Quit It, Gaming Edition
- Thread starter MovieBob
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Of course everything you mention is a matter of perspective. When it comes to things like summits on global climate, your of course assuming that everyone believes the information presented there is good. I and many other people disagree with a lot of things claimed by enviromentalists, I have almost no faith at all in what guys like Al Gore have said about global warming for example. If you happen to agree with them we're wrong, if you don't agree with them or are undecided it's a differant case entirely.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
In cases like situations with Saddam Hussein, that was actually the right move at the time. Like it or not Saddam was leading one of the more progressive factions in the region. Given the situation with countries like Iran and Libya at the time we were looking at a situation where we could either invade and wipe out the entire region, or we could try and pump up an ally in the region and have them balance out the equasion for us, and hopefully have a progressive effect on the region. To be honest, it worked pretty well for a while, the problem of course being that Saddam and his people decided that he'd rather go a-conquering when he received an offer of patronage from the USSR. He took their deal, started Desert Storm, and got spanked. It was one of the factors leading to the demise of the USSR since it was basically USSR Vs. USA Jr. with their weapons and tactics against ours, the USSR had been lying about what it had, where we were if anything understating the case. The people in the USSR being tired of going with almost nothing for the promise of being the best and conquering the world took a hit there.
At any rate, while I won't go into my full attitude on The Middle East, it's a conflict that has been going on for a VERY long time, long before 9/11. We've tried numerous methods of dealing with the region, ranging from diplomacy, to covert operations, to developing allies like Iraq. The way the situation with Iraq exploded, along with the whole situation with The Taliban (who we also put into power) is one of the reasons why I have so little faith in peaceful resolutions in the region and am ready to just pretty much take a torch to the
whole region.
People who are against the war for their own reasons (oftentimes having to do with how it affects their own trade and access to oil) will insist it's barbarity and far more than a police action. However when you look at what we COULD be doing (and what some people like me think we should be doing) we're treating them with kid gloves. Sure, a lot of people die, but then again it's nothing compared to what we could do if we just decided to bomb the living crud out of every habitat through the entire region. We very much have the firepower to bring an end to the entire Muslim culture, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but throughout the entire Middle East, and we could do it without WMD. On the other hand we are opting not to do so, and instead engage in an ongoing police action in the depserate hope we can begin cultural reforms and "win the peace". Of course it's admittedly not working.
When it comes to ridiculous arguements about how many people died, understand we're looking at a conflict going on long before 9/11. Also 9/11 was a decapitation strike aimed at the US.The World Trade Center was simply the only successful strike. At the same time an attempt was made to take out The Pentagon, where we got lucky since the plane hit wrong, and impacted on a wing that was closed for repairs. We also had other planes heading for Washington DC that were stopped before they could arrive. You have to look at the incident overall, and what was attempted, not just what succeeded. If all of those planes had hit it could have destroyed the USA as we know it. The global shockwaves in losing the WTC were bad enough as it was, but now imagine that you had that financial crisis along with the loss of America's central military command center and a good portion of it's leadership, along with a huge number of our elected officials. America would be nothing like it is now. That's one of the reasons why I don't feel much guilt when I start talking about being "barbaric" and destroying the culture responsible for this and previous acts. It tried to destroy us, and came so close that it was scary, I'd personally rather not wait for them to try again. In general however people with my way of thinking are outnumbered by those in the US that disagree with us for moral reasons. We won't engage on that level because at least for the moment most Americans think it's wrong. That might burn for a lot of people when viewed that way, but honestly it's our morality that is preventing our actions, not a lack of abillity. When evaluating what we're doing you have to look at our full range of capabilities and what we could be doing, compared to what we are doing.
In the end we're going to have to agree to disagree, this is long enough, so I'm not going to address the rest of your points, even though I am more than capable of doing so. Perspectives of course vary greatly, as the dominant world power (for the moment) the USA of course gets a ton of flak, even if we're ridiculously nice compared to what other dominant powers have done from our position. There has never been a dominant global power that has been universally loved since everyone wants to have their own people in that position. In the end if we don't see a world unity soon (which will doom humanity as a whole for reasons having nothing to do with any paticular national idealogy... but that's another discussion entirely), time will lead to the collapse or erosion of the USA as the dominant global power where someone else will take our place, then everyone will turn around and hate on them the same way.
just watched the last episode of series 3 of "being human" and
the prophecy being thrown about all series about one of the main characters dying... turned out to be made up by some lassie with a grudge <
the prophecy being thrown about all series about one of the main characters dying... turned out to be made up by some lassie with a grudge <
I agree a lot on what you say about protagonists being all to similar and "wrong".MovieBob said:
I sort of call this the Wolverine/Punisher syndrome. These characters are popular because they have an honor code that lets them do what we normal people can't (Beat up the people we don't like and don't give a damn about it).
