Haters? On the Codex!?This thread is full of haters.
Haters? On the Codex!?This thread is full of haters.
Haters? On the Codex!?This thread is full of haters.
Seriously, what is it with this evil capitalist line of accusation? The game sold like shit, it wasn't a money grab by any means. You don't see Call of Duty having you crack the necks of fallen enemies for ammo and the like. It just feels like you people are grasping at straws. It was a good game. Not a great game, and certainly no gem. Just a good game. That's that. Unless you can somehow specify a shooter with a deeper and more thought provoking story and theme you have no arguments.
Plus the very medium of a game is what makes the story shine the way it does. You wouldn't have these same moral quandries while watching Apocalypse Now or or Heart of Darkness, as those exist in entirely different realms. Undoubtedly their stories and methods of telling them are superior, but they are in no way as interactive or as immersive to the viewer as a video game.
Going by your logic a game is either Tetris-incarnate in the gameplay department or it has no reason for existing. That's a pretty dreadful view to ascribe to.
This thread is full of haters.
This thread is full of haters.
Yes, you know, because it's unfair to say the game is bad, just because gameplay sucks balls.
Just as it is unfair to say that Uwe Boll is a bad director, just because his movies are total turds.
Imagine that you could do really evil, war crime level shit on Spec Ops: the Line (really do and not only watch on cutscenes). Imagine if the enemies reacted more like real human beings, instead of cannon fodder robots to kill without guilt. Imagine the media reaction: Spec Ops: the line makes our children anti-patriotic psychopaths, the goverment should do something to protect our dumb children. I really don't have problem with the developers taking the easy way, they need to pay the bills, but I really don't like hipocrisy, gaming journalists pretending that Spec Ops is a really serious artsy discussion about war instead of a game with a poorly thought, convoluted, poorly told story full of narrative gimmicks and cheap shock moments( You see Walker! It's a mother holding her child, Walker!You monster... Hey Walker! You are seeing those guys hanged, crazy shit happened bro... You are seeing this fucking huge red pillar Walker? Its your insanity meter, it's full, it means you are batshit insane).Their problem, really, is that they still have to pander to the lower common denominator with the gameplay, and so the end result feels somewhat schizophrenic. This is the case for Spec Ops, DX:HR, Far Cry 3, and probably some others I'm forgetting.
but I really don't like hipocrisy, gaming journalists pretending that Spec Ops is a really serious artsy discussion about war
but I really don't like hipocrisy, gaming journalists pretending that Spec Ops is a really serious artsy discussion about war
But who thinks that? Spec Ops is not about war, it's about shooters.
Yes, this is what's expected of C&C in general. Some games do this, but only a few do this properly. Often you end up being like "What the fuck, really?" when the "consequence" catches up with you - it's not really a logical conclusion, it's not what you'd expect to happen necessarily.Fuck you guys. Here's how you set up a player for a proper fall:
1) Create a LOT of achievements, each of them given out for negative actions. Make these achievements tiered, say, 7 tiers or so, to keep compulsive achievement hunters going out of their way doing shit, from kicking puppies to mugging/theft to murder of civilians.
2) Set up a way in which the player begins to subtly/not-so-subtly see the consequences of his actions. DEHR has this on a certain level - steal shit from Sarif's employees, start getting requests to look into it, spiralling into further and further paranoia and accusations. Take it further, lead it from "Oh hey, there's a thief I could hunt?" to "Hey, it's me! LOL" to "Shit, I didn't really mean for THAT to happen, fuck fuck", preferably a little down the line so the player can't fall back to an earlier save.
3) Eventually reveal that the player's been an enormous douche, to put it mildly, throughout the course of the game, while they chased their achievements. Dead children/genocide/rivers of blood/mass hysteria.
Don't you feel bad now, player? All the while you could've avoided it, but you wanted those achievements, so have 'em.
Isn't this we always expected from C&C? But I would say that this is really the 'visual novel' perspective of games. Which is completely fair BTW. This is actually a great way to make the player emotionally engaged within the game unlike what Biowhore does with Romances and buttsex.
My point is that "survival horror gameplay" is often mechanically poor. You spend your time walking around with bad controls and shitty camera angles, occasionally engage in awkward combat, and solve easy puzzles. However, these deficiencies are intentional, and serve a specific purpose. They reinforce the atmosphere, and actually make sense in context - it's perfectly reasonable for your average everyman protagonist to be bad at fighting, for instance.
Hmm. This is a really an interesting point.
But what if it can be done without being awkward? To be honest I felt that Doom 3 did it okay. Yeah it was quite without depth and after a while you learned to expect zombies to jump out of every corner. But otherwise the mechanics was solid (except the mutually exclusive lamp/gun; but that was a design decision and I understand why it was there). The game had very traditional shooter mechanics, FP view and NO COVER. Still the dread of being in that world was palpable atleast to me.
I would also quote Dark Corners of the Earth except for its blurry screen.
Would you say that such a mechanics is excusable if the player is actively seeking out the realism in games under such situations?
For example in DCotE, the mechanics is supposed to create the impression of the character condition, which I think is done well enough.
And that is completely irrelevant.
And that is completely irrelevant.
Spec ops is a copy a of gears of war/CoD in terms of gameplay, there is shooting galleries, corridors, waves of enemies, regenerative health, obligatory machinegun on helicopter setpiece, there is nothing new, so they weren't trying to make a commentary about the gameplay of a modern shooter. You can see alot of ideas inspired in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, the protagonist becomes more and more insane because the crimes he commited trying to save people.
Alot of gaming journalists compares the story of this game with the story of the Call of Dutys and say how this game shows the true consequences of the things you do on the Call of Dutys.
A game does not have poor gameplay if the mechanics serve it right.
And that is completely irrelevant.
Spec ops is a copy a of gears of war/CoD in terms of gameplay, there is shooting galleries, corridors, waves of enemies, regenerative health, obligatory machinegun on helicopter setpiece, there is nothing new, so they weren't trying to make a commentary about the gameplay of a modern shooter. You can see alot of ideas inspired in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, the protagonist becomes more and more insane because the crimes he commited trying to save people.
Alot of gaming journalists compares the story of this game with the story of the Call of Dutys and say how this game shows the true consequences of the things you do on the Call of Dutys.
The connections to Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse are very superficial taking a few points and broad themes but little else. Your final paragraph argues the point you seemed to previously object to, so I don't even know what you're trying to say.
A game does not have poor gameplay if the mechanics serve it right.
So Spec Ops has good gameplay then?
It's like talking to a zombie, mindlessly drudging through life as a contrarian know-it-all. Its wisdom cannot be shaken, for there is no room left for the outside view. Like FretRider, but in a games discussion. Once, it had the capacity for two-way communication. It has long since forgotten this skill however, and now exists solely because of its own instinct for self-preservation. It has no goal, it is the incarnation of aimless. Strangers who encounter it get disgusted and mad at first, but once they become familiar with it, they look upon it with pity.
Most hope it will at some point regain its lost humanity. A few, however, take sadistic delight in its torment. The only common rule, is that no one notices it for long. As much as it ignores its opposition, it is, in the larger scheme of things, ignored itself.