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poptart_fairy posted:The game isn't chastising you though. It's going "hey, games glorify this poo poo in a lot of cases - is that really a good thing". Again, there are loading screens which specifically mock you, the player, for playing. It's small but redirects the narrative in a huge way.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 17:17 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:21 |
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I dunno man, unless you're really loving easy to offend stuff that asks you how many Americans you've killed seems less of a piss take and more of a way to further highlight what it is you're doing.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 17:30 |
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oldpainless posted:Eminem had a comic book? Oh that's just part of a series.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 17:31 |
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Wanted is a terrible example of what we're talking about. Even if his arguments were spot-on about the reader, they're still coming from a fat guy who wrote about a genetically super powered villain that had his powers and fortune handed to him. Those closing panels don't work on any level.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 17:38 |
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Mark Millar isn't fat.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 17:40 |
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Then substitute whatever insult satisfies you. He's a goony looking fucker regardless.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 17:46 |
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The thing dragging down spec ops the line is that it's poo poo
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 17:54 |
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Spec ops is better than alpha protocol and TV show The Wire
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 18:00 |
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I am not to cool for school. I just think it's incredibly silly to let a video game judge you as a person. HaB posted:Agreed. I also think it's silly for the game to mention it at all, as if they aren't literally making money off the very same war/torture/destruction. Like, this is not some super complex, it is literally loving asking you to be critical about the medium you are enjoying, which vast swathes of the people enjoying it have never, ever done and videogames especially avoid like the loving plague because they are shallow, insipid garbage by and large We're talking about a medium where a game that unironically says "maybe the revolutionaries opposing literal slavery and racism are equally bad ~cause they kill people~" is hailed as a masterpiece of storytelling
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 18:09 |
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Aphrodite posted:Oh that's just part of a series. The Stoutest Punisher.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 18:34 |
RagnarokAngel posted:Again, there are loading screens which specifically mock you, the player, for playing. It's small but redirects the narrative in a huge way.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 18:36 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:We're talking about a medium where a game that unironically says "maybe the revolutionaries opposing literal slavery and racism are equally bad ~cause they kill people~" is hailed as a masterpiece of storytelling This was the thing that really got me about The Division. The game opened with you instigating a lot of violence and what amounts to executions of people who are desperate, hungry and sick. Even as a desensitized-since-birth gamer, I was kinda taken aback by the abruptness of action and mercilessness the game expects of you... and it never even tries to call you/itself out on it.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 18:48 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:ok If I sit for 20 hours playing a game of shootmans, then the game suddenly says "you know...you should really think about what it means that you are shooting mans. They could have families, wives, sons, daughters, dogs and cats....they aren't merely enemy mans....they're just like you...you are the mans shooting the shootmans! oooooooooh!" then yes - that's silly. I wouldn't have sat there for 20 hours playing shootmans if it wasn't for the fact you made a shootmans game, so telling me when I play the game YOU made that I'm a bad person for doing so is disingenuous at best and flat out stupid at worst. Asking the player to be critical of the medium doesn't exempt you from being an example of the exact thing the player should be critical about, nor does it make the game less shallow or insipid. if a game really wants to subvert the genre - then it needs to actually DO that. Not make the same game as every other game, then say "you're not really the hero!" 3/4ths of the way through. I think Dark Souls manages that idea really well. You meet NPCs throughout the entire game, and you help them in various ways which propel their questlines forward, until you eventually figure out they went Hollow and insane as a direct result of your "help". But it's not a big dumb reveal or worse - text on a loading screen breaking the 4th wall to speak directly to the player. Some people never figure out at all that it's you - the player character - that is the worst thing in Lordran. That is a good example of having the player think about the medium.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 19:09 |
