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Magical Zero posted:Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but are you actually saying that technical skill isn't considered by artists or critics when it comes to making music, cinema, or poetry, etc? It is, but in every other medium you never see this sort of argument come up, because people approach a piece of art, whether it be film or literature or song, as one whole, made up of several elements. While games are mechanical, they can be more than just mechanical, or prioritize more than just mechanics. Looking at the budgets and current crop of games coming out these days, most games do. Raw mechanical games simply don't exist anymore. Fag Boy Jim argues for a world of where we'd still be looking at colored blocks on a screen, and that that's all that's important. Sadly the medium has advanced beyond that, and while there's a great many games that have very great mechanics and put them above all else, there are plenty of great games that feature simply passable mechanics for other elements instead. quote:Name a medium where the most enduring examples have remained popular because they have fulfilled societal functions, rather than for their communication of ideas and aesthetics. Film. Paintings. Sculpture. Go inside an art museum some time before trying to make this argument. quote:Name a medium where one has no choice but to approach a work on it's own terms (game mechanics and rules), rather than our own terms. (we can, after all, watch Triumph of the Will from a standpoint that is completely opposed to the filmmakers', but we can not play chess and reject "Bishops move diagonally") You hosed up big here. Chess has had many rules revisions throughout the years. Also, "house rules." quote:If the function of a game is to communicate ideals, it's very, very weird that the most highly-regarded examples of games don't seem to actually do so, except in a highly convoluted manner. Oh horseshit. Go all the way back to Pong, Adventure, and the Commodore 64. People had to imagine they were an adventurer, playing tennis, or what have you. They were communicating ideals of being in a role, of going on a journey, with very simple tools. You really don't know your history here, and it shows.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 01:41 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 14:02 |
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Jefferoo posted:Film. Paintings. Sculpture. Go inside an art museum some time before trying to make this argument. I misphrased that. Other mediums are not criticized on how well they fulfill a function. You could, for instance, say that a function of a work of art is to make money, but there's a reason that no critic this side of Peter Travers will ever consider this as the basis of their criticism. There are, of course, works of film that do have to be judged on fulfilling a function, like educational films, or newsreeels. These, (like textbooks, or newspapers) are usually not criticized as art. Games, on the other hand, have been evaluated on how well they compare the skill of the people who decide to play them. Games that do this task well continue to be played, and games that stink at this die out. Jefferoo posted:You hosed up big here. Chess has had many rules revisions throughout the years. Also, "house rules." If you play by different rules, you are playing a completely different game. The games chess descended from are not chess, and if I attempted to review a game based on a set of rules I made up, I'd be called an idiot. Jefferoo posted:Oh horseshit. Go all the way back to Pong, Adventure, and the Commodore 64. People had to imagine they were an adventurer, playing tennis, or what have you. They were communicating ideals of being in a role, of going on a journey, with very simple tools. Pong was not popular because it communicated what it felt like to play tennis. It was popular because it was a fun way to measure if you or your opponent had better reflexes, and was better at predicting how a ball bounced. Nobody in the universe ever played Pong at a bar and thought, "Amazing! This is what it must like to play at Wimbledon!" Incidentally, something interactive that is meant primarily to communicate a life-like experience of what it's like to do something isn't a game, it's a simulator. (The difference being that the main design consideration of a simulator is realism, unlike a game, where the main design consideration is the fair evaluation of skill, strength, or luck).
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 02:02 |
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Jefferoo posted:Games are art Many people don't agree, and your arguments probably shouldn't be based on the premise that everyone does.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 02:12 |
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Been playing this and it feels kinda like a cross between Black Ops and Alpha Protocol. The story is interesting and engaging and the decisions hit you in the gut, but I wouldn't say that this isn't the same kind of action movie shoot-em-up that shooters have been since Modern Warfare. It's a good example of the genre and it definitely lampoons the conventions, but it remains a part of it nonetheless. This might be the first of the revisionist shooters, a la The Searchers. To turn discussion to the actual game, what the poo poo is going on with the strobe light and the heavy armor dude? I've played through that over half a dozen times and can't get past it.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 06:02 |
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I think this idea that gameplay only means covering, shooting and slipping around cover, is needlessly limiting. How is evaluating your options in a hostage situation when you only have 30 seconds not gameplay? Or the option to execute wounded combatants for their guns? Or when an unarmed lady jumps out at you from around the corner in the middle of a firefight? Well as far as I'm concerned it's all gameplay. I haven't beaten the campaign yet, but so far I'd say it's doing a hell of a job tying the story's theme with "what the player can choose to do". (For the record, I also think that shooting itself is really good, but I'm a PC player and am not spoiled with your Gows and Uncharteds  )
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 06:15 |
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woodenchicken posted:Or the option to execute wounded combatants for their guns? quote:Or when an unarmed lady jumps out at you from around the corner in the middle of a firefight?
