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Night10194 posted:The atrocity committed at this stage It's not an atrocity. Atrocities are crimes of intention, someone causing horrible damage accidentally based on an incomplete understanding of the situation is regrettable but ultimately nobody's fault. I imagine that was the original point of the sequence before Walt Williams decided he should yell at the player for their attempt to do anything at all. That's the game's argument, in essence, that the best course is apathy and everything should be anyone's problem but yours. CJacobs posted:You can even see on the chapter select screen that the gate (on the far left) and the top of the gorge are geographically on the same level. It's amazing. And intentional! Except it's not intentional, it's a result of Lead Idiot Walt Williams' hatchet-job eleventh hour rewrite of Richard Pearsey's script. The canyon is the "Mega-Dune" which you were intended to encounter after the Dubai Mall and which contained the radioman's tower. The reason that level looks like rear end on toast in the final game is because they hacked out the canyon walls, you can see this mainly in the bizarrely-placed deposit of sand on the roof of the tower. Walker's absurd fall, the poo poo-looking following level with its badly designed "wait here while gits spawn" gameplay and so on are all products of shoving a level where it wasn't supposed to go. Here's some samples of the original script before Williams hosed it up. Notice he added almost all of the unfunny, confusing or stupid lines. http://richardpearsey.squarespace.com/writing-samples/ (note: includes various spoilers) Walt Williams tried to have Pearsey's name taken off the credits (sadly the google group where Pearsey was discussing his options with other industry writers that I found saying that was made private during gamergate) and allowed himself to be credited as the game's "lead writer" which is actually his job title at 2K Games, not on this project. anilEhilated posted:So it's an atrocity but it's fine to use it as long as it doesn't hit too many unintended targets? No, it's not an atrocity to use it to destroy enemy materiel (including troops), and not an atrocity to use it for production of smoke or light. It is an atrocity to use any weapon in a manner where it clearly presents a high risk of disproportionate harm to civilians (not the case here since Walker had no reason to suspect there were civilians present at a military checkpoint and nobody attempted to advise him of this) and it is an atrocity to use it in a manner where its chemical effects are the primary wounding mechanism (such as throwing smoke grenades into a building's ventilation system or using it to poison an enemy's water supply). In open air WP smoke is an irritant with the same exposure limits as gasoline fumes and there is no record of anyone ever getting WP poisoning from smoke rounds. Willy Pete is not napalm. WP powder creates deep burns, but the round shown (as in effects) is not a powder round, it's a smoke munition (M825A1) which was used in Gaza and Iraq. This contains 114 fuzzy felt squares impregnated with WP rather than pure metal and has roughly the armour-piercing properties you would expect of fuzzy felt (so no exploding humvees, there are photos from Gaza showing submunitions skipping off light tin roofs). The primary threats from these are: *Hand and foot injuries from attempting to handle burning submunitions using things like wet rags (you don't really have a frame of reference for handling something as hot as a light bulb filament) *Injuries from the small spray of WP liberated in mid-air as the bursting charge detonates *Foot injuries from stepping on submunitions that did not burn completely (crushing them can cause them to re-ignite) *Direct strikes on areas where the submunitions doesn't either rebound off or fall off (which just causes a nasty-looking supeficial burn). There is the minor issue that 114 three-inch quarter-circle submunitions over a bursting radius of 150 yards means you'd have to be fairly unlucky to get hit at all. *Building fires ignited by submunitions which come to rest on roofs or enter open windows or doors, which are actually by far the most dangerous aspect since WP is difficult to extinguish Most of the really gruesome images online are actually of decayed corpses in Fallujah which look burned because the human body turns black with decay. The game seems to be based on discredited conspiracy nonsense-movie Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre rather than any serious study of WP effects. There is the small problem that M825A1 is a 102-pound howitzer round, not a light mortar round. The round they're actually firing is a point illumination or light smoke round mainly used to create aiming points for larger guns, which weighs about three pounds less than one of which is WP and has an impact fuze only. You're firing non-conservation-of-mass rounds exploding in a way they can't at impossibly short range and containing impossible amounts of WP which can affect armour like powdered WP but look like submunitions. The depiction is manipulative, dishonest bullshit. Evil Tim fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 20:13
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Evil Tim posted:Except it's not intentional, it's a result of Lead Idiot Walt Williams' hatchet-job eleventh hour rewrite of Richard Pearsey's script. The canyon is the "Mega-Dune" which you were intended to encounter after the Dubai Mall and which contained the radioman's tower. The reason that level looks like rear end on toast in the final game is because they hacked out the canyon walls, you can see this mainly in the bizarrely-placed deposit of sand on the roof of the tower. Walker's absurd fall, the poo poo-looking following level with its badly designed "wait here while gits spawn" gameplay and so on are all products of shoving a level where it wasn't supposed to go. Aww, lame. I guess the fact you never actually ascend anywhere is just a coincidence then. At least it's an appropriate one. Still, that's very interesting to know! CJacobs fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Aug 27, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 20:17
