Meatvillain
Banned
Patrick regularly enjoys things while being highly critical of them, to the extent that it's easy to forget that he did, indeed, actually enjoy them. I don't really think it's a case of Patrick just sucking up or something.
Giant Bombcast - | 03-05-2013 |
- Thread starter vitaminwateryum
- Start date
Patrick regularly enjoys things while being highly critical of them, to the extent that it's easy to forget that he did, indeed, actually enjoy them. I don't really think it's a case of Patrick just sucking up or something.
The only thing that can soothe Brad's soul yearning for Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Game: The Series is to play Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for PC during Unprofessional Fridays this week. Episodes! Red shirts! Puzzles in Base 3!
It's everything a Brad could want, except for disease, infestations, and extinction-level events.
It's everything a Brad could want, except for disease, infestations, and extinction-level events.
SweetTeddie
Member
This was an awesome Bombcast. It's always cool when they have larger discussions about franchises like MGS or talk about the industry at length.
Booker Dewitt
Member
Doesn't stop it from being silly.
I think Patrick just has a strong tendency to speak in hyperbole. There is absolutely nothing wrong or silly about being critical of the things you like. People should look at the things they like critically.
Anyways, this podcast just reminds me how great Johnathan Blow's lecture on the conflict between story telling and game design is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTV8qLbBWE
Anyways, this podcast just reminds me how great Johnathan Blow's lecture on the conflict between story telling and game design is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTV8qLbBWE
I think I come across quite a number of comments in NeoGAF which are similar to Patrick's tendency. I guess this is how the younger generation socialize nowadays.
Man, I'm old.
Their pre PS4 meeting discussion was fascinating on the Bombcast the week before February 20th. Shame they cut it short. I could have listened to that for hours.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Brad excusing Uncharted for its ludonarrative dissonance was weird. It's like he totally forgot that Uncharted 2 starts with Drake insisting that they use silenced weapons and stealth to break into that museum... resulting in one of the most annoying instant-fail missions that I played in the last few years.
Yeah, the story goes to stupid places - you fight blue people after all - but Nathan Drake has a morality as presented in the cutscenes - he's against killing and death - while he murders hundreds of faceless Russians without a second thought in the game.
I mean, the cutscenes want you to forget he's a psychopath.
Yeah, the story goes to stupid places - you fight blue people after all - but Nathan Drake has a morality as presented in the cutscenes - he's against killing and death - while he murders hundreds of faceless Russians without a second thought in the game.
I mean, the cutscenes want you to forget he's a psychopath.
I should be doing hw
Member
So what's the difference, if any, between Tomb Raider's Treasure Maps and the ones you get in the Batman: Arkham games?
You can still use the maps without "ruining" exploration. The map will show you the general location of a treasure. It won't show you exactly where it is unless you set a waypoint on it.
Also, every game should put collectibles on your map! That's why I actually enjoyed getting everything in Sleeping Dogs and why I'm haunted by the 299 out of 300 hidden orbs I got in Crackdown.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Getting the collectibles in Sleeping Dogs was tedious as fuck.
I'm generally don't like collectibles though.
I'm generally don't like collectibles though.
Fixed.
MrTroubleMaker
Member
I knew I missed something, thanks.
Thanks for the heads up, avoiding like the plague in that case. Fuck that for a game of marbles.
Beermeister
Banned
I feel like they played a completely different Tomb Raider to me.
It just does not make a big deal about her growth, they make it sound like a couple of very short moments are the majority, and they're not. She apologizes to a deer after she kills it, a guy tells her on the radio that having to kill people must have been difficult, and she says it was. That's pretty much it.
If anything, I think they're completely missing the point. The game is about her being a natural adventurer, that once she breaks some psychological barrier to an action, she is inherently very good at it, and that it's because of her heritage, 'you're a Croft' is both literally said, and figuratively repeated throughout the game. The criticism that she's concerned about Sam, but not the men she's killing is ridiculous, they're antagonistic, and attempting to murder you. It's seriously like saying a solider in WW2 should care as much about the Nazis as their own wives.
As for player actions running counter to character motivations, that's a consistent issue throughout any game that tells a story, unless they choose to give your character no personality at all, like Gordon Freeman, but that comes with it's own set of limitations and flaws. If you don't feel Lara should be killing deers beyond that first one, don't kill them. If you don't think she would use arrows to stab dudes, don't do that. It's just an option.
It just does not make a big deal about her growth, they make it sound like a couple of very short moments are the majority, and they're not. She apologizes to a deer after she kills it, a guy tells her on the radio that having to kill people must have been difficult, and she says it was. That's pretty much it.
