Comments on: Fahren(“Poo” – Ed)

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 06:09:01 +0000

At last! At least people are talking about this sort of things now. Which we can now call “the singing dog effect”.

That’s the exact effect I noticed in the reaction to the RE5 stuff. People were defending their singing dog.

By: Nihohit

Nihohit — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 21:26:08 +0000

I’m really glad that these “I’ve got an idea and i’ll stretch and ignore reality to prove it” articles discussing computer games are rare.
Several important points were ignored, like the fact that the only Latins with a name like Valenti appear in R:TW, not here. What about the dead protagonist? Isn’t the Internet a symbol of WASPiness?
Yes, IP was a rancid attempt at both gameplay and plot, but the fact that the game failed as a game doesn’t make it EVIL.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:00:01 +0000

And it annoys me. But I tend to save the annoyance for the games that actually do that kind of thing, rather than the ones which are at worst unbalanced.

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:24:57 +0000

To be fair momentarily, the number of games where the only female character you meet is “Prostitute” would grate on me.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:04:33 +0000

Incidentally:

Instead, Kane manages to best an immortal Mayan sorceror (notably a man of color!) at a contest of combat skill despite said sorceror presumably having had thousands of years of experience using the same kind of powers. Watch out for white men, Indigo Prophecy tells us, for even an emo bumbler like Lucas can win with little effort.

That’s more ridiculous than anything in Fahrenheit’s story. It reminds me of this atrocious article’s take on Deus Ex and a few others:

after playing through the game twice, my subconscious decided that women must be weaker than men, incapable of performing physically demanding tasks unless equipped with cybernetic enhancements. Why else would they all have menial jobs, depending on men for their very survival? Deus Ex convinced me that they women were weaker, and couldn’t do the things men could do. At least, that’s what my subconscious got from the game.

Absolutely! At least, if you discount Anna (which she does), and Maggie, who’s a key member of the baddies’ inner circle, the DuClares, Tiffany, Jordan Shea…

There’s enough to shake your head at in Fahrenheit, not least Tyler’s whakka-cha-wakka funk apartment, without having to stretch so far your arms fall off.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:52:54 +0000

Clearly they had something better in mind, and just couldn’t pull it off.

I disagree. I think they designed the amazing restaurant sequence, and then belatedly realised that they hadn’t got any idea where they were going with it.

The whole first half is full of individually cool, but pointless, sequences like that, almost all of which just dead-end (the bookstore, Carla’s failure to find out anything about the Big Conspiracy in either the Asylum or the police station, Lucas’ increasingly bizarre visions).

Much like The X-Files, as soon as it came to the ‘put-up or shut up’ bit, it all just collapsed because you hadn’t actually been investigating anything.

By: Theory

Theory — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:41:16 +0000

Beaten!

By: Theory

Theory — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:39:57 +0000

I’m not overly impressed. In both articles there’s only circumstantial evidence that the game is racist, except perhaps for the bit about the priest and the child (which is even dodgier now I write it down like that!), and unless I’m very much mistaken why Lucas succeeds “solely by virtue of being a straight white male” is never explained.

His sexism points are far stronger, but given how clearly rushed the last third of the game was I’m willing to give QD a break, myself.

By: Andrew Mayer

Andrew Mayer — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:21:07 +0000

I’ve got to agree with Dan as well.

If the game has a consistent theme for it’s failures it’s that it never lived up to the level of expectation set up in the first half.

Clearly they had something better in mind, and just couldn’t pull it off.

I do think that it’s sexual stereotypes were way more blatant than the racial ones. The ham-handed soft-core porno moments were almost shocking when they came along. “Really game? That’s where you’re going with this? Really?”

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:26:52 +0000

Dan: I agree, generally speaking. In Fahrenheit it’s interesting in that you *are* these other characters at several points in the story. In fact, Carla is a joint-lead for the first half of the game. She *isn’t* the secondary character… but she ends up as one.

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:18:18 +0000

Tyler’s personal funk soundtrack made me wince all the way through.

I’m not surprised that Farenheit fell into the usual cliches given that Cage was appaently intent on copying movies. Most thrillers, crime or action movies could be picked apart just as easily, particularly with regards to the pointless instant-romance plus nookie.

I think Miller’s comments are mostly valid but overstated to the point of baiting though, unless you want to point your finger at 2/3 of movies as being tales of white-male supremacy.

Fahrenheit was an odd game. The first-third of the game had me enthralled, but it seemed like the rest of it was rushed while the whole development team was hopped-up on caffeine and sugar. The final portion of the game was as mad as a bag of snakes.

I think any attempt at developing story in videogames should be cut a little slack, but on the other when I hear people saying that [insert Japanese RPG here] has great characters and story I want to gouge out their eyes with shrimp forks. I get more irate at people praising mediocritity than developers perpetuating racist or mysoginistic tones that we still struggle to wipe from other mediums.

By: Masked Dave

Masked Dave — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:11:02 +0000

I thought 28 Weeks Later’s sole political point was that the American’s can’t control shit.