I know what LD is. I want a example of someone saying the B:I was too violent. Because I suspect Jimmy is using a straw figure. You see, there is a problem with violence in B:I: The NPC no not react to it in any real way.Zachary Amaranth said:
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Errant Signal did a pretty good video highlighting Infinite's flaws.
To add my own two cents (spoilers and lots of ranting):
To add my own two cents (spoilers and lots of ranting):
I haven't played the game myself, but watched a longplay of it, I got the impression that I was supposed to emphasize with Booker and Elisabeth.
At the star of the game, we get told that Booker is supposed to bring Elisabeth to the surface to pay off a debt. That seems plausible until you start to think about it for a bit.
So, Booker gets sent into a nigh utopian citystate in the sky(for white people, anyway), that can only be reached via rocket that has space for only one person, that you have to know a code for you to be able use it, located on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
Why doesn't he just drop the job and forget about his debt? I mean, what are his debtors gonna do about it? Send some people after him to collect? They'd have to send them one at time. However, Columbia is a sovereign nation that doesn't seem to have much in the way of foreign politics, so I doubt these collectors could count on the authorities to assist them collecting their debts that are in a currency Columbia doesn't use and maybe doesn't even recognize, so they'd be on their own. They'd also have to find him first. Furthermore, Booker is a war veteran, who has no qualms about killing hundreds of policemen, revolutionaries and even some innocents, so I doubt he'd have problems killing some thugs who are after his head.
Later he comes across a poster that pretty much tells him that he is the devil for this nation. Instead of maybe covering his hand or otherwise trying to hide something like that, like any sane person would do, you know, just in case that he runs into the people who put up these posters or avoiding the hassle of having to explain to people that he just happens to have the mark of the devil on his hand.
Instead of doing this, he just gives a "what?" and moves on as if nothing happened, cementing my opinion of him as a collossal idiot.
Later, after he finds Elisabeth, they try to escape the city. Now, instead of taking one of the hundreds of different airships they come across, a lot of which are even flown straight to them by their enemies and which Booker has to board to dispatch these enemies, or simply look for a parachute, they murder their way across the city to get one very specific airship for no reason at all(at leat not one that I remember).
Later, when that same ship is stolen from them by some revolutionaries, they agree to further murder their way across the city to do a job for them in exchange for the ship, instead of just doing the obvious and killing the guys who took their ship. They didn't have any qualms about killing anyone else they came across, after all.
After the revolution started I sorta forgot if they were still trying to escape the city or not, but suffice it to say, by that point Booker was already a retard and an irredeemable monster in my book, sob story or not, so I kinda lost interest.
At the star of the game, we get told that Booker is supposed to bring Elisabeth to the surface to pay off a debt. That seems plausible until you start to think about it for a bit.
So, Booker gets sent into a nigh utopian citystate in the sky(for white people, anyway), that can only be reached via rocket that has space for only one person, that you have to know a code for you to be able use it, located on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
Why doesn't he just drop the job and forget about his debt? I mean, what are his debtors gonna do about it? Send some people after him to collect? They'd have to send them one at time. However, Columbia is a sovereign nation that doesn't seem to have much in the way of foreign politics, so I doubt these collectors could count on the authorities to assist them collecting their debts that are in a currency Columbia doesn't use and maybe doesn't even recognize, so they'd be on their own. They'd also have to find him first. Furthermore, Booker is a war veteran, who has no qualms about killing hundreds of policemen, revolutionaries and even some innocents, so I doubt he'd have problems killing some thugs who are after his head.
Later he comes across a poster that pretty much tells him that he is the devil for this nation. Instead of maybe covering his hand or otherwise trying to hide something like that, like any sane person would do, you know, just in case that he runs into the people who put up these posters or avoiding the hassle of having to explain to people that he just happens to have the mark of the devil on his hand.
Instead of doing this, he just gives a "what?" and moves on as if nothing happened, cementing my opinion of him as a collossal idiot.