And a lot of games protagonists seems to be designed with the same concept in mind. Make a person "what people want to be"...
And its easy to make the hurt little loner that does whatever he wants character...
Why is Russia always the Big Bad?
Really, the first question you have to ask isn't "why is it the Russians again", but "why is it the Americans again?", because if you're making a modern day or near future military action piece (and these are the games which are most likely to feature the Big Bad Russians as villains), it's a sound guarantee that the Americans are going to be around the place.
And the simple reason for that isn't that Americans like the big ooh-rah shooting games and buy more of them (though that is a compelling argument in itself), the reason is that America is the biggest kid in school right now, and a story where the big guy gets a beating is going to have more shock and awe value, and feel like a bigger deal, than one where a 90lb weakling country like Guatemala gets invaded and conquered. It's the same principle as when the might of the Royal Navy (at the time by far the strongest fighting force on Earth) was shown to be worthless against the Martians in the original War of the Worlds. The audience understands that they just saw the biggest army they know take a kicking, so they know that shit is now officially real. So now we know why America, does that answer why Russia?
Well, yes, frankly. Russia is currently the only other kid in school who stands a credible chance of threatening America proper. Given 20 years China might step up there (and we're kinda seeing the start of that in Homefront, though that's got a bit of extra wackiness given that the plot appears to be "North Korea conquers world with mad Starcraft skillz") but right now they don't have the force projection capability, and even united nor does Europe as most of the EU militaries are for national defence. If you're going to have a Big Modern War, Russia and America are the only combatants you can fight it with, and even people who don't read anything about military forces know that this is basically the case. And that fact is so pervasive that even if you make up some pretend countries you're by and large going to end up with Russia and America with the serial numbers filed off and a new coat of paint.
Why the faceless protagonist
This is something much deeper, something that really goes to the core of what game narrative is and how it's different from any other form of narrative. The core of it is expressed in what Danny Bilson said here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.269677-Cutscenes-Are-Gamings-Failure-State-Says-THQ-Exec]. When you pick up a controller not a TV remote or book, it's because you wanted to interact with something. The old maxim of "show, don't tell" starts giving way in games to "do, don't show". But this presents a new challenge to a storyteller, and it's a challenge that comes in two parts, The first is probably best expressed by what Dara O'Briain is saying here:
Games are presenting another challenge beyond simply allowing the story to progress, the audience now has to earn the ability to progress, they are actually facing the challenges the protagonist faces. The second is that the audience has, to varying degrees, a power of agency. The less prescriptive the game is the more agency the player has to alter the way the story is experienced (even a very linear narrative can be nonprescriptive, if there are even as much as multiple gameplay solutions to the same problem then two players can create different "characters" for their protagonist via their limited choices of how to use the tools on offer. If two people play Deus Ex then their versions of Denton could be very different characters even if they make all the same choices at branchpoints because they interacted differently with the tools of the game).
What these two points mean, taken together, is that the motivation to proceed must be transferred from the protagonist onto the player. Going back to Dara O'Briain and the Berzerker in Gears of War, the game didn't really have a lot of narrative in the first chapter, consequently it hadn't made Dara care about proceeding enough that he actually wanted to beat the Berzerker. If it had, then he would be in the position we've all been in having faced a difficult boss, we got through it by dogged perseverance and eventual improvement at the game because we wanted to win.
This key difference in where the narrative motivation lies is the source of the difference between an effective videogame protagonist, and an effective protagonist of another medium. Because the player is an active participant in the story, taking on the role of the protagonist in driving the narrative even if they don't take on the personality of the character in that narrative, the author of the story needs to convince them to share the motivation of that character. And the best way to do that is to keep that motivation very simple. In Red Dead Redemption, for instance (a recent game to be lauded for it's story), John Marston's initial motivation is incredibly slight, get his family back. That's an easy buy-in for the audience (though it would have been enhanced by having some of the family ranch stuff at the start of the game, so the player "knew" the family), but any subsequent motivations that drive the narrative (the desire to save Bonnie, for instance), are impressed on the player more strongly than the character. The player wants to proceed with the story in large part, despite there being a good deal of extraneous fucking about available to do. If you create a character with complex or conflicting motivations, it's harder to convince an audience to share in those motivations, and whilst it might be interesting to see what happens to a character like that (see: Hamlet), it's not enough to motivate an audience to overcome gameplay challenges, because they have to want to do more than know what happens next.
And so we come at last to the Tabula Rasa. Since we've already established that we're having to spend more of our effort as a storyteller impressing the desired motivations onto the audience rather than crafting intricate motivations for the character, why not cut out the middleman? Don't even give the player character the one line brief that comprises most videogame character motivations, just make the player themself want to do something. Save all that character development time for the characters that need it, the NPCs and especially the villain, because if you make a really great villain you've got an instant player buy in in the desire to defeat that villain. In terms of the character impact of a videogame, one Irenicus is worth a hundred complex and nuanced protagonists.
