2. Far Cry 3 FOR weak-willed YOLO trust fund frat boy with Rambo-tier guerilla skills.
5. Final Fantasy XII FOR making a bland and uninteresting sidekick the main character in an apparent display of audience antipathy.
15. Valkyria Chronicles FOR attempting to tell a dark story of opression, racial segregation and war, then failing to explain the presence of an incongruously chibi flying pig.
17. Shadow of the Colossus FOR Wander, a man willing to kill off the very last eagle, gorilla, leopard, rhino, elephant, lion, tiger, orangutan, chimpanzee, snake, crocodile, turtle, bison, whale, bear and dolphin left on the planet...for a girl.
I realise that this is going to seem fairly negative towards you on my part but this is only 4 out of 20 points and there were other points which I did agree with you on and had nothing else to add. It's cool to be advancing the talk on the effect games have as a whole and the subtle points of narrative and narrative dissonance and so I love this sort of post. If I had any major crictisim it's the posting them in list form with little explanation surrounding it can make it seem like a little more dismissive of the games than I hope you were going for. As aside affect it makes it so that lots of people (Including me =D) will focus primarily on judging the list and pointing out criticisms. Anyway it was an interesting list and thanks for sparking some discussion (and sorry for quoting you so long after your original post)
2.Thats the whole point of Far Cry 3 though. It's meant to represent an unrealistic and terrible power fantasy and contrast it with our overly escapist and irresponsible leisure activities. The thematic purpose is almost literally about a frat-boy who gets to be Rambo
5. That's stretching the idea of tonal consistency beyond meaning. Also there is nothing to suggest that Vaan is the main character once you get past the opening. You have equal control over every member of your party, the story revolves around people like Ashe, people like Ashe get the most screen time. People like Ashe are the driving force who make the decisions and the people who we're meant to be involved with emotionally. I don't think the game makes any real suggestion that Vaan is the main character beyond the opening sequence.
15. I would argue that Valkyria Chronicles subject matter didn't really fail to work with the tone it provided. There were light moments and dark moments and the themes were complex but it was never presented different tonally
17. I'm not sure why that's not believable? Or why it's important, if we want to look at stories with main characters who commit morally questionable acts for the sake of a girl (and it being called out on in the story) then we're talking about some huge important works of literature. Out of all of them this is the one that I disagree with you on the most because it's not even like the story was suggesting he was honourable for what he did. It was about a person who let himself fall into evil for the love of someone else and so it's weird to criticise it as tonally inconsistent for having a character in that story who did evil for the love of someone else.
Fallout 3 FOR an altruistic Schindler-voiced father reacting to his child's decision to nuke an entire town for profit with the horror of someone who had just caught them smoking for the first time.
8. God of War FOR delivering the most unpleasant, one-note mass murderer of a protagonist since Civilization allowed players to pick Genghis Khan, then having the gall to expect us to sympathise with the death of his family.
17. Shadow of the Colossus FOR Wander, a man willing to kill off the very last eagle, gorilla, leopard, rhino, elephant, lion, tiger, orangutan, chimpanzee, snake, crocodile, turtle, bison, whale, bear and dolphin left on the planet...for a girl.
20. Pretty much any MMORPG ever made - to paraphrase The Incredibles' precociously prophetic Dash, if everyone in the world is special, that's just another way of saying 'no one is'.
{8} Hey, I never nuked Megaton, so I don't even get that one.
{17} I'm sure we can find someone in the real world who would, or even a ton who would, and half of them would admit that "Love makes you crazy."...which would be true.
Honestly, I think Bioshock Infinite should be on this list. The frantic combat it borrowed from it's predecessors felt somewhat out of place and jarring amidst the philosophies they were trying to expound upon in the game.
Could you be more specific? I don't recall any themes or philosophies that clashed with the game's violence. I also thought the game made it clear that Booker is quite a violent man.
