Videogame Criticism

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kintaris

Re: Videogame Criticism

Post by kintaris »

AndrewBrown wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 9:01 pm Joshua Rivera's review of Far Cry 5 is not just an incredible review of a videogame, it's also a pretty damning takedown of the "cowardly" way we talk about videogames and the themes and stories they purport to tell. Especially timely given the recent release of the Ready Player One film adaptation and the podcast's recent coverage of the risible BioShock Infinite.

https://www.gq.com/story/far-cry-5-review
I completely understand where he's coming from, though I haven't played the game. The ones that stoked this particular fire for me were GTA V and Watch Dogs 2. Both felt like they were trying to preach something all while their central characters were deeply problematic.

It's all on a weird subjective spectrum though, admittedly. There are plenty of games I enjoy that try to make a point, often about one human right or another, yet the majority of them still have you mowing through guards or henchmen like it's no big deal. I guess none of the ones I like try to deal directly with (and market the game around) a relevant, here-and-now issue as FC5 seems to be.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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It’s almost as if games still haven’t got the hang of the concept that the writers and the designers have to work together, not on sepearate continents...
kintaris

Re: Videogame Criticism

Post by kintaris »

Flabyo wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 8:24 am It’s almost as if games still haven’t got the hang of the concept that the writers and the designers have to work together, not on sepearate continents...
Hah, very true for Ubisoft especially. And also true for them is this absolute insistence on both making and not making a political point. As the reviewer alludes to, if the main selling point of the game is having chaotic fun, why bother trying to make it about anything else?

Depressingly, I suppose the answer is marketing. Far Cry 5 wouldn't have had the hype without this pseudo-controversial plot, but once it's in people's hands and they're having fun, the thin shell of political relevance gets discarded.

I am particularly sick of the "you/they are on drugs so it's OK to murder everyone" angle too. Lazy.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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I don't mean to be ornery, but were people really expecting anything from a Far Cry game except the Same Old Shit?
kintaris

Re: Videogame Criticism

Post by kintaris »

Chopper wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 12:26 pm I don't mean to be ornery, but were people really expecting anything from a Far Cry game except the Same Old Shit?
I think the problem is that it's the Same Old with pretensions to something more meaningful. And the problem is how the usual Far Cry message becomes a tad more dangerous when the writers attempt to circle around pressing modern issues like gun violence, religious extremism and alt-right sensibilities, all while telling you to shoot brainwashed locals on sight becuase it's OK, they're zombies now.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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kintaris wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 1:13 pm I think the problem is that it's the Same Old with pretensions to something more meaningful. And the problem is how the usual Far Cry message becomes a tad more dangerous when the writers attempt to circle around pressing modern issues like gun violence, religious extremism and alt-right sensibilities, all while telling you to shoot brainwashed locals on sight becuase it's OK, they're zombies now.
I haven't played FC5, but what exactly would you guys suggest as a practical solution in this case?

If they don't go the zombie route and design the enemies as fully sentient right-wing extremist slogan-spouting whackjobs, then it's only a matter of time before the game appears on Fox News and is being framed as an attack on Christianity or Gun Culture, thus marking the developers as harassment targets for the right, and who the hell wants to deal with this bullshit?

Conversely, if they try to humanize the enemies as uneducated victims of a cult-like indoctrination, not only would it create an uncomfortable dissonance that the Far Cry series is hilariously ill-suited for (unless they introduce some sort of shoehorned "recruitment" mechanic), but it also opens the door for trial by twitter and for the developers to be branded as Nazi sympathizers, and who the hell wants to deal with that bullshit?

I'm struggling to think of a third option that wouldn't consist of re-building the entire game from the ground up.

I don't know, it seems to me like they are utilizing this "timely" setting to drum up pre-release hype, while also taking the easy and convenient solution provided by zombie enemies in order to not risk alienating any fraction of their potential audience. Combine the risk-adverse nature of modern AAA video game development with the multiple minefields of a post-truth political climate, and this is pretty much what you'll get.

Then again, I have zero attachment to the series, so perhaps I am missing something obvious.
kintaris

Re: Videogame Criticism

Post by kintaris »

No, I mostly agree with you Ksub. I think Far Cry 5 in the form that it takes is an inevitability of both entertainment culture in general and Ubisoft's culture specifically.
Todinho

Re: Videogame Criticism

Post by Todinho »

Once again havent played Far cry 5, have no interest in it and honestly I dont know why people were expecting a Far Cry game to have some great story or message, but once again Im having a problem with some of the criticism Im seeing on the game.
It seems alot of people wanted the game to be a Trump Bashing piece and because the game wasnt that they are disapointed and I think that's a completelly wrong way to judge a game(I know Im abit of a hypocrite because I just did that when replaying Wolfenstein New Order).

Like sure the game's marketing certainly used the whole "resistance" to Trump to spread the word on the game but Far Cry 5 started development way before Trump was president and the game is clearly not inspired by his rise to power, it's obviously inspired by the 1990's cult of Wacco I mean the setup is basically identical so if the game has any commentary to make it's gonna be focused on that, maybe it fails on that count too sure I wouldnt be surprised but I dont think the story has anything to do with Trump no matter how much people want it to be.

Im bringing this up because I havent seen a single critical review of the game that didnt mention Trump directly or in veiled terms like the "current political climate" which to me it's weird since the game is based on something that happened in the 1990's, did americans forget that the biggest domestic terrorist attack they ever had happened in the 90's the peak of the Clinton years? And that it was done by crazy cultists? I dunno Im kinda of rambling at this point but I think Trump broke alot of people's brains, the world's problems didnt start in 2016 c'mon.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

Post by Craig »

Well yeah, context matters. If you released a game with a mission involved purposefully crashing a plane into something in 1998, the reception and framing of it would be massively different a few years later.

Likewise, if you’re going to release a game about far right folk in small communities in a context where we have President Trump and a thousand think pieces trying to understand the forgotten struggles of the everyday man who isn’t a bad man, but feels he’s been left behind by the city and the media, then people will consider the parallels. Had Revengence been released now, the president wouldn’t seem like a silly weirdly prescient cartoon character, but a hamfisted, distracting take down.

I’m ultimately not that bothered. I don’t have the hardware to play Farcry so I wasn’t going to buy it, and I think a lot of game reviews run into the issue of focusing on what a game isn’t than what it is, but I think to try and dismiss the context and time of release is a fools errand.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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Todinho wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 9:29 pmIm bringing this up because I havent seen a single critical review of the game that didnt mention Trump directly or in veiled terms like the "current political climate" which to me it's weird since the game is based on something that happened in the 1990's, did americans forget that the biggest domestic terrorist attack they ever had happened in the 90's the peak of the Clinton years? And that it was done by crazy cultists? I dunno Im kinda of rambling at this point but I think Trump broke alot of people's brains, the world's problems didnt start in 2016 c'mon.
I think it's disingenuous to suggest that Far Cry 5 is inspired specifically by the Oklahoma City Bombing. McVeigh's action were in response to the government's actions at Waco, yes, but not because the Branch Davidians were who got hit but because McVeigh was increasingly convinced that the United States government was becoming increasingly tyrannical and militaristic in its behavior. And it wasn't done by "crazy cultists," it was done by very few individuals who were actually frustrated by the all-talk-no-action behavior of their anti-government militia.

And when there are at least two members of the current White House administration who believe that we are currently living in the End Times and are actively trying to bring about prophecies from the Book of Revelations, and when the number of anti-government militias tripled between 2008 and 2016, and when white supremacists are holding rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia—wielding literal torches and chanting "Jews Will Not Replace Us"—I don't think it's unfair to look at the setting for Far Cry 5 and call foul that it severely pulled its punches on what it was clearly leaning hard into.
Todinho

Re: Videogame Criticism

Post by Todinho »

But the game WAS inspired by it I mean just look at the cult leader in Far Cry 5 and the cult Leader of Wacco and tell me they have nothing to do with each other, also look at the setup it's almost 1:1 so yeah I think you can safely say that Wacco was the main inspiration of the game and as you said militias tripled during Obamas term with the Bundy ranch reaching headlines so it's no wonder the subject crept into the minds of the devs and they went back to research the subject and came up with Wacco.

I think the game should be criticized if it fails to deliver on its story about cults and militias sure(just as me and you criticized Bioshock infinite for not delivering) but I think its silly to criticize the game for not being about Trump, in fact the game not being about Trump could be it's greatest strength if its looking at the overall social structure of the US and tackling why such groups get formed to begin with,why people fall for it and their effects because afterall these groups exist for nearly as long as the US itself does.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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ThirdMan wrote: April 4th, 2018, 8:47 pm I guess I'm just gonna have to play that game again. I'm tempted to download it right now.
Ha! Well, far be it from me to discourage anyone from playing MGS3, but before you buy anything please do keep in mind that the game uses a very idiosyncratic and overloaded control scheme that is probably very difficult to get used to for players accustomed to modern sensibilities. If you do want to play it, I'd recommend watching the various tutorials in the main menu, taking your time during stealth sections and perhaps even consider taking a non-lethal approach for a more cohesive story-gameplay experience.

In any case, I'm glad you liked the video! There is a lot more where that came from, so feel free to ask if there are any other aspects of the MGS lore that pique your interest.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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ThirdMan wrote: April 4th, 2018, 11:05 pm It was interesting to hear Leon speak about movie adaptations of videogames and how uniformly poor they are.
I guess now's a good a time as any to nail my colours to the mast and claim that I consider both Ace Attorney as well as the first Silent Hill to be perfectly decent video game adaptations. Flawed, yes, but it kind of boggles my mind just how often I see them being thrown under the bus without a second thought.

ThirdMan wrote: April 4th, 2018, 11:05 pm I just wish there more videogame-literate people working as film critics, or within arts criticism in general, to help shine a light on this area. I read an interview with Jonathan Nolan where he said that his work on the HBO series Westworld was influenced by Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto and Bioshock. I'm really intrigued by that type of thing. How games are making themselves felt in other spheres. We don't hear enough about it. The conversation is almost always about poor adaptations, i.e. a game trying to be a film. It never runs the other way, i.e. what games are contributing to other visual and narrative media.
It may not be a particularly satisfying answer, but I think it all boils down to a generational thing. Give it another 15-20 years, and I'm sure we'll see more and more video game literate people occupy other spheres. Kermode is actually a really good example of someone who simply doesn't know anything about video games because he was never exposed to them during his formative years. And to his credit, he doesn't go out of his way to bash them unlike some of his fellow critics. He simply acknowledges his limitations and sticks to what he knows.

That's also one of the reasons why video game-referencing films and other works (such as Scott Pilgrim & RPO) mostly stick to games from the 80's. Because that's the era that the current generation of established writers and decision makers are familiar with.

It takes time to build credibility, especially considering the insular nature of the medium.

ThirdMan wrote: April 4th, 2018, 11:05 pm Annihilation also takes a lot of its visual design from The Last of Us but that has gone unmentioned (almost, I came across it once) and nobody has named-checked Bruce Straley, Neil Druckmann or indeed Naughty Dog itself.
That's interesting, because I didn't notice any TLoU inspiration when watching Annihilation. Would you mind going into a bit more detail, perhaps with concrete examples?

ThirdMan wrote: April 4th, 2018, 11:05 pm The point is that videogames ought to be part of our critical toolsets when discussing other media.
This on the other hand I completely agree with.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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I should say I haven’t seen every videogame-based movie, including Phoenix Wright.

I didn’t think much of Silent Hill although I reckon its sequel makes the original look like a masterpiece.

I do recommend The Girl With All the Gifts however.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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Feels like you're giving credit to Last of Us for everything. That story has been told a thousand times before in zombie/zombie-related media, does The Girl With All the Gifts (I haven't actually seen this movie) actually owe anything to TLoU or just the general scope of zombie media since Dawn of the Dead? Or even the stories before that like the original I Am Legend?

The whole nature overtaking a ruined civilization look of TLoU falls in to the same boat. It's basically an accepted design/style for a lot of expensive architect designed housing (Frank Lloyd Wright's waterfall house is the most obvious example) and especially in civil spaces, moreso in Asia and in particular Japan since WW2. I haven't seen Annihilation yet so I'm just assuming that's the "style" you were talking about, I'm echoing KSub for some elaboration and specific examples because I just don't see it otherwise.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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Whippledip wrote: April 5th, 2018, 5:19 am That story has been told a thousand times before in zombie/zombie-related media, does The Girl With All the Gifts (I haven't actually seen this movie) actually owe anything to TLoU or just the general scope of zombie media since Dawn of the Dead?
Well on the other hand, I can totally see the parallels between TGWATG and TLoU. Even the film's synopsis reads:
In the future, a strange fungus has changed nearly everyone into a thoughtless, flesh-eating monster. When a scientist and a teacher find a girl who seems to be immune to the fungus, they all begin a journey to save humanity.
Replace "scientist and a teacher" with "random thugs", and you'll pretty much have TLoU's synopsis instead.


Annihilation, though? I'm not seeing it whatsoever.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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I don’t think most people who create are blind to their influences, but at the same time you prefer to talk about your work rather than the works that inspired you.

Ultimately everything has inspiration from something else. Did every review of Star Wars mention the fact it’s heaviky influenced by a couple of Kurosawa movies? Not really, although some probably did.

I guess what I’m saying is I don’t feel a creator is bound by some convention to point out all their inspirations when they talk about their creation. And ultimately a reviewer can only bring up the things they recognise themselves.

Critique would be pretty dull to read if all it was was a list of ‘he took this from here, and that from there and...’
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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Annihilation spoilers:
Spoiler: show
ThirdMan wrote: April 5th, 2018, 12:18 pm I honestly don't know how anyone who has played TLoU would not recognise its influence in the scene where they come across a decomposed body in a pool, where the remains have grown outward into plants and vegetation. There are a number of those types of decomposed, mutated remains in TLoU. The similarity between them is striking.
Ah, now I see what you mean. You're talking about this one, right?

Image

Yes, the inspiration is quite evident. I admit I had forgotten about that particular scene. Good call!

But the rest of the film has this eerie, almost supernatural (I struggle to even call it science-fiction) design that I simply can't reconcile with TLoU's grounded approach. Like the rainbow palette of the Shimmer or the absurd animal mutations that are completely unlike those found in conventional zombie-related fiction. As for the "tree people", I thought they were much closer to Dryads and other mythological creatures than to pseudo-science based zombies:

Image

I know their existence is meant to be ambiguous, but I simply couldn't interpret them as actual human beings who had undergone any kind of factual mutation, which is probably why I don't see the similarities to TLoU. And as far as the protagonists are concerned, I also can't see any visual similarities either.

Still, it's an interesting point.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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ThirdMan wrote: April 5th, 2018, 12:18 pm
Whippledip wrote: April 5th, 2018, 5:19 amI'm echoing KSub for some elaboration and specific examples because I just don't see it otherwise.
Just to clarify, you "don't see" the influence of The Last of Us in two films that you've never watched? Um, okay.
Fair enough.

Let me clarify a bit then. I was more referring to how TLoU's story themes, ideas and general visual style and design is so universal, baseline and generic to the overall realm of post apocalypse/zombie media that it feels weird to see people constantly refer to it as an inspiration or influence on current media.

To use an example from a movie that I have seen, people are constantly comparing Maggie to TLoU, either saying it ripped TLoU off or talking about how it clearly draws inspiration from it, a google search for "Maggie Last of Us" brings up a lot of results from a lot of sources.

Aside from the very general themes of "bearded man loves his daughter" and "zombie-like aggressors", they're very, very different. Maggie is a quiet and contemplative vignette and character study about humanity and family and grief. TLoU, you smash them in the face with a brick. It leans more in to zombie killing action adventure with some nice pathos to give the characters some depth compared to the usual video game. The similarities are completely superficial and have very different aims, and very different ways of exploring them. The movie was also written before TLoU was even announced. Although the director happened to be a chyron/title designer for TLoU, that's such a small role in the grand scheme of the game that I don't think there is much to be taken from that connection.

Once again I'm painting with a very broad brush but I think it's a product of people who's main hobby is video games might not necessarily have a good grasp of the "language", history and literary critique standards of film and TV. Which isn't a bad thing at all, people should enjoy what they want without having to justify it, but it reveals a very limited frame of reference for their consumption that leads to pointing at TLoU as a major influencer while completely ignoring everything that helped make TLoU what it was. Not saying that was you by the way, but as an explanation of why I jumped to my initial conclusion/skepticism.
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Re: Videogame Criticism

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This is an amazing video, and not just in a "LOL Far Cry 5' sense.

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