Heliocentric says:

On art, i think people are much too fast to draw limitations. Its always been the way. People with little minds telling artists of new mediums “what you do isn’t art” i’ve heard so many desperate justifications. Like how games are not art because the player has influence. I can go to a theatre production and heckel does that make acting not artistic?

Truth be if you are look at things from far back “art defines man from beast” is an old reference. But what is art? To me anything with creative expression beyond function is art. The form and flow of a user interface doesn’t require the attention it often recieves. Its subjective and capable of causing an emotional responce, ideally calm and a sense of control. The question is not *if* games are art but simply how long til it is acknowledged. I am of the belief the role playing fundamentally is method acting but in turn playing games could be art. Much like dancing or syncronised swimming.

Are you really going to tell me that in blood money when i dropped the mans subdued father on his son killing them both that wasn’t a work of art?

December 28th, 2008 at 11:10 am

Cunningbeef says:

“Actually, if you do want to talk about the biases of the EG writers, you’re going to have to look away from the console wars – which is, as always, just people in Eastern Europe in 1939 debating about whether it’s best if they’re going to be ruled by Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia”

I love you, Kieron.

December 28th, 2008 at 11:50 am

Ben Abraham says:

Yeah I’m pretty sure I *have* seen that video before, and I would only have seen it if Kieron linked to it.

December 28th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Corbeaubm says:

Bogost’s article was a rather good summary of what’s problematic about game consumption these days. I’ve particularly encountered this when discussing the new Prince of Persia game. When something deviates from a formula, everyone wants to call it either good or bad without looking at what it might be trying to convey.

December 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Edgar the Peaceful says:

The ‘tedious’ driving around in GTA is my favourite part of the games. This is where I discover new music from the fantastically playlisted Radio Stations whilst soaking up the architecture of the city – ‘Inside my Love’ by Minnie Riperton is a current GTA IV favourite.

December 28th, 2008 at 12:59 pm

Psychopomp says:

As well thought out as the Far Cry 2 article is, I believe this is a case of seeing something where there is nothing.

Still, made me boot it up again; unintentional or not, the game just got 500X more powerful.

December 28th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

mandrill says:

There is a simple answer to the question of whether games are art or not and a simple reason for that answer:
Games are art because we say they are.
There, done. It is not necessary for anyone else to chime in with their opinion of what art is and whether games qualify, what gives them the right to say if they are not consumers of games?

December 28th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Shadowcat says:

“Every sales spike corresponded to positive attention from the gaming press. [...] Winning IGF awards helped us in discussion with publishers, but didn’t generate very many sales.”

I’m inclined to suggest that winning IGF awards probably resulted in a greater press awareness of the game, and a greater willingness to spend time and/or pages covering it at all.

IGF -> attention
positive attention -> sales

Particularly if the gaming press can mention the aforementioned awards to its readers. Readers notice that kind of thing (I know I did).

There may not be a convenient sales spike to associate with the IGF awards, but I’m a little surprised that they didn’t acknowledge the possibility that the awards helped to generate positive publicity.

December 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

AndrewC says:

I’m surprised someone as crumblingly old as yourself would like that song, Mr Gillen. It certainly has that slightly battered optimism that the best Indie has, but you have to forgive so much to get to it: the singer’s nasally affected, Furtado-esque voice, that she blathers on about self involved guff in the way only teenagers can get away with, that the arrangement shows little imagination, that the keyboard sounds horrible and rips off ‘Here Comes The Sun’ by way of The Cure. And on and on.

It’s positively unseemly that you should like this. Tsk. I totally would the singer though, if she straightened her hair.

December 28th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

Chris Evans says:

Woop more Sunday Paper goodness :D

December 28th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Saflo says:

Psychopomp said:

As well thought out as the Far Cry 2 article is, I believe this is a case of seeing something where there is nothing.

You contradict yourself. The article was well-thought-out precisely because Tom Armitage understood what the game was trying to do, even if it didn’t always succeed.

December 28th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

L.B. Jeffries says:

Lanchaster thinks that movies are better than games? I agree that games have not yet broached the range of subject matter that films have…but a superior medium?

In a film or show I sit on my ass and have a director display an organized series of camera shots that convey a message. Hopefully I will perceive everything they have said and following that, I will appreciate their intent and grasp some kind of personal relevancy. I struggle to understand how the viewer is any different than a cow chewing grass watching cars go by.

In a game I use a symbolic representation with myself to interact with a series of rules and develop an understanding about the world based on those interactions. It is crisper, more efficient, and more profound than films could ever hope to be.

December 28th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

Kieron Gillen says:

Bob: But… they’re 17 or whatever. They *are* children.

AndrewC: That it annoys Cure fans is all the more reason to like it, y’know?

KG

December 28th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Larington says:

I hereby nominate AndrewC’ comment about dismissive definitions as comment reply of the year.

December 28th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

qrter says:

Monkey in Lab Pressing Button vs. Cow Watching Cars, Monkey still better.

I don’t know, Top Gear can be a lot of fun.

December 28th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

AndrewC says:

Yes, Cure fans are the worstest, but mocking them is kind of like punching grannies in the ease of attack and lack of possible reprisal.

And I get that there’s joy in that song’s ‘naive’ musicianship but I can’t get past that they’re really rubbish musicians. It’s sort of like going to a school performance of A Christmas Carol or something. ‘Aw bless’ maybe, but you wouldn’t go for the enjoyment of theatre.

