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[PA Comic] Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - Perils
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
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2. Nice visual storytelling.
3. I still find that Lara's voice acting, judging from the trailer, is plain bad, "reaction audio" aside.
4. ... I don't find the larger issue at hand funny, but, ah well.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
The accusation that the latest Lara Croft game has gone so far into edgy and gritty territory that it's essentially torture porn.
And do we know who the voice actress for Lara is for the next game?
Satans..... hints.....
E: Game looks incredible, comic was still hilarious.
The only E3 vid I've seen that made me really uncomfortable was Last Of Us. True I missed the introductory talk where I really hope we were given some context that justifies what happens, but all I saw was a dude straight up murdering a bunch of unaware strangers in cold blood with the help of his teenage daughter.
They're zombies/post apocalyptic assholes. Straight up murder is kind of a thing in games anyway.
Similarly Watch Dogs was more than a little creepy as you 'press x to rescue man,' who is crying over his wife, who's death you just engineered in order to provide a distraction for your other more targetted killing.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/05/e3-day-zero-when-game-violence-becomes-vile/#more-110827
That people cheered over a grotesque death is rather worrisome.
The thing in the last of us is basically
Whether that's justification enough or not I leave up to you to decide.
Everytime someone tells me the games industry is on the verge of being destroyed all the budgets seem to go up by 50%. The horror on display in the mobile/tablet games industry is not on the screen, it is in the resumes of those poor souls who work in it.
The violence in the Last of Us video made me uncomfortable too. I'm actually a huge wimp when it comes to movies and stuff (can't watch anything gory or I won't be able to sleep for a few months), however, when it comes to video games, I'm not usually bothered that much. Something about the Last of Us trailer really got to me though. I don't know, felt more realistic than usual. That and the one dude begging for his life at the end
Again, as a disclaimer, I'M a wimp.
I'm always having a hard time choosing "the dark side" when giving the option. I'm a completist and would like to experience a game's multiple paths, but usually I'm not going to go through with it.
I was also very uncomfortable at Lara shooting that deer. It was necessity for her, but it was good to hear her pained voice apologizing for it.
I probably would have had to check for my jaw on the floor had I been in that crowd FUCKING CHEERING AT THE SHOTGUN BLAST.
I guess I'm just sensitive.
For instance while I didn't cheer when the shotgun blasted the dude's face off I didn't exactly cringe either. I basically accepted it much like Cormac McCarthy's The Road as this dude is in a world no one can afford to trust anyone or risk losing the element of surprise because nothing is being made anymore the only things left are stuff from the old world and that's a resource being used up so for the protagonist the only solution in his mind is brutal unmerciful violence. Though he did just choke out that first guy so there's that.
Still I wouldn't feel like cringing at such a thing is 'bad'. Cheering? I dunno, have to ponder it some more.
I don't feel the people the protagonist killed were exactly any worse than the protagonist or deserved to live any less and maybe that's something the devs are trying to portray. You are in a situation where you have to survive and you aren't doing it for some noble goal or because you have a moral imperative but because you either do that or die.
Of course the biggest mobile game is about a bunch of physically deformed suicide bombers. My favorite mobile game is the one where I use my botany skills to dismember thousands of animated corpses.
so. is this supposed to be a prequel to everything, setting her on the path and all that?
Another that came immediately to mind:
kingworkscreative.com
kingworkscreative.blogspot.com
Those guys were murderous thugs who had just caused the car the protagonists were driving to crash, and who are now out to kill and steal from the protagonists. Not "just some innocent dudes walking around."
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
Yeah, I have a feeling Tycho/Gabe won't really be nuanced enough to see the distinction between a female character experiencing violence, but still retaining agency and fighting back (something that happens to male characters all the time), and who isn't overtly sexualized (glad to see a more realistic physique on Lara, and normal clothing -- pants!), vs a bunch of female characters with no faces, names, or agency -- who exist only to be destroyed by a man and to titillate us with their bodies. One is actually kind of awesome, and moves female characters into more equal ground with their male counterparts -- the other...doesn't.
