The School Shooter Mod, Part 2
The boys finally finish off the School Shooter mod.
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The boys finally finish off the School Shooter mod.
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The School Shooter Mod, Part 2
- Thread starter Extra Consideration
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Great article.
I somehow managed to agree with everything that everyone said, even though you were all disagreeing with different points.
Also i'd love to see a civillian surviving in a hostile environment game, nice idea.
I somehow managed to agree with everything that everyone said, even though you were all disagreeing with different points.
Also i'd love to see a civillian surviving in a hostile environment game, nice idea.
THANK YOU! I'm not alone in thinking this! Adding sex does not make it more mature.
Burn. That was surprisingly harsh and awesome.
All these sound like good ideas. Not the best, but there's framework for a good game in each of them.
OT:
I get Jim's points. Just because it's a tastless game, or a game with a bad message or purpose doesn't make it a "bad game". The gameplay, graphics and mechanics still work.
But I still agree with MovieBob, partticulary the statement that story is important to the gameplay as the mechnics
A good debate. While this time I somewhat disagreed with some of Jim's arguements, I at least understood his position and agreed on a few points of it. James was a lot more active in this half of the discussion than the other half, and Moviebob pretty much summed up my opinions on the matter in the first response this week.
A good discussion by all involved. Well done.
A game where you play a civilian, sound interesting, but like most stealth games also seems incredibly frustrating. You could introduce a very limited puzzle and platforming element to keep it interesting. Weirdly the only games that include avoiding conflict that come to mind are parts of the metal gear solid series and haunting ground...
I'm really surprised no-one has done this set in a warzone or during a terrorist attack or natural disaster...
I'm really surprised no-one has done this set in a warzone or during a terrorist attack or natural disaster...
Jim really lacks attacking pretentiousness, but in doing so embraces games that try to be 'edgy' instead. Frankly, both are stupid. Though wouldn't you rather have Game of thrones with it's clumsy HBO sex, than Sparatacus: blond and sand? It's part of a package, you typically get a better quality product with pretentious sex than you do with than fratboy sex...
The civilian victim aspect sounds like an avenue for a lot of interesting approaches to play. A more aggressive "ambush the guy and stop them with force" (would need to enforce your inferiority and require planning/cooperation) would work but I see more potential in attempting to lead others out/get help or to try to talk down the guy yourself. Those kinds of challenge seem to chime in with the "non-combat gameplay" Extra Credits was talking about.
This is a real emergency, and asking the player how they would react and what they would prioritise would be a very powerful and thought-provoking question.
You would need a preliminary area getting to know the classmates so you feel invested in their fates, but I think there would be a natural connection to the main character since they are an average person in a real-life situation. I'd say a blank player avatar would work better than a fully rounded character.
As example, while a game where you survive a plane crash and have to decide how to treat others and try to get help may be less exciting gameplay wise, but would make for a much stronger role-play situation since the player should have less difficulty remaining detached from the game. The reality of the situation raises the stakes a lot.
This is a real emergency, and asking the player how they would react and what they would prioritise would be a very powerful and thought-provoking question.
You would need a preliminary area getting to know the classmates so you feel invested in their fates, but I think there would be a natural connection to the main character since they are an average person in a real-life situation. I'd say a blank player avatar would work better than a fully rounded character.
As example, while a game where you survive a plane crash and have to decide how to treat others and try to get help may be less exciting gameplay wise, but would make for a much stronger role-play situation since the player should have less difficulty remaining detached from the game. The reality of the situation raises the stakes a lot.
This is quickly becoming my favorite article/written debate/thingy/whatever. I may not agree with Jim, but I can understand his thought process and reasoning.
I'm not sure I fully agree. Even if the gameplay is fantastic a game will lose points if its content feels morally objectionable to the players. While games like the horror genre can unsettle by making us do things we'd rather not and RPGs can force us into making tough choices, your standard action game doesn't need that and the unease you get by being forced to do these acts will just get in the way of having fun.Android2137 said:
It's like if a game gave all the enemy soldiers the faces of your loved one. It might still have great gameplay, but I don't think you can deny it would be improved by not forcing you to do something unpleasant that you may not want to.