December 28th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

BooleanBob says:

I’m going to gush now. It will be unseemly, it will probably not be coherent. You have been informed, and if you will proceed regardless, then may I commend you for your patience. Otherwise, take it under advisement: This post is strictly TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR

Lanchester might be my new personal deity (associated power: the believer may cast Conjure Muesli once per day). Many games journalists have written impassioned and convincing defences of our lovely hobby, including some (if not all) of the RPS pantheon, but this is the first piece of games journalism that reads as the findings of an Outsider looking in and reporting back to their strange, vivid world, of Royal Academies and News Nights and Isles of Dogs and Banks of Englands, having performed due diligence, conducted research and actually played games, instead of hastily constructing an opinion of ethereal impressions a la Ebert, Bozza Johnson and the Mail. The conclusions he arrives at, so aligned with my own (that is, those of a confirmed and lifelong gamer) are an immense source of satisfaction equalled by nothing in the industry since the Byron report proved that a TV psychologist, of all creatures, is capable of having an open mind and personal integrity. Society at large is beginning to validate games: isn’t it thrilling?

The aside he makes about LBP did have a somewhat discordant ring, bringing to the ear an echo of, bizarrely in the context, none other than Andrew Ryan himself, but I suspect in him a subscribed auterist, and if he had fleshed that thought out fully he would probably have another 3,000 words on his hands, spanning all sorts of media to the point where he was barely writing about computer games at all (but doubtless still well worth the read). The first 3 and final 7 paragraphs of his 2005 article on that Blunkett biography are a peerless summation of how British political geography has unfolded in the last 25 years or so (the only thing he failed to anticipate for the intervening period since its publication was the return of the pre-Thatcherite ‘New’ Tories under Tony Cameron).

TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR TL;DR

I’m digressing like a tipsy and nostalgic vicar in the Christmas pulpit; my enthusiasm for this guy is messing with my clarity of thought: I really liked this article. Thanks, RPS.

P.s. Eurogamer totally ripped off this site’s Ultimate Collection of the Best 2008 Ever shtick by having Ellie Gibson do a month-by-month recap of the gaming year in news. Her writing doesn’t seem to enjoy consistency of form (which breeds paranoid theories in my brain about her being a cynical editorial construct: note the initials of her name! And everyone knows girls, gaming on the internets, is the perfect storm of existential impossibility!)… but, in two days’ writing, she contrives more laughs than you guys managed in a month of copy*. And that’s from someone who enjoyed Furious Web Fellows jokes.

*games journalism question: Do hastily-edited MSN conversation logs qualify as copy?

Wishing everyone a TL;DR festive period, and a Jesus Bob, STFU already New Year!

December 28th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Gap Gen says:

I noticed quite early how Far Cry 2’s morality differed from other games. I was tasked with stealing gold for one faction but checked in with my “buddy” in case he had a better idea. “How you like to kill a king?” he asked, and so I turned and walked out the door. Of course, later I was blowing up supplies of medicine, etc.

December 28th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

Kieron Gillen says:

Nabeel: Worth noting that Mass Effect was also in last year’s charts. Most people would have voted for the 360 version last year. That it was in this time around is impressive full stop.

BooleanBob: It wasn’t MSN logs. That’s the Verdicts. We probably should have gone for gags though.

KG

December 28th, 2008 at 6:08 pm

Muzman says:

BooleanBob; dude, month by month recaps of ‘that was the year that was’ style are a decades old journo trope I don’t think RPS would dare lay claim to inventing nor taking lightly.

Tangent from the games as art thing; he mentions Rand in that casual off the cuff dismissive way that foreigners do but, while the internet can skew apparent popularity of anything, that stuff is pretty damn huge as far as I can tell. People read it at highschool and in philosophy class, as in it’s on the syllabus in many places. Many consider it the definitive American philosophy and I dare say it’s a huge undercurrent of 20th century American thinking, not just self absorbed nerds. That’s definitely the impression I get anyway. That most of the world ignores her or thinks she is a bit of an extremist joke shouldn’t distract folks.

(incidentally ranking the arts in terms of communication is ludicrous. Speed of affect surely holds no insight into their respective potential for overall impact. I bet ya don’t have to look far for an argument that says such speed is a case against music, pop in particular, having any real worth. Because it’s cheap quick and merely pushes all the right buttons, which by now everyone knows. Unlike say Mahler or someone whom requires a longer attention span to reveal its true rewards etc etc. Not saying I agree or it’s that simple, but it’ll be out there somewhere.)

December 28th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

A-Scale says:

I rather liked Mr. Armitage’s take on FC2. It was interesting to have someone explain to me the connection to Apocalypse Now, the story arc, the transition from “awesome, I’m the hero again” to “I don’t want to blow up the medical convoy…” to “fuck it all, I’ll shoot everyone so long as I finish this damn game” which I experienced. I think his explanation lost steam in his discussion of the wildlife, which seemed to stretch the analogy of wildlife to people and country just a bit too far. I don’t think the journalist is the protagonist, it seems quite clear that the Jackal fills that role. Mind you that I have not completed the game ( I expect that I am about 3/4 of the way through), but the Jackal is the only one in the game who offers the possibility of change for the country. Mr. Oluwagembi is a meaningless blogger floating in a sea of meaningless bloggers. Certainly he has something to say, but he cannot issue his message through the traditional media outlets, and on the internet his voice is washed away by the profusion of blogs which exist. The Jackal offers a direct and meaningful solution. Guns against guns, power to meet power. Isolation by means of mutually assured destruction, only on the scale of individual men.

