Shaky Cam Games

[Sicram]

Wow, all of a sudden I feel so much better and so much more above most people. I don't even own a console and them "hack and slash" games are fun for... 5 minutes, tops.

I guess this article just fueled my elitism complex even more, thank you consoles and "hack and slash", you make me a better person! Oh and Thanks Yahtzee for indirectly telling me that I'm so much better!

 

[Laggings]

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.

yeah I've seen it, I bet it wasn't the only scene this complicated, but perhaps the one with the most separate 'layers' ... pretty sick. Luckily that wouldn't be necessary in a game.

(to be fair i never saw blair witch project)

see it. mind that it's different from all the other found footage films that came out recently. the newer ones are all pretty consumer-friendly in terms of having a typical action-film suspense curve. Which is fine. The Blair Witch Project is a little more demanding and much much more psychological. There isn't as much going on on the surface but way more subtlety. Additionally, the 'actors' weren't even aware of many of the things that were going to happen to them, adding a lot of genuine fear to the whole realism thing. They had a vague outline but there was no script, no written dialogue at all, and many of the events shown in the movie are directly taken from real situations. Heather Donahue (lead actress) supposedly still suffers from the late effects of the filming and moved to some remote house, barely accepted any of the offers to do more film projects.

Some would argue the film doesn't work anymore today, due to everyone being aware of it not being 100% real, but I still think it's a very interesting concept. Definitely worth seeing and the best of all found footage films imo.

 

[ElmerFusterpuck]

Hmmm, let me just review the final paragraph:

...emo?no; selfish? check; self-hating? often; physically weak? check; sexist? check; responsibility-avoiding whiner? check; sympathize with Republican economic policies? to a certain extent, check.

Fan of God of War? Check.

Damn you, Yahtzee, and your perspicacity!

 

[hooksashands]

The camera in Dog Days enhanced my experience with a hangover... in a bad way. My friend brought the game over the night after his birthday, which had been rowdy and I was slightly sick already, but there were parts where we both literally had to stop playing because of the screen wobble.

I am saying this game caused me real physical pain.

You can take that as a selling point, I guess

 

[technoted]

i think someone should take into account that not everyone owns all the consoles, so when a "God of War-clone" hits the market that's multi-platform, why should gamers care if its a ripoff? its not like they own a PS3, they'll take the clone and call it awesome anyways because they can't get the real thing

this is why games should not be compared to each other unless there is a GLARING rip-off (like Kratos's name spelled backwards for the main character or villian or the protagonist fighting greek gods)

Because just ripping off the gameplay is enough to call it a rip-off. Stealing the names is copyright infingement but stealing the gameplay is perfectly legal to an extent. I understand where you're coming from with the multiplatform part, like GoW isn't for the 360 owners so people who only have a 360 wont get to sample the enjoyment of Kratos skull fucking everything he sees to death, but that should be their problem not the game developers. I mean think of it like this, a lot of current MMO's are trying to be WoW and they fail, they aren't unique since it's been done before and better, the same goes for every other genre of games, they need to try and stand on their own two feet and create something new or at least improve on what there already is as apposed to just being a bland copy ever lurking in the shadows.

 

[boholikeu]

I could see shaky cams hypothetically working in some games, but I have yet to actually play such a game

So you are saying my opinion is wrong?

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.

Sorry, but you are flat out wrong here. There are plenty of movies with less plot than Cloverfield, and a few a quite highly regarded. You might not consider them to be movies either, I suppose, but that is your opinion, not a fact.

I'm sorry, but that just makes the whole thing a pointless exercise to me. It's a bit like making a competitive first person shooter and then making all weapons deal zero damage because you want your game to promote peaceful ideals. Nice idea, but it really doesn't work.

Mirror's edge is actually kinda like this, yet instead of making the guns do no damage they just made combat incredibly frustrating. Same effect though, and I think it actually worked quite well as a game.

 

[Luke Tideswell]

i found one good one its called "this is war" its off the first days of operation iraqi freedom. recorded on a camera that lt scotti took to afganistan it views war in a actual soldiers point of view (operation araqi freedom was the assult/move on bagdad to capture osama/bin laden). in america i think the films called "called to serve" or something.

