Shaky Cam Games

[The Cheezy One]

Cloverfield was actually really good, but the size of the monster wavers somewhat.

No it wasn't. It lacked something rather basic, an insignificant little thing I like to call "plot". I know, I know, that's a fairly old fashioned concept, but I'm old enough myself to have grown up with such things, so I miss them.

So you are saying my opinion is wrong? That is impossible, because my opinion is exclusive to me.
And it did have a plot. It may have been thin, but a plot is not necessary to enjoy a film. Sometimes, I'd rather watch something mindless than an intense psychological thriler.
Oh, and sarcasm does not make you automatically funnier.

 

[DenSomKastade]

The skate-games has pulled off the "shaky cam" quite good I think. They make the narrator the cameraman and everything is from the cameraman's camera point of view.

 

[Great North]

What? Freud? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH YAHTZEE?! Your uncomfortably close-to-home assumptions are so much worse than HIS uncomfortably close-to-home assumptions!

But really, the latter part of this article made me chuckle.

 

[CAPTCHA]

2) I'm also tired of these angsty, self-centred protagonists. It's not entirely new, either. While most 80s action heroes weren't angsty, they frequently needed a personal motivation to go after the bad guy. This was usually: the bad guy kills or kidnaps his girlfriend/wife, or more often, the bad guy kills or kidnaps his hetero life-partner. What's wrong with a protagonist who goes after the bad guy because it's his job? Or because it's the right thing to do? What shocks me most of all is this "personal agenda" crap predominates American fiction: somehow, writers from the country that was founded by a war fought over high-minded ideals can't conceive that anyone would fight for reasons other than personal ones. As much as space marine/WWII FPSes don't really appeal to me, at least most of those protagonists act out of higher ideals than themselves.

This is so prominant because it is the most popular version of the three act story structure. It's called Mythic story telling and almost always involved reluctant protagonists who are drawn into a conflict for personal reasons at the closing of the first act. Almost every game/movie/book with a story follows this method, from Saving Private Ryan to Star Wars. This method of story telling lends itself well to games because the three act structure offers a sense of progress as the stroy advances.

If you want a different type of story in a game you have to look at different formulas for telling them. Detective stories tell their story in reverse by uncovering past event and you can find this present in a few rare games out at the moment. Pheonix Wright for example. The other popular story telling method is called Epic structure. Epics have no real overarching story but follow the life and times of a person or place. Forest Gump is a good example of a movie that follows this method, but it doesn't covey well to games due to the absence of progress that makes Mythic structured storis work so well. Perhaps a few exist though. Animal Crossing could be considered an example of Epic story telling, but don't quote me on that since I've never played the game.

 

[Dectilon]

I feel that what DMC has over GOW is how you build a combo. GOW seems to be more of the style where if you start a certain combo you'll dang well finish it whereas DMC is more of a make-your-own-combo style game. I never did play 1, but at least in 3 and 4 it's all about switching quickly between weapons, canceling animations and timing hits to quickly dispatch even powerful enemies, whereas GOW has you slashing away with whatever move works best against each enemy and waiting for an attack to counter or roll away from.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Ah the last paragraph was great, a good lead-up and then the conclusion writes itself.

And shaky-cam is one of my most hated things in film. Disgusts me how this jarring-exercise in confusion took off.

 

[Dana22]

No.

Diablo is a Hack and Slash, God of War is an action-adventure.

 

[SiskoBlue]

Shaky-cam doesn't bother me. In fact it works really well on me.

I wonder if it's exposing a difference in people's types of perception. For example, there are people who can't really see 3D. Something in their visual development and genetic differences means their brains don't put two images to make 3D in the same way a majority of people do.

I remember reading that people have different impressions of their visual horizon. Some people as they walk along they see their central horizon as still and their peripheral horizon as going up and down. Whereas others see the central horizon going up and down. Or something like that.

This would explain why shaky-cam draws some people in (like me) but kicks others out of the experience (like Yahtzee) because that's not how they experience motion visually? Just a theory.

Couldn't agree more with his Umberto Eco "Textual Reader" analysis of the gamers motivations for playing "like God of War". Free reign to express the anger and frustration you're supposed to suppress in real life. You are given a worthwhile, personal cause when generally the anger and frustration comes from some vague notion of being disempowered and helpless. I'm not sure it represents misogyny as much as it represents that undefined western cultural view of "what a man is supposed to be." Capable, a protector, the action-orientated individual who doesn't take shit from anyone.