Later, after he finds Elisabeth, they try to escape the city. Now, instead of taking one of the hundreds of different airships they come across, a lot of which are even flown straight to them by their enemies and which Booker has to board to dispatch these enemies, or simply look for a parachute, they murder their way across the city to get one very specific airship for no reason at all(at leat not one that I remember).
Later, when that same ship is stolen from them by some revolutionaries, they agree to further murder their way across the city to do a job for them in exchange for the ship, instead of just doing the obvious and killing the guys who took their ship. They didn't have any qualms about killing anyone else they came across, after all.
After the revolution started I sorta forgot if they were still trying to escape the city or not, but suffice it to say, by that point Booker was already a retard and an irredeemable monster in my book, sob story or not, so I kinda lost interest.
You are correct that GTA4 didn't have to have LD, because you could play it the way Nico wanted to and just not kill that much. But no matter which path you take, in the end you do have to kill a lot of people to get to the end. Greg also apparently doesn't understand that one of the biggest criticisms GTA4 had was that the game wasn't as much of a parody as the others in the series. Nico was one of the first MCs in GTA you were really supposed to sympathize with, and people didn't like that, because up until then you were playing some of the more amoral protagonists in gaming.GonzoGamer said:
GTA4 I believe showed Rockstar that people don't want a serious story in that series; they want to beat hookers and steal ambulances. But it's hard to do that and still have a story where the character isn't a raging psychopath. So, Rockstar seems to have found a happy medium, and give people three people to play and revolve the story around... one of which just happens to be a raging psychopath. So now all your violent urges can be released on Trevor, while the more cerebral gaming can be done with one of the other two characters, and now there's no LD and everyone can be happy.
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I get the feeling that Jim didn't actually understand the argument. From my perspective the claim of dissidence for Bioshock infinite isn't because its violent, its because that's the only option and your not fighting zombie analogs, your fighting cops and protesters. They made a world that feels lived in but for the most part your only interaction with it is with bullets. Its one thing when you mow down 20 zombies and see more coming, its another when you shoot 20 cops and they just keep coming and don't react at all to seeing their comrades casually killed. Also, I have seen people talking about running around eating shit out of the trash in infinite, so I don't see how that's a good example to toss in peoples faces.
I get the feeling you didn't research this much, Jim.
I get the feeling you didn't research this much, Jim.
You know, I just realized that Rockstar may have just created the embodiments of the psyche's three parts in GTA5. Franklin is the Ego, Michael is the Super-Ego, and Trevor is the awesome Id. Which character you want to play is very much dependent on what part of your brain you want to listen to at the time, but one of them will always work. That's rather ingenious of them.
I happen to actually like the term ludo-narrative dissonance. I used it quite vehemently to describe Tomb Raider, a game that suffered overall for it.
I did not use it in any way shape or form to describe The Last of Us or Bioshock: Infinite, two games that most certainly did have cause for hyper violence. In both games there are characters that react negatively when the player character kills someone in a particularly brutal way. No one challenges Lara, nor do they find it odd that she's so proficient with a weapon or can survive in the region of 500 blunt force traumas.
/rant
Don't hate the word, hate the people who misuse it.
I did not use it in any way shape or form to describe The Last of Us or Bioshock: Infinite, two games that most certainly did have cause for hyper violence. In both games there are characters that react negatively when the player character kills someone in a particularly brutal way. No one challenges Lara, nor do they find it odd that she's so proficient with a weapon or can survive in the region of 500 blunt force traumas.
/rant
Don't hate the word, hate the people who misuse it.
Probably, it's been a long while since I've played Infinite, but even if she doesn't, why would she? People are TRYING TO KILL THE TWO OF THEM pretty much constantly throughout the game, why would she possibly question that doing whatever is necessary to get away from these people and her psychotic father is justified?uanime5 said:
Uh... maybe it's because he just doesn't think of it? With a lot of fiction I've noticed that people like to say they would have done something the character doesn't, but it's always bunk. It's easy to CLAIM you would have done something, but you are not them, you aren't really in their situation and you do not think like that person, so there is no one that can honestly say they would have done differently.uanime5 said:
I think the problem I had with the violence in Bioshock Infinite is that it was a little too gruesome for the general swashbuckling action feel of the rest of the combat. But that's just gameplay design choices conflicting with other gameplay design choices. It's worth thinking about, but it's not ludoflaraniv skiptlefliss.
