(no subject)

[egypturnash]

As a side note, since some people seem to want to convince me that Bioshock is actually a really good game - an opinion you're welcome to have; it's clearly a finely-crafted instance of an experience I simply don't care to have - I would like to note that so far, the only FPS I've actually enjoyed as a game is Thief, which I've been playing on and off the past week via Rik's machine. I had fun with System Shock 2 a couple years back but by the end, I was sick and tired of the basic game mechanics and just wanted to find out what happened to SHODAN. I really don't like FPSs.

As I've gotten older, I've slowly learnt how to see people as, well, people. I'm not very good at it; I never was. As video-game technology marches on, the creatures the games pit you against have gotten more like people. When I play some games made in the last decade or so, I can feel them training me to see people as just things. I'm still working out what factors make this happen; it's only a handful of games that do this so far.

I really think that the increasing drive for 'realism' in video games means that the game industry has a big moral quandry coming up. The forty-year-long focus on the hurt button as the core mechanic becomes creepier as the things you hurt become more and more like people. What happens when the project lead on a game focused on killing and blood plays his game and feels that weird sense that it's gnawing away at something in his soul? What happens when this is a regular occurrence?

A few major choice-points over, there's another me who went into video games. Is she (or he; I might never have transitioned in that life-path) getting ever more uncomfortable with these themes, or has it been completely burnt out of her by this point?

Comments

[xyzzysqrl]

This is one point where we intersect and I agree. Hate hate HATE 'realism' in games. Don't want realistic. Not why I'm playing the game. Want bright colors or big lumbering Clearly Evil monsters, not realistic army guys. *sulky*

[neogeen.livejournal.com]

Watch me crumble under the oncoming stampede. :D

See, I "rented" Bioshock (we can check out games at work) after playing the demo. I loved the demo and I did enjoy the small percentage I got to play on the 360 (it's also safe to note that I enjoy FPS's a lot). But throughout the whole thing I didn't really want to shoot people/things in Bioshock, I just wanted to know what was going on. In the end, I turned it back in the next day...and you know why?

We started playing SNATCHER (on the sega-CD) and all I could think of was the next chance we'd get to play more SNATCHER. (Playing it in tandem with a friend, so two, two, two times the brainpower D:). Still, Bioshock (for me) is awesome and fun, but a game from 1992 won. There are no easy answers in SNATCHER, you actually have to write things down. Gasp! Though funny enough there is still a fps element to the older game to (you play it with a light zapper).

I'm also of the crowd that will play all the current games (played a bunch of junk on the ps3, yawn YAWN, and most of the popular 360 stuff just doesn't do it for me) but I'll go apeshit over a good sidescroller made with pixels.

Cause somewhere in my dreams I'd still love to see someone (anyone? hellooo out there) take the processing power and memory size of the current next-gen systems and make a 2-d castleroid game that uses it all. Hell yes I would play a sidescroller that would take me a gazillion hours to beat. Keembeasts can dream!

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Now, this having been said (four times over!) I'll note that Metroid Prime 3 has had me on the edge of my seat 'cause the FPS elements are perfectly balanced with the non-FPS stuff and the (admittedly way too simple) puzzle stuff and the wonderfully matured plot. It's amazing what happens when you have to try to tie a whole established mythos together at once, and seven other games have established one hell of a sprawling mythos.

Then again, if they'd made it a side-scroller, I'd probably not only be just as excited, but more likely to replay it. I grok 2D games more. I don't get lost as much, and I spend less time map-checking and more time just exploring and taking it all in. I've played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night well over a dozen times. Metroid Prime 2 got one and a half plays.

As a note, I think the 'gazillion hours to beat' thing is a bit weird. Many of the old-school games that we spent months on... well, they took months when you totaled up the time spent mapping for oneself, the frustration of fiercely limited controls, the confusion from poorly-translated text if it was there, and the fact that they were much more likely to use the same elements over a hundred times in slightly different ways and today's audience won't stand for it. If every area doesn't have a wholly divergent set of graphics, then they don't even consider it finished. Times have changed and so have gamers.