Someone has to make that "teacher survives school shooting" game. I don't even care if it's a top-down flash game, I want it done.
Why is Jim included in this... I understand what hes trying to say but it just so completely misses the point.
I never said I agreed with Jim. I only said I can understand his reasoning. I'm not denying that a morally objectionable game would not be enjoyable. (Indeed, it's why I don't play games like GTA. The idea of murdering even stock defenseless NPCs are enough to make me feel uncomfortable.) But I can understand why he would say that a game with great gameplay should not automatically be bad even if it has extremely objectionable content. If you strip of the game of said content and present it in a less offensive context, you are left with the innovative gameplay. (Again, I shall say I understand Jim's points, but I do not agree. The content of a game is indicative of the developer's intentions and viewpoints. Content is context. If you strip it of it's original content, it's effectively no longer the developer's game.)Delta2501 said:
personally I'm more in the same logic, but for the opposite reason. In games I do not put thought into why I am killing except for role play reasons. Murder is murder and I do not pretend to justify it. But this is not murder its graphic representations of computer code. Might be in bad taste, but no one is actually hurt so I think nothing of killing them. In fact as a challenge seeker I only do random destruction for cathartic reasons. In GTA for example I killed civilians mostly to attract the attention of enemies that would take effort to kill.
That being said, I think denoting any group as untouchable hurts empathy more then anything. For example, in Fallout 3 and New Vegas it bothered me that you couldn't kill children. Its not that I wanted to or intended to, but by taking away the option you break the narrative. These aren't human children they are immortal gods and you are subject to their whims. Remember Little Lamplight, why did people find it so aggravating? It wasn't simply that you wanted to use force to get through there, I am sure alot of us did similar missions using stealth or negotiations. What was frustrating was that an option was stripped away from you. You were forced to do as they said, and they were placed in an untouchable level.
Then people got a mod to kill children and what did they do, first place they went to use it. Not out of a hatred of children but because the game didn't represent them as children. They were not weak or vulnerable, in fact their untouchable nature made them the most powerful NPCs in the game. You couldn't see them as being to be protected or lives to hold sacred because you knew they were immortal.
Feel free to punish us for it, like old Fallout games where you gained everyones ire if you killed a child, or Assassin's Creed where hurting innocents hurt you. This put you in the mind set that they were living beings and that there were consequences for harming them, instead of just driving you to hitting the fire button screaming "WHY WONT YOU DIE"
That being said, I think denoting any group as untouchable hurts empathy more then anything. For example, in Fallout 3 and New Vegas it bothered me that you couldn't kill children. Its not that I wanted to or intended to, but by taking away the option you break the narrative. These aren't human children they are immortal gods and you are subject to their whims. Remember Little Lamplight, why did people find it so aggravating? It wasn't simply that you wanted to use force to get through there, I am sure alot of us did similar missions using stealth or negotiations. What was frustrating was that an option was stripped away from you. You were forced to do as they said, and they were placed in an untouchable level.
Then people got a mod to kill children and what did they do, first place they went to use it. Not out of a hatred of children but because the game didn't represent them as children. They were not weak or vulnerable, in fact their untouchable nature made them the most powerful NPCs in the game. You couldn't see them as being to be protected or lives to hold sacred because you knew they were immortal.
Feel free to punish us for it, like old Fallout games where you gained everyones ire if you killed a child, or Assassin's Creed where hurting innocents hurt you. This put you in the mind set that they were living beings and that there were consequences for harming them, instead of just driving you to hitting the fire button screaming "WHY WONT YOU DIE"
I don't agree that BioWare's use of sex is somehow worse than blatant fanservice like Dead or Alive. They've rarely been over-the-top about it. The only real issue is how it's handled from a gameplay and dialogue standpoint. I think they have an efficient way of working it into the narrative, but it's not executed quite as well as it could be. I think they keep it because it moves units (guy players like getting with alien chicks/girls like the romantic subplots) It's a guilty pleasure for people and I think they oblige in a relatively tactful way, all things considered. I don't think being ham-fisted about it in an attempt at "honesty" is a better approach than what they've been doing.
Anyway that's not really the topic. Good discussion, guys. Great points all around.
