On Breaking the Fourth Wall

Lexia to Perplexia reminds me of a text adventure game without the game. As well, the idea of merging human grammar with computer grammar reminds me of breaking the fourth wall, especially in the context of video games. That is the mental analogy I used to try to make sense of what I was experiencing: I was the avatar in the digital world, but the veil had been lifted and I could see what was going on behind the clean-skinned representation of the world and into the code working under the hood. (Sounds like The Matrix, probably - I've never actually seen The Matrix.)

There's an interesting article about immersion, postmodernism, and breaking the fourth wall with a lot of focus on Metal Gear Solid in "Press the ‘Action' Button, Snake! The Art of Self-Reference in Video Games". It is an interesting, if a tad superficial, examination, but doesn't seem to include much about Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. That's a rather glaring omission, as MGS2 is one of the few games I've played that I would consider postmodern. For example, at the end, the player's usual sense of control is completely subverted. It's one of the few games where you feel you personally are being forced to do things you don't want to do. It's different than the understanding most gamers have that they must fulfill specific criteria to achieve a winning, endgame condition.

One of the central themes of MGS2 also ties in, I think, with our discussion of modes of communication, and how we interact with them and how they manipulate us and our understanding. The main character (spoiler, not Snake) is a study in how much of a "self" actually exists in a person, and how much is externally dictated. How are our beliefs shaped by the external world, and do we have any choice in what we believe? This carries over to how we interpret messages: how much of the message is dictated by the medium? Quite a bit of it, I think Hayles is arguing.

Anyway, the MGS series is famous for referencing the system that the human player is interacting with, much like Lexia to Perplexia highlights the system that the reader is interacting with, to point out the materiality of the message medium.