This game does it poorly and inelegantly. In games, non-contextual decisions aren't decisions. They literally don't exist.
Jesus fucking christ Rym, I've been over this. Spec Ops does not and never intended to only engage the player on the level of in game interaction, but also engages the player in the metacontext of being a player playing a game. That's why there is dialog, text and other artifacts within the game which not only speak to your character, but speak directly to you, the player.
Some other game doing this "already" is irrelevant, and I have no clue how you can judge that it is better because as far as I can tell you haven't played Spec Ops.
You know, I played Covetous earlier. I closed it pretty quickly. Mostly because I didn't want to play it anymore, but also because I didn't know why I was playing it in the first place (other than you having linked to it saying that it was relevant to this discussion). At least in this part Spec Ops has Covetous beat. At least it gives me and the character I'm playing a reason and a context on why we're doing what the game is about that makes logical sense.
WhaleShark, we are assuming in this discussion that the player no longer wants to continue playing. This is largely due to the Yaeger actually showing the wake of destruction and death the player leaves behind, rather than glossing over that very important detail that so many other shooter games do, but it is true nonetheless. The game fosters the insight that the actions you engage in aren't what you should be doing. That it's all wrong and bad, but that realization that you don't really want to play anymore is your own.
It is therefore in the best interest and in fact covers the desire of the player to put down the controller and stop playing (and reportedly there have been a number of players in playtesting that actually refused to continue after the white phosphorous incident). However, the player still marches on because he wants to see the rest of the game or because of some sort of obligation he or she feels. Because "that's the game and that's the theme" or some other garbage like that.
This would be all well and good, except that you can't control the white phosphorus. That single aspect invalidates the entire exercise - you have created an artificial construct where it is literally impossible to make another choice.
The impact on a thinking person is minimal. The situation is contrived to the point of intellectual uselessness. All you would need to do is be able to say "nope" and still continue in the game. That's it. Without that, the game is saying "your choice is to do this or to die."
If we're talking about some kind of experiment where you bridge between the meta and the game fiction, you need to think about what putting down the controller means in the context of the game - resignation to death. That's the thing that I'm not seeing discussed here. The "option" the developer has singled out in his berating is the equivalent of telling someone "if life sucks, you can always kill yourself."
And thus the game is of no practical use in our discussions.
Also, I'm not making an ad hominem in the strictest sense. I can tear apart the arguments in favor of the game without insulting someone's intellectual capacity. I'm judging a person by the argument they make, not judging the argument by the person.
I dunno, maybe you're a lot younger than me. Maybe you haven't spent every day since you were five fucking years old being told by various groups that your choice of entertainment is morally reprehensible - despite showing no support for the ideals that the offending games present. Maybe I think so little of this game because I've already seen its narrative - over and over again. Maybe it's because every time someone shoots up some people, someone invariably blames the game without any support.
This game is Jack Thompson, and its argument is as irrelevant as ever.
I mean, look at this fucking quote:
which paint a false picture of actual modern military action.
This is obvious. All of our entertainment-centric media paint false pictures of modern military action. They have to, because the nuances of a situation are far more complicated than can be explained in such a condensed space.
I mean, I agree that the human tendency to romanticize violence contributes to the continued perpetration of violence. But to single out a medium and hold it responsible above others? These things are symptoms, not causes.
So when you say shit like:
and how they are unhealthy and untrustworthy power fantasies
I'm going to ask for your citations on that one. Show me peer-reviewed studies establishing this linkage. If you can't do it, then you're just making ludicrous and unsupported blanket statements - the same ones that people have been making for my entire life.
I would suggest playing the game first then make an opinion. It will surprise you, that is if you go in with an open mind.
I'll watch a video of it on Youtube. I already establish a disconnect between myself and a game I'm playing anyhow - I have a tendency to strip away theme in most video and board games, and just focus on the intellectual and physical challenges being presented.
I would suggest playing the game first then make an opinion. It will surprise you, that is if you go in with an open mind.
I'll watch a video of it on Youtube. I already establish a disconnect between myself and a game I'm playing anyhow - I have a tendency to strip away theme in most video and board games, and just focus on the intellectual and physical challenges being presented.
I would really advice playing it you do not get enough from a video. Try to look at it as a whole. I know I sound patronising but you need to see the whole thing to just strip it down, by doing that you lose things that can and will influence your decision. For instance the text in the loading screen, how this changes is a reflection of your mental state. Not of the player but of you, it is talking to you to the game.