Fun episode Jim. I rather agree with everything but the trash cans, but only on the grounds that I have, in fact, seen people talk about it before. You're right in noting that the people ranting about the violence 'issue' did seem to be there, in louder and greater number, though.
People can make the claim he's fighting cops, for instance, but these aren't actual real life cops put on the street to protect you. These are fictional cops whose purposes, on the surface, are similar but are actually brainwashed fanatics, and extreme racists. It's also notable that Booker doesn't throw the first stone, he's attacked, and by one of these cops, before he raises a hand to anyone in Columbia.
Not the only themes in Infinite, by far, mind you, there's more going on that that.
So, you take all the dark side options in Star Wars games just because they're there then? They're possible, and thus clearly intended so you're obviously supposed to take them even though you have the option to not.bringer of illumination said:
It didn't have a swashbuckling action feel though. The feel of the city was one where people had their nasty, dirty and quite violent nature under a nice shiny coat of paint. They were there to hide what was always there, and that Booker, a violent man by nature, simply brought out of the city that . . . was run by an equally violent man. Anyone that's finished the game understands the true depths of that parallel, as well as the contrast of a version of a violent man that hides it under a veil versus one whose nature washes across the streets.SlightlyEvil said:
People can make the claim he's fighting cops, for instance, but these aren't actual real life cops put on the street to protect you. These are fictional cops whose purposes, on the surface, are similar but are actually brainwashed fanatics, and extreme racists. It's also notable that Booker doesn't throw the first stone, he's attacked, and by one of these cops, before he raises a hand to anyone in Columbia.
Not the only themes in Infinite, by far, mind you, there's more going on that that.
Man, you kinda said everything I could possibly have said about the subject. I do get annoyed that so many games go straight for the violence instead of exploring what other things you can do with games, but if you're going to criticize a game (or book, or movie, or whatever), then at least use the proper terms for it.
The way I see it is:Worgen said:
In the first 20 minutes or so of Bioshock: Infinite Columbia is presented to us as a peaceful, beautiful Eden. It's an idyllic and pristine world in the sky. As we see more of it however we realise that actually it's based on old world values and a whole heap of racism. Columbia's beauty is nothing more than a veneer. There's little meaningful interaction with the world because it is a fundamentally shallow world.
Booker on the other hand is a man of violence from a world of violence with a violent past. The player embodies a specific character, not a vessel through which they may enact their own actions. Booker used violence to solve his real-world problems and he's just doing the same in Columbia, a shallow world that affords him no other option.
Besides, both the cops and the Vox initiated their respective fights with Booker. The cops want him dead because they believe he's the anti-Christ which makes them essentially religious extremists. The Vox want him dead because Daisy Fitzroy thinks he's a ghost or an imposter so they're fuelled by their already intense hatred of the Columbian regime. What's a heavily armed man to do?
Booker on the other hand is a man of violence from a world of violence with a violent past. The player embodies a specific character, not a vessel through which they may enact their own actions. Booker used violence to solve his real-world problems and he's just doing the same in Columbia, a shallow world that affords him no other option.
Besides, both the cops and the Vox initiated their respective fights with Booker. The cops want him dead because they believe he's the anti-Christ which makes them essentially religious extremists. The Vox want him dead because Daisy Fitzroy thinks he's a ghost or an imposter so they're fuelled by their already intense hatred of the Columbian regime. What's a heavily armed man to do?
I'd say pretty much every game that features human enemies suffers from that problem.
I disagree slightly about Bioshock: Infinite. The reason the violence feels off is because a good chunk of the game is devoted to exploring the conflict between the Founders and the Vox Populi, with the conclusion Booker and Elizabeth come to being "Both of these guys are horrible and violent, and they're both in the wrong." Implying Booker and Elizabeth are in the right, even though Booker kills more people than any of them.