If anything, I think they're completely missing the point. The game is about her being a natural adventurer, that once she breaks some psychological barrier to an action, she is inherently very good at it, and that it's because of her heritage, 'you're a Croft' is both literally said, and figuratively repeated throughout the game. The criticism that she's concerned about Sam, but not the men she's killing is ridiculous, they're antagonistic, and attempting to murder you. It's seriously like saying a solider in WW2 should care as much about the Nazis as their own wives.
As for player actions running counter to character motivations, that's a consistent issue throughout any game that tells a story, unless they choose to give your character no personality at all, like Gordon Freeman, but that comes with it's own set of limitations and flaws. If you don't feel Lara should be killing deers beyond that first one, don't kill them. If you don't think she would use arrows to stab dudes, don't do that. It's just an option.
Misterinenja
Member
They pull a lot of their MGS/Kojima stuff out of their ass and it's making me uncomfortable. They're just misinformed and spreading it. I try to not take it seriously but I just can't.
The Dutch Slayer
Member
OMG I had to stop in the street laughing because of the shower and bath talk !!!!
One of the most hilarious bombcast in a while
hahahhahaha ow man typing this up I laugh again.
One of the most hilarious bombcast in a while
hahahhahaha ow man typing this up I laugh again.
HamPster PamPster
Member
I appreciate people criticizing awful game stories but I'm getting really tired of the whole narrative dissonance! Nathan Drake is a psychopath! line of reasoning.
I'm not saying I disagree, but people were saying this 4 years ago. Congratulations, you read the same 1up piece in 2009 as everyone else. Sooner or later you should think of something original to say (or at least spend less time on it)
I'm not saying I disagree, but people were saying this 4 years ago. Congratulations, you read the same 1up piece in 2009 as everyone else. Sooner or later you should think of something original to say (or at least spend less time on it)
Some people come to these realizations at different times.
And it's true it is a problem game developers need to figure out how to deal with.
just because you have heard it before, doesn't mean it's not a valid point
If you're going to put that much emphasis on the story in your game, you open it up to that kind of criticism.
I think the way games approach them is a major proponent of the way dissonance hits. For example, Tomb Raider appears to take a more 'realistic' approach in that it's attempting to mould player reaction to Lara and her circumstances in a movie-esque dramatic way and it conflicts badly with her maneuverability and in-game actions. Something like Uncharted approaches a more action movie setting where you just shrug and accept laxer moral codes and bullets everywhere.
That's not to say a game where Lara staggers around bleeding everywhere with no athletic ability and then cries over every man she kills would be better, or any fun to play, but at least it wouldn't be dissonant!
That's not to say a game where Lara staggers around bleeding everywhere with no athletic ability and then cries over every man she kills would be better, or any fun to play, but at least it wouldn't be dissonant!
That's true, but it would be like a film reviewer, every single time a film comes out, saying "It's good, but I couldn't control the protagonists actions", it's a fundamental contradiction in how games operate from how stories are told. All games are guilty of it. Even SimCity, you can choose to make a terrible city, and try to destroy the lives of those in it. No city planner in the world would do that. It becomes an issue of how easily you can separate and digest aspects of a game's story or premise from it's moment to moment actions, some take to it much easier than others. I remember Amy Hennig saying when Drake kills twenty people, it's like Indiana Jones killing one. That's great if you happen to process the game in that way, many people don't. But this idea of a game where maybe you kill five people exists, in MGS you only have to face the bosses most the time, and people still want to run around killing everyone.
Designers are not above their audience. People don't want sophisticated storytelling enough to warrant games being made with that focus at the kinds of budgets required to make a game like Tomb Raider.
HamPster PamPster
Member
And if you're going to put that much emphasis on the story in your criticism you should at least try to say something insightful
Don't get me wrong, I agree the Uncharted/Tomb Raider/GTA4/videogames thing is a problem but at some point you're just
That's not a valid comparison because stories are somethign that have been in games before and are something expected now a days. No body goes to movies expecting to control the main character.
That's not a valid criticism of the point, because the story is present. They're not saying Tomb Raider doesn't have a story and should, they're saying the story doesn't work because it contradicts the games actions. And practically all games do that. It's no more of a complaint toward Tomb Raider than it is virtually any other game. You can't jizz all over Mass Effect, which lets you be a complete cunt to people, but still makes you our lord and savior, then bitch that Lara isn't head in hands, emotionally stricken by killing a chicken. It's exactly the same issue, they're just choosing to bitch about it here.
