Critical Miss: Top Five Games of 2012 #5

[SonicWaffle]

Yeah, when I said I get angry way too easily, I also meant that I get angry over things that I probably shouldn't, and I kinda get angry when I open a thread and see YET ANOTHER thread that's 75% people arguing. I know, I've said that it's important, I know that, I'm just saying that, you know, something else every once in awhile would be nice.

Hey, welcome to humanity - we disagree about stuff

There are plenty of threads around that aren't all bickering - check out the Advice Forum for people being generally helpful and nice to one another, or the threads about how tall someone is or their drinking habits or a hundred other non-controversial topics. For myself, I actually prefer a thread where I can get into a big discussion like I have been with @DeadpanLunatic, because it gives me cause to think about my own opinions a little more. In fact, some of what he's (or maybe she, I haven't checked the profile) proposed as a counter-point to my comments I've been unable to think of a satisfactory answer to, but I like that.

It's less that people argue on this website that frustrates me, and more of that's all they seem to ever do. And I'm going to admit to a certain amount of bias here, it kinda feels like the handful of games that don't get torn to shreds on this website are ones that I don't particularly care for, where as the ones that I do like are at the centers of massive raging debates, Spec Ops for this, XCOM for crippling unfairness and Dark Souls OH DEAR GOD Dark Souls.

Dude, I rather enjoyed Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2, you don't need to tell me ;-)

I dunno, what was supposed to be a relaxing pass time is just becoming so frustrating for me.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess there isn't much to say beyond try not to let it get you down. Respond to people who can have a civil, interesting conversation and try to be polite to those who just attack you for your views. Speaking of which...

Snip.

I utterly fail to see why we can't have both. Why can't we have the dumb shooters and the smart shooters? Why must we limit the medium to such a base, safe and predictable level? God forbid something in this medium challenges us, or makes us rethink how we perceive gaming and how it can tell stories. Do you know how utterly boring it would be if gaming was consigned to an eternity of 'just fun' as people like you seem to desire?

I'm not sure you've really taken my point. I'm also not sure where you got the impression that there are "people like me" and that all we desire is bombastic, stupid, tits-and-explosions games which provide nothing more than immediate gratification. All I've said is that some point enjoy these games without thinking too deeply about them, and that this isn't the end of the world, and it certainly doesn't make them closet racists or psychopaths.

 

[Joel Bridge]

PTS, but as well deal with idea blame or least chain of it special when come to military in general. Ok FP Interesting thing setting up one of men ask him is not choice and Walker said no choice or something along lines of that. Mind you guys there shooting the kill US Military here. Now when see damage they done, him teammate are blame each other since they both hand in it, then Walker for give. Walker Blame the Colonel for putting him that spot, the player blame the deveplorer for not giving them choice. The big choice at the end of game is can you handle the responsibility of your action?

Another thing the game point, and surprise brought it up yet. Is shear insanity that three man and team and can wipe out entire regiment. How idea of that mythic hero over comes everything, walker views and fights like that, but enemy he fight view him as some impossible monster, for feat he performs. If listen to the enemy is later of level of game there scary of Walker.

 

[Joel Bridge]

PTS, but as well deal with idea blame or least chain of it special when come to military in general. Ok FP Interesting thing setting up one of men ask him is not choice and Walker said no choice or something along lines of that. Mind you guys there shooting the kill US Military here. Now when see damage they done, him teammate are blame each other since they both hand in it, then Walker for give. Walker Blame the Colonel for putting him that spot, the player blame the deveplorer for not giving them choice. The big choice at the end of game is can you handle the responsibility of your action?

Another thing the game point, and surprise brought it up yet. Is shear insanity that three man and team and can wipe out entire regiment. How idea of that mythic hero over comes everything, walker views and fights like that, but enemy he fight view him as some impossible monster, for feat he performs. If listen to the enemy is later of level of game there scaried of Walker.

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[Odin311]

Really, guys? The...."BAD THING[footnote]TM[/footnote]" in Spec Ops the line happens because the player in a bad position, where they are desperate and have to rely on hard decisions and a little bit of moral duplicity just to pull through. It wouldn't be much of a game if it said "YOU ARE IN AN INCREDIBLY BAD SITUATION AND THIS IS YOUR ONLY HOPE TO SURVIVE: DO THIS DANGEROUS AND DAMAGING THING TO YOUR FELLOW MAN!" and you could just look at it and say "nah".

Besides, I think the greatest part of Spec Ops, apart from the "BAD THING[footnote]Still TM[/footnote]" was the fact that for all the choice it does allow you, bad things still happens and tragedy occurs. I think the that the way Spec Ops drags you kicking and screaming into its unpleasantness makes it so moving in what it does and highlights the potential for video games to expand in this field.

That may indeed be the greatest part of Sec Ops to you. I on the other hand would have preferred it if the game didn't force us down the path of madness, but instead nudged us and guided us down the path. To help us feel that we are doing the right thing. As it is, the game presents unrealistic objectives that most people can see is the wrong thing to do before doing it. That is the problem. I am not asking for a moral choice that lets me be a good guy. I am asking for more creativity in presenting the story so I don't have to be forced "kicking and screaming" along their path. So that at the end of the game, I am forced to look at myself through the looking glass and find myself lacking.

 

[Madkipz]

It would be more effective if there was an actual choice. Rather than being forced too.

Remember No russian? remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NMnnMRWJ-0

Do you feel like a hero yet?

