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The Vosgian Beast
Aug 13, 2011

Business is slow
The problem with the popular idea of Ernest Cline is that they imagine he at least reaches the childish anarchic glee of a child making his Star Wars toys ride his old Paw Patrol toys into battle or The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny. He cannot even do that. That require more irreverence for his favorite things than he has. His idea of anarchic glee is having a Gundam fight a Voltron. Godzilla vs Bambi is beyond him

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Calico Heart
Mar 22, 2012

"wich the worst part was what troll face did to sonic's corpse after words wich was rape it. at that point i looked away"



rudecyrus posted:

There's a happy medium between "subtle to the point where it can be interpreted as anything" and "constantly pounding the themes into your head."

yeah I used the word "obscure" earlier which was dumb and didn't mean to imply that something with an inscrutible narrative was inherently good. I more meant that I really enjoy talking about the From games' and symbolism because I often hear different interpretations of the material that all seem either thematically congruous or make sense in their own right - and that's fun! Those conversations are fun!

I really like the MGS series and know fellow turbonerds who also do, but I've never really heard a different "take" on any of Kojima's media because each game turns to camera and states it's thematic intent at least five or six times per cutscene. In 5 this is especially weird because the game has a five-page long script until the end where it unloads and says "and so, this whole game has been about language."

The result of that kind of writing style is... Well, not really feeling like it's worth trying to dissect anything in the game, and they have a bit less staying power for that reason. Again, this is coming from someone who's really had a great time appreciating (and laughing at in equal measure) Kojima's writing and world, but even in fellow turbonerd circles folks always seem to discuss minute plot details, and no one ever really says "I think you can read this scene differently/uniquely". The games have less staying power for that reason

also ocelot sees a dog and says "that dogs a real diamond in the rough" and then the camera zooms in on the dog and then a patch that says "diamond dogs" and then the dog again and that's pretty good

Calico Heart fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jan 19, 2020

Gnome de plume
Sep 5, 2006

Hell.
Fucking.
Yes.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Source: I have read Ready Player One and Ernest Cline imagines a video game version of Wargames where all you do is remember Matthew Broderick's lines and repeat them and thinks it's the coolest thing

And again in the final challenge where you recite Monty Python and The Holy Grail

Also like the thing where a life or death stakes situation that involves playing an arcade game would be a funny one-time gag but it just keeps happening

Alaois
Feb 7, 2012

i like it both when media is very obvious and front facing, like Paranoia Agent, and when media is very subtle and nuanced, like professional wrestling

Calico Heart
Mar 22, 2012

"wich the worst part was what troll face did to sonic's corpse after words wich was rape it. at that point i looked away"



I remember even in the Ready Player One movie there being a bit at the end where it's really exciting because there's like a mech fight or some poo poo and look they get to pilot the iron giant. I say this not as even a fan of The Iron Giant, but... The iron giant is a character. People like that movie because they like the relationship between little boy and big robot and think big robot is cute and the story is fun. In the movie the iron giant is literally just a shell - an action figure. No one wanted to see the iron giant again as window derssing. There is nothing of what people actually like about the iron giant in the movie. There isn't even enough creativity to nod at or give fans of that property anything other than the shape of a thing they know

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.
Ready Player One is Funko Pop Figurines: The Movie. The kind of Funko Pop collector that keeps each one stacked on top of one another in boxes on a shelf.

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



To be totally honest and not shitpost for once, I am absolutely down with more forward facing sincerity 'yes this is what my game is about' versus so much 'our game actually is completely apolitical and has no message, we like to engage with all our shareholders customers'.

CmdrKing
Oct 14, 2012

Maybe if I called it 'Interpretive Stabbing'...
Kojima's career is an extended excuse to mash up all his favorite western action/sci-fi flicks, which is also true of Cline.

Kojima however gets why most of those action flicks were good, so when he mashes them together they actually compliment one another. Ernest Cline thinks western action/sci-fi movies are cool because you can recite the one liners/lore like a TV Tropes page.

Calico Heart
Mar 22, 2012

"wich the worst part was what troll face did to sonic's corpse after words wich was rape it. at that point i looked away"



Oh yeah, there's no comparison. Kojima at his absolute worst is still at least either funny or unique.

