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[PATV] Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - Extra Credits Season 4, Ep. 16: Hard-Boiled
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
This week, we discuss the AAA industry's trend toward hard-boiling its franchises, and what it means to be "mature".<br />Come discuss this topic in the <a href="http://extra-credits.net/episodes/hard-boiled/#discuss" target="_blank">forums</a>!
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also "fabulously hard-boiled" there's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one
Though Yahtzee's take on what constitutes a "mature" game also makes me laugh.
It is odd to me that childish or goofy titles like Catherine or Psychonauts are often more mature than some of the hardcore titles like WET or The Darkness.
Most Mature game ever: Planescape Torment
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fixed that for you
what really bothered me about this episode, and this was pretty brief but it stuck with me, was showing a screenshot from one of the Arkham games as an example of the "hard-boiled" concept working well. those games might be the most perfect example i can think of of tryhard edginess not working.
I'd say GTA4's issue was its levity was very rarely associated with its main character. Niko is this understandably dour fellow dealing with being double crossed and seeking revenge, while in the background a blatant satire of US Politics is blaring at you, creating mood whiplash. It's like one group wanted comedy and the other group wanted tragedy, and the fact they didn't focus on one or the other hurt the game.
I don't understand why you think the Arkham games edginess didn't work. I thought both games had a great atmosphere for what you're doing throughout it.
Yes, it's sexy and it can be as a form of pandering, but it's not more realistic or practical than anything that appears in the games. I don't know, just continually keep pushing the idea that all games should have this thought, classical philosophical 4 dimensional female characters seem as immature as the points you just made in your video.
Yes it's a form of escapism and it shouldn't be the base for all the games, but just because a game has it doesn't get it immature. Soul calibur and the like are not deep, meaningful experience, but they are funny, good looking and relaxing, and this shouldn't be the first purpose for a game.
It's just get so boring that they keep hammering in comics, video games and almost all media the idea of sexy as sexism or idiotic. There would be changes, but they are going to take time and they are never going to go away, because there would be always, but male and female gamers that would like, once in a while, a game that gives them this fantasies.
I love gritty settings and maturity is definitely a required ingredient. Violence needs to be put in context and swearing needs to be poignant and timed. When well executed there is a sense of awe in gritty settings that no other theme can properly deliver.
allison is the one who i thinks arrange the pics to be placed in the video
she is a female, therefore she thinks a costume the ivy uses is immature
its her right as a female to feel that way
as a guy i think that costume is immature too
Because the video slots, all represented by li elements, aren't uniform in height, as the first two episodes have longer-than-average titles. It's a simple fix for the coders; just setting the height of the elements to, say, 180px would suffice.
*is a Web developer*
One: the idea that Max Payne has nobody to really, truly fight for is THE POINT OF THE WHOLE GAME. He's no longer just fighting for revenge, or any real personal connection, he's fighting for himself. He's fighting for his sanity and taking control of his life again. He let himself become a miserable, pill-addled, alcoholic nihilist, and yes, that's one dimensional. He's ruined the man that he used to be, and that's the entire point. The entire game is about his progression out of the hole he's dug himself into after learning that killing for a "true" cause had done nothing but cause him more anguish. His entire quest to save Mona ended up with a *SPOILER WARNING* bullet in her head and the illusion of accomplishment, but in the end of this game, he's relaxing on a beach, in a baseball cap and a button-down shirt, with FLIP-FLOPS on. Throwing away his "redemptive moment" as something that "never really comes" reflects poorly upon James. He redeems HIMSELF. The circumstances just given him some loose justification to fight, which he holds on to for dear life.
Two: the hell that is the poorer areas of Sao Paulo is not "the world we live in"? Has James ever been there? This guy I know has. Within the first five hours being there, he saw someone get robbed. A guy on a bike pulled alongside a car, knocked on the window, held up a gun, and took all of this guy's valuables in sight. Also, Google some crime statistics of that place.
Three: has James ever seen a John Woo movie? The slo-mo shots in those movies ALWAYS do what Max Payne 3 does, and to a lesser extent, Max Payne 1 and 2: SHOWCASE VIOLENCE. Hell, has James ever played Stranglehold? A game literally co-developed BY John Woo? I'd consider that game even more violent than Max Payne 3 in some areas, the "precision shot" thing that freezes time and lets you shoot an enemy wherever you so please is definitely a part of that, especially because there are detailed animations for your testicle-shots. Euphoria allows for clutching and all, but hitting someone in the nuts in MP3 isn't half as gruesome.
