yeah like ragnar said (or Zizek. Or Hundley. Or Wittgenstein...) a game that parodies/criticizes violent videogames and culture WHILE being the unapologetic, gloriously polished holy temple and theme park of violence in of itself?? Hah hah, man i don't... i don't think i can handle this level of critical thought any longer *pisses to leg, interesting fractals piss patterns forms into the military pants* 

I never played a GTA and it never occurred to me that there's any parody involved. going by these comments and my own impressions, I assume it's not really effectively parody, more of a dumb "LOL...WE KNOW!!" that sorta serves as an excuse or apology to anyone conscious enough to realize they're enjoying a game that's all about glorifying violence and a fantastic impression of crime.
 
going by the trailer they play on TV, it looks like in this game you get to play an honest to goodness badass doing epic manly boss crime fantasy bullshit. parody can't salvage that

I assume the difference between spec ops and Farcry is a qualitative change in content and not just metaphorical character which is supposed to exorcise the content of its banality.

yeah, i generally thought so. i think beyond everything else, the main difference is the way the games acknowledge your behavior and the way the narrative gives you feedback about what you've done. in far cry 3 there isn't really a ton of useful or informative feedback outside of one of your friends occasionally saying YOU'VE CHANGED or the main character saying something slightly gross contextually. i did just play the first half, so i may not be giving the game sufficient credit in this department, but when i gave up on the game there wasn't any genuine conflict beyond that which you really see in something like call of duty: the main character going on some gross, unproductive killing spree, with no nagative consequence. certainly i found it gross, but no more gross than any of those other games, which is why i didn't find the experience singular enough to keep playing it. that the game is a sandbox game with a lot of mundane stuff to do doesn't really help matters, as there's no value to doing any of that, short of leveling up and making your murders a bit easier. i got the feeling that the game's writer had some larger metaphoric intent with that, but it was completely lost on me as an unnecessary component of an already uneventful narrative. i guess ultimately it was there just as another reward system in a game that shouldn't have had more reward systems, but i didn't find more repulsive things happening to have much of a useful cumulative effect beyond just making the game more unpleasant to play over time. that's kinda the point, sure, but it's the same reason why i don't like playing call of duty. i have a difficult time saying we need more of that sort of thing, nearly verbatim no less.

in some ways spec ops: the line is still a rather similar game, but the narrative is a lot less passive in how it responds to what you do in the game. it's without a lot of useless distractions, and the game systematically goes about showing how everything you've done in the game is terrible. far cry 3 kinda glosses over the enemies of the game for the most part, as they're all mindless predators in one way or another and easily justified internally as self-defense, but over the course of the line you see that the player character is the predator, and you're made acutely aware that absolutely everything you've done in the game was unnecessary and without positive benefit. i find this a whole lot more interesting. i've never really played a game quite like this, where the whole function of the narrative is to go about systematically frowning on you even playing the game at all, hence my giving it probably a little bit more credit than it deserves. there's no real reward to anything you've done, everybody hates you, and there's nothing you can really do to get the traditional levels of internal game satisfaction. the whole thing is still rather heavy-handed, and it's still rather depressing how spec ops the line has more value/function in the context of videogame storytelling being deplorable, but it is nice that we're starting to see more games where the function of the narrative isn't to just tell the player how great they are for completing its arbitrary tasks, where there exists legitimately harsh consequence for normally brainless videogame behavior.

it is the same game in a sense, with both games being explorations of the misery of armed conflict, the point of both ultimately being that the player character is wrong to have gone about it this way. but spec ops the line is compelling for its rather active feedback alone, doing a rather good job of showing you the horrors you have perpetuated amidst your naively good intentions. far cry 3, lacking this, just doesn't feel substantially different from the experience a sane person could have objectively playing call of duty.

