Dude don't make me post the Al Gore graphs followed by a bunch of paragraphs on where car exhaust goes.rokudan said:
Environmentalism and Games
- Thread starter Fightgarr
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Nicely put.742 said:
Fightgarr, I haven't played it but I know Alpha Centauri is full of environmental themes, both practical (what happens if you pollute, nuke and cause the sea level to rise this much?) and mythical (merging your people into the planetary consciousness is one possible way to victory).
Aside from the fact that I agree with your basic point (that science indicates a cycle of climate change), I think you missed the point a bit. Nothing says you can't have a game where you save the world from any number of man made disasters - from climate change to mercury content in the oceans. There are some very real environmental issues that video games could tackle.rokudan said:
Of course, given the fact that games are rarely ever able to approach any issue in a serious manner (how often is war glorified and painted as a simple issue where the player and his friends are the ultimate forces of good in the world while the hoards of bad guys are clearly evil?), I can't really hold out hope that there can be a GOOD game with a pro-environmentalist message. Even worse, often when games TRY to make a political or social point, the developers seem to have so little faith in the intelligence of their audience that they simply brow-beat their message home. When it comes to environmental issues, any developer hoping to tackle them must respect the fact that the situation is more complex than "company or people X is destroying habitat Y because they are evil.
You should know that the reason why Nintendo failed Greenpeace's "green test" was because Nintendo didn't supply them with information about their recycling plan. A big part of it was that they don't (to my knowledge) have an official plan for letting consumers return their Wiis for recycling.Fightgarr said:
But you know what? My NES and its accessories are still fully functional. Same with the SNES. The N64 (with its shoddy controllers) is the only exception to the level of hardware quality otherwise expected by Nintendo. And if I ever do want to get rid of them? I'll either sell them or bring them to one of the many recycling plants that deal with junk electronics.
Meanwhile both my PS1s stopped working, my Dreamcast is just barely functional, and my PS2 has started getting the occasional disc-read errors. In the world of video game consoles I'd say that the machines that break the most are the environmentally unfriendly ones.
But I digress...
I too am a big fan of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, although not so much of Princess Mononoke. (Mononoke just didn't appeal to me in the same way.) Some games in the same spirit would be nice, and I have to say that I was amused by the irony of fossil fueles being portrayed as environmentally friendly in Final Fantasy VII.
I've always sort of wanted a point-'n-click adventure game based on Nausicaä. I imagine portions of it being very similar to the early parts of the second Legend of Kyrandia game.
so would a modern day Captain Planet game be worth seeing? That is probably the only medium that wasn't news or film that portrayed any sort of environmentalism when I was growing up. Other than that, I just hear the "world is going to end" propaganda that al gore got rich off of.
Maybe a game where David Suzuki travels the globe, killing rebel factions that pollute ground water...
Maybe a game where David Suzuki travels the globe, killing rebel factions that pollute ground water...
The only time I care about the environment in games is when it's in a game like Tropico where "Living Environment" is part of people's happiness scores and that voice is bugging me with "The island is disgusting, Presidente. Is there nothing that can be done for the environment?"
