Zero Punctuation: Mafia 3

Onliuge

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Can't wait for the gender politics vultures to start circling next week when this is on YouTube.

And I thought the first week of November was going to suck for Americans!
 

Thanatos2k

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It's like we've gotten to the point where people are now badly copying Ubisoft open world games rather than the usual other way around.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Onliuge said:
Can't wait for the gender politics vultures to start circling next week when this is on YouTube.

And I thought the first week of November was going to suck for Americans!
Not to be 'that guy' but seriously, what does Gender Politics have to do with any of this? Racial politics, perhaps, but its a game set in a racist era. It'd be like complaining about anti-Semitic tones in a game set in a Nazi Germany death camp.
 

Igor-Rowan

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I guess next week Battlefield 1 vs. Infinite Warfare I suppose.

Funny Yahtzee would figure it would end the drought with a bang, yet the game in question is more of the same Mafias. Wow, that did not come out right.
 

Transdude1996

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Thanatos2k said:
It's like we've gotten to the point where people are now badly copying Ubisoft open world games rather than the usual other way around.
Well, to give the devs at least some credit, if you're going to copy a game formula, you might as well copy the guys making money hand over fist.

Also, I remember hearing that both this game and Homefront: The Reboot where just pushed out of the door in whatever state the developers considered "complete" because of both projects taking way too long. The story is after being passed around one too many times for years, the publisher just came down, pointed at a studio, and declared that they finish the game so that everyone can move on with their lives. Though, I have to say, that actually does increase 2K's and Deep Silver's credibility.

Or, at the very least, it does makes them look better than other studios who announce a title and continue to have the project in constantly influx for years on end with no solid release in site (I won't mention any name, but I will give you their NYSE symbols: Sony and SquarEnix).
 

The Dead Singer

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Everywhere I go says the story/characters are good but the gameplay is complete garbage and it isn't worth sifting through all that trash. Judging by this, not even the story is all that great, if only because, naturally, the tone has anime-levels of whiplash.
 

Steve the Pocket

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Now I wonder what Yahtzee's take on the racial politics of BioShock Infinite was, because that game also seemed to use its old-timey setting as an excuse to wallow in the racism of that era without meaningfully commenting on it. And at least this game lets you play as a black person who massacres the KKK because of a personal vendetta rather than a disaffected white dude who kills them because they're in his way. And doesn't conspicuously tiptoe around the use of racial epithets.
 

THM

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Silentpony said:
Not to be 'that guy'
Too late - nah, I'm just kidding, you're alright. :)

...but seriously, what does Gender Politics have to do with any of this? Racial politics, perhaps, but its a game set in a racist era. It'd be like complaining about anti-Semitic tones in a game set in a Nazi Germany death camp.
Never doubt the power of a special snowflake with the bit between their teeth - for instance, how many of the underbosses are women? What kind of clothes do any of the women wear? Is there any violence directed at them and shown on camera? Are there Ladies of Negotiable Virtue (tm)? How are THEY treated? Are there depictions of alternate(?) gender identities, and if so, how are those folks treated? And on, and on, and on, and on...:/

You'd think the racism would be the more reasonable (and larger) target to go after - sad to say, but folks that get up in arms about gender 'politics' tend not to be reasonable when riled. (Or indeed, at all.)

Oh well.
 

Dornedas

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Johnny Novgorod said:
I see Lincoln Clay went to the Isaac Clarke School of Naming.
That makes me wonder: Do developers think they are smart when they do this, or are they just too lazy to think of a name?
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Dornedas said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
I see Lincoln Clay went to the Isaac Clarke School of Naming.
That makes me wonder: Do developers think they are smart when they do this, or are they just too lazy to think of a name?
I think the names work as place holders while in development (marginally better than Black Guy) and keep postponing "that one meeting" until it's too late or they don't care anymore.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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THM said:
Never doubt the power of a special snowflake with the bit between their teeth - for instance, how many of the underbosses are women? What kind of clothes do any of the women wear? Is there any violence directed at them and shown on camera? Are there Ladies of Negotiable Virtue (tm)? How are THEY treated? Are there depictions of alternate(?) gender identities, and if so, how are those folks treated? And on, and on, and on, and on...:/

You'd think the racism would be the more reasonable (and larger) target to go after - sad to say, but folks that get up in arms about gender 'politics' tend not to be reasonable when riled. (Or indeed, at all.)