I don’t want to complete FC2. I enjoyed the game for a while, I marveled at the fire and brush, the squeaking of the rusty cars, the way that NPCs in ceasefire zones will push you around like tough guys if you get too close, but throw their arms up and plead for mercy if you aim your gun at their face at close range (did anyone notice this? I was VERY impressed. Also, try aiming an explosive weapon ala the grenade launcher at them. They respond in a different, and reasonable fashion), I eventually dreaded the repetitious sounds of the car, the annoying checkpoints and the rough terrain which immobilizes cars regularly. I want to complete the story only so that I can get it out of my mind. It’s not fun anymore, and they don’t want it to be. As Armitage said, the game pulls you in with the narrative, but pushes you away with the harshness of its gameplay. This is truly a remarkable game, and certainly one of the best and most understated of the year. I don’t know if I’d buy it again, but I do know that Ubisoft deserves much praise for their work of fiction, and I pray that they will continue along this path in order to advance narrative in games as a whole.

December 28th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

Nick says:

Not that I’m a huge fan of the Cure or anything (I like maybe three of their songs – how can you not like the bass line of Lovecats?) but I’m not sure how they are rubbish musicians, they are perfectly fine technically.

December 28th, 2008 at 7:05 pm

A-Scale says:

Well, that’s kind of the point – Rand is the American Football of Philosophy. That the rest of the world stares and blinks says much.

As an American (Detroit, MI), I had to read Anthem by Ayn Rand in early high school. I thought it was interesting, and it probably piqued my interest in dystopian novels. I read the last few pages recently when going through a stack of old books, and it’s pure shit. Rand is a pathetically bad novelist, her fiction simply acting as a means to keep people interested in hearing her own ideology.

There is much to be said for the individual rights and laissez faire capitalism which Randian Objectivism espouses. I don’t expect Brits to get it. You people grow up in a very different atmosphere, and are willing to accept far more restrictions on personal liberty than Americans. We too look back at you and shrug. Why any nation would permit itself to be under constant state surveillance, retain a monarchy (though as an ancillary feature, but still with all of the cultural trappings), and stripped of any means to defend themselves or to overthrow an oppressive government is perfectly strange to us.

December 28th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

thomp says:

“You people grow up in a very different atmosphere, and are willing to accept far more restrictions on personal liberty than Americans. ” — this is faintly ridiculous, unless you regard nationalised healthcare as an oppressive tool of the state

December 28th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

A-Scale says:

*Using the same texts

December 28th, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Muzman says:

Thing is the US has all these restrictions and a lot of the surveilance (although the UK is getting a bit weird these days), it merely has to couch them in slightly different terms to get around said philosophical differences.
But hey, they’ll buckle their seat belts after the bloodsoaked parchment of the constitution is prised from their cold dead hands (some people, anyway)

December 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pm

Pace says:

Was that the sound of the world staring and blinking that I just heard?

Yikes.

December 28th, 2008 at 7:43 pm

Dinger says:

Okay folks, bust out the hose.

No, Ayn Rand is not regarded as serious philosophy in the United States. Yes, they might teach it in high school, but high school teachers with specialized degrees (other than “education”) are at a disadvantage at the system (especially to “coach”), so it don’t prove nothin’, no-how.

Milton Friedman at least is somewhat articulate, and even he’s a clown.

L.B. Jeffries: you’re wrong. If I want to _communicate_ something, I’ll use a novel or a movie, or some other art form where the audience is fundamentally passive. If I want the audience to _experience_ something, especially a rule-set and a vision of a world, I’ll take games. That’s why A Mind Forever Voyaging is awesome, but still felt the need for you to close the vents on the saboteurs (oops! spoiler!) using some unix-derived instructions not taught anywhere in the game.

December 28th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Kieron Gillen says:

(A-Train picks up my main problem with Rand too. The woman can’t write.)

KG

December 28th, 2008 at 7:46 pm

Heliocentric says:

Okay l b that kinda makes sense.

But if all the mediums are allowed the fully mature? Movies are not there yet. Writing is stable. Even if the means of communication change the ways we communicate and valve them.

But rather for waiting for games and movies to be done so we can stick a fork in them we just let social repressions on games to go. Say 100 years, by then we’ll have new media to consider i’m sure.

When every person knows how to use a mouse/wii mote (to the victor goes the spoils) and in everywhere but the extremes of society gaming is not taboo.

At this point a great artist is just as likely to choose games as music or writing.

When games reach this level of conformity with society will “music is faster” be right?

Not that i suggest speed is best, but it is a virtue. But regardless if games given this time can grow into something valid?

If so those who dismiss games are just the early nay sayers movies and television suffered.

December 28th, 2008 at 7:48 pm

BooleanBob says:

The queen isn’t any kind of opressor; she’s the sole star of a reality TV show that has been broadcasting relentlessly for half a century. That she has retained any shred

If we really are going to dance the troll political, my first move would be to point out that all your Objectivism, all your hard-fought rights and all your massive freedom boners only serve to distract you from the fact that the two parties of your Democratic Government(tm) are just the left and right hands of the laughing tyrant.

December 28th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

Gap Gen says:

“Things like gun bans, knife bans, and talk of banning violent video games go down very differently in England than they do in the States.”

Interestingly, Americans are far more prudish than Brits, censoring things like Giants: Citizen Kabuto where other nations did not, while things like Janet Jackson’s nipple and Hot Coffee caused several American heads to explode through sheer force of indignance. A lot of Brits like to comment on how apparently nudity is more dangerous for American children to see than violence.

December 28th, 2008 at 8:07 pm

Nick says:

And let’s not forget everyone in the UK has bad teeth, right?

*sigh*

December 28th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

shinygerbil says:

@AndrewC: Nothing wrong with curly hair! :(

December 28th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

Katsumoto says:

Pace: Yeah I know :) I thought I would apologise anyway, I should probably have kept my thoughts to myself!

December 28th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

Arnulf says:

I think Lanchester pins down what ‘objectivism’ really is quite well.

December 28th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

Nicolas says:

Note to the editors: the band are called Those Dancing Days not These Dancing Days.

