Samus Aaron said:
Woah now, no need to go on some sort of rant. Regardless of the fact that, as you say, you were complaining about a lack of subtlety, I wasn't referring to that at all, nor did I need to. Even if it wasn't a main part of your argument, it was still a tenant and therefore subject to criticism. I agree; this game does not appear to be the most subtle game that I've seen, but that fact has nothing to do with what I ws saying.
My apologies. I got hit by a guy who appeared to have been waiting for a (his own words) "radical response" to the trailer. Guy looking to spout off his "enlightened" (massive irony quotations) perspective against the "crazy, conservative nutjob" (assumed implication of his response). I was still kind of in attack mode (I've always believed the best defense is a good offense). Strangely, you got hit harder than the other guy, but this is mostly because yours seemed the more intelligent response and so I felt it deserved a more in depth reply. Probably shouldn't have answered the other guy.
On the whole, I'm largely voicing an unpopular opinion it all its brutal directness. I'm with both Yahtzee and the Extra Credits guy that we ought to hold games to higher standards than we do.
And my problem is ultimately this. When you demonize something, or if you try to (whatever the opposite of demonize is), it cheapens the effect. This level of outright crazy is uncommon and they don't generally get very far because they can't get along with even themselves. But even if we dismiss the lack of believability (and that's easy to do in a fantasy setting like this), but this is really hard to identify with if you're trying to make a point. When you're this far into the insanity, the audience can easily dismiss what's happening as completely unrelated to yourself. How many people would look at this and say "Huh, now that's something I would do."? Well, nobody, because nobody wants to believe themselves capable of that. By dropping us into a world that we already see this far gone makes it unfathomable and we can't read ourselves into it. The subtlety is important because it allows us to make a connection between the sane and the insane. Without it, you get this, which everybody immediately dismisses by saying "glad I'm not like that" and this further pushes us away from understanding.
Even if you have fun playing the game and even if you can see the point it's making, you don't personalize it in any way because you don't connect yourself with the insanity. You don't see how this could be you. Therefore, the effect that it can have on you emotionally is limited.