Anyway, I'd like to say that I really do respect you guys, but respect to me has never meant ass-kissing, it's meant telling you guys when I disagree and when I don't. Isn't that what comments are for anyway? I mean, comment sections get boring when it's just "GREAT JOB GUYS, I AGREE 105%" "
I definitely agree with your sentiments about the Arkham games, and while I can't speak for you, I think that any pretensions to "maturity" in that game were washed away by the ridiculous, sexist dissonance between the male and female characters in both. I don't mind the Poison Ivy design at all, because being an object of sexual desire is kinda the point with her, but Catwoman's design drove me up a wall, and so did Talia's, and come to think of it, so did Harley's. They all looked like they were dressed in really bad fetish Halloween outfits that came off as pandery and overall really damn stupid. There's not a single female character in that game with any type of interesting character beyond "sexy good", and "sexy evil"
Look at Harley's outfit in any of the source material, like the original animated series and comics, and tell me that couldn't be re-designed modestly to make her the relatively scary, psychotic character she is, instead of that ridiculous "sexy nurse" outfit she wore in the first game or that out-of-place corset she wears in the second. Exact same goes for Catwoman. While I can't say that the comics treat her well all the time, I think that Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman mixed the sexy and practical well, and she doesn't do a whole lot of fighting in that movie. Skip to Arkham City and she's gotten a boob-job and butt implants, wearing a ridiculous zip-down suit with useless texturing in a place where people are FIGHTING WITH HUGE-ASS BLADES AND GUNS.
Compare that to the male characters, that come in all shapes, sizes, and characterizations, and Arkham City comes off a lot more like a New 52 game than anything of respectable Batman property.
Who, exactly, do you guys think would be surprised how much the industry is swayed by the success of a single game/concept? Granted, I seem to have better than average pattern recognition, but this seems to have been commented on by just about EVERYBODY.
They seem to have traded one false definition of maturity for another.
yeah, exactly. this was a game trying so hard to say "hey guys look look at me im a batman game for adults" and the only way the manchildren at rocksteady could think to do that was to make all the male villains serial killers and all the female villains sex objects. it's just completely juvenile and frankly makes me a little annoyed any time i hear people talking about what great writing the games had.
you mean those Machildren who gave use two great games? yeah how dare they do what the comic have been doing for over 20 years now. the writing in the game has nothing to do with a characters look go yell at DC comics for designing female charecters. i would add also that being a Batman game it exist in side the batman universe and as such means that any actual problems with the female charecter comes not for rocksteady but form any player not make that connection. let me give you a thought expriment but show my point, a woman with huge breast walks in to your home, she is beyond pretty and also happens to be a genius. she is wearing a very tiny bikini. if we accept that a charecter look is who they are then by your logic this woman is nothing but a sex object. see, she only becomes such when you make the choice to see her as that.
okay, while i see what your getting, i think you missed something. While i agree with you That Michelle Pfeffier was a great catwoman, you pretty much off base on everything else. the whole Harley thing, yeah it was strange to see her in a nurse outfit but that's all the did, she is the same Harley. See, you take one really small part of something and try to bring down everything else that was great about the Arkham games. it 's this logic that is the problem you see a design you don't like and project it on to everything else. how in anyway were any female charecters hurt because they wore sexy outfits. for me none because i do not think what a person wears or looks like makes a bit over difference. Now if they would have done something like Harley and Ivy in some lesbian overt thing i be right there with you calling sexist, but not on this one. "There's not a single female character in that game with any type of interesting character beyond "sexy good", and "sexy evil"" this throw me a little, i can't real say there is much to go on being there are only really 3 females in the games in a major role. again to me a sex object only becomes such when you make the choice to view it as such. also ni superhero or villian has a great suit in practical terms. batman as a exposed lower Jaw, ditto Flash, Robin do even wear pants, GL wears a mask that covers his eyes and nothing else. it one thing to have superheroes wear carzy thing s because they do. now if the COD games had a female or male soilder running around in the speedo then i can see the problem. btw not mean to attack you personal, my writng comes off that way sometimes I am working on that. sorry if i did.
This isn't something that just the industry needs to learn. This is something the whole COMMUNITY needs to learn. If you've played any XBL first person shooters with voice chat on, chances are you've run into numerous people who use more swear words than non-swear words. Heck, half the time, they are (or at least sound like) they haven't hit puberty yet.
