers new method of organizing information Andreessen was taking the next logical no computer expertise, could browse the fide (if misquoted) university source on and literally “go” to that site, a user web, finding answers to questions they Those who owned computers and paid the nature of all of the above. need only type a single word into Web never knew they had and filling their for accounts with internet service Crawler’s text entry box. The answers to days with the pursuit of nearly limitless providers after the arrival of Navigator The usefulness of the majority of this most questions and the solutions to most knowledge. It was all, literally, just a most likely spent the better part of their information aside, collecting and quests could be found, just like in the click away, and the clicking hasn’t time sitting at a desk in front of a examining it became an activity of its text adventure games of old. stopped since. computer either A) designing and own. Very few people would ever make publishing web sites, B) browsing web their own bomb, but knowing how to do With a foundation for creating, delivering sites created by others or C) both. What so was exciting. So was the idea that and sifting through web content thus these innovators soon discovered was every bit of information contained in established, internet entrepreneurs then the joy to be found in sifting through every library in every city of the world set about trying make money from this nearly limitless information, and - by could one day be accessed with a web new invention. With so many eyeballs clicking a mouse - examining everything. browser, then clicked and examined looking at so many screens, advertising A web site created by a man in endlessly. soon swarmed the net like a plague of Wisconsin to display pictures of his cats, popup locusts, but the established for example, could contain a link to a What is Your Quest? commercial concerns immediately site devoted to the making of bombs By the mid 90’s, the web had become so discovered that the denizens of this new from household chemicals, which could thickly populated with data that an virtual market were far more interested (and usually did) lead to a site entirely new technology, the search in conducting business with each other containing another person’s half-baked engine, had become an indispensable than with any large corporation. theories on every possible conspiracy tool to help ease the strain of this since the dawn of time, which would embarrassment of informational riches. Launched in 1995, eBay, the world’s first eventually lead the user back to a bona The earliest search engines were merely online auction house, provided a means web-based extensions of pre-web search by which two people on opposite ends of technologies (programs like Archie and planet could buy and sell from each Gopher), but it wasn’t until the 1994 other without ever meeting in person or release of the aptly-named WebCrawler even seeing the item to be sold, or the that the search engine as we know it money used to purchase it. It was the today came into being. WebCrawler was most radically innovative new use for one of the first engines able to search web technology ever devised, and after the entire text of an HTML document. To only five years the site hosted more than find a document anywhere on the web 4 million auctions, generating over $300 million in revenue; all brought home by and use email to collect and keep track (graphically speaking), far more a company that doesn’t manufacture a of assignments. titillating. But after more than two single thing. decades of evolution, the magic formula The history of gaming is one of a remains the same. eBay makes its billions by charging a continual lessening of demands upon the small fee for every item bought or sold, player; an ever-widening accessibility Russ Pitts is an associate editor of and and its clientele consists of web travelers which has brought more and more frequent contributor to The Escapist and searching for a long-lost items, hard-to- players into the market, widened the is the host and producer of The Escapist’s find trinkets or powerful icons of cultural scope of the media and moved the podcast, Escape Radio. Pitts is the significance. Buyers need only enter a industry into a position rivaling that of former producer and head writer of description of the item they seek, and Hollywood for “dollars spent” and TechTV’s The Screen Savers, and has eBay’s search engine helps them “eyeballs served,” the watermarks of the played every game console ever made. complete their quest, connecting them to language of advertising. While traces of a seller and providing the means by the adventure games of the past can be which the two can complete the found across the entire spectrum of transaction. It is simple, efficient and gaming genres, the true inheritor of the