Really my issue with this is they don't appear to be judging the game by the game at all, they're judging it by the publicity, and how that framed what they expected from it. Ultimately your experience is what matters to you, but there needs to be at least an attempt to look at the product objectively, if you walked in on your partner cheating on you, while Tomb Raider was in the background, and that gives you some extremely negative connotations to the game, that is not the product's fault. The fact Brad and Patrick think this game is about Lara slowly becoming a hero isn't the games fault, because the game does not suggest that at all.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
The thing is, people want to win at games.
That's why morality systems, in the end, never worked - because there's no reason not to max out your Good or Evil meter. In the end, BioWare just scrapped that altogether for ME3 because they couldn't figure out a way to make it both a story mechanic and a game mechanic.
Spec Ops is supposed to be this antiwar morality tale, but if you run up and execute downed enemies - even before Walker goes insane - you get extra ammo that pops out of the dead bodies. If you are low on ammo, you're going to do that because you want to have more ammo for the next stage. It's the same with the arrow thing that Patrick was talking about, I presume.
If you reward certain behaviours, the player will chase those behaviours unless they're not interested in doing well at the game. It's up to the designer to limit those rewards to not incentivize gameplay that clashes with whatever story they are telling.
Or if the story doesn't matter, then don't pretend it matters and stop trying to make these characters seem like human beings... because honestly, they're not.
I will say, Metal Gear Rising chastises you for killing the soldiers and makes you question if you (as Raiden) are as evil as the people that you are hunting down and murdering. Of course, that conflict manifests itself in a gameplay mechanic that sort of doesn't matter in the long run, but at least it attempts to try to bring the two components (story and gameplay) together.
That's why morality systems, in the end, never worked - because there's no reason not to max out your Good or Evil meter. In the end, BioWare just scrapped that altogether for ME3 because they couldn't figure out a way to make it both a story mechanic and a game mechanic.
Spec Ops is supposed to be this antiwar morality tale, but if you run up and execute downed enemies - even before Walker goes insane - you get extra ammo that pops out of the dead bodies. If you are low on ammo, you're going to do that because you want to have more ammo for the next stage. It's the same with the arrow thing that Patrick was talking about, I presume.
If you reward certain behaviours, the player will chase those behaviours unless they're not interested in doing well at the game. It's up to the designer to limit those rewards to not incentivize gameplay that clashes with whatever story they are telling.
Or if the story doesn't matter, then don't pretend it matters and stop trying to make these characters seem like human beings... because honestly, they're not.
I will say, Metal Gear Rising chastises you for killing the soldiers and makes you question if you (as Raiden) are as evil as the people that you are hunting down and murdering. Of course, that conflict manifests itself in a gameplay mechanic that sort of doesn't matter in the long run, but at least it attempts to try to bring the two components (story and gameplay) together.
It's not like it's difficult to circumvent the contradiction. Skip the BS aubout apologizing to the deer and the first kill and it is gone. No need for sophistication.
The reason morality meters don't work in games is because the don't work in reality either. The duality good/bad just doesn't work.
Offer choices and consequences and drop the visible point meters - just like all good decision based games do.
This is an excellent point, that game presents you with right and wrong, and forces you to do the bad thing anyway. For example when you're told you can choose to use white phosphorus, or go and take out the guys without it, the game doesn't actually provide you with that option, they just hope you choose that, and when they do force you, they don't allow you to stop firing passed a certain point where it's very clear from the heat vision camera thing that something bad would happen.
No one is doing this stuff well, maybe something like Braid, although Brad was complaining about Braid's storytelling in the PS4 live stream, so who knows with that one.
Why? When the point is that she's having to get over this moral issues to survive? Their complaints were never that Lara struggles with her situation, it's that she doesn't continue to struggle, that she's beyond it too quickly, which I don't agree with. Lara is frustrated that she has to kill the deer, not just to eat, but it helps her develop skills with the bow which allow her to survive.
You could suggest the story be the opposite, that she's happy to be running around the island killing stuff, and she has no objection to it at any point, but then the dissonance is just the opposite, as it has been for the series until now. People always take the piss out of the games for her killing endangered species, or being an archeologist that doesn't respect these ancient machines she's jumping all over. You can't win either way.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I would argue that the old Tomb Raider games were mostly like Mario, in that it was just a series of puzzles strung together with a thin narrative.
No one cares about how many goombas and koopas that Mario kills because that's just not important in those games.
