Of course you could paint something using Nazi imagery, but it may not get across its intent too well. A paining has one way of engaging you, while a game has many more avenues available to delivering its message, one of which is unique to games (interactivity). I think this helps when it comes to dealing with more controversial subjects because of the direct engagement.
Idle Thumbs Megathread | Indepth discussion inbetween horsebags and birdsounds
- Thread starter Lijik
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firehawk12
Subete no aware
I don't really remember the Marvel stuff, but aren't Hydra just a branch of the Nazis or something?
But the bolded part is the crux of it. Some people are going to react differently to the imagery. You have a reviewer like Alex Navarro say that he didn't see any connection to the Nazis at all when he reviewed the game, so there will be people who can detach aesthetic from its political origins. Just like the creators.
I just wonder if that in itself isn't problematic. That there are people who see Nazi imagery but don't make any association with the Nazis. I don't know, really.
Well, something that came to mind was that people love to use, say, Norse or Roman imagery a lot when it comes to fictional universes, and those guys were utter bastards by modern standards. It's just Nazis are a lot more recent and the cultural memory of their shittiness is more pervasive?
The other thing I think is interesting is that if Luftrausers had put these pseudo-nazis as the bad guys no-one would have said a thing. Which probably speaks to the power of what you perceive yourself to be playing as, even when that is completely bare-bones as fuck. (There's no real characters, there's no story, there's no idealogy, there's nothing - just almost pure aesthetic).
By the way Firehawk, I felt like Girls und Panzers was sufficiently divorced from reality that none of that really bothered me. Or if it did bother me, I managed to put it aside and just fuwa fuwa my way through the show. (Actually the thing that did actually irritate me a little was Katushka because she's moe Stalin and that's a really weird image)
The other thing I think is interesting is that if Luftrausers had put these pseudo-nazis as the bad guys no-one would have said a thing. Which probably speaks to the power of what you perceive yourself to be playing as, even when that is completely bare-bones as fuck. (There's no real characters, there's no story, there's no idealogy, there's nothing - just almost pure aesthetic).
By the way Firehawk, I felt like Girls und Panzers was sufficiently divorced from reality that none of that really bothered me. Or if it did bother me, I managed to put it aside and just fuwa fuwa my way through the show. (Actually the thing that did actually irritate me a little was Katushka because she's moe Stalin and that's a really weird image)
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Of course recency matters. I mean, a thousand years from now, the Third Reich will be a footnote like the Roman empire, and people will probably use those aesthetics without feeling guilty about not also drawing on the political implications.
Hell, what I find interesting is the rise of Asian Nazism, and how there are kids in Asia who are using Nazi imagery in order to fight for racial purity. Mein Kampf is actually being published into various Asian languages, which is crazy. It's something that is still relevant to the world - even if it isn't to North American/European cultural history.
See, I remember pissing off pdot or someone by bringing it up all the time. I even compared it to the crazy people who like to dress up like Nazis in WW2 re-enactments (why would anyone CHOOSE to be a Nazi? Hell, why would anyone CHOOSE to be a Confederate soldier in one of those? I have no idea), so it's still a weird thing for me - even with the mostly good Reiko Yoshida scripts and the general message of the series.
The fact that it evoked Russian and American WW2 imagery as well (loli Russian aside) probably helps tone down the German stuff, but it's just... weird. lol
Thinking about it, the only other series that immediately springs to mind that used psuedo-Germanic WW1-2 era designs for the 'protagonist' side of things might be FMA. But that's such a huge work and there's a lot of nuance to the usage (both of the imagery and of the characters/faction) that it's kind of a completely separate thing, I guess.
Joseph Merrick
Member
I thought the overall tone of that whole conversation was completely unfair to the Vlambeer guys. Especially the way Sean talked. I have spent a lot of time in the netherlands and know a lot of dutch people, and that whole conversation reeked of ignorant americans. Pretty disappointing honestly.
BlastProcessing
Member
Could you explain what your problems were? I also thought it was fair but would welcome another view.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Sure, but of course, they were also led by a "Fuhrer", so...