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HaB posted:so telling me when I play the game YOU made that I'm a bad person ITT we are unable to understand messages the game outright says while paused.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 19:13 |
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I took that message as facetious, much like walker trying to justify his actions, the player is trying to justify that he's still playing and killing.Deceitful Penguin posted:ok quote:We're talking about a medium where a game that unironically says "maybe the revolutionaries opposing literal slavery and racism are equally bad ~cause they kill people~" is hailed as a masterpiece of storytelling No its saying a justifiable revolution can become bloodthirsty and lose track of its goals when a cult of personality figure head loses sight of what's important and tries to grab onto power. Citation: history. RagnarokAngel has a new favorite as of 19:41 on Jul 20, 2016 |
# ? Jul 20, 2016 19:38 |
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RagnarokAngel posted:I took that message as facetious, So are you and HaB Tiggum's alts, or what
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 19:42 |
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poptart_fairy posted:Then substitute whatever insult satisfies you.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 19:49 |
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HaB posted:
Are you quite certain that a player character is the worst thing in Lordran? It's hard to picture a stranger that would lend aid to another human being as culpable for the downfall of others. It's tragic, but their fates were their own - and so is yours. Isn't that the theme of the piece? No, there are worse things than that in the land of ancient lords.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:02 |
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Huszsersvn posted:Are you quite certain that a player character is the worst thing in Lordran? It's hard to picture a stranger that would lend aid to another human being as culpable for the downfall of others. It's tragic, but their fates were their own - and so is yours. Isn't that the theme of the piece? He's saying that because everything you do to help those people it brings them closer to ruin. so even though you think you're doing the right thing the game responds by showing you that no good deed goes unpunished.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:08 |
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Like I said way back at the start of this conversation:Oxxidation posted:There's a huge amount of hearsay regarding The Line's writing process and nearly all of it is unreliable because gamers were goddamned livid at that title. It's pretty much impossible to have a civil discussion about The Line because so many gamers felt personally slighted at its message, to the point where they ginned up tons of rumors and increasingly far-fetched interpretations of the script to paint the game in as hostile a light as possible. It says less about the game and more about how thin-skinned some people can be regarding a medium that habitually greets you with bursts of confetti and shiny medals when you've slain enough men. Something that tries to break that cycle of positive reinforcement (and not even all the way, you still get little statistic popups for headshots and the like) really had its work cut out for it.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:08 |
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Also it's a very bad game.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:20 |
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Oxxidation posted:Like I said way back at the start of this conversation: I wish people were at least consistent in their hate, I would have loved to see people getting super mad at Undertale for calling them a murderer or KotOR 2 for being a Star Wars game that criticised Star Wars.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:21 |
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Aphrodite posted:Also it's a very bad game. I dunno what is worse: The gunplay being bad, the excuse its bad because "war is bad", or the fact nerds actually take it as a legit reason. E: Cone of fire in games. We are at the point in gaming programming that we can make bullets no longer hitscan and can program recoil. It seems we cannot program guns with barrels that aren't made of some super malleable substance that can triple in size after heating up from bullets being fired to returning to normal size after a second cool down. This is dumb and stupid Leal has a new favorite as of 20:26 on Jul 20, 2016 |
# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:22 |
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The gameplay wasn't great but I didn't despise it or anything. The fact that some people think it was made intentionally bad to fit with the message is amazing though.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:25 |
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Now let's talk about censorship in games and how that only means any time a woman has more clothes on than her first appearance.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:50 |
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the ultimate sin of spec ops the line is that it tells more than it showsRenegadeStyle1 posted:Spec ops is better than alpha protocol and TV show The Wire holy loving poo poo
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 21:09 |