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To be fair, I think the use of White Phosphorus as an All-Burning Doom Cloud was more a matter of artistic license that trying to make some sort of technical or political statement about the use or misuse of smoke screens. (Some people in the thread may have taken it that way, but hopefully they realize it's just a game.) Real WP doesn't leave a cloud of ghostly fireflies to bathe the scene in surreal light, and the EOD armor the heavies wear also doesn't let you take multiple large caliber gunshots to the face and torso, but drat does that scene where the heavy trooper strides out of the smoke surrounded by burning bodies work with the super-saturated, hallucinatory nightmare atmosphere of the game.Fish Noise posted:It gets pretty I think there's also a disconnect between what people believe is a war crime and the actual law as it stands. In some cases, there are normative prohibitions that don't have any force of law, or treaties that have not been adopted or signed by every country (cluster bombs, land mines.) In some cases, there are activities that are considered war crimes that most people would never consider unless they'd have training on the subject (granting your POWs an advance on their pay) or which are on the books but never enforced (returning POWs hard currency or valuable personal effects when they're released.) Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 21:31
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Dead Reckoning posted:To be fair, I think the use of White Phosphorus as an All-Burning Doom Cloud was more a matter of artistic license that trying to make some sort of technical or political statement about the use or misuse of smoke screens. (Some people in the thread may have taken it that way, but hopefully they realize it's just a game.) Real WP doesn't leave a cloud of ghostly fireflies to bathe the scene in surreal light, and the EOD armor the heavies wear also doesn't let you take multiple large caliber gunshots to the face and torso, but drat does that scene where the heavy trooper strides out of the smoke surrounded by burning bodies work with the super-saturated, hallucinatory nightmare atmosphere of the game. That scene is actually one of the cut choices, you were supposed to be able to either stealth your way past (ignoring the burning rebels) or mercy-kill them which would give away your location. In the final game the burning rebels are invincible  Most of the cut choices seem to have been cut because they couldn't get the stealth mechanics to work consistently.
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Jun 26, 2015 21:39
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Evil Tim posted:Stuff about Walt Williams This explains why the interviews with other Yager employees are so dramatically different in tone from interviews with Walt. He always comes off aggressively, and definitely wants to "yell" at the player, while Jorg sounds like one of the nicest guys in the world and specifically says they did NOT want to condemn the player, but rather make them feel bad or question their actions. Jorg's attitude is very much so in the style of Heart of Darkness. The message isn't supposed to be YOU SUCK, it's supposed to be "Think about what you're doing and the outcome."
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Jun 26, 2015 21:40
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Wiggy Marie posted:Jorg's attitude is very much so in the style of Heart of Darkness. The message isn't supposed to be YOU SUCK, it's supposed to be "Think about what you're doing and the outcome." Personally I find either of the two intended messages work just as well for me. Then again, I also enjoyed Michael Haneke's Funny Games for pointing the finger at me, the viewer, and telling me what a bastard I am. With a game like this it works on multiple levels too, I think. Firstly, you're entertaining yourself with the spectacle of violence and inhumanity, even taking part in some of the worst atrocities. Secondly, your taxes are spent on doing things very much like this to other people in various parts of the world due to the policies of your government (if you live in a belligerent western state). Which, if you're anything like me, you then spend five minutes impotently watching unfold on the news before saying something cynical and moving on with your life without a second thought. It may have been a bit clumsy and heavy-handed in this instance, but I think slapping the player/viewer/reader and telling them "NO! BAD!" is a worthwhile artistic statement, however unfair it may feel on the face of it.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:00
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Dead Reckoning posted:To be fair, I think the use of White Phosphorus as an All-Burning Doom Cloud was more a matter of artistic license that trying to make some sort of technical or political statement about the use or misuse of smoke screens. (Some people in the thread may have taken it that way, but hopefully they realize it's just a game.) Real WP doesn't leave a cloud of ghostly fireflies to bathe the scene in surreal light, and the EOD armor the heavies wear also doesn't let you take multiple large caliber gunshots to the face and torso, but drat does that scene where the heavy trooper strides out of the smoke surrounded by burning bodies work with the super-saturated, hallucinatory nightmare atmosphere of the game. For instance, and this is not directed at anyone in particular: why are there so many AK-"47"s here?
