About the special episode. A lot of Yahtzee's stuff seems to be about endings recently and he mentions it's three years since he started during this video. Is he going to bow out?
I hope not. :/
I hope not. :/
Zero Punctuation: Metroid Other M
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
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I've heard stupid things, but "Contains fully narrated movies scenes" has got to take the biscuit
Her backstory and the events in Fusion, along with a comic somewhere out there. The games themselves have kept her silent and up to the player but there's plenty of canon out there that's established her character. I know there's an argument against that saying that if it's not in the game then it's less relevant, but I respectfully disagree with that notion.BlueInkAlchemist said:
And the "blindly following our will" argument can be made for any game character ever, silent or loud-mouthed babbling idiot. Gordon Freeman, Master Chief, Kratos, Mickey Mouse, etc. are all subject to the player's input, and thus their failings or shenanigans when they repeatedly jump into a pit of fire. That's not necessarily what defines them as a character, however - it's the other aspects of the game that identify who they are.
So I went from the first page to this after my post, so I guess you can ignore my other post with your quote since it's been addressed.BlueInkAlchemist said:
And yes, it's not so much that she's been given depth. Samus was given depth in Fusion, and that worked out really well because it still fit with her character. The Samus in Other M not only doesn't fit with the character, but her reactions don't make a lot of sense. She's faced Ridley about four times by the time that encounter in Other M takes place, and yet for some reason he causes her to cower at that point in time when she never had before...which makes her need to be rescued. She somehow cares about the Metroid baby after willingly giving it up for study and waxes poetic and gets maternal towards it after spending maybe a lump sum of two days with it and after willingly giving it up for study. She submits to the command of another person who she hasn't seen in years and who she had a major disagreement with (although we later learn that it actually isn't all that major, just more poor writing by Team Ninja) when she spent years alone, hunting the space pirates and establishing a reputation for herself as being the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. Hell, Malkovich doesn't even actually ask her to, she just does it to "make him feel at ease" which is an incredibly lame cover and leads to the pseudo-infamous Varia Suit moment.
I mentioned this elsewhere, but if this was Samus just after leaving the Federation to go and hunt the space pirates, it'd be more fitting. Her first encounter with Ridley, the one who wiped out her colony world, her family, and left her to die as a toddler - that would make sense for her to cower with flashes of her childhood and her parents' death. Hell, they could have made an entire game around that and her first steps into becoming a bounty hunter. You'd have to get rid of all the ridiculous motherhood tie-ins, but it would have done a good job of humanizing Samus, showing how she left the Federation, and showing her evolution from Federation soldier into galaxy-famous bounty hunter. But Team Ninja apparently couldn't be bothered to learn anything about the franchise or the character they were working with, and thus they slapped some stereotype onto Samus and then called it a day. Add on the shoddy voice acting and it just becomes a horrible thing to do to a character that was once the best female lead in a game.
This entire debacle has actually made me wonder if the whole player-avatar idea was a good thing to begin with. Quite frankly EVERY silent player avatar (The Warden, Commander Shepard, the SMT heroes, the Dragon Quest heroes, Link, 90% of protagonists in WRPGs, etc) and even some voiced characters like Marcus Fenix or Master Chief are nothing more than Mary Sues. They're blocks we project our wish-fulfillment fantasies onto and who have NOTHING resembling discernible character flaws and because of that we seem to have been STARVED for actual three-dimensional characters with human flaws and insecurities.geizr said:
We've turned into a bunch of spoiled brats who plug our ears and go "lalalalalala!" whenever negative emotions are brought up in a game's hero even if it is REQUIRED for the narrative and the character. This strikes me as players always wanting THEIR wishes while having no concern for the writers or creators. If we want to have better narratives and deeper characters in gaming we as gamers need to learn to let go of control so someone can tell a story. Which, oddly enough, is something JAPAN is better at than the West is.
In a series that has never had the main character speak before, this actually is a big deal. New Super Mario Bros Wii had four player co-op as a feature even though a lot of other games have used it, because Mario has never done that in a mainstream platformer before.Jamaicob5 said:
Funny, I couldn't help but think of Bella whenever Samus would lay on her back and wait for Adam to pet her underbelly to show her what a good girl she's being.Lordofthesuplex said:
*sniff sniff* You're not gonna go with me to prom, are you?
Honestly, don't use words that brand you as an oblivious idiot, you little brat. No wonder you kids will swallow any bad-fanfiction-level writing you're given.
[TL;DR WARNING: Wall-o-text ahead. Didn't mean to make one; it just came out that way. Also, I'm in agreement with you, just taking the long way about it.]Aiddon said:
I personally don't think there is a problem with the player-avatar relationship from the view of its basic existence. However, I do feel that where people run into problems is when they invest too much of their own existence and happiness into the ideal they have generated surrounding that avatar without examining carefully the validity of such ideals. They become too attached and forget that it is all just "make-believe". This can lead to the division between fantasy and reality becoming blurred. When reality fails to uphold the fantasy, which happens often, people become markedly upset.
