DStecks posted:

You can argue that Tetris isn't a game, but a puzzle, but saying it's not a video game is just bizarre.

Also I made a new review, dealing with Christian Weston Chandler's musical output. I don't really recommend the video if you're not already familiar with the guy (and with my videos), I'm just posting it here for the people who already follow my stuff.

EDIT: I'm being informed that it's copyright blocked in the USA. I've got a fix I'm working on, but it's gonna take a number of hours.

PresidentBeard posted:

The non-white evil humans in Tolkien get memorialized with speeches regarding how they were tricked, lied to, or forced into fighting the forces of good. Orcs on the other hand don't, as they had the excuse of their whole society literally being run by Satan.

INH5 posted:

FEAR 2. Though I haven't played the game myself, so I don't know how it actually handles it.


From what I've read, Tolkien was never truly satisfied with the orcs all being evil since that clashed with his own Catholic beliefs in salvation being available to everyone. The best kludge he could come up with is that the orcs are evil because they were turned evil as part of their transformation, and he was never very comfortable with that idea either.

Jack Gladney posted:

Does this mean that Jehovah exists in Lord of the Rings World? That seems even worse, theologically speaking, than just making it a heathen Viking world.

Jack Gladney posted:

Does this mean that Jehovah exists in Lord of the Rings World? That seems even worse, theologically speaking, than just making it a heathen Viking world.

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

It seems like the way you're supposed to beat shadow link is to try and advance on him during a duel. The way I usually do it always felt a little too gamey (jump downthrust/swipe repeat) and not in the spirit of what the designers wanted.

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

Pearls of Lutra had a cool cover.

Darth Walrus posted:

Since Redwall has been brought up again, it is mandatory that someone posts this.

BigRed0427 posted:

Shadow Link in pratice always seemed like the easiest boss to cheap out. In OOT all you have to do is spam Din's Fire or the Megaton Hammer.

Wheat Loaf posted:

As I recall it, Pearls of Lutra is one of two books which had a "good" vermin character (Romsca, the guard captain, who helps the heroes and dies at the end). I was mad keen on the Redwall series when I was a kid, before the Edge Chronicles became my juvenile fantasy series of choice.


Haha, first thing I ever read on SA and still probably my favourite.

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

I think there was actually some intent in Zelda 2 to make it into an epic duel but by the time most people got to the guy their health/lives/magic were so low I wouldn't be surprised if someone just instinctively ran to a corner, squatted and mashed the B button.

Was there a way to beat OOT Shadow Link with the sword? I've only played through that game once and I'm sure I used the hammer on him.

Hbomberguy posted:

You've got very interesting ideas about what constitutes 'art':

1: Something is racist if racist people consume it or like it for seemingly any reason
2: Something isn't art if it involves 'wish fulfilment' for the people consuming it
3: Indiana Jones and Star Wars are 'less art' than other films because they are 'juvenile', and also because they fulfil someone's wishes to see a film about space or adventure.
4: Whether or not something fits these definitions of art has some sort of meaning or purpose in the wider world.

You do know that literally all films are vehicles for wish fulfilment, in that they fulfil the creator's wish to create a film or tell a certain story, right? Furthermore art is all about desire, especially in a commodity-driven culture, and the entire point of large swaths of art-reading is to come to a better understanding of this process and the affect it has on people.

I don't know how someone who recognises Tetris as the best game can be wrong on so many other counts. You'd better be really good at Tetris when you're first against the wall or you'll have your work cut out for you in my gulag.

Kane and Lynch 2 has the second-top spot next to Hotline Miami (e: and, if you hadn't guessed, Tetris) on my list of Maximum Art Games, and perhaps has the best video game punchline of all time (it's called dog days and the final boss is two dogs you cap in one hit each before running away and the credits roll)

Josef K. Sourdust posted:

Are you planning an assassination raid? You're making me nervous. Plinkett was bad but not fatwa bad.....

boom boom boom posted:

I was just wondering. No harm in wondering.

And Plinkett isn't bad, Plinkett's great! I hope they do more Plinkett reviews after they finish Space Cop.

Jack Gladney posted:

Fine, Immanuel Kant: art is everything that doesn't have a purpose. It includes poems and decorative jars and the ceramic cow your mom bought at the craft fair and Jackson Pollak and Tetris. Is that what you want? Is it?