 

[Galad]

lmao, I liked God of War 3 because it was mindless mayhem that is well done, and pretty. I stopped liking it as soon as it became too tedious and unfunny (the Hades battle, for me). Republican economic policies? You totally read too much into it to come up with that, and I'd be worried about myself if I came up with a comparison like this.

I do give you credit for creative abuse of amateur psychological analysis though.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

The estrange thing is, I got more disapointed with God of War 3 than Castlevania Shadow of the Titans. In fact, Castlevania Lords of War is pretty fun! Loved the music box level.

 

[Jakeli]

You have a big angry bloke who seriously needs to get over something, generally a lady friend.

Gabriel Belmont was not particularly angry in the game. I would say more that he was conflicted, and not just for personal reasons, and if you watch the end (before the credits...), he makes peace with everything he's done and forgives himself.

They take it out on non-human creatures with a weapon that incorporates a chain so that it can have a decent reach.

Kratos kills humans too, incidentally. He pretty much kills everyone. Gabriel only kills the monstrous. And every single action game I can think of has that. Even TFU has you killing Rancors.

It has quick light attacks and slow heavy attacks,

Well.... technically Castlevania divides it into single enemy and multiple enemy attacks. Both do have light and heavy attacks, but so does just about every game ever.

as well as combos involving the two, air combos and the ability to grab and instakill the enemy with the circle button if you're just completely bored with tossing the guy around.

Every action game I can think of has air combos. Castlevania does have some grab insta-kills against some enemies, and not *every* action game does. Though a lot do.

You gather souls from enemies and use them to upgrade your combos and magic spells you learn along the way, and collect things that eventually make your health and magic bars bigger.

Just about every single action game has this. (I can't think of an exception off the top of my head, but there are a couple I'm not completely sure of... like I can't remember if you upgrade your health bar in NG2, but you certainly collect 'souls')

Then at the end of it you kill whoever the local equivalent of Satan is.

Hades is God of War's equivalent of Satan. So even God of War doesn't fit this formula. Unless you just generically mean "The game has an end boss". And all action games do.

Many games mix and match some or most of these elements but the three that do every single one of them are God of War, Dante's Inferno and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

Apart from not *technically* being true, due to Gabriel being a different sort of protagonist, why exactly do you think this is? Might it be because you cherry picked? Bayonetta and Castlevania share a timed block/dodge slowdown mechanic that none of the other games have. God of War shares multiple selectable primary weapons with Ninja Gaiden II, and Castlevania does not have this. Ninja Gaiden II and Heavenly Sword both have chain weapons.

Almost everything you listed is *extremely* common in action games to the point that nearly every one has it. The only exceptions are chain weapons and grab finishers. These aren't the feature for feature copies you want to make them out to be.

bro, he uses hyperboles such as these in all reviews, fucking chill out. oh and by the way? a synonym for "conflicted" is "angry." And Hades being the equivalent of satan was his point. thus him saying "fight the local equivalent of satan." and only a few action games have you collect souls, and he never said every game has instakills just god-of-war rip-offs. all you're doing by posting this long ass argument is proving his point about fanboys. dumbass.

 

[Gamegodtre]

Right. If you were looking for a plot, Cloverfield was not the movie for you. Even some sort of back story or some explanation about the monster would have been helpful.

It's not even about the back story so much. I don't mind a mystery. It's the fact that you never learned anything about the characters and then they died.

Oh, no, I'm wrong, you learn one thing: the main guy is obviously a brain damaged douche. Not only does he prefer filming stuff to helping his supposed friends, he also prefers it to, say, running for his life.

Ok, ok, I'll stop ranting now.

ive never seen said movie but is it really that bad?

 

[Gamegodtre]

why dont they make a game about a camera man and his friend who also has a camera that films him filming the world when a giant monster starts attacking and they both gotta get away

 

[MrDeano89]

those last few paragraphs hit close to home for a few people i bet!

 

[unwesen]

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.

Fair point sir, but I lament the lack of plot. There might be a story in Cloverfield, by this definition.

Sorry, but you are flat out wrong here. There are plenty of movies with less plot than Cloverfield, and a few a quite highly regarded. You might not consider them to be movies either, I suppose, but that is your opinion, not a fact.

My opinion is fact.

More seriously, of course there are plenty of movies with less plot than Cloverfield, but... hey, wait, I can't think of any...

