Let's talk about what I see as hypocrisy in the FPS genre.

Ambient_Malice

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My problem with the FPS genre is a snobbishness which reminds me of the attitude of hardcore Pacific Rim fans who insist that Michael Bay Transformers movies are stupid, but Pacific Rim is super smart and totally not at all like Transformers, despite the fact Pacific Rim is cut from the exact same cloth. (Many story-driven FPS games are described as being like Michael Bay movies, often by people who are less than fans of Bay's oeuvre.)

Goldeneye Wii was bashed for having "Call of Duty-like" game mechanics which were actually almost identical to praised games such as Metro: Last Light and Wolfenstein: The New Order.

Battlefield 3 was bashed for its story and gameplay. Both are remarkably similar to the game BLACK, a game which is not painted with the same brush.

Battlefield 4 was bashed for its characters, story, and ending. (Penned by the guy who wrote Modern Warfare 2) I thought the characters were interesting and the ending was powerful.

Syndicate 2012's story, by the same writer as Crysis 2, was criticised for vague reasons which seem to boil down to "WHY ISN'T THIS GAME LIKE THE OLD SYNDICATE GAMES!" (Yet nobody complained that Wolfenstein: The New order isn't like the old 2D Wolfenstein games for some reason.) Despite having almost identical game mechanics to Wolfenstein: TNO, Syndicate's game mechanics were criticised, too.

Call of Duty: Ghosts was heavily bashed for its story, graphics, and game mechanics. In my view, while inferior to Black Ops 2, Ghosts improved heavily upon the older Infinity Ward titles by removing the "follow the waypoint" mission design and replacing it with something more organic. Ghosts may not be the best looking game, but it has extremely high resolution textures compared to previous entries, and the engine received some major DX11 visual upgrades. The game even has Nvidia fur effects for animals, something which Witcher 3 fans seemed to think was something never before seen when shown in Witcher 3 previews. As for the story, I think it had some flaws, but it was reasonably well written, took us interesting places, and Rorke was a compelling villain.

Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 were, in my view, unfairly bashed. They adapted the Crytek formula to an urban setting, which meant a shift away from lots of jungle towards more constrained environments. This was partially due to console limitations, sure, but also because urban environments lend themselves to being constrained by tall buildings and such. The two games explore some very interesting themes around warriors abandoning their humanity and Psycho's angst over his own human frailty after he loses the suit. Crysis 3 also includes the line "IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE SUIT!" which almost seems like a challenge to the people who grumbled about the nanosuits being altered in C2 and C3, plus the use of your suit malfunctioning as a story point.

All in all, I think that many linear, story-driven FPS games get unfairly treated. Their stories are often not given the attention or respect they deserve, and it saddens me. And there are many strange double standards where Game A does the EXACT SAME THINGS as Game B, but game B is seen as "stupid", but Game A is seen as "smart". And a series like Crysis, which dared to experiment with later titles, is bashed by the same people who bash Call of Duty for not being experimental enough.

I probably should've tidied and rewritten this a few times, but I hope I got my message across. As the release date for Advanced Warfare approaches, I see more and more flippant attacks on CoD: Ghosts as being a "trash" game "everybody" hated, and I see people who hated Crysis 2 all of sudden excited about Advanced Warfare, which seems heavily influenced by Crysis 2, right down to oddly similar set pieces in the trailers. I feel as if people are caught up in a snobbish hatred for "dumb pleb" FPS and a snobbish like for the "smart" FPS games which are usually bizarrely similar to the "dumb" ones if you scratch the surface.
 

Evonisia

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I just feel the need to point out that if we're talking the singleplayer, Ghosts was a hideously inorganic game. I was instantly reminded of one of the early missions where moving back a few feet literally gets you blown up by a tank because you dared hide in cover from enemies on a different tank. It also runs like shit even on consoles.

As for the others, I'm going to guess it's case of "they thought the example they praised did it better". XCOM: Enemy Unknown also wasn't like the originals, but it was praised because it was good, ditto Wolfenstein: The New Order, Halo: CE, BioShock, Call of Duty 4, among others.

Gosh that sounded a lot meaner than I intended it to be.
 

