Immersion-breaking premises

[omicron1]

I can't get into the new BioShock. It's not really its fault - it's mechanically great, very pretty, and overall the very definition of a good game. No, my problem with the thing lies with its premise.

For those couple cavemen who missed it, BioShock Infinite is about magical racist Christians (*wink wink nudge*) in the sky. They're led by an amalgam of Mohammed and Joseph Smith, and the game spares few expenses to keep shoving this in your face as you play. "See? Those idyllic-looking folks that look like a church emptied itself over the courtroom are RACIIIIST!!!" "Here, have some vaguely Christian-by-way-of-King-James fluff!" "Baptism/drowning, folks!"
It's for all the world like someone at Irrational took that

Spoiler

wounded knee panorama

to heart and decided to make their very own Evil Christian Museum Display.
And that's not even mentioning the paranoid patriophobic wing of their Sky Museum.

So I can't get immersed at all. Maybe if Irrational had made clear that this is not Christianity, but rather a horribly twisted cult, it could have worked. But as it is, my suspension of disbelief fell from the skies even before I reached them ingame, with those self-important needleworks on the walls of the lighthouse.

From then on, I cannot take anything seriously. It's all just a set-'em-up knock-'em-down animatronic display with an Aesop I actively oppose, and I can't get more out of it than as a playground for explosions and casual looting.


(TLDR)
All that to ask, are there any titles that did this for you? Broke immersion before you really started by way of a ridiculous or offensive premise or story? And how (or how long) did you keep on going after?

 

[Fappy]

Sometimes writers make allegories way too obvious. Considering most games aren't all that great at subtly yet, this really isn't all that surprising. Oddly enough, Halo actually did a pretty good job in this regard. Many would never make the connection to the Covenant and the Roman Catholic Church.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Practically none for me. I always take a game for what it is regardless of how "silly" it's premise/mechanics/whatever may be. The only thing that breaks my suspension of disbelief is when a universe clearly breaks its own rules.

Looking at you Uncharted 3. I see that God Mode hack you throw to Nathan Drake when the rest of us aren't looking towards the three quarter mark. I'm onto you.

 

[Vegosiux]

For those couple cavemen who missed it...

I resent that. But if you insist, fine, I shall hand over my gamer's badge, since I definitely do not deserve it because I decided to let BS INF fly by.

All that to ask, are there any titles that did this for you? Broke immersion before you really started by way of a ridiculous or offensive premise or story? And how (or how long) did you keep on going after?

Nah, not this early. Usually I can accept the premise on its own, but if the game starts behaving like it took a level in cluelessness later on, I will get cranky and revoke the willing suspension of disbelief.

 

[CloudAtlas]

For those couple cavemen who missed it, BioShock Infinite is about magical racist Christians (*wink wink nudge*) in the sky. They're led by an amalgam of Mohammed and Joseph Smith, and the game spares few expenses to keep shoving this in your face as you play. "See? Those idyllic-looking folks that look like a church emptied itself over the courtroom are RACIIIIST!!!" "Here, have some vaguely Christian-by-way-of-King-James fluff!" "Baptism/drowning, folks!"
It's for all the world like someone at Irrational took that

Spoiler

wounded knee panorama

to heart and decided to make their very own Evil Christian Museum Display.
And that's not even mentioning the paranoid patriophobic wing of their Sky Museum.

So I can't get immersed at all. Maybe if Irrational had made clear that this is not Christianity, but rather a horribly twisted cult, it could have worked. But as it is, my suspension of disbelief fell from the skies even before I reached them ingame, with those self-important needleworks on the walls of the lighthouse.

But don't some brands of Christianity - or rather, people who call themselves Christians - look pretty similar to that?

 

[omicron1]

For those couple cavemen who missed it, BioShock Infinite is about magical racist Christians (*wink wink nudge*) in the sky. They're led by an amalgam of Mohammed and Joseph Smith, and the game spares few expenses to keep shoving this in your face as you play. "See? Those idyllic-looking folks that look like a church emptied itself over the courtroom are RACIIIIST!!!" "Here, have some vaguely Christian-by-way-of-King-James fluff!" "Baptism/drowning, folks!"
It's for all the world like someone at Irrational took that

Spoiler

wounded knee panorama

to heart and decided to make their very own Evil Christian Museum Display.
And that's not even mentioning the paranoid patriophobic wing of their Sky Museum.

So I can't get immersed at all. Maybe if Irrational had made clear that this is not Christianity, but rather a horribly twisted cult, it could have worked. But as it is, my suspension of disbelief fell from the skies even before I reached them ingame, with those self-important needleworks on the walls of the lighthouse.

But don't some brands of Christianity - or rather, people who call themselves Christians - look pretty similar to that?

"Hey, there's a cult that looks like this" is not a reason to say "This is Christendom." If you're making a game about Westboro, make it about Westboro, darnit - not me.

 

[Zhukov]

Know that I am currently resisting the urge to leap for your throat for daring to criticize my beloved Infinite.

*ahem*

Anyway, for me it was Homefront.

A game set in the near future in which North Korea invades the USA. Yeah. And they don't do it by a way of a pact with the ancient gods of evil or anything, they just do it with conventional military force.

Now, I'm not American. So I don't object because of, "Oh, how dare they show those dirty Norks invading my beloved homeland! That would never happen, not to AMURICAH!"

No, I object because it's ridiculous. A small, impoverished and nigh on starving nation invades the most powerful country on earth, a country that, lest we forget, also sports a considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Yes, they try to explain it by saying the USA went into severe economic decline. Okay, fair enough, that could happen I guess. But going into economic decline doesn't make your nukes all magically disappear and it doesn't turn bloody North Korea into an international powerhouse. It also doesn't make every nation in Asia suddenly so weak that they somehow get curb-stomped by bloody North Korea.

Bah!

 

[CloudAtlas]

For those couple cavemen who missed it, BioShock Infinite is about magical racist Christians (*wink wink nudge*) in the sky. They're led by an amalgam of Mohammed and Joseph Smith, and the game spares few expenses to keep shoving this in your face as you play. "See? Those idyllic-looking folks that look like a church emptied itself over the courtroom are RACIIIIST!!!" "Here, have some vaguely Christian-by-way-of-King-James fluff!" "Baptism/drowning, folks!"
It's for all the world like someone at Irrational took that

Spoiler

wounded knee panorama

to heart and decided to make their very own Evil Christian Museum Display.
And that's not even mentioning the paranoid patriophobic wing of their Sky Museum.

So I can't get immersed at all. Maybe if Irrational had made clear that this is not Christianity, but rather a horribly twisted cult, it could have worked. But as it is, my suspension of disbelief fell from the skies even before I reached them ingame, with those self-important needleworks on the walls of the lighthouse.

But don't some brands of Christianity - or rather, people who call themselves Christians - look pretty similar to that?

"Hey, there's a cult that looks like this" is not a reason to say "This is Christendom." If you're making a game about Westboro, make it about Westboro, darnit - not me.

So this is what really bothers you? You feel offended because the game (apparently) portrays your religion in negative way?

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

I see nothing but a personality cult in Bioshock. Using roman catholic imagery and being worshiped by white folk don't make it christian. If anything it seemed like a jab at american exceptionalism, what with the revisionism and deification of the founding fathers.

To answer the question of the thread. Dead Space 3. I got it as my "we're sorry for simcity" game from EA but I haven't touched it yet. I liked Dead Space 2 too much. And I just can't accept that anyone who has escaped from alien superzombies twice would willingly go to a place were there are more alien superzombies. It doesn't make sense. I would just leave the job to someone else and never complain about anything in my life ever again.

 

[piinyouri]

You cannot break my immersion.
It is impossible.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Maybe if Irrational had made clear that this is not Christianity, but rather a horribly twisted cult, it could have worked.

What, they didn't make that clear enough within the first two minutes of your arrival in Columbia? With people praying to

Spoiler

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin?

Or the fact that their religious symbolism involves

Spoiler

a sword, key, and scroll, and not a cross?

I thought the whole "weird American exceptionalism cult of personality with some token Christian trappings" thing was abundantly clear.

 

[Madkipz]

I can't get into the new BioShock. It's not really its fault - it's mechanically great, very pretty, and overall the very definition of a good game. No, my problem with the thing lies with its premise.

