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qnqnx posted:This is probably the dumbest thing I've read in these forums this year, congrats fucktard! Why? Not every movie is fun, but lots are enjoyable in a different way (think Shindler's List vs. Guardians of the Galaxy) Is it any dumber to try to consider game this way? I'm also wondering why people react so incredibly towards "walking sim" art-style games, when movies are allowed these types of efforts without so much as a whimper from the average movie-goer. And I'd expect art games, just like art films, to not be the majority of the market despite getting a decent amount of the critical press. What makes games so different in this regard?
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May 31, 2016 18:31
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Popular Thug Drink posted:on a base level all entertainment should be fun, if it's not fun then it's boring and you stop consuming it. fun can take on different forms, such as interesting, frustrating, etc. the witness wasn't fun in a joyful sense, it was fun because it was intensely frustrating until you had an epiphany. schindler's list isn't pleasant to sit through or lightweight in its themes but it's fun because it produces in some way a powerful emotion like sympathy for the jews or hatred of the nazis which people find pleasurable in some bitter way. gone home was fun if you liked the atmosphere and environment, and it wasn't fun if you were expecting anything to happen or a more complex story Maybe it's a difference in terminology, but I'd never call a cathartic film like Shindler's List fun. It is however enjoyable. I also agree with Dapper_Swindler that most indie games going for being deep fail. But so do most art films, and really most films in general. Games seem like an oddity to me, in that there's a serious push for every AAA game to be considered good to great, when most blockbuster films are panned or neutral from decent critics. Gamers are just seem more sensitive to criticism from what I've seen, partially due to more much less established gaming is and partially due to paranoid fears that Beige Military Shooter 2016 or Weeb Breast Simulator 5.0 will not be made if games become Serious Business.
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May 31, 2016 19:18
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i think the problem is alot of the critics think only in terms of deep/high art. therefore people like john machintosh and moviebob and all of killscreen, poo poo on anything that isnt like that, dragon cancer or life is strange. they think that GTA/doom is showing a negative image of games to people outside the industry and therefore doom and GTA are problematic and pernicious and gross and violent. while i agree that their defienatly more different types of games. I dont think it should be some wannabe art critics guiding the type that are made. I agree, but you see this a decent amount with movies too-- there was a decent amount of criticism of how lightly That's My Boy take rape, and more than a few people commented how odd the statutory explanation scene in Transformers 3(?) was. Mentioning how rather odd the level of violence in GTA or Doom is seems about on the same level to me. The main problem is there's a subset of gamers (roughly equivalent to the Japanese otaku) who are currently being catered to almost to the exclusion of everyone else in the AAA market. There's a fear among these guys that any amount of inspection by decent people might get the more nuts elements of their games reigned in. I don't think they're wrong in that regard (probably more true with the worst of anime games than military shooters) but I also don't see any reason those things have to survive. In fact, I'm utterly fine with them failing if only to spite the people making a violent stink over light being brought to the situation.
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May 31, 2016 21:02
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i mean sure. But i dont like being looked at like some sort of culturally retarded because enjoy something that isn't their idea of "high art" and i think thats why these people get so much hate. i believe most games have politics imbued in them at some level. but acting like every game that has a gun or shooting in it is some pernicious plot of right wing mythology is retarded. The film equivalent to what you are discussing is somebody tearing up at Captain America or Superman v. Batman. Start saying stuff like that and normal people act like you're a little off, and for good reason. The AAA market is generally full of schlock, just like the blockbuster films. It's not a completely true point, in that there are plenty of crap indy flims/games and even some major games/movies that have some thought behind them-- best recent examples being Last of Us or Spec Ops/Fury Road. But this in general is the rule, and when you start to act like these AAA games are some huge emotional thing, people tend to look at you like you have critically poor taste. The solution to this is to develop better taste, not sure what else to say. I love some pulp media, (comics especially) but I'm adult enough to both understand this stuff is pulp, and to accept and understand the problematic parts of the stuff (esp the weird gender stuff that's Why are you so defensive about people doing game criticism on the same level film criticism has been on for decades? The AAA stuff is still going to be here, just you might actually see some moves away from the formulaic poo poo that the industry has been pumping out the last few years. It might also be less violent and riddle with lovely sex pandering, but that's also probably a step away from manchild pandering, which is an overall improvement.
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Jun 1, 2016 02:53
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Dapper_Swindler posted:Pretty much this and its kinda what i want. Opinion pieces are fine. but when i look for game review. i want to know what the basic premise is, how it plays. what it does well and what it doesn't. A review is specifically an opinion piece, you can't separate the two. What you want is someone to review from the same perspective as you, which is fine and given your stated opinions that's something you can get from Game Informer or the like. What you seem to annoyed about is that people are reviewing from any perspective different than yours, though the unstated "mainstream reviews are slanted garbage pushed by adverts and developer access" seems to be a major point too. I can accept that there's people out there reviewing games that don't match my tastes at all without whinging about it constantly, why is this such a problem for so many gamers? If you're worried that AAA gaming will go away because of some art critics, I wouldn't lose any sleep. AAA design is way more likely to fall apart due to economic issues and the unsustainable house of cards it's set up for itself. But you may see some of these critics' ideas filter into these games (because dev studios have to realize on some level the sameness of the products being put out, and thus see that small changes might reap better rewards) which seems to be the fear of the "objective" review crowd in the first place.