Ghostlight
Sep 25, 2009

maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me



Cline doesn't think things are cool because you can recite from them - he thinks reciting lines is a form of displaying knowledge about a thing and doing it from a cool thing demonstrates you're cool because you know a lot about a cool thing.

His work is so vacuous I don't know if he's even capable of independently thinking a thing is cool. The thing's value doesn't appear to be in the thing at all, but in its popular currency as a proxy of relating to other people. Like a cargo cult Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra - you recite the right lines at a party and people politely laugh.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Hel posted:

Hideo Kojima is just the Ernest Cline of videogames and I say that as someone that likes mgs.

yeah kinda. id say he at least explains/understands stuff better in the codex stuff and has positions but yeah, thats honestly a good comparison.


Calico Heart posted:

Oh yeah, there's no comparison. Kojima at his absolute worst is still at least either funny or unique.

that too. he is at least interesting. the problem is i just bounced off death stranding super hard. like i get what he was trying to do mechanic wise and its cool but its not for me. plus MGS had a pretty good veneer of realism(skin breathing fuckdolls and snukes and mechs withstanding) death stranding was just kinda out there.


ACES CURE PLANES posted:

To be totally honest and not shitpost for once, I am absolutely down with more forward facing sincerity 'yes this is what my game is about' versus so much 'our game actually is completely apolitical and has no message, we like to engage with all our shareholders customers'.

true. i talked to an ubisoft person about that at e3 last year and she says "sure they are political but they are poo poo at explaining that and are bad at explaining it". the watch dog legion narrative lady who was showing us the game was pretty open about its politics. i still think part of the problem is the PR types view politics as "vote trump/vote dnc/vote whoever" and they dont view it in the academic sense which many critics view it. plus honestly, i think some critics will just say to rationalize an excuse to not like something or because it didnt 100% agree with them. like if i were a PR person, id say, "yeah no poo poo its political, everything is political, and we are gonna try to adress these themes and subjects and let you come to an conclusion, we have ours as well,,,, blah blah blah".


Ghostlight posted:

Cline doesn't think things are cool because you can recite from them - he thinks reciting lines is a form of displaying knowledge about a thing and doing it from a cool thing demonstrates you're cool because you know a lot about a cool thing.

His work is so vacuous I don't know if he's even capable of independently thinking a thing is cool. The thing's value doesn't appear to be in the thing at all, but in its popular currency as a proxy of relating to other people. Like a cargo cult Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra - you recite the right lines at a party and people politely laugh.

this. he doesnt like things because of real reasons, he is just gate keeping shithead who is too dumb to realize he is doing that.

Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Jan 19, 2020

rudecyrus
Nov 6, 2009

fuck you trolls
AAA video games are apolitical because they want to maximize profit.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

rudecyrus posted:

AAA video games are apolitical because they want to maximize profit.

pretty much. id say most AAA at least socially left/liberal in someway but thats about it. honestly, i just don't care most of the time. i play it for escapism which is an out but gently caress it. thats not a "games shouldn't/dont have politics/all criticism shouldnt exist" or some chud line like that. but ehh. i am about to try to become a 911 operator and i just need escape from that horrors.

watho
Aug 2, 2013


The real world will, again tomorrow, function and run without me.

i have many problems with kojima’s writing but i’m still upset over silent hills being cancelled and i fully believe in the grate debate’s theory about PT being released by kojima despite knowing that the actual game was going to be cancelled and reworked to be about him getting fired

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

watho posted:

i have many problems with kojima’s writing but i’m still upset over silent hills being cancelled and i fully believe in the grate debate’s theory about PT being released by kojima despite knowing that the actual game was going to be cancelled and reworked to be about him getting fired

this. id have liked to see him take a shot at silent hill. it would have at least been hosed up.

BigRed0427
Mar 23, 2007

There's no one I'd rather be than me.

The lore is stored in the balls.

watho
Aug 2, 2013


The real world will, again tomorrow, function and run without me.