Hmm I understand that it can be frustrating, but as usual you are going too overboard with the topic in one direction and missing the point. To be clear, Ludo-Narrative Dissonance literally means a conflict between the game and the narrative of such game.
Many people have pointed out the Ludo-narrative Dissonance in Bioshock, present in the fact that you steal coins and eat food out off trash cans as you well mention, but ALSO present in the fact that for example, Elizabeth turns invisible to the enemies in combat, which is specially odd when she is supposed to be what they are searching. Of course having to escort her could be annoying, but it still conflicts with the world that they have built.
There is also a Stylistic narrative dissonance, Elizabeth has highly caricaturesque features (its clear to see that her original design fit better with the tone of the game, but was less charming), but the world presents very gruesome violence, she is reminiscent of a Disney character while the world is full of over the top violence. There are also smaller details, like the fact that there are weapon and vigor vendors all over the place, but only versy specific militarized forces seem to have any access to them, just opposite to plasmids that composed an integral part of Rapture, Vigors seem superfluous and wanton. Similarly, the almost arcade-ish, seemingly endless waves of enemies that you have to kill in sections that tend to lose focus of the serious story that the game is trying to tell, even if it is a story about violence and trauma (although arguably, it is more a story about loss than anything else JIM).
In fact, for me, this was the biggest issue, not directly about violence but about the structure of the game. Bioshock Infinite has a terrible problem with things being there"just because", none of the story really leads anywhere until the ending, where the game actually shows its cards. And the issue is that at that point, in which most of the combat is done ( and 10+ hours have passed) you realize that there is a profound disconnect between the story the game wanted to tell, and how it actually came around to tell it.
Of course, none of this means that the game is bad, and a lot of it is clearly designed to make the game more fun and enjoyable. But that is the point of the criticism, we are reaching the stage in evolution in which sometimes "game-like" design decisions are playing against the narrative of a the game as a whole, and it is a very real conflict. Dismissing it all because "people are trying to sound smart" is a pretty defensive and plain silly reaction.
In fact, I'd say that we shouldn't be so defensive in general. Even though I LOVED the hell out of TLOU, I agree that in some sections there was a lot of ludo-narrative dissonance, some related to violence and some to other issues.
-mild spoilers- For example, the section where you fall into the refrigerator trap, or the section where you take over the sniper rifle and provide cover fire, both give you endless ammo for you, of course this is not extremely important, but for a game that worked so hard to sett a sense of scarcity and urgency, these bits did damage the overall appeal. In the same way, occasionally there are a number of areas that you can inspect thoroughly, only to find that enemies will spawn out of nowhere only after you press a switch (or open a door, or turn on a generator), shattering the illusion of the organic world and turning it into a chain of interconnected monster closets.
And finally, for me the most offensive aspect of ludo-narrative dissonance in the Last of Us, was the collectibles, the fact that the game is clearly heavily invested in you following a story but still puts hidden collectibles in even some of the most dramatic passages of the game, creating a severe conflict between following the story or following the game.
I know this is a generalization, but all in all, it seems that since games are delving into more and more serious topics narratively speaking, we are still stuck in some very standard Game-like mechanics that seem to be placed in there to please the "target demographic". Personally I do think that the excess in combat and violence in Bioshock did dilute the final punch of the story, and the more gamey The last of us became, the more it pushed me out of its otherwise brilliantly crafted universe. And it's not bad that people are recognizing this, it's something developers have to tackle, so even if some people use the term for basically anything, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have some truth to it.
Many people have pointed out the Ludo-narrative Dissonance in Bioshock, present in the fact that you steal coins and eat food out off trash cans as you well mention, but ALSO present in the fact that for example, Elizabeth turns invisible to the enemies in combat, which is specially odd when she is supposed to be what they are searching. Of course having to escort her could be annoying, but it still conflicts with the world that they have built.