December 28th, 2008 at 9:57 pm

A-Scale says:

Thing is the US has all these restrictions and a lot of the surveilance (although the UK is getting a bit weird these days), it merely has to couch them in slightly different terms to get around said philosophical differences.

Gun restrictions in the U.S. are NOTHING like those in the U.K. I can walk into a gun store and buy ten “assault rifles” TODAY. I can get a concealed carry pistol permit in a month or less. How long would it take you to get government permission to purchase a bolt action 22 target rifle?

The queen isn’t any kind of opressor; she’s the sole star of a reality TV show that has been broadcasting relentlessly for half a century. That she has retained any shred

Obviously the dear queen isn’t having heads lopped off these days, but the fact that the entire country partakes in a kind of dog and pony show regarding a monarchy is simply hilarious. The fact that England has retained even the vestiges of a form of government based on divine right, that such a queen has any place in your political system (no matter how inconsequential) stuns people in the U.S. To permit such a blood soaked throne to exist, to bow to it in a ceremonial fashion, and to pay that queen with public funds every year is to honor the house which oppressed Britain and nations around the globe for centuries.

If we really are going to dance the troll political, my first move would be to point out that all your Objectivism, all your hard-fought rights and all your massive freedom boners only serve to distract you from the fact that the two parties of your Democratic Government(tm) are just the left and right hands of the laughing tyrant.

Troll political indeed.

Interestingly, Americans are far more prudish than Brits, censoring things like Giants: Citizen Kabuto where other nations did not, while things like Janet Jackson’s nipple and Hot Coffee caused several American heads to explode through sheer force of indignance. A lot of Brits like to comment on how apparently nudity is more dangerous for American children to see than violence.

To equate the Religious Right with the U.S. population at large is a grave mistake, and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of U.S. politics.

As a general curiosity, if the US government and military really wanted to retain a grip in the face of mass popular dissent, don’t you think that an untrained populace armed with hunting rifles might not stand a chance against a military machine that consumes half of the world military spending and is the most advanced in the world?

Perhaps you’ve never heard of Iraq. Insurgents have nearly defeated the U.S. government over some 5 years using nary a tank nor bomber. Such a massive military would also have a hard time finding funding or soldiers if things took a large scale turn for the worse. Pray tell, what would the English do if their government decided to go all Norsefire on your ass? Let’s not pretend such a thing has never happened before. We’ve seen enough Hitlers and Stalins to show that.

(Me I reckon that the second ammendment palaver is the greatest panacea in political history and basically results in a civic discourse where the government can do what the hell it likes but Johnny six-shooter just says to himself “Well, I don’t really like this, but I’ve still got my rifle.” Guns; better than religion and TV put together.)

Then why is the U.S. still the most free nation? The government doesn’t investigate our television purchases, we can own just about any small arm, etc. The English certainly don’t have guns to hang on to, yet your government invades your life far more than ours.

P.S. Have I become A-Train? I’m certain that’s supposed to be a sarcastic play on how I bluster my way into conversation, but I quite like it.

December 28th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

Katsumoto (jvgp100) says:

You can buy assault rifles and concealed pistols. Yay! Man! But yes, it’s totally shocking that we have a ceremonial monarchy, obv. Hang on, wha?

December 28th, 2008 at 10:36 pm

Muzman says:

A..nn..mustn’t..no..can’t…guh

Gun restrictions in the U.S. are NOTHING like those in the U.K. I can walk into a gun store and buy ten “assault rifles” TODAY.

Depends on what state dude. Also I wasn’t really talking about guns, but all the things you happily ignore because you have guns.
And as for “Then why is the U.S. still the most free nation?”. You’re going to have to define ‘free’ and how you arrived at ‘most’ there. What is free exactly? Have you lived in many developed nations and found them significantly oppressive? Or is it all just stuff you heard that sounded like a big deal but really isn’t? If you’re a sports shooter or something, ok maybe. But otherwise what significant behaviours and practices and aspects of social mobility do you think the US has that other developed nations do not?

December 28th, 2008 at 10:38 pm

Katsumoto (jvgp100) says:

Also, weren’t we meant to have stopped talking about this? Go America! Go Britain! We’re both lovely.

Where is KG and his damn MGS4 write up? :)

December 28th, 2008 at 10:43 pm

Katsumoto (jvgp100) says:

I am also a moderate fan of the rest of the world (within reason, natch).

December 28th, 2008 at 10:54 pm

Man Raised By Puffins says:

All countries are equally lovely, however some are more equally lovely than others.

Back on topic, cheers for that Lanchester article. It’s a good read, although it’s a shame that he doesn’t appear to be aware of what the indies are up to.

December 28th, 2008 at 11:05 pm

Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:

@A-Scale, on the dog and pony show:

Actually, you’d be surprised how much longing for “our own royalty” the American public’s had goin’ on since General Washington decided to take up the trappings of a non-monarchical executive. You see it in our treatment of celebrity families, including one Presidential. America still longs for Camelot. The Brits still giggle when we admit we do.

It’s less about the principle of divine right over the agency of the individual voter as it is some deeply rooted human fascination with being Fabulous.

December 29th, 2008 at 12:12 am

Gap Gen says:

Out of interest, what did people make of Far Cry 2’s narrative? Personally, I didn’t dig it so much, the overall plot being thin and the buddy stories underdeveloped. It’s a good system, though, provided you flesh it out enough. As it is, I found the story-telling a little shallow.

I mean, SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER!
(I heard tell that when you have to choose between saving the priest or your buddies, it doesn’t matter what happens. If that’s true, and I can believe it, then it’s a choice without a genuine consequence. That’s very, very lazy design. Bad Far Cry 2. No biscuit.)