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Jun 26, 2015 23:02
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Fish Noise posted:It's fun comparing this squad leader with that of a certain other concurrent LP. Scene: Alpha Squad has just finished eliminating a heavily fortified Helghast position, using their own weaponry against them. The weapon in question: Blue Phosphorus, a derivative of White Phosphorus that utilizes Petrusite as a key component, adding electrical burns to the chemical burns. They are walking through the "killzone" and discover that they've also killed a number of Helghast civilians. Sevchenko: This is your fault, goddamnit! Natko: Sev, hold up, man! Sevchenko: But it is! He wouldn't listen! Natko: We didn't have a choice. Sevchenko: He turned us into loving killers! Natko: You gotta stop, man. Sevcheko: No! NO!! Natko: Get a hold of yourself! Velasquez: Shut the gently caress up! We need to keep moving. Sevchenko: What?! Velasquez: Hig reinforcements will be here any second. We need to keep moving. Natko: But Rico--you're not, you're not even-- Velasquez: Bastards here deserved to die. Shouldn't've been born a Hig. Come on, let's get back up to that mortar. By the time reinforcements arrive, we'll be able to rain down Blue Phosphorus on them all over again. Be doin' them a loving service puttin'em out of their misery. Now are you with me or not? Sevchenko:  Natko:
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Jun 26, 2015 23:06
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Evil Tim posted:Military Hey Tim did you write the imfdb article for this game 
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Jun 26, 2015 23:07
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TomViolence posted:Personally I find either of the two intended messages work just as well for me. Then again, I also enjoyed Michael Haneke's Funny Games for pointing the finger at me, the viewer, and telling me what a bastard I am. With a game like this it works on multiple levels too, I think. Firstly, you're entertaining yourself with the spectacle of violence and inhumanity, even taking part in some of the worst atrocities. Secondly, your taxes are spent on doing things very much like this to other people in various parts of the world due to the policies of your government (if you live in a belligerent western state). Which, if you're anything like me, you then spend five minutes impotently watching unfold on the news before saying something cynical and moving on with your life without a second thought. It may have been a bit clumsy and heavy-handed in this instance, but I think slapping the player/viewer/reader and telling them "NO! BAD!" is a worthwhile artistic statement, however unfair it may feel on the face of it. I actually agree. I think both statements are worthy, and I also feel that the game is able to work on both levels effectively, which is impressive. I personally didn't get much of the finger-wagging sense, but mostly because I don't play shooters regularly (for I am terrible at them). And there's a whole other explored theme that will become more obvious with more updates, which is what I'll start throwing all my words out about as it becomes clearer. As for WP realism: I can comfortably say that is a topic I am happy to be ignorant about. Chemical weapons of any kind rightfully creep me out. Ugh.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:21
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Fish Noise posted:For instance, and this is not directed at anyone in particular: why are there so many AK-"47"s here? The outside of the Storm Wall apparently includes a revolving door and the CIA bought them all here. They actually do establish that somewhere. There's also the issue that the whole "hallucinatory nightmare" thing ignores the "my country is not a metaphor" criticisms of Heart of Darkness that have been coming from former colonies since about the 70s. The depiction of Dubai in the game is flatly wrong, and a lot of people commenting on this talk about how a port is "in the middle of the desert." Of course the port isn't here, the first thing you see is a facsimile of a structure about 13 miles from the West end of the city. Aces High posted:Hey Tim did you write the imfdb article for this game Parts of it, yes. Wiggy Marie posted:As for WP realism: I can comfortably say that is a topic I am happy to be ignorant about. Chemical weapons of any kind rightfully creep me out. Ugh. It's not a chemical weapon unless you deliberately set out to use it to poison people.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:38
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The depiction of Dubai is likely geographically very wrong because a) the place is 75% buried in sand and b) they can't use any actual named buildings because of licensing, which they would almost certainly never allow because the game is banned in the United Arab Emirates in the first place. That's why the Burj Khalifa isn't actually the Burj Khalifa and so on. Watch Dogs also had this problem with their depiction of Chicago which they talked about in their behind the scenes series. Licensing real buildings and locations is goddamn expensive and though Yager had 2K to fall back on for a budget, they didn't have that big of a budget.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:42
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Aces High posted:Hey Tim did you write the imfdb article for this game To be fair to Tim, a lot of people on the last page were talking about how awful WP is and how it ought to be illegal based on what they've seen in Spec Ops and We Were Soldiers.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:42
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Evil Tim posted:It's not an atrocity. Atrocities are crimes of intention, someone causing horrible damage accidentally based on an incomplete understanding of the situation is regrettable but ultimately nobody's fault. I imagine that was the original point of the sequence before Walt Williams decided he should yell at the player for their attempt to do anything at all. That's the game's argument, in essence, that the best course is apathy and everything should be anyone's problem but yours. I haven't played the game myself, but so far I see some very clear parallels being set up here between the 33rd and Delta Squad. Konrad disobeyed his orders to go help out Dubai. When there, he found himself in some kind of massive shitshow, and things eventually degraded to the point where somebody, either himself, radioman, or some sort of cadre of mutineers, had enough and just went full Heinlein. Now they're just committing atrocities left and right. Delta Force disobeyed their orders to report in. First, to assist the 33rd, then to stop the 33rd. At several points they could have broken off and gotten the gently caress out of dodge, but now they're stuck in the massive shitshow that is