A visit from the exposition fairy.
The reason the exposition fairy has become so common recently is again down to the desire to remain interactive. A voice in your head like Cortana can witter on without breaking the flow of gameplay, you don't have to break into a cutscene to let the exposition fairy do her work, so you don't have to take control away from the player. Even when you're doing the Gears of War thing and making the player walk around slowly with their finger in their ear because you're secretly streaming the next area off the disc and want them to slow down so you've got time to do it.
Also, when you've got the whoosh bang explosions going on for the rest of the game, having mission control be calm and controlled makes a very useful break in pace. It's relatively easy to do that with a female voice and still retain some level of verisimilitude because it's easy to have that kind of character in your story, but there aren't many male characters you can put in that role, the only one you can really use is the Roy Campbell type, an experienced warhorse who isn't quite so excitable any more and so remains calm no matter how much pressure is on the player at the time. (though MGS has the break in gameplay for the codecs, initially due to the limitations on streaming from disc on the Playstation, even if it didn't Col. Campbell would have fulfilled that as mission control, and it would probably be more affecting when he goes batshit at the end of MGS2).
Really, the first question you have to ask isn't "why is it the Russians again", but "why is it the Americans again?", because if you're making a modern day or near future military action piece (and these are the games which are most likely to feature the Big Bad Russians as villains), it's a sound guarantee that the Americans are going to be around the place.
And the simple reason for that isn't that Americans like the big ooh-rah shooting games and buy more of them (though that is a compelling argument in itself), the reason is that America is the biggest kid in school right now, and a story where the big guy gets a beating is going to have more shock and awe value, and feel like a bigger deal, than one where a 90lb weakling country like Guatemala gets invaded and conquered. It's the same principle as when the might of the Royal Navy (at the time by far the strongest fighting force on Earth) was shown to be worthless against the Martians in the original War of the Worlds. The audience understands that they just saw the biggest army they know take a kicking, so they know that shit is now officially real. So now we know why America, does that answer why Russia?
Well, yes, frankly. Russia is currently the only other kid in school who stands a credible chance of threatening America proper. Given 20 years China might step up there (and we're kinda seeing the start of that in Homefront, though that's got a bit of extra wackiness given that the plot appears to be "North Korea conquers world with mad Starcraft skillz") but right now they don't have the force projection capability, and even united nor does Europe as most of the EU militaries are for national defence. If you're going to have a Big Modern War, Russia and America are the only combatants you can fight it with, and even people who don't read anything about military forces know that this is basically the case. And that fact is so pervasive that even if you make up some pretend countries you're by and large going to end up with Russia and America with the serial numbers filed off and a new coat of paint.
Why the faceless protagonist
This is something much deeper, something that really goes to the core of what game narrative is and how it's different from any other form of narrative. The core of it is expressed in what Danny Bilson said here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.269677-Cutscenes-Are-Gamings-Failure-State-Says-THQ-Exec]. When you pick up a controller not a TV remote or book, it's because you wanted to interact with something. The old maxim of "show, don't tell" starts giving way in games to "do, don't show". But this presents a new challenge to a storyteller, and it's a challenge that comes in two parts, The first is probably best expressed by what Dara O'Briain is saying here:
Games are presenting another challenge beyond simply allowing the story to progress, the audience now has to earn the ability to progress, they are actually facing the challenges the protagonist faces. The second is that the audience has, to varying degrees, a power of agency. The less prescriptive the game is the more agency the player has to alter the way the story is experienced (even a very linear narrative can be nonprescriptive, if there are even as much as multiple gameplay solutions to the same problem then two players can create different "characters" for their protagonist via their limited choices of how to use the tools on offer. If two people play Deus Ex then their versions of Denton could be very different characters even if they make all the same choices at branchpoints because they interacted differently with the tools of the game).
What these two points mean, taken together, is that the motivation to proceed must be transferred from the protagonist onto the player. Going back to Dara O'Briain and the Berzerker in Gears of War, the game didn't really have a lot of narrative in the first chapter, consequently it hadn't made Dara care about proceeding enough that he actually wanted to beat the Berzerker. If it had, then he would be in the position we've all been in having faced a difficult boss, we got through it by dogged perseverance and eventual improvement at the game because we wanted to win.