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Jun 1, 2016 08:48
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Incoherence posted:I actually don't know what this paragraph means, other than the shot at "Polygon or Kotaku" (why is it always those two? and why does Kotaku come up in the context of its game reviewing rather than its ongoing series of posts about creepy Japanese bullshit?). If I'm interested in the experience of playing the game, then I'm interested in reading someone talk about the experience of playing the game. There's a reason that the Game Review Rubric (graphics/controls/plot/replay value/etc.) fell out of favor. I think part of it is Polygon and Kotaku did think pieces about Gamers (as in the AAA stereotyped crowd) being over, and also was willing to take a stand against GG/for feminists. There's also a pretty solid streak of anti-intellectualism running through it, given lines like "flexing their thesaurus/that one semester they took a course on ethics/psychology/history". Nerd culture has a big problem with people finally looking at it critically, and a whole lot of nerds getting angry that it might somehow invalidate their tastes. You see similar things in comics and video games, where a mass of "normal" people end up raging against the PC/effete journalists. The fact that two of the three guys in thread were complaining about the reviews had issues with people being "sex negative" also tells volumes. I also think a lot of nerds know the games they like are the Michael Bay/Zack Synder end of things, and are more than a little worried that people are starting to act like this might not be the alpha and omega of gaming. Effectively, they want gaming to stay in the kiddie pool, because it's better to be king of an anthill than just being part of a much wider hobby. quote:I'm not even saying that people who review a game only on its mechanics are wrong; it's a different perspective, and one I don't share, but if that's all you care about in a game then that's the kind of review you want to seek out. The thing is reviews aren't wrong in any case. You're asking someone's opinion of a game and they're giving it. The reason why I listen to the reviews that I do is because I find people who have similar tastes and use their reviews. I already know that Beige Military Shooter of the Month isn't my style, so I ignore them regardless of glowing reviews. I'm more interested in indies or jRPGs that dodge the weebiest of stuff, and reviews are often really good at tell me how much Otaku contamination a game has. I do similiarly for movies, though anymore I've seen blowback about this because most movie reviewers are discerning enough to not give good reviews to average/poor blockbuster type films. I think there's just a growing group of low culture lovers who don't like to have their tastes questioned by anyone, and it's spilling over into everything.
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Jun 3, 2016 20:35
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fivegears4reverse posted:The act of criticism is not an inherent good beyond any form of reproach, no matter how much you might personally agree with what people like Arthur Gies or an anonymous gamergate shitposter have to say. My argument is getting angry at a reviewer for reviewing a game "wrong" is an idiotic position, since a review is a subjective thing and doesn't have a correct answer. There is no such thing as an objective review, and to push for a more "true" review that matches whatever viewpoint you have is a rather myopic point to stand on. I don't mind people heaping praise on the latest AAA, just don't complain that not every reviewer agrees and heaps praise on whatever game you love. I certainly don't care if people hate whatever indie darling or casual game I'm playing. It's almost like my enjoyment of something is independent of what other people think of it. quote:Videogames have been, for a very long time, much more than just the Michael Bay/Zack Snyder "end" of things. You'd have to be pretty ignorant to not see it that way. Uh, that's sort of what you insinuated with the whole raging against "Brown People Murder Simulators" criticisms (BTW, you don't get any points by not saying Virtue Signaling if you make the argument long hand) and complaining that reviewers were giving out wrong reviews. If you think that gaming can be for other kinds of gamers, you have to tolerate other kinds of gamers getting reviews that might be helpful to them. My suggestion is that if you don't want to be grouped with a bunch of anti-intellectuals, stop using the same stupid arguments they do. quote:For what it's worth as a post on Something Awful is concerned, I don't believe that thinkpieces are a bad idea inherently. I don't think for a second that we can't or shouldn't discuss underlying themes present in games, or other more serious topics connected to videogames. Again, my argument is that reviews can't be wrong, and playing up some anti-intellectual drivel about people forcing their politics into things (hint: there is no neutral position, antipolitical positions are inherently political) is the standard ignorant idea that is attempting to make sure gaming stays in the quickly homogenizing AAA ghetto that some people have been trying to get away from.
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Jun 3, 2016 23:17
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:zack snyder is actually a pretty good filmmaker and practically a poster child for being a self-aware nerd We're talking about the guy who made Man of Steel, Suckerpunch, Watchmen, and of course Superman vs. Batman, right? I wouldn't call any of those "pretty good". Hell, the only thing that he did that was halfway okay was 300.