Dubai, and things have degraded to the point where they're accidentally committing atrocities. It's very easy to defend Delta's actions in the moment, but that's ignoring the fact that Delta got themselves into the situation to begin with. So when they drop WP on civilians and massacre them, the immediate cause is, as Walker likes to say, "Self-Defense". The secondary cause is the 33rd as an antagonistic force. But the primary cause, the root of everything, is Delta blundering ahead into a situation they weren't prepared for. The obvious parallels to US policy in the middle east nonwithstanding, the message isn't "You shouldn't do anything at all. Never try and nobody will get hurt", because obviously the 33rd is hurting these people. The message is, "Don't throw yourself willy-nilly into situations you know nothing about." The 'correct' course of action for Walker would have been to turn his rear end right around as soon as they found the radio receiver and people living in Dubai, report to headquarters, and get some info and backup. Basically, to follow his orders. I'm guessing the game is going to reinforce this message, although there has been some unsettling things about the CIA guys that might throw a wrench into that. Edit: To pare that down a bit, when the game wags it's fingers at you for murdering civvies, it's not saying "Look at this bullshit, why did you fire that mortar?" It's saying "You see? this poo poo is why you follow orders. This is the product of your actions three hours ago." That's why there's no choice to not use the mortar. The condemnation isn't on firing into the trench, it's that firing into the trench is the long-term effect of your efforts from earlier. You already made your "choice" (Which wasn't actually a choice, either.) when you chose to enter Dubai, you're too far in to pull back now. Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 23:48
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CJacobs posted:The depiction of Dubai is likely geographically very wrong because a) the place is 75% buried in sand and b) they can't use any actual named buildings because of licensing, which they would almost certainly never allow because the game is banned in the United Arab Emirates in the first place. That's why the Burj Khalifa isn't actually the Burj Khalifa and so on. Watch Dogs also had this problem with their depiction of Chicago which they talked about in their behind the scenes series. Licensing real buildings and locations is goddamn expensive and though Yager had 2K to fall back on for a budget, they didn't have that big of a budget. Yeah, but that doesn't cover removing the container port that's the whole reason the city is there in the first place. I have a feeling the pre-rewrite beginning of the game was that as Konrad looks up, the helicopter flies overhead per the intro, then it crashes within the city limits. If you turn around as soon as the game starts there's a huge empty square area which is about exactly the right size for the helicopter wreck model from later on. Another fun thing in that cutscene is the newspapers on Konrad's desk reference another old plot (that the 33rd had deserted to loot Dubai and hadn't realised there were still people there) since Konrad has published newspapers from after the storm there that mention the fortune left in Dubai. The original plot was that Walker's team had been sent to extract Konrad (errand boy sent by grocery clerk, etc) rather than the post-rewrite giving three dismounts the utterly impossible task of searching a 1,200 square mile city full of huge buildings with enough water to last them about a day and no packs. Captain Bravo posted:The 'correct' course of action for Walker would have been to turn his rear end right around as soon as they found the radio receiver and people living in Dubai, report to headquarters, and get some info and backup. Basically, to follow his orders. I'm guessing the game is going to reinforce this message, although there has been some unsettling things about the CIA guys that might throw a wrench into that. And tell them what, though? HQ needs more than just "there are people there" to mount a rescue, they need to know how many, their condition, what supplies they need, who's in charge, etc. Will they need supplies to treat wounded, will they need to restore order first, who do they need to contact. If Walker just turned his rear end around he'd probably end up in the stockade for sabotaging his orders (the military does not like work-to-rule) and someone else would have to go in to do the rest of his job. The original plot of them being sent in to extract Konrad so he can be debriefed makes sense (as the senior officer, he'd be in the best position to report on what's going on in the city, and as a US military officer he'd be gathering the precise kind of information they'd want) but Walker's silly-rear end Williams-rewrite mission is actually best served by going in further and finding someone to brief him on the scenario. (Though since Saudis don't speak Farsi, he'd actually turn right around once he encountered people who did because it would imply an Iranian intervention force was already present and he probably isn't authorised to accidentally start a war with Iran. But then the locals in this game are so useless and incidental that none of them even have names, so...) Evil Tim fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 23:54
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They were not sent in to extract Konrad. From Episode 1: "We have our orders. Locate survivors, leave the city immediately, radio command from outside the storm wall. They send in the calvary, we go home." You notice he doesn't say extricate, evac, or rescue survivors. They are a recon force. Walker's gung-ho attitude and dedication to the man that saved his life causes him to disregard his orders. And here's the thing, maybe he does make it to Konrad. Maybe the Colonel is being held by mutineers, and he gets to be the big drat hero and save/evacuate Konrad out of Dubai. But he's risking his entire mission to do so. If Delta dies, the military gets 0 intel about the situation because they are the loving recon force. The mistake that was made, the killer error, was when Delta pushed forward after encountering insurgents. He's even told that they should pull back and radio command, but he continues forward instead. That leads to "We have to save the 33rd!" which leads to "We have to save those civilians!" which leads to "We're stuck here, we have to get out!" And every step of the way, more people die because he disregarded his mission and pushed forward. Edit: And yes, the US military would get some information out of the situation if they left immediately. "Remnants of the 33rd appear to still be alive, we found a fresh corpse of a US soldier, and were assaulted by insurgents. Recommend we send in a well-equipped force to pacify the situation and get our people out of there."