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Evilreaver posted:This was the thing that really got me about The Division. The game opened with you instigating a lot of violence and what amounts to executions of people who are desperate, hungry and sick. Even as a desensitized-since-birth gamer, I was kinda taken aback by the abruptness of action and mercilessness the game expects of you... and it never even tries to call you/itself out on it. (I know it's not written by him but the brand has that rep of HARD MEN MAKE HARD CHOICES OO RAH) HaB posted:If I sit for 20 hours playing a game of shootmans, then the game suddenly says "you know...you should really think about what it means that you are shooting mans. They could have families, wives, sons, daughters, dogs and cats....they aren't merely enemy mans....they're just like you...you are the mans shooting the shootmans! oooooooooh!" then yes - that's silly. I wouldn't have sat there for 20 hours playing shootmans if it wasn't for the fact you made a shootmans game, so telling me when I play the game YOU made that I'm a bad person for doing so is disingenuous at best and flat out stupid at worst. Asking the player to be critical of the medium doesn't exempt you from being an example of the exact thing the player should be critical about, nor does it make the game less shallow or insipid. HaB posted:if a game really wants to subvert the genre - then it needs to actually DO that. Not make the same game as every other game, then say "you're not really the hero!" 3/4ths of the way through. It's only in the last fifth that the game actually goes outside the 4th wall to draw attention to this. There's been relatively few games that actually do this (Eternal Darkness being perhaps the most famous example, thought MGS did it with the back of the CD case) but whatever. At its core it is loving exactly the same goddamn game as the ones it's targeting; it's a singleplayer shooter with Nolan North as the main character who singlehandedly murders hordes of enemies to triumph in a fairly typical power fantasy, at least at the start. It then subverts it by making you do increasingly dubious poo poo for less reasonable reasons then directly calling you out for it, both in game and outside it, in a way that is extremely jarring and novel. How the hell is that not subversion? And furthermore did you think that maybe, just maybe, the intended audience of the game was more likely to have never encountered criticism of this type before and therefore the sledgehammer might be more suitable than the chisel? HaB posted:I think Dark Souls manages that idea really well. You meet NPCs throughout the entire game, and you help them in various ways which propel their questlines forward, until you eventually figure out they went Hollow and insane as a direct result of your "help". But it's not a big dumb reveal or worse - text on a loading screen breaking the 4th wall to speak directly to the player. Some people never figure out at all that it's you - the player character - that is the worst thing in Lordran. That is a good example of having the player think about the medium. RagnarokAngel posted:I took that message as facetious, much like walker trying to justify his actions, the player is trying to justify that he's still playing and killing. RagnarokAngel posted:No its saying a justifiable revolution can become bloodthirsty and lose track of its goals when a cult of personality figure head loses sight of what's important and tries to grab onto power. Citation: history. Guy Mann posted:I wish people were at least consistent in their hate, I would have loved to see people getting super mad at Undertale for calling them a murderer or KotOR 2 for being a Star Wars game that criticised Star Wars.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 21:37 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Huhuhu, I don't feel bad about that thur character in that thur fictional work dying cuz it aint a real purson hyuck hyuck Well. I mean, the answer to the question "how many Americans have you killed today," one of the early fourth wall hits, is almost certainly going to be zero for almost all players. But that's sort of the point that the game is making and I think the best answer to the whole "how is turning off the game a legit choice?" question. It's not fun, it's barely exciting, the combat is brutal and uninspired, and none of it is real. The player can stop whenever they choose. Asking the player why they care, why they persist, what payoff they think is waiting and how much more blood and nightmares they're willing to wade through to get to it, is a solid question. Walker thinks that killing Konrad will fix things. How? Why? Do you agree, player? One could argue that the fourth wall breaks are there partially to drive a wedge between the player and the character, to remind the player that Walker makes the decisions and you just control his moment by moment actions. For me, the payoff was seeing Walker confront the fact that it was indeed all in vain.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 23:03 |
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You could make the point that "how many Americans have you killed today?" is still about Walker, just addressed to the player because of the inherently fourth-wall-breaking nature of delivering it as a loading screen tip. If not for the other ones I posted about earlier that are indisputably talking about the player ("this isn't real, so why should you care?" / "to kill for entertainment is harmless") it'd be a lot easier to argue that that's all they were going for.
