Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games
Contemporary renderings ofthe term pret'erinstead t" ,. In earlier literary studies, nostalgia was viewed as "a topic of em- identify nostalgia as an anodyne, personal longing for the past. Diatribe upon diatribe denounces it As an academic lerm, nostalgia is somewhat diffuse: Yet, more recently, the con- theory it is used in a variety ofways, with slippage making it a problerrr l,. Instead, it is used to describe a recent papers have tried to clarify what is meant by it Jennifer Delisle, li'r rnore complex, contradictory, and provocative process in relation to ele- example, argues that we need to make a distinction belween experienlitl r rrcnts ofthe past Ladino.
However, we would contend thirl Spitzer discuss how nostalgia as a form of remembrance for second gen- the complex body of relations that constitute gameplay may involve bollr , rrtion Holocaust survivors operates differently from their Parents' gen- , rrrtion They describe a return journey with their parents, survivors cultural and experiential nostalgia: I'r,',rches Frasca 35; Newman 18, 9l.
The narratological approach Nostalgia has also been used to understand the complex proccss I rl I'r r rlrrses that video games are best studied as interactive stories by using t lrc same analytic strategies established in the fields of literary and film identification and rejection of the past that is a constituent part i11 llrr 'trrtlics. By contrast the ludological approach instead suggests that video construction of identity. For example, fo Moran explores the meanings rtl childhood nostalgia in contemporary culture.
Childhood is reinvokcrl I'r ll,ulcs are an experiential medium and are fundamentally at variance rvit h the kinds ofsequential narrative engagement offered by other media the heritage industry in complex ways through the narrative construcli rrr ,rrr'h as film, the novel and the theatre play. Video games, ludologists ar- of fantasy childhoods, as well as through everyday objects, photos' rrrr'l textual fragments. The result is the production of'disjointed feelings "l 1irrc, need to be analyzed according to the operation ofplay and rules.
In this respect' this use of nostalgia points l. Certainly within the Battlestar Galactica video game, and game in video game studies. Nostalgia, Boym contends, which has reached epidemic propor t, lcvisual iterations of lhe Battlestar Galactica franchise, begun in In this respect' "nostalgia charts spaL'' tlre original series and the newer miniseries, and either articulates or on time and time on space and hinders the distinction between subjct I r rrrticulates many familiar elements while including n.
Within this, though, she argues that that there is lrr important conceptual distinction to be made between what she terms tr' In terms ofplaying through or with the past or what we terrn nostalgic- storative no stalgia and reJlectit e no stalgia: Viewers of the original television and film ir. Reflective nostalgia dwells on the ambivalences lllnchise know that it is this character who must, consequently, lead the r nlnants of the human race to find the mysterious lost Thirteenth Tribe of modernity. Restorative nostalgia protects the absolute truth' whilc r l Man on planet Earth. In llle Battlestar Galactica game, as the player reflective nostalgia calls it into doubt.
Iollowing an explirnirtory opcning rrrorro logue that both reinforces and reinvents existing m ,thology, the firsl lcvr'l of the game sees the player having to defend various human spaccslril'r, against attack from enemy spacecraft. The enemy craft are identified visrr ally within the game itself, in the accompanying extra-diegetic instrucliol manual, and on the gameb soundtrack as "Cylon Raidersl' In additiorr to elements ofplotting from the original versions, the video game feirtu lo, a number of familiar characters and, crucially, the same actors Richurrl Hatch and Dirk Benedict voicing some ofthose characters.
In audiovisual terms, the iconography reinvokes the original Battbslrt Galactica television and film series: In purely nirr rative terms, however, a key point of departure from the original telcvi sion and film iterations ofthe franchise occurs in the voice-over prologrrr' t igure 1 0. The Cylons, the player is informed, are machines created l y lmage Vivendi Universal.
This contradicts a key scene in the original iteration of tlrr. The player must then move to defend Cylon warriors. In this versionofthe mythos, these Cylons then rebellerl thc Galactica mothership. Importantly, progression in the first level of against their lizard masters. In other words, responsiye, accurate senso- make humankind's Cylon adversaries products of humankind's owrr rrrotor skills are rewarded on the basis ofadherence to the rules, or ludzs, making.
In eschewing this aspect of'btherness" we can perhaps observl ,,1 the game Caill ois. In Battlestar Galactica adherence to the rules then the post-g and War On Terror themes that inform both the digilrl r r'invokes the heroic mythos ofthe old, Battlestar Galacflca series whereby game and miniseries iterations of the Battlestar Galactica franchist lirliant warriors in fighters must defend the last vestiges of humanity frorn In the later game and minisedes versions, we humans have created our ,rlrlivion.
In this limited sense, ludus could be read in terms of Boym's own nemesis. It consequently becomes clear that narrative elements ol r lca of restorative nostalgia; obedience to the rules equates to protection lhe Battlestar Galactica video game simultaneously inyoke both restol ,rl the absolute truth. Equally, since it is a subversive act, freeform play- ative nostalgia and reflective nostalgia in Boym's terms.
