I don't believe you. You've been ranting about something you're passionate about this entire time, and I've generally been able to follow your train of thought. I know what you liked about the trailer now, and what you disliked about Hotline Miami, for example. I learned these details by reading your words. If you were ranting like NotImportant, you'd have removed all the nouns and replaced them with words like "things" or "games" so as to make your argument or even your position as vague as possible to pin down. People literally don't talk like that. It defeats the purpose of talking.DerangedHobo said:
I agree completely! But then why are you saying you like Hatred? All it does is the violence. It offers nothing else. You could go into Prototype or GTA or any number of other games and shoot up a city. Why choose a game that does nothing but that? What can you do with a game that contains nothing but violence but "play it for the violence?"
I'll agree that there are plenty of stupid people in the world. Not really sure what that has to do with anything. And sure, escapism and empowerment of the player are a big part of the appeal of most games where you shoot stuff. The question in my mind is whether or not that's enough to carry a game all by itself. You keep insisting the answer is "yes," and I don't get why.
I'm not demonizing anything. I'm saying it looks like a bad game to me. They're not the same thing.
HA! Right there! Do you see what you just did? Did you catch it? You got mad about something. Your views about politics and the media bled through into the conversation for one sentence there. THAT is how ACTUAL people talk, even self-described deranged hobos on the internet. When you say things like that, people get a glimpse into the WHY behind your actions. That's what's missing from NotImportant's speech. It sounds very forced and artificial when you deliberately remove causal words from speech, *especially* someone's impassioned rant.
That's why it doesn't work. Even arguing away on an internet forum, you're a better writer than the guy who wrote NotImportant.
We're actually in agreement on most of that. The only reason I brought up Spec Op's story was because you brought up Spec-Op's story. Can a good story carry a bad game? Certainly not. Can a good story carry a mediocre game? Sometimes. Gameplay and fun are always the most important thing. That's why I've been saying all along that the game doesn't look fun. It looks like they started with a dime-a-dozen GTA clone and then sucked all the life and entertainment out of it. How is that fun? How is 'robotron but everybody runs away in the first five seconds' good gameplay? This just doesn't work as a game. When I've been comparing it to an art experience, I've actually been being charitable. That's probably the closest it comes to holding up.
How many games let you shoot people without trying to make you feel bad about shooting people? Tons. Hundreds. Take your pick man.
How many games are doing the exact opposite by making you the bad guy? Not many, I'll give you that. But I've seen it done better than this. For certain values of "better," anyway. If you don't like the story, mute the sound. If you can't skip the cutscenes, play an older game.
Video games didn't use to be about flag-waving and tugging at your heartstrings. They used to be about figuring out how to pick your way through a level from Point A to Point B without getting killed. I've played Duke Nukem 3D. I've played Fallout 2 and 3. I've played too many Flash games on Newgrounds to mention. I've seen it done before. I've seen it done better. And I've seen it served up with a side of rocket launchers and lasers.
I feel your indictment of modern gaming, but it doesn't follow that just removing all the story or using a nonsense story is necessarily an improvement. There was no need for an opening cutscene at all, for example. Think about that for a moment. Ask yourself, if gameplay is king (and I firmly believe it is,) why did they dedicate 50% of the runtime of the trailer to a cutscene? I'm not trying to convince you of anything at this point, I just want to see what you can come up with. I got nothing.
Not should. DOES. The theme of Hatred is pretty obviously arbitrary violence. In fact, I'd go so far as to say everything about the trailer DOES reenforce that theme. That's a compliment, in case you missed it. But it's just not DOING anything WITH that theme. It's going out of its way to sit on its hands and do nothing. That bugs me. You're promoting it as a net positive for the game, but why? Because it gets out of the player's way? What is there for you to do other than chase down people you have no reason to chase down? What's the point? Where's the fun? I'm seriously asking. If you have an answer I'd like to hear it. It sounds boring to me.
Of course it has a right to exist! I'm not calling for any kind of censorship here. I'm just asking *why.* Who thought this was a good idea? Who's it for? What's the point? I don't get it. At first I was offended and a little confused because it looked like the developer was taking the "video games are nothing but pointless violence" talking points and running with them. Then people started saying it was a spiritual successor to Postal. (Which is something I really needed to hear. You should open with that.) Then I started to see how it actually does kinda come together to reenforce a theme. It's just such a dull and pointless theme that I wrap back around to saying "if this was what the original Postal was like, why did anybody buy it?"
The gameplay part can happen in real life. The cutscene part can't. If it did happen, the rant would have made more sense. NotImportant's words bludgeon the viewer with the theme, which could work if they flowed or felt natural? But nobody talks like that. Seriously. If I was debating this with NotImportant he'd be saying things like "I only play good games? and I'm fed up with bad games being created." Statements that don't actually convey any information. It kills the mood by making you aware of the writer.
Man, we got God of War for that. Why shoot up a storefront when you could be decapitating an entire pantheon?
Also, he's wearing a hoodie. How do you know he has long hair?
Okay. That's good to know. It comes across a lot of the time like the game's only selling point is violence, so let's all have a big round of applause for the most violent game in the room. I need more. Don't you?
YES.
I got that impression, too.
That's what I don't like about it.
It's. Lazy. And gamers. Deserve. Better.
If only because there are tons of games, old games, new games, that give you stuff to kill and do a whole lot of other stuff at the same time. On a good day, they can even do this without getting in the WAY of the brutal catharsis.
That's what you would get if there was no cutscene, only gameplay. (Though people might assume it was a military game if you did that. Hmmm.) Instead, they chose to give it a BAD story. NotImportant opens his mouth and my expectations just plummet. I've seen homicidal maniacs portrayed better than this. You can do better, Destructive Creations. Actually fucking try.
I think vehicles would turn it into a completely different beast. Armor, speed, AND they don't know who I am until it's too late? Hell, I'll just do laps around the city until I reach 50% population slaughtered. And by that point it's the original GTA.
Somehow I don't think they're going to do that, though. I suspect the levels are always on-foot and closed-off, not open-world. If we're lucky they'll at least branch a little bit. But in theory level design would need to strike a balance between "victims can run laps around the perimeter to avoid you forever" and "victims inevitably end up trapped in rooms at the ends of hallways."
Oh, who am I kidding? They're going to do that last one, aren't they?
Well, to each their own. I hope you feel like you get your money's worth when the game finally comes out.
Oh, whoops. Don't look now, but the video got marked Private. Cue the Streisand Effect in 3... 2...