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 06:24 |
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Fag Boy Jim posted:If you play by different rules, you are playing a completely different game. The games chess descended from are not chess, and if I attempted to review a game based on a set of rules I made up, I'd be called an idiot. Or is it if I follow the touch-move rule that I'm not playing chess?
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 06:47 |
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Fag Boy Jim posted:If you play by different rules, you are playing a completely different game. The games chess descended from are not chess, and if I attempted to review a game based on a set of rules I made up, I'd be called an idiot.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 06:55 |
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Fag Boy Jim posted:If you play by different rules, you are playing a completely different game. The games chess descended from are not chess, and if I attempted to review a game based on a set of rules I made up, I'd be called an idiot. Castling, en passant and the double move for pawns are all 'house rules' for chess that became widely adopted. People playing before those rules would wonder what the gently caress we're thinking.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 07:14 |
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Wolfgang Pauli posted:To turn discussion to the actual game, what the poo poo is going on with the strobe light and the heavy armor dude? I've played through that over half a dozen times and can't get past it. Yeah, that part is tough as hell. You have two options here: Shoot all of the mannequins beforehand. The heavy can't switch places with them once there are no more left. Secondly, use the cover on your left and stick to its leftmost side. He'll get stuck on the other side and won't try to flank you. From then on it's just a matter of waiting for his reloads and shooting him in the face a whole lot. Wolfgang Pauli posted:The game doesn't really give you a choice. They'll either die in a couple seconds anyway or get up and start fighting you again. I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. I've had it happen pretty often that enemies would writhe around on the ground pretty much forever if I didn't specifically finish them.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 10:08 |
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With regard to Fag Boy Jim's words, I believe his point is that the rules exist at all. Games can't exist without them, the only way to reject rules entirely is to not play games. When you play a game, you must accept its rules - what those rules precisely are determines the identity of the game (you sit down at a table with a chess board and a full set of standard chess pieces. The object of the game is to insert chess pieces into your anus and use your natural rear end-gas to expel them into the eyes of your opponent. You are not playing the game known as "chess"), but that the game has rules is non-negotiable. Participating in a game's system of rules - its mechanics - is gaming's most distinct defining feature, and it's what makes it awkward when people try to make 1:1 comparisons to artforms like painting, novels, etc.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 11:01 |
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Perestroika posted:Yeah, that part is tough as hell. You have two options here: Shoot all of the mannequins beforehand. The heavy can't switch places with them once there are no more left. Secondly, use the cover on your left and stick to its leftmost side. He'll get stuck on the other side and won't try to flank you. From then on it's just a matter of waiting for his reloads and shooting him in the face a whole lot.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 11:07 |
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Designers really need to stop putting heavies in games like these. Uncharted, Max Payne 3, etc. They are never, ever fun to fight and it's such a cheap way to try and increase difficulty/create enemy variety. Cut it out.
Hakkesshu fucked around with this message at Jul 9, 2012 around 11:42 |
| # ? Jul 9, 2012 11:28 |
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Fag Boy Jim posted:Name a medium where one has no choice but to approach a work on it's own terms (game mechanics and rules), rather than our own terms. (we can, after all, watch Triumph of the Will from a standpoint that is completely opposed to the filmmakers', but we can not play chess and reject "Bishops move diagonally")
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 11:38 |
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I'm surprised that anyone here's being hostile to the game. It's an ok cover shooter by cover shooter standards (which are loving low, when did anyone last play a REALLY GOOD cover shooter that made them think 'gosh drat I love the over-the-shoulder cover shooter mechanic, wish all games incorporated this excellent gameplay element'?). What shines about the game is the attempt to engage with a more interesting theme. Lots of shooters are released that don't challenge a few key ideas; violence solves problems, the player-character is always right, in the end your ideas will have been justified, the proper response to an unexpected situation is to LET THEM HAVE IT WITH BOTH BARRELS, THE oh poo poo was that a civilian? A very few are released which do. This is one of them, and the challenge is something that should be encouraged, even if it has flaws. Why is this hard to understand? Also @Hakkeshhu yeah, gently caress heavies. They are a drag on how enjoyable a game is to play and the sooner this is recognised the better.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 11:40 |
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Beefeater1980 posted:A very few are released which do. This is one of them, and the challenge is something that should be encouraged, even if it has flaws. Why is this hard to understand? Games doing something interesting or well does not make them impervious to criticism or 'hostility' as you put it. Why is this hard to understand?
