Shaky Cam Games

[NapoleonSolo]

I think yahtzee may be the only videogame critic that combines social criticism intelligently with his cynical videogaming rants. While I did have fun with God of War 3, the whole time I just couldn't empathize with Kratos cause he is a massive, massive dick (so to all you guys who do love him, you guys are dicks, and if anyone takes this as a literal attack on their personality I'll... well I won't give a shit to be honest). Like the whole game is based around the guilt he feels after killing his family in a wave of mindless violence... so his solution is to kill everything he sees in a wave of mindless violence.

I get this feeling that Kratos is one of those kids who just fucks shit up and says "look what I did daddy!" and then daddy doesn't really care, and after daddy doesn't go to his ball games Kratos acts out and eventually everyone in the family is worried when police discover he has been pepped up on heroin and decapitating neighbourhood cats after impulsively burning down a house. He goes on to become a depraved and savage serial killer, and after murdering his family literally, after delusions of viewing them as these powerful gods that must be brought down (because his first family was I dunno, a lego kit that he destroyed in a tantrum or something) the judge says, "the power was in you all along!" and kratos' wave of self serving destruction somehow manages to stave of a terrorist attack and he is rewarded with a presidential pardon.

 

[Dragon-Byte]

Last Paragraph= 10 points to you, sir.

 

[beema]

He can stop using the "like God of War" phrase when they stop making games that are exact carbon copies of it.

Also, shaky cam can go to hell. That's pretty weird that they put it in Castlevania.

 

[deleted_scifidownbeat]

DELETED

 

[rddj623]

You conclusion is completely accurate...I shall have to play RE:5 to find out if I'm a racist...

 

[GordonFawx]

To be fair? I agree with everything you say BUT one thing.

I still like the phrase "Like God of War, but..."; simply because it works so well for these games. I don't like the style of game that's represented by the category (genre at this stage?) but whatever; I like strategy games so I probably have other issues to deal with; including attachment issues since I'm paralyzed with fear at loosing units. Except American ones; because they somehow have ruthlessly stupid AI and give me plenty of reason to hate them enough to want to see them dead.

Also; I'd suggest reviewing Company of Heroes but you've established you're sick of World War 2 games. And don't like strategy games. And it's old.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Grygor]

I'm saying Cloverfield wasn't good. That's not an opinion, because a plot is kind of necessary to call it a movie. If I may quote from Wikipedia: "A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a story conveyed with moving images." Story needs plot, or it's no story.

Not quite, no.

Properly speaking, plot is a subset of story. A story is a sequence of events; a plot is a sequence of events that are causally related.

To quote E.M Forster, "'the king died and then the queen died' is a story. 'The king died and then the queen died of grief' is a plot."

You forgot Devil May Cry in that list. God of War is literally identical to it, minus the QTEs (so it's automatically better by default in my book.)
Replace "Magic Spells" with "Guns" or "Techniques", change the Gothic/Tower setting to a Greek setting and you really do have nearly the same game...

Now I'm wondering which game came first...

Let's just say that the first God of War came out a month after Devil May Cry 3.

 

[nipsen]

I wonder if Yahtzee ever get depressed...because you know, half of the people posting are MISSING THE BLOODY POINT in his EP.

..what did you expect? A mass of internet folks going: "maybe my fanboyish group therapy sessions on the internet - along with the religious reverence to conventional wisdom - actually is an expression of a deep-seated desire to be accepted by others!". You know.. won't happen.

 

[Laggings]

I disagree with this Extra Punctuation to an extend, the first part that is. I like the handheld camera style and think it does have a tendency to give a game a more intense feel, if done right. It doesn't have to be completely over the line like in Kane and Lynch 2, although I liked the idea there too and it would have been the only reason for me to play the game. I think it's never a bad idea to give the camera a feeling of "heaviness" opposed to a hasty guinea pig's astral projection frolicking around the stage.

I see the point of the camera being explained as something that exists within the game rather than being a mere mechanic allowing us view the action breaking the feel of immersion, in a way. But for me, that feeling is even more flawed by a camera that does three full circles around the main character in little more than a second. It makes the meticulously designed models and realistic lighting look like a lego-movie somehow.

I am also sick and tired of people claiming the Blair Witch Project and its copycats would give them "motion sickness" by the way (Yahtzee didn't do that, so no offense), I don't know how anyone would really feel that way if they can handle twitching the camera from left to right pretty much constantly in an fps for a broader field of view. I don't know why the found footage genre is getting so popular now and not directly after the Blair Witch Project came out. I quite like it, but it doesn't automatically make for a good film. Zombie Diaries was awful ...

But back to handheld style in gaming - If you give the player the ability to fully control the camera, he's likely to do stupid things, such as moving it to a position to have constant top-view, which e.g. in a horror game would immensely compromise the feeling of fear. When you are given the choice between letting the camera stick to the floor of a hallway to make a rat look like big foot or letting it float under the ceiling to make monsters look like fourth graders, unless you're really trying to stress yourself or others, you're likely to pick #2 as it almost guarantees a less-stress gaming situation. And makes the people who designed the monsters cry a little inside.

