You should feel bad

[Trash]

http://www.destructoid.com/you-should-feel-bad-but-games-don-t-want-you-to-247794.phtml

Pretty interesting article on violence at Destructoid. Actually raises a few interesting points, like how easy it is to simply fill your game with gratuitous violence instead of doing something a bit more creative.

While I’ve yet to play Tomb Raider in its entirety, it does seem we have yet another case of ludonarrative dissonance, in which the design aims (game based around doing gruesome murders) don’t jive with the narrative (“good,” and in this case wet behind the ears, lead character) and the developers have to work extra hard to try and bridge this gap. You can wax poetic about what it means or takes to commit murder all you want, but it's old hat after the seventieth bloke kisses his trachea goodbye courtesy of your pick axe.

Far Cry 3 did the same. One moment your character pukes after gutting an enemy, the next you murder a dozen without batting an eye and wipe out an endangered species while at it. It's a wierd dissonance. One most games even simply ignore while letting you butcher your way around. Spec Ops is one of the few games that not only uses violence as a game mechanic, but also makes its effects upon your character it's main motive. Wish gaming did something more with this.

 

[Captain Shrek]

"Ludo Narrative Dissonance"

Angthoron

 

[Tehdagah]

What about admitting that 'videogame' is a poor media to develop stories and just let the gratuitous violence flow in action games?

 

[JarlFrank]

Protip: if you want to make a game that has a character for whom killing is hard, don't make killing the main gameplay element.
Go make an adventure game. Or an RPG that allows you to skip most combat encounters/solve them by diplomacy.
Or, in the case of Tomb Raider, make a game that focuses on exploring ruins and solving puzzles, like, you know, an actual Tomb Raider game.

 

[octavius]

What about admitting that 'videogame' is a poor media to develop stories and just let the gratuitous violence flow in action games?

Too many failed movie directors and authors end up making video games instead, I guess.

 

[Commissar Draco]

New Tomb Raider is basically Snuff Porn Movie but since it has LOL Girl Powah! theme and show no nipple nobody give a damn.

 

[JarlFrank]

I like playing a violent game once in a while, it's very relaxing and lets you let off some steam. Feels good to see those pixel guts fly through the air.

 

[Scruffy]

i've got amazing news for you guys
i don't feel bad because i know it's not real

 

[Kane]

I have never played a game because of its violence in my life. What I mean by that is that I don't mind gib flowing across my screen, but if there is nothing behind that I get bored fast.

Modern games are ususally all about flashy stuff, like the over-the-top violence in the current Tomb Raider game. That game just screams "guys lets show you how awesome our animators are at killing lara croft". It's incredibly pretentious.

 

[Commissar Draco]

RAW making sense ITZ came!

 

[Jaesun]

Modern AAA Developers..... doing something a bit more creative?

 

[Infinitron]

Errant Signal tried to explain it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-errant-signal-thread.74564/page-4#post-2009148

 

[DwarvenFood]

I do disagree with Super Mario being defined as "violent" and the article should have given Special Ops: The Line more attention.

 

[Angthoron]

"Ludo Narrative Dissonance"

Angthoron

I actually had to google what the hell that means.

And... I got nothing. I can't even adequately react to this kind of bullshit terms anymore it seems.

Anyway, even if words like these can be permitted to exist as part of game studies, why are they used in mainstream media? When I speak to normal people, I don't use my work lingo, or my studies lingo, or my gaming lingo, I use normal words that people typically understand.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I actually had to google what the hell that means.

And... I got nothing. I can't even adequately react to this kind of bullshit terms anymore it seems.

Anyway, even if words like these can be permitted to exist as part of game studies, why are they used in mainstream media? When I speak to normal people, I don't use my work lingo, or my studies lingo, or my gaming lingo, I use normal words that people typically understand.

But but I am so deep&edgy!!

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

"Gruesome murder simulator"
It's kinda sickening how the gaming journalist shits fail to notice that these games (like Manhunt or the newest Tomb Raider) are about trying to avoid getting horribly murdered by various kinds of sick fucks that probably don't even deserve to be called "human".
So, now self-defence against getting raped and murdered is "gruesome murder"? LIBRULS!

 

[dnf]

Story needs to support gameplay and not be a entirely separated segment ala GTA4 "lolz emo" to "lolz imma kill u ramming with my robbed car".

