For you, Christmas may be over. For me, it continues in my enormous trek around the country to visit anyone who has the misfortune to share but a drop of blood with yours truly. But I will break this grand tour to compile a list of interesting game-related writing from across this week and try not to link to a track from an album I got gifted, especially because I think I’ve already linked to it wayyyy back.
- Many people linked to this, and understandably so. It’s a good ‘un. John Lanchester in the London Review of Books takes on that most cringe-worthy of games-criticism questions: “But is it art?”. Point being here is context. To see a serious piece in favour of games – and, particularly, nailing gaming’s subcutural-yet-vibrant existence – in such a place is absolutely heart-warming. That it is pretty damn brilliant is even better. Go read.
- Meanwhile, Tom Armitage takes a nose at Far Cry 2. A lot. Taking in everything from comparisons to Epic Oral Verse to novelistic structure and the exact nature of its much-ignored moral aspect. I tend to agree – the idea that morality in games is nothing more than feed-the-tramp/steal-from-the-tramp dichotomies is pretty loathsome. Africa wins again. As does Tom.
- The Reticle talk to the 2D Boys of the moment in a hefty 2-part interview. First here and second here. Random quote: “A little while ago we plotted the number of sales we got on each day from the day the game first became available for pre-order until the day it launched. Every sales spike corresponded to positive attention from the gaming press. No press? No sales. It’s only through the passion and excitement that guys like you have sewn for the game that the word spreads. Winning IGF awards helped us in discussion with publishers, but didn’t generate very many sales.”
- Over at Gamasutra Ian Bogost turns his gaze upon Mirror’s Edge and has a good old think. Smart, persuasive stuff – the idea of software as a window versus software as a mirror is particularly well done.
- I suspect we’ll do a post about it when it’s all finished, but at least some of RPS (Alec didn’t vote but did comment, Jim didn’t comment but did vote [actually I just didn't comment on those low-rung games - Jim]) have contributed their opinions to Eurogamer’s always amusing Top 50 games of the year. 50-41 and 40-31 are up already, with the remaining parts arriving over the next few days.
- Hitten – These Dancing Days
Failed.
Related Stories:
actually i heartily recommend watching cnn after you watch they live – it’s very appropriate. sort of like reading 1984 before jury duty, or reading simulacra and simulation in a crowded mall food court.
i also heartily recommend reading the work of gary kleck if you’re interested in the personal use of firearms in america. he avoids the sometimes hysterical overreach of both the john lott and brady campaign groups.
My favorite “artsy indie” game to this day is still Aquaria. The 2D Metroidvania genre is still one of my favorites when done well. The sense of exploration and discovery that you get while still following an overarching plot is really pretty ace and not something you get from other media. Cave Story was good this way as well.
“The usual alternative to non-interactive cutscenes is the QTE, which to me is even more insulting and tedious.”
If it were a Guitar Hero sequence, then they would be awesome. In fact, why the hell does a Musical game (like Spinal Tap or [insert other good musical here]) not exist yet? I’d love something in Brutal Legend, say, where your GH-style power solo literally melts someone’s face off.
“I thought they’d be held back by the boring gameplay. Ba-dum-pshh!”
It actually is a problem – you can drag someone round an art gallery in a few hours, but many classic games like Deus Ex or Civ take days of play to finish, plus you need to acquire skills to get anywhere. It’s not enough to show someone a game and explain why it’s good as you can with a piece of static art like a painting, or even a piece of music or a film.
Ah yes, that thing where your character suddenly moves and jumps in ways that you as the player could never reproduce with the gaming controls given to you.
That’s a special feeling of frustration wholly owned by the gaming genre. Well done, gaming genre.
Jesus, this thread is going crazy! :)
Have any of you ever seen this “blog” by Reuben Oluwagembi, the reporter from FarCry 2? It’s pretty amazing stuff. So much back-story and history of the conflict in FarCry 2. If you enjoyed FC2, I strongly suggest you check this out.
http://reubenblog.typepad.com/reubens_blog/
“If it were a Guitar Hero sequence, then they would be awesome. In fact, why the hell does a Musical game (like Spinal Tap or [insert other good musical here]) not exist yet? I’d love something in Brutal Legend, say, where your GH-style power solo literally melts someone’s face off.”