fun; possibly even addictive, fueling a crown is not really a game at all, but the secondary market for therapists web itself. Containing information, specializing in online auction addiction stories, puzzles and games and propelled recovery. Some of whom accept eBay’s by the simple mechanism of clicking and PayPal as payment for their services. exploring, the web has become the single most successful form of Today, many people who’ve never even entertainment in the world, played by heard of adventure games nevertheless gamers and non-gamers alike, most of spend their every waking hour playing whom use it every day. There are even one. They seek lost treasures on eBay, old-fashioned stories there, too, if one play Flash-based mini-games when the should care to look for them. boss isn’t looking, interact with characters from all over the world via Al Lowe’s hooker has, in other words, instant messaging services, type search been supplanted by literally thousands terms into Google to retrieve arcane lore more, each accessible with less frustration, interface-wise, and Look around your computer. Pick up “Suspension of disbelief is the key thing,” something – your mouse, the coffee says David O’Meara, the CEO of physics mug, that box-set of Desperate engine creator Havok. “That’s what Housewives DVDs that you, er, are immersion is about, isn’t it?” keeping for a friend. Look at it. Turn it around. Throw it up in one hand and Dublin, Ireland-based Havok is a world catch it in the other. Now, put it down. leader in physics middleware – the tools that let developers create worlds where Congratulations. You’ve just their imaginations can run wild. You can accomplished something that Mario, Lara see their work in Half-Life 2’s gravity Croft or the Master Chief never could. gun, or in a battle in Oblivion. In a world based on rules, Havok is the rule maker You’ll have noticed that your fingers did – and having just launched the latest not partially pass through the object version of their software development when you picked it up, that when you kit, Havok 4.0, they are becoming an caught it, it did not automatically glue to integral part of the immersion process. your hand – in other words, it behaved like you expected it to. Instead of having to code real-world physics from scratch for every game, Wouldn’t it be nice if gaming worked the Havok gives developers a much-needed same way? shortcut, allowing them to concentrate on making fun games. We are instinctively aware of the physics of the world we inhabit. If something “Havok physics is a foundation,” says doesn’t interact properly – from O’Meara. “Developers see us as a core something as ridiculous as an enemy’s component of the game now. No matter gun poking through a wall to clothes that how beautiful your animation or are static when they should flutter – it whatever is, if the objects are all stuck jars, shattering the illusion of immersion. to the ground, you won’t get immersion.” That’s where Havok comes in. Havok is an unlikely world leader. Developers have flocked to Havok since Although modern Ireland is a hi-tech its 1.0 release in 2000, with Halo 2, hub, with companies like Microsoft, Dell Perfect Dark Zero and Age of Empires III and Intel basing their European among the titles making use of Havok operations out of the increasingly physics – as well as movies like The wealthy and metropolitan country, Matrix Reloaded. From their office in Ireland’s image is still one of rolling Dublin’s Digital Hub, Havok has expanded green fields and quiet country pubs. to such locations as San Francisco, Calcutta and, most recently, Tokyo. So, in an industry dominated by multi- million dollar giants, how did a small Havok is a step closer to truly immersing university project turn into the engine the player in a created world. Game that powers worlds? “I think it really developers don’t have to waste time comes down to a question of vision and thinking how, say, an empty bullet clip then not letting the vision blind you,” might fall down a staircase, because says O’Meara. Havok does the hard work for them. Recently, Havok has also branched out Havok was founded in 1998 as a result into development kits for character of computer science research undertaken behavior, animation and special effects. in Trinity College Dublin by Hugh Reynolds and Stephen Collins. What Still, sometimes it seems that the more would become Havok was “a really games engines do, the less convincing exceptional bunch of guys working things become. With modern games together, who had the vision to see that getting closer and closer to representing videogames would eventually develop a reality, the gamer can get frustrated need for real-time physics - that more when you can’t do what you logically interactive and realistic experiences should be able to do. If my rocket would be the next thing that the industry