There is also a Stylistic narrative dissonance, Elizabeth has highly caricaturesque features (its clear to see that her original design fit better with the tone of the game, but was less charming), but the world presents very gruesome violence, she is reminiscent of a Disney character while the world is full of over the top violence. There are also smaller details, like the fact that there are weapon and vigor vendors all over the place, but only versy specific militarized forces seem to have any access to them, just opposite to plasmids that composed an integral part of Rapture, Vigors seem superfluous and wanton. Similarly, the almost arcade-ish, seemingly endless waves of enemies that you have to kill in sections that tend to lose focus of the serious story that the game is trying to tell, even if it is a story about violence and trauma (although arguably, it is more a story about loss than anything else JIM).
In fact, for me, this was the biggest issue, not directly about violence but about the structure of the game. Bioshock Infinite has a terrible problem with things being there"just because", none of the story really leads anywhere until the ending, where the game actually shows its cards. And the issue is that at that point, in which most of the combat is done ( and 10+ hours have passed) you realize that there is a profound disconnect between the story the game wanted to tell, and how it actually came around to tell it.
Of course, none of this means that the game is bad, and a lot of it is clearly designed to make the game more fun and enjoyable. But that is the point of the criticism, we are reaching the stage in evolution in which sometimes "game-like" design decisions are playing against the narrative of a the game as a whole, and it is a very real conflict. Dismissing it all because "people are trying to sound smart" is a pretty defensive and plain silly reaction.
In fact, I'd say that we shouldn't be so defensive in general. Even though I LOVED the hell out of TLOU, I agree that in some sections there was a lot of ludo-narrative dissonance, some related to violence and some to other issues.
-mild spoilers- For example, the section where you fall into the refrigerator trap, or the section where you take over the sniper rifle and provide cover fire, both give you endless ammo for you, of course this is not extremely important, but for a game that worked so hard to sett a sense of scarcity and urgency, these bits did damage the overall appeal. In the same way, occasionally there are a number of areas that you can inspect thoroughly, only to find that enemies will spawn out of nowhere only after you press a switch (or open a door, or turn on a generator), shattering the illusion of the organic world and turning it into a chain of interconnected monster closets.
And finally, for me the most offensive aspect of ludo-narrative dissonance in the Last of Us, was the collectibles, the fact that the game is clearly heavily invested in you following a story but still puts hidden collectibles in even some of the most dramatic passages of the game, creating a severe conflict between following the story or following the game.
I know this is a generalization, but all in all, it seems that since games are delving into more and more serious topics narratively speaking, we are still stuck in some very standard Game-like mechanics that seem to be placed in there to please the "target demographic". Personally I do think that the excess in combat and violence in Bioshock did dilute the final punch of the story, and the more gamey The last of us became, the more it pushed me out of its otherwise brilliantly crafted universe. And it's not bad that people are recognizing this, it's something developers have to tackle, so even if some people use the term for basically anything, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have some truth to it.
I'd be interesting in seeing some of what Jim is talking about here. 'cause the only one I can think of is the EC episode, and there reasoning wasn't just "violence".
Link to the episode for those interested.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/in-service-to-the-brand
Link to the episode for those interested.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/in-service-to-the-brand
Nope, there's no issue there. You forget that after she freaks out at you for killing that guy but before she starts tossing you ammo, she comes to terms with the fact that it was a "him or me" situation and that what Booker did was necessary. You also forget that Elizabeth desperately wants to not be put back in the tower and that she realizes that Booker is her best and only chance of that happening, so helping him whether or not she likes the killing that she's already come to terms with is in her best interests. Thus the only problem here is your memory failing you. Go on, have a replay, it'll help you realize your mistake.spartandude said:
If that is the complaint, if that is the problem people have with the game, then they should say that instead of shouting "ludonarrative dissonance!" when it does not apply. The gameplay and story differing from each other and an interesting world that players aren't allowed to explore because they're being railroaded from shooting gallery to shooting gallery are two massively different complaints. You aren't really contradicting anything said in the video. In fact, you're pretty much proving Jim's point: that people are tossing ludonarrative dissonance around because they aren't intelligent enough to properly articulate what their actual problem with the game is.MichaelPalin said:
Welcome to shooters, you must be new.themilo504 said:
Doesn't surprise me at all that Extra Credits was wrong. Did they talk about how Gears of War is a first person shooter again too?Eric the Orange said: