I'm not really sure i'd call the series transformers. It's more large scale hollywood action movie that happens to involve transformers and a lot of crass humor. I don't remember there being a lot of crass humor in the animated series. I remember there being a lot of silly humor, but that wouldn't really mesh with the whole 'take the writing seriously' vibe that the new movies put out.Meriatressia said:And who the frack would be so stupid that they would compare that sh*te Pacific Rim with Transformers?!
I think they would, no dought there. But WTF?!
Transformers is not good. But it's original. It's definately tranformers.
You can definately say it's got transformers in a unique premise. Not good, but it's transformers.
There isn't a lot of focus on character development and each film seems to make sure that the characters are more or less set up for the next round of writing. Granted, I lost interest in the series after 1 and 2 because it really didn't do much for my tastes.
It's a love letter to the mecha genre of anime. In that, it is a great film. The cinematography is well done and the characters are not flat. We see development all the way through. Guillermo del Toro is a really good choice for this style of movie, if you look at his previous movies.Meriatressia said:Pacific Rim is nothing but total and utter sh*te!
It's nothing more than a desperate, pretentious, retardly cretinous, blatant ripping off of anime and manga, monster movies,and loads of things, while pretending it's original!
That piece of crap has never seen a original thought or concept in it's entire firetrucking life!
To make things worse, it rips off the most retardly cretinous garbage that no one would ever want.
Also, could you cool it with the language? Just a personal request.
Alright, OP. Lets talk about popularity.
So, is new Transformers going to be influential on the conversation of directors in the future? ... probably not. It doesn't bring a lot of new stuff to the table, it's easy to produce with current technology. It speaks to a lot of people's childhood and it aims rather low for emotional resonance.
I don't see a lot of new Transformer fans participating in the critical process. In this way, it's mass culture. It's produced and consumed.
In that way, I don't see a lot of CoD/Syndicate/'generic FPS' game fans really... producing in the same way the fans of other games do. I've seen a lot of Bioshock fan art. I've seen a lot of Metro: Last Light lets plays. These people celebrate what they love in the game at a very personal level.
'Generic FPS' games tend to be rather unrelenting in their design. Single Player isn't extremely challenging, the story keeps it going along but isn't the focus. It trains you for the multiplayer mode, where the majority of the utility of the mechanics come to light.
Compare what you will to, for instance, Spec Ops: the Line. It has a lot of those generic T/FPS trappings, but the single player is the heart and soul of the game. It has a challenging narrative. It takes a risk on presenting a cohesive artistic vision. It is, in my opinion, an example of the Auteur theory at work within the video games industry. It's meant to step beyond what is expected of it and present something new.
So. To me it comes down to a very simple question of focus. Does CoD primarily want to tell me a timeless story that will be quoted from years to come, or challenge my world view? Bring into light the moral questions of life? I really don't think it does. I think it wants to give me a feel good story with passable writing and focus its resources on the highly competitive multiplayer aspects. The story is there, it's consumable and it lets me easily self-insert. This is mass culture, and it sells. It sells well.
But how important is it to us going forward? I think we learned more about map balance from CoD then we did story. The iterative process that they've gone through has allowed them to refine the feel of play for their style of game more and more. It's lasor honed to have mass appeal, and it feels good. It's not unexpected, people rage, but it's not unfair.
I've played a few CoD games, but I can't for the life of me remember anything about their story. I can remember, however, the way that the guns felt in CoD2.
Moving on to Crysis.
Crysis was a breath of Fresh air in the FPS monotony that we had been getting. It brought back the Farcry open Island. It was a tech demo, sure, but it was a tech demo with teeth and some weird plot thing about aliens. In Farcry and Crysis, the focus was always on the stories you made by interacting with the game. Emergent gameplay. They offered these well honed simple mechanics and a sandbox. You had to put them all together to complete your objectives. You could always do this with some straight up shooter bits, or you could throw an exploding barrel into the middle of a bunch of guards, setting them on fire, and hurling them into cards, setting them on fire, which would then explode, knocking down a hutt and revealing another three or so guys for you to shoot. Or, you could stealth. Or, you could go in guns blazing and not give a fuck.
Crysis 2 really cut down on what you could do. The levels where linear, there was no setting up for anything other than what the level designer had put into that linear section. The freedom wasn't there. It felt crippled compared to the emergent gameplay of the first Crysis. They probably were unfairly reviewed after that, because they just were not crysis games. They missed what made Crysis Crysis.
Now, I do think that we are hasty to dismiss some shooters. Take Farcry 2. I think, even through the studio and engine shift, it captured that emergent gameplay mechanic. The levels where too large and it took forever to do those stupid checkpoint missions, but... brush fire was a mechanic. I could kill a man by setting fire to an ama dump, which could be done on purpose or accident. The weapons got really silly really fast. I could easily die from my own exploding arrow, and the AI did what it wanted. This made little stories evolve out of each of my interactions. I don't think Farcry 2 got enough praise considering these well honed mechanics.
Battlefield to me is in much the same vein as CoD, though they seem to be going a bit less arcadey in their physics. The focus is mostly in honing the multiplayer to that competition-level sheen. The stories are easy, rarely challenging the perceptions of the player. Rarely commenting much on the social impact. I would love to see either of these franchises present something challenging to their player bases, like our treatment of veterans, the realities of trying to adjust to civilian life after a life of war. You know, even just in NPC dialog, but, these games really aren't meant for that.
They are a massive, iterative process on how to hone the mechanics of one style of FPS down to a competition level art. Which, in and of itself, is a massive undertaking. I'm not saying they are bad games, I'm just saying we're probably not going to remember them for their story. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. Doesn't mean it's not a good story. These sorts of judgments are inherently subjective. You may be looking for something I'm not. There is still something very special about a particularly well crafted piece of mass culture.
... but it's not going to speak to me. I'm not going to be talking about it's implications on the gaming industry. It's going to be massively successful, but it's not going to do much for the gamewright in me. I can't make it my own, I don't feel the need to spin their story through my lens. I can learn something from them, but I don't feel the need to celebrate them.
Is this hypocrisy? No. It's opinion.