TheCommanders said:
Also, I was never sure why I couldn't NOT shoot a lot of these people who I had absolutely no problem with,
So does trying to kill you not count? Also their leader is basically trying to take over the world. lets's also not forget the imprisonment of Elizabeth and later torture and brainwashing.
The people think that you are the Anti-Christ and are here to take their "lamb" away...I think that constitutes as having a problem with you.
TheCommanders said:
But no, I guess some shit for brains marketing exec was like NEED MOAR COMBAT, and now I have to fight random people because I needed to walk past them, and apparently that can't be accomplished unless it's on a red carpet of their blood.
Well here's the problem, they aren't going to just let you walk by. And there are some moments were if you don't start randomly shooting people like an idiot they won't notice you. And if your complaint is that the game has no stealth system then consider this. From a story stand point Booker is not Solid Snake, he has no stealth skills and given his skill set it is probably much easier for him to shoot his way out rather than attempt to sneak by.
TheCommanders said:
long stretches of exploration with nothing happening that make the short bursts of action much more significant. But for the most part Infinite was just run run bang bang loot loot run run bang bang. It made me tire of the game a lot faster.
What do you mean by more significant? Do you mean less boring? If so then I understand where you are coming from. A problem that some people have with the Call of Duty series is that there are seldom any quiet moments to offset the hectic firefights; Juxtaposition I believe is the way Yahtzee described this.
That being said, however, I disagree with the assertion that Bioshock Infinite is like this. There are many moments in the game where you aren't gunning down enemies and the game give you some time to explore the area and talk to Elizabeth. In the first 15-20 minutes you don't fire a single shot (assuming you don't just run through the entire area). There's also the beach area (Battleship Bay) after rescuing Elizabeth, the children's carnival, the Hall of Zeal, Shantytown, that weird place where Elizabeth is being held after that weird timeskip, the list goes on. Sure these aren't as long or as expansive as "The Last of Us" but that has more to do with the two being different types of games rather than the developers not "getting it".
That being said, however, I disagree with the assertion that Bioshock Infinite is like this. There are many moments in the game where you aren't gunning down enemies and the game give you some time to explore the area and talk to Elizabeth. In the first 15-20 minutes you don't fire a single shot (assuming you don't just run through the entire area). There's also the beach area (Battleship Bay) after rescuing Elizabeth, the children's carnival, the Hall of Zeal, Shantytown, that weird place where Elizabeth is being held after that weird timeskip, the list goes on. Sure these aren't as long or as expansive as "The Last of Us" but that has more to do with the two being different types of games rather than the developers not "getting it".
Fair enough, I'll cite some examples. I remember one point during the revolution part of the game (middlish) there was one of those upgrade bottles. It was sitting on a table. Nearby were some people just standing around minding their own business. If you ignore the upgrade, everything is hunky dory. If you think like a gamer and say, "oh an upgrade! I should go grab that." All of the sudden those people are shooting at me? Why!? Were they guarding this upgrade? If so why wouldn't one of them use it? If they wanted payment for it, I would have been fine with that, I had tons of money, but nope, only option to get this upgrade was to randomly murder people who were ostensibly neutral (at worst) to you. Technically, this is optional, yes, but it just doesn't make any sense.
Honestly, considering that 90% of the people you meet get shot by you, I was expecting some kind of Spec Ops: The Line style, "You Monster!" moment somewhere in the last act of the game, but nope just a retarded twist that I saw coming from literally minute 27 of playing:
I'm referring to the fact that Booker is Comstock and Elizabeth is his daughter. Seriously. Figured it out seconds after arriving on Columbia.
