Tom Bisell' public inmolation: "Never have I been more content to be a console gamer"

[pakoito]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...game-witcher-2

Comedy gold:

Never have I been more content to be a console gamer. PC gamers like to lord over console gamers and claim that console games irrevocably dumb down PC game experiences. The PC Witcher 2 is said to be an unusually rich experience, but my suspicion is that it's actually just an incredibly complicated experience.

The Witcher 2 was available to play only on PC — and only on highly powerful PCs at that.

The Witcher 2's tutorial does the impossible: It somehow succeeds in making its already too-complicated gameplay systems harder to understand. It took me six and a half minutes to figure out how to make one potion.

Then again, I played The Witcher 2 for only six hours;

It's like watching the CoDbros playing the game in full rage mode on release date all over again. Remember that 30 minutes video of the guy trying to get past the first group of enemies, just mashing?

Well this bro has made a several thousand words worth of rant, and most of it is not even making sense.

[R-F]

God, I love console gamers. They're so funny.

I love how bad most "game reviewers" these days are at games too. It's hilarious.

[deano2099]

I love how bad most "game reviewers" these days are at games too. It's hilarious.

It's interesting. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that the best games writers spent their formative years reading and writing, not gaming. Writing was their primary hobby, gaming came second.

[Wizlah]

It's interesting. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that the best games writers spent their formative years reading and writing, not gaming. Writing was their primary hobby, gaming came second.

dunno. I think there are writers who are gamers, there are gamers who write well about games, and there are a small select few who are writers that can write about games. Quinns would be a good example of the last - that thing he did about searching for the orson welles of games was genius. Gillen and Brooker fall into that category as well, probably Rossignol (although I think Jim is a bit of a different beast again). Bissell, judging from the pieces of his that I read, would fall into the first category. He writes his experiences well, but he's writing from the viewpoint of a gamer, if you see what I mean.

[Drake Sigar]

God, I love console gamers. They're so funny.

I love how bad most "game reviewers" these days are at games too. It's hilarious.

Indeed. Though I remember dying in the Witcher 2 tutorial and being rudely transferred to the main menu screen. That seemed excessive.

[frightlever]

God, I love console gamers. They're so funny.

I love how bad most "game reviewers" these days are at games too. It's hilarious.

Well... perhaps reviewers should only be as good as the median actual world player. I would probably go out of my way to read cogent reviews from a cack-handed reviewer - it would give me some perspective on whether I'll be able to get past the title screen or not.

[SirKicksalot]

"I don't recall, in my roughly six hours of play, any unusually memorable lines of dialogue."

True. I'm in Chapter III and nothing so far was as memorable as "your mother sucks dwarf cock".
I don't really like the game but I can't agree with his criticisms except for one: the "come back in the evening" part. I was also annoyed by that and it happened more than one time.

[Rii]

"I don't recall, in my roughly six hours of play, any unusually memorable lines of dialogue."

Odd, I played the game through once upon release and can still recall several lines:

Ves: "Don't think I have that frock anymore." (or something along those lines, the accent is key here)

Triss: "They're good people ... one of them even proposed to me."

No, they're not amazing lines that I'm going to write down in my Grand Collection of Awesome Quotes, they are memorable because they recall characters and situations that are memorable: Ves as 'one of the boys' and the unselfish camaraderie shared by Geralt and Triss respectively.

Mature, or adult, possibly aren't the best words for it... they always come across as being about the flesh and the swears. Perhaps 'grown-up' would be better.

'Mature' is absolutely the right word here. That the games industry (amongst others) has been attempting to pervert its meaning for a good while now is all the more reason to continue using it correctly.

I don't see why everyone thinks it's so incredibly mature; granted, it doesn't conform to the high fantasy middle-ages idea, but the fact that it includes prostitutes [....] doesn't really strike me as super mature.

It's not the fact that it includes prostitutes that makes it mature, it's in how the prostitutes are depicted as characters as richly drawn and diverse as any others (I'm thinking particularly of the matron of Eager Thighs here, but blue-eyes also counts) and how prostitution is integrated into the world.

Of course these examples are from Witcher 1, but then that is the superior game.