Oh, I completely agree with that, at least! And in fact your Guitar in BL can in fact melt faces, but whether that’s through a tedious rhythm section we’ll have to see. I certainly hope so!
Perhaps the standard is unreasonable, but you’ve made the claim that the US is the ‘most free’ nation on earth. By what standard? Some abstract accountancy of laws? Any measure of freedom that doesn’t include quality of life is meaningless. I’ll bet you think all the good things about the US today are the product of the principles it was founded upon. Well if other countries manage the same things based on different germs of nationhood that does poke a hole in any claim to the superiority of your point of view, however happier you might be knowing you can get a gun. Of course, if you wave away any other nation’s living standard based on some detail that may or may not be as it seems, that makes it whole lot easier.
See this is what I’m talking about. You got this crap off some crank NRA website didn’t you? It’s complete nonsense. All of it. It’d take me days to unpack all of the garbage there but, y’know, for the sake of brevity: The gun ban was about rate of fire not ’scary looking’ you complete tool and yes it was a little over the top for one nutcase. And the internet ‘filter’ is opt in censorship for parents which is silly expensive and won’t work and those are by far the worst things about it. Yes it has potentially unpleasant side-applications and the fact that you and everyone else has heard about them does undermine them somewhat.
If I pull out, say, Echelon what are you going to tell me? That we don’t really need to worry about these things, or it was useful or I’m just repeating some conspiracy crap I heard and the US isn’t some surveilance mad nightmare state filled with gut toting nutters. Right? Something like that?
Do you get the picture yet? Do I need to break out the crayons? ‘Cause I can if necessary.
I try to ignore flamebait. There is an obvious difference between a people rising up to overthrow an oppressive government and an assassin shooting a president. The Civil War is a very different circumstance from an oppressive governmental takeover of which I spoke.
From whence have you derived such a conclusion? You presented numbers on gun crime, not on total violent crime. You might as well compare drowning deaths in the Thames in the US vs the UK and conclude that people in the UK are far more prone to drowning.
If you want to bring in some real crime stats, lets.
According to the FBI, in 2005 the U.S. had 469.2 crimes per 100,000 people.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html
According to the Home Office, in the september to september (2004/2005) timeframe covered in the report, there were 2,420,000 violent crimes in the UK. There were 60.6 million people in the UK in 2006. That translates to about 3992.8 violent crimes in the UK per 100,000 people.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/uk.html
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0506.html
You could argue that the UK survey reports lesser crimes (like verbal threats) as violent crimes, but that doesn’t account for the colossal figure. If someone can present better numbers, I’m all ears.
That means that the U.K. had 850% more violent crime in the 2004/2005 time period than the U.S. had in 2005. The 2004/2005 time period is not two years, but rather a September to September study, so it isn’t appropriate to cut that number in half. Even if we did, it’s a colossal figure, and much greater than the U.S. numbers.
Are you really so terrified of your fellow man that you must ask the government to restrict everyone’s rights so that you may feel a bit safer? Why must the rest of the country suffer for your phobia?
Cars get you from point A to point B rapidly, and a gun can protect you and your loved ones from death, and also prevent a rampaging government from destroying your quality of life. Which is more important? I’ll take mass transit before I give up my ability to overthrow a tyrannical regime.
It makes me very sad to see this sort of rhetoric. Many Europeans seem to be terrified of guns in the same way as racists are afraid of blacks. It appears to be due to the same cause: ignorance.
Once again, have you never heard of Germany, fascist Spain, the Soviet Union, Cuba or Venezuela? IT CAN HAPPEN HERE. I’ve been to London, and I’ve seen the government surveillance cameras. You’re welcome to downplay the nanny state that rules over you as much as you like, but the restrictions on your liberty and the government presence in your life is very real.
I intend for this to be my last post on the subject. I’ve said my piece. If someone presents new numbers or facts, I’ll be happy to look them over.
It’s opt in for the child filter, but you have no choice regarding the “illegal content” filter, which blocks things including “child pornography, excessive violence, instructions in crime or drug use and advocacy of terrorism.”