BigRed0427 posted:

The lore is stored in the balls.

lore is like 4 balls on the edge of a cliff

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice

rudecyrus posted:

AAA video games are apolitical because they want to maximize profit.

Insofar as Kojima makes AAA games I feel like this is obviously untrue with even a passing glance. While there are some comparisons that can be made between AAA games industry bs and the way the movie industry interacts with capital I do feel there is a much stronger drive for political statements in games and the claims about being apolitical are just obviously farcial.

edogawa rando
Mar 20, 2007

I think my mass effect is broken

Dapper_Swindler posted:

Also unrelated but I saw 1917. Great movie but obviously intense and depressing. I recommend people seeing it.

Is it? Time to fire up the old Does The Dog Die.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Raenir Salazar posted:

Insofar as Kojima makes AAA games I feel like this is obviously untrue with even a passing glance. While there are some comparisons that can be made between AAA games industry bs and the way the movie industry interacts with capital I do feel there is a much stronger drive for political statements in games and the claims about being apolitical are just obviously farcial.

Aside from all those times developers for AAA titles have actually said "We did not intend there to be a political message in this game" despite all the political connotations of their story.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Aside from all those times developers for AAA titles have actually said "We did not intend there to be a political message in this game" despite all the political connotations of their story.

quote:

and the claims about being apolitical are just obviously farcical.

I literally accounted for this in my post. :confused: They can claim what they want, (a) I don't believe them. (b) Even if I do believe them, their claims are irrelevant.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Raenir Salazar posted:

I literally accounted for this in my post. :confused: They can claim what they want, (a) I don't believe them. (b) Even if I do believe them, their claims are irrelevant.

I misread that one, that's on me.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Vagabundo posted:

Is it? Time to fire up the old Does The Dog Die.

yeah. its one of those "single shot" movies which i tend to like alot. it makes it feel video gamey at times but not in some dumb juvinile bad way. it feels imersive. its not some glorification of war or "violent white man" movie either. its just really sad.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos
Welcome to the independent contractor page.

Hel
Oct 9, 2012

Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

watho posted:

i have many problems with kojima’s writing but i’m still upset over silent hills being cancelled and i fully believe in the grate debate’s theory about PT being released by kojima despite knowing that the actual game was going to be cancelled and reworked to be about him getting fired

I haven't really been into Silent Hills but what's the reading about how is it about him being fired?

From what I've seen, if there is a Konami game about Kojima leaving, MG:Survive would be more likely to be it.
Survive can be easily read as the MGS Dev team from the old Kojim a Productions being a bit miffed that Kojima left them to suffer while he took his best friends and started up a new studio, as you start the game as one of the MSF troops left to die at mother base while Big Boss rides away with a few friends. The game then ends with you Killing off the endlessly repeating nanomachines by repurposing old stuff from MGSV, This nanomachine grey goo could be taken as a metaphor for Kojima and his endless repetition of plots, setpieces and references.

That's the boring reading, the more interesting one is that the MGS dev team made a game with recycled content and went into it completely, making recycling/reuse/re-contextualizing the main theme, and that theme stands in direct opposition to and rejects the overarching theme of MGS and it only looks anti-Kojima becuase that series was so tied to him.


Also Hideo Kojima named the Metal Gear main character Snake Plissken, how the gently caress is that not down at the Ernest Cline level?

MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

I'm 2 hours into the death stranding video — alternating between Total War and falling asleep — and I... Don't hate it? :shrug:

Really peeved about Death Stranding not releasing on PC for another eternity.

Ghostlight
Sep 25, 2009

maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me



rudecyrus posted:

AAA video games are apolitical because they want to maximize profit.
The most political of motives.

Hel posted:

Also Hideo Kojima named the Metal Gear main character Snake Plissken, how the gently caress is that not down at the Ernest Cline level?
It's not literally Snake Plisken.

dirksteadfast
Oct 10, 2010

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Welcome to the independent contractor page.

Sorry, I’m in California. We have to make it an employee page here.

Sibyl Disobedience
Mar 16, 2018

A Fire Keeper's soul is a draw for humanity, and held within their bosoms, below just a thin layer of skin, are swarms of humanity that writhe and squirm.