I think they were very fair in how they adressed Vlambeer's response vis a vis the artists' dilemma of not knowing how something you make looks through other people's eyes or from a bird's eye view or until you're done making it, etc.
Vlambeer's response was weird though. It's clear that they thought it would be cool to control the evil side's superweapons for once. You fight them in so many games after all, what if you turned that around a bit. Not simply by having you capture the weapons, but by inhabiting the bad guys. It's a fair choice I suppose, but it does make you think about things.
Vlambeer's response was weird though. It's clear that they thought it would be cool to control the evil side's superweapons for once. You fight them in so many games after all, what if you turned that around a bit. Not simply by having you capture the weapons, but by inhabiting the bad guys. It's a fair choice I suppose, but it does make you think about things.
The protagonist's 'side' is also unequivocally evil, although I don't really remember them showing the military itself in any bad light, besides the whole following horrible orders side of things. The truly horrible stuff are almost always the machinations of some evil force. The genocide that already occured, future plans and the disturbing stuff about human experimentation.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
The less we talk about the movie the better!
Well, the upper echelons of the military are unambigously evil, but everyone else seems okay. (Amestris as a society is also arguably evil, or at the very least focused on carving itself out an Empire, but that's not straying further from the main point and kind of tied into the 'evil force' argument).
Aesthetically though everything is still 1930s Germany, which was more my point. But I guess it's kind of... strongly established enough, as well as being... well, not nuanced, but divorced enough? from 'real life' concepts? That it kind of largely escapes criticism on those grounds.
Also - I'm actually surprised that Jake (Sean? I forget) interpreted it as 'you play as the bad guy'. I thought about it for a second and realising that the game inevitably ends in your defeat and you've got all the cool shit, I guess it could be taken that way.
Yeah, it's clear what it's supposed to evoke without being so close that it gets skeevy. It's more than just a re-badging.
If you read Vlambeer's response on their website it's fairly clear (some residual confusion persists, at least for me) that you're playing the side that the good guys spy on.
The entire thing read weirdly, as I said. Lots of hand-wringing as they're trying to express what Jake (?) put very bluntly as "we wanted you to use all the cool shit the bad guys use". Only this time you're not just capturing their toys, you play as the bad guys using them. I don't know how I feel about that.
If you read Vlambeer's response on their website it's fairly clear (some residual confusion persists, at least for me) that you're playing the side that the good guys spy on.
http://www.vlambeer.com/2014/04/06/response-to-recent-luftrausers-concerns/
The entire thing read weirdly, as I said. Lots of hand-wringing as they're trying to express what Jake (?) put very bluntly as "we wanted you to use all the cool shit the bad guys use". Only this time you're not just capturing their toys, you play as the bad guys using them. I don't know how I feel about that.
Jex
Member
I disagree. They were fairly evenhanded and at no point did they condemn the game or the people behind. Most of the conversation was centred around trying to unpick the realities of using imagery with a historical weight to it.
That doesn't seem very weird.
People (a nebulous group) are bothered by imagery in a game - Developers Respond - Someone else (Patrick Klepek) speaks on behalf of the aforementioned people and says they're all happy now - Thumbs are not happy with Dev's Response.
Just because Patrick thinks the response was sufficient (or that he believes the originally offended group thinks the response was sufficient) doesn't mean everyone in the world has the same opinion. Just because one group of people are happy is no reason to assume that everyone in the world would be happy.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
The Dutch don't think that Zwarte Piet is racist either.
Zwarte Piet is about as racist as Santa's elves are to little people.
I speel my dreenk
Member
It's a Bredon week!
and man, that new theme is just groovin' up and down the street
and man, that new theme is just groovin' up and down the street
I speel my dreenk
Member
Oh my god, those last couple minutes of the cast:
Did Sean actually do the thing that Chris threatened to do a few weeks ago? Or was that just an append?