But nope, even with the ending thingy, you're still played off as some kind of hero when all you've really done is shot everyone. In fact... (possibly spoilerish but kinda vague) the game makes it clear that it would be better for everyone if you just don't exist, and I'm inclined to agree, even without the whole... twist thing. It's one of the games were I don't understand why the protagonist couldn't easily have been replaced with a tank for around the same effect (or a combat-zeppelin in this case). I'm reminded of a saying, "Go to interesting places, meet interesting people, then shoot them." At least in Rapture everyone was insane or deranged, so I felt justified in killing them (expect for saving the little sisters of course!), but here the first part of the game makes a point of humanizing the citizens of Columbia, showing that even though their political views might be backwards, they were just living their lives. Then not half an hour later it's shoot everyone you see for the next few hours.
I remember exploring early in the game and finding a woman giving a description of a criminal of some sort to a police officer. Not wanting to kill them (even though that would have been the only way to loot the room) I backed out, but apparently with no line of sight the policeman spotted me, and I was forced to slaughter an office full of mostly unarmed policemen. I left the lady alive, but it was a small consolation. It's like the game doesn't expect me to care about thoughtlessly slaughtering everyone in the way, but I thought Bioshock was a franchise (at least the first game) known for being a little more complex then that. I blame the efforts to make it more accessible. I guess they don't think much of the average gamer. It's weird because they play the racist = bad card pretty heavily, but the retribution is equivalent to executing everyone in the south because slavery existed there. A bit disproportional, wouldn't you say?
The whole first time skip where you suddenly end up in the middle of the revolution was a bit disconcerting as well. That little glimpse we get in the first act of the game of Columbia before everything hits the shit? Pretty much non-existant. It reminds me a bit of the dead space levels early in the second game where they were showing you stuff and I was just thinking, "You're showing me this just so I can be shocked when things go to hell, aren't you?" I thought bioshock might be a bit more mature then that, but nope, the first act becomes completely irrelevant. Also, as a minor point, don't you think that time in the beginning where Comstock has all his men surrounding you (but with their weapons down for some reason) would have been a good time to cut you down with a crossfire? There would have been nothing you could have done, and the game would have been over. Good thing he's a moron and tried to kill you with a flaming nun instead.
Seriously, Comstock was such a derpy villain, that I just felt even worse about gunning down the poor saps who actually bought into his nonsense. Andrew Ryan had a philosophy and a vision, and was a cunning and capable opponent. Comstock was a racist loony with a terrible plan and ludicrously incompetent minions.
To sum up, Infinite felt like a very pretty, very atmospheric, but ultimately hollow shooting gallery populated with enemies that I didn't understand why I had to kill; I never actually understood what my ultimate goal was ever supposed to be (beyond continuously finding/rescuing Elizabeth). Do I care about the revolution or not? Do I want to leave the city or stay? Do I like Elizabeth or am I frustrated with her? Is Comstock insane or a visionary? Is Booker an asshole or not? The game is schizophrenic about all these questions, and it just never resonated with me in the same way as the original. Overall, very disappointing (for lots of other reasons as well, but this post is long as it is). Not terrible, but I felt like they could have made a much better game with all the ideas they clearly had behind Infinite.
Fair enough, I'll cite some examples. I remember one point during the revolution part of the game (middlish) there was one of those upgrade bottles. It was sitting on a table. Nearby were some people just standing around minding their own business. If you ignore the upgrade, everything is hunky dory. If you think like a gamer and say, "oh an upgrade! I should go grab that." All of the sudden those people are shooting at me? Why!? Were they guarding this upgrade? If so why wouldn't one of them use it? If they wanted payment for it, I would have been fine with that, I had tons of money, but nope, only option to get this upgrade was to randomly murder people who were ostensibly neutral (at worst) to you. Technically, this is optional, yes, but it just doesn't make any sense.
You're probably thinking about the docks right after Elizabeth knocks you out with the wrench. I almost fell for that too, but I realized that the icon said steal so I figured people would start shooting me if picked it up so I let it be. As for why it was there...does it really matter? I honestly don't see what the issue is. Maybe you couldn?t buy it because it belonged to someone. Everything about this just seems so petty. Also it isn?t murder if they are trying to kill you.
TheCommanders said:
Honestly, considering that 90% of the people you meet get shot by you, I was expecting some kind of Spec Ops: The Line style, "You Monster!" moment somewhere in the last act of the game
Really? Once again I don't see why you'd think something like this would happen especially since there doesn't seem to be an anti-violence message in the game.
TheCommanders said:
But nope, even with the ending thingy, you're still played off as some kind of hero when all you've really done is shot everyone.
I never really thought the game was trying to portray Booker in a heroic kind of way. The game makes it clear that he has a violent past and even enjoys it sometimes.
TheCommanders said:
At least in Rapture everyone was insane or deranged, so I felt justified in killing them (expect for saving the little sisters of course!), but here the first part of the game makes a point of humanizing the citizens of Columbia, showing that even though their political views might be backwards, they were just living their lives. Then not half an hour later it's shoot everyone you see for the next few hours.
I feel that the point of humanizing the citizens in the first hour was to show that not everyone in Columbia is a racist asshole, so that when the Vox Populi started murdering everyone around them that wasn?t a Vox Populi, it would get the message across that neither side is truly good or truly evil.
TheCommanders said:
I remember exploring early in the game and finding a woman giving a description of a criminal of some sort to a police officer. Not wanting to kill them (even though that would have been the only way to loot the room) I backed out, but apparently with no line of sight the policeman spotted me, and I was forced to slaughter an office full of mostly unarmed policemen. I left the lady alive, but it was a small consolation.
I was actually able to evade them, though granted I had to give up the powerup. But, like you, I preferred not having to slaughter every policeman I came across if I could help it.
TheCommanders said:
It's like the game doesn't expect me to care about thoughtlessly slaughtering everyone in the way
I disagree, but it doesn't change the unfortunate fact that they are trying to kill you. It's kill or be killed something that Booker makes clear to Elizabeth after getting his hand stabbed by a dagger when I tried to take a non-violent route with the ticket man.
TheCommanders said:
I guess they don't think much of the average gamer. It's weird because they play the racist = bad card pretty heavily, but the retribution is equivalent to executing everyone in the south because slavery existed there. A bit disproportional, wouldn't you say?
Umm no I don?t because here is the thing? I (Booker) am not killing people because they are racist assholes (some of which may even not be racist assholes) I am killing them because they are trying to kill me. Also there are plenty of times where you come across civilians (people not trying to kill me) and guess what?the game doesn?t force me to kill them. There are also a few times where there are policemen around the area and haven?t fired at me yet, so guess what I do?I don?t shoot at them (at least not until they start shooting).
TheCommanders said:
Comstock has all his men surrounding you (but with their weapons down for some reason) would have been a good time to cut you down with a crossfire? There would have been nothing you could have done, and the game would have been over. Good thing he's a moron and tried to kill you with a flaming nun instead.
Yes I will admit that was a very derpy moment, but it?s really the only one of its kind so it doesn?t bother me as much. I?m not sure if there was some point or message to that scene that I?m missing or if it was just a derp moment in the writing
TheCommanders said:
To sum up, Infinite felt like a very pretty, very atmospheric, but ultimately hollow shooting gallery populated with enemies that I didn't understand why I had to kill;
I always though Civilization IV had a weird tone. It's a bit lighthearted, all the leader animations are a bit cartoonish, but then it's fairly bleak when you get into very late-stage games where the world is screwed and nuclear holocausts are commonplace.
And I don't really think some of your suggestions are really tonal inconsistencies, just poorly implemented features or things you didn't like, which isn't really the same thing.
