192: Bushido and Beamsabers

[Meta Like That]

I friggin' love this article.

Sincerely, Guy Who Thinks He's A Reincarnated Samurai And Potential Future Mecha Pilot

PS: DWG BA-LOOOOOOOOWS.

 

[KDR_11k]

I've got to say, aren't pretty much all games about mastering the controller

No. In most games the UI tries to get out of the way so the things you master are the proper application of your ingame abilities/tools. In a game like CSMMG the controls are actively designed to get in your way (at least on some mechs) as you function both as the pilot and loader on the mech. Real armored vehicles have a crew that still has to do many things by hand and their dexterity at that determines the vehicle's effectiveness. E.g. autoloaders in main battle tanks are fairly uncommon and supposedly a skilled crew can load shells faster than autoloaders can. A modern game usually makes piloting a tank pretty much a point and click affair, you move it with the analog stick and point and fire, the whole internal workings aren't part of the game, you don't worry about the thread movement or anything.

 

[WilliamWhite1]

untruths

I had a 1984-induced cringe when I read that. I was half expecting the Thought Police to show up.

Someone just had to bring up the newspeak, didn't they?
Prev: modinc sancplce

 

[Noone From Nowhere]

Feh. I prefer the concept of Giant Ninja Robots over Giant Robot Samurai for the ultimate in "Cool but Impractical" value. Imagine how much skill it would take to remain stealthy in a 30-foot tall mecha!

 

[Smokescreen]

From the article:

"The simple answer is that Japanese gamers still want them, and the Western gaming community has a rather provincial outlook on the rest of the global gaming populace. It's not that these games are wilfully awkward - it's that many Western gamers are functionally prejudiced and cognitively lazy. They've forgotten that games are actually about rule sets and not about badly copying the medium of film with a cut-and-paste approach to interface design."

Speaking of being lazy; that whole statement has absolutely nothing to back it up. Thanks for playing.

 

[si_373]

A few thoughts.

Firstly the idea that Samurai influenced the mecha community is obvious. The influence that the samurai had on Japan has been significant since before the Meiji Restoration. Even with the 'banning' of the Samurai in the 1800's it still was a culture practiced out of the public eye and its only had to survive 150 or so years.

The main influence was on Japanese artistry and story telling. Modern 'cutting edge' art from Japan often has sharp angles, sweeping curves and overall an odd angular cohessian which can now be recognised often as distinctly 'Japanese' (look at many of the cars being produced and more specifically modern prototypes).

Story telling has been the main influence from the Samurai, the most sold fictional work was on Miyamoto Musashi and story telling based on his life has occurred since the 1600's after his death (or even before for all we know). The Japanese movie industry more than 50 years ago was awash with Samurai movies. This has extended today, especially into manga and video games. The stories portrayed in many games and the artistry of the games are just two ways in which mecha has been influenced by the Samurai (there are many many more), but in saying that its of little point to make such a big deal about it since the whole Japanese culture has had the same influences.

side notes: A common misconception about the samurai is that the life was based on bushido. The bushido concept as a written, followed concept was not in operation until towards the end of the meiji restoration. Honour was not just a big part of the samurai life before then but part of everyones life in Japan.
It is also a common misconception that ritual suicide was the first means of many samurai to regain honour. Living in shame for a certain time, to regain the honour through action was more often a part of the actions of those times. The 1600's was often a time for revenge. For the most part the samurai life was one embedded into the whole country. The society was based on specific classes and there were rules and expectation based on each class. How they acted towards each other was integral and the lives of samurai was more based on the cultural expectations at the time rather than a bushido concept.

I guess my point is that I am not sure what the big deal is about seeing these influences as it is just a part of modern culture within Japan.

 

[Dekanah]

Glad you mentioned AC, because once you hit your rhythm in that game (thinking For Answer, here), it becomes one of the most fun things I've ever played.

Sadly, I made the mistake of ticking off the 4 strongest people you fight and can't beat them all at once.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Man, the article kinda made me want to dig out Dynasty Warriors Gundam...

So gotta get that this week...

I disagree that it's a matter of us being lazy. Alot of these games are just STUPIDLY hard to learn. Some learning curve is to be expected, but if people want a game where they can play a badass giant robot without spending weeks learning to be badass, should it not be someones aim to provide it?

Oh, and you didn't mention Gungriffon! I am shocked and appalled.

