RHETORIC

Rhetoric can be expressed in many forms, including verbal, visual and writing. It can be described as “being a persuasive discourse, or an implicit narrative, wittingly or unwittingly adopted by members of a particular affiliation to persuade others of the veracity or worth-whileness of their beliefs.” Salen and Zimmerman (page. 517)Personally I am obsessed with Tomb Raider game. As a player you become tough girl called Lara Croft. It’s a very excited game follows the exploits of Lara Croft, a British female archaeologist in search of ancient treasures in Indiana Jones .Each digital game expresses its rhetoric through visuals and instructions in the game.When playing Tomb Raider the visuals are third party so the image of the ‘attractive’ Lara Croft is on view. She must kill dangerous animals and creatures in her quest. The rhetoric within the game is quite violent, when playing you must kill to reach your goal. It does not condone violence, although there is limited violent action towards humans.The game was critically acclaimed and widely influential and the world she inhabits is fully drawn in three dimension. The object of Tomb Raider is to guide Lara through a series of tombs and other locations in search of treasures and artifacts.Salen and Zimmerman (2004, p.483) quite rightly point out that to be successful in games like this then you must follow their rules and beliefs whether or not you agree with what is being done you must do it to complete the game “they accept rules so that they can play a game, and they accept these rules so that they can play this game” (Salen and Zimmerman 2004, p.181).I personally feel that influences such as rhetoric in games are powerful, but cannot be considered contributing factors for illegal activity. A possible explanation to why someone may want to imitate something they have seen in a game is because they cannot distinguish between reality and fiction!
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