The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy_ I Link Therefore I Am - Luke Cuddy [16]
The 3D view provides the more natural perspective (or at least some approximation) of everyday life. We look out into—and not onto—the surrounding environment. We become embodied in the virtual world as inhabitants ourselves: “Escaping the imaginary totalizations produced by the eye, the everyday has a certain strangeness that does not surface.” And it’s precisely this unreadable “strangeness” that generates what de Certeau calls “the poetic experience of space.” Because we can never immediately parse the total 3D environment in one glance, surrounding space maintains an air of mystery. To look above, we must actively gaze upwards; to look around a corner, we must physically move to another location. The process of discovery—and the accompanying sense of place—is inextricably woven into the very fabric of three-dimensional existence.
In practice, though, the distinction between panoptic and everyday experiences of space isn’t so clear-cut. Even in “reading” the city from thousands of feet above, we fill the space below with our own perceptions and memories. Revisiting our railway example, it can be counter-argued that the panoramic views afforded by train travel allow for a more holistic appreciation of space, potentially heightening sense of place. Schivelbusch, for instance, describes the emergence of a modern consciousness that perceives not “a picturesque landscape destroyed by the railroad,” but rather “an intrinsically monotonous landscape brought into an aesthetically pleasing perspective” (The Railway Journey, p. 60). Some of the most memorable highlights of Wind Waker are precisely those activities that create panoramic views: hang-gliding over Outset Island, riding the Windfall Island Ferris Wheel, or flying around in seagull mode.
A hang-gliding trip opens up dramatic views of Outset Island (The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Nintendo).
The problem, however, is that the panorama tends to dominate the places it encompasses. By transforming place into image, the panorama endows environmental presence with a kind of postcard-ready clarity. Panoramic views may confer an exhilarating sense of the landscape, but reducing sense of place to distant glimpses sacrifices spaces of places for spaces of flows. Strong sense of place requires that panoptic experience be carefully balanced with everyday physical—or virtually physical—experience.
Warping, however, offers no semblance of such a balance. Modern transportation, at the very least, moves through the space it annihilates. The discontinuity of warping, by comparison, nullifies even panoramic experience. The spaces between are no longer merely degraded—they’re altogether ignored. In terms of environmental presence, even panoramic experience is preferable to the pure mathematical logic of the map grid.
Game versus Place
Despite my emphasis on environmental presence, there is of course nothing “wrong” with action-oriented game design. After all, videogames are by definition games; at least on some level, they rely on structured gameplay objectives. We should also acknowledge that there’s no one correct approach to game design. Videogames encompass a diversity of styles and genres, and environmental presence is only one of many possible experiences afforded by the medium.
In some virtual worlds, place-centered design might even detract from the game experience. Most massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), for example, provide easy ways to teleport or expediently travel across their huge three-dimensional worlds. Though newer MMOs boast artfully rendered environments, these places often feel empty