December 29th, 2008 at 12:26 am

Man With Lobster Avatar says:

The comings and goings feel kind of awkward, but I suspect that will always be a problem for games that allow you to putz around the landscape and take side jobs inbetween story-critical events. The buddy system is horribly flawed, the who-wrote-this-stuff journal is puzzling, the fact that you know everyone’s name and personality immediately upon (and sometimes before) meeting them is incredibly weird. And yet.

As for the event you describe, I don’t know that that’s true. If it is, the reason is apparent plotwise at the very end of the game and (giving Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt) plays into the theme Armitage noted of your choices being meaningless and the consequences of your actions being, invariably, murder and suffering, since you’re just another in a long line of foreigners wreaking havoc in Africa for petty reasons.

Whether that absolves it of being a bad design decision, I don’t know.

December 29th, 2008 at 1:25 am

Janto says:

Steering, ever so gently, back to a semblance of being on track, what’s often fascinated me is the (predominantly American based) fascination with autocratic leadership in heroic fantasy. I mean, in an RPG, you’re never in a situation where your village is massacred by orcs/orks/gorks and you fight your way to the kings castle AND EXECUTE THE BLOODY IDIOT WHO LET THIS TRAGEDY HAPPEN. You see it a lot in sort of second-tier fantasy, Terry Brooks and what not, all this silly stuff about destinies and the strong elite rising up to take power over the inert masses. Wait, that’s sort of Objectivist, isn’t it? I’m not that familiar with the philosophy, although I would think that anyone arguing for complete free-market capitalism might >cough< be well advised to look at how well self-regulating banking has been doing recently.

Anyhow, the interesting thing is for me is that the deeply entrenched fantasy cliches are primarily an American creation, noble kings, evil orcs and, what was it you called elves Kieron? “Nazis who happen to be right?” And the hyping of strong, do-what-I-say-because-I-say-it leadership extends beyond high fantasy. Consider Lost, where the survivors are basically ruled by a gun-totting oligarchy that keeps them in the dark about what’s going on, for their own good, and consults only a few outsiders. Maybe it’s a harmless fascination with the dark side, but Yanks do seem to have a dirty fetish for authoritarianism.

This is actually relevant to games because games are primarily (not exclusively) recycling the same old pulp plots of evil aliens, heroic soldiers, space marines, and fantasy numbskulls. Sometimes they do it well, sometimes they do it badly, but it’s rare to have a game change the underlying conventions of a genre on you. So all the authoritarian leadership guff stays in.

I’d like to see games that dealt with these issues with more sophistication than ‘The Strong Should Lead’.

December 29th, 2008 at 1:32 am

DazzeL says:

On a completely unrelated note (btw: Janto, I thought that post was excellent!) has anyone read the EG top 50 articles? They’re brilliantly fun, as are most of EG’s features, but these are particularly great for the blatent PC bias of the rankings. Well done RPS, you’re voting has skewed the results sufficiently enough that, now, everyone can read about awesome PC games that normally get ignored because they’re not entitled Solid Gears of Halo Theft. Or something.

December 29th, 2008 at 1:48 am

Kadayi says:

“Allow me to revise- the U.S. one of the freest countries in the world, and is certainly more free than England.”

2004 US deaths resultant of firearms:- 29,569. US Pop 300 Million.

2004 UK deaths resultant of firearms – 87. UK Pop 60 Million.

29,569 fatalities Vs 87. More people die everyday as a result of shootings in the US than die in the UK in a year from shootings. Sure the UK has a 6th of the population, but it’s also a much more densely populated country Vs the US. Sometimes a bit of restriction is no bad thing. In this day and age in the modern world what necessity, what need is there really for the general public to be able to buy guns like the AR15?

December 29th, 2008 at 1:55 am

qrter says:

On the subject of choices having genuine meaning or consequence, there is always the problem that people will just go to a walkthrough or otherwise attempt to powergame through an either/or decision offered to the player. If the outcomes for both decisions are very similar, then it becomes more an issue of either personal preference or the resultant decision being a sort of reflection of the person who made the choice.

The powergamer will always destroy a gaming experience for him- or herself. This is a problem on that gamer’s side, designers shouldn’t even think about those kinds of gamers while creating a game (well.. except maybe for Dude Huge..).

Your comment reminds me of BioShock (no, really).. as becomes clear quite quickly regarding the binary decision of do you harvest the little sisters, or save them (let’s just accept this for what it is – there’s a lot that can be said about the dumbed down morality there.. I always loved how Dr. Tenenbaum finds the audacity inside herself to call the player a ‘monster’ for harvesting little sisters, the shining beacon of ethicality she supposedly is..). It looks like the player will get less Adam when saving the girls but as most of us will have suspected when playing the game for the first time, there is no difference in amount (the difference being when you get the stuff).

What would the effect’ve been if bad players did indeed get more Adam than someone who decides to save the sisters? Would more people have started playing baddies? Where would the shift have been, at what amount difference would people change their minds?

I think I might’ve preferred it if baddies would get more Adam (especially since they can’t show remorse and change their ways – if that had been possible, that would’ve really been a game about morality and consequence), it would make my choice to be a BioShock Jedi more profound, in a way (”against all the odds, he still prevailed!”).

December 29th, 2008 at 2:21 am

A-Scale says:

PS: My owning an AR-15 is far less of a threat to your liberty than the ability of a government to abolish the rights of its citizens without resistance. Gun crime has much more to do with socioeconomic conditions than it does with the guns, as evinced by the fact that London is rife with knife crime. I have a right to defend myself, and I have a right to destroy a government which oppresses me unjustly. You have no right to take those rights away from me, no matter how terrified evil looking guns make you.

December 29th, 2008 at 2:40 am

Will Tomas says:

Calm down, dears.

This didn’t take long… some people just can’t resist the temptation. It’s like when some other people saw the Eurogamer MGS4 review.

Let’s just agree to get along, shall we?

The UK is good because we taught the world association football and the expression “fuck off.” And we have more gentlemanly style. And play cricket.

The US is good because they can have a system where someone as intelligent and unlikely as Barack Obama can get to run the country right when they looked like it was going all dynastic.

Now let’s all just be friends.

December 29th, 2008 at 3:10 am

Nick says:

I can’t walk out the door without having my freedoms oppressed, it’s terrible I tell you.

December 29th, 2008 at 3:21 am

Pags says:

The sad and funny thing being that if you are in London, that is literally true.

That’s why I stay indoors. Those darn freedom police keep getting me down.

December 29th, 2008 at 3:32 am

Mo says:

What is your issue with intelligent discussion of important issues? Not gamey enough?

Yes, actually. There are plenty of places on the internet where it is appropriate to discuss politics. This isn’t one of them.

December 29th, 2008 at 8:07 am

Gap Gen says:

Jim: If Adam Curtis’s The Trap/Century of the Self is to be believed, modern British (and US) politics is designed with the purpose of winning voters with a mish-mash of policies that suit the maximum number of people rather than a coherent set of ideas. Thing is, appealing to peoples’ rationalist doesn’t seem to work – Labour in 1992 argued that raising taxes would help Britain, and people agreed in force in the polls, but come election day they voted Conservative because they didn’t want to pay taxes. New Labour, and the subsequent shift in focus by the Conservatives, is a response to that (and Clinton’s shift in focus after his first election) – they know that in order to get elected, a random grab-bag of policies is actually beneficial.

It’d be interesting to see what happens to American Republican politics, though – the party tries so hard to appeal to Bible-belt morons that it’s partly in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own idiocy. Neither Bush nor Palin are at all competent (whatever your views on Brown, he’s a governmental machine compared to those two), and yet they succeed because they’re incompetent – Joe Republican doesn’t know the difference between “anyone can be President” and “anyone should be President”.

December 29th, 2008 at 10:07 am

Jochen Scheisse says:

I always thought the only native and definitive philosophy from the USA is “American Pragmatism”.

Also, freedom of society is mostly limitation of personal freedom.

Finally, what the FUCK are you talking about?

December 29th, 2008 at 11:05 am

Katsumoto says:

Ah Kieron, alas, but I do hope to see it one day. I got a Playstation for Christmas and though I can’t say i’ve ever played any of the Metal Gear series I am very tempted now purely on the basis of all this palava :)

December 29th, 2008 at 11:38 am

Larington says:

Well, at least there are fewer deadly insects and stuff in the UK, I think I’ll hold onto that little candle in the darkness of nation-vs-nation debatery.
Back on topic, yeah, people probably don’t even realise it at the time, but one of the reasons Deus Ex is so special is because theres genuine consequence to your actions, Smuggler & Jocks exit being cases in point.
In a relatively free form game (Open world, or Branched/Hub Linearity as in Deus Ex), a designer should where possible, try to provide opportunities where you can have access to meanful consequences, especially for non-plot-essential stuff.
I suppose its a matter of personal preference whether or not you’d want to try to minimise powergaming attitudes, I think I would choose to do at least some powergaming prevention – not to spite the powergamers but simply because I feel a narrative strong game shouldn’t be merely about ‘winning’ or ‘being strongest’.
(That said, my experience of online play suggests that when people come along who are prone to powergame, particularly in competitive play, the fun often gets sucked out of the experience as a haves and have-nots gap appears in the score/kill/whatever tables. AKA Frustration Levels for the people who are just having fun (rather than trying to be the ‘best’) reach a peak).

December 29th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

Bob Arctor says:

I can’t make my mind up whether the girls were funny looking or cute looking.

Either way were I single and drunk and in an indie club none of them would get a refusal.

… politics? The what now?

December 29th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Tei says:

I am powergamer, but I also like good story and stuff. If games are presented as a win or lose, and a weak oponent (or one with simple rules the powergamer can deduce and exploit) the powergamer will chose win, and will do it with no remorse, and no delay. So a fix for that is no-trivial oponents, present more options than win and lose, make so the world can’t be trivialized or rules-exploited. GTA:Vice City is a framework that has achieve that, I can simply drive around the city doing nothing. It seems theres a game and a story beyond that, but I could drive forever looking at the horizont with angry eyes (GTA driving is therapy)

December 29th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Larington says:

I found that GTA4 actually got one of those decision elements sorta wrong:
Everytime the game gave you the option between killing person a or person b, I found myself wondering if I should be looking up the better option in a walkthrough. Best as I can tell, the main reason being that I didn’t care about the characters in all the instances where you were given that choice, I tended to find I disliked both characters so didn’t give a damn either way.
Translation: The choice didn’t seem to have any real meaning for me.

Though the last time you’re given a choice I did know what choice to make straight away (Take the money or kill the person, the rest of the time, it was person A or B and I just didn’t care at all since both tended to be jackasses anyway).

December 29th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

Kadayi says:

@A-Scale

10,000 incidents doesn’t = 10,000 deaths. In fact in the actual article you listed they pointed out that there had only been 12 deaths in 4 months (so 36 for the year then), and that knife crime was actually dropping. However I only referenced fatalities as a result of shootings. The actual number of non fatal shootings is about 2 times the number of fatalities in the US (about 60000). I’m sure the number of gun ‘incidents’ is significantly higher though.

Considering your government has gone to war over the deaths of 3000 citizens (at the cost of innumerable lives) its seem faintly bizarre even schizophrenic that they are quite happy to allow almost 10 times that number to be killed annually on their streets every year to order to protect your right to bear arms.