I'm sorry, I started that last sentence with "more seriously" when I was anything but. Let me try again: I'd probably complain about those movies in the same way, yes. And for the same reasons, yes. At least I have an argument

Your argument, on the other hand, is that stuff you find comparable is highly regarded, so I must be wrong. That's a non-argument; you might say you are more prone to agreeing with those other people than with me, but at the end of the day, either of us states an opinion. You bolster your opinion by citing a group of unknown size made up of unknown people, whereas I state my own.

I'm sorry, but that just makes the whole thing a pointless exercise to me. It's a bit like making a competitive first person shooter and then making all weapons deal zero damage because you want your game to promote peaceful ideals. Nice idea, but it really doesn't work.

Mirror's edge is actually kinda like this, yet instead of making the guns do no damage they just made combat incredibly frustrating. Same effect though, and I think it actually worked quite well as a game.[/quote]
Mirror's edge is definitely first person, but is it a shooter when shooting is ineffectual? I dare say not, in the same sense that Portal is not a shooter, because you don't shoot stuff. I've personally managed to complete Mirror's edge without shooting anyone, for what that's worth, and it's been a great experience.

ive never seen said movie but is it really that bad?

My own opinion is that I want that time back, but ymmv. Certainly some people here would strongly disagree with me.

There's one movie that I find worse, and that's Spawn. Uwe Boll's creations tend to be more entertaining to me, if simultaneously more groanworthy.

I think the reason I dislike Cloverfield so much is that it's well produced, has good special effects, and was hyped quite a bit, and THEN managed to fall as flat as it did. Other bad films I've seen are just bad. Some, like the Troma stuff, are semi-intentionally bad, and therefore quite entertaining to me, for example.

P.S.: I seem to have made friends here. Yay

 

[dnose]

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.

Or....and I'm going out on a limb here...maybe it's because God of War and the majority of its clones are fun to play.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

bro, he uses hyperboles such as these in all reviews, fucking chill out. oh and by the way? a synonym for "conflicted" is "angry."

No, it is not. And if that's an indicator of your level of intellectual sophistication, let's save us both some trouble. You're never going to understand any rebuttal I might write to your post.

And I'm never going to care.

So any further interaction between us is pointless.

 

[boholikeu]

Sorry, but you are flat out wrong here. There are plenty of movies with less plot than Cloverfield, and a few a quite highly regarded. You might not consider them to be movies either, I suppose, but that is your opinion, not a fact.

My opinion is fact.

More seriously, of course there are plenty of movies with less plot than Cloverfield, but... hey, wait, I can't think of any...

I'm sorry, I started that last sentence with "more seriously" when I was anything but. Let me try again: I'd probably complain about those movies in the same way, yes. And for the same reasons, yes. At least I have an argument

Your argument, on the other hand, is that stuff you find comparable is highly regarded, so I must be wrong. That's a non-argument; you might say you are more prone to agreeing with those other people than with me, but at the end of the day, either of us states an opinion. You bolster your opinion by citing a group of unknown size made up of unknown people, whereas I state my own.

I agree actually. I'm not saying it's a fact that Cloverfield is a good movie. That would be an opinion too, as you noted in your post.

My point was that you can't say that it's a fact that Cloverfield is bad movie. You might have very compelling evidence that it's bad, but ultimately it's still an opinion.

Also, for the record, I do think certain opinions are "more right" than others if they are better supported, but I don't believe you can ever factually prove whether or not a movie is good or bad.

I'm sorry, but that just makes the whole thing a pointless exercise to me. It's a bit like making a competitive first person shooter and then making all weapons deal zero damage because you want your game to promote peaceful ideals. Nice idea, but it really doesn't work.

Mirror's edge is actually kinda like this, yet instead of making the guns do no damage they just made combat incredibly frustrating. Same effect though, and I think it actually worked quite well as a game.

Mirror's edge is definitely first person, but is it a shooter when shooting is ineffectual? I dare say not, in the same sense that Portal is not a shooter, because you don't shoot stuff. I've personally managed to complete Mirror's edge without shooting anyone, for what that's worth, and it's been a great experience.

Fair point, but then couldn't you say the same about Cloverfield? I daresay plot wasn't the thing your were supposed to be focusing on, considering how non-existent it was.