Oh well.
Aren't you reacting before anyone else reacts thus kinda making yourself to be worse than they are? Self-created culture wars, and all that, both sides defining themselves through the Other Side, etc.

I think any decent critique of this game would stop and focus on the game's abhorrent morality and fetishism of murder and violence before even getting close to gender politics. It's like looking at a mass murdering sociopath and complaining they have terrible taste in shoes and keep leaving gates open...

/edit - That aside, if the game did feature some dicey depictions of women or gender, is there a law stating no one's allowed to have, y'know, an opinion on it? Does the industry explode if someone questions the depiction of something in a game?
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Dornedas said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
I see Lincoln Clay went to the Isaac Clarke School of Naming.
That makes me wonder: Do developers think they are smart when they do this, or are they just too lazy to think of a name?
Its more like archetype stuff. Duke Nukem, Master Chief, Marshal Law, Lancelot Lakenight, Cloud Strife, Cream the Rabbit, Ceaseless Discharge...these are dumb names that are meant to encapsulate the character in their entirety.
 

Catnip1024

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Steve the Pocket said:
Now I wonder what Yahtzee's take on the racial politics of BioShock Infinite was, because that game also seemed to use its old-timey setting as an excuse to wallow in the racism of that era without meaningfully commenting on it. And at least this game lets you play as a black person who massacres the KKK because of a personal vendetta rather than a disaffected white dude who kills them because they're in his way. And doesn't conspicuously tiptoe around the use of racial epithets.
I don't think Bioshock Infinite even attempted to address the whole racism issue, though. It was pretty much the only flaw in the place (forgotten the name), which suggests it was there to make it clear that these people are the bad guys. A comic-booky game like Bioshock probably isn't the place to be having deep and meaningful statements to make on race, anyway.

GTA style crime games are also a bad place to make political statements, because personally I can't identify with any of the lead characters anyway. They are all arseholes, the only way to make the plot remotely enticing is to go completely crazy and do something like make Donald Duck the gang leader.
 

HumanShale

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Good stuff, the review made me laugh quite a few times, just a pity that bloody music is back at the start of ZP.
 

THM

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Darth Rosenberg said:
Aren't you reacting before anyone else reacts thus kinda making yourself to be worse than they are? Self-created culture wars, and all that, both sides defining themselves through the Other Side, etc.
Probably. Thing is, sometimes it seems a bit random as to what's going to incite the next 'moral' panic. You're right, though; the whole thing is pretty self-defeating. :/

I think any decent critique of this game would stop and focus on the game's abhorrent morality and fetishism of murder and violence before even getting close to gender politics. It's like looking at a mass murdering sociopath and complaining they have terrible taste in shoes and keep leaving gates open...
True; but when the 'storm' is in the middle of raging, that kind of calm intelligence isn't there anymore.

/edit - That aside, if the game did feature some dicey depictions of women or gender, is there a law stating no one's allowed to have, y'know, an opinion on it? Does the industry explode if someone questions the depiction of something in a game?
It's not the having of opinions that's the problem; it's the ramming said opinion down everyone's throat, preferably until the nasty thing they don't like gets changed, which is the problem. As opposed to, say, those same folks going out and creating their own game/game series which treats the subject of gender the way they think it should be treated. Or I am just dreaming out loud. :)
 

wizzy555

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Steve the Pocket said:
Now I wonder what Yahtzee's take on the racial politics of BioShock Infinite was, because that game also seemed to use its old-timey setting as an excuse to wallow in the racism of that era without meaningfully commenting on it. And at least this game lets you play as a black person who massacres the KKK because of a personal vendetta rather than a disaffected white dude who kills them because they're in his way. And doesn't conspicuously tiptoe around the use of racial epithets.
I think Bioshock infinite was using racism to comment on American History and the American conception of success. The racism was the commentary.