 

[Gozma]

JIBE WITH THE NARRATIVE

NOT JIVE

JIBE

 

[JarlFrank]

Story needs to support gameplay and not be a entirely separated segment ala GTA4 "lolz emo" to "lolz imma kill u ramming with my robbed car".

Which is probably what's meant by ludo-narrative dissonance.

Basically it means "if your game has lots of action and shooting and fighting, don't try to shoehorn an EMOSHUNAL story into it, just focus on the goddamn fucking action, shooting and fighting".
Narrative should support gameplay. Gameplay should support narrative. If you want to write emotional stories, go to Hollywood. Or Bioware. If you make an action game, make the hero or heroine into a badass, 80's B-movie style.

The original Lara was just a young aristocrat who has a thing for archaeology and goes into ancient tombs in order to find artifacts she can add to her personal collection. And when she met with adversity, she cracked cool one-liners and took out her guns and duked it out.
And that's why the original Lara is way better than the new one.

Dialogues like this:


Modern gaming journalism likes to equate games to movies. Well, okay. That's fine. But I want my action games to be like THIS:

 

[Trash]

Jarlfrank gets it.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Bullets, Wheels and Tits... would make better action game than modern emo faggotery and pretentious sophistry straight from gender studies Yes I speak to you Biowhore.

 

[Yeesh]

http://www.destructoid.com/you-should-feel-bad-but-games-don-t-want-you-to-247794.phtml

Pretty interesting article on violence at Destructoid. Actually raises a few interesting points, like how easy it is to simply fill your game with gratuitous violence instead of doing something a bit more creative.

It's not just vidya games. All media is marching towards moar explicitness and less brainpower-needed. So while we all see the wisdom of the well considered chorus of "DUURRRR DUUURRR GAME JURNALISTZ DONT UNDAWSTANDD THAT THOSE WAZ BAD GUIZE SO ITS OK GOD THEER SO DUMB",
(

"Gruesome murder simulator"
It's kinda sickening how the gaming journalist shits fail to notice that these games (like Manhunt or the newest Tomb Raider) are about trying to avoid getting horribly murdered by various kinds of sick fucks that probably don't even deserve to be called "human".
So, now self-defence against getting raped and murdered is "gruesome murder"? LIBRULS!

)
you'll be saddened to discover there are similar observations being made by idiot journalists who cover other forms of entertainment as well.

The destructoid article reminded me of this other whining I read about a week ago. This part is practically an echo right down to the glib smile, even though the topic is a little different:

The problem with a show like The Following is that the violence becomes entirely programmatic. ... every episode contains a gruesome killing or act of desperate violence. The physical stakes—wouldn’t it suck to be stabbed?—become essentially the same as the internal stakes, in which every character just wants to not be stabbed. (Or set on fire, or vivisected, or…) The Following is a horror show, and horror doesn’t necessarily need to have huge internal stakes, because usually, the need for survival supersedes all other needs. But the consequence is that the show becomes a grim, relentless march toward more and more death, where everything is treated with a glib smile, and the prospect of further brutality becomes popcorn fodder, if not completely empty.

Subtlety is for idiots. True connoisseurs of entertainment know that STAB BURN CUT BAD GUYS BECAUSE THEYS ALL EVUL is the very opposite of the idiot lowest common denominator approach. The very, very opposite.

 

[DalekFlay]

i've got amazing news for you guys
i don't feel bad because i know it's not real

 

[tuluse]

Hideo Kojima was using game mechanics to make you feel bad about killing your enemies a decade ago, and giving the player an alternative so it was player initiative that made him kill, not because that's the only way to advance the game.

Why do game journalists have the memory capacity of a gold fish?

And to beat Thief on the hardest difficulty you had to go through it without killing any humans.

Fuck this "you have to kill to advance the game. lol you should feel bad for doing what the game required you to do to advance" bullshit.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Subtlety is for idiots. True connoisseurs of entertainment know that STAB BURN CUT BAD GUYS BECAUSE THEYS ALL EVUL is the very opposite of the idiot lowest common denominator approach. The very, very opposite.

Conflating self-defence with murder isn't subtle. It's demented. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people here, including me could write a critique of extreme violence in games without idiotic sensationalist shit like that.