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 11:49 |
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Beefeater1980 posted:I'm surprised that anyone here's being hostile to the game. It's an ok cover shooter by cover shooter standards (which are loving low, when did anyone last play a REALLY GOOD cover shooter that made them think 'gosh drat I love the over-the-shoulder cover shooter mechanic, wish all games incorporated this excellent gameplay element'?). When it's a heavy handed "hey player we tossed this civilian at you and you shot him on accident you are a horrible baby eating monster even though every situation makes you a baby eating monster (ps it's a game and you are terrible for playing games)" type of thing, there's going to be some backlash.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 11:58 |
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JackMackerel posted:When it's a heavy handed "hey player we tossed this civilian at you and you shot him on accident you are a horrible baby eating monster even though every situation makes you a baby eating monster (ps it's a game and you are terrible for playing games)" type of thing, there's going to be some backlash.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 12:33 |
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Hakkesshu posted:Designers really need to stop putting heavies in games like these. Uncharted, Max Payne 3, etc. They are never, ever fun to fight and it's such a cheap way to try and increase difficulty/create enemy variety. Cut it out. I agree. I even hated the brutes in Saints Row: The Third. Bullet sponges are not fun and feel like a huge chore.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 17:01 |
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MadScientistWorking posted:Its rather stupid backlash because the reality is that its fundamentally no different than most war shooters. The only difference being that this one is rooted more in reality while the others are a bit of a fantasy. If you think Spec Ops is 'rooted in reality', you're badly mistaken. It's one of the most unrealistic scenarios ever constructed, in a market where games like Modern Warfare 3 exist. The only actual difference between games like Spec Ops and Modern Warfare (beyond that gameplay) is that Spec Ops places an even greater emphasis on the violence you unleash (and are often forced to unleash) in an effort to try and tell the player something, while Modern Warfare isn't interested in a message or lesson. There's definitely room in the market for both. It'd be nice if Spec Ops was also a good videogame on top of all of it's heavy-handed story telling.
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 19:00 |
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fivegears4reverse posted:If you think Spec Ops is 'rooted in reality', you're badly mistaken. It's one of the most unrealistic scenarios ever constructed, in a market where games like Modern Warfare 3 exist. The saddest part is that Modern Warfare 1 was pretty subversive. The gung-ho marines get nuked and the SAS guys are brutal killers. Dunno what happened to the tone after that though :/
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 21:02 |
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MadScientistWorking posted:Its rather stupid backlash because the reality is that its fundamentally no different than most war shooters. The only difference being that this one is rooted more in reality while the others are a bit of a fantasy. What fivegears said, because any game based on Apocalypse Now is NOT going to be realistic. ^ Also include Modern Warfare 2's No Russian, which did the 'you bastard' tone FAR better than Spec Ops, without the stupid Mark Millar style writing of 'you are an rear end in a top hat for liking what I do  ".
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| # ? Jul 9, 2012 22:17 |
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JackMackerel posted:^ Also include Modern Warfare 2's No Russian, which did the 'you bastard' tone FAR better than Spec Ops, without the stupid Mark Millar style writing of 'you are an rear end in a top hat for liking what I do No Russian was clumsy and awkward, much like most of MW2. The whole tone of 'do this stupidly evil thing or don't' that section of the game has undermines the message. I think the way Spec Ops has you do things that are needlessly evil as part of the mission, and reveal the outcome afterwards, is a far more elegant way to handle the situation. No Russian needed more context to make it have impact - a sense that what you were doing was utterly necessary to stop the big bad guy. Instead, it pulls its punches and gives you what is effectively an entirely optional, consequence free airport massacre simulator.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 02:38 |
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JackMackerel posted:What fivegears said, because any game based on Apocalypse Now is NOT going to be realistic. Perestroika posted:I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. I've had it happen pretty often that enemies would writhe around on the ground pretty much forever if I didn't specifically finish them. The End posted:The saddest part is that Modern Warfare 1 was pretty subversive. The gung-ho marines get nuked and the SAS guys are brutal killers. Dunno what happened to the tone after that though :/ The End posted:No Russian was clumsy and awkward, much like most of MW2. The whole tone of 'do this stupidly evil thing or don't' that section of the game has undermines the message. I think the way Spec Ops has you do things that are needlessly evil as part of the mission, and reveal the outcome afterwards, is a far more elegant way to handle the situation. No Russian needed more context to make it have impact - a sense that what you were doing was utterly necessary to stop the big bad guy. Instead, it pulls its punches and gives you what is effectively an entirely optional, consequence free airport massacre simulator. The most compelling aspect this game is the meta-argument. Do you care about the morally damning poo poo you're doing? Why? They're just computer renders, after all. If you can empathize with them, then why the hell are you playing? You're going to inflict awful poo poo on everyone if you play this game, and your morbid curiosity in seeing what happens is exactly the same as Walker's obsession. Just because these things aren't real doesn't mean that you aren't making a choice with consequences, that a computer NPC for you may be no different than the abstract consideration other people give towards "collateral damage." You may think that the game doesn't give you a choice, after all you don't get the "choose between two options" thing until halfway through the game, and that you have to do this if you want to finish the game. No, gently caress that. There's always a choice. You have the option to not play the game. That is why I loving love this game. It's one of the best written games I've ever played, and I don't see it working in any other medium. Wolfgang Pauli fucked around with this message at Jul 10, 2012 around 05:20 |