I also take it from your perspective that when John Wilkes Booth plugged Lincoln at the Theatre, he was just exercising his constitutional rights to protest his government through use of arms, and shouldn’t really be classed as an Assassin?

December 29th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Gap Gen says:

I think Kieron’s MGS4 review will suck and he should give it the higher score that it deserves. Did he even play the game? I mean, will he have even played the game?

Damn, speculative fanboy rage is quite difficult.

December 29th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

Switchbreak says:

“‘Mum, what’s “intimacy”?’ an 11-year-old Sims player of my acquaintance asked her mother. A day later, she came into the kitchen again, outraged: ‘Mum, my character’s just had a baby!’”

Best quote ever.

December 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

AndrewC says:

Were there any McDonalds in the former Yugoslavia?

December 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

Tei says:

Easier vs Hard. I think is the wrong debate.
Game Over screen: I hate it, and all games with it. Maybe other people may like these old 8 bits games with lots of GO screens, but to me, is a pain, and a way to ruin the gameplay.
You build tension, exploration, character.. and a small error, and you start at point zero, and you have to beat again the first lame screens. So is a way to return and repeat old content, is a solution for scarciti, but today computers don’t need that, can handle really big and complex and rich maps, like these of RPG games like Ultima or Morrowind. Morrowind don’t need a “game over” screen, he just let you restore a savegame.
Of course, that make the game easier, as you can beat any combat with trial and error (lots of trial and errors) but everything is doable. This also mean the game has to be created in a different way, as the player can go anywhere, and maybe beat some monsters are not supposed to..

What I hate is games like Spore, that for no reason at all are linear experiences. Theres no way to wipe all the wildlife on a planet( even plants), then die. You are confined on ver limited…. limits, and forces with a blinking bar to the next stage.

3D is hard and expensive, It takes million of dollars to create a good 3D game. Is soo expensive I think games have started to become shorten If only because Is imposible to get more money for a longer game. I think a longer Mass Effect would have been too much money for it.
Kotor was long, but Kotor 2 not soo much. Mass Effect is much short than this ones. But IMHO, is a economic problem. To fuel our suspension of belief we need 3D art that take several million of dollaras to produce. I think we have hit the wall, and it hurts.

I hope more games like Morrowind are made, but I don’t see how. Maybe the suspension of belief can be created with new ideas, new art styles (like TF2 graphics, or Spore graphics). A software render engine would help (most hardware accelerated engines look the same engine to me, but maybe is just me). But a software engine will be a bad idea for the next… hum… 4 years. So we are doomed for short games for a while.

nota: take anything on my comment with a grain of salt.

December 29th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

A-Scale says:

I cannot own my lethal weapon of choice to shoot my government in the face with it if they try to drive a tank over me or something similarly within the hollywood-like realms of freedom-loving paranoia.

How incredibly dismissive. You would think that after fifty years of the 1900s being dominated by Nazi or Soviet power, threatening the very existence of each of our countries, people would be wiser to the idea that governments can and often do greatly overstep their bounds. This often results in seriously degraded freedoms and quality of life, which is a very real threat to the way that each of us chooses to live our lives.

One would think that coming from Australia you would have a very real concept of what it is to live an unfree life. I have no rambo complex, but I like knowing that the People still have the right and ability to abolish the government, their creation, if it becomes destructive to their freedoms. Yet in Australia, you have no such ability. It’s nearly impossible to get anything but a bolt or pump action firearm. Why? Because they are any less deadly? Certainly not. A 12 gauge shell coming from your grandfather’s old rabbit gun is no less deadly than one out of a super devilish looking black spas 12 with a folding stock, yet for some reason governments around the world have had an easy time fooling ignorant people into believing that evil looking guns do evil. You have a Rambo complex, that is to say that you are terrified of that which you know only from movies and television, with no real understanding of the underlying issues.

But I digress. Australia has implemented a filtering system for the internet of your ENTIRE COUNTRY. Your government is telling you what you may and may not view, download, or do at ALL times. If the Aus government was to decide that RPS was pure evil (just look at the subversion I’m spewing!), you could not even be here. Are you so unsure of your own faculties that you see fit to let another man decide what is good and proper for you?

You are right, A-Scale, that the UK government is a pompous nanny-state that has mistaken its responsibilities to govern for a need to manufacture legislation. It seems as if current political parties see themselves as contractors all vying for the job of producing laws, the more, the better. Citizens of the UK are far too docile to do anything about that, and indeed most of them encourage it. The British have happily swallowed the most incredible levels of bureaucratic nonsense that history has ever seen, I suspect it will do so for many decades to come.

That’s far more eloquent than I could have put it.

However, the idea that US gun-carrying is in any way related to the ability to resist a contemporary oppressive government seems quite laughable to me. We’ve all seen how hard use of guns in anger gets put down in the US, and none of those rifle-waving hilltop militia types get away with “oppression” as an excuse not to pay taxes and to shoot at Federal tax collectors.

I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t believe that people who attempt to cheat the system (tax dodgers) or spend their time in the woods plotting out the death of Barack Obama (militia types) have any justification for their actions. Our government is certainly more oppressive than it was just a decade or two ago, but it is still not overtly oppressive. The rule of law yet stands, and we are generally free to live our lives as we choose without government harassment. I don’t think the 2nd Amendment exists so that we can overthrow our regime in this sort of climate, but rather it is a last resort when all hell breaks loose in a Nazi, Soviet or South American coup fashion.

That we were reduced to talking about the Nazis within a handful of posts says much, y’know?

Trying to apply Godwin’s law? That catch all position does much for making you look like the one who hasn’t stepped in the shit, but in your application it also ignores the value of paradigmatic examples in important discussions. The Nazis are entirely relevant in this discussion because they represent the worst case scenario. No one is calling anyone else a Nazi.