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Jun 27, 2015 00:22
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Captain Bravo posted:They were not sent in to extract Konrad. From Episode 1: That's Walt Williams' rewrite. The original plot was that they were an extraction team sent to retrieve Konrad so he could be debriefed, per Apocalypse Now. It seems what was supposed to have happened at the start was the helicopter was attempting a landing on the Burj Khalifa to grab him and leave, but they couldn't land because of the attacking helicopters and were either shot down or bought down by a storm as happens in the final game. Captain Bravo posted:"Remnants of the 33rd appear to still be alive, we found a fresh corpse of a US soldier, and were assaulted by insurgents. Recommend we send in a well-equipped force to pacify the situation and get our people out of there." How many insurgents? Are they a terrorist group we know of, government-trained irregulars, non-uniformed soldiers? Did you see any uniforms? Helicopters, tanks, aircraft? Do they have artillery, SAMs or modern anti-tank weapons? What's the status of the major transport connections, will we need earthmoving equipment? Have they laid mines? Where, and what kind? Do we also need to deal with civilians? Injured? Sick? Do they need shelter, food and / or water? Like I said, you need actual information to organise this, not just "I saw a baddie." Evil Tim fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 00:32
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One might assume that Delta was not actually sent to recon for survivors in the traditional sense at all, but to make sure the CIA are doing their job of covering everything up by wasting everybody. They just weren't told any of the specifics. If they found the insurgents and the 33rd fighting at the plane, then left, they could tell their superiors "yup we found civilians attacking the 33rd and the 33rd were losing/had been taken captive" they would then tell Delta "oh alright good job" and then just not take any action because that's what they wanted to hear; just that info alone would mean the CIA had successfully armed the locals AND rounded up at least some of the key members of the 33rd. That'd be a bit of a reach though I think.
CJacobs fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 00:37
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Evil Tim posted:That's Walt Williams' rewrite. The original plot was that they were an extraction team sent to retrieve Konrad so he could be debriefed, per Apocalypse Now. It seems what was supposed to have happened at the start was the helicopter was attempting a landing on the Burj Khalifa to grab him and leave, but they couldn't land because of the attacking helicopters and were either shot down or bought down by a storm as happens in the final game. Ahh, I didn't realize that. So that's the reason for the media-res opening with the helicopter? That would actually make for a much better opening anyway, because it would immediately give an explanation for why Delta can't leave, rather than waiting to introduce choppers until episode 3 or 4. Evil Tim posted:How many insurgents? Are they a terrorist group we know of, government-trained irregulars, non-uniformed soldiers? Did you see any uniforms? Helicopters, tanks, aircraft? Do they have artillery, SAMs or modern anti-tank weapons? What's the status of the major transport connections, will we need earthmoving equipment? Have they laid mines? Where, and what kind? Do we also need to deal with civilians? Injured? Sick? Do they need shelter, food and / or water? So you think it's standard operating procedure for a recon force of three soldiers to proceed on foot into a location they've just confirmed is filled with enemy hostiles? They kill something like 30 dudes in the first ten minutes, at no point does Walker say "Ok, that's a lot of loving enemy combatants, maybe we should pull back guys." In real life, a solider is not expected to be able to fight for hours straight and kill 200 men while outmanned and outgunned the entire loving time. But yeah, I will give you that it appears Walt's rewrite appears to kind of gently caress things up a bit.
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Jun 27, 2015 00:44
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Captain Bravo posted:Ahh, I didn't realize that. So that's the reason for the media-res opening with the helicopter? That would actually make for a much better opening anyway, because it would immediately give an explanation for why Delta can't leave, rather than waiting to introduce choppers until episode 3 or 4. Yeah, it also provides a reason why they can't do the entire mission with a spyplane overflight or a satellite since Walker's ridiculously simple mission should only require one shot with a thermal camera at night. Captain Bravo posted:So you think it's standard operating procedure for a recon force of three soldiers to proceed on foot into a location they've just confirmed is filled with enemy hostiles? They kill something like 30 dudes in the first ten minutes, at no point does Walker say "Ok, that's a lot of loving enemy combatants, maybe we should pull back guys." In real life, a solider is not expected to be able to fight for hours straight and kill 200 men while outmanned and outgunned the entire loving time. It's not SOP to have a recon force of three soldiers, especially when two of them have crew-served weapons (Adams originally had Lugo's Tavor rather than that machine gun, which is why his model has STANAG magazines on it and no belt boxes; Lugo had his sniper rifle and a UMP). Delta isn't a recon force anyway, but the "turn around and say there are bad guys" would be completely useless because the information simply isn't sufficient; they'd have sent in a much larger force if they seriously wanted to gather information in a city that size. But if you imagine for a moment that Walker's orders are serious, he is not proceeding in the spirit of them by turning around knowing nothing about the disposition of enemy forces in the city. They'd just have to send in someone else to gather the information, which just means the moral is "you should make it someone else's problem." The whole framing of the mission in Williams' plot doesn't work; the squad is inadequate for its stated goal, and the game's interpretation of Walker's orders involves far too little information to "send in the cavalry."
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Jun 27, 2015 01:06
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It's important to keep in mind though that the regular joe who plays shooter video games knows precisely none of that. The reason everything is so drastically simplified is because this game is not Metal Gear Solid; they don't have time to go into intense detail about that kind of thing, so it's easier to take advantage of the fact that it doesn't take place in real life in that way and just whittle all of the military stuff down to its barest essentials.