Also (and forgive me for rambling!) we were much likely to dig out all the quirks and nooks and crannies of a game when it was the only one we had, or one of only a small handful. Purchasing power now means we can buy every interesting game as it hits. Back then? Hell, I never actually owned Super Mario 2. I rented it for one weekend (beat it, too — mad gamer!)

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

It's simple! If you ask these questions, then you're a mindless dupe of Jack Thompson, you take games way too seriously, and you should drink until your vocabulary is reduced to the word "awesome." Anybody who claims people might have a good, nuanced reason for being disturbed by the levels of violence in video games is simply trying to distract you from THE TRUTH, because deep down all they really want to do is censor you, not push video games into exploring a broader range of human experience. Also, BEER.

;D

[neogeen.livejournal.com]

Hey now! I'm an awesomely awesome advocate of the word awesome.

How do you like my awesome textual protest to your not-awesome comment!

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!

<3

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I find myself sometimes agreeing with the people gamer-nerds dismiss. Some of the stuff that 'anti-game crusaders' go after doesn't sit very well with me, and I've been loving the medium of video games since I first got hooked by Defender repeatedly handing my eight-year-old ass to me.

There are games out there that are not things that a kid should be able to buy and play; there are high-budget games that I'm not comfortable with anyone playing.

Thompson looked like an idiot when he went after 'Bully' just because it was from Rockstar - but, you know, that's a company whose whole brand identity has become 'games that trigger that queasy soul-corroding feeling in me'.

reposted comment from xyzzy's journal

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

I think Bioshock is kind of like a grilled tofu, arugula, and butter sandwich. It's on a nice, warm crusty sourdough roll that looks just great on the plate, it's got some very healthy content, it's got some colorful gourmet ingredients you don't get to see too often, and it's got a little something goopy and decadent to appeal to the hindbrain. But I can't help looking at it and saying, "That looks delicious, but are you sure you needed to use the whole stick of butter?"

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

I really do enjoy first person sneakers more than first person shooters. Figuring out interesting ways to deceive an AI is usually a lot more fun than thinking up different ways to shoot an AI. I've been playing through Bioshock, and I am throughly enjoying the lovingly crafted art and art deco everythings, But even compared to system shock 2 I'm finding myself displeased at the way it's dumbed down.

As a PC gamer I reflexively think that any game on a console is going to be more geared to a beer swilling idiot than a borderline savant like myself. In both SS2 and Deus Ex (made by Ion Storm, who you forgot to include in your struck out list in that other post) forced you to make moral decisions, and also forced you to make strategic decisions favoring combat, engineering, or superpowers.

Despite having a potent and interesting story, the gameplay of Bioshock involves only one moral choice, kill little girls or do not kill little girls. It's not much of a conundrum. Also you advance in power with your supernatural abilities, engineering abilities and combat abilities all at the same time so there really is no strategic reason to choose between them.

The story and art are beautiful, but it's a mystery that involves shooting my way to the answers, which was never really my favorite kind of detective work. I do like some level of violence for exhilaration, as a penalty for a screw up, but combat is pretty much the only way to solve a given problem in Bioshock.

I *Love* the theif series. I've got 1, 2, and 3, and regularly replay them, just because they're so weird and moody and special.

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

[...] forced you to make moral decisions, and also forced you to make strategic decisions favoring combat, engineering, or superpowers. Despite having a potent and interesting story, the gameplay of Bioshock involves only one moral choice, kill little girls or do not kill little girls.

And in a game so rich with potential for real exploration of philosophy and failings thereof, it really hurts to watch a roommate plow through along essentially a single path and be rewarded for it. She explained that whether you killed the little girls or not actually affected the ending because of your moral choices, and I was kind of impressed. Then I noted that she was hacking the vending machines for cheaper or free goods.

"How does that affect the ending?" I asked.

"Hunh? It doesn't," she said.

"But... you're stealing."