More seriously, of course there are plenty of movies with less plot than Cloverfield, but... hey, wait, I can't think of any...

Much of the work of Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, and Kar Wai Wong could probably be described as having less plot than Cloverfield. Also, movies like Un Chien Andalou, The Big Lebowski, and maybe even Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Oddyssey depending on how you're defining plot.

 

[unwesen]

Man, figuring out the nested quotes is hard... I'll cut some stuff out. I'm hoping I get the quotes right.

Fair point, but then couldn't you say the same about Cloverfield? I daresay plot wasn't the thing your were supposed to be focusing on, considering how non-existent it was.

I'm saying Cloverfield wasn't a movie because it had no plot, in the same way that Mirror's Edge wasn't a shooter because it had no (decent) shooting. What's your point? I'm genuinely lost now.

Much of the work of Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, and Kar Wai Wong could probably be described as having less plot than Cloverfield. Also, movies like Un Chien Andalou, The Big Lebowski, and maybe even Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Oddyssey depending on how you're defining plot.

Jim Jarmusch is difficult, I'd have to concede that other than "Dead Man" (which has a definite plot), I find his films similarly tedious. David Lynch films have plot, it's just deliberately illogical in most of them. I can't speak for Kar Wai Wong, I think.

The movies you mention have plot by my defintion, and plenty of it, with the possible exception of Un Chien Andalou. But I might simply not have understood that.

I don't lament that I don't understand what happens in Cloverfield, or that it's confusing; I lament that I can summarize it as "Twat with a camera runs away from danger, but is astonishingly bad at actually avoiding danger, probably because he's too intent on filming it. And then he dies." I really can't see the rest of the film as adding anything.

I have trouble summarizing other movies without leaving out bits I find relevant to understanding the film.

Ah, well, I accept that I'm probably semi-alone in that opinion

 

[boholikeu]

Man, figuring out the nested quotes is hard... I'll cut some stuff out. I'm hoping I get the quotes right.

Fair point, but then couldn't you say the same about Cloverfield? I daresay plot wasn't the thing your were supposed to be focusing on, considering how non-existent it was.

I'm saying Cloverfield wasn't a movie because it had no plot, in the same way that Mirror's Edge wasn't a shooter because it had no (decent) shooting. What's your point? I'm genuinely lost now.

Ah, okay, I see what you're saying now.

But then, if we follow your logic, what is Cloverfield if it's not a movie?

Much of the work of Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, and Kar Wai Wong could probably be described as having less plot than Cloverfield. Also, movies like Un Chien Andalou, The Big Lebowski, and maybe even Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Oddyssey depending on how you're defining plot.

Jim Jarmusch is difficult, I'd have to concede that other than "Dead Man" (which has a definite plot), I find his films similarly tedious. David Lynch films have plot, it's just deliberately illogical in most of them. I can't speak for Kar Wai Wong, I think.

The movies you mention have plot by my defintion, and plenty of it, with the possible exception of Un Chien Andalou. But I might simply not have understood that.

I don't lament that I don't understand what happens in Cloverfield, or that it's confusing; I lament that I can summarize it as "Twat with a camera runs away from danger, but is astonishingly bad at actually avoiding danger, probably because he's too intent on filming it. And then he dies." I really can't see the rest of the film as adding anything.

I have trouble summarizing other movies without leaving out bits I find relevant to understanding the film.

Ah, well, I accept that I'm probably semi-alone in that opinion

Ah okay. I think I'm starting to understand what you mean now when you say Cloverfield has no plot. I wasn't quite sure, so that's why the examples I gave kinda ranged the gamut of "nothing happens" to "I don't get what happened".

Anyway, your plot description of Cloverfield pretty much matches that of every other disaster/monster movie out there, especially the older ones which is definitely what Cloverfield was trying to parody. There was also the side plot of the main character trying to find/confess his love for that girl, which also is quite common in those types of movies.

 

[Jakeli]

bro, he uses hyperboles such as these in all reviews, fucking chill out. oh and by the way? a synonym for "conflicted" is "angry."

No, it is not. And if that's an indicator of your level of intellectual sophistication, let's save us both some trouble. You're never going to understand any rebuttal I might write to your post.

And I'm never going to care.

So any further interaction between us is pointless.

my friend,

you take the internet way too seriously.