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Jun 27, 2015 01:08
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Evil Tim posted:It's not SOP to have a recon force of three soldiers, especially when two of them have crew-served weapons (Adams originally had Lugo's Tavor rather than that machine gun, which is why his model has STANAG magazines on it and no belt boxes; Lugo had his sniper rifle and a UMP). Delta isn't a recon force anyway, but the "turn around and say there are bad guys" would be completely useless because the information simply isn't sufficient; they'd have sent in a much larger force if they seriously wanted to gather information in a city that size. Yeah, I agree with basically all of this. And I can definitely see now how one man deciding to implement such a radical change to the story would gently caress it all up. But if we accept the game's logic, that everyone in Dubai is thought to be dead, and for whatever reason recon flights and satellite imagery are unable to confirm evidence of life, then it would kind of make sense to just send in three guys to verify, "Yup, people are still alive here." Although honestly I'm starting to lean towards CJacobs toungue-in-cheek conspiracy theory about the CIA...  Edit: That is to say, if Walker's orders are to generate information for an assault, then I agree that he would probably have to do more than just verify people are alive. But because of the information the game has presented us my takeaway was that Dubai was thought to be a ghost city, and the message prompted the military to send in a small, under-equipped force on foot just to see if anyone was actually still alive in the place.
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Jun 27, 2015 01:16
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Yeah, for a shooty-man, this game is less about tactical realism and more about story-telling.
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Jun 27, 2015 01:17
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CJacobs posted:It's important to keep in mind though that the regular joe who plays shooter video games knows precisely none of that. The reason everything is so drastically simplified is because this game is not Metal Gear Solid; they don't have time to go into intense detail about that kind of thing, so it's easier to take advantage of the fact that it doesn't take place in real life in that way. I know one of those guys who picked up Spec Ops, and I did ask him what he thought. He took it back because he couldn't find anyone playing online. I mean Spec Ops seems to assume people play shooters for the story, and who the hell does that? Oddly it does look like the early influence was MGS4: there's a distinctly MGS4 visual vibe to the first reveal, all the weapon alt-fires in the game could be mods for Walker's default rifle, and they seemed to be trying to pick up on the idea MGS4 didn't really do much with of being in a warzone and deciding whether to become involved or just sneak by and try to achieve your goal. Hence cut choices like mercy-kill the burning rebels or ignore them and don't fight the heavy.
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Jun 27, 2015 01:18
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Evil Tim posted:It's not a chemical weapon unless you deliberately set out to use it to poison people. Fair enough. Doesn't make it any less gross, though. Evil Tim posted:That's Walt Williams' rewrite. The original plot was that they were an extraction team sent to retrieve Konrad so he could be debriefed, per Apocalypse Now. It seems what was supposed to have happened at the start was the helicopter was attempting a landing on the Burj Khalifa to grab him and leave, but they couldn't land because of the attacking helicopters and were either shot down or bought down by a storm as happens in the final game. Honestly I prefer the rewritten version, because it makes the dissociation stronger as the game progresses. I'd rather be asking "why are we even still here?" than be stuck with "gotta find that dude, that dude y'all." It makes the story more interesting, to me. Blind Sally posted:Yeah, for a shooty-man, this game is less about tactical realism and more about story-telling. There's an inconsistent realism to the game. I love magical realism so I'm fine with it (how did three dudes walk through a sandstorm that took out enough people to cause an entire battalion to give up?), but I can see why people might struggle to justify it. The game is certainly trying to tread that boundary and it just won't work for everyone.
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Jun 27, 2015 02:51
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Obviously no spoilers, but I will say that what's been brought up about the rewrites provides a different tone to the story that I personally prefer to the original "Gotta get Konrad" concept.
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Jun 27, 2015 02:52
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Walker, Lugo, and Adams would not survive probably the first five minutes of the game in real life. Pretty much the entire modus operandi of the game is, "if three people COULD survive all this crazy bullshit, what kind of person would you have to be to do so and what kind of person would it turn you into?"
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Jun 27, 2015 02:55
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Wiggy Marie posted:Honestly I prefer the rewritten version, because it makes the dissociation stronger as the game progresses. I'd rather be asking "why are we even still here?" than be stuck with "gotta find that dude, that dude y'all." It makes the story more interesting, to me. quote:There's an inconsistent realism to the game. I love magical realism so I'm fine with it (how did three dudes walk through a sandstorm that took out enough people to cause an entire battalion to give up?), but I can see why people might struggle to justify it. The game is certainly trying to tread that boundary and it just won't work for everyone.
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Jun 27, 2015 03:05
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Wiggy Marie posted:Fair enough. Doesn't make it any less gross, though. No, man, not fair enough. You're fine calling it a weapon.
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Jun 27, 2015 03:12
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Wiggy Marie posted:Fair enough. Doesn't make it any less gross, though. Yeah, but war isn't generally nice to look at, and the game certainly doesn't bother to make anything of how horrific, say, grenade injuries are, they're still little poot-they're-dead game grenades rather than an expanding wall of boiling hot metal shards that can tear through interior walls like they aren't there and set entire buildings on fire. Wiggy Marie posted:Honestly I prefer the rewritten version, because it makes the dissociation stronger as the game progresses. I'd rather be asking "why are we even still here?" than be stuck with "gotta find that dude, that dude y'all." It makes the story more interesting, to me. But, um...It's still about finding him, you just have an extremely implausible setup added to the front which only works if you don't think much about what Walker is being asked to do or who he's supposed to be. CJacobs posted:Walker, Lugo, and Adams would not survive probably the first five minutes of the game in real life. Pretty much the entire modus operandi of the game is, "if three people COULD survive all this crazy bullshit, what kind of person would you have to be to do so and what kind of person would it turn you into?" Well, this is only really relevant if someone thought shooters were realistic to begin with, and I think most people understand that real combat isn't just about aiming down your sights so the space magnets draw your cursor to the nearest baddie, letting the Wall Fairies heal you if you get sick and coming back to life if you mess up. It's like all those "theories" that the Mushroom Kingdom is an evil dictatorship or Sonic is a terrorist, it's applying real-world rules to places everyone already understands they don't apply. Are our eyes supposed to widen in shock at the staggering revelation that Call of Duty is silly? Blind Sally posted:No, man, not fair enough. You're fine calling it a weapon. Weapon sure (though WP itself is just a chemical and is used in the manufacture of such lethal concoctions as toothpaste), but it's not a chemical weapon unless you use it in a very specific way that isn't the way it's normally used.