But Tycho/Gabe sort of have a huge blind spot for any feminist discourse around videogames so it'll likely come down to "I Don't Get It. You hated violence against those women, but this is more violent against another woman! You people are stupid."
yeah, and i get that they are going for "the road" vibe, but one guy was begging for his life, one guy pleaded with you to not kill the human shield you just took, and then there's the guy who's face he smashed in and the guy who he set on fire . while your surrogate daughter ellen page watches and comments
it's a bit jarring when nathan drake is joking around while shooting people in the face, and elena is all cool with it and joining in, but this is played way straighter than uncharted. it's not pulp, it's just heartlessly blasting people in the face, with seemingly no options to spare them, or even give them a "nicer" death. even the road had the kid yelling at his dad for stealing the guy's clothes and shoes at gunpoint. kinda scary
Pretty much this.
That's why I was cheering just like the crowd when
EDIT: On that note, though, I wouldn't be surprised if they worked in the ability to not murder everyone. The fact they even had the thug begging makes me think the option is there.
If so, it would be a "moral choice system" that's actually good and involving, perhaps the first really interesting moral choice system in a game like that.
Depends how the game ends up.
The thing is, setting doesn't matter even slightly so long as gameplay doesn't reflect it.
So, I'm just going out on a limb here, this desperate and harried survivor just trying to find a safe place in the world will kill ~1500 people in cold blood and never really react to it.
They're trying to shore this thing up from one end. Like the Gamecological Society podcast on Max Payne 3: they put so much into setting and cutscenes and voicing... and none of that shows up in-game because at the end of the day it's a linear corridor shooter where you're a preternaturally excellent marksman. They keep acting like if you polish gunplay and platforming to a sheen, all you need to do is strap on a good enough movie narrative and it will work. But the sum of human interaction is not "shoot and jump", and it becomes clear every time.
It's not even an accusation.
This version is fucking disturbing. Like their main previews have been things like Large feral men pursuing her and then doing god knows what when they catch her. I don't think she even has guns.
I'm pretty sure the last description from the comic is actually in the game too.
Caves with weird satanic rituals... hunting deer with a bow... getting attacked by a wolf. Lara Dovakroft?
Not one bit. I got more of a Hunger Games feel to it, which is what I want. I want a survival story where I can in turn raid tombs.
I haven't played a tomb raider game since TR2 on PSX, and this new take on Tomb Raider is right up my alley. I can agree that it's a dark, cold, and bloody alley, but hot damn does it look satisfying.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
I think you're reading too much into it. From both the video that inspired this comic and the E3 trailer, it's clear as day that Lara is more than capable of handling herself. The E3 trailer was her fighting her way through the bad guys with a crossbow, knife and environment effects. The trailer that spawned the comic shows her being captured, then improvising an escape by lighting her caccoon fire and then surviving in the wilderness. To say that the bad guys are "feral" is a bit...odd, since we're shown that they're clearly an organize militia force. We're not shown what they're doing there or who they work for, but they're not feral. They're organized. There's also some bit of wild animals and maybe some tribesmen enemies but your main antagonists are not feral in the slightest. To imply that she's been raped as well is just really out of left field since the trailers don't even hint at that.
With Last of Us, after watching all of the videos on their page, that game looks like it's some sort of I Am Legend / The Road setting. The E3 trailer does not give you the context as to what is happening, it just shows you the stunning game play and environment (really, I was completely blown away). The additional videos show why he's immediately hostile to those guys. They show the mutants, the desolation, the growth, everything that you need for context of that video. Sony should have included the previous trailer, where they get attacked by the gang, a long with the E3 trailer (it was only an additional minute or so) to provide some context. It takes him and her looking like completely psychopaths murdering random folks for their stuff and to being the victims just fighting to stay alive.
Then again, I might be reading too much into it.
Nothing about it appeals to me, but nothing about it shocks me either. It turned me off by being uninteresting.
Actually I'm seeing this game as closer to what survival horror games should have been doing for a long time, and certainly a lot better turn for the Laura Croft series. Of course that's going to be taken out of context in three posts (minimum) but it bears saying.
Good, I can't express how tired I am of every game being a case of "Rock, Paper, GUN!".