Gun Griffon = awesome, and not -that- hard to learn.

 

[Meta Like That]

Honestly, it's not that hard, people. You have to think about what you want out of the game. Do you wanna just blow shit up, or do you want the developer to treat you like you have working brain cells? You don't have to be lazy to be initially overwhelmed by all the options and balancing, but to pass it off as overly complicated for the sake of it is not giving it a fair chance. It's about immersion. It's about building something from scratch that has your stamp on it, and then testing it in the heat of battle, like a custom forged katana.

Speaking of being lazy; that whole statement has absolutely nothing to back it up. Thanks for playing.

But you'd agree they're functionally prejudiced?

 

[Smokescreen]

Honestly, it's not that hard, people. You have to think about what you want out of the game. Do you wanna just blow shit up, or do you want the developer to treat you like you have working brain cells? You don't have to be lazy to be initially overwhelmed by all the options and balancing, but to pass it off as overly complicated for the sake of it is not giving it a fair chance. It's about immersion. It's about building something from scratch that has your stamp on it, and then testing it in the heat of battle, like a custom forged katana.

Speaking of being lazy; that whole statement has absolutely nothing to back it up. Thanks for playing.

But you'd agree they're functionally prejudiced?

Why would I do that?

Games might be culturally biased, but the idea that games developed by Western companies somehow don't "treat you like you have working brain cells" vs. Eastern ones that apparently do is utter hokum to begin with. Moreover, to agree with that statement at all would mean that in some manner the author backed it up--and certainly if he had supported it--I would be willing to open myself to his point, but none of that happened.

Bioshock gives some players immersion. X-Com gives some players immersion. Tetris gives some players immersion. The game that speaks to that player is more about the player not the game, but even as someone who doesn't love Tetris or X-Com, I can certainly appreciate the skill that it takes to make a game that immerses them, and to become good at it requires a respect that is due anyone who learns a difficult skill.

 

[teh_v]

I think people love mecha games because it lets you pretend like your something larger then life. In a mecha game you can battle to the destruction of your mech, then eject and live to fight another day. Also, with mecha combat the battle can seem more intense and longer with a larger focus on skill and training not impersonal things like luck and strategy. In a mech you wont die from a single bullet to the head. Your skill in piloting the mech and ability to properly gear your mech for the fight will decide who wins. It a romanticizing of war. You can have all the glory of combat without the risk of death. That's just not a Japanese thing that a human nature thing.

I'll never forget in one of the battletech books "ideal war" a couple of mech pilots get captured and one of the pilots has a nervous break down because he's no longer safe "in his metal", and can now face death and war upfront and personal. That's what fantasying about being a mech pilot gives us. We can be a war hero but the chance of death in combat lowers incredible. To the point where it's no longer a factor in worrying about our survival.

 

[laserwulf]

Mecha games seem to have the same problem as RTSes on consoles: you want to be able to do a lot of cool stuff, but there are only so many buttons on the controller. Some games, like Virtual On, keep the controls simple, but it lessens what you're able to do in a battle. Armored Core takes the opposite route, utilizing every button available. True, it takes longer to master, but at my peak I can pull off some impressive acrobatics. And for the record, I love my Steel Battalion set.

 

[Solipsis]

Mecha games will not succeed in the west unless we get something that is worth playing.

The easiest mainstream debut imo would be a Mecha game that plays like a fps with destructible environments, various energy weapons and miniature cityscape battlefields.

Ah yes, the only way to make something new popular in the west is to revamp it so it's exactly the same as what's already popular in the west...

So instead of a diverse set of genres we get one amorphous muddy blur of a genre. I'd just love it if everything was sort of an RPG and sort of a shooter like Mass Effect or sort of an Adventure game and sort of a shooter like Bioshock.

I know, let's just make all games more like shooters!

/rolling eyes

 

[John Funk]

apparently you never watched Gundam, his nickname is 'Kill Em All Tomino' for a god damn reason. Unless he's doing a comedy in which his main character will end up in a Harem... Seriously... Don't look at me Like that!

Also props to Kabuto Kouji for headshotting Duke Gorgon through his tiger head and human head in one shot.

in most mecha games they also treat loss as death. save a select few.
Gundam Deaths from 0079-87

Boom! Bazooka headshot!

Also, thanks a ton. Now I'm going to have 'Jumping Onto White Base' stuck in my head all day.

