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Horrible Deus Ex Machina moments
Hotlead Junkie
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Registered User regular
This has nothing to do with the game named Deus Ex, but I it could be related :P
A deus ex machina (pronounced /ˈdeɪəs ɛks ˈmɑːkinə/ or /ˈdiːəs ɛks ˈmækɨnə/,[1] literally "god from the machine") is a plot device in which a person or thing appears "out of the blue" to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty.
I've always loved the 90's Batman animated series, but one thing I always hated were half the episodes with Robin in them. As always, Batman would kick some ass, overcome the odds and such, but whenever he was faced with a deadly situation he would get out of it. The exceptions were when Robin was in the episode and Batman was literally seconds from death before Robin busted in at the exact right moment and saved Batsy. I'm talking about, if Robin wasn't there, Batman would of been killed ouright by a bullet in the brain or another horrible death.
That's an example of a Deus Ex Machina, a moment in a story where the character is saved by a completley random, co-incidental or improbable means and these happen all the times in gaming. The most blatantly obvious, horrible one I witnessed recentley was Metal Gear Solid 4 fairly near the end of the game
Anyone have any good examples as blantly obvious Deus Ex Machina gaming moments that were head slappingly poorly executed?
A deus ex machina (pronounced /ˈdeɪəs ɛks ˈmɑːkinə/ or /ˈdiːəs ɛks ˈmækɨnə/,[1] literally "god from the machine") is a plot device in which a person or thing appears "out of the blue" to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty.
I've always loved the 90's Batman animated series, but one thing I always hated were half the episodes with Robin in them. As always, Batman would kick some ass, overcome the odds and such, but whenever he was faced with a deadly situation he would get out of it. The exceptions were when Robin was in the episode and Batman was literally seconds from death before Robin busted in at the exact right moment and saved Batsy. I'm talking about, if Robin wasn't there, Batman would of been killed ouright by a bullet in the brain or another horrible death.
That's an example of a Deus Ex Machina, a moment in a story where the character is saved by a completley random, co-incidental or improbable means and these happen all the times in gaming. The most blatantly obvious, horrible one I witnessed recentley was Metal Gear Solid 4 fairly near the end of the game
An already decrepid Snake has just crawled through a hallway of microwave energy emitters, basically cooking him to death as you frantically mash the button to help him crawl inch by inch to the exit. After this 50 second long sequence, Snake finally exits the hallway, near enough dead as about 10 goons advance on him, all armed with heavy weaponry as they patientley let Otacon give Snake a pep talk. At any point they could of simply shot snake, but when they finally decide to do end this, that very second, an armless ninja Raiden with a sword in his teeth busts in and saves Snake.
Anyone have any good examples as blantly obvious Deus Ex Machina gaming moments that were head slappingly poorly executed?
Hotlead Junkie on
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Perhaps that's just what I told myself to stay sane throughout the game's plot, mind you. :P
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
At the beginning of the game, Earth is destroyed. By the evil Dr. Schaumund, I think. You must now fight for, uh, something; I don't quite remember. But anyway. At the end of the game...
PSN:RevDrGalactus/NN:RevDrGalactus/Steam
What? That sounds like the best ending to a game ever
There's always just the one convenient pipe breakage or cracked wall to let you continue without dying because of the environment or just being perpetually trapped. It's part and parcel of the narrative convenience necessary for linear, script-driven games, but it always made me go "huh, how fortunate".
The one I always remember is Final Fantasy Legend on the Gameboy. You climb this massive tower which has never been successfully scaled, going through several minor worlds on the way, having some interesting adventures. I guess the ending wasn't totally off because you didn't know what to expect in the first place...but basically, you reach the top and you're in heaven! God comes and congratulates you and says "Hey good job climbing this tower guys, I wanted to see if anyone could and you guys did! Feel free to live forever in paradise." Your party takes exception to this, calling Him a manipulator or something and so you attack and kill God. With chainsaws. Heaven now empty, your party finds a door and goes through it and that's the end.
Half-Life 2 and the two episodes have this in spades also. If Gordon Freeman had a quarter for every time a fortuitous event allowed him to progres through an otherwise blocked area, he'd be rich AND famous instead of just famous.
Final Fantasy Legend: Nietszche Wasn't Bullshitting Us
Yeah, I remember that bugging me too. The worst thing was that I thought they actually went up to the door but then said "Screw it, let's go back home and forget the door that nobody's ever opened before!" I mean isn't the whole point that they were trying to make their way to where nobody had ever been, and now they're just saying "Whatever" at the last minute after traveling to the top and killing God while they're at it? Always struck me as frustrating.
Dude. Final Fantasy Legend's plot was
1.Standard Fantasy, save king's crush, get his armor, king with sword is a dick, kill him, king shield is murdered by his chancellor, who you reduce to a bloody pulp, shame, was a nice dude. Kill goddamn fiend, get sphere, leave.
2.Waterworld, only one dude there, hounded by fiend2, he apparently IS half of the sphere, and dies.
3.Cloud World, Fiend 3 has taken over world, join badguys, try to save day, Jeannette betrays everybody, then dies later saving her little sister, what the fuck did you think would happen Jeanette, kill fiend, sphere, door.
4.Post-apocalyptic remnants of futuristic city, biker gang, they're awesome, leader goes through nuke silo, dying so that you may nuke that bastard's forcefield, gang all gets killed by fiend 4 who claims to have destroyed the world, kill fiend 4, biker's sister dies, sphere, sad music, door.
God:HEY, I'M THE GUY WHO DID THIS, I DID IT BECAUSE I WAS BORED.
I think Valkyria Chronicles had a bit of it in the end.
[tiny]It was awesome, though.[/tiny]
I dunno if that counts, it wasn;t the only solution available.
Because every problem could pretty much be solved by applying Object A (Where Object A is a GEP gun or the Dragon Tooth Sword) to Object B (Where object B is a door, safe, wall, window, person, object, plant, philosophical question, abstract though or the moon)
Sometimes I Stream Games: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/italax-plays-video-games
Also SPACE QUEST 6. It might not be a Deus Ex Machina but the thing that saves Roger Wilco from the boss in the end is ridiculous.
"Holy crap like half the main cast is dead or infested by horrible space monsters and you're the only one left who can stop them OH WAIT NO THEY'RE ALL FINE YAAAAY"
I prefer character deaths to have meaning; if you're going to pull over a "oh noes he died" thing, don't ruin it by bringing them back later. Either leave them dead or never do that situation to begin with.
Hell, you can add Star Fox 64.
Andross: "If I go down, I'm taking you with me!"
"NOOOO!" *boom*
Mystery voice: "Don't ever give up, my son."
Similarly, near the end of Velvet Assassin, you have to shoot a German officer through his window and there is, conveniently, a nearby windmill that allows you to see right into his room. But you need a sniper rifle. Some friendly German has conveniently left one in the very mill you have to take the shot from.
Why leave a sniper rifle where their commanding officer is the most vulnerable from? So he can be shot by any wayward British secret agent, obviously.
So I can't see them as a bad thing in a game, seeing as they're the point.
Probably just me.
(Not talking about plot or story, but things like pathways and ammo.)
Seeing as it's not possible to accurately predict a players actions in a game, these things usually go out of their way to scream "look at me" as much as possible, so as to prevent that game appearing in another thread, for example "Sucky games that suck because and why" with the reason "You don't have enough ammo/weapons/get lost too easy".
A deus ex machina is a narrative plot point within a story that is fully constructed: they are bad because they are fully constructed. AS the story teller, they could have done something better within a universe completely under their own control.
In the case of ammo or weapons, they did do the best they could, because it's not fully constructed. They don't have perfect control over you, the player. The context is completely different, and thus the same judgements aren't as relevant.
That's why I think gameplay devices aren't interesting deus ex machinas. It's like accusing a scarecrow of being a strawman.
IIRC, Final Fantasy 4 alone had 4 different moments like that.
While some folks expand the term to mean "anything that happens out of the blue", Deus Ex Machina is typically used in a negative connotation specifically for devices that break the internal consistency of the narrative. When you spend the entire book saying "This virus is the most deadliest thing known to man", it's a Deus Ex Machina at the end to have it turn into a harmless virus that poses no danger to man (the example used here is Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain). The bad part is not that it's "fully constructed", mind you... it takes you out of the story in a jarring way because up until the climax, the action and narrative builds to one conclusion and the Deus Ex Machina takes you out of that conclusion entirely. The author could fully intend to have the book end in this manner (the irony of aliens dying to common disease in "War of the World", for example), but it doesn't make sense according to the story you've been building. It is illogical to the reader, much like using pseudo-scientific babble in bad science fiction.
For example, most people would not say that Han Solo coming back to save Luke on the Death Star run is a Deus Ex Machina. While his character is a mercenary and a scoundrel, he has a real attachment to "the kid" and even invites Luke to go with him. There's foreshadowing that tells you that we haven't seen the last of this character. The big detail is that we've seen him throughout the film, and he doesn't randomly appear at the end just for the purposes of saving Luke during the Death Star trench run. It is fully constructed, but it's not a Deus Ex Machina.
The G-man in Half-Life can be considered a Deus Ex Machina, although there is some foreshadowing of his presence and his job throughout the game. He just suddenly appears at the end of the game and says "Come with me if you want to live, or die in this alien world." The manner of his appearance at the end of Half-Life 2 can also be considered a Deus Ex Machina, if it weren't for the fact that you've already seen him in this way before in the previous game, and he briefs you on what you are supposed to do at the beginning of the game.
Contrast this with "Mary Sue" characters, who are usually over-idealized characters that save the day. The use of Robin to save the day in Batman: The Animated Series is probably more of a Mary Sue character than a Deus Ex Machina. A true Deus Ex Machina would be Superman flying into the story to save Batman from falling off a cliff. With Robin, you expect him to come at the right time and right place, because that's the role that Robin has in the overall storyline, for better or for worse.
EDIT: "Here comes the calvary" doesn't necessarily have to be a Deus Ex Machina. For example, the Rohirrim coming to save Helm's Deep in the nick of time is foreshadowed throughout the movie "The Two Towers". Even the elves arriving at Helm's Deep isn't a Deus Ex Machina, because they do little to change what happened in the narrative of the book(it's almost an opposite of a Deus Ex Machina... a jarring new entity comes in, and DOES NOTHING). In many cases, of course, the arrival of the calvary to save the day is a Deus Ex Machina, but most writers go to lengths to make sure that the "calvary" is internally consistent with what would actually happen.
As Tom Clancy says: "“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
That's why the ending to CoD4 was so badass where:
And probably why so many people had so many problems with the ending. Hell, the ending to The Mist was attacked by critics for being so unconventional, where:
If you have a big climatic firefight where the good guys get pinned down and death seems inevitable, unless you have a brazen deus ex moment then the game is over. That can be good, but you cannot say with a straight face that you don't get a huge thrill when the jet comes roaring over the hill and blows up the waves of bad guys that were about to fuck your face up.
I agree with Morninglord, that game design is all about making huge deus ex machinas that blend seamlessly into the experience and give us adrenaline induced chills.
I'm not sure it's actually parody so much as completely over the top like the rest of the plot. That's why I loved the series so much though. Pretty much anything could happen at any time. It's the anticipation of that something that'll come save your ass from inevitable doom and wondering what it'll be that makes it great.
God did it
Dude I just played through CoD4
I've always been told that a basic sign of a Deus Ex Machina is that it completly relives the main character(or in this case, the PC) of any responsiblity or consequences, giving him or her a happy ending or extra chance dispite the expected, less-than-happy conlusion of thier actions. One example I can think of, is from Tales of Symphonia (Mid Disc 1 spoiler):
Sorry dude, but
Doesn't change the deus ex-iness of it, but yanno.
XBL - Follow Freeman
"She is Lady Luck."
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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I played a lot of Mario Party 1 back in the day, on the N64.
This game involves a dice, which determines how many squares you can move. If you could 'solve' the dice, and find out a way to successfully get the result you want from the throw of the dice, you would be a long way to mastering the game.
The process of throwing the dice is presented as an item box with a number on it, that is changing constantly. Your character is underneath this box, and to "throw" the dice, you press a button, which makes your character jump, which stops the item box on the number it is on.
This game tells you something along the line of "time your jumps carefully to get the number you desire".
The instructions are, effectively "Master this system, and you will be rewarded with success in this game."
I never seemed to be able to do so. No matter how I tried to time my jumps, it felt like the timing had zero impact on the result of the dice throw.
So, years later, I found a way of playing the game in a manner that allowed me to create a snapshot of the RAM in the console, and practice throwing the dice repeatedly, and then rewind the game back to its exact previous state.
I experimented with this, and found something that was fairly shocking.
The dice throws were predetermined.
No matter how you timed your jumps, the game had already decided before you had jumped what number you were going to get. The instructions "time your jumps carefully to get the number you desire" were a flat out lie, but the nature of the games design meant that under normal circumstances the player would have no way of knowing this, and no way of seeing 'behind the curtain'.
They specifically said that there was a mechanic to do with timing your jumps, when in fact they full well knew there was no such mechanic.