Dias posted:

Narrative and thematic "deepness" aren't the same thing. The Souls series is amazing at doing environmental narrative, but thematically they're not really anything special.

A couple months ago, as part of an only vaguely related writing project, I started doing some basic research on parts of the Souls games that I never got around to playing. This has resulted in the first project remaining unfinished far longer than it has any right to do because the Souls project has ballooned into 60 pages worth of writing and notes that have only begun to scratch the surface. (And a DS2 playthrough that I'm mostly not even regretting)

What's going on in the Souls series is thematically insane. I'm not going to blame anyone if they're not interested in putting in the (you-don't-even-have-the-slightest-idea-how) massive investment necessary to get past a surface level understanding of the series, but in what they're accomplishing thematically, the Souls series is absolutely unparalleled within the world of video games. It's this beautiful, wondrous monstrosity, and I kinda feel like I have my very own sunlight maggot, and I don't even mind.

Takoluka
Jun 26, 2009

Don't look at me!



Ghostlight posted:

The most political of motives.

It's not literally Snake Plisken.

Iroquois Plisken.

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




Hel posted:

Also Hideo Kojima named the Metal Gear main character Snake Plissken, how the gently caress is that not down at the Ernest Cline level?

I thought it was just a disguise in 2, where's this coming from?

Parakeet vs. Phone
Nov 6, 2009
Always a good time to re-post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3i6GBYvdw

As somebody who likes MGS, Polygon's Kojima Name Generator is great. Pick your favorite movie character (*Must be Kurt Russell).

Farm Frenzy
Jan 3, 2007

The difference between Kojima and Cline is that Kojima makes very fun videogames and Cline writes lovely books. Regardless of what you think of his writing, just analysing the plot/dialog or whatever in a Kojima game and no other part of the text is dumb as poo poo.

Farm Frenzy fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Jan 19, 2020

Dias
Feb 20, 2011

by sebmojo

Sibyl Disobedience posted:

A couple months ago, as part of an only vaguely related writing project, I started doing some basic research on parts of the Souls games that I never got around to playing. This has resulted in the first project remaining unfinished far longer than it has any right to do because the Souls project has ballooned into 60 pages worth of writing and notes that have only begun to scratch the surface. (And a DS2 playthrough that I'm mostly not even regretting)

What's going on in the Souls series is thematically insane. I'm not going to blame anyone if they're not interested in putting in the (you-don't-even-have-the-slightest-idea-how) massive investment necessary to get past a surface level understanding of the series, but in what they're accomplishing thematically, the Souls series is absolutely unparalleled within the world of video games. It's this beautiful, wondrous monstrosity, and I kinda feel like I have my very own sunlight maggot, and I don't even mind.

I might have been a bit unkind towards the Souls series there, I don't think it's just shallow nonsense, but I also think people conflate the amount of hidden lore with how many things it actually explores or even exposes at all in regular gameplay.

Actually, lemme take another go at what I was trying to say. I think Kojima beats you over the head with what his games are about, but by doing that he also brings forward those themes and discusses them in length. I don't think MGS is supposed to be dissected, but it can still be discussed critically, and there are enough character interactions that even with the author yelling at you what something is about, there's still venues for interpretation in smaller moments or side-plots. It's thematically dense as in Kojima shoves a LOT of poo poo into the MGS series, from the escalation of war to having a legacy to uphold and even love in a bunch of kinda twisted ways. Also feminility kinda unintentionally sometimes because...I mean, y'know why.

The Souls series is also interesting, its approach to storytelling is groundbreaking for videogames and it kinda reminds me of Tolkien's worldbuilding. It puts you on the shoes of a (pretty aggro) historian rather than a spectator or protagonist, and you can interpret events or actions by characters in a lot of different ways because you weren't there, you're recreating the past. Hell, I think you legit recreate the past a number of times in the series too. But it doesn't really stray much from its core theme, which is death and rebirth, and how you deal with those things. I think it works AMAZINGLY within those themes but...I mean, people said that you can derive many things and interpretations of what the series is trying to say because it doesn't go and outright say it, but I'm not super sure about that? To me it always circles back to death. It's very consistent thematically but it's definitely not very dense. Then again, I'm not the most versed in the series, I'm speaking from my experience as a bystander, people discuss the lore but I never really saw someone have any other reading or bring up any other themes in relation to Souls. Well, I guess Jim Sterling did, somewhat tongue-in-cheekily.