Look at the first Silent Hills and then look at Homecoming (or Hoecummin' as I like to refer to it) - obviously the reasons for the suckiness of the latter are found mostly in the soulless minds of the American developers, but I think the camera plays a role in it too. There are no loading screens between doors, meaning that enemies can follow you around, but still, they seem much less threatening than in the previous games, when we are able to spin the camera around the room until we absolutely definitely get the most practical viewpoint for killing them off. Silent Hill 2 often had these static camera angles which we could sometimes pan around but not move, or the hospital-basement-bit in SH3. Does it make sense a game-camera would be stuck on a slowly turning wheel of a fallen over wheelchair? It doesn't when the camera is a mere mean of granting us insight, but it does when the camera is used for a dramaturgical effect. And even though it may make the game a little more frustrating to play, and the controls a little more whacky, I'm willing to put up with it. So maybe we don't need a camcorder on a stick, but a game-camera that moves a bit less hasty, shakes just that little bit once we're running full speed and has the boldness to set a few limitations for the sake of effect.

I dream of a game-camera not with the moving patterns of Cloverfield but in the style of Children of Men.

 

[onelifecrisis]

I just read the article. I always read these articles and always end up feeling it was a waste of 60 seconds. But this week... OMG! Yahtzee! You wrote something interesting! Even thought-provoking! Well done, sir. More articles like this please.

Lol This is nothing against you onelifecrisis in particular, but whenever I read the phrase " I feel like I've wasted X amount of time (playing-reading-writing... You get the idea) this" It makes me wonder...

What else would you do in say 60 seconds? I mean I can think in some impossible things like, read a life changing article, lose your virginity (and the respect of your sex partner... remember- 60 seconds only), complete a mario Stage, smoke a cigarrete, go back in time and save the world from Mecha Jesus or something... But realistically it even takes you 60 seconds to fire up some internet pages (depending on Internet velocity) You could just stare into the horizon and lose more than 60 seconds before you realize it... I mean why are people saying things like "you've made me lose 60 seconds I'll never get back... Now I have to get back to my busy schedule of doing nothing and not changing life in the slightest..." If that's the case why not indulge yourself seeing a little article good for a couple of chuckles and maybe some analitical view on games and life?

It makes you sound so snobish when you say "i've lost 60 seconds"... But again, its nothing against the guy who posted. I guess he really is busy saving the world and changing millions of lives 60 seconds at a time.

But agreed, bring some more of this articles Yahtzee!

I didn't realise that "I've wasted [insert time here]" was so commonly said on the internet! In any case, I was just trying to convey that EP isn't usually very good IMO. I wasn't really suing for my 60 seconds back.

 

[Choppaduel]

insightful and entertaining. Keep the brilliance coming, Yahtzee!

 

[cefm]

Well to get technical, a LOT of what God of War did was initially invented by games like the old Castlevania for Ninendo. The whip as a weapon, for one. The real crime is that Nintendo kept making shitty updates for one of their key franchises, and left the field open to God of War to show the world what the current generation of Castlevania games should have been like all along.

 

[RockPlazaCentral]

I dream of a game-camera not with the moving patterns of Cloverfield but in the style of
Children of Men.

Yeah, I loved how the camera revolved around the car going in reverse in that scene when they were being attacked. If you've seen the DVD extras, the set-up for that scene is remarkable.

 

[KP Shadow]

Hack and Slash games are essentially 3-D Beat-em-ups. Essentially, God of War is today's Double Dragon, and Devil May Cry is today's River City Ransom.

 

[RelexCryo]

Extra Punctuation: Shaky Cam Games

Yahtzee dishes on "shaky-cam" games like Castlevania and retires the phrase "like God of War."

Read Full Article

"The fact that the personal agenda almost always involves getting your woman back clearly reflects misogyny, which in itself is a symptom of a fear or lack of understanding of women."

-Yatzhee

Wanting to rescue your wife from rape/murder is a form of misogyny? Since when? Would it be bigoted against men if a gay man tried to save his lover? And if the answer is no, does that mean only homosexual partners have a right to care if their lovers get kidnapped?

Saving the world, saving your family, and personal revenge are all common motives. Perceiving the act of saving your family as sexist is in itself sexist.

 

[lleihsad]

Hack and Slash games are essentially 3-D Beat-em-ups. Essentially, God of War is today's Double Dragon, and Devil May Cry is today's River City Ransom.

I guess in that sense, we can say that God of War is "like Dynasty Warriors, but...".

I have a hard time thinking of Gabriel as a big angry bloke, by the way. A friend of mine likened him to Lars from Brutal Legend, and I have to agree with him.

 

[Cap'n Moe]

Yahtzee, I believe you quoted:
"I also think it's interesting that all three of these games involve the main characters pursuing extremely personal agendas, but end up saving the world from Satan regardless"

I don't distinctly recall Kratos saving the world per sey, I remember Kratos offering the gift of free will, but saving the world? He pretty much did the human Fuck-Up wrecking ball thing and gave everyone that wasnt a mountain (or on top of one) a bad freaking day.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

Whenever I see misogyny mentioned, it harkens me to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CKErKJy8c

Not game related, but it sounds about right for how most become misogynists.

 

[RootbeerJello]

Mario is being filmed by a dude on a cloud
He has a camera on a fishing line
The camera pans to to show him and his camera
THEN WHO WAS CAMERA!?

...
Op: When are third person developers gonna get the camera right. First step, make sure you can see the action at all times.

 

[PinkiePyro]

personally i feel that cloverfield is the only thing that ever pulled shaky cam well
(to be fair i never saw blair witch project) cloverfield pulled in my opinion because they paired it with those "glitch" flash backs making the whole thing seem a little more real helped you connect with the characters and therefore a little more scary