Anyway that's not really the topic. Good discussion, guys. Great points all around.
Yeah, I'm with MovieBob on this one - the SS Mod is just lazy attention-grabbing narcissism.
WRT the romance options in Bioware games: they've always been there, all the way back to KotOR and Jade Empire (although the most you got in the past was a kiss). I think they provide continuity and help build the sense that this is a team effort and there are interpersonal dynamics at play as you travel together. They may not have quite found the magic formula with their implementation of the climax of the romance stories, but I don't think that it's a case of pandering. ExtraCredits had a great article on different ways that a romance could go in a game, and perhaps BioWare would do well to use those ideas next time instead of having a sexual-themed cutscene, but they're still trying to achieve something that adds depth and immersion to the game.
WRT the romance options in Bioware games: they've always been there, all the way back to KotOR and Jade Empire (although the most you got in the past was a kiss). I think they provide continuity and help build the sense that this is a team effort and there are interpersonal dynamics at play as you travel together. They may not have quite found the magic formula with their implementation of the climax of the romance stories, but I don't think that it's a case of pandering. ExtraCredits had a great article on different ways that a romance could go in a game, and perhaps BioWare would do well to use those ideas next time instead of having a sexual-themed cutscene, but they're still trying to achieve something that adds depth and immersion to the game.
Oh, Jim. Just when I think maybe you can talk for three paragraphs without needing to remove your foot from your mouth.
The school shooter mod is the most pretentious work this side of the hipstersphere. It's pretentious because it tries to be a big statement without really offering anything to hold it up, and it's prentiously presented because they guy says 'oh you know it ain't no thang' while putting down his shades and winking at us while the Dinosaur Comics narrator says BUT ACTUALLY IT WAS. It's prententiousness squared, pretentious presentation of a pretentious work, and only a fool would not be able to see through its paper thin veil. Oh hi there Jim.
The comparison with Birth of a Nation, (which I don't know and only infer what it is from this article), may be unfair because it was done in a time in which white people being better than black people was actually their constitutional right. Which is to say, it wasn't supposed to be a shocking expose of the filmmaker's evil theories on race, but rather a reflection of the world. We all like to think we'd hold the same ideals we hold today were we born on an earlier age, and in every simple historical movie the heroes hold morals that wouldn't come around for centuries and look down on things that anyone born that age would find completely normal. I wonder what future societies will find of our culture. In that way, the Birth of a Nation comparison is much closer to RE5, since the perceived hatred comes from a cultural crevice - in one, a temporal gap during which we recognized black people are actually just human beings with a darker skin color, or lighter if they're albino, and in other, a spacial gap that makes Japan see no wrong with a game in which you only kill black people because that's no different from earlier RE games since black Africans and white Americans are lumped in the 'foreigner' category in their culture. Pointing and laughing at their perceived inferiority is pretending that the same thing won't/doesn't happen to us, which is a terrible case of tunnel vision.
Jim Sterling seems to be buying into his own persona, which is sad. I reiterate that he's capable of being clever and insightful when he's not trying way way way way WAAAYYYYY too hard to be funny. He actually had something to contribute, even last week.
But now he just ruins it by pretending that the sex in Mass Effect and Dragon Age added nothing and were just there for shock value (projecting much, Jim?).
Still, it's nice to see Bob and James go back-and-forth at the end, I was fascinated by their points.
But now he just ruins it by pretending that the sex in Mass Effect and Dragon Age added nothing and were just there for shock value (projecting much, Jim?).
Still, it's nice to see Bob and James go back-and-forth at the end, I was fascinated by their points.
I love this idea. It could be a wonderful game. If nothing else, it could set up the framework for some very exciting horror games (real horror, not RE4/RE5) as well as making escort missions bearable. Cause that's really what the game would be, no?
Anywho, OT, I can't agree with Jim on principle. I feel that a game that's sole intention was to offend and/or trivialize one of the very things that got the games industry into so much trouble in the first place is just stupid. From a moral standpoint, I've never agreed with games in which the only point is to be evil. At least games like GTA give you a chance to be a good guy. In games like this, I can't see any redeeming qualities.