If the mere subject matter was what made something mature (or otherwise worthwhile) then we would have to concede that the film about Edgar Allen Poe currently doing the rounds has something going for it, which of course it doesn't.

[Unaco]

'Mature' is absolutely the right word here. That the games industry (amongst others) has been attempting to pervert its meaning for a good while now is all the more reason to continue using it correctly.

The games industry is not to blame (specifically) for the connotations that the word has picked up. And sure, it would be nice if everyone used the words the "right" way and we could use mature without the connotations... but even a brief scan of this thread shows that Mature has a similar connotation to it as Adult (boobies and swears). So, for convenience, perhaps a different word for it would be advantageous to have... something with connotations of adult/mature themes and situations, but without the swearing boobie connotations. A word like grown-up. It's not the best... I'm sure there are better words, but it could do as a start, right?

[Wizlah]

I thought I recognised that name from somewhere. Just saw that he wrote God Lives in Saint Petersburg. Pretty sure he was a the Edinburgh International Book Festival a number of years ago. Oh, duh, I see he wrote that piece about video games and too much coke as well.

Reading through the Mass Effect article he posted in Grantland, I think you're unfairly portraying him as dumb. His points in that seem pretty well thought out.

[archonsod]

Reading through the Mass Effect article he posted in Grantland, I think you're unfairly portraying him as dumb.

Given it took him six minutes to figure out how to create a potion I think he's doing a good job himself. I mean the game even gives you a step-by-step tutorial through the process complete with big indicators of "put this there, hit this button" stylings. And then he seems to utterly fail to notice the meditation time setting is a slider with dusk, midnight, morning et al highlighted rather than being fixed options.

but the game handles it in a mature way.

Only if you're utilising the word mature in the same way porn producers do, rather than indicative of a more emotionally and intellectually advanced treatment of the subject. Even then it only really applies if you're comparing it to certain more sanitised, family friendly stuff like Fable and the like; but you're still pretty much comparing Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure with Wayne's World.

[soldant]

I don't agree with most of his points, but to be honest I don't like any of the Wither games. I just don't find any of it particularly engaging, and I also can't pick out any memorable dialogue. I don't see why everyone thinks it's so incredibly mature; granted, it doesn't conform to the high fantasy middle-ages idea, but the fact that it includes prostitutes and lines like 'your mother sucks dwarf cock' doesn't really strike me as super mature.

Still I keep giving the series a chance every so often, but man it's tough going.

[Nalano]

but the fact that it includes prostitutes and lines like 'your mother sucks dwarf cock' doesn't really strike me as super mature.

Personally, I think it's humorous that we're blind to our own conventions, and then endeavor to run through every other with a fine-tooth comb. We pack our RPGs with chaste-yet-sexy bimbos as to get under the family values radar while still strongly hinting at T&A - where often-times violence substitutes for lust - and a frighteningly cavalier glee for consequence-free murder. Hell, any game that tries to lampshade that gets shat on as insufficiently rewarding.

Meanwhile we lambast Eastern European RPGs because they have (gasp) nudity and cursing, when ironically enough their female characters are actually change agents in the world and not just eye candy. Sure, there's still eye-candy (apparently some things are not lost in translation) but the game isn't just whores and lewd insults. In my opinion, it probably has the most mature depiction of a fantasy medieval world - warts and all, politics especially - than anything in this generation.

Similarly, we lambast JRPGs for their fetishized pre-pubescent girls and melancholy loser boys, but to say there's no there there because of that is just plain wrong. Everybody has their conventions, their touchstones, their grab-bag of tropes to allow audiences to familiarize themselves with the story. We cling to ours just as strongly as they cling to theirs, and we're all deeply flawed.

[soldant]

Personally, I think it's humorous that we're blind to our own conventions, [?tangent]

Um, I'm not 100% certain of the relevance to my post (I'm guessing it's more on a tangent?), but I can see that it might have sounded like I didn't class it as mature because of dwarf cock lines.

Rather what I meant to say was that I don't believe that including such things makes the game mature. Adult-oriented in the same way that a movie like Saw isn't intended for kids, but not like Planescape Torment dealing with more mature themes. I don't actually object to the content, but I don't think that it should be hailed as the mature game of the decade just because it doesn't subscribe to the fantasy of valiant knights and crap that never actually happened.

Then again absolutely nothing in the storyline engages me and I don't really care for any of the characters (or maybe it's the gameplay which gets in the way) but that's just my opinion.

[Nalano]

Rather what I meant to say was that I don't believe that including such things makes the game mature.

Yeah, but that's a cheap shot at any rate. Just choose some aspect that you don't find mature, and argue from the position that such an aspect doesn't make the subject mature. Not every aspect need be in direct service of making the subject mature.

I can and do discuss philosophy in pubs. Does the venue enhance the maturity? Probably not. Should we eschew pub scenes because they don't add to the maturity? Fuck no. Just because it's not universally staid doesn't mean it isn't mature. Similarly, I like to pepper my own speech with cursing. I say fuck a lot. Does saying "fuck" enhance the discussion? No. But it doesn't change the point, either.

My tangent was alluding to this point. We can pick apart anything if all you need to dismiss something is a piece of arguable immaturity. Likewise, not finding the subject matter interesting - as you say, the story doesn't engage you - doesn't change the subject matter.

Personally, after having played through the campaign one and a half times, the most memorable moments in my mind were Geralt's paid gig working for a ridiculous fop of a king he's contemptuous of for lack of better prospects, and Geralt's choice to throw a noble to an angry mob with insufficient evidence to condemn him because of the importance of morale in a nebulous rebellion.

[soldant]

Yeah, but that's a cheap shot at any rate. Just choose some aspect that you don't find mature, and argue from the position that such an aspect doesn't make the subject mature. Not every aspect need be in direct service of making the subject mature.

That'd be a fine statement to make... except that a lot of people bring up the whole anti-fantasy aspect as an example of why The Witcher is a more mature game.

[kyrieee]

I don't agree with most of his points, but to be honest I don't like any of the Wither games. I just don't find any of it particularly engaging, and I also can't pick out any memorable dialogue. I don't see why everyone thinks it's so incredibly mature; granted, it doesn't conform to the high fantasy middle-ages idea, but the fact that it includes prostitutes and lines like 'your mother sucks dwarf cock' doesn't really strike me as super mature.

I don't see anyone claiming that either.
The game and the game world have things that clearly aren't appropriate for kids. There's rape, incest, executions, torture and cold blooded murder. Including that stuff doesn't automatically make the game mature, but the game handles it in a mature way. It's not fetishized, it's matter of fact and is there to explore the characters to the player.

I also think that the game treats the player as an adult in the way it presents information. To get the most out of the story you need to really pay attention and try to piece some things together for yourself. Some people are bound to just get confused, but I really appreciate it.

[Casimir Effect]

It's a post to get pageviews, nothing more. If someone wants to close themselves off to a form of media then they are very welcome to. It's fucking stupid, but it's their life to do with as they wish.

[Wizlah]

I can see why he might feel let down, although I'm somewhat bemused why someone who was happy with all the inventory fiddling in ME1 suddenly finds it a chore in The Witcher 2. But I'm not playing it on a console, and maybe they haven't designed the interface to be as intuitive as it could be for console controllers. No idea.

I do disagree with the point about the world not feeling grounded in slavic myth - I thought the beasties and general lore in the first witcher were quite distinctive, and it certainly felt more unique to me than most reworkings of genre fantasy. I've not read the books, but wouldn't mind reading them at some point. I can see why if you just played a short bit, you might feel that the dwarves and elves were all too familiar.

It reads like someone who has found the game design to be a real obstruction to getting into the narrative, and now can't be arsed and is judging the narrative on what little he can see. Maybe it's a bad port to the console. Shame if that's the case.

[pakoito]

Thing is we could agree the dialogues are not memorable, but fuck me if I remember any dialogue I had today. Is "videogame realism" now boiled down to perfect diction and rhythmic snarky dialogues? I crossed a chavette the other day that told me to fuck myself and go back to my country, it is not literature but it feels real. I have the same feeling in The Witcher, nobody is memorable or epic in the same way the guy that sells me bread everyday isn't. Welcome to low-fantasy, where everyone is average.

EDIT OUT: Ad Hominem.