I've not played Spec Ops: The Line or GTAV so I'm commenting purely on second-hand information about both, but here's some thoughts that I guess those who have played them can say more on.  What I've heard about Spec Ops from some friends who played it is that even though it does the "these things you did were bad", the message is kind of lost in a game where you have no choice but to do them.  Like, it's weird to feel guilty about actions you had no control over?  "You shouldn't have done that thing..."  How, by not playing at all?  It seems weird to criticize actions that the player doesn't actually have a say in.  As for GTAV, my general impression of GTA games as parody/commentary in general has always been like someone making really racist jokes then going "no but it's a PARODY of racism" when it's like "you're doing the exact same thing as real racism though there is no meaningful distinction here".  Like, if players are still being rewarded for beating a woman on the street to death, I don't think it matters that it's going "games sure are violence-obsessed huh?"  I mean I think Saints Row 3 at least made a better attempt at this because it was SO over the top and unreal.  Sure, you'd kill a woman on the street, but typically it was because you were driving a pixel art tank down that street.  And even then I think that only goes so far, because this is still the same game where you load up a bunch of abused sex workers like cattle and decide whether to sell them back or keep them.  Ultimately I don't think there's a point to that sort of "look at the state of things now" if the way you go about pointing it out is to do the same things as the thing you're doing commentary on and then not inspire any change.  Is GTAV going to encourage less focus on violence in games?  Is it going to make gamers see how bad these actions are?  I'm gonna doubt it.  SR3 isn't either, even if it's closer.  They're both still encouraging the same bad actions.  That's not criticism, that's just doing the same thing you've always been doing while pretending you're somehow progressive for doing it.
 
That was a whole lot of words to just say
 

a game that parodies/criticizes violent videogames and culture WHILE being the unapologetic, gloriously polished holy temple and theme park of violence in of itself?? Hah hah, man i don't... i don't think i can handle this level of critical thought any longer *pisses to leg, interesting fractals piss patterns forms into the military pants* 

so GTA is family guy basically can I just assume this and go on with my life

snyp

I've not played Spec Ops: The Line or GTAV so I'm commenting purely on second-hand information about both, but here's some thoughts that I guess those who have played them can say more on.  What I've heard about Spec Ops from some friends who played it is that even though it does the "these things you did were bad", the message is kind of lost in a game where you have no choice but to do them.  Like, it's weird to feel guilty about actions you had no control over?  "You shouldn't have done that thing..."  How, by not playing at all?  It seems weird to criticize actions that the player doesn't actually have a say in.

i don't see how the lack of a happy ending choice diminsihes what this shows about life and military conflict. there are definitely choices in spec ops: the line, but invariably all of them are just lesser of two evils choices, it really comes down to a lack of a real happy ending choice. the whole story is a literal nightmare situation where there's just nothing you can do to make this terrible circumstance right, which is a real-life concept that people should probably become a little more intimately acquainted with. the whole "we were just following orders" phenomenon is one of the central themes of the game, so it'd be a legitimate cop-out to provide a way to resolve these conflicts with the basic dignity of the main characters intact. that's kinda the best way to really convey that effectively.

just talking about spec ops though, not gta. i don't think rockstar has their heads screwed on right.

Quote from: Vellfire on September 22, 2013, 11:50:20 am

I've not played Spec Ops: The Line or GTAV so I'm commenting purely on second-hand information about both, but here's some thoughts that I guess those who have played them can say more on.  What I've heard about Spec Ops from some friends who played it is that even though it does the "these things you did were bad", the message is kind of lost in a game where you have no choice but to do them.  Like, it's weird to feel guilty about actions you had no control over?  "You shouldn't have done that thing..."  How, by not playing at all?  It seems weird to criticize actions that the player doesn't actually have a say in.

i don't see how the lack of a happy ending choice diminsihes what this shows about life and military conflict. there are definitely choices in spec ops: the line, but invariably all of them are just lesser of two evils choices, it really comes down to a lack of a real happy ending choice. the whole story is a literal nightmare situation where there's just nothing you can do to make this terrible circumstance right, which is a real-life concept that people should probably become a little more intimately acquainted with. the whole "we were just following orders" phenomenon is one of the central themes of the game, so it'd be a legitimate cop-out to provide a way to resolve these conflicts with the basic dignity of the main characters intact. that's kinda the best way to really convey that effectively.

just talking about spec ops though, not gta. i don't think rockstar has their heads screwed on right.