It's sort of like the whole pole through the neck thing. Is there a reason to make the death so gruesome? Is it to make the game somehow edgier or darker? If that's the case, they maybe they should really turn her into a psychopath ala Far Cry 3 and then at least the game play would match up to the tone of the story that they're trying to tell.
No one cares about how many goombas and koopas that Mario kills because that's just not important in those games.
It's sort of like the whole pole through the neck thing. Is there a reason to make the death so gruesome? Is it to make the game somehow edgier or darker? If that's the case, they maybe they should really turn her into a psychopath ala Far Cry 3 and then at least the game play would match up to the tone of the story that they're trying to tell.
The elaborate deaths thing seems to have missed for a lot of people. It's a play on the originals, Lara always died in crazy horrific ways, like diving to snap her neck, being crushed by a rock, falling in spike pits, drowning and squeezing her throat. It's like complaining that Mortal Kombat has fatalities.
I should be doing hw
Member
I hate to be the one to break the flow of debate here but Ryan's reaction to Vinny referring to Cloud Atlas was hilarious.
I can see that.
It's just that there was a huge emphasis on these scenes at the beginning - and suddenly the emphasis on the morality is gone. It's certainly not something unique to tomb raider as it's pretty common in other action games/movies. Unless all your enjoyment comes from story it's not going to ruin the experience.
However I still think it's bad storytelling and there are games that manage to link world and the gameplay toghether. That is something games should aspire to do imo and you don't need complex stories to do it.
Prime crotch
Banned
her name is Lara, LARA! ffs patrick
LifEndz
Member
Welp, thanks a lot, Brad. I was all set to have a regular ass day at my job, but now I'm itching all over.
And Vinny had to be joking, right? That was him doing what needed to be done to get a funny moment. Either way, I instantly made a "are u fucking serious" face when he asked Patrick how he got tomato sauce to come out his shower faucet.
And Vinny had to be joking, right? That was him doing what needed to be done to get a funny moment. Either way, I instantly made a "are u fucking serious" face when he asked Patrick how he got tomato sauce to come out his shower faucet.
What is dissonant about Drake using silenced weapons and stealth in certain situations?
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Can't kill nameless guards in one level, but you're allowed to kill nameless guards in another level.
I mean, it's not like I wanted Uncharted: Splinter Cell, but if he was all about not hurting people, then the game should have given him the option to circumvent as many guards as possible.
I think there are games that do it much better, Nier is a good example, Braid, Ico too, even SotC to an extent, although they basically all do it in the exact same way, by tricking you into thinking you're doing to the moral thing, then revealing you're not.
As much as I'd like gameplay to be reflective of storytelling, if the only way people have really managed to mesh the two is by giving you exactly the same twist ending, then that's obviously not going to work for an entire medium.
I'm not saying don't address the issue, or that they shouldn't talk about it, but I don't think Tomb Raider being singled out is really warranted.
For everyone who writes off the issue, there's someone who will scream that pokemon is about torturing and capturing wild animals to make them basically cockfight. Both extremes exist, everyone seems to fall at a certain point, and maybe for Brad and Patrick the point where the dissonance was impacting their experience was Tomb Raider, but I don't believe it was, in that I don't think it's the game, I think it's the marketing, and that's not relevant to the game.
If I recall correctly, the excuse was to not attract unwanted attention. It wasn't actually about not hurting people because he was snapping necks and using silent weapons.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Actually, thinking about it more, they actually use tranquilizers. Either way, I remember Drake insisting that they don't kill anyone while his evil-and-will-obviously-betray-him-partner wishes he could just kill everyone on sight.
Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but isn't the difference that the guys at the start are just museum security guards versus the henchmen of Lazarevic you encounter in the rest of the game?
I did get stuck there for a while. I'm pretty sure I read an interview where the developers apologized for not properly playtesting that bit.
I did get stuck there for a while. I'm pretty sure I read an interview where the developers apologized for not properly playtesting that bit.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Sure, but those Russian guys are probably just following orders and doing their jobs, just like the museum guards.
Just following orders, eh.
Lara's brutal kill animations are much more graphic and sadistic than anything in previous TR games.
Lara's brutal kill animations are much more graphic and sadistic than anything in previous TR games.
That's right. I see Drake as a man who takes advantage of the self defense angle. He paints all guards with the same brush once it is established that they are the bad guys. We've never seen him kill a guard or anyone who wasn't associated with an "evil side".
I treat Drake like Mario.
"Ah! You've kidnapped Princess Peach. You and your ilk are all evil now. No Goomba or Turtle is safe."