But if you're talking about art as narrative that engages human possibility, narrative video games are always going to give you way less of that because video games with narratives usually have you driving somebody around as a prosthesis to interact with the fictional world, which makes them about things other than engaging a narrative of fully-realized characters like a novel or whatever. It's like how on Star Trek they think the future of narrative is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes or whatever, but really the only thing it can do is help teach the autistic robot about social cues because when you act out a story you're being yourself from inside and everything is constructed around you. That's boring as poo poo from a narrative point of view, which I guess is ok because most video games seem like they're mostly about fun or challenging mechanics that the story serves up.

There's nothing about the form that might not allow for something else, but somebody will have to make a choice between video games being challenging mechanics and narrative. Also most of the people who make video games seem like big reactionary babies deeply in love with escapist fantasy, which is why they apparently argue so much about whether video games are art or not.

Gyges posted:

Orcs are elves that were tortured and corrupted by Morgoth's magic into twisted evil things. Trolls are something similar off of giants, I think. They're both basically just demons. Men are really the only races that really has full free will to be good or evil.

Darth Walrus posted:

Man, the Edge Chronicles really lose a lot of their charm when read as a series. Basically, every triumphant note and happy ending in any given book is immediately overruled by its sequel, to the point where it outright saps your investment. C'mon, dude, let the good things last sometimes. Make your characters' triumphs meaningful. It's not like it'll kill you.

Jack Gladney posted:

Fine, Immanuel Kant: art is everything that doesn't have a purpose. It includes poems and decorative jars and the ceramic cow your mom bought at the craft fair and Jackson Pollak and Tetris. Is that what you want? Is it?

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

The Matrix Series would be great for Plinkett to review.

Jack Gladney posted:

Fine, Immanuel Kant: art is everything that doesn't have a purpose. It includes poems and decorative jars and the ceramic cow your mom bought at the craft fair and Jackson Pollak and Tetris. Is that what you want? Is it?

But if you're talking about art as narrative that engages human possibility, narrative video games are always going to give you way less of that because video games with narratives usually have you driving somebody around as a prosthesis to interact with the fictional world, which makes them about things other than engaging a narrative of fully-realized characters like a novel or whatever. It's like how on Star Trek they think the future of narrative is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes or whatever, but really the only thing it can do is help teach the autistic robot about social cues because when you act out a story you're being yourself from inside and everything is constructed around you. That's boring as poo poo from a narrative point of view, which I guess is ok because most video games seem like they're mostly about fun or challenging mechanics that the story serves up.

There's nothing about the form that might not allow for something else, but somebody will have to make a choice between video games being challenging mechanics and narrative. Also most of the people who make video games seem like big reactionary babies deeply in love with escapist fantasy, which is why they apparently argue so much about whether video games are art or not.

Hbomberguy posted:

Tetris is a story.

Spiritus Nox posted:

It's worth noting that, as I understand it, Tolkien himself never came up with what he considered to be a satisfactory answer for the question of "the gently caress is with the Orcs." Between the Silmarillion and the LOTR books (and I'm pretty sure even within the works of the Silmarillion itself), there are multiple contradictory accounts or implications of what constitutes an Orc - one can only assume Tolkien meant to make things consistent once he found a good answer. Alas, it never happened.

Hbomberguy posted:

As children's stories the Edge Chronicles are fascinating. Every story ends with what resembles a 'they lived happily ever after' line, but the next picks up with things falling apart again - or a new character's trilogy starts and we get to see what ten/twenty years did to the old characters. Even if they fare well, they still eventually get old and die.

It's great. Rather than tell kids to go in search of happy endings, we're repeatedly shown how there basically aren't any, and at the end you die - and living forever is even worse. Instead it settles on doing what you think is right even if it kills you, because you are going to die anyway and it might as well count. The key section for me in the whole series is when an old Twig in the last ever sky ship decides, knowing full well the battle will destroy the ship by infecting it with stone-sickness even if they win, but he decides to do it anyway because he believes it is right. That's totally baller.

Jsor posted:

On the other hand, we could consider ourselves fortunate it never happened. It makes the world more interesting and ambiguous. I don't think Tolkien would have totally mucked it up, but it adds something that nobody really knows. Not even Tolkien. It's a legitimately hard question, much like real world theological ones like the problem of pain. Having no easy answers makes sense.

Jack Gladney posted:

Also most of the people who make video games seem like big reactionary babies deeply in love with escapist fantasy, which is why they apparently argue so much about whether video games are art or not.