 

[KDR_11k]

Honestly, it's not that hard, people. You have to think about what you want out of the game. Do you wanna just blow shit up, or do you want the developer to treat you like you have working brain cells?

Depends on my mood. That's why I have both Toki Tori and Earth Defense Force among my favourite games.

You don't have to be lazy to be initially overwhelmed by all the options and balancing, but to pass it off as overly complicated for the sake of it is not giving it a fair chance. It's about immersion. It's about building something from scratch that has your stamp on it, and then testing it in the heat of battle, like a custom forged katana.

However it's the game's job to actually make the concept interesting to the player and to allow him to figure out what he's dealing with before being required to make life or death choices. Throwing the player right into a massive customization screen isn't going to go well. A manual doesn't help there, manuals tend to describe stuff too fluffy and make a lasgun sound like a BFG. What the player has to know is how the parts will perform ingame, why he's choosing them, etc. What the player needs is experience. The worst scenario is when a game forces the player to make important decisions without experience that have long term consequences and could end up screwing him over permanently because he entered the campaign as a beginner instead of a veteran.

As for the concept of a mech itself, it's somewhere between a way of making individual characters have a tangible influence on a war (no single soldier had the impact of a single Gundam) and getting armored vehicles that actually look interesting when fighting (a lot of the things that happen in tank combat are not apparent to the casual observer, between the efficiency of the crew at loadiong the gun and the use of cover, stronger and weaker armor areas, etc). Often important characters in a mech war get super powerful unique mechs that can win a battle practically alone (ugh Code Geass, no strategy survives a Deus Ex Machina), you'll have a hard time selling to your audience that a real battle was won by a single soldier or armored vehicle. Maybe if your character was someone like Superman or Captain America but superheroes pretty much went out of style and while super-powered mechs or powerarmors may be possible in the future a bullet proof human isn't as believable.

Though maybe a game about Hans-Ulrich Rudel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel] could work, if we ignore for a moment that most people wouldn't want to play as a Nazi.

 

[GloatingSwine]

What the hell is up with Code Geass anyway? I'm aware that it's supposed to be a decent show, but it makes no sense. British Empire win things which they didn't in history? That's reasonable - there's been more crazy alternate history stories that have worked well. Expanded British Empire, now called Britannia, takes on Japan, who resists heavily? Less plausible, considering that Japan didn't move towards technological prowess until the 1900s, but reasonable nonetheless. Britannia using gigantic mecha? Now, that's insanity.

The point of historical divergence of the Geass world is the American Civil War. In the Geass world, America was sold out by Benjamin Franklin (Geass was involved somehow), but Britain lost the Napoleonic Wars, so the royal family relocated to North America and used it's material resources to start a rather different empire, but Europe was united under Napoleon.

The local unobtainium, Sakuradite, obviously changed things as well, and appears to be the catchall explanation for why rollerskating mecha beat tanks. (even in the first series, when it's still largely Real Robots, and the Super Robots haven't hit the field yet)

At no point during British military history have they shown any signs of moving towards something like mecha

Except when we invented tanks. Of course. It's about force multiplication, in the highly improbable world of Geass, Knightmare Frames are the most effective force multiplier, despite how silly mecha would be for combat in the real world.

 

[Low Frost]

Mecha games will not succeed in the west unless we get something that is worth playing.

The easiest mainstream debut imo would be a Mecha game that plays like a fps with destructible environments, various energy weapons and miniature cityscape battlefields.

Ah yes, the only way to make something new popular in the west is to revamp it so it's exactly the same as what's already popular in the west...

So instead of a diverse set of genres we get one amorphous muddy blur of a genre. I'd just love it if everything was sort of an RPG and sort of a shooter like Mass Effect or sort of an Adventure game and sort of a shooter like Bioshock.

I know, let's just make all games more like shooters!

/rolling eyes

You know that they made a Gundam arcade game just like that, right? The cabinet was the cockpit, you had 3 screens representing you vision, etc. Was awesomeness beyond comparison.
I don't think that a mech game that gives you movement options is gonna be simple or streamlined in the controls. AC is a good example. Even the older games that were far slower than the recent outings required dextrous ability. The trade of is once you wrangled in the wonky controls, you could be a holy terror.
I could make a Wii focused casual joke, but I'll not sink to that today.
Also, all of you need to go out and find Robot Alchemic Drive, also known as RAD, because that game is the best old school mecha game ever.