launcher lets me blow around all the was looking for.” tables and chairs in a room, why won’t it let me blow a hole in a thin wall? animation and the behavior stuff all typified by Nintendo’s Wii controller – will coming together for a really realistic, open radical new ways of playing. “All compelling experience for the gamer.” the next gen stuff is really going to have some form of 3-D controller - whether It’s still the early days: As The Escapist’s camera or game pad,” says O’Meara. own Shannon Drake has noted, when it “We’ve always wanted players to be able comes to physics, developers are still to interact with our physics as much as “using Swiss Army knives as simple possible. This new 3-D world will really hammers.” be the next leap in game interaction as far as physics is concerned.” O’Meara agrees. “We’re only seeing the start of what physics can do in games. Where do we go from there? O’Meara [There is] a lot more that can be done. says “the next step is to make characters For example, at the moment, in a crowd more believable. What I’m talking about scene, you’re limited to your key is performance - reactions that can elicit characters having full physical and empathy from the player. When you behavioral effects. But we see a stage mesh physics properly with an animated where a whole street of people will all character, you’ll get proper have the full panoply of behaviors ‘performances,’ human-like reactions.” available to them and will be able to interact with you the player and with Better emotion through physics? It’s each other.” enough to make your head spin – if they can figure out how to model that. It might sound like the stuff of virtual “We’ve seen some fantastic scenes with reality dreams, but O’Meara says we’ll be “It’s a problem for the industry, but not the new PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo seeing this kind of immersion toward the Gearoid Reidy is an Irish journalist specifically for us,” says O’Meara. “The Wii, scenes that would have been end of next year. working in Japan whose game-playing game developers create the rules and impossible until really recently. We’re time is sadly limited by the laws of real- they’re always having to balance the talking about massively destructible It’s a brave new world for the industry. world physics. You can find him at www. storyline with the representation of reality. worlds, amazing scale and realism of In addition to superior graphics and gearoidreidy.com. It’s about getting the balance right. effects. You see the physics, the physics, new ways of interaction – “My freshman college roommate bought butterflies for a living. Yet, you’d look Civilization when it came out in ‘91,” my hard to find anyone less likely to explain friend Rob recalls. “We brought it back to immersion. Why? Let the analysis draw his dad’s place. His dad had just moved you in ... come, drift free of your body ... some stuff, so there was only one chair in front of a desk with the computer. This is Your Brain on Immersion Mike installed Civ and started playing. For starters, academic game theorists Another friend and I stood behind him, argue endlessly the importance of watching and kibitzing. I asked what “narrative.” time it was; my friend said 8:30 p.m. Next thing we knew, Mike’s dad woke up Many gamers can name a favorite story and asked us what the hell we were presented in a computer or videogame, doing, standing around a desk at 5:30 in whether the Zelda or Fighting Fantasy the morning.” series, roleplaying games from BioWare or Origin, a classic adventure like Grim Immersion: intense focus, loss of self, Fandango or The Longest Journey, or distorted time sense, effortless action. even the old Sierra Quest series or Infocom text adventures. These games Game designers and reviewers use a storyline to assign meaning to your universally recognize immersion as a actions. Playing your own favorite game, signal virtue of games, perhaps the did you feel caught up in a compelling central virtue. Nonetheless, they seldom narrative, the way you’d be mesmerized analyze the idea. Possibly, recognizing by a terrific book or movie? It felt like the elusiveness of immersion, they fear that, didn’t it? (in Alexander Pope’s phrase) breaking a butterfly upon a wheel. Except it didn’t, really. When the game ended and you returned to reality, you The ones who write a lot about felt spent, maybe exhausted, as if after a immersion are tenure-track academics in workout. In contrast, when the novel or the humanities, the new breed of movie ended, you probably felt like you’d “videogame theorists.” They break awakened from a powerful dream. (The exceptions are horror and action stories, yourself over to the storyteller, as you do use. You could say they’re playing games which can wring you just as dry as a when reading a good novel. of their own design. game.) In both cases, you