Hbomberguy posted:

As children's stories the Edge Chronicles are fascinating. Every story ends with what resembles a 'they lived happily ever after' line, but the next picks up with things falling apart again - or a new character's trilogy starts and we get to see what ten/twenty years did to the old characters. Even if they fare well, they still eventually get old and die.

It's great. Rather than tell kids to go in search of happy endings, we're repeatedly shown how there basically aren't any, and at the end you die - and living forever is even worse. Instead it settles on doing what you think is right even if it kills you, because you are going to die anyway and it might as well count. The key section for me in the whole series is when an old Twig in the last ever sky ship decides, knowing full well the battle will destroy the ship by infecting it with stone-sickness even if they win, but he decides to do it anyway because he believes it is right. That's totally baller.

Jack Gladney posted:

Darth Walrus posted:

Man, the Edge Chronicles really lose a lot of their charm when read as a series. Basically, every triumphant note and happy ending in any given book is immediately overruled by its sequel, to the point where it outright saps your investment. C'mon, dude, let the good things last sometimes. Make your characters' triumphs meaningful. It's not like it'll kill you.

Hbomberguy posted:

As children's stories the Edge Chronicles are fascinating. Every story ends with what resembles a 'they lived happily ever after' line, but the next picks up with things falling apart again - or a new character's trilogy starts and we get to see what ten/twenty years did to the old characters. Even if they fare well, they still eventually get old and die.

It's great. Rather than tell kids to go in search of happy endings, we're repeatedly shown how there basically aren't any, and at the end you die - and living forever is even worse. Instead it settles on doing what you think is right even if it kills you, because you are going to die anyway and it might as well count. The key section for me in the whole series is when an old Twig in the last ever sky ship decides, knowing full well the battle will destroy the ship by infecting it with stone-sickness even if they win, but he decides to do it anyway because he believes it is right. That's totally baller.

boom boom boom posted:

Yeah. It's like the Star Wars prequels. Everyone knows they're bad, but usually can't articulate why they're bad.

Kunster posted:

Speaking of game design talk, Jack and Rich posted a thing about it!

Genetic Toaster posted:

Please please please write a massive essay about this. I unironically want to read what you have to say about it.

Darth Walrus posted:

The catch is that any potential 'life is short, so do good while you can' message is undermined by even the protagonists' good deeds having no lasting value. That's not realism, that's cynicism, and it gives the reader little reason to invest. This is particularly true because of how fast things go to poo poo - it's entirely possible to live a long, happy life in the real world, whereas the protagonists of the Edge Chronicles' lives seem to fall apart almost immediately after their own books end.

Hbomberguy posted:

The word I like to use is Ludonarrative, but it might not be the proper one. The point is, the experience of playing a game is the real story. This isn't done too well all the time but lots of early games harness it very well. Mario for example, is engaging because it creates the simple narrative of you, personally, trying to navigate an avatar to a goal. Saving a princess or whatever isn't actually the story so much as navigating those worlds and avoiding obstacles. You're viscerally there. I can't put it in words because really great games manage this with no words at all and I'm tired, but the point is games tell stories in completely new forms from a television show. In a Fire Emblem show viewers would be passively engaged in a war and interested in characters and their relationships, but in a fire emblem game the player directly experiences being turned into a battle commander and sending cute cartoony anime people (who they might actually like) to their deaths. This is why, even though the plots to FE games are often kinda badly written, they rank to me pretty highly as narratives/stories/plots/poo poo there's a word for this. Experiences? God that word sounds like a cop-out but sure let's go with that for now.

That's why people have more connection to Tetris than most of the characters in an fps. One is a narrative that the player experiences themselves, in a visceral way, and another is a simulation happening at an intermediary. Games like Half Life are revolutionary because they make the player and the 'main character' interchangable, and there are less barriers to experiencing the landscape or world where with others you have to work harder to dispel the contrivances.

If you only do what you think is right when it is valuable to do so, you are vastly more cynical than any Edge Chronicles character, and have failed.

At the end of your life, I can almost guarantee that you will die, and it will suck. But so what? That just makes what you stand for in the meantime before the inevitable all that more important. Also if the world was ever actually saved, for real, there probably wouldn't be more edge chronicles books because the conflicts would be over?

Arcsquad12 posted:

The only Redwall book I can really stand to read anymore is The Long Patrol, mainly because the book is a loving bloodbath for a children's novel. Yes, let's have a Berserker Badger cleave a rat's skull in or have a hare pinned to a tree with a spear through his gut, that'll give the kids some good reads!