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At the same time, though, there is nostalgic-play in both restorativc However, the terms ludus and paidia do not entirely account for the and reflective forms in those aspects ofthe game that we might obviously widely varying experience of gameplay. The Battlestar Galactica video identify as ludological2-i. In our view there are Iud,ological. Ludus and paidia often operate within a narrative framew r r'l rluee important elements to understanding and framing nostalgia as a in which all elements are interdependent: These elements in- that in the context of many video games, ludic elemer.
As Andreas Huyssen observes, nostalgia ments are inextricably entwined. Since even the most freeform exanple of paidia requires rules of. We are able to orchestrate ourselves within ofnostalgia, focusing on nostalgic-play, can have significant strengths. The player's dexterity with the PS2 or Xbox controller in the video As Boym notes, "Nostalgia, like irony, is not a property of the ob.
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The body memory acquired from previ- tual landscapes and the landscapes ofthe mind" This makes her ap scssiott. The first Because memory is not merely a product of mind but also an element weakness is that, within Boym's study ofthe literature ofexile, computels in a wider set of relations, it is necessary to employ theoretical stances and cyberspace are seen as independent of affect: A properly somatic approach to un- most sophisticated ones, are notoriously lacking in affect and sense ol ,.
We would argue otherwise: Likewise, within the subset of nostalgir t ulture and nature as separate entities is only to restate Cartesian dual- plaly, the emotional, physiological yearning for a past spacetime is a kcy isrr in other language Henri Bergson's conception of memory as element. Boym's conceptualization of nostalgia and the application of her stratc Identification of the need for an affective, somatic approach to the gies of analysis to video gameplay is that her understanding of the vir rtudy of video games is not new: Diane Carr and Torben Grodal have tual is somewhat reductivist, since it is narrowly configured through thc both adumbrated afective approaches.
However, both these theorists technology of the computer. The yearning to revisit or exPerience some element within a past In this sense, the wider body of relations-the confext-of nostillll play in which the game is played also cannot be ignored. Conseqtrcrrlll, trrrrc irnd place through play is keyto understanding the human psyche in for some players of the Battlestar Galactica game,lhe familiarity of nrcrrr , 1,,,sturodern culture in which new technologies are central to time com- ories ofthe origin al Battlestar Galactlca series and those longings-trlli r I'r, ssion and distanciation.
In a global environment in which time and tive desires-to pilot a Viper fighter craft against opposing Cylon figlrtt'rr. The familiarity ofthe past lrrr l clcilents ofChinese culture the cure for the equivalent to nostalgic longing is the shock of the new are conjured contemporaneously. When a person Further, we know that a feature of nostalgia is that it is a yearning L 't lies tbeir soul may suffer agonies ofpain ifthe past life were remembered' but something "within timel' In this sense, nostalgic-play can best be untlt t rrller drinking the soup the soul Passes over the Bridge of Pain and demons hurl stood as part of memory in a Bergsonian sense in which time is untlt'r the soul into waters ofnew life Schwarcz From this, a Petson who is pained stood as durational Bergson In terms of nostalgic-play this mcirrrr l y remembering too much is said to need Old Lady Meng's Soup, which obliter that the past is dynamically related to the present rather than the prescttt illes their obsessive desire to call uP the past.
Bergson, past and present are contemporaneous; they co-exist. The ar I ' laillois, whose insights into nolt-video ganes and Play provide a touchstone for of remembering is characterized by a rhizomic series of links wherelry ludological investigation, diferentiates ludus horn pai. In the Bergsonian sense, past, present, and fultrr'' Sit?
To conclude, the lens of nostalgia is highly effective in relation to tlrr University of Michigan Press, I Zone Books, study of video games. It cuts across established dichotomies betwccrr lt,,vrn, Svetlana. New York Basic Books, At the same time, however, the ptr' ouhure Itirsingsk licr Mittrrrrll ,r' ,,1llnllish, lrrivt,r'sityol VitloIir, llrilish i lunrl itl,,l-5Mrrch Willirl Nostalgia antl tltc Phases of Globalisation.
Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games
Menory a d Nostltlgia in Cinemi. Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brarr. Lonrhrrr tr, ,r lfrll. Gender Culture and Memoty.
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Heinemann, ll,rsi ngstokc: This item is available to borrow from 1 library branch. Publication Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, c Extent viii, p. Label Playing the past: Taylor, electronic resource Instantiates Playing the past: Taylor and Zach Whalen -- Why old school is 'cool': Ruffin Bailey -- Screw the grue: Murphy -- Visions and revisions of the Hollywood golden age and America in the thirties and forties: Gersic -- Remembrance of things fast: Dimensions unknown Extent viii, p.
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