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Jun 3, 2016 23:33
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Reviews can be as wrong as any other opinion statement is. Plenty of people have opinions s that are "wrong" in the sense that everyone with a lick of sense disagrees. Opinions can also be morally or ethically wrong (for example, racist opinions), can be ruled wrong by someone else with a different opinion and more authority (judicial opinions that are overturned), or can be premised on facts that are demonstrably false (don't sail to China! You'll go over the edge!) That's not what's being discussed here, though. We have someone saying reviews are wrong for analyzing games from a perspective he doesn't feel as worthy for a review. Basically, the argument that only certain parts of a game should be part of a review-- if you disagree with the political slant of a game, it can't be part of the review, or else it becomes a think piece. Because these are of course objective things that can't have any overlap.
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Jun 3, 2016 23:45
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I thought watchmen was a decent interpretation of the source material. I was trying to give him some credit. 300 is a lot less his baby than Miller's. I'm also trying to give 300 the benefit of the doubt, since the stuff Miller's done since then sours me on him, somewhat like Alan Moore in that regard. But even then, we're arguing about 1 film in a sea of poor stuff. He might be a self-aware nerd, but it doesn't translate into anything other than confusing blockbusters with very ornate special effects shots.
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Jun 3, 2016 23:58
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Brainiac Five posted:Actually, his movies are really good by most standards people apply for artistic quality. Really? I didn't hear many people saying good things about any of the movies I listed (Watchmen was the best liked, but still not very loved) and honestly I didn't enjoy any of them that I saw. You get to have whatever opinion on films you want, but I'm going to tell you as far as I've seen he's just another blockbuster director.
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Jun 4, 2016 00:42
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Absurd Alhazred posted:So Consumer Reports is a fake category? I'd argue it's unhelpful in many cases. And it won't stop the nerd rage from happening as soon as their first beloved AAA gets a no buy rating for "political" reasons.
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Jun 4, 2016 00:46
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Brainiac Five posted:Blockbusters are usually popular, though? Yes, but also of generally low quality in the critical community. Unless we're at the point where it's "a bunch of idiots like it, so it can't be bad", in which case might as well just toss culture down the drain. Hell, I've seen good blockbusters (examples: Empire Strikes Back, Fury Road) and neither of these two directors get anywhere near that level. They're both Uwe Boll with better special effects.
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Jun 4, 2016 00:58
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I don't really care whether it affects nerd rage or not. I get that, but the point is it's a bad plan since the compromise from a more substantial review. You lose the fidelity of being able to suggest anything other then buy or not, and the main offenders will still cause trouble as soon as their AAA ego replacement isn't praised.
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Jun 4, 2016 01:02
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Brainiac Five posted:What? You're saying they're unpopular but also popular trash, and now you're saying Snyder's movies are so incompetently shot and directed they're on par with deliberate bungling. No, I'm saying they aren't critically acclaimed, despite being popular with the "explosions, hell yeah" crowd. I'm not a populist in the slightest, so I don't see quality as coupled to mainstream popularity at all. And I'd rather watch an incompetently shot Boll film (if only to laugh at, or trying to figure out exactly how hard up for cash Jürgen Prochnow was to work on House of the Dead) to the disgusting male gaze-a-thon that Sucker Punch was. I'd also rather see Boll than watch see Bay explain why it's totally cool to gently caress a 16 year old for five minutes, never mind the other disgusting poo poo he's thrown on screen. rkajdi fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jun 4, 2016 |
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Jun 4, 2016 01:06
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V for Vegas posted:Interesting to see that he is attempting to start a direct funding model via Patreon (doing pretty good on $1,700 a month already). I expect this to gain in popularity after Jim Sterling was able to break away from the standard media model with it. Success with this model does require putting in year building your personal brand at Gamespot or the like, though.
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Jun 4, 2016 01:16
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Brainiac Five posted:Mainstream critics are also notoriously incompetent at handling genres like horror. How many actually good horror films come out, really? I heard good things about It Follows, but really the horror fans I know lost me the second they started talking about Saw or Human Centipede as quality movies. A good film has to transcend its genre trappings, and horror is usually not that great at being anything better than a good horror movie. quote:A movie where the basic plot is about the exploitation of women and their attempts to escape that exploitation surely is totally thoughtless and inane on gender and sexuality. Yeah, Sucker Punch was an attempt to push so much cool together into a single film that it's utterly confusing about what happens. And even with the fight scenes, the male gaze is still there and utterly despicable given the attempt. It's maybe a 5 compared to Transformer 2's 8, but the older I get the less tolerance I have for getting pandered to in that way. And honestly, the story within a story within a story makes the movie confusing in ways that even traditionally confusing films like Momento, Inception, or Pulp Fiction aren't.
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Jun 4, 2016 01:34
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computer parts posted:It's funny you think Snyder was saying "hell yeah titties" instead of "everyone who says 'Hell yeah titties' is gross". I'm more along the lines of "ironic sexism is still sexism".
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Jun 4, 2016 01:36
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computer parts posted:So is Starship Troopers similarly problematic? Yeah, that movie sort of goes without saying. You can like it if you want, but I rather dislike the film. Tuxedo Catfish posted:this is some entry level high art / low art poo poo Why is this an issue? Most genre stuff is stuck in the genre ghetto, which fits the whole Sturgeon's Law deal.
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Jun 4, 2016 02:01
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:19 |
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EDIT: Dropping derail.
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Jun 4, 2016 02:17
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