For those couple cavemen who missed it, BioShock Infinite is about magical racist Christians (*wink wink nudge*) in the sky. They're led by an amalgam of Mohammed and Joseph Smith, and the game spares few expenses to keep shoving this in your face as you play. "See? Those idyllic-looking folks that look like a church emptied itself over the courtroom are RACIIIIST!!!" "Here, have some vaguely Christian-by-way-of-King-James fluff!" "Baptism/drowning, folks!"
It's for all the world like someone at Irrational took that

Spoiler

wounded knee panorama

to heart and decided to make their very own Evil Christian Museum Display.
And that's not even mentioning the paranoid patriophobic wing of their Sky Museum.

So I can't get immersed at all. Maybe if Irrational had made clear that this is not Christianity, but rather a horribly twisted cult, it could have worked. But as it is, my suspension of disbelief fell from the skies even before I reached them ingame, with those self-important needleworks on the walls of the lighthouse.

From then on, I cannot take anything seriously. It's all just a set-'em-up knock-'em-down animatronic display with an Aesop I actively oppose, and I can't get more out of it than as a playground for explosions and casual looting.


(TLDR)
All that to ask, are there any titles that did this for you? Broke immersion before you really started by way of a ridiculous or offensive premise or story? And how (or how long) did you keep on going after?

pfft. Poor christian man. That's what you get for following a cult of personality. What do you think this whole Jesus from Nasaret fellow was and why do you think Muslims claim that the book about their prophet needs to be read alongside the Quran? It's all a cult of personality.

The first game that actively went out of its way to ruin my day is dragon age 2. The new age backflipping combat that portrayed a ton of flourishes and enemy reinforcements jumping down from nowhere, and the constantly reused dungeons with blatantly blocked passageways just took me straight out of the game and made me feel like i was playing shit.

 

[Fenra]

What got me more about infinate which I let slide as just artistic liscencing was how they exist up there, I mean that high up would be freezing and very thin on air id imagine

As for me, I could never get too deeply immersed in Alan Wake because it seemed to lost in its own fiction if that makes sense. Like everytime they tried to pull the whole "maybe he's crazy!" bit I never bought it because the shadow stuff seemed more plausable than reality in context and it just broke for me. At that point it was no longer psychological and was just a supernatural shooting gallery

 

[Radeonx]

Very few. It is pretty easy for me to get immersed in a game's world/story, so aside from bugs or glitches or some shit that don't have to do with the story, it is very hard for me to lose immersion.

 

[Kurt Cristal]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with everyone here. It sounds a lot more like the OP is trying to seek solace in this forum because a game offended them. I, like a few more who already posted, recognized it as a "cult" right away, not winkwink-nudgenudge Christianity. Is the game critical of faith as a whole? Of course it is, this is Bioshock, the theme is always "extremism is bad", so they took religious zealotry and shows what happens when it goes to far. I mean, my political views are 'somewhat' objectivist, but you don't see me painting the original Bioshock game as slanderous for putting anarcho-capitalism/objectivism into the looney bin. So yeah, your offense to this game is YOUR problem. Your attempts to make this topical and ask us about other irks are thinly veiled.

 

[omicron1]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with everyone here. It sounds a lot more like the OP is trying to seek solace in this forum because a game offended them. I, like a few more who already posted, recognized it as a "cult" right away, not winkwink-nudgenudge Christianity. Is the game critical of faith as a whole? Of course it is, this is Bioshock, the theme is always "extremism is bad", so they took religious zealotry and shows what happens when it goes to far. I mean, my political views are 'somewhat' objectivist, but you don't see me painting the original Bioshock game as slanderous for putting anarcho-capitalism/objectivism into the looney bin. So yeah, your offense to this game is YOUR problem. Your attempts to make this topical and ask us about other irks are thinly veiled.

So let me get this straight - are you treating my complaint as irrelevant because I'm a Christian, or somehow suggesting that almost all "Name your X" logs aren't made because of the OP's particular X?

 

[Kurt Cristal]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with everyone here. It sounds a lot more like the OP is trying to seek solace in this forum because a game offended them. I, like a few more who already posted, recognized it as a "cult" right away, not winkwink-nudgenudge Christianity. Is the game critical of faith as a whole? Of course it is, this is Bioshock, the theme is always "extremism is bad", so they took religious zealotry and shows what happens when it goes to far. I mean, my political views are 'somewhat' objectivist, but you don't see me painting the original Bioshock game as slanderous for putting anarcho-capitalism/objectivism into the looney bin. So yeah, your offense to this game is YOUR problem. Your attempts to make this topical and ask us about other irks are thinly veiled.