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Jun 27, 2015 03:56
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Evil Tim posted:Yeah, but war isn't generally nice to look at, and the game certainly doesn't bother to make anything of how horrific, say, grenade injuries are, they're still little poot-they're-dead game grenades rather than an expanding wall of boiling hot metal shards that can tear through interior walls like they aren't there and set entire buildings on fire. I'm not saying grenades aren't also gross, but we weren't talking about grenades, and the effects of grenades is not what the game wanted to focus on, so they didn't. Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W75JH1x5BI Video posted:The M67 can be thrown 40 meters by most soldiers. It has a slow fuse M213 for a period of 3 to 5 seconds. The Shrapnel is produced by the segmentation of the inner shell. However, this segmentation is not effective enough, and sometimes the hull is torn instead of going into small pieces. It has an operating range of 15 meters, and its lethal radius is 5 meters, although some fragments can be sent to more than 230 meters. Yowtch. quote:But, um...It's still about finding him, you just have an extremely implausible setup added to the front which only works if you don't think much about what Walker is being asked to do or who he's supposed to be. The reason changes entirely, which changes the context of the entire game. In the original they're doing it because of someone else's orders. Now, they're doing it because of Walker's. I find that more compelling, and a more interesting character study. Obviously, you don't, but that is what this game is about. Blind Sally posted:No, man, not fair enough. You're fine calling it a weapon. No worries, it's hardly something to start an argument over.
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Jun 27, 2015 04:14
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CJacobs posted:Walker, Lugo, and Adams would not survive probably the first five minutes of the game in real life. Pretty much the entire modus operandi of the game is, "if three people COULD survive all this crazy bullshit, what kind of person would you have to be to do so and what kind of person would it turn you into?" And that's probably as far as we should explain the implications from this point...
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Jun 27, 2015 04:30
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Evil Tim posted:Well, this is only really relevant if someone thought shooters were realistic to begin with, and I think most people understand that real combat isn't just about aiming down your sights so the space magnets draw your cursor to the nearest baddie, letting the Wall Fairies heal you if you get sick and coming back to life if you mess up. No, but I wasn't saying that it was supposed to be some kind of mind-boggling thing. I was responding to Wiggy Marie talking about how the game walks The Line™ between realistic and not realistic. It's just the overarching premise, man.
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Jun 27, 2015 04:37
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Blind Sally posted:Yeah, for a shooty-man, this game is less about tactical realism and more about story-telling. Wiggy Marie posted:Honestly I prefer the rewritten version, because it makes the dissociation stronger as the game progresses. I'd rather be asking "why are we even still here?" than be stuck with "gotta find that dude, that dude y'all." It makes the story more interesting, to me.
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Jun 27, 2015 04:42
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There's some legitimate explanation behind the story, but it's not going to be revealed until very late in the game.
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Jun 27, 2015 04:44
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Wiggy Marie posted:The reason changes entirely, which changes the context of the entire game. In the original they're doing it because of someone else's orders. Now, they're doing it because of Walker's. I find that more compelling, and a more interesting character study. Obviously, you don't, but that is what this game is about. What killed it for me was right at the start, actually; I've played enough cover shooters that when the militiaman asked what Adams and Walker were doing I assumed I was going to be taught the switch cover command (there isn't one, holdover stealth mechanics mean you instead have a command to crouch independently of cover) since there's obvious cover on the left to go to. But you can't even move out of the cover, and then a big red marker appears to show you which one of the many buses full of sand in your field of view you're supposed to be shooting at. (There's some other boneheaded decisions there like Lugo saying he speaks Farsi even though the militiaman speaks English, which would just put him on edge more since he thought he was speaking privately) I did find the WP sequence upsetting the first time, though also hamfisted: I was trying for a "good" playthrough on my first run and had the thought that what I'd hit was a field hospital where the soldiers I'd spared were, which would probably have fit better. But I played through again because I had a bunch of nagging thoughts and tried to see what degree my actions were being enforced; you can ignore the final Humvee but when the camera timeout runs out Walker dies for no reason, most of the shots that actually kill things are scripted animations hooked up to the target boxes which means in a sequence about collateral damage you can't actually cause any (if you hit a moving Humnvee before it's marked as a target the explosion does nothing and even deliberately putting a round on top of the tent doesn't do anything at all). Why were all those civilians specifically there? Why were they locked in, and why did nobody let them out when it became clear there was a creeping artillery barrage heading towards them? Why didn't anyone try to radio Walker or signal him? If they actually cared about the civilians, why didn't they try to retreat or surrender to spare them? Why are the civilians extra burned, is it so it's extra sad? It's like a lot of things in the game, it wants you ask questions of yourself but isn't made to withstand you asking questions of it instead.
