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Symbolism, Subtlety, and Sex
Cleril
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
I recently wrote another little "article" you could say about gaming. It's called "Morally Gray and Me" if you would like to read that as well.
I find too many games have stories which don't follow the common rules for enticing the reader, or in this case, gamer. Such games would be Resident Evil, or GTA. Both series often try to startle the gamer instead of scare and in GTA's case it is more focused on plainly showing sexual content rather than suggesting it. I don't know about you (I soon will) but I find this to be dull.
I like this to not only be verbally spoken in video games but to be suggested or hinted at visually. Silent Hill games do this fantastically. At least, all of them except Homecoming did. Silent Hill focused on hinting that the player would have some sick monster to fight, rather than actually giving the player said monster to fight. This scared me. To think that I was in constant danger with such sporadic sounds and sights that I never knew what was around the corner, that is what scares me. Jumping when a zombie bursts out in flames from a locker startles me. A few minutes later, I find myself calm again.
There are one specific scare in Silent Hill 3 which did scare me a good 20 minutes after I turned off the game. The mirror room in the Hospital Nightmare, to not spoil anything. That part of the game scared me. It did so with it's slow pacing rather than just having things jump around. Slowly the room I was in began to change before my eyes and I was powerless to stop it. I cannot shoot a floor or ceiling and be rid of it now can I? Unless I had a BFG.
Even Dragon Age: Origins had subtlety in it, sexual subtlety. The game never showed my character having relations exactly and even certain sexual events in the game not involving me were more subtle. Such as when I found a guard standing in front of a woman who was on her knees and....you get the point.
My point in all this is that I think games need to stop showing me everything about the story or even sexual content and instead hint at it. This goes for all games in general, not just God of War, whose sex mini-game is very well done in terms of subtlety, but even games like Resident Evil or Dead Space with it's lack luster scares need to show a bit less and make me think a bit more.
Books do it, movies do it (sometimes...), poetry does it (and I am a Poet), and video games should do it.
What do you think then? Should games offer a bit more subtlety with any themes or goals they want to achieve? Or should they just blurt it out in some dialogue or letter.
Cleril is indie developer for now and his game is very symbolic and subtle. Should you be interested in playing in it message him. Since he can never have enough (helpful) players....but now, let's not get off-topic with Cleril. Let's talk about what Cleril talked about. It's much more interesting to you, I'm sure.
I find too many games have stories which don't follow the common rules for enticing the reader, or in this case, gamer. Such games would be Resident Evil, or GTA. Both series often try to startle the gamer instead of scare and in GTA's case it is more focused on plainly showing sexual content rather than suggesting it. I don't know about you (I soon will) but I find this to be dull.
I like this to not only be verbally spoken in video games but to be suggested or hinted at visually. Silent Hill games do this fantastically. At least, all of them except Homecoming did. Silent Hill focused on hinting that the player would have some sick monster to fight, rather than actually giving the player said monster to fight. This scared me. To think that I was in constant danger with such sporadic sounds and sights that I never knew what was around the corner, that is what scares me. Jumping when a zombie bursts out in flames from a locker startles me. A few minutes later, I find myself calm again.
There are one specific scare in Silent Hill 3 which did scare me a good 20 minutes after I turned off the game. The mirror room in the Hospital Nightmare, to not spoil anything. That part of the game scared me. It did so with it's slow pacing rather than just having things jump around. Slowly the room I was in began to change before my eyes and I was powerless to stop it. I cannot shoot a floor or ceiling and be rid of it now can I? Unless I had a BFG.
Even Dragon Age: Origins had subtlety in it, sexual subtlety. The game never showed my character having relations exactly and even certain sexual events in the game not involving me were more subtle. Such as when I found a guard standing in front of a woman who was on her knees and....you get the point.
My point in all this is that I think games need to stop showing me everything about the story or even sexual content and instead hint at it. This goes for all games in general, not just God of War, whose sex mini-game is very well done in terms of subtlety, but even games like Resident Evil or Dead Space with it's lack luster scares need to show a bit less and make me think a bit more.
Books do it, movies do it (sometimes...), poetry does it (and I am a Poet), and video games should do it.
What do you think then? Should games offer a bit more subtlety with any themes or goals they want to achieve? Or should they just blurt it out in some dialogue or letter.
Cleril is indie developer for now and his game is very symbolic and subtle. Should you be interested in playing in it message him. Since he can never have enough (helpful) players....but now, let's not get off-topic with Cleril. Let's talk about what Cleril talked about. It's much more interesting to you, I'm sure.
Like RPGs? Like Indie games? Want to try a Non-Combat RPG with puzzle and horror elements?
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/user/MovodaMusicCentral
Review: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.164259
Want to play it? Please message me. :winky:
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/user/MovodaMusicCentral
Review: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.164259
Want to play it? Please message me. :winky:
Cleril on
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Though this has me thinking about subtle porn...
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Well, you don't see the sex....maybe she was tying his boot? Maybe Kratos sounds like a girl when he gets a massage?
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/user/MovodaMusicCentral
Review: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.164259
Want to play it? Please message me. :winky:
As with any media the tendency is to go for the easy, shocking payoff in a tense moment. Only the best works avoid this consistently.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It has a lot to do with game play though. Action games don't really lend themselves well to something requiring a slow and subtle build up of tension and anxiety. And GTA is probably bad example considering you could go around shooting down police helicopters with rocket launchers if you wanted so why would the sex be anything but brazenly over-the-top?