New Games Journalism, Gonzo Jornalism and introspectve self torture

Bow Nigger

This writing by Ian Shanahan, who writes under the name Always_Black, tells the story of his experiance in a single match on Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.

In a versus system which allows 1v1 lightsabre only duels where the winner of the duel stays on and the loser goes to the bottom of the queue to play again, all non players are free to spectate.

It straight away throws you into the good vs evil encountre the writter was not expecting in the game.

'Bow, nigger' his opponant straight away typed, another example of people exploiting the anonimity of the internet.

He wanted Shanahan to show respect before the respect before the duel started, even given the terrible first impression his opponant gave Shanahan decided to give it a go and was instantly regretting it when his contender took the oppertunity to attack with a very powerful attack while his guard was down. You see this all the time online, power hungry people takeing delight in the fact they are beating others rather than the honour and respect of a fair fight won well.

In the end, after some very lucky hits by Shanahan he does in fact win, defeating the forces of evil and everrything bad in the world, much like what the star wars serise is based on and consequently wins the respect of his next oppontant, the agressive racist instantly leaves the game out of anger, the person who is about to face off with Shanahan congratulates him by bowing and typeing 'Awesome'.

I found the article very intresting as I have a lot of experiance playing the game and the next title in the serise online. Dureing the course of the battle Shanahan does into quite some detail about the mechanics of the game and his tactics, although the tale/leged is what makes the article so very intresting to me, you really do feel his elation for the win and constantly hopeing he wont lose dureing the fight which he was at a constant disadvantage.

New Games Jornalism of course owes its style to New Jornalism, Tom Wolfe was one of the original New Jornalism writers.

John Dugdale, “Media: The Wolfe pack: 25 years after the seminal work
which redefined the art of reporting, John Dugdale reveals the real
importance of Tom Wolfe's New Journalism to everything from Loaded to
the New Yorker - and yes, it could mean dusting off your white suit ” The
Guardian (Nov 16, 1998): p2.

''journalism had 'wiped out the novel as literature's main event''.

Haveing read Hunter S Thompsons books before and had experiance with 'New Games Jornalism' before, it was really intresting to see how the 'New Jornalism' style came about and what the writers set out to do.

Wolfe wanted to bring the imaganitive, self exploration of novel writings to jornalism,'Jornalism that reads like a novel'.

Wolfe and Thompson are boh responsible for inspireing lots of other writers with similar styles seen in so many examples now that is nearly common place in many places like rock jornalism and lads mags.

I do enjoy Thompson's style of writing but because he lived such an intresting life, a boreing person at a boreing event, will always write something boreing for New Jornalism fans.
I guess New Jornalism is subjective but that adds to the unique and quirkyness of style makeing each writer very different.

Wolfe's idea of self exploration liken to a novel author is intresting to me, purposefully 'Gamasutra - Features - Into the Woods: A Practical Guide to the Hero's Journey Into the Woods: A Practical Guide to the Hero's JourneyBy Bob Bates'  for the basis of your story.
I like this a lot because as a writer who drinks alot and suffers from bad choices and depression, I see the truth in this Gamasutra article written by ....!
here is an amazing couple of sections


'The tough part is, you must venture into the woods over and over again, and it's dark and scary in there. The reason it's dark and scary is that you're the one who built those woods, and you built them specifically as a warning to yourself not to go in there . But you have to. What you confront in there is your own fears and inadequacies.'
  
'This is not for the faint-hearted. Writers and artists are particularly susceptible to depression. A lot of us don't come back once we've gone into the woods. The number of writers who have committed suicide out of despair for their lives is uncounted. We are assailed by doubts that our work is good enough. We look at the work that others have done and know in our hearts that we will never be that good.'

I saw the connection between this article and new game journalism and new (gonzo) journalism as I feel Hunter S Thompson definatly and purposefully threw himself into the woods as did Aldous Huxley (a fiction writer), maybe too Joan of Arc (if God did speak to her I apologise but lets face it, she was a bit crazy , had a death wish and obviously didn't know what her subconcious wanted), as we all do from time to time, introspection is important, you cant go through life pretending you are someone you want to be, you must know who you truely are...