10,000 incidents doesn’t = 10,000 deaths. In fact in the actual article you listed they pointed out that there had only been 12 deaths in 4 months (so 36 for the year then), and that knife crime was actually dropping. However I only referenced fatalities as a result of shootings. The actual number of non fatal shootings is about 2 times the number of fatalities in the US (about 60000). I’m sure the number of gun ‘incidents’ is significantly higher though.

And again, are you proud of the fact that your hooligans stab rather than shoot? So the knife is a less deadly weapon (when used by chavs, apparently) than the gun. England has an amount of violence on par with the U.S., it is just expressed differently. My point is that if you ban guns, your hooligans will use knives, if you ban knives, they will use rocks. I would nary be surprised to see your next PM bemoaning the rise in gang related rock crime, and the mayor of London proposing a rock amnesty week.

Considering your government has gone to war over the deaths of 3000 citizens (at the cost of innumerable lives) its seem faintly bizarre even schizophrenic that they are quite happy to allow almost 10 times that number to be killed annually on their streets every year to order to protect your right to bear arms.

Jesus Christ, what a fallacy! Say, just look at the amount of people who die in car crashes every year! It’s WAY more than died on 9/11, yet our piddly government still allows us to drive 3000 pound killing machines around like Texan yokels. Obviously England is the freer country.

December 29th, 2008 at 5:58 pm

The Hammer says:

Yawn.

(Er, that was to A-Train’s continued pointless argument – not to Kadayi’s post. Sorry!)

December 29th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

Gap Gen says:

Kadayi: For some reason, you reminded me of those (apparently) terrible old interactive movies that I thankfully never played.

December 29th, 2008 at 6:26 pm

Gap Gen says:

Yes, I was playing Crysis: Warhead recently and it frustrated me that in the cutscenes my character did some very cool things that I would have liked to have done in-game. For example, it’s not entirely unreasonable that the cutscene where he jumps onto a train could have been done in-game.

December 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Jochen Scheisse says:

A-Scale: Americans are stupid. Weapons kill. Games Blogs are for politics.

December 29th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

Nick says:

Can we ignore the patriotroll now please?

December 29th, 2008 at 7:12 pm

Pags says:

@USA vs. UK argument: Pretty sure A-Scale just switched onto the movie 1984 one day and thought it was BBC News. I’d like to see how a discourse between him and someone who watched They Live! and thought it was CNN would go.

“You are being controlled by big brother!”

“And you are being controlled by skeleton people using wristwatches! Here, put on these sunglasses!”

December 29th, 2008 at 7:24 pm

dhex says:

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.

December 29th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Polysynchronicity says:

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.

December 29th, 2008 at 7:35 pm

qrter says:

Yes, I was playing Crysis: Warhead recently and it frustrated me that in the cutscenes my character did some very cool things that I would have liked to have done in-game. For example, it’s not entirely unreasonable that the cutscene where he jumps onto a train could have been done in-game.

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.

December 29th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

The Hammer says:

“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!

December 29th, 2008 at 8:08 pm

A-Scale says:

Also what about John Wilkes Booth? No comment on him?

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.

Idle speculation and what ifs are not an adequate response Vs the hard facts presented. Violent crime in the UK is far far less than in the US and the likelihood of a fatality is considerably less.

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.

The banning of guns might impact on my ‘freedom’, but if it means myself and my family are less likely to be accidentally shot as innocent bystanders in some street gang dispute frankly I’m all for it.

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?

As for cars, you buy a car to get you from A to B it’s a functional device that when mishandled can cause fatalities. A gun is a functional device that designed purely to cause fatalities, there in lies the difference.

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.

A-Scale: Americans are stupid. Weapons kill. Games Blogs are for politics.

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.

USA vs. UK argument: Pretty sure A-Scale just switched onto the movie 1984 one day and thought it was BBC News. I’d like to see how a discourse between him and someone who watched They Live! and thought it was CNN would go.

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.

December 29th, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Muzman says:

Gosh I’m rude this time of the morning.

December 29th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

Albides says:

A boastful American! What a rarity! Just quickly, because this really should stop.

But I digress. Australia has implemented a filtering system for the internet of your ENTIRE COUNTRY.

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.

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?

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.

December 29th, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Pags says:

If it were a Guitar Hero sequence, then they would be awesome.

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.

December 29th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

pepper says:

@pags, glad im not the only one whom thaught this guy was living 1984.

December 29th, 2008 at 9:41 pm

dhex says:

“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.

December 29th, 2008 at 9:44 pm

Pags says:

though it would be ok if he played the solo to no more mr. nice guy.

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.

December 29th, 2008 at 10:41 pm

Katsumoto says:

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!

December 29th, 2008 at 10:50 pm

Jochen Scheisse says:

A-Scale: All 3 of my statements were wrong, obviously.

The OP: Are they really 17? Because I’d hit that.

December 30th, 2008 at 12:17 am

Gap Gen says:

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.

December 30th, 2008 at 12:54 am

Larington says:

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.

December 30th, 2008 at 2:17 am

qrter says:

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/

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)..

December 30th, 2008 at 5:59 am

RichP says:

This thread sucks; probably the worst in the history of RPS. Take this crap elsewhere (apologies to those who stayed on topic)

December 30th, 2008 at 7:35 am

Nick says:

I dunno, at least its not about piracy or DRM.

December 30th, 2008 at 7:50 am

Jochen Scheisse says:

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.

December 30th, 2008 at 9:53 am

Kadayi says:

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.

December 30th, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Pags says:

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.

December 30th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Larington says:

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.

December 31st, 2008 at 12:56 am

Down Rodeo says:

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.

January 4th, 2009 at 7:55 pm

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April 13th, 2009 at 7:22 pm