felt stiff, but the game immersion left you shaky for Narratives and games inspire contrasting One prominent position, known in hours. Some kinds of games might have kinds of immersion; different brain- videogame theory as “narrativism” or influenced your behavior long afterward. states. Caught up in a story, you are “narratology,” asserts in its most How many Quake or Unreal players, cooperative, yielding, in a state akin to extreme form that every game – every immediately after they finish a marathon hypnosis. In a game you are ceaselessly single one – implies a narrative. deathmatch, head to the kitchen for a active, in a state of flow. Proposed in Immersion is a function of “agency” in, snack – and peer carefully around the the 1990 book Flow: The Psychology of or interactivity with, that narrative. The door jamb, scouting for enemies? Are you Optimal Experience by Hungarian-born 688-page textbook Rules of Play: Game nodding? Uh-huh. Bet that didn’t happen psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Design Fundamentals, by designers Katie after you watched Return of the King. (pronounced, he says, “chicks send me Salen and Eric Zimmerman, finds high”), flow is the zone, the groove – narratives in such games as poker and Think how you feel when, after a long an enjoyable feeling of oneness with Breakout. Because this approach treats struggle through a shooter level, you the activity. games as texts, critics can cast them in reach some non-player character and structuralist terms, and thereby increase suddenly the game shifts to a cut scene Designers would love to comprehend the that advances the narrative. Maybe exact causes of immersion. In a more you’re interested, maybe relieved or practical world, this task would fall to annoyed; regardless, you sit back, draw those who theorize about games for a breath and feel different. Your mode of living. Oh well. thinking has abruptly changed. You’re no longer immersed. Theorists vs. Theorists For most of the young history of This happens even in non-shooters, and videogame theory, humanities scholars even when the game’s story is good. The have taken game immersion to be the narrative may inform your actions – for same as the story-based variety. Publish- instance, it may present you with a or-perish lecturers have written lots of choice of allies or victims – but obviously journal papers that turn everything you aren’t sitting back and giving imaginable into “narrative,” and so have stretched the idea beyond any possible their credibility rating with peer Trouble,” “Among the many differences it comes, does not offer dramatic reviewers and conference organizers. between games and stories, one of the satisfaction, but a feeling of limbo. There most obvious is that of ambiguity. In is no turning back, and no going The main alternative approach is Tetris, I do not stop to ponder what forward. You are no longer employed by “ludology,” which discusses immersion in those bricks are really supposed to be the game. Time to buy another.” terms of gameplay: Rules, interface and made of. In DOOM, there is no moral actions. Ludological theorists say, though dilemma resulting from the killing of Does any of this bring us closer to an games have elements in common with probably innocent monsters. ... understanding of immersion? These narratives, they are fundamentally Adventure games seldom, if at all, being humanities professors, no one has different. Using this strategy, ludologists contain good stories. Even the most yet offered a testable, falsifiable get cited by narrativists who try to entertaining of these games, like Warren hypothesis. Only a few scholars, such as repudiate them, and citations earn Spector’s Deus Ex (1999), contains a Salen and Zimmerman in Rules of Play, credibility points with journal referees cliched storyline that would make a B- seem interested in improving immersive and tenure committees. movie writer blush, and characters so game design. The rest, in thick books wooden that they make The Flintstones from university presses, on blogs like Believe it or not, the ludological look like Strindberg.” Ludology and The Ludologist, and in approach is relatively recent in conference proceedings of the Digital videogame theory. Uruguayan game To ludologists like Aarseth, immersion is Games Research Association (DiGRA), researcher Gonzalo Frasca popularized a function of non-narrative gameplay: squabble endlessly over semantics. the term “ludology” in 1999, though it “What makes such games playable at all, originated in board gaming in the early and indeed attractive,” he wrote, “is the In his DiGRA LevelUp 2003 paper, 1980s. Derived from ludus (Latin, sequence of shifting, exotic, often “Ludologists love stories, too: Notes “game”), “ludology” may be a back- formation from “ludography,” designer Sid Sackson’s term for a bibliography of game designs.