But, since those people are so pervasive and seem to form the stereotypical gamer image these days, that's why we're getting games just like the ones they play. I daresay this stereotype alone is why Call of Duty still exists as it does today.
Honestly, there's little reason to use swear words unless you actually need to word with their real meaning. For example, unless you're actually talking about something doomed to spend an eternity in hell, you can probably find a cleaner AND more appropriate word than "damn".
LONG STORY SHORT: Stop swearing, people. We can end the trend of swearing for the sake of swearing in games purely by not swearing for the sake of swearing.
"Damn" is considered a swear word? Geez.. That's the kind of word I use if I'm trying to be polite.
I kind of agree with you, yet I think that's really just half the story. The single biggest reason youths like to swear so much is because everyone is making such a big deal out of it. They love to push triggers. To get rid of it we need maturity on both sides. American people in special are extremely sensitive when it comes to swear words, which in my opinion is just as immature.
In Germany for example, no one gives a damn about swearing. You're free to do it on TV. But most people just don't, because it simply makes them look stupid. If someone curses on live TV the audience just assumes the person to be of low intellect and not able to articulate themselves properly in front of an audience. They don't get their panties in a bunch and go "What did he just say? WHAT DID IT HE JUST SAY?? Kids, cover your ears! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HEAR THAT! GET ME THE PRESIDENT ON THE PHONE, NAO!"
As weird as Battlestar Galactica 2000 was, the word "frak" was a damn good idea.
And another thing: I think that it may be possible that max payne 3 was not meant to be "fun" or entertaining. The same way that the gory scenes in saving private ryan aren't meant to be "fun". the focus on the aftermath of certain gunshots may be meant to emphasize what a terrible person Max is/has become, or how horrifying actual combat is. If you look at it with this mindset (and to be fair, rockstar didn't choose a very good IP to establish this with), instead of "parody of action movies/games", then it creates a more tense atmosphere, and is more of a deconstruction of the AAA violent gory shooter.
I'm glad to finally have something to point to and go "That's it."
To be fair, the Arkham Asylum and Arkham City games were based on the comics and not the movies. Ergo, the Catwoman costume used in Arkham City is the same costume she has had in the comics since about 2001. (http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/catwoman-2001) As for Harley Quinn, her relationship with the Joker has always been tenuous at best. (I seem to remember the Joker making a comment about letting whoever killed Batman have a "night with Harley...without her knowing it" in one of the early levels of Arkham Asylum.) So her hypersexuality could be explained as trying to keep the Joker interested in her. Otherwise, I didn't really mind Talia's outfit and Vicki Vale wore a heavy peacoat. Basically, I think any video game based on a comic book that tries to be even marginally true to the comic book source material will have some degree of sexual dissonance to it since female characters using their sexual appeal is a common theme in comics (as you pointed out with Poison Ivy's character). So my devil's advocate argument would be that much of the lack of maturity mentioned may not stem from inherent flaws in the game so much as the source material on which it is based.
I am not trying to be rude so please don't take offense but if a game is not meant to be fun or entertaining then why would I want to play it? I'll admit I skipped over the Max Payne series but the description you gave made me want to avoid Max Payne 3 more so than the "hard-boiled" accusations did. I mean even movies like Saving Private Ryan have some element of entertainment to them amongst their stark realism. Also, I don't think James and Daniel were saying all nihilists aren't interesting, but merely that those who are always cynical and complaining weren't. It is the difference between someone believing a philosophy and someone constantly proselytizing about it every chance they get. After a while the latter just gets to be annoying.
By the way, Harley Quinn got started in Batman: The Animated Series, by Paul Dini (the Freakazoid guy). Nevertheless, she got popular to be in the comics a lot, so...I suppose Arkham can say it bases its material on the comics. Of course, in this case, if we're going to talk about women as sex objects, it's best to distance a comic book story from the comic books themselves as a lot of them, Batman included, can get pretty misogynistic. (It's kind of ironic that Archie, despite its family friendliness, comedic approach, and episodic format, can portray female characters more convincingly than a lot of big-name comic book series out there.)
But after watching this I just had to comment. Max Payne 3 wasn't about nihilism. He was depressed because everything had been taken from him despite his efforts. He was looking for some reason to go on but there was nothing left but his body guarding job so he threw himself into that regardless of how likeable those characters were or the danger to himself. Maybe you can't relate, but I felt a very strong connection to his character. MP3 was the best shooter I've played in a very long time, easily as good as 1 and 2 though for different reasons.