Lots of women like God of War too, so maybe we can stick with the general statement that people enjoy games that allow them to do things they're restricted from doing in real life.

 

[brunothepig]

I gotta be honest, but I am getting sick of Yahtzee's cynicism and judgmental attitude.

Also, I have no idea what he's talking about when he refers to the "shaky cam" in Castlevania. It was quite obvious in Kane and Lynch 2, but Castlevania's cam was just fixed - it never shook.

P.S. I know he's joking about some bits, but these jokes just aren't that funny anymore.

Yeah, it's a bit obnoxious when he treats something good that you like as though it was a pile of crap. CV is a really good game, and he's gone easier on some legitimately awful games. Oh well. If you read Yahtzee without first eating your spoonful of salt, you're likely to run into this from time to time.

"Legitimately awful". See that's the thing, there's very very few games you can say were definitively bad. You might not like them, you might wonder how anyone did. But people do.
Coincidentally enough, I usually agree with Yahtzee's opinion on games. Where I disagree, I still do see the flaws he points out, or see why he might consider them flaws. Remember guys, Yahtzee's a critic. Plus, his reviews are subjective.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

So, if God of War is popular, it's because lots of people today are emo, selfish, self-hating, physically weak, sexist, responsibility-avoiding whiners who sympathize with Republican economic policies. You might say I'm reading too much into these things, but you have to admit it's definitely true that liking Resident Evil 5 makes you a racist.

Damn man, you be trollin'.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

Well being a Naruto fan, i can definetly agree with the whole misogyny thing.

 

[Saturnplanet5]

Just change "Like God of War" to "Like Dragons Lair but it tells you which buttons to press."

 

[Dublin Solo]

The last paragraph really made my day. I like that kind of humoristic demagogy, especially when the author knows it is demagogy.

Thumbs up, dude, thumbs up.

 

[Ishadus]

I very much like this theory, might explain why everyone also like zombie games, you picture yourself as the only person with a brain left to be eaten by the monstrous hordes of mall going consumers.

lol I never thought about it like this before, but as a zombie lover myself, I have to admit that that has merit.

 

[Something Amyss]

You can be low budget and still be good, and you can TRY to be artistic and still be bad. If something is crap, an all too common excuse is that "it's artistic." no it isn't, it's still crap. And it was crap at the time too. The movie was shot in an age where engineers had FINALLY worked out how to make smooth motion cameras for filming, and they shot a bad movie using a hand-cam. Woo...

While I agree with what you said, it still comes down to my point. People take low budget as artistic, and they take poor quality as authentic. Blair Witch was done camcorder style to be "authentic," hell, they even went so far as to trick the kids making the movie, which led to a lawsuit.

Blair Witch had at least decent intentions, which were to draw the line between real and fake. I didn't like the movie, I didn't like the style, but as a fake documentary of the events of some kids who went missing looking for someone spooky, it fits the intent.

Other movies, movies where this isn't quite the case, have tried to emulate the style without much real attempt at substance (Sidebar: Pretty sure this is a problem with most types of imitation in Hollywood).

Other than the shaky cam being used is stupid in Castlevania: LoS, I also think there was another part of the camera I thought was silly. Like when you are in a snowy area or a rainy area, the camera gets little specks of snow or rain drops on it. That is just stupid and breaks the feel of being in the game. Why would you see these specks and drops? Is the game showing us that we are actually playing in a movie and we are watching it from the prospective of the cameraman, because they obviously didn't have cameras back then.

Moving on, I of course don't like shaky cam in anything, but I will also talk about something I would like to call swoosh cam. This is where you have two or more people talking and then when each one starts to say something, the camera quickly pans to the person starting to speak. I first started to notice this stupid form of camera work when I watched a random Battlestar Galactica episode that was on, because I was waiting for something else I wanted to see come on.

What depresses me is that one of my favorite television series, Stargate, with its new series, Universe, has adopted this way of filming from Battlestar, as well as the stupid soap opera like stories and relationships between crew members.