I see where you're coming from, and obviously some of my points are subjective, but I just felt for a supposedly mature game it was much too jovial with it's violence. And just one comment, you pointed out that there was an effort to make both sides flawed, but Booker was the worst of all, because his motivations are purely selfish and his solution is to just to kill anyone in his way. And to the anti-christ point, everyone would be unaware of that fact if he had the initiative to just put on a glove (maybe during that scene where you look at a poster showing your hand and labeling you as the false prophet, and Booker looks at his hand confirming that he noticed the similarity. Seriously, wrap a hankie around your hand or something, the whole next combat section would have been avoided if he had). That would solve at least half the animosity right away!
This was honestly one of my favourite things about Far Cry 3. It is one of the game's few flaws, but is an extremely amusing one at that. The best part is that a kid who admits at the beginning of the game to never having shot someone can pick up an RPG or flamethrower a few hours later and destroy an entire encampment of battle-hardened pirates while soaking up their bullets like sunrays.
However, I don't get what exactly about Wander from SOTC was a tonal inconsistency? That was the whole point of the game- he had the guts and the don't-give-a-fuck attitude necessary to kill sixteen demi-gods just to revive his girlfriend.
The most serious inconsistency that always bothered me was the Sly Cooper series, specifically the second and third games. Enemies just sort of randomly fade away when you hit them with the cane in Thievius Raccoonus, but in Band of Thieves and Honor Among Thieves, they go through detailed, painful-looking death animations, followed by a blue cloud of smoke. I mean, is Sucker Punch implying that over the course of the lovable Gang's adventures, they have shot, blown up, drowned, crushed, stabbed, and otherwise seriously harmed hundreds upon thousands of (animal) people? Even as a kid I occasionally had problems finding the characters quirky and heroic because they really do send their foes through the most painful punishments possible. In fact, in the second and third games, there are entire levels dedicated to executing several dozen enemies with ancient tools of torture- burning, impaling, and drowning them all. The Sly games are absolutely some of my favourite games ever, but the huge amount of killing that they do over the course of the games has always wrecked the tone of the series for me.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the title of this thread is hands down the best I've seen in my many years of foruming anywhere.
I see where you're coming from, and obviously some of my points are subjective, but I just felt for a supposedly mature game it was much too jovial with it's violence. And just one comment, you pointed out that there was an effort to make both sides flawed, but Booker was the worst of all, because his motivations are purely selfish and his solution is to just to kill anyone in his way. And to the anti-christ point, everyone would be unaware of that fact if he had the initiative to just put on a glove (maybe during that scene where you look at a poster showing your hand and labeling you as the false prophet, and Booker looks at his hand confirming that he noticed the similarity. Seriously, wrap a hankie around your hand or something, the whole next combat section would have been avoided if he had). That would solve at least half the animosity right away!
I disagree, sure Booker's reasons are self serving. But I fail to see how that makes worse than or even as bad as say Comstock,a racist religious bigot who imprisons and tortures Elizabeth so that she can be the instrument to taking over the world. Or Fink who sees the lower class as nothing but cattle to be exploited and then thrown away. Or Daisy, who thinks anybody who isn't a Vox Populi or is connected to the upper class is evil.
Also Booker's reasons are self serving at first (not noble but far from evil), but as time goes on it becomes apparent, to me at least, that he is doing this for Elizabeth. Near the end of the game in one of the loading screens he comments that if he has to choose between either letting Elizabeth go free or handing her over to the man in New York, he would choose the former.
As for DeWitt's hand...yeah that does raise some questions as to why he never just covered it up. Although Comstock knew you were coming so he would have known what you looked like so it would have only been a matter of time before they found you. However it does beg to question why he never put up a poster of you in the first place. Maybe it was a way of making the people of Columbia fear you more as the image of a Grim reaper figure with an ominous symbol does seem more frightening than say an ordinary looking man.
In any case, assuming Booker did cover up the marking on his hands I doubt it would have gotten him any further than Battleship Bay at the ticket counter.
Most of the list seems to be more about Ludonarrative Dissonance than tonal inconsistency... so I think it's missing Max Payne 3 - the game where Max is supposedly a washed-out drunk loser who screws up everything, yet he is able to singlehandedly slaughter entire gangs of criminals multiple times over, and even wipe out an entire police station, an entire airport's security force and a couple of private armies.
You're right, there is narrative dissonance and tonal inconsistencies in Max Payne 3, but the developers have already said that these were intentional. Max wants to be a "thinker" ,capable of making complex choices, but he is a much better "do-er" who can clear entire buildings without fear of death. These contradictions represent the conflict he has to deal with.
I thought the Senator was a great fit for MGR:R. With a game this off the wall, it needed an insane final boss as a climax. The bigger tonal inconsistencies come from the ridiculous Jack the Ripper transformation and the very dark moments.
Tonal consistency is overrated anyway. Granted, it can be jarring to shift gears quickly and often, but lighter moments mixed with darker ones prevents you from getting bored.
Also, I don't think that's fair in open world games where dicking around is part of the attraction. If the story takes itself any kind of seriously, the dicking around isn't going to fit very well, but I wouldn't buy a GTA that didn't let me dick around to my hearts content.
He was trying to bring his girl back to life. And the game does a very good job at telling you that what you're doing isn't right. And I'd say the tone was pretty consistent throughout.
As for Valkyria Chronicles, the game has a race of super humans with regenerative abilities and an ore that can be concentrated into healing energy. I think I can forgive the fact that there's a pig with wings in it.
4. Mortal Kombat FOR a story mode which asks us to believe an alleged good guy would stab the eye sockets out of a friend in a playful sparring match.
/quote]
Got to agree with that, especially cage and jax's fight.
I agree , jax, he's being a twat so punch him a few times and lets go.
Done? Okay, let's go- wait jax puthimdownnodontsnaphisspine *crunch* well, shit, now that johnny's innards are paste we should, never mind johnny is fine, waitjaxnotagain!
For some reason my iPad Thinks Johnny isn't a word but johnnycake is. That scares me.
That's an idea I agree with. This is also why I brought up "The Wall". If you put "Outside the Wall" and "In the Flesh?" end to end, "Outside the Wall" first, the beginning of "In the Flesh?" carries on from "Outside the Wall". It also completes the sentence "Isn't this where we came in?", which is split between the end of "Outside The Wall" and the beginning of "In the Flesh?", thus completing the loop, much as the ending credits of Journey do.
Keep in mind that the two songs bookend the album.
Don't mistake viewpoint character for main character. Vaan is the former, not the latter.
9. Grand Theft Auto IV FOR a sympathetic Balkan veteran attempting to atone for his traumatic past by spending his spare time running over grannies, dealing hard drugs and beating hookers to death with baseball bats. Which is probably just PTSD, so that's ok.
In all fairness, a lot of that is up to the player, not forced by the story.
16. Journey FOR the insinuation that your Arabesque Red Riding Hood figure either (a) dies at the end, ascending to Heaven via jellyfish made of carpets, or (b) goes back to the beginning as a starry reincarnate, which renders the entire venture a depressing and purgatorial Bernoulli loop.
17. Shadow of the Colossus FOR Wander, a man willing to kill off the very last eagle, gorilla, leopard, rhino, elephant, lion, tiger, orangutan, chimpanzee, snake, crocodile, turtle, bison, whale, bear and dolphin left on the planet...for a girl.
How is either of those inconsistent? Journey's reincarnation fits perfectly in its them of the inevitable rise and fall of civilisation (and a few more things besides, obviously). Shadow of the Colossus is about needing (but failing) to let go before you do things you are going regret in your quest to save a loved one. They make perfect sense.
And as mentioned, most of the others don't have anything to do with tonal inconsistency.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
It is one of the game's few flaws, but is an extremely amusing one at that. The best part is that a kid who admits at the beginning of the game to never having shot someone can pick up an RPG or flamethrower a few hours later and destroy an entire encampment of battle-hardened pirates while soaking up their bullets like sunrays.