This key difference in where the narrative motivation lies is the source of the difference between an effective videogame protagonist, and an effective protagonist of another medium. Because the player is an active participant in the story, taking on the role of the protagonist in driving the narrative even if they don't take on the personality of the character in that narrative, the author of the story needs to convince them to share the motivation of that character. And the best way to do that is to keep that motivation very simple. In Red Dead Redemption, for instance (a recent game to be lauded for it's story), John Marston's initial motivation is incredibly slight, get his family back. That's an easy buy-in for the audience (though it would have been enhanced by having some of the family ranch stuff at the start of the game, so the player "knew" the family), but any subsequent motivations that drive the narrative (the desire to save Bonnie, for instance), are impressed on the player more strongly than the character. The player wants to proceed with the story in large part, despite there being a good deal of extraneous fucking about available to do. If you create a character with complex or conflicting motivations, it's harder to convince an audience to share in those motivations, and whilst it might be interesting to see what happens to a character like that (see: Hamlet), it's not enough to motivate an audience to overcome gameplay challenges, because they have to want to do more than know what happens next.
And so we come at last to the Tabula Rasa. Since we've already established that we're having to spend more of our effort as a storyteller impressing the desired motivations onto the audience rather than crafting intricate motivations for the character, why not cut out the middleman? Don't even give the player character the one line brief that comprises most videogame character motivations, just make the player themself want to do something. Save all that character development time for the characters that need it, the NPCs and especially the villain, because if you make a really great villain you've got an instant player buy in in the desire to defeat that villain. In terms of the character impact of a videogame, one Irenicus is worth a hundred complex and nuanced protagonists.
A visit from the exposition fairy.
The reason the exposition fairy has become so common recently is again down to the desire to remain interactive. A voice in your head like Cortana can witter on without breaking the flow of gameplay, you don't have to break into a cutscene to let the exposition fairy do her work, so you don't have to take control away from the player. Even when you're doing the Gears of War thing and making the player walk around slowly with their finger in their ear because you're secretly streaming the next area off the disc and want them to slow down so you've got time to do it.
Also, when you've got the whoosh bang explosions going on for the rest of the game, having mission control be calm and controlled makes a very useful break in pace. It's relatively easy to do that with a female voice and still retain some level of verisimilitude because it's easy to have that kind of character in your story, but there aren't many male characters you can put in that role, the only one you can really use is the Roy Campbell type, an experienced warhorse who isn't quite so excitable any more and so remains calm no matter how much pressure is on the player at the time. (though MGS has the break in gameplay for the codecs, initially due to the limitations on streaming from disc on the Playstation, even if it didn't Col. Campbell would have fulfilled that as mission control, and it would probably be more affecting when he goes batshit at the end of MGS2).
I respectfully, but stringently, disagree with the Nathan Drake hate.
He's definitely not the most original protagonist, but everything in Uncharted
is meant to be a touch formulaic anyways.
And I don't get the Dane Cook comparison at all. Drake's humor is pretty John
McClanesque. Cook is more of a d-bag fratboy joking about his first blowjob.
Really the worst you can level at the character is that the mountains of dead bodies
left in his wake during gameplay are dissonant with his light-hearted, carefree personality.
But when you think about it that same problem exists for any video game character. Gordan
Freeman, Jack from BioShock, Nico Bellic, John Marston, and just about any other 3ish dimensional
protagonist you could name has the exact same problem. All the soldiers and henchmen they kill
probably have children and families too.
Same would hold true for any war game as well. I doubt any real life soldier has personally
killed as many people as your typical Call of Duty protagonist. Understanding that there is
a disconnect between what you do as a player and who the character is is a part of the
suspension of disbelief.
He's definitely not the most original protagonist, but everything in Uncharted
is meant to be a touch formulaic anyways.
And I don't get the Dane Cook comparison at all. Drake's humor is pretty John
McClanesque. Cook is more of a d-bag fratboy joking about his first blowjob.
Really the worst you can level at the character is that the mountains of dead bodies
left in his wake during gameplay are dissonant with his light-hearted, carefree personality.
But when you think about it that same problem exists for any video game character. Gordan
Freeman, Jack from BioShock, Nico Bellic, John Marston, and just about any other 3ish dimensional
protagonist you could name has the exact same problem. All the soldiers and henchmen they kill
probably have children and families too.
Same would hold true for any war game as well. I doubt any real life soldier has personally
killed as many people as your typical Call of Duty protagonist. Understanding that there is
a disconnect between what you do as a player and who the character is is a part of the
suspension of disbelief.
Meh I do not mind any of it as long as the game mechanics are good if not every cliche and thematic crutch becomes that much more annoying.
Totally agree with you on that one. Another game that handles the divine prophecy storyline really well was "The Bard's Tale". In the beginning it's revealed that you're 'The Chosen One', destined to free the angelic queen of the land. Throughout the game however, you run into numerous other 'Chosen One's', mostly adolescent boys, who spend most of their time getting killed by goblins, falling into traps and generally dying in droves.Darkstrike_11 said: