The Errant Signal Thread

[Gozma]

^I don't think that at all, it really was an obvious and intentional theme. Errant Signal's not seeing phantoms. It's a competent movie, including having thematic coherence, chopped up and interspersed with game. He criticizes it by saying that isn't a legitimate construction for a video game.

I say there isn't a wrong way to join movies (or literature) to games, but that the "big middlebrow AAA moviegame" thing is a separate issue that is caused by the way the industry works and the way that videogame critics are generally tremendously stupid and pathetic queers.

 

[Grunker]

All this trouble over the "ludo-narrative" dissonance is just a half-assed job at actually writing critiques about video games.

Way to prove you understood nothing of his point. He isn't talking about Ludonarrative Dissonance. There is none in The Last of Us. Nothing happens in the gameplay segments that couldn't be defended in the narrative and the video never claims thus. The protagonist isn't killing hordes of people without justification or similar things.

The fact that you think that's what he is talking about is pretty telling.

What is discussed is the fact that gameplay segments are totally seperate from the narrative. The two core elements of the game have extremely little to with each other and could exist as seperate entities (one as a move, the other as game) without anyone noticing they were once joined together. There is no reason for them to be in the same product (not to mention that the gameplay is mediocre as hell).

EDIT: Campster agrees:

(is that you, buzz? )

 

[Infinitron]

No, that's Krellen. An Internet oddball from Shamus Young's blog who's angry at inXile because Wasteland 2 has "too much focus on pretty graphics".

 

[Grunker]

For anybody who disagrees with Campster in this video, here's an article that pretty much contradicts most of what Campster said in the video: http://frictionalgames.blogspot.se/2013/07/thoughts-on-last-of-us.html (I think that article is pretty dumb, by the way)

 

[Cowboy Moment]

For anybody who disagrees with Campster in this video, here's an article that pretty much contradicts most of what Campster said in the video: http://frictionalgames.blogspot.se/2013/07/thoughts-on-last-of-us.html (I think that article is pretty dumb, by the way)

Yeah, unfortunately Thomas has slowly been going full retard since the success of Amnesia has allowed him to write excessively long blog post instead of doing actual work. I dread for Frictional's next game.

 

[evdk]

Yeah, unfortunately Thomas has slowly been going full retard since the success of Amnesia has allowed him to write excessively long blog post instead of doing actual work. I dread for Frictional's next game.

It's going to be a meta horror game - you will be afraid of the game even being released. MWAHAHAHA

 

[buzz]

Grunker I don't understand your post. How are the stuff that he refers to in the video not counted as a "dissonance" (inconsistency) between gameplay and narrative?

the gameplay just fills the blanks no one asked to be filled

That sounds exactly like an inconsistency between the story and the actual game.

What is discussed is the fact that gameplay segments are totally seperate from the narrative. The two core elements of the game have extremely little to with each other and could exist as seperate entities (one as a move, the other as game) without anyone noticing they were once joined together.

So there's an inconsistency between them, one so big that the story and the gameplay barely relate to each other.

Maybe I just don't understand the definition of the term. Heck, the term is not important and I don't see why are you picky on that, my complaint lies with giving that much of a shit about the narrative binding with the gameplay in the first place.

I'm not obtuse (and neither a brony, shame on you! ) so I'm not one who dismisses story in video games. Sure, it's second rate most of the time compared to other mediums but it's fairly entertaining sometimes and I recognize it exists in all games since ever just like the blog post you posted says. As a kid adventure games were my favorite and I've even played and enjoyed tons of visual novels or modern text adventures that barely contained puzzles. I just hate the fact that people more and more put the narrative in front of the gameplay as supreme (to the point that a game is counted as bad or not special if the mechanics don't serve the story)

 

[evdk]

Grunker I don't understand your post. How are the stuff that he refers to in the video not counted as a "dissonance" (inconsistency) between gameplay and narrative?

the gameplay just fills the blanks no one asked to be filled

That sounds exactly like an inconsistency between the story and the actual game.

No, that just means that the gameplay is superfluous. Ludonarrative dissonance, as I understand it, would be if everyone during cutscene were whining about the zombies being curable and you should be saving them and then the game forced you to slaughter them by the dozens without any acknowledgment of how fucked up that was.

 

[Grunker]

I don't think you know what Ludonarrative Dissonance means buzz. Not that I blame you, I don't much like the word myself.*

Ludonarrative Dissonance means that what you do in gameplay contradicts what you do in narrative and vice-versa. TLOU's gameplay doesn't contradict its narrative... the two have next to nothing to do with each other. No dissonance exists between them; no one does something in one that seems implausible or contradicting in the other.


*or rather it's a good enough word, I just don't like that pseudoacademic game designers and reviewers throw it around like it was candy to prove their SMARTSINESS. Most of the time, there's ways to describe these things that do not involve using the longest words you can find to prove a point. This is one of Errant Signal's only vices next to his large number of virtues though, so I give him a pass.

 

[felipepepe]

Best Ludonarrative Dissonanceexample is Bioshock: Infinite. Your character is crying about how horrible killing people at Wounded Knee was, all while slaughtering an entire city without even a blink.

Last of Us in more like watching a mediocre movie and every 15 minutes pausing to play the mediocre tie-in game they made of it... they are not in conflict, they are just stopping each other from having full attention and relevance.

 

[tuluse]

Dissonance means there has to be conflict between the two elements, not just inconsistency or lack of integration.

As an aside, the Metal Gear Solid games are famous for this, but Kojima actually uses that dissonance as an emotional manipulation tool not because he doesn't know what he's doing (well you might think he doesn't know what he's doing regardless, but in this case it's intentional).

Edit:

For anybody who disagrees with Campster in this video, here's an article that pretty much contradicts most of what Campster said in the video: http://frictionalgames.blogspot.se/2013/07/thoughts-on-last-of-us.html (I think that article is pretty dumb, by the way)

I got to the point where the author refers to literally everything that gives context to gameplay as the "story layer" and I couldn't take it anymore. He's using connotation to shape the debate in terms he wants to discuss. Poor form.

 

[Metro]

The point at which you start praising a game as a movie is the point where you can just stop the review and call it -- as a game -- shit.

 

[Grunker]

Actually I think The Last of Us is better than just mediocre at telling its story. But yeah, the point remains the same.

The point at which you start praising a game as a movie is the point where you can just stop the review and call it -- as a game -- shit.

The game isn't shit though, it's a polished version of some OK action games, chief among them Resident Evil 4. It's just eons from being what the mainstream press praises it for. But I guess you meant shit as in the Codex definition of "it's either glittering gold or shit."

Last of Us in more like watching a mediocre movie and every 15 minutes pausing to play the mediocre tie-in game they made of it... they are not in conflict, they are just stopping each other from having full attention and relevance.

The best metaphor for this is still "a book with its pages stuck together." Both because it explains it beautifully, and because it gives allusions to semen. Always give allusions to semen.

 

[Gozma]

The point at which you start praising a game as a movie is the point where you can just stop the review and call it -- as a game -- shit.

You are not being imperialistic enough with your concepts. Movies and books are subset to the interactive something-or-other stuff currently called "video games" (the no-gameplay/no-interaction subset).

If we really, genuinely just cared about gameplay there would be no Codex because no one would play single player or non-adversarial games.

 

[Grunker]

If we really, genuinely just cared about gameplay

I don't think Metro is lamenting that gameplay isn't viewed as the only important thing. I think he's lamenting that it's hardly viewed as important at all.

It's a very sad state of affairs that if someone read the ten most popular reviews of TLOU, he probably wouldn't even have an idea of how the game played.

 

[DraQ]

What is discussed is the fact that gameplay segments are totally seperate from the narrative. The two core elements of the game have extremely little to with each other and could exist as seperate entities (one as a move, the other as game) without anyone noticing they were once joined together.

So there's an inconsistency between them, one so big that the story and the gameplay barely relate to each other.

Filling blanks not needing to be filled doesn't imply inconsistency.

For example you could conceive adding long cutscenes of your party camping to an RPG that would play each time you rested. They could very well be perfectly consistent with the game and its themes, but would you say they would add anything to the game? That the game would be somehow incomplete without them?

 

[Metro]

The game isn't shit though, it's a polished version of some OK action games, chief among them Resident Evil 4. It's just eons from being what the mainstream press praises it for.

It's shit. Excluding the 'cinematic experience' the game is indistinguishable from the dozens of other third person console action games I've seen in recent years.

 

[sea]

This thread got a mention in Shamus Young's most recent podcast:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=20508

Just thought it was kinda funny because I don't really see a lot of "hate" or bashing here beyond the usual Codex tradition (aka hyperbolic jackassery that everyone takes way too seriously). Of course he seems to be ignoring any of the legitimacy of the arguments presented here because a couple of people called him a dumb-dumb. I know he's a smart guy and I'm a bit surprised he's sensitive about this.

 

[Metro]

Who?

 

[Infinitron]

This thread got a mention in Shamus Young's most recent podcast:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=20508

Just thought it was kinda funny because I don't really see a lot of "hate" or bashing here beyond the usual Codex tradition (aka hyperbolic jackassery that everyone takes way too seriously). Of course he seems to be ignoring any of the legitimacy of the arguments presented here because a couple of people called him a dumb-dumb. I know he's a smart guy and I'm a bit surprised he's sensitive about this.

I blame Metro!

At what minute of the podcast are we mentioned?

 

[tuluse]

What does he say sea? Because this thread seems pretty awesome to me, it's mostly people just discussion game design (and it looks like intelligent discussion to me).

 

[Metro]

I was pretty complimentary of the guy until he took a turn for the worse -- and any objective person can see a trend towards the decline in his commentaries.

 

[Gozma]

Weak

 

[Metro]

Yeah that was just a three second throw-away plug. Come on, ES, next week we need a thirty minute video deconstructing this thread.

 

[felipepepe]

Someone put Shamus back in his place, this thread is about Campster's Errant Signal videos, not him (as the fucking title clearly says). Last mention of Shamus in this thread was in October 2012, almost a year ago... don't try to hijack an entire thread for your own self-hate needs bro.

Besides, if you can have a blog and write walls of text and give opinions on other stuff, respect that we have the right to do the same on your opinions, and that we - apparently unlike you - actually bothered to read all that was said before going into butthurt mode and dismissing everything as "HATE!"...