Ludologists differ from narrativists fascinating settings (levels), where you from a debate that never took place,” because they admit they actually play explore the topography and master the Frasca claimed there is actually no great games. Nordic theorist Espen Aarseth virtual environment. The gameworld is gap between the two positions, and the wrote in his 2004 article, “Genre its own reward, and the end, if and when controversy arose, among other reasons, from confused definitions of “narratology,” accused Frasca of “deepening the gap by structuralist and post-structuralist critics argument can never be resolved because “ludology,” “narrativist” and “ludologist.” further polarizing the alleged two sides. help us understand immersion? Could one group of people is defining both sides Frasca’s paper prompted a testy they ever, ever admit becoming of it. The ‘ludologists’ are debating a response from University of California “I describe in detail ways to think about immersed themselves, in anything? phantom of their own creation. Irvine professor Celia Pearce at DiGRA the term narrative as descriptive of 2005. In “Theory Wars: An Argument specific types of experience, as narrative The teapot-tempest debate of narrativism “No one group can define what is Against Arguments in the So-called ‘operators’ that function at different versus ludology may well be promoted as appropriate for the study of games. Ludology/Narratology Debate”, Pearce levels to support gameplay,” Pearce long as the wind blows, the sun shines Game studies, like any organized pursuit wrote. “Frasca asserts that I ‘claim chess and academic conferences seek papers. of knowledge, is not a zero-sum team is a narrative.’ In fact, I do no such Yet, there was a voice of reason (or contest, but a multi-dimensional, open- thing. Rather, I use the thought exercise something approximately like it, ended puzzle that we all are engaged in of comparing the ‘plots’ of chess and depending on semantics) at DiGRA 2005. cooperatively solving.” Macbeth to make a point about the differences in the way narrative operates The keynote speaker was Harvard Well said, Dr. Murray. Of course, her in both. I specifically use the word ‘plot’ literature and media professor Janet H. address up to that point included a few because it has particular implications, Murray, whose Hamlet on the Holodeck: snipes at the ludologists - she accused and represents a higher level of The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace them of opposing narratology out of specificity. To savor this point, I thought was a seminal text in game narratology. anxiety, so they could “reorder the we might wish to take a moment to In her speech, optimistically titled “The academy” - so in all likelihood, the meditate on the various common Last Word on Ludology v Narratology” (. academic spat will continue. Meanwhile, meanings of the word ‘plot.’” PDF), Murray said, “No one has been working game designers must still interested in making the argument that struggle to make their games immersive It’s hard to read all this airy palaver, this there is no difference between games the old-fashioned way: by playing them. buffleheaded pedantry, without shouting, and stories or that games are merely a “Get a job.” Can these detached subset of stories. Those interested in both games and stories see game Allen Varney designed the PARANOIA elements in stories and story elements in paper-and-dice roleplaying game (2004 games: interpenetrating sibling categories, edition) and has contributed to computer neither of which completely subsumes the games from Sony Online, Origin, other. The ludology vs. narratology Interplay and Looking Glass. I breathed in the air whipping around the one. Their lives and fates would be city, shadows lying across it from the intertwined with my own as I traveled to auburn sun. But wait - this wasn’t the twin worlds that were both familiar Newport. Where was I? And who was I? yet strange.

Thus began something that I had been When I first installed it and executed hoping and wishing for over the past the program, my pulse quickened just a several years, but also dreading. Those little bit. The music rose, the screen who read about my prior journey into faded in from darkness and my journey the land of Arcadia will recall how much I continued ... truly appreciated The Longest Journey. So much so, in fact, that I tried as best I *** could to live as April Ryan, the female protagonist, did. I ate when she ate, What is it about sequels? Hell, what is it slept when she slept and on and on. about continuing sagas? Sometimes they come to a satisfying conclusion, while Obsessive? Well, duh. But through my other times ... well, we won’t talk about protracted exposure, I was enriched by them. More than what they are, the experience. Ever tried to watch all however, is what they say about us. three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? That’s the filmic equivalent. I spent a total of six years exploring Stephen King’s seven-book The Dark It was with this mindset that I began to Tower series. I breezed through the first play Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, the four while waiting patiently for King to sequel to my favorite game of all time. finish the remaining three. He started the series back in 1982 with The I decided right off the bat that I Gunslinger, addicting the first of several deserved to clear my schedule and play generations to the heptalogy. this as I had the first one. Now, of course, would be different: I would play When the final three were released, one as three distinct characters rather than by one, I ate them up. On the last book, though, I took my time; edging patiently because we know that – somehow, No. It’s not for lack of trying, though. through page after page, not wanting somewhere – they’re real, if only to us. it to end. As it turns out, I was right to Finally, are they also not connected with Ragnar Tornquist, the creator and writer do that. our own destinies in a way? of The Longest Journey, has crafted a beautiful and fascinating world, The Dark Tower had one of the most After all, if those characters can so easily populated by a multitude of races, unsatisfying conclusions I have ever be gone with the turn of a page or the creeds and peoples. The story is read, nearly leaving me with whiplash by closing of a program, what’s stopping us obviously a labor of love, and he the way it stopped me dead in my from being just as insignificant? deserves credit for all that he did tracks. How could King have done that to with it. me? How could I have spent all those We use these continuing stories as years with those characters and be left guidelines for our own lives: If there’s That said, I ran into a few problems. with that? always another X-Men film being First off, the controls were clunky. released, we are always going to be People can get so wrapped up in there to watch it. Or read it. Or play it. characters that they want to know what happens next, even if it’s an answer they When the outcome fails to live up to our won’t like. Even though I felt the first expectations, we are left with a mild game was perfect, I had the urge – the depression. We spent a portion, need – to discover more. sometimes a significant portion, of our lives devoted to a universe that was But why? Several reasons, I think. First created for us to explore and revel in. If and foremost, we feel that we’ve been that vision, that purpose, is shattered, entertained by the stories and characters with what are we left? before, so why not again? Second, and most importantly, we have this strange *** fascination with wanting to know what those characters are doing after Philosophical rhetoric aside, what something is over. The truth that they happened to me? Did I find that the are just figments of an overactive second in the planned three-part saga all imagination has no bearing on us, that I wanted it to be? After Half-Life 2 spoiled me, the facial into a warrior for The Balance, dealing expressions here seemed lacking, with her difficult past and finding her although the voice work was some of the way into a fantastic world. In Dreamfall, best I’ve ever heard in a game, including everything felt less important, less the original. The music itself was a step necessary, and the characters were not up, actually, and the new composer, Kelly nearly as transformed. Not to mention Bailey, deserves applause for that. But that April seems like a dour goth chick most importantly, the story, while this time around, which made me interesting, didn’t live up to the epic somewhat dislike her. April! I mean, how nature of the first. did that even happen?

For me, Dreamfall was supposed to In the end, I suppose I was hoping for continue my investment in the too much, and expectations are what characters and stories from the first sink sequels. But maybe we all expect game. I was really rooting for Tornquist too much, especially when we want to to pull another rabbit out of his hat and relive the experience that we loved so wow me with something that would stay much. It’s the reason that Kubrick never with me as long as his prior brilliance. made a sequel and why J.D. Salinger What Dreamfall did, instead, was create became a hermit and disappeared into a new and interesting setup for a a farmhouse. conclusion, but without the same power and strength as similar Tolkien So, remember my words the next time midpoints. The quintessence of this you’re hoping for a sequel: The original game was supposed to be cleansing and was much better. renewing, giving me a breath of fresh air that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Tom Rhodes is a writer and filmmaker Unfortunately, it fell far short. currently living in Ohio. He can be reached through [email protected]. In The Longest Journey, April Ryan was transformed from a confused, whiny girl EDITORIAL PRODUCTION BUSINESS Executive Editor Producer Publisher Julianne Greer Jonathan Hayter Alexander Macris

Content Editor Layout Artist Associate Publishers Joseph Blancato Jessica Fielhauer Jerry Godwin Russ Pitts Gregory Lincoln Lead Web Developer Contributing Editor Whitney Butts Director of Advertising JR Sutich Susan Briglia Web Developer Research Manager Erik Jacobson Chairman of Themis Group Nova Barlow Thomas S. Kurz IT Director Contributors Jason Smith Lara Crigger Russ Pitts Gearoid Reidy Thomas Rhodes Allen Varney

Issue 57, © 2006. The Escapist is published weekly by Themis Group, Inc. Produced in the United States of America. To contact the editors please email [email protected]. For a free subscription to The Escapist in PDF format please view www.escapistmagazine.com