"Yeah, but it doesn't affect the ending."

". . . what about the moral decisions? You're stealing. You're what they call a Parasite."

"It's not like anybody's collecting the cash, and anyhow, it doesn't affect the ending."

Is this what people think I'm like when I explain that I'm an atheist and don't expect an afterlife? Just because nothing I do changes the ending, it's all just fine?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I got Deus Ex used and gave it up about three missions in. Largely because the PS(X|2? I can't remember.) port had hideous load time issues, but also because the whole thing kept frustrating my instinctive urge to sneak around - IIRC, it seemed to dole out a lot more of the tools you needed for shooting everything in sight than for sneaking around and not killing anyone.

(Plus, it was really, really, ugly compared to everything else I had on that machine.)

Oh, and as someone who took the console path back at the console/PC split, I think of PC gamers as either withered old fogeys with no reflexes who get off on tedious, fiddly simulations of running a convenience store chain or something, or as emotionally-retarded twelve-year-olds whose entire library is nothing but ugly FPSs. And both sets react with puzzlement or hostility to games with any sense of whimsey.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I'm playing the first FPS I've really enjoyed now for the Wii -- Elebits. :) (They insist you're not shooting them, just 'capturing' them.

[aprivatefox.livejournal.com]

Derailing slightly from original intent - how do you get through the doors in Elebits? I had a great time with it, until I got seven or eight levels in and found myself having problems opening doors consistently enough to make it through the levels. I've been figuring I never quite got the trick, and I got distracted - but it's such a pretty, charming little game, and I'd love to play more!

(frozen)

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

There is part of me that really wanted to like Bioshock. I really did. It took one of my pet ideas that I like to play around with (Underwater cities), mixxed it with something else I loved (Art Deco), and... then twisted it's head off.

Don't get me wrong, in general I love the archtecture of the game and some of the concepts are neat. However... I am put off by the oblivious glee people have been having killing small girls, and in general, I don't get much enjoyment out of FPS'ers. The story isn't enough to keep me there, and thanks to the 'nets, I've gotten the story secondhand anyway.

The idea that it's a moralistic play is just a sick joke. There is no meaningful choice given to you in the game, so killing the girls is just a question of which ending and how many resources you really want. If it wasn't that the game rotates around an xp system where it rewards you for killing little girls....

... ugh... It's a bad game, game-design wise, and if this is what people think are moralistic choices one can make in a computer game... it's a sad state.

(frozen)

[xyzzysqrl]

Actually, you get much greater rewards (and achivement points) for never having killed one.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I've never enjoyed FPS so I probably wouldn't enjoy that either. OTOH, I did.... uh... not exactly enjoy Rule of Rose, but I found it compelling enough to play all the way through.

It's sort of a psychological horror kind of game and the characters are disturbingly lifelike. OTOH, you don't generally want to try to fight/kill the other children, you want to run away from them as much as possible. Also, most of them are wearing grotesque costumes, be it a brown grocery sack over their head with a twisted face drawn on it, or freaky bird costumes. You get a sense that the things are still human even if they don't _look_ human, so it's rather disturbing, but that's the point of a horror-survival puzzle game, isn't it?

So. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I probably wouldn't play Bioshock, even a demo, just because it's not the sort of thing that interests me. I also generally don't like gore in video games. I'd rather things explode into stars than splatter blood everywhere. I guess I just have a weird exception for horror genre. (Although I don't like slasher films, come to think of it. Perhaps I have an exception for gothy lesbians and giant airships)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I generally avoid gore-fest horror films, too. Evil Dead 2 amused me for its sheer absurdity, but most of the stuff that centers around gore effects? Bleah, get it the fuck away from me.

I avoid horror games too. The one time I tried to play one of the much-loved Resident Evil games, I threw it away because of its hideous fucking controls, never mind the looming prospect of being forced to do and stare at really nasty things. When I bitched about the controls I got told that this is somehow normal for horror games. Ew.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

Thief is awesome. Thief III is profoundly awesome. But Thief II is made of utmost awesome, dipped in awesome, with awesome chips baked into the awesome frosting.