Fireaxe

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Ambient_Malice said:
Syndicate 2012's story, by the same writer as Crysis 2, was criticised for vague reasons which seem to boil down to "WHY ISN'T THIS GAME LIKE THE OLD SYNDICATE GAMES!" (Yet nobody complained that Wolfenstein: The New order isn't like the old 2D Wolfenstein games for some reason.) Despite having almost identical game mechanics to Wolfenstein: TNO, Syndicate's game mechanics were criticised, too.
The original syndicate was a mix of third person tactical shooting and real time tactics, the 2012 version was a largely generic FPS at a point in time when we have enough actual *good* FPS on the market, let alone generic rubbish.

Wolfenstein has been FPS since the 1992 version, so any angst over the 2D sidescroller to FPS change happened twenty years and has long been forgotten (and didn't exist in the first place as in 1992 FPS was relatively new and exciting).

TNO wasn't trying to sell its self as a reboot of the 2D version of the franchise, Syndicate was sold as a reboot despite having absolutely nothing in common with any of the earlier Syndicate games besides a rough plot outline that it did nothing even vaguely interested in.

This is the same reason people didn't like Goldeneye Wii, it was billed as a remake of the N64 version and instead of another generic modern shooter, and again it was a generic modern shooter with regenerating health instead of the old no health regen, no health pickups system of the N64 game.

So uhh, people don't like remakes of games with modern mechanics that they're not fans of.
 

Ambient_Malice

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Mcoffey said:
Also Transformers doesn't have shit on Pacific Rim. Both are dumb action movies, but Pacific Rim is fun to watch, where Transformers looks like two junkyards having sex. While spouting racial and sexual epithets.
I'd like to point out that Transformers 4 was a significant shift in tone away from . But I also find it amusing how Michael Bay movies are often deemed racist, while Pacific Rim gets away with...

>Japanese girl who is REALLY GOOD AT MARTIAL ARTS.
>ANGRY AUSTRALIAN WHO IS DEFINED BY HIS ANGRY.
>African-American guy who is harsh, but gentle on the inside, and DIES SO THE WHITE PEOPLE CAN LIVE.

Not that I have any real problem with any of those, but people sure love to pick apart Michael Bay movies.

Anyway, my real point is that I've seen people ask, for example, if they should play Crysis 3 or CoD: Ghosts, only to be told those games are stupid and they should play Metro or Wolfenstein instead. It's the elitism which I have a distaste for, and it seems to be getting stronger. I myself strongly prefer FPS games with a more sandbox design, such as Perfect Dark. But I appreciate that in order to be narrative focused, some FPS games sacrifice gameplay freedom for atmosphere and storytelling. It also kinda bugs me how a super linear QTE ridden game like Metro: Last Light gets a free pass, but something like Black Ops 2 is deemed to be "just another stupid FPS game", despite CoD offering more story choices, less restrictive map design, and so on.
 

Ambient_Malice

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Evonisia said:
I just feel the need to point out that if we're talking the singleplayer, Ghosts was a hideously inorganic game. I was instantly reminded of one of the early missions where moving back a few feet literally gets you blown up by a tank because you dared hide in cover from enemies on a different tank. It also runs like shit even on consoles.
Scripting has always been a problem with CoD titles. I personally think the first Modern Warfare was much worse when it came to magical insta-fail sections. Also, Ghosts runs rather well on 8th gen consoles. 7th gen ports are pretty mediocre, but the game was designed for 2GB+ RAM, so that was expected. The game is heavily GPU limited on PC, but I think the performance problems are not as bad as some claim. Especially after patches.

When I talk about organic, I mean how the game doesn't wave a massive icon in your face saying GO HERE. It instead expects you to figure out where to go and what to do based on dialogue from NPCs and environmental cues.

Fireaxe said:
This is the same reason people didn't like Goldeneye Wii, it was billed as a remake of the N64 version and instead of another generic modern shooter, and again it was a generic modern shooter with regenerating health instead of the old no health regen, no health pickups system of the N64 game.

So uhh, people don't like remakes of games with modern mechanics that they're not fans of.
I feel the need to point out that in Goldeneye Wii, regen health was FULLY OPTIONAL. The game gave you a choice between regen health and armour pickups. Goldeneye Wii was a Eurocom game. Anybody who'd played Eurocom's Bond games (and they made far more of them than Rareware) had some idea of what do expect.
 

Smooth Operator

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So essentially OP you have no perception of detail and now want to argue that it's actually all the same...
This is kind of a problem, I don't know how to argue with a bind guy what Mona Lisa looks like, maybe it's best if other blind people get in on this.
 