But, that's not reality's fault. It's ours for failing to realize that such perceptions we impose are just a fantasy. This is not to say there is anything wrong with fantasy. It's one of the things that makes us human. The problem comes when we start living in the fantasy as a means to evade reality. We create heroes, shepherds, and gods to act as exemplars that give us escape from our own flaws, insecurities, and frustrations. We deify persons or objects in the hopes that these same would save us from ourselves and the miseries in which we find ourselves immersed by subsuming our identity into theirs. We project onto them the ideal which we wish of our own life or personality. When these persons and objects which we have elevated to such exalted status suddenly reveal that they are themselves mundane, flawed, or, worse yet, impotent to affect the realization of our fantasies, shattering our glorious utopia, we become violently upset.
I think to grow and mature beyond this, we have to let go of this constant need for the universe to fulfill our preconceived, idyllic notions and learn to look at and accept things for what they are. This is not the same as becoming a cynic, pessimist, or just giving up to resort to idle languor. It's more that you try to examine things carefully and don't assign to things more or less than is actually there. Also, there is realizing that things aren't always what they at first seem. If there is one thing that my years of studying physics has taught me is that many rules of the universe are not so rigid and fixed as they first seem(conservation of energy being a prime example of one of the first seemingly rigid rules that gets dashed against the rocks when you go deep into quantum field theory), and some that we thought were true turn out to not be so. There is a lot of rattle room to the universe, and it has no obligation whatsoever to adhere, to any degree, to any of our ideals, philosophies, or religions.
There are many different possibilities and combinations, all equally valid (can't wait to see the neural-explosions of internet/gamer geek brains when we finally do get a first homosexual protagonist in a video game). That's what makes the universe such a wondrous, "magical" place; there is just so much to see, know, explore, and experience. Keeping a flexible, adaptive, and open mind seems to be the best survival tactic. One must learn to bend with the wind. More crudely, we need to all just grow up and get over ourselves.
It's really funny. Everywhere in the gaming community, you hear the constant cries and screams for change and innovation. There is a constant cacophony from the gaming community to validate games as art and to justify the importance of gaming to society and humanity. We cry out that we want deep characters with intricate histories and personalities, and not the constant march of shallow, unemotional badasses that litter the gaming landscape. But, what happens once we finally do get some change, real change, that challenges tradition? Rather than embrace these changes, we get a complete crucifixion of those who would dare such changes, demonstrating our true desire to stay in our current comfort zone. We want change, but we're afraid of it because it means we have to become uncomfortable. It means the old ideas to which we have become attached must be usurped and discarded, requiring us to completely rebuild our cognitive framework of how the universe works and what is reality. Even worse, and this is probably the real heart of it all, it means admitting that we were wrong. The basic sentiment: "you can change it all you want, as long as it stays the same." No real progress with anything is possible if that is going to be the approach.
Okay, I'll stop. This is enough wall-of-texting as it is.
Well...Aiddon said:
These are not books or movies, they're an interactive medium and we need to remember that.
There's a reason most player characters have no personality or character development, but it isn't because of "wish-fulfillment", maybe for some, however it's so that we, the player, are immersed into the world the video game has created. Without being interrupted or reminded by the writers that we, the player, have no real bearing on the story.
To me personal, it just seems you're carting the character from one place to the other if this ends up being the case which is why I personally don't like most JRPGs and even then the character don't seem all that interesting.
However, it doesn't mean that we're "STARVED for actual three-dimensional characters."
That's just silly, we have plenty of those in games.
Just because the player character is a blank slate, it doesn't mean he/she is the only character in the game that can have flaws, a personality, or a voice.
Valve have pretty much nailed this with the Half-Life series. They know Gordon Freeman has no personality and aren't willing to try and fix that, instead they build the characters around him, such as Alyx Vance, Barney, Kliener, and Dr. Breen without casing a detachment with the character by having Gordon Freeman constantly talk back to them, it would be a disconnect to the player.
Another good example of this is the Mass effect series. Sure, Commander Shepard isn't a completely developed character and really is the personification of the player, but it's only so that it allows the player to experience the world and meet interesting characters such as Tali, Wrex, Legion, Garrus and a multitude of others.
Again, that's just silly and over exaggerating.
If the player's character were to go through this, there would be a large disconnect because it brings attention to the player that they're just piloting a character from one scene to another. It makes the player feel like they aren't contributing much to the story, which most games try to do for the player, it's a game, they want the player to feel a sense of accomplishment themselves and not just another character's accomplishment.
Again, my personal opinion.
However, for the case of Samus Aran, no one likes her new found personality, not because they gave her one, but because...well, it's horrible.
However, most of us wouldn't have minded all that much if it wasn't for the fact that her new personality was poorly executed, voiced, written and just jarring compared to previous games in hindsight. I feel everyone has gone in depth into how her personality isn't a good one or an interesting one, so I won't waste my time repeating them.