I sorta keep coming back to Thief II, you see. :) It hits the balance point between graphic complexity and gameplay that makes me go "oooOH!" Skulking around, confusing guards, being sneaky. And I'm fond of the way that increasing the difficulty reduces the number of knockouts or kills you're allowed - I like a mindset that equates 'professionalism' with 'no injuries, no killings'. A gentleman thief. No trace left behind.

That said, I occasionally load up I and III again. The story arc helps draw me back.

Now, if they worked the lockpicking mechanism of T:III into the gameplay of T:II, I'd be a happy rabbit. |D

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel bad that my methodology in it is mostly 'sneak up and knock people out' so far - when I can manage to do something without even knocking a guard out, I feel a lot better! I am, however, playing it on expert, because, well, I'd be doing my best to not kill anyone anyway.

I dunno how it went over with FPS fans, but it's one of the few first-person games I've actually enjoyed playing. And I think it's the only one where I'm actually enjoying the gameplay instead of just suffering through it for the story or the technical awesomeness.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Okay, so you've got an increasing level of opponants who have AI to "think," and you've got an increasing level of opponants who look like people, right, because those are both valued bits of development.

I figure that at some future point development hits the uncanny valley where the critters you're beating up act and look like people, like you said, and then you have several stylistic issues emerging;
1.) It's not escape anymore, so the critters are made to look more stylized.
2.) More realistic characters are saved for lower key games. For instance, you might have a game about being a gangster of the '20s, and being able to inflict violence on someone would be an important choice - but only as important as negotiation and purchasing. The violence would fit into the greater scheme of things.
3.) The Army would eagerly welcome this as a method for training.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

3: bingo.

One of the reasons I avoid FPSs in general is that they feel like dehumanization training. Like the kind of stuff I read about being put through in boot camp so that when they say 'shoot', you shoot, and your moral qualms come after.

I have a low enough Humanity score to start with.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

No spoilers, but there's a cut scene in Thief later on that's about the best thing I've ever seen. To this day it ranks as one of my favorite game moments ever. :D

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

I'm not enamored of realistic violence, either. I also feel the same about realistic language or sexuality in games as well, but that's another issue. :)

So far, every game I have worked on has been essentially rated "T for Teen" even if the gameplay itself was complicated enough to fall into an older market segment (Battlezone and Battlezone 2). Aside from that, there has been no realistic violence, language, or sexuality in any game I've worked on. I've been helping out on Mercenaries 2 for the past few months and even that is fairly bloodless (if nihilistic).

Adding graphic violence, strong language, or blatant sexuality does not make your game better. It might make it more realistic (depending on the context), but I think it's more often a crutch to get more attention or appealing to specific market segments. (It's often a matter of "if you can't be good, be controversial".)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I wish there was even half as much realistic sexuality in video games as there is realistic violence. But that's not unique to video games; see the George Carlin routine (on 'Class Clown' IIRC) where he goes over this issue by doing a bunch of generic Western dialogue, with 'kill' replaced by 'fuck'.

Controversial: I can't help but think of Rockstar's 'Manhunt', which was (by all reports; I never actually tried the thing) full of tons of really unpleasant violence, and not actually a good game underneath that. And sold like ass.

[stinkygoat.livejournal.com]

I don't really like realism. I like to be abstract to the point where more than being construed as a destructive action, you might consider the shots in a shooter to be not so much killing something as letting off pretty fireworks or something. Too much realistic crunching of bone and spurting of blood and killing of people or creatures doesn't really appeal because for one it's not something I'd ever actually want to do in a realistic world, nor is it anything I'd want to do to relax, and for me the places i want to go when i'm gaming are chilled abstract spaces where I can fit in to some kind of beautiful rhythm and structure and candy-coloured procedural feedback loop where every action and motion just feels nice. A bit like being off your tits but without the necessity for actually taking any drugs.