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# ? Jul 20, 2016 23:19 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:kotor 2 is good while I agree with you that kotor 2 was good, I'm going to take your custom title's advice
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 00:15 |
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https://youtu.be/1lffg88WDRg
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 00:40 |
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Guy Mann posted:I wish people were at least consistent in their hate, I would have loved to see people getting super mad at Undertale for calling them a murderer or KotOR 2 for being a Star Wars game that criticised Star Wars. things dragging kotor2 down: tslrcm restored some content that it really would be better without.
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 01:06 |
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LibrarianCroaker posted:things dragging kotor2 down: tslrcm restored some content that it really would be better without. Agreed. The dialogue for the droid factory is pretty funny but the actual level is a punishing slog to play through and your reward is the strongest anti-droid weapon in the game...right after the last dungeon in the game to feature droids
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 01:09 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:hmmm, let's see what was the full title of that game again lol
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 01:12 |
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HaB posted:so telling me when I play the game YOU made that I'm a bad person for doing so the game they made and you bought
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 01:43 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:hmmm, let's see what was the full title of that game again lol
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 01:49 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:hmmm, let's see what was the full title of that game again Nice meltdown
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 01:55 |
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Smouldering Lake drags down Dark Souls 3 - it's an optional area but it's one that's fairly easy to reach if you take a turn at essentially a two pronged fork in the game. I guess it's designed to test the player but it does so in the cheapest way possible for Dark Souls. You start by getting sandwiched between a giant laser spitting worm and a giant ballista that will shoot you with giant bolts, three at a time relentlessly. There are certain cover positions but not that many. Sure, you can kill the worm but upon entry you can do nothing about the ballista. And if you run away from the giant worm? Giant crabs instead rear end in a top hat. So then the giant ballista blows a hole in the floor. Hooray, right? Wrong. Instead it's tight corridors full of pyromancers and Oolacile looking motherfuckers who have a "jump on your head" unblockable attack that was taking my level 55 guy down in two hits. I haven't reached the boss yet but I'm sure that's as much of a kick in the dick as the path to shut off the ballista (it's full of enemies that can turn you to stone and swarm you). ETA: I know the Dark Souls games are challenging, but it's usually in a way that can be overcome with patience and timing. Getting swarmed by multiple enemies while a giant cannon shoots your face off is not challenging, it's bullshit. There's no skillful way to handle that situation.
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 02:31 |
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Deceitful Penguin is not wrong.MysticalMachineGun posted:Smouldering Lake drags down Dark Souls 3 - it's an optional area but it's one that's fairly easy to reach if you take a turn at essentially a two pronged fork in the game. That whole area sucks poo poo, unfortunately. Also, there is no boss in the tunnels, that's all bonus dicking around to do. The fog gate at the far end of the single massive open area leads to the boss. Which is a pretty baffling choice because it means your only reason to go into the tunnels is if you want to turn off the ballista... which you don't have to do if you're there to fight the boss because you can just ignore it and go right to the fog. And after you turn off the ballista you can explore the lake at your leisure... but the lake is just that single big area and there's nothing else to it besides the entrances to the tunnels. CJacobs has a new favorite as of 02:40 on Jul 21, 2016 |
# ? Jul 21, 2016 02:37 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:21 |
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CJacobs posted:Deceitful Penguin is not wrong. maybe so, but he needs a snickers or something CJacobs posted:That whole area sucks poo poo, unfortunately. Also, there is no boss in the tunnels, that's all bonus dicking around to do. The fog gate at the far end of the single massive open area leads to the boss. Which is a pretty baffling choice because it means your only reason to go into the tunnels is if you want to turn off the ballista... which you don't have to do if you're there to fight the boss because you can just ignore it and go right to the fog. And after you turn off the ballista you can explore the lake at your leisure... but the lake is just that single big area and there's nothing else to it besides the entrances to the tunnels. unless you want the pyromancy tome or the bks, there's not much need to go into the tunnels. I think you get the fugs there, as well.
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# ? Jul 21, 2016 02:59 |