| # ? Jul 10, 2012 04:59 |
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Wolfgang Pauli posted:It made a shitload of money and the businessmen from on high stepped in. People seem to forget that Modern Warfare 2 was just as 'critical' of the American military as Modern Warfare 1.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 05:19 |
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Dan Didio posted:People seem to forget that Modern Warfare 2 was just as 'critical' of the American military as Modern Warfare 1.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 05:25 |
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Wolfgang Pauli posted:They were never very critical to begin with. Hence why I put critical in quotes. 2 is still just as structured around the American military's failings, if not more so, than the first.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 05:32 |
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Modern Warfare 2 is a joke on anyone who took it seriously - the story was developed after the levels and setpieces were designed, and exists solely to give base context to the action. It is a Saturday Morning Cartoon, with obnoxious cartoon villains in cahoots like Gen. Shepard and Makarov, one comically selling out the other at the last moment. The Russians invade the United States and almost take over Washington D.C. Soap is essentially Captain Planet, a timeless character that has survived by beard and cigar alone since World War 2. Even when he's killed he's summoned at the lowest point in a conflict, only to reappear as a broken, insane person exploding space stations with nuclear missiles. Like, the sheer spectacle of what the gently caress is going on is at such an insane, cartoonish level, that the only way to experience it is to go in completely blank, experiencing the 5 hour thrill ride for what it is - a ride. The whole point of No Russian is to remove any and all weight from the fact within the constraints - who gives a poo poo if you shoot up the airport or not? Your interaction isn't judged. The character's existence in that scene is solely to be killed and disposed of to justify a Russian invasion of the States. What you're supposed to judge is all the idiot manchildren screaming and shouting in joy about murdering that entire airport the next day, which when I was in nerd school at the time, I heard on more than one occasion. It was pretty harrowing to hear young adult men in glee about that scene. But it was also a joke on the anti-war game people as well, as their true idiocy came to light. http://kotaku.com/5576332/who-cheers-for-war quote:Has escapism desensitized core gamers to real-world consequences? The popularity of war simulators in and of itself isn't what's most alarming; it's the absence of emotional connection, of conscience and of discussion. Just as hardcore gamers online often deliver casual slurs without conscience, maybe they've forgotten that bullets cause wounds and that war causes deaths. Or maybe there was something wrong with the core audience to begin with: maladapted people seeking maladaptive coping, and the industry that rose up to greet it. War simulators, she says. Modern Warfare 2. Anyone who's shot real guns or been in real combat can tell you MW2 was nothing at all like a realistic combat scenario, hardly a "war simulator." Modern Warfare has always been absurdly arcadey and over the top, yet some people actually believe that they are somehow "simulators," a really quite harrowing comparison to compare the arcadey, stupid meatgrinder of Call of Duty to the slow, very different set of skills required in an actual firefight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDYjNao0YTw The first result for when I typed in "firefight footage," back in '09. So research was not hard or impossible at all to do for the above drivel. Like, Call of Duty and the like has always been a stylized, action film esque depiction of war, to a quite animated level with it's cast of characters. I'm glad Spec Ops exists, but I wouldn't call it necessarily better than Modern Warfare 2, just that it does something different entirely in it's approach and message.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 05:48 |
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The closest analogy I can think of is how cheesy 80s action flicks were, and then Die Hard came out. It was the same thing, but again and with meaning. Regarding your link, Jeff: everyone at Kotaku is a moron. *e* Dan Didio posted:Hence why I put critical in quotes. 2 is still just as structured around the American military's failings, if not more so, than the first. Wolfgang Pauli fucked around with this message at Jul 10, 2012 around 06:03 |
| # ? Jul 10, 2012 06:01 |
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Hakkesshu posted:Designers really need to stop putting heavies in games like these. Uncharted, Max Payne 3, etc. They are never, ever fun to fight and it's such a cheap way to try and increase difficulty/create enemy variety. Cut it out. I guess when you're only enemy is Men adding Slightly Harder To Kill Men makes for easy enemy "variety." But yeah I agree, unless there's something interesting about fighting them adding heavies to games is never fun. Regardless of genre they're always the enemies where all of your tactics and abilities just plain don't work for whatever reason and you have to just cheese them to death.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 13:27 |
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Wolfgang Pauli posted:You have the option to not play the game. I think this is the correct choice for anyone who sees the dumb "you suck, gamer" poo poo on the loading screen.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 20:26 |
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JackMackerel posted:^ Also include Modern Warfare 2's No Russian, which did the 'you bastard' tone FAR better than Spec Ops, without the stupid Mark Millar style writing of 'you are an rear end in a top hat for liking what I do MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at Jul 10, 2012 around 20:46 |
| # ? Jul 10, 2012 20:37 |
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What's the point of playing on FUBAR difficulty? Why did I have to play the game on Suicide Mission to get FUBAR? Is it just for achievements or...?