I also like the idea that people could enjoy watching me play in the same way they might enjoy watching a fireworks show. Just dancing in the light and enjoying the way it all moves and the stuff that follows beautifully from actions.

Crunching bone and spurting blood and the death of creatures have no part in that, really. It's just the intersection of bits of neon energy, and I want to make that intersection pretty and enjoyable and satisfying and lovely rather than disturbing. Not everyone will like that, I know, but hey :).

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

There's this weird thing in Western culture where abstraction and simplification are considered to be 'for kids'. 'Realism' is for adults. And media with roots in abstraction, like games, or like the cartoons and animation my career involves, has to wallow in 'realism' as it tries to mature and grow up. Which somehow seems to translate into 'all the horrible stuff a moody 12-year-old boy draws in his notebook'.

I've had the occasional moment of no-mind while playing a game: I stop thinking and just sit back and watch my reflex loops play it. I almost wonder if that's a reason in and of itself to avoid hyperviolent games - I don't feel like it's really a good idea to be in a meditative, open-to-the-world state when your main sensory input is anti-life brutality.

I like the way you intersect bits of neon. It's made me giggle happily for years.

[grrrowly.livejournal.com]

Gasp! You don't like the big trendy game of the moment? How dare you have a divulgant point of view! :O

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And apparently I, and anyone else who thinks that this game is kinda creepy, needs to be educated about how wrong we are in GREAT detail about the intense wonderfulness of ALL the Hobson's choices the game offers you. Ugh.

Man what a flame war:P

[warlockd.livejournal.com]

I like the game, the story is great, has exclenet twists, and you learn alot thoughout the game.

To be honest, I think everyone is moaning about "to kill or not kill the girls" issue way to much. ITS A GAME. If your the moral kind of person who don't kill them, great. If you want instant Atom, good too!

To be honest, while all the play dynamics evolve over the game and it keeps you interested in the FPS side, the only reason you play this one though is to see the rest of the story line. Lets face it, Half-life and the sequel would never of been as good as they were if it wasn't for the story, as marginal as it was.

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

Actually, that whole concept of videogames becoming both more and more realistic about rendering violence without talking about the impact of such a thing is being addressed in a videogame called Haze.

I plan on getting ahold of bioshock when I get a chance, but I am a little disappointed with how they handle the 'moral ambiguity' of killing children. There really is no punishment for killing the Little Sisters outside of getting the bad ending, and that does make me a little sad. I mostly look forward to playing it because it looks like a fun shooty game that hits upon certain gameplay mechanics that I rather like.

I do think that it's a good example of something that was too overhyped for it's own good. I see a trend in games to make the AI more complex and more intelligent in an animalistic manner, but I don't see nearly enough focus on the human element of that AI.

I'm not talking about guards in every city knowing that your neat suit or armor is stolen, or that people in town know you are a big hero. I'm talking about your choices as a player actually shaping your place in the world.

For example, a lot of RPGs give you more dialogue choices due to your intelligence, but how many of those filter those choices through your previous choices. If you make your character lie, wouldn't it make sense that the more honest answers would slowly get weeded out?

Frankly, for all the advances in AI and graphics, I haven't seen any improvements in this area since Baulder's Gate came out like 10 years ago.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard a little about Haze playing with that issue. I will be curious to see how the designers deal with it once you get to the endgame: is the only solution still to spurt hot death from your gun? Or will there be a transformation of the game mechanic from 'first-person shooter' to 'first-person something else'?

Games look and sound a lot better than they used to, but in terms of the fundamental interactions between the player and the environment there's been no change since the 80s. Non-violent interactions are relegated to 'casual' games or even slower-moving games; I really think there's a ton of unexplored play mechanics out there that can be fast-moving, fun, and about something besides death. So many of our big-budget games are programming us to reflexively hurt, and that can't be good in the long run.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

A write up of my thoughts following our conversation on IM... (http://barberio.livejournal.com/279278.html)

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

I got a good laugh out of Zero Punctuation's BioShock review. :)