TheHollowNight
Member
How come Sean only appears in like the last 30 seconds of the whole podcast today? I wasn't paying attention to why he was absent because Nick was making me crack up too much.
That was super good today though. Super duper.
That was super good today though. Super duper.
TheHollowNight
Member
I think he actually was! I skimmed back through to check I wasn't going mad, and I'm sure I hear him at 13.40 saying "yeah that's really cool" after Chris is chatting about religion in Beyond Earth.
D
Deleted member 59090
Unconfirmed Member
What did I tell you? Nick shows up and they laugh their assess off before the cast even starts XD
Yeah, he is there. That makes me want to relisten to this episode.
lol, Chris' photo on his Wikipedia page (courtesy of Jake "Big Bird" Rodkin's Twitter)
+1
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Just want to say that the new intro is really giving me sufjan stevens vibes.
I know how to describe it well now, but it's too late. Cast ruined.
Obviously you need to do a Blast to reexplain, yo.
ebullientprism
Member
That was such a great episode. Nicks AC description just had me giggling non stop.
Freedom = $1.05
Banned
That was such a great episode. Nicks AC description just had me giggling non stop.
Anytime the cast goes into detail about the AC games it's always great. When chris remembered fighting the pope in AC2 it had me giggling like an idiot.
I got super disoriented when Sean started randomly talking at the end.
I was bummed when they mentioned that interview question about how Civ: After Earth will have a lighter tone than Alpha Centauri. The whole reason I love that game is the super insane sci-fi-philosophizing that engulfs just about everything you do. As a reminder, here's a cutscene for when you finish the 'Virtual World' research project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJlPr2KHSFo
Wouldn't it be super good to see a modern game take on subject matter like this? Sure, it's not the best writing, but there are so few games that tackle straight-up-philosophy. One of the biggest advantages of sci-fi is being able to tackle super difficult subjects by abstracting them, and I hope the new Civ (a series about humanities) super embraces that.
I was bummed when they mentioned that interview question about how Civ: After Earth will have a lighter tone than Alpha Centauri. The whole reason I love that game is the super insane sci-fi-philosophizing that engulfs just about everything you do. As a reminder, here's a cutscene for when you finish the 'Virtual World' research project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJlPr2KHSFo
Wouldn't it be super good to see a modern game take on subject matter like this? Sure, it's not the best writing, but there are so few games that tackle straight-up-philosophy. One of the biggest advantages of sci-fi is being able to tackle super difficult subjects by abstracting them, and I hope the new Civ (a series about humanities) super embraces that.
The AC4 discuss was fantastic. And then they drop into the nicknames discussion and Jake seems to be coming from a place of pain.
ZackieChan
Member
I couldn't really gauge their reaction to AC. It sounds like a super interesting play on the formula and the meta-narrative, but they sounded so negative the whole time it was being described. Did I get the wrong impression? Why would it be a bad thing for a series to have fun with itself?
For what it's worth, Nick sold me on trying AC4. He also said a couple times that he was genuinely enjoying the game. Assassin's Creed as an entity is hard to get excited over -- for me it's the poster child for yearly cash in sequels at this point -- but the stuff wrapping Black Flag seems pretty interesting and fun. Everyone who has talked about it positively since release has pointed out that it does all this weird crazy unexpected meta stuff and that's really intriguing.
Joseph Merrick
Member
breckoncast?!
FUCK YEAH
FUCK YEAH
NoPiece
Member
I was listening while out on a walk, and wanted to look up a name when I got home, but forgot what it was. I thought it would be easier to upload the audio somewhere to get a machine transcription than scrub through the audio. I tried VoiceBase, and the transcript came back looking like the insane ramblings of a schizophrenic. It is kind of entertaining because it is hard to tell and when the machine transcription is crazy broken, or just when they are really talking about crazy stuff.
Full transcript: http://pastebin.com/TsXEK4ps
Full transcript: http://pastebin.com/TsXEK4ps
Thanks, worth it.
Joseph Merrick
Member
new shirt so fucking bought
nckillthegrimace
Member
This is amazing.