Again, this is an interactive medium. A lot of people don't like having control pulled away from the character they're controlling so that the creator and writers can make you sit and just watch. No matter how well written, it's still kind of annoying, which is why some people, me included, don't like games like Final Fantasy or Metal Gear because they constantly do this to the player.
It's a video game, the player should have at least have control the majority of the time.
Again, just stating, my opinion.
However, in most cases, the result isn't always good because I can't really name any games that have well told stories from Japan.
Ico and Shadow of The Colossus immediately come to mind, which ironically have zero shown character development or personalities, but honestly I can't think of any. Although this could just be me not playing enough Japaneses games.
I'd be glad if you gave examples.
Anyhow, this is just my opinion just as a contributing factor to this whole debate, etc.
ALTHOUGH, I'm not saying that having a well developed character as the player character can't work. To me, it just seems very rare, however a good example is Psychonauts with Raz. Hell, there are some others that work as well, however, in this case.
Metroid: Other M didn't work for most people because of poor writing and execution.
great ZP yahtzee.
this review didn't have time to be funny because it had to destroy this sub-par game first. that said, i find ripping apart sub-par games funny and so do others complementing this episode as funny. i only had to play this game twice, once in the store and once at a friends house, to know it was s***. i remember in metroid prime, by the time you get to a snowy area, about 2/3rds of the way through the game, and at this point you feel to isolated and alone at that point and it really hit you that other human contact would really kill the Metroid experience. Enter Metroid
ther M to destroy the metroid experience
this review didn't have time to be funny because it had to destroy this sub-par game first. that said, i find ripping apart sub-par games funny and so do others complementing this episode as funny. i only had to play this game twice, once in the store and once at a friends house, to know it was s***. i remember in metroid prime, by the time you get to a snowy area, about 2/3rds of the way through the game, and at this point you feel to isolated and alone at that point and it really hit you that other human contact would really kill the Metroid experience. Enter Metroid
ther M to destroy the metroid experienceAn addictive pleasure as always, such a shame how few decent games they are on the wii, i always struggle to find the gems in the mountains of dirt. Roll on de Blob 2!
Special ZP? I'm assuming that this guess has been made before but I'm not going to read 16 pages of comments to confirm my suspicions- could it be that Croshaw is moving on and retiring ZP?
As for well told storytelling, I rate Skies of arcadia very highly, other JRPGS such as the Fire emblem series as well, or tales of symphonia (the sequel which i purchased recently is a lot worse storywise, as its mostly the same thing without the social commentary). And as for storytelling while you are still control on the game Killer7 was top-notch, even if you would need to read a dissertation on post-war Japan-US relations to fully understand its implicatiions.
Samus definitely did break tradition as far as I'm concerned. Instead of being oversexualized eye candy (Bayonetta), a generic badass action girl (Lara Croft/Ruby from WET), or a helpless princess (not even gonna open THAT can of worms) she is a level-headed, mature, professional woman with a tragic past, complex relationships, and has failure and flaws. Could the writing have been better for her? Well duh, even I'll admit the actual NARRATIVE could have stood to improve and chunks of the dialogue could have been excised. However, I did find her to be a LOT more human and relatable than a LOT of current game protagonists.geizr said:
As for the cries about deep characters and storylines, let's face it, if gamers want those they're going to see characters with troubles and aspects that are NOT pretty. If you want a Citizen Kane, a Micheal Corleone, or a William Munny you NEED to see their more negative and vulnerable aspects. Movies, books, television, plays, and comics already HAVE characters like this and games need THEIR versions of those.
I disagree. It's not like the only alternative to the overly chatty soliloquies of Other M is to just make Samus silent again. That's just going from one extreme to the other and back again. The Primes didn't characterize her at all beyond a very basic stock human/hero level; how many people wouldn't react the way she did to Gandrayda's demise?SirBryghtside said:
To be a full character, Samus needs to speak when it makes sense for her to do so -- and what little she says should really say something about her. It's not even that hard to do, it's just that Sakamoto fudged it up by overwriting the dialogue and doing too much tell without enough show (namely, too much soliloquizing). By any standard, it was a poor narrative, so I don't think the choice of narrative style is to blame.
A few well-chosen, well-done lines have infinitely more power than either silence or soliloquy.
well, yeah, she's pretty much been the embodiment of strong female protagonists in video games for years.[/quote]Aiddon said:
Again, we want that, but people are complaining about how poorly it was executed.
Relateable? Not sure how she's more relateable, but alright. However, I have to disagree that she's more human than "a LOT" of current video game characters.
Again, poor execution ruined this, but I'd be glad if they tried again with a competent writer. Hope Nintendo will use all that money they have to get one.
Did you read my previous reply earlier?
Just asking.
While I'll probably actually play the game, I'm definitly getting it used to make sure Nintendo doesn't make money off it. >_> The stuff I've heard about the story REALLY BOTHERS ME, but of course I'll play the game before actually judging.
Well, the game play is alright, but you have to trudge through the bad story to get to it.yanipheonu said: