Somewhere around the 1960s a group of writers including John Barth, Donald Barthelme, and Thomas Pynchon popularized and developed a literary style known as postmodernism. It’s too complicated to explain here, but one of the goals of the movement was to examine and analyze what stories really are. One of the techniques associated with postmodernism is what’s called the metatextual reference. This is basically when a novel begins to show awareness of its own existence—saying, basically, I know I’m not a real person; I’m just words on a page. Take, for example, passages from Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, in which characters in his book complain about the fact that they are characters in a book and lament the fact that some of their speeches are merely there to further Eggers’ themes. When a metatextual reference is used, the story switches gears from being about whatever the subject is to being about stories in general.

I'm seeing a trend towards this in gaming--or, at the very least, a subgenre of postmodernist games out there, all of which get metatextual either at specific points or throughout the whole game--what I like to call metagaming. Metagames show awareness of their nature as games. These games ignore all pretense of being a representation of a reality--rather, they know that they're polygons on a screen.

Now when I say a game shows awareness of its game-ness, I am not referring to tutorial sections. Many games will have an NPC explain rules, especially when there is a minigame or a vehicle--"Here's how you pilot an airplane! Hit X to go faster, O to brake..." This is not meant to represent a character's literal speech. A tutorial section is intended to be somewhere between an online version of the instruction manual and the shorthand for the character explaining the controls. Even though he's referring to buttons on the Dual Shock, you know in the game's reality he's talking about the buttons on the plane's console, or whatever.

To illustrate the difference, I point you to Metal Gear Solid--specifically, to the fight with Psycho Mantis. Mantis, who is psychic, announces that he’s going to use his telekinetic abilities. He instructs you to put your controller on the floor. The game then activates the vibration function, causing the controllor to vibrate, as Mantis gleefully tells us that he's using his mind to make it dance. Rather than shorthand for anything, rather than an instruction to Snake, he's speaking to us, the players, and speaking about our literal controller.

Later in the fight, while we're on the subject, Mantis, announcing that he's going to read Snake's mind, scans your memory card and gives an analysis of your personality based on your save history ("You're a careless man, aren't you?"). If you've saved any other Konami games^[1] on the same memory card, he'll name drop them ("So, you like Suikoden?"). During the fight itself, Mantis anticipates and blocks all your moves--he is psychic, of course. The way to get around his mind-reading abilities? Unplug your controller and put it in Port Two.

Most of MGS's cutscenes take place during codec conversations--basically a 2-way radio. During one sequence, you need to find a character's frequency so you can get in touch with her. Another character instructs you to find the frequency by looking "at the back of the CD case." Lo and behold, one of the screenshots on the back of the case shows the correct frequency.

Note the difference between MGS and the section in Startropics where you need to find out a radio frequency. In Startropics, at one point you're trying to find a frequency to track down Dr. J, your missing uncle. "Pour water on the map Dr. J sent you to get the frequency," one character tells you. One of the things in the game's box is a map of one of the game's islands. If you indeed pour water on the map, the frequency will appear^[2].

Both are similar--both force you, the player, to use the packaging to progress through the game. The difference is in intent and effect. The purpose of the sequence in Startropics is to create a sense of mimesis--simulation of reality. When you, the player, take the same map that Mike--the game's protagonist--owns in the game's world, and put it in water, just as Mike does--that creates an intimacy between the player and the character. It's a blending of reality and the game world--however tiny. It helps to establish the game's world as a legitimate reality in its own right.

Metal Gear Solid's intent is to break that intimacy. Rather than blend our reality and the game's reality, it works hard to make us more aware of the differences between the two. Unplugging a controller is an action that runs contrary to our players' instincts--the act of unplugging it serves to break us from gamer trance. Similarly, the back of the CD case can in no way be construed as part of the game's world--the map is plausible as one of Mike's possessions; the CD case is not plausible as part of Snake's.

It's very similar to when a character in a movie will look at the camera and toss off a one-liner to the audience. It's called "breaking the fourth wall"--showing an awareness of audience, of existence not as reality but as movie, or book, or videogame. I'm reminded of possibly the earliest example of the technique^[3]--Earthbound, the first real videogame in the postmodern spirit^[4]. In one segment, a character mentions that he's working on a report, and could you please give him your name? No, not you, the character--you, the guy sitting at the controller. The player. The character is directly addressing you, the player--in essence, looking past the TV screen and speaking directly to you.

It's interesting how the sequence finishes up. At the time, the name request seems almost a throwaway joke--Earthbound telling us that it's clever and hip, and you really forget it till the end of the game. The final boss is defeated by having one of the characters use the command "pray". Instead of healing a small amount of HP as it normally does, it instructs the character to start actively praying that the party defeat the final boss. As you use the Pray command, you're shown cutscenes of the various NPCs you've met throughout the game. They start praying for the boss's defeat as well. After--I believe it's the eighth time--a message pops up, and says, basically, "(Player Name) starts to pray." In essence, the player is described as rooting, along with the game's cast, for the main party. Because really, during the final boss fight of any RPG, aren't you mumbling something along the lines of, "Pleaseohpleaseohplease lemme beat this guy"?

Similar--and more popular--to the fourth-wall-breaking techniques outlined earlier is another of metagaming's facets--games about games themselves. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a great example of such.

In the beginning of FFTA, a group of children discuss what their favorite game is. Their favorite game, they decide, has magic--spells--strange creatures--treasure. Their favorite game is called "Final Fantasy". The adventure that follows is right out of a Final Fantasy game--it's got magic, spells, strange creatures, and treasure. In the world of the game, the characters are playing a real-life Final Fantasy game. In our reality, we see their adventures as yet another Final Fantasy game, full of magic, spells, strange creatures, and treasure. Essentially, we're playing a Final Fantasy game that is about people playing a Final Fantasy game.

Similarly, the Mega Man Battle Network series of games are about games themselves. I touched upon this in my review of one of the games, but the majority of each MMBN game takes place in a cyberspace universe, where you're controlling a computer program and defeating digital enemies. What you're doing in the game is what you're doing in real life. Lan, the main character, accesses the computer programs through a hand-held computer. Squint and it might look like your GBA.

Certainly there's a lot more that can be said. Blanket statements about metagaming can't really be made--it's used to different effects each time. Metal Gear Solid uses it mainly for comedic effects every so often--but its sequel uses metagaming techniques as an integral part of its plot. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance uses it as a springboard for an exploration of games as escapism. Earthbound uses its self-awareness partially to disturb the player--because the final battle is indeed disturbing--and partially to examine the nature of role-playing games. Whatever the case, the inclusion of metagaming techniques--the fact that games are eagerly using the techniques that literary postmodernists have been using for decades--shows that gaming is indeed able to use elements of aesthetic/philosophical movements and, by extention, that gaming is indeed an art form itself.

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Footnotes

1)I'm told that in Twin Snakes, Nintendo games are also commented on. Thanks, Rai.Return

2)I'm going on hearsay. My copy of Startropics was given to me by a friend without packaging. I only know the map/water trick from Nintendo Power.Return

3)If you can think of an earlier one please let me know.Return

4)I speak, specifically, of the Super Nintendo game, also known as "Mother 2". It's clear that a good deal of Earthbound is spent examining the nature of RPGs--hence its postmodernity. Mother 1--also known as Earthbound Zero--does the same, but it was never released in the States. I realize that this footnote is probably very poorly written and confusing to those not familiar with the gamesReturn