If we're talking about some kind of experiment where you bridge between the meta and the game fiction, you need to think about what putting down the controller means in the context of the game - resignation to death. That's the thing that I'm not seeing discussed here. The "option" the developer has singled out in his berating is the equivalent of telling someone "if life sucks, you can always kill yourself."
Bullshit. That is you adding your interpretation to it. Putting down the controller doesn't mean that the character dies. The character had a story before you assumed control over him. He can have a story after you leave control and the implication at the end of the game, unless you pretty much explicitly commit suicide, is that the character continues to exist.
Putting down the controller does not necessarily mean death. It has an open ended interpretation. The most likely of which is that Walker actually follows what he was commanded to do: to retreat and report.
Also, I'm not making an ad hominem in the strictest sense. I can tear apart the arguments in favor of the game without insulting someone's intellectual capacity. I'm judging a person by the argument they make, not judging the argument by the person.
Wrong. You contended that the reason why we disagree, the reason why I made my arguments, was that I was "fucked-up".
I dunno, maybe you're a lot younger than me. Maybe you haven't spent every day since you were five fucking years old being told by various groups that your choice of entertainment is morally reprehensible - despite showing no support for the ideals that the offending games present. Maybe I think so little of this game because I've already seen its narrative - over and over again. Maybe it's because every time someone shoots up some people, someone invariably blames the game without any support.
This game is Jack Thompson, and its argument is as irrelevant as ever.
I mean, look at this fucking quote:
which paint a false picture of actual modern military action.
This is obvious. All of our entertainment-centric media paint false pictures of modern military action. They have to, because the nuances of a situation are far more complicated than can be explained in such a condensed space.
I mean, I agree that the human tendency to romanticize violence contributes to the continued perpetration of violence. But to single out a medium and hold it responsible above others? These things are symptoms, not causes.
So when you say shit like:
and how they are unhealthy and untrustworthy power fantasies
I'm going to ask for your citations on that one. Show me peer-reviewed studies establishing this linkage. If you can't do it, then you're just making ludicrous and unsupported blanket statements - the same ones that people have been making for my entire life.Oh grow the fuck up, will you? This game is not Jack Thompson. It's not painting video games as the purveyor of moral decay out to pollute the minds of children and erode the human soul. Not everyone and everything that criticizes video games means the immediate death of the medium. What it does is to ask as to actually think about the media we consume, to not mindlessly take them in without a second thought or the things that they show.
It doesn't blame video games for the things we do. It blames us for the video games we make and consume. For how vapid and empty, stupid and morally ridiculous those games are, when they have the potential to be so much more. What it asks is for us to actually think about the media we produce and consume, and improve them. Not eradicate them.
I would suggest playing the game first then make an opinion. It will surprise you, that is if you go in with an open mind.
I'll watch a video of it on Youtube. I already establish a disconnect between myself and a game I'm playing anyhow - I have a tendency to strip away theme in most video and board games, and just focus on the intellectual and physical challenges being presented.
Ah yes, because substituting an engaging, interactive experience with a non-interactive, distanced experience is definitely the way to go.
I already can't get the full effect, because I already know about THE THING. Whatever impact it would have had has already been digested.
Do remember that I'm a storyteller. I understand story construction and emotional manipulation of an audience. Unless this game was developed by psychologists and neurologists to create very specific effects, I doubt I'd miss much by watching a video. It sounds like this is a game about watching a story unfold, and being presented with its consequences in stark reality.
But I'll look into it. I do agree with the fundamental reason for the game's existence - it's primarily that the game prevents you from actually making a meaningful decision that I find so irksome.
Art is subjective yet there are bound to be plenty of shit ones in comparison to the good. It would be nieve to view all of your particular art as amazing.
Video games are art. It's in fact a very young art, which had a very different focus than other art forms because its fundamental difference to every other form of art we had before: interactivity. Thus most of what video games have been used for so far is either provide a great visual aesthetic, or an individual and pleasing form of gameplay. Video games as story telling devices has only come into its own very recently, and it's also a very difficult thing to use as a story telling device because of the aforementioned interactivity.
Telling a story where you direct exactly what your characters do is easy. Telling a story where your character could do any number of different things is very, very difficult. Thus video games are riding a balance beam, trying to get players to perform certain tasks but without making them feel like they are being lead down and simply being on a ride. Some games do that better than others.
Video games are not bad art any more than film was a bad art in the 1920s or so. It's simply that we haven't figured out most of it yet as to how to apply and utilize the capabilities of the medium. But we're on our way.
Seconded. Any there was a museum exhibit (going to the west soon) demonstrating the case that there are 3 artists for each game. Plus he will be at MAGFest talking about it in a panel.
Fuck this bullshit. I'm tired of people posting something and then being "I was obviously trolling," or having someone else point it out. Trolling in the middle of serious discussion is lame.
Part of the problem I think when people talk of video games as art is that everyone wants to be taken seriously from the off, because thats what makes art! With out taking into account the long process that other mediums have gone through to reach their various points. Yes now most video games are crap as a representation of art and to call some amazing is to delude yourself.
However it has a greater potential than other mediums and has a greater chance to grow and expand. I feel that we will hopefully see this in the next decade or so as people begin to experiment and video games become the norm.
No I mean it my friends. I mean it. They're bad art when someone actually tries to use it as an artistic medium instead of just making a rad game. If your shit isn't rad, and you're relying on some re-hashed moral message or exhaustingly heavy handed story, then you just made some shit art, and a bad game to boot. There's no reason video games can't have good story telling, they just don't.
I think MoMA approached the games/art thing decently though, cause they focused on the interface design/gameplay versus like story or character design or all the other things games do poorly. Like Tetris is surely some insanely good art, Braid is just rehashed mechanics with vague enough dialogue to make it sound like art.
Art is not about your bubble. It's not about what you like. It's not even about what is objectively good or bad.
Video games are expression. Maybe that expression is "Here's an experience you ought to have." Maybe it's "I hope this comes as close to Modern Warfare as we can make it."
Art is not about your bubble. It's not about what you like. It's not even about what is objectively good or bad.
Video games are expression. Maybe that expression is "Here's an experience you ought to have." Maybe it's "I hope this comes as close to Modern Warfare as we can make it."
The problem is that the game berates the player for a choice that the game itself made. If you want to make somebody reflect on their decisions, awesome - I'm all for it. But when it berates you for a thing that's out of your control - except by taking an otherwise unrealistic measure - the point you're trying to make loses ground, and causes a disconnect with the player. That's how this game resembles the Jack Thompson argument - it uses negative reinforcement to shame the player. You yourself admitted that the game is meant to berate you and make you feel bad - that's a terrible and inelegant way to actually make a point.
A better storytelling narrative would be to give you the radio out option at some point, and never tell you how the situation on the ground resolves. You have to deal with not knowing how the story ends, except in a report (maybe). That should invoke a similar feeling of dissatisfaction in the target audience, while still allowing a sense of finality without being arbitrary and rail-roady. That would also accurately invoke the sense of reflection, as it will alleviate much of the sense of being cheated by the game - which would impact the way that you take the message.
I will not bother re-hashing the "putting down the controller isn't a choice argument," because there is simply no movement on that. It simply isn't, by any useful definition of the word "choice."
However, I will argue about the "other" possibilities that happen in the "walk away" scenario. The thing is, Walker isn't real. He doesn't exist anywhere except in the game, and he only exists so long as the game is on. Therefore, the only meaningful story is the one that we are presented; I can play "what if" all day long, but none of that will be the story the developer was trying to tell. The only useful way to think about the action is in the context the story provides - and the most likely scenario is that it results in death. The game sets this up as a life-or-death struggle by removing a specific game mechanic to take another route, and in doing so, the "put down the controller" option is most logically glossed as being equivalent to death.
What happens if you refuse to fire the white phosphorus round? Can you even do that? Do you get shot if you don't? The context of that decision is literally the only thing that matters in this entire story. It is the make-or-break point.
If the developer thinks that putting down the controller could be open-ended? They're wrong, from a storytelling standpoint. Also, they're very lazy.
I'll accept the ad-hominem and apologize. My intent was to separate the intellectual justification for the game decisions from the emotional response intended. I still find the possibility of the game's intended emotional impact to be flimsy reasoning for the storytelling elements I've seen.
The problem is that the game berates the player for a choice that the game itself made.
This "false choice" was only one moment in a game where the player has a lot of choice on other occasions. That's the point of making this one non-negotiable, it forces a disconnect between what the player (and the supporting characters) might want to do and what the protagonist (in his deteriorating mental state) does.
A better storytelling narrative would be to give you the radio out option at some point, and never tell you how the situation on the ground resolves.