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Jun 27, 2015 04:51
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Evil Tim posted:Weapon sure (though WP itself is just a chemical and is used in the manufacture of such lethal concoctions as toothpaste), but it's not a chemical weapon unless you use it in a very specific way that isn't the way it's normally used. Ooooh, okay, I hear what you're sayin'.
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Jun 27, 2015 05:04
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Evil Tim posted:What killed it for me was right at the start, actually; I've played enough cover shooters that when the militiaman asked what Adams and Walker were doing I assumed I was going to be taught the switch cover command (there isn't one, holdover stealth mechanics mean you instead have a command to crouch independently of cover) since there's obvious cover on the left to go to. But you can't even move out of the cover, and then a big red marker appears to show you which one of the many buses full of sand in your field of view you're supposed to be shooting at. I've not played other shooters, I would actually really like to hear about the mechanics that are being directly referenced, subverted or just plain old ignored and how it compares to other shooters where the mechanics are more important to the game. Evil Tim posted:(There's some other boneheaded decisions there like Lugo saying he speaks Farsi even though the militiaman speaks English, which would just put him on edge more since he thought he was speaking privately) I don't have any kind of military training, but I can say from living in a country where a different language was spoken that it did help to switch to someone's native language when a conversation got tense. Lugo is trying to show them that he's friendly and wants to understand them. It's Walker and Adams muttering to the side that breaks the illusion. Evil Tim posted:Why were all those civilians specifically there? Why were they locked in, and why did nobody let them out when it became clear there was a creeping artillery barrage heading towards them? Why didn't anyone try to radio Walker or signal him? If they actually cared about the civilians, why didn't they try to retreat or surrender to spare them? Why are the civilians extra burned, is it so it's extra sad? I would say that all of these questions are entirely valid, and a big part of why this scene worked for me, especially when taken with the rest of the game, but I can't go into why without being unbelievably spoilery. Happy to chat through PMs if you're interested in my thoughts, or we can wait until the game progresses to talk in more detail! Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 05:05
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Evil Tim posted:But I played through again because I had a bunch of nagging thoughts and tried to see what degree my actions were being enforced; you can ignore the final Humvee but when the camera timeout runs out Walker dies for no reason, most of the shots that actually kill things are scripted animations hooked up to the target boxes which means in a sequence about collateral damage you can't actually cause any (if you hit a moving Humnvee before it's marked as a target the explosion does nothing and even deliberately putting a round on top of the tent doesn't do anything at all). Why were all those civilians specifically there? Why were they locked in, and why did nobody let them out when it became clear there was a creeping artillery barrage heading towards them? Why didn't anyone try to radio Walker or signal him? If they actually cared about the civilians, why didn't they try to retreat or surrender to spare them? Why are the civilians extra burned, is it so it's extra sad? Honestly I think you're putting too much thought into it. They didn't do all those things in the questions you asked because you're not supposed to think about them and like you even said, you didn't while you were playing through the first time, so why bother asking them at all?
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Jun 27, 2015 05:12
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Evil Tim posted:Yeah, but war isn't generally nice to look at, and the game certainly doesn't bother to make anything of how horrific, say, grenade injuries are, they're still little poot-they're-dead game grenades rather than an expanding wall of boiling hot metal shards that can tear through interior walls like they aren't there and set entire buildings on fire. The game's pretty good about making the violence look appropriately horrific, to be fair. The execution kills are nasty and brutal and people's heads pop and their limbs come off from headshots and grenades. The problem is we've already seen it as a source of instant gratification in a whole ton of other shooters so any impact from it is lost. In Fallout 3 I can systematically cripple every limb in someone's body while they're still living before splattering their head into an indistinct red mush with a shotgun, hacking them to pieces post-mortem with a dull kitchen knife and feasting on their corpse, but that all just seems like harmless slapstick fun. Taking the banal violence of a shooter game and escalating it to real world levels of gore and graphic injury in the context of a gunfight won't do much to change the player's opinion of it. A gunshot wound, for instance, is a horrible way to die, but there's no real way to effectively get it through to the player. We already have wounded enemies writhing on the floor in agony, but the implications don't really register to the average gamer as he unthinkingly presses shift to step on a dying man's chest and shoot him in the face. In stark contrast, the WP scene pulls the ground away from beneath the player and (hopefully) gets them to re-evaluate the violence they've already mechanically, unthinkingly perpetrated up to that point. We're not just meant to feel bad that we accidentally killed a bunch of civilians in our crusade, we're also meant to realise that we've been pumping bullets into living, breathing beings up till this point too. People can criticise this game as heavy-handed all they want, but you kind of have to browbeat the player with the idea that such mindless killing is wrong, because they've been so thoroughly conditioned to the idea that they're a good boy and deserve a biscuit for their efforts. That the message gets through at all is a minor miracle.
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Jun 27, 2015 05:31
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