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 21:52 |
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The End posted:The saddest part is that Modern Warfare 1 was pretty subversive. The gung-ho marines get nuked and the SAS guys are brutal killers. Dunno what happened to the tone after that though :/ I don't think MW1 ever explicitly made an opinion on this though. It just presented it as "Here, look at this." No doubt if you're some warmonger it was like "OH THIS IS GREAT", and if you're more on the progressive side of things it's "Oh this is bad." If you pay attention you can see that Modern Warfare has minor critiques of the military in them, but most of the gameplay and characters in the game go out of the way to glorify warfare. Not to mention the willy pete section was influenced from the AC-130 part of the game. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at Jul 10, 2012 around 22:01 |
| # ? Jul 10, 2012 21:59 |
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Sajeezzar posted:What's the point of playing on FUBAR difficulty? Why did I have to play the game on Suicide Mission to get FUBAR? Is it just for achievements or...? JackMackerel posted:I think this is the correct choice for anyone who sees the dumb "you suck, gamer" poo poo on the loading screen. Nelson Mandingo posted:Not to mention the willy pete section was influenced from the AC-130 part of the game. The nuke in MW is a good centerpiece. It was all shock value. It didn't mean that the good guys were any less righteous, and it didn't give two shits about the civilians caught in the blast. All it meant was that the good guys could possibly lose to the baddies and that the player should now expect the possibility of his POV character being killed in-story. And then they repeated those things so often in every single game that they've become incredibly cheap. Did anyone give a poo poo about all the innocent people dying around you in MW3? Did anyone consider them anything more than a set piece? Sure, it could all have been subtle and subversive, but at some point you just have to loving point it out. I have no patience for writers who think they're being so clever by burying their theme under a loving mountain. Wolfgang Pauli fucked around with this message at Jul 10, 2012 around 22:05 |
| # ? Jul 10, 2012 21:59 |
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What about that one time in the radio tower place when you rappel from a building to another and you jump on one guy from the rope and he looks like Adams. What happens if I don't bash his face in?
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 22:58 |
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I'm pretty sure it waits for you to hit something. I know it took me a few seconds to actually press the button.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 23:24 |
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Sajeezzar posted:What about that one time in the radio tower place when you rappel from a building to another and you jump on one guy from the rope and he looks like Adams. What happens if I don't bash his face in? He shoots you.
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| # ? Jul 10, 2012 23:27 |
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I'll probably just bite the bullet and do a full replay, but I don't think that anything I do is really going to change anything.
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| # ? Jul 11, 2012 02:32 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 14:02 |
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Yodzilla posted:I guess when you're only enemy is Men adding Slightly Harder To Kill Men makes for easy enemy "variety." Jeff Gerstmann of Giantbomb once posited the theory that headshots has ruined shooters and I'm somewhat inclined to agree, because they encourage lazy as poo poo design, and I think they're the one of only reasons things like heavies even exist. Giving players the chance to take out enemies quickly and then arbitrarily taking it away ('cause he has a helmet!  ) is one of the hallmarks of bad game design, in my opinion. There's a bit in the last third of Max Payne 3 where you have to fight one in really close quarters while a building is collapsing around you and it's easily the worst part of a game I've played this year. Hakkesshu fucked around with this message at Jul 11, 2012 around 07:33 |
| # ? Jul 11, 2012 07:30 |
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