 

[Exterminas]

So... it is one of the smartest, most important games of its generation, but still only your number Five?
Must have been quite a year.

 

[Pyrian]

That's what you'd call worship? It's a bit like saying that the United States worships non-felons over the age of 18, but okay.

"We the People" is an object of veneration in the U.S.A..

Actually, there were quite a lot of instances in which you could take a humane alternative, with the exception of the white phosphorous scene. It's just that the humane options weren't always that explicit, which I suppose they wouldn't be on the battlefield.

I think they should've gone all the way; non-explicit sane options all the way. It would be very difficult to complete the game as a saint, but not impossible.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

That comic perfectly encapsulates my main problem with the game.

It forces you to do something and won't let you progress until you do, then spends the rest of the game trying to make you feel guilty about it.

I love what it was trying to do, but the implementation left much to be desired.

I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias.

If your usual game is Call of Duty or Battlefield, you're quite likely to go through shooters just gunning down whoever registers as an enemy on your radar. If, however, like most of us here, you play a variety of games featuring moral choices and civilian NPCs who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yeah...this game will probably not have the same lesson to teach you. We already KNOW what this game has to show, but then, we're not the target audience of the Spec Ops label.

How charmingly elitest of you.

You know, when I was asking about if gamers could talk about anything without ripping each other apart, this is what I was talking about.

So calling people out for their douchbaggery is "ripping them apart" eh? Good to know.

He didn't really seem like a douchebag. It was more that he was confirming the existence of the causal market. Also you more or less just called him an elitist and walked away, without elaborating on the point.

Okay, here's some elaboration: I'm really fucking sick of this constant "Us and Them" dicotomy, and it's especially strong on this site. Thyunda came across as snooty and condescending with, "I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias." Trying to make people who like Military FPS's out as some kind of undesirable. As if the Escapist was this last bastion of "thinking men".

 

[veloper]

Deus Ex did it infinitely better than SO.

You don't tell the player he has a choice, but you don't remove the choice and respond to what the player does.

Without that choice, the message becomes meaningless and ineffective.

 

[Cenzton]

The amount that people have completely misinterpreted the point of Spec Ops is quite staggering. The game was meant to be an introspective look at modern shooters as how you don't even think about what you're doing in games like that any more, you just mindless blast away everything you see and are told to because zero consequence. There's no moral choices in CoD or any such shooter either, if a mission tells you to go and bomb an area you do it because that's what the game tells you to do. Much has been made of how you're always fighting against same russian/middle eastern people all the time, and spec ops does a wonderful turn on that where yes, you're fighting the same shades of brown to start with, however the real enemy ends up not only being American, but you yourself.

My point is if someone gets all uppity because oh, you were never given a choice whether or not to drop the white phosphorous, keep in mind that it plays off the shooter genre where you're not given a choice either, just told to do it, and guess what.... you do.

But hey, if you really care about searching for what the game really meant, just watch the two episodes Extra Credits did on it, they explain it much better than I ever could.

 

[The Wooster]

So... it is one of the smartest, most important games of its generation, but still only your number Five?
Must have been quite a year.

Unfortunately, "important" is not synonymous with "good." I think Spec Ops is a landmark moment for military shooters, but its gameplay just doesn't hold up.

 

[triggrhappy94]

The white phosophorous event is only suppose to be a step building up to the actual "Line".
I have offed a lot of people in video games, and in a lot of different ways, so the event wasn't too hard-hitting. It was bad, but the actual Line is much better.
I felt genuine regret about crossing it and that where the actual choice comes in.

 

[Thyunda]

That comic perfectly encapsulates my main problem with the game.

It forces you to do something and won't let you progress until you do, then spends the rest of the game trying to make you feel guilty about it.

I love what it was trying to do, but the implementation left much to be desired.

I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias.

If your usual game is Call of Duty or Battlefield, you're quite likely to go through shooters just gunning down whoever registers as an enemy on your radar. If, however, like most of us here, you play a variety of games featuring moral choices and civilian NPCs who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yeah...this game will probably not have the same lesson to teach you. We already KNOW what this game has to show, but then, we're not the target audience of the Spec Ops label.

How charmingly elitest of you.

How charmingly smug of you. Which part of my post was elitist?

 

[Ariseishirou]

It's weird how just about every single person in this thread is seizing on the WP scene, when the commentary under the comic directly says that wasn't what really moved them in the game - later, you'll have a choice to commit or not to commit a similar atrocity (which I won't spoil for the many of you who seem not to have played it) and this time, it's a real choice. There's more than one solution, and the game continues regardless of what path you choose. The WP merely sets it up.

It'd be interesting to see what people chose there overall, if the devs chose to keep stats, a la how many people play fem!Shep versus Sheploo that Bioware looked at.

I know for me, I tried desperately not to use WP and only capitulated when the game showed me there was no other choice. I didn't want to kill the soldiers that way (and I got it at launch, long before all this shit was famous and spoiled all over the internet). I watched my roommate hunker down immediately and start gleefully bombing away.

Yet, when the second chance, the real choice, came up, my roommate chose to do the right thing. I didn't. The game had successfully sucked me in at that point, and I was so tired of everything, and everyone was doomed anyway, and the rage and helplessness that Walker must have been feeling just... got to me. I didn't even hesitate.

That's the moment I'm prettttty sure they're talking about, not WP.