Ambient_Malice

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Smooth Operator said:
So essentially OP you have no perception of detail and now want to argue that it's actually all the same...
Let me ask you, then. How does Goldeneye: Wii differ meaningfully from Wolfenstein: The New Order mechanically? How does Wolfenstein differ from Syndicate? My point is that certain games are often striking similar to other games either in gameplay or story, and people who hate one but not the other seem blind to how hypocritical and petty they're often being. My point is that people seem awfully hasty to hate games and rain on the parade of anyone who likes said games.

edit:
my complaint is that the differences between games aren't explored enough. It just turns into immature "my game is awesome, your game is the cancer."
 

Chester Rabbit

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Ambient_Malice said:
Mcoffey said:
Also Transformers doesn't have shit on Pacific Rim. Both are dumb action movies, but Pacific Rim is fun to watch, where Transformers looks like two junkyards having sex. While spouting racial and sexual epithets.
I'd like to point out that Transformers 4 was a significant shift in tone away from . But I also find it amusing how Michael Bay movies are often deemed racist, while Pacific Rim gets away with...

>Japanese girl who is REALLY GOOD AT MARTIAL ARTS.
>ANGRY AUSTRALIAN WHO IS DEFINED BY HIS ANGRY.
>African-American guy who is harsh, but gentle on the inside, and DIES SO THE WHITE PEOPLE CAN LIVE.
Okay a few things.
1. that Japanese girl had training from her father figure who was also a martial artist himself. So it's not just a case of Oh yeah the Japanese girl is obviously good at fighting.

2. Is the angry Australian thing actually a stereotype of Australian people? Because I have never heard that.

3. What?! When has that ever been a racist or stereotypical archetype for an African American?
 

Ambient_Malice

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Chester Rabbit said:
Ambient_Malice said:
Mcoffey said:
Also Transformers doesn't have shit on Pacific Rim. Both are dumb action movies, but Pacific Rim is fun to watch, where Transformers looks like two junkyards having sex. While spouting racial and sexual epithets.
I'd like to point out that Transformers 4 was a significant shift in tone away from . But I also find it amusing how Michael Bay movies are often deemed racist, while Pacific Rim gets away with...

>Japanese girl who is REALLY GOOD AT MARTIAL ARTS.
>ANGRY AUSTRALIAN WHO IS DEFINED BY HIS ANGRY.
>African-American guy who is harsh, but gentle on the inside, and DIES SO THE WHITE PEOPLE CAN LIVE.
Okay a few things.
1. that Japanese girl had training from her father figure who was also a martial artist himself. So it's not just a case of Oh yeah the Japanese girl is obviously good at fighting.

2. Is the angry Australian thing actually a stereotype of Australian people? Because I have never heard that.

3. What?! When has that ever been a racist or stereotypical archetype for an African American?
The noble black dude who sacrifices himself is a very old trope. Even South Park made fun of it in the episode where Cartman tries to get Chef to nobly sacrifice himself to stop the hippies. It's not necessarily racist, but neither is half the supposedly racist stuff in the Transformers films, IMO. I'm not bashing Pacific Rim. I'm just noting that many criticisms can be applied equally, but fans are blind to it.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Is this really about FPS games, or about your beef with Pacific Rim being enjoyed generally more than Trans4mers?

Anyways, about game Mechanics. You will find that most shooters' mechanics are identical. The controller layout is pretty much the same for 90 percent of all FPS titles, with slight variations based on each game's individual gimmicks or aspects. The thing that sets FPS games apart is not their mechanics, but their structure, tone and themes. Borderlands 2 has almost the exact same button layout as Call of Duty, but it is never compared similarly to it.

A lot of people tend to dislike the plots of the new Battlefield games because they clash with the older, less serious take the series used to have. Yeah, Battlefield 2 and 2142 were less cartoony than 1942 or Vietnam, but at their core they were still arcade FPS titles with an emphasis on big explosions and sandbox gameplay. The Bad Company Games embraced this in their singleplayer by going whole hog and making the entire game a farce taking the piss out of other shooters that take themselves way too seriously.

And then BF3 and BF4 go completely against this tone and try to pull off some super duper serious storytelling, and it clashes with the rest of the series as a result. The multiplayer is still the wacky violence of an F-35 flying ten feet off the ground, but the tone and feel of the series became much more gunmetal grey and dour.
 

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Ambient_Malice said:
Crysis 2 and Crysis 3 were, in my view, unfairly bashed. They adapted the Crytek formula to an urban setting, which meant a shift away from lots of jungle towards more constrained environments. This was partially due to console limitations, sure, but also because urban environments lend themselves to being constrained by tall buildings and such. The two games explore some very interesting themes around warriors abandoning their humanity and Psycho's angst over his own human frailty after he loses the suit. Crysis 3 also includes the line "IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE SUIT!" which almost seems like a challenge to the people who grumbled about the nanosuits being altered in C2 and C3, plus the use of your suit malfunctioning as a story point.
I have some thoughts on your post and on the Crysis series in particular because I am one of those people who liked Crysis and Crysis: Warhead but not Crysis 2.

Urban area's are, in real life, area's designed to be accessable to people. Jungle's are known to be difficult to travel through. In any city with tall buildings I know of, there are roads between the tall buildings which make sure I can easily get to many places in the city, even if they are behind a tall building. In most games there will be some arbitrary fence or gate or other immersion-breaking wall that gates of a lot of the city because it is outside of the scripted path. I understand that this is because developmenttime and discspace are limited and because the ability to go of the scripted path doesn't always make a better game. However I don't buy into the excuse that cities are naturally more restricted area's than jungles. More importantly, the fact that you have a lore-excuse for certain designchoices, doesn't make them good choices. Crysis and to a slightly lesser extent Crysis warhead had large open enviroments which allowed players to approach situations from different directions and in different ways, using the nanosuit in various ways. If there was a fortified enemy position in my way I could do various things. I could kill the enemies with grenades or with stealth and silencers. I could charge in head on, or use stealth to get passed the machineguns first. I could bypass the main entrance and use my strenght jump to get over the wall from another direction. I might even go around it entirely depending on the situation. This kind of gameplay can't be adapted to a constrained urban enviroment because I don't have to space to try to approach the situation from another direction. I'm in a corridor, my objective is at the end of the corridor and enemies are in the middle. If I try to flank them, I run into a wall. If I try to go around them, I run into a wall. If I try to use stealth and they notice something is wrong they will start searching and I have great difficulty evading them because there is only so many places to go. Now Crysis 2 tries to counteract this by creating various ways in which I can get through the enviroment. However, they are marked on my screen so I always feel if I'm following a strategy not thought of by me, but by Crytek and more importantly, Cryteks strategy ussually leads me through another corridor.

When speaking of the story, there are various things to say. Firstly, I don't know about other people but the story of Crysis isn't the reason I play it as it is pretty bad. (especially Warhead) I play Crysis for it's gameplay. Secondly, near the end of Crysis there is a massive unresolved crisis about a giant alien thing destroying an American militairy fleet and being a threat to humanity or something. It has been nuked which only served to make it stronger and it has technology and an army which can seemingly kick the hell out of earths best forces. In Crysis 2 this is apparently resolved somehow or there are new aliens or the same. I don't know. Did I miss the last level of Crysis or the first of Crysis 2? Because I don't remember how all that happened. How did I get at the start of Crysis 2. What happened in between? Why is there suddenly an evil corporation for no good reason?

Crysis 2 on itself is a mediocre shooter with a cloak abilty. Crysis 2 as a seqel to Crysis is a step back in every area. I much prefer to just play Crysis and would recommend Crysis over Crysis 2 to anyone. (I haven't yet played or seen much of part 3 so I don't know about that one) This ties in with some overall points to make about your post. Just because a game has certain features that were good in another game doesn't make them good in this game. A game with a bunch of mechanics that are individually good ideas might not work because of the way they tie into one another. Secondly, If a game is a sequel or reboot to another game people expect it to be like the game it is a sequel to. It should expand on the strong point of it's predecessor, and patch up the weakpoints. It should be different enought to feel fresh but not so different that it loses it's identity as a part of an ongoing series. If it is worse than part one there is no reason to play it and if it is entirely different it should probably just have another title. Thirdly, even if a mechanic is a good idea, we might still not want it in every game for diversities sake alone.
 

Ambient_Malice

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I only use Transformers vs Pacific Rim as an example of a snob hit. Transformers is a far more popular, far more widely liked IP than Pacific Rim. But Pacific Rim was hailed by its smaller fanbase as something more than just a giant robot movie. I'm simply using it as an example because it's the closest IP to BayFormers, and BayFormers is arguably a massive influence on modern FPS games.

Let's consider BLACK vs Battlefield 3. What does BLACK do that Battlefield 3 doesn't, considering the similarities between the games which come across as ripoff/homage? (Your character is even nicknamed "Black" in BF3.) This is what bugs me. It seems that FPS games get judged based on the name on the box, rather than the game itself.