My mistake. The U.S. Assault Weapons Ban was about how scary the gun looked (including folding stocks, flash hiders, pistol grips, etc). But I’d like to know how the rate of fire of a gun affects its deadliness. Most gun crime isn’t committed by Heat style criminals spraying the streets down with automatic fire, it’s gang violence and individuals firing on each other with handguns. Rate of fire has very little affect on that. Also, no need to be so rude.
I’d tell you that we don’t have government cameras on our streets, and my internet isn’t being filtered by a nanny government that tells me what I am allowed to access.
Now you’re just being an ass.
And now I’m done.
Gosh I’m rude this time of the morning.
Me neither. Got government satelites in the sky though don’t you? (I dunno where you got ‘implimented’ from. They’re just trialing the same crap they did years ago for likely the same result). Irrelevant perhaps but what the hell do I know, I’m all the way over here.
A boastful American! What a rarity! Just quickly, because this really should stop.
This at least vaguely relates to the subject of this blog so I’ll answer it. You use the past tense. This is incorrect. It is being discussed, but hasn’t been implemented, and is extremely controversial. I would be very surprised if it’s passed.
How guns are going to save people from internet filters I’m not quite sure.
Says the guy who says we need guns to stop our own governments.
But yes, I am. Because restricting rights to protect other people is generally what governments do. Very few people are suffering because, amazingly enough, there are very real cultural differences between the US and Australia (and Britain) which mean we just don’t care about guns and are quite happy to have less lethal weapons lying around the place.
“If it were a Guitar Hero sequence, then they would be awesome. In fact, why the hell does a Musical game (like Spinal Tap or [insert other good musical here]) not exist yet? I’d love something in Brutal Legend, say, where your GH-style power solo literally melts someone’s face off.”
Wasn’t there a game like this made for one of those indie game competitions last year sometime? I seem to recall something vaguely similar in PCGUK.
Debatable… although Fahrenheit had a QTE guitar-playing sequence, which, while rubbish, did help you get your ex into bed. Suppose it’s a question of whether the ends justify the means.
@ Nick: This?
I’m sure someone broached the idea of using a Guitar Hero controller to Tim Schafer in one of the previews/interviews which were floating about after Brütal Legend was announced. Whether anything will come of it is anyone’s guess though, I’d imagine Double Fine will be thankful to just get the game out the door at this stage.
@pags, glad im not the only one whom thaught this guy was living 1984.
@ Man Raised By Puffins: Yep, thats the one, thanks.
“Fahrenheit had a QTE guitar-playing sequence, which, while rubbish, did help you get your ex into bed.”
really? that sounds…terrible.
though it would be ok if he played the solo to no more mr. nice guy.
Governments regularly outgrow themselves and strip liberties away from the governed. I don’t think any of my neighbors have it out for me, guns or not, but you can be certain that governments will grow, and occasionally step far enough out of line to warrant their destruction.
Alas, he does not. If you did manage to not fluff up the QTE bit, you were rewarded with a sex-oriented “press-this-button-madly” minigame. Gotta love Quantic Dream.
Are Americans allowed home made explosives? they would be useful to stop the government when they came to take over the suburbs wouldn’t they? What about setting up land-mines in your garden? I don’t get the distinction.
ARGH! Sorry. We weren’t meant to be talking about this, remember?!
I just watched Sideways, what a great film. I don’t even like wine!
“There is an obvious difference between a people rising up to overthrow an oppressive government and an assassin shooting a president. The Civil War is a very different circumstance from an oppressive governmental takeover of which I spoke.”
Civil war is the ultimate act of national over throw, to argue otherwise is the height of foolishness. If the South had won Wilkes would of been hailed as a national hero. The right to bear arms is just a get out clause for violence when people who should know better don’t get their own way. God forbid they take away the toy guns you quaintly think would allow you to retake Capitol Hill if the necessity ever arises (though why you’ve sat there on your AR15s for 8 years and let George Bush bankrupt your country is a bit of a mystery tbh).
“Cars get you from point A to point B rapidly, and a gun can protect you and your loved ones from death, and also prevent a rampaging government from destroying your quality of life. Which is more important? I’ll take mass transit before I give up my ability to overthrow a tyrannical regime.”
That’s some nebulous fear talk if ever I’ve heard it. Whose out there waiting to kill your family exactly? Hows Mr AR15 going to protect them exactly? What price is the quality of your life more valuable than that or everyone elses? Maybe I’m mistaken but I’m pretty sure the US is a democracy no? Surely if you don’t like what the government is up to you vote in the other guy, or you lobby your senator/congressman to do something about it? I mean that’s what happens here in Europe and we get by pretty well without recourse to firearms.
Also amusing presentation of stats, but apparently you need glasses. The listed number of person to person violent crimes in the UK for 2007/8 was a mere 16,939 according to that report. 51% of which did not result in injury to the victim. Hardly the 2 million or so you claim, and certainly far less than experienced in the US, either in numbers or in proportion.
A-Scale: All 3 of my statements were wrong, obviously.
The OP: Are they really 17? Because I’d hit that.
Once again, have you never heard of Germany, fascist Spain, the Soviet Union, Cuba or Venezuela?
Have you not heard of a little country called Iraq? It was ruled by a brutal dictator for decades despite the fact that gun ownership was common:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0310/p01s03-woiq.htm
But their constitution said they weren’t allowed to overthrow tyrants, otherwise they would have done.
Uh, I mean GAME AS STORY AS ART. Phew.
The Lanchester article is quite good. I like reading the work of an enthusiast sharing his love.
There is one thing I’ve never understood in discussions of firearm ownership and freedom, and it is the argument generally used by Americans when defending the Second Amendment. I simply fail to see how the freedom to own guns, even assault weapons, constitutes the ability to overthrow an oppressive government.
Even if you were allowed and able to arm and armour yourself as well as a ground soldier (and you probably aren’t and can’t), the superior support hardware, training, and organization of the military that would carry out the will of this hypothetical oppressive government would easily overtake whatever resistance one could put up. Organized militias would simply make bigger targets. Without the organization and framework of a resistance movement in place, mere gun possession would amount to little more than token resistance. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that violent force is not the highest priority to the successful guerrilla.
Besides, didn’t one of A-Scale’s examples include the oppressed populace being disarmed before being killed? I just don’t see private gun ownership being that useful against tyranny.
Hmm, as far as I can tell, one group of people is used-to/comfortable with the idea of a nation that has easy access to firearms whilst the other group is not used-to/comfortable with the idea of a nation that has easy access to firearms.
The crux of it is, both groups are afraid of change to what they’ve grown used-to/comfortable-with (The phrase ‘Comfort Zone’ applies). I know I’m occasionally guilty of this.
Thats why so often you get a group of gamers who want sequel X to be just like the previous games only different somehow.
Of course, if thats what they get then an entirely different group of people seems to emerge from the woodwork who are entirely unhappy with the way its exactly the same game but with different window dressing (levels and/or story) nbut thats the contrariness of human nature for ya.
Although I really don’t want to get into the main discussion that’s been raging in these here comments, that’s an oversimplification, which never really helps any discussion.
Whatever you call the “crux” or what you say “both groups” are, how and why those people got to their conclusions will vary wildly, which is more important (and interesting, actually) than the final outcome.
I enjoyed that “post” about the Jackall tapes, where we’re supposed to find his musings ‘fascinating’, while to me they seem to be some of the worst written parts of the game. Also enjoyable to read all the comments from “people” discussing how the Jackall’s such an interesting person (the Jackall even posts there himself!).. while he seemed infinitely boring with his pseudo-Nietzschian blather to me (as I have also posted there)..
“@USA vs. UK argument: Pretty sure A-Scale just switched onto the movie 1984 one day and thought it was BBC News.”
Maybe he gets all his news about the UK from samizdata.net?
This thread sucks; probably the worst in the history of RPS. Take this crap elsewhere (apologies to those who stayed on topic)
Dingdingding! When the criminal leader who illegally spies on citizens, breaches human rights and wages frivolous war makes direct overtures to the 2nd Amendment kooks, all their talk about being ready to wage guerilla war for FREEDOM against TYRANNY vanish in a puff of cognitive dissonance.
“Nnnno, now’s not the right TIME to take the country back. The Constitution’s no big deal; except the Second Amendment, of course. I’ll just go back inside and lick my Ted Nugent poster for awhile.”
“You’re gonna end up wearing a hole in that thing.”
“Oh, I have…”
[SPOILERS]
Meanwhile, the comments in that Oluwagembi blog are hilarious. I didn’t mind the Jackal being such a cartoon Kurtz-plus-Lord-of-War presence (the tapes got a bit better as they went along, and I thought the payoff was decent, in that he realised how much shit he was talking and sacrificed himself for it — it’s even better that you do the same as payoff for your own vile actions), but the “Mm, yes, it’s fascinating and complex how he’s so amoral” guff in the comments is comedy gold. He’s adequate, maybe, but jeez… Maybe there are Ubisoft marketing guys in there talking the story up; they really do have the most embarrassing PR people.
I dunno, at least its not about piracy or DRM.
Rabid Nationalism? On my RPS?
Take it somewhere else, the forums even.
ON TOPIC: Ace Sunday papers. Friggen great reading, cheers.
Well, it’s not really rabid. And I think it’s high time RPS explains to me what to think about the Steinmeier/Brown split, Sarko’s half brother becoming a bigwig at the Carlyle Group and Nostradamus’ prophecies fulfilling yet again when my family had no duck on the second day of Christmas.
@qrter: Yeah, I suppose it is an oversimplification, but it doesn’t change the fact that its more or less true. Both groups of folks seem to be used to their current state of affairs and its one of the reasons, though obviously not the only reason for why this debate is happening in the first place. I also regard it as a factor that complicates all the other factors because folks doing the debating are all the more likely to be defensive of their way of life.
I think you’ll find it’s our RPS. Also I’m not sure where you get the idea it’s rabid nationalism. More a case of facts Vs hysterical fiction. Also I’m pretty sure there aren’t many people out there who think relaxing present UK gun laws are a good idea, save maybe arms manufacturers.
Back on Topic though. The only issue I have with Farcry 2 is the unnecessary artifices put into the game, which kind of break the atmosphere the developers worked hard to create. Fast travelling around by Bus I can handle, but the whole magic gun crates in safe houses and handy online arms dealer seemed kind of at odds with your mission to hunt down the Jackal. In some ways it would of been a lot better if you were forced to run and gun it, picking up guns and equipment as you progressed off the fallen rather than had recourse to the magic box.
That would have been entirely possible, too, had guns not fired bullets made of jam and rust.
I had always wondered what those thick, splodgy liquids coming out of peoples necks when you shot them were, because they sure as hell weren’t blood. Not like any blood I’ve ever seen anyway.
It was a proposition made on the given that the overall quality of the weapons you’d acquire from the fallen would be much improved. As I say I’d of preferred it if it had gone down that route, however it’s probably a concession made because of the games inability to save on the fly in the console versions. They needed the save huts and having the weapon storage provides the player with an incentive to use them.
Alternatively, being a mercenary your character should be able to learn how to maintain guns. Cleaning them after or before a battle when their looking a bit tired couldn’t be that much of a chore, surely.
(In truth, I suspect it was to limit the chance that players would be running around with the best guns far earlier than the designers desired, but I don’t really see any harm in the loot and maintain method either), plus kadayi makes a very good point about the whole save thing.
I’m still not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of a technical limitation of the consoles impacting on a PC version, but since this ones fairly limited in terms of its impact on the overall game I’ll let it slide this time.
Not that I have the slightest interest in being dragged into this silly discussion, but anyone thinking ‘Nazi Germany is the worst case scenario’ needs to actually read some history.
I’d say a country which has an act named the Patriot Act (I believe it is actually an acronym, I mean, bloody hell) which allows the FBI to check which books any given person has rented recently and forbids the librarian from telling the person who was checked up on that they have been checked is fairly restrictive. But this is boring now, I’ll stop before I get started properly. Sorry.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/uk-approves-pol.html
My English friends, stop this madness before you find guns a necessity.
I’d just like to add that me entering this into google.
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Resulted in this page. Honestly crazy Pc gamer writers blog!