One of the things in Red Dead Redemption that gets to me is those water droplets. It's neat once, but it's immersion breaking and annoying. I might have a similar effect because I wear glasses, but Marston won't.

I must agree on Stargate. It's like they took the name, the prop, and nothing else from the series and just tossed BSG on. I like a couple of the characters (Doctor Rush intrigues me), but I kind of stopped watching. I'm hoping things change, especially since Caprica wasn't popular enough to keep going, but I don't hold much faith for that.

 

[GooBeyond]

if anything, that description of hack 'n' slash games fit the first devil may cry. so take out your "Like Devil May Cry ... but" stamp out, and slap it across Kratos' face.

 

[tsiegtiez]

Blast it Jeeves, this psychology rubbish is going to wind up with you in the muck if there isn't soon a concerted effort to take considerably more trouble to watch exactly where the feet on your head are taking you.

Er, sorry.

You've got excellent points this week Yahtzee, but it's the ending bit that really did it. Why do any of us like Hamlet? Or Othello? Or Falstaff even; we all project a bit onto fictional characters, and any real enjoyment is either surprise (comedic or thrilling) or vicarious reward. In a movie or a book or a game, the character I like and their accomplishments make me feel good. When the character I like in a game kicks serious ass, or the chap in a film manages to swindle the casino, or when James Bond in anything kicks ass/swindles the supervillain/gets the girl, we eat it up. It's psychological self-preservation, making us continue to believe as ever that we are, in fact, awesome, and by identifying with anyone who's succeeding at something we wish to succeed at, we get a mental benefit too. Anyone who isn't competition allows us to feel vicarious reward, and it's a great sensation.

But it is to be completely self-absorbed and ignorant that allows us to be so and not analyse or pay attention to just what we're vicariously enjoying, and we all have a disposition towards that ignorance that allows for just such a positive stimulus to work in the first bloody place. When a movie makes you feel good, look at why. When a book makes you feel good, look at why. When a game makes you feel completely fucking unstoppable, or deft and skillful, or silent and unnoticed as a night breeze, look to the why. Why else are Die Hard, Twilight, God of War, and countless other successful entertainment ventures so resonant with the masses? Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Super Mario, Harry Potter, Robert Langdon; all successful franchises or characters because of the way in which we allow ourselves to inhabit the specific people presented to us.

 

[DTWolfwood]

1. Books printed on Sliced Cheese would be awesome as hell! After your done reading you can eat it! instead of it sitting there gathering dust!

2. Castlevania is exactly like God of War! How else do you compare it? Go check out every review of the game out there. I guarantee they all mention GoW somewhere!

p.s. Next 2 year is gonna be the most useless years in american politics! nothing like winning House Majority and still losing in the Senate. Mind you any bills the President Vetos is gonna need to win in both the House and Senate for it to pass. Man the 2 party government is so useless here! you Parliamentary Governments have it ez! heh

 

[EvilYoshi]

I think shaky-cam has it's purpose and genuinely added to the experience in Kane & Lynch. Also, Yahtzee, you comments in the end can be construed as offensive. You know, if pressed for an explanation, you will probably just shake off any responsibility for your remarks as a bad joke. You may even go on to defend your statements as a biting social satire that is supposed to define a part of your image. However, I think you actually feel this way. Even if your scathing generalizations are aimed exclusively at GoW players, I still feel like the last section of this article is heartfelt malice thinly veiled as comedy.

On the other hand, it's refreshing to hear an honest opinion, offensive and unfocused as honest opinions are.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

I'm only sad that I will never be juvenile enough to find joy in mental retardation. You're so lucky.

Yes, I am. She's a wonderful woman, mental retardation and all.

My point is that your point is invalidated by bias. You're so evidently blinded by your love for the main character's tortured soul and inner nuances that you feel the need to deny the undeniable.

What are you talking about? I mean, I like the game, yes. But I didn't go into it *needing* to like the game. I had no opinion of it before I started playing it, and I read very few reviews and saw no TV spots, so I went in with minimal bias. Sure, I picked up an opinion of the game from actually playing it... so I can only conclude that you're saying my point is invalid because I reached the wrong conclusion from playing the game.

So fine, your bias blinds you to the games merits, which makes your opinion invalid. Our perspectives are therefore irreconcilable (though admittedly mine is facetious), and further argument is pointless. Are we done now?