"I wish we had a game like CoD, but with good AI and open environments which allowed tactical gameplay.."
"You mean like Crysis 2?"
"Crysis 2 is trash. The internet told me so."

GoldenEye Wii is a good example because the game was condemned as a "CoD clone" despite:
Stealth mechanics. (Crawl through vents, knock out guards, etc.)
Optional health regen.

And the CoD games themselves are lumped together despite some significant design shifts over the series.

edit:
Also, I disagree with the idea established IPs can't switch genres. Wolfenstein turned into an FPS. Mario got Kart and Tennis and RPG and party game spinoffs. Not everyone is going to be happy, but there's nothing inherently wrong with taking a story/character/etc and placing them on top of a whole new gameplay model. I grant this is very controversial. I dislike the way quality game sequels are dismissed simply because they switch genres, regardless of the game's quality within this new genre framework.

I get why some people disliked Crysis 2's genre shift. I used to dislike it myself. And Crytek fixed some of the excessive linearity of Crysis 2 in Crysis 3.
 

Evonisia

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Ambient_Malice said:
Scripting has always been a problem with CoD titles. I personally think the first Modern Warfare was much worse when it came to magical insta-fail sections. Also, Ghosts runs rather well on 8th gen consoles. 7th gen ports are pretty mediocre, but the game was designed for 2GB+ RAM, so that was expected. The game is heavily GPU limited on PC, but I think the performance problems are not as bad as some claim. Especially after patches.

When I talk about organic, I mean how the game doesn't wave a massive icon in your face saying GO HERE. It instead expects you to figure out where to go and what to do based on dialogue from NPCs and environmental cues.
Though that is an issue when most of the levels are so linear it's impossible to get lost. It just decided to not insult your intelligence like Medal of Honour: Warfighter did when it had an objective marker on the other end of the corridor you were standing in.

The crappy optimisation must have been a launch thing, 'cause the game was laggy as hell on my Xbox One and that was January (and I'm referring to singleplayer, multiplayer and extinction here).
 

crypticracer

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Ambient_Malice said:
I only use Transformers vs Pacific Rim as an example of a snob hit. Transformers is a far more popular, far more widely liked IP than Pacific Rim. But Pacific Rim was hailed by its smaller fanbase as something more than just a giant robot movie. I'm simply using it as an example because it's the closest IP to BayFormers, and BayFormers is arguably a massive influence on modern FPS games.

Let's consider BLACK vs Battlefield 3. What does BLACK do that Battlefield 3 doesn't, considering the similarities between the games which come across as ripoff/homage? (Your character is even nicknamed "Black" in BF3.) This is what bugs me. It seems that FPS games get judged based on the name on the box, rather than the game itself.

"I wish we had a game like CoD, but with good AI and open environments which allowed tactical gameplay.."
"You mean like Crysis 2?"
"Crysis 2 is trash. The internet told me so."

GoldenEye Wii is a good example because the game was condemned as a "CoD clone" despite:
Stealth mechanics. (Crawl through vents, knock out guards, etc.)
Optional health regen.

And the CoD games themselves are lumped together despite some significant design shifts over the series.

edit:
Also, I disagree with the idea established IPs can't switch genres. Wolfenstein turned into an FPS. Mario got Kart and Tennis and RPG and party game spinoffs. Not everyone is going to be happy, but there's nothing inherently wrong with taking a story/character/etc and placing them on top of a whole new gameplay model. I grant this is very controversial. I dislike the way quality game sequels are dismissed simply because they switch genres, regardless of the game's quality within this new genre framework.

I get why some people disliked Crysis 2's genre shift. I used to dislike it myself. And Crytek fixed some of the excessive linearity of Crysis 2 in Crysis 3.
Games and movies are taken as wholes. The exact same awesome mechanic in one game can be crappy in another. Pacific Rim and Transformers both have giant machines fighting, but Alien and Jason X both have people being stalked and killed on a spaceship, it doesn't not mean one isn't better than the other.
 

drummond13

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Let me try to break this down.

Some people like Game A. Some people hate Game A.

Some people like Game B. Some people hate Game B.

All of these people will state their opinions on the internet. It is silly to say that it is hypocritical to like Game A but hate Game B when you aren't talking about a single specific source. You're talking about a mess of opinions, many of which will contradict because they come from dozens of different people.
 

Lugbzurg

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Wait... what? Comparing Pacific Rim to Transformers? Excuse me? That's like comparing Serious Sam to Battlefield, Saint's Row to Grand Theft Auto, or Highschool of the Dead to I am Legend. I'll have to explain the blatantly-obvious, but here I go...

Giant humanoid machines locked in combat is the most these two have in common. You could say the same about Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Transformers goes for the dark and gritty (and sexualization) and takes itself very seriously, while Pacific Rim goes for a purposeful disregard for realism in an effort to just be fun. No struggling with immense powers in a complex world, no brooding over a tragic past, just punching monsters in the face. It's simple, it's vibrantly-colorful, it's optimistic, it's upbeat, it's purposefully-silly... Comparing Transformers to Pacific Rim is like comparing the styles of the recent DC and Marvel films together, like Man of Steel against The Avengers. The difference is blatantly-obvious.

Capcha: "no brainer". Yeah, no kidding. It's like trying to explain why letting a six-year-old drive a packed overhaul truck across three states is a terrible idea.
 

Suhi89

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Ambient_Malice said:
>African-American guy who is harsh, but gentle on the inside, and DIES SO THE WHITE PEOPLE CAN LIVE.
Um. He's English.

I think it's a general rule that when people don't enjoy things, they tend to think those things are objectively bad, and when they do enjoy things they're objectively good (and if you don't like them it's because you're stupid, or have some sort of prejudice that makes you not like it). From the little I know about psychology, I would guess that the emotional reaction to something comes first, and the rationalisations follow.

In the end, if you enjoy something, why do you need the approval of others? Just enjoy it, discuss it if you want to, but don't get offended if other people disagree with you about something, even if you think they're factually incorrect.
 

happyninja42

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Ambient_Malice said:
I'd like to point out that Transformers 4 was a significant shift in tone away from . But I also find it amusing how Michael Bay movies are often deemed racist, while Pacific Rim gets away with...

>Japanese girl who is REALLY GOOD AT MARTIAL ARTS.
Everyone in that room was really good at martial arts. They were a selected group of combatants to pilot giant robots, and part of the training regimen was martial arts. Saying this is stereotypical is fairly silly considering that everyone in that facility were on par with each other for combat skills. Also, people being good at martial arts is pretty damn common. I don't know what it's like in Japan, but here in the US, you can find some martial arts school on just about every city block. I started taking martial arts when I was 9, and was 2 ranks away from having a black belt, along with about 30 other kids in my age range, not to mention all the other classes. So yeah, someone being skilled at martial arts, not terribly rare, no matter what their race is.

Ambient_Malice said:
>ANGRY AUSTRALIAN WHO IS DEFINED BY HIS ANGRY.
I don't recall "angry australian" as being some kind of stereotype. In fact most australians I can think of in pop culture and media are fairly level headed people. So yeah, not seeing the racial stereotype here. He's basically Iceman from Top Gun, but with an Australian accent. He's the asshole Other Alpha Male to be the friction for the protagonist.

Ambient_Malice said:
>African-American guy who is harsh, but gentle on the inside, and DIES SO THE WHITE PEOPLE CAN LIVE.
The australian guy died too. I'd chalk this up more to the "Father figure dying" thing than "the black guy dies first". And he didn't die first anyway. And technically, he died to keep Mako Mori, his adopted daughter, alive, and she isn't "white", at least when we're talking about racist stereotypes and tropes.

Ambient_Malice said:
Not that I have any real problem with any of those, but people sure love to pick apart Michael Bay movies.
Because they really really suck.

Ambient_Malice said:
Anyway, my real point is that I've seen people ask, for example, if they should play Crysis 3 or CoD: Ghosts, only to be told those games are stupid and they should play Metro or Wolfenstein instead. It's the elitism which I have a distaste for, and it seems to be getting stronger. I myself strongly prefer FPS games with a more sandbox design, such as Perfect Dark. But I appreciate that in order to be narrative focused, some FPS games sacrifice gameplay freedom for atmosphere and storytelling. It also kinda bugs me how a super linear QTE ridden game like Metro: Last Light gets a free pass, but something like Black Ops 2 is deemed to be "just another stupid FPS game", despite CoD offering more story choices, less restrictive map design, and so on.
Eh, you get that with every game type out there. It's not an FPS exclusive thing. Any game line that has similarities to another game line are going to be panned and criticized by people from the other camp. This is just a part of the industry, not an FPS only thing.