Ah see this makes sense.  I definitely wasn't advocating for a happy choice, but I was under the impression that there weren't a lot of actual choices in the game.  If the game forces you to do something terrible then berates you for it that would be pretty dang stupid and not make any sort of point.  I can't really argue anything else since I haven't played it myself, but yeah from the talk I had seen about it it sounded like there wasn't much choice at all in those matters and then the game is like LOOK AT THIS BAD THING YOU DID, but maybe that's not the case then.

If the game forces you to do something terrible then berates you for it that would be pretty dang stupid and not make any sort of point.

well no, it does more or less do that throughout the entire game, i just don't think that automatically negates the point. *spoilers* there is a part where the game forces you to indiscriminately fire white phosphorus at some perceived foe, and the next scene is a section where you go out there to see what you've done and you see everybody melting, including 75 or so civilians that, unbeknownst to you, happened to be there. it's a really horrifying scene, probably one of the most upsetting things i've seen in a videogame, but it depicts the sheer brutality of violence as clearly as i've ever seen the medium do it. you can take a look at the scene here, though it has a lot more weight contextually, with the main characters spending the whole game talking up their great intentions and there otherwise not being very much negative feedback for the senseless murder you're committing.

so yeah, in this game there's no choice for the big stuff you do and the game recognizes you as a monster for doing all of it, but that's where the strength of the point comes from i think. this game would have been pretty terrible and without a lot to say if it had offered choices for these major atrocities it has you commit.

I think the intended message is ultimately "For enjoying/playing war simulating shooters, you are a terrible person. Repent." or at least "Companies that produce these games need to be stopped and you are terrible for encouraging them."
 
But what I get from the story at face value itself is "This guy intended to do good, but made the situation worse exponentially by getting involved, thus he is a terrible person. Never get involved."
 
Both are view points I oppose. I don't think buying/playing/enjoying a violence focused video game makes you a bad person, and I don't agree with condemning a man for making things worse if he authentically wanted to make things better. Though I admire the developers for making a point in a video game at all.

As for forcing the player to commit atrocities in the first place to continue through the game I think that it actually undercuts the point if they are really trying to say the PLAYER rather than say the character is the bad guy.

i don't really think this is what spec ops: the line is about. it can certainly have the function of people rethinking what they're getting out of these terrible war shooters, how truthful those experiences are, but i have a difficult time accepting that it's just outright criticism of people who enjoy shooters, with little going on beyond that. although i kinda live in a fantasy world where stories have more valuable functions than insular critiques of their own lousy mediums, so i was kinda clinging to "this is what war is actually like" as what the game was really about. that definitely still makes the game generally a reaction to other games(which is somewhat lame), but i was hoping it was ultimately less of a you-are-awful-for-playing-shooters thing, more of a reasonably earnest attempt to destroy the mythos of the contemporary war hero. i think there is a difference, but that might just be me.

i just don't see the venom towards the player specifically, and don't remember ever having seen a game with that much sheer animosity towards the player. the game definitely tries to upset you, but there's enough of a buffer between the player and the main character/circumstances of the game where it seems to me that the game's entire structure is preying on the player's naivety and comfort level with games like this rather than actively criticizing it. i mean, at the end of the day, the character you are controlling is experiencing a complete mental breakdown, pretty sure they would have made the main character completely blank if the player was the ultimate target. sure, you can feel legitimately guilty about finding mindless enjoyment in war shooters after playing something like the line, but you can say the same thing after having a long somber conversation with a disabled veteran.

i'm definitely not saying you're wrong, playing this game has actually had this effect on people, and i do think some of these game companies need to more closely examine how they're telling these stories, i guess i'm saying that i hope you're wrong, that there's ultimately more to this experience than that.

yeah which is why I miss linear games so much. They could really apply more principal and storyline through making some linear ones but that would take more effort into the actual storytelling which very few of anything rarely has.

yes yes yes yes yes

glad to have someone else besides me saying this for a change