So let me get this straight - are you treating my complaint as irrelevant because I'm a Christian, or somehow suggesting that almost all "Name your X" logs aren't made because of the OP's particular X?

No, but as highlighted, you're doing what I'm complaining about. Your post came across to me as if you were acting like a victim of slander for your beliefs, moreso than you just saying you didn't like the premise. I thought you were being a little extreme here. I interpreted your post as seeking catharsis rather than general intrigue. Let's step back a moment and just say this, are there other games you don't like on premise alone?

 

[omicron1]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with everyone here. It sounds a lot more like the OP is trying to seek solace in this forum because a game offended them. I, like a few more who already posted, recognized it as a "cult" right away, not winkwink-nudgenudge Christianity. Is the game critical of faith as a whole? Of course it is, this is Bioshock, the theme is always "extremism is bad", so they took religious zealotry and shows what happens when it goes to far. I mean, my political views are 'somewhat' objectivist, but you don't see me painting the original Bioshock game as slanderous for putting anarcho-capitalism/objectivism into the looney bin. So yeah, your offense to this game is YOUR problem. Your attempts to make this topical and ask us about other irks are thinly veiled.

So let me get this straight - are you treating my complaint as irrelevant because I'm a Christian, or somehow suggesting that almost all "Name your X" logs aren't made because of the OP's particular X?

No, but as highlighted, you're doing what I'm complaining about. Your post came across to me as if you were acting like a victim of slander for your beliefs, moreso than you just saying you didn't like the premise. I thought you were being a little extreme here. I interpreted your post as seeking catharsis rather than general intrigue. Let's step back a moment and just say this, are there other games you don't like on premise alone?

Several, actually. Fallout, for instance, is a theme I just don't care for. The Metal Gear Solid series' endless "Evil corporations' War is only an evil thing" theme is problematic (This is definitely the premise of Peace Walker, for instance).

In general, three things are apt to set me off in a setting/premise: "The US is evil", "Corporations are evil", and "Religion is evil." Bioshock Infinite is at least two of the above. I like the game - I just wish I could enjoy it.

 

[EdwardHowton]

So, in other words, a game, in holding a mirror up to the OP's primitive and bigoted religion (which it is, regardless of which cherry-picked bits the OP actually cares about and which ones he dismisses as 'bad') based on the principles of "we're the best, our way or the highway, join us and do as we say and we love you as our neighbor or don't and we kill you" by showing them a culture just as flawed in the game as the real-life equivalent during, say, the Dark Ages, broke the poor OP's immersion.

How, then, is it that the OP's religion doesn't break his immersion of real life, I wonder? Or perhaps his religiosity explains why zipping around on tracks around a FLYING CITY while shooting BIRDS out of his HANDS -didn't- (insert comment about how it's immersive within the context of the game, yadda yadda, I know, said for comic effect).

In any case, one of the more irritating immersion-breaking things are the quite minor ones. Things like, in Far Cry 2, when you're handed a manila envelope for a mission, and jump sideways half a foot so that the animation of you grabbing the envelope can sync up correctly, which feels to me like a Fuck You from an animator complaining that I wasn't standing where I was "supposed to". Or, say, World In Conflict, with the arbitrary timers that show up telling you how long you have to reinforce your units before the "weather" makes sorties impossible for the air base right after your commanding officer says "they don't know how much longer before they're grounded". Or that same game's logistics of bringing hundreds upon hundreds of tanks and other vehicles across the Pacific in cargo ships that you have to destroy while holding a position for fifteen minutes. The sheer tonnage alone is mind-boggling! Forget the Spartans and the arrows blotting out the sun, you could've walked from Russia to Seattle just by hopping from boat to boat! And I'm expected to believe that three tanks coupled with four guys holding rocket launchers hiding in a truck stop can hold off that many tanks? Really?

The worst part, though, is when I'm playing some deeply immersive game like Thief: Deadly Shadows' Shalebridge Cradle level and get pushed out of it to remark to myself how incredibly well done the immersion is. That tiny little voice in the back of my head that suddenly demands attention so that I can notice how clever it is for the level designer to have made the lights slowly pulse back and forth like breathing. Shut up, rational part of my brain! I'm trying to be terrified by this level!

 

[blackdwarf]

When a story is based upon a plot twist, that is really obvious. That kills a game for me. The latest That did that to me, was Mark of the ninja. Building a game a to something you already know and especially when the twist sucks, Is boring and annoying.