I agree, this would have been a much more elegant and contextual solution. I don't really like the "stop playing" cop-out, and something like this would have worked better.
I think we're becoming bogged down talking about a single moment in a 6-hour game. Yes, that moment is important, and there are different interpretations of it, but it isn't the only choice in the game, and there are many gameplay and narrative elements that are emotionally resonant. I would recommend playing it before snubbing your noses, since you seem to have some pretty negative preconceived notions of what it's about. I think you might actually enjoy Spec Ops: The Line.
EDIT: To expand on the "radio out" idea, I think if the developers had it as an always available menu option after a certain point (thereby keeping it separate from the game world while still being in the context of the game) all of the fourth-wall-breaking elements of the game would still work.
I applaud the developers for approaching game narrative in an uncommon way. I want every game to experiment and reach beyond it's grasp as much as Spec Ops. Fear and hatred of pretentiousness kills artistic progress.
Just for the record, and even if its sort of an appeal to authority, Yahtzee named Spec Ops: The Line as his favorite game of 2012 because he thinks it's the game that most deserves being played.
Comments
Some other game doing this "already" is irrelevant, and I have no clue how you can judge that it is better because as far as I can tell you haven't played Spec Ops.
The impact on a thinking person is minimal. The situation is contrived to the point of intellectual uselessness. All you would need to do is be able to say "nope" and still continue in the game. That's it. Without that, the game is saying "your choice is to do this or to die."
If we're talking about some kind of experiment where you bridge between the meta and the game fiction, you need to think about what putting down the controller means in the context of the game - resignation to death. That's the thing that I'm not seeing discussed here. The "option" the developer has singled out in his berating is the equivalent of telling someone "if life sucks, you can always kill yourself."
And thus the game is of no practical use in our discussions.
Also, I'm not making an ad hominem in the strictest sense. I can tear apart the arguments in favor of the game without insulting someone's intellectual capacity. I'm judging a person by the argument they make, not judging the argument by the person.
I dunno, maybe you're a lot younger than me. Maybe you haven't spent every day since you were five fucking years old being told by various groups that your choice of entertainment is morally reprehensible - despite showing no support for the ideals that the offending games present. Maybe I think so little of this game because I've already seen its narrative - over and over again. Maybe it's because every time someone shoots up some people, someone invariably blames the game without any support.
This game is Jack Thompson, and its argument is as irrelevant as ever.
I mean, look at this fucking quote: This is obvious. All of our entertainment-centric media paint false pictures of modern military action. They have to, because the nuances of a situation are far more complicated than can be explained in such a condensed space.
I mean, I agree that the human tendency to romanticize violence contributes to the continued perpetration of violence. But to single out a medium and hold it responsible above others? These things are symptoms, not causes.
So when you say shit like: I'm going to ask for your citations on that one. Show me peer-reviewed studies establishing this linkage. If you can't do it, then you're just making ludicrous and unsupported blanket statements - the same ones that people have been making for my entire life. I'll watch a video of it on Youtube. I already establish a disconnect between myself and a game I'm playing anyhow - I have a tendency to strip away theme in most video and board games, and just focus on the intellectual and physical challenges being presented.
Putting down the controller does not necessarily mean death. It has an open ended interpretation. The most likely of which is that Walker actually follows what he was commanded to do: to retreat and report.
Wrong. You contended that the reason why we disagree, the reason why I made my arguments, was that I was "fucked-up".
This is obvious. All of our entertainment-centric media paint false pictures of modern military action. They have to, because the nuances of a situation are far more complicated than can be explained in such a condensed space.
I mean, I agree that the human tendency to romanticize violence contributes to the continued perpetration of violence. But to single out a medium and hold it responsible above others? These things are symptoms, not causes.
So when you say shit like: I'm going to ask for your citations on that one. Show me peer-reviewed studies establishing this linkage. If you can't do it, then you're just making ludicrous and unsupported blanket statements - the same ones that people have been making for my entire life.Oh grow the fuck up, will you? This game is not Jack Thompson. It's not painting video games as the purveyor of moral decay out to pollute the minds of children and erode the human soul. Not everyone and everything that criticizes video games means the immediate death of the medium. What it does is to ask as to actually think about the media we consume, to not mindlessly take them in without a second thought or the things that they show.
It doesn't blame video games for the things we do. It blames us for the video games we make and consume. For how vapid and empty, stupid and morally ridiculous those games are, when they have the potential to be so much more. What it asks is for us to actually think about the media we produce and consume, and improve them. Not eradicate them.