Of course this is all preceded by a massive IMHO.

Eschenique
Jul 19, 2019

MGS 1 worked story wise because voiced dialogue was this hip new thing so you just looked for more ways to unlock more dialogue (Russian girl commented on whatever you had equipped, some commented on you smoking etc) Calling different people during different situations/boss fights

The problem was that Kojima was completely obsessed with telling you a story as opposed to showing you a story through gameplay.

Sibyl Disobedience
Mar 16, 2018

A Fire Keeper's soul is a draw for humanity, and held within their bosoms, below just a thin layer of skin, are swarms of humanity that writhe and squirm.

Dias posted:

The Souls series is also interesting, its approach to storytelling is groundbreaking for videogames and it kinda reminds me of Tolkien's worldbuilding. It puts you on the shoes of a (pretty aggro) historian rather than a spectator or protagonist, and you can interpret events or actions by characters in a lot of different ways because you weren't there, you're recreating the past. Hell, I think you legit recreate the past a number of times in the series too. But it doesn't really stray much from its core theme, which is death and rebirth, and how you deal with those things. I think it works AMAZINGLY within those themes but...I mean, people said that you can derive many things and interpretations of what the series is trying to say because it doesn't go and outright say it, but I'm not super sure about that? To me it always circles back to death. It's very consistent thematically but it's definitely not very dense. Then again, I'm not the most versed in the series, I'm speaking from my experience as a bystander, people discuss the lore but I never really saw someone have any other reading or bring up any other themes in relation to Souls. Well, I guess Jim Sterling did, somewhat tongue-in-cheekily.

Ok, so first of all, as much as Sterling's video probably was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, it's actually more or less on the right path The actual narrative arc of the figure we associate with Gwyn (as opposed to the deliberately misleading and unreliable narrative of the games) is a variation on the Fisher King myth. He's injured and afraid of death, so he hides away with the First Flame, using it to extend his life at the expense of turning his kingdom into the wasteland of Celtic myth, resulting in the undead curse. Gwyn is quite literally a boomer using the rest of the world as kindling to extend his stay in the retirement home. You're ultimately taking him down, not so he can be reborn but so something new can take his place. The DS3 DLC and Sekiro make this most explicit, but a big thematic angle is that immortality comes both at the cost of earlier mortality for those around them and as a rot eating away at the fundamental fabric of the world.

Beyond that, Soulsborne has so much more going on, but I'm hesitant to say too much else right now because any attempt as a summary is going to sound completely insane without a whole lot of citations. I'll be 100% real with you that yeah, these things need to be derived and interpreted from the context, but that process is itself a big part of the thematic underpinnings of the game.

watho
Aug 2, 2013


The real world will, again tomorrow, function and run without me.

Hel posted:

I haven't really been into Silent Hills but what's the reading about how is it about him being fired?

it’s a fantastic video and it’s fairly short considering how much ground it covers and how in depth it goes. so if you have half an hour free i highly recommend it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr4RvdREwl8

Eschenique
Jul 19, 2019

Konami is apparently once of the worst videogame developers in the world. From employee abuse to burecracy where new staff can't get a computer to work on for the first 3 weeks because they need to file a claim for a computer with the internal system and get one that way. To harassing and abusing ex employees.

Meta Gear survive is Konami trying to make a Metal Gear game without Kojima and it turned out accordingly.


Likewise Death Standing. A game where even your bloody shoes suffers durability loss is an example of Kojima without anyone to reign him in.

Calico Heart
Mar 22, 2012

"wich the worst part was what troll face did to sonic's corpse after words wich was rape it. at that point i looked away"



I always found it weird when people are concerned about whether a dog will die In a movie about, say, teenagers choking to death on their own melting lungs in an ice cold trench

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Leal
Oct 2, 2009
Humans dying is passe, animals dying is a statement.

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