Ah yes, because substituting an engaging, interactive experience with a non-interactive, distanced experience is definitely the way to go.
Do remember that I'm a storyteller. I understand story construction and emotional manipulation of an audience. Unless this game was developed by psychologists and neurologists to create very specific effects, I doubt I'd miss much by watching a video. It sounds like this is a game about watching a story unfold, and being presented with its consequences in stark reality.
But I'll look into it. I do agree with the fundamental reason for the game's existence - it's primarily that the game prevents you from actually making a meaningful decision that I find so irksome.
Telling a story where you direct exactly what your characters do is easy. Telling a story where your character could do any number of different things is very, very difficult. Thus video games are riding a balance beam, trying to get players to perform certain tasks but without making them feel like they are being lead down and simply being on a ride. Some games do that better than others.
Video games are not bad art any more than film was a bad art in the 1920s or so. It's simply that we haven't figured out most of it yet as to how to apply and utilize the capabilities of the medium. But we're on our way.
Seconded. Any there was a museum exhibit (going to the west soon) demonstrating the case that there are 3 artists for each game. Plus he will be at MAGFest talking about it in a panel.
However it has a greater potential than other mediums and has a greater chance to grow and expand. I feel that we will hopefully see this in the next decade or so as people begin to experiment and video games become the norm.
People used to say Picasso wasn't art.
People used to say ROCK AND ROLL wasn't art.
Art is not about your bubble. It's not about what you like. It's not even about what is objectively good or bad.
Video games are expression. Maybe that expression is "Here's an experience you ought to have." Maybe it's "I hope this comes as close to Modern Warfare as we can make it."
Doesn't matter. Still art.
I'll summarize:
The problem is that the game berates the player for a choice that the game itself made. If you want to make somebody reflect on their decisions, awesome - I'm all for it. But when it berates you for a thing that's out of your control - except by taking an otherwise unrealistic measure - the point you're trying to make loses ground, and causes a disconnect with the player. That's how this game resembles the Jack Thompson argument - it uses negative reinforcement to shame the player. You yourself admitted that the game is meant to berate you and make you feel bad - that's a terrible and inelegant way to actually make a point.
A better storytelling narrative would be to give you the radio out option at some point, and never tell you how the situation on the ground resolves. You have to deal with not knowing how the story ends, except in a report (maybe). That should invoke a similar feeling of dissatisfaction in the target audience, while still allowing a sense of finality without being arbitrary and rail-roady. That would also accurately invoke the sense of reflection, as it will alleviate much of the sense of being cheated by the game - which would impact the way that you take the message.
I will not bother re-hashing the "putting down the controller isn't a choice argument," because there is simply no movement on that. It simply isn't, by any useful definition of the word "choice."
However, I will argue about the "other" possibilities that happen in the "walk away" scenario. The thing is, Walker isn't real. He doesn't exist anywhere except in the game, and he only exists so long as the game is on. Therefore, the only meaningful story is the one that we are presented; I can play "what if" all day long, but none of that will be the story the developer was trying to tell. The only useful way to think about the action is in the context the story provides - and the most likely scenario is that it results in death. The game sets this up as a life-or-death struggle by removing a specific game mechanic to take another route, and in doing so, the "put down the controller" option is most logically glossed as being equivalent to death.
What happens if you refuse to fire the white phosphorus round? Can you even do that? Do you get shot if you don't? The context of that decision is literally the only thing that matters in this entire story. It is the make-or-break point.
If the developer thinks that putting down the controller could be open-ended? They're wrong, from a storytelling standpoint. Also, they're very lazy.
I'll accept the ad-hominem and apologize. My intent was to separate the intellectual justification for the game decisions from the emotional response intended. I still find the possibility of the game's intended emotional impact to be flimsy reasoning for the storytelling elements I've seen.
I think we're becoming bogged down talking about a single moment in a 6-hour game. Yes, that moment is important, and there are different interpretations of it, but it isn't the only choice in the game, and there are many gameplay and narrative elements that are emotionally resonant. I would recommend playing it before snubbing your noses, since you seem to have some pretty negative preconceived notions of what it's about. I think you might actually enjoy Spec Ops: The Line.
EDIT: To expand on the "radio out" idea, I think if the developers had it as an always available menu option after a certain point (thereby keeping it separate from the game world while still being in the context of the game) all of the fourth-wall-breaking elements of the game would still work.
Some are mediocre art. ~_^