Hallow said:
You might remember Extra Credits from this site before they moved on over to Penny Arcade. I used to watch their videos and then stopped, watching their latest one, I remembered why. To me they're just really pretentious, they talk a good game but don't seem to get results.
Oh, good, it's going to be one of these threads. Extra Credits take games seriously, thus they are pretentious. *fires up the rant-mobile*
Hallow said:
They'll talk all artsy about games like Loneliness but skimp on the examples and implementations. It just bugs me that if they think they know so much better then why don't they make a flash game themselves? (they were able to raise enough money for surgery or whatever)
Or talk about how they would develop their own game. It's not even a forum of discussion since you can only leave comments and emails, which they might reply to singularly.
Wait, what? Loneliness
was the example. What are you even trying to say there? They talked about loneliness because it is a short, easy browser-built game that showcases what they are talking about and everyone can play it right away.
Secondly, what the fuck do you mean they have to make a game themselves? First of all, you know that James Portnow
worked in the game industry for a long time before EC and still does? He's worked on dozens of games. Extra Credits just doesn't mention any games they've worked on because that would be blatant product placement.
Thirdly, not a forum of discussion because you can ONLY leave comments and e-mails? What? Dude, what the hell do you want them to do? Just skype with anyone who asks? What reviewer or journalist EVER has anything more than comments and e-mails?
Hallow said:
They'll spend the episode talking about "X game does Y, and what Y could do for the industry". But never HOW, they talk in hypotheticals, how "that" mechanic would "pervade" the game without any examples or sources to back that up.
Okay now you are just making very little sense. You aren't even clearly distinguishing between what they do and what you think they should. As far as I can tell, they always give examples on how something could be used to improve games. Take, (as a random example), their recent discussion of used game titles in the digital distribution media - They very clearly break down the two possible paths for the industry and explain how this would affect Steam and it's ilk.
Let's try another example. The two part episode on the Hero's Journey. They look at each part of the Hero's Journey, explain it's importance, explain how the game Journey did it, and then suggest how games implement it. I'm sure there are a ton of examples I haven't mentioned, these ones are just recent.
Hallow said:
They bring up the Rat Man rooms in Portal and "that scene" Bioshock, but those examples (to me) are lacking and forbearing on the overall topic. Specific examples in a game can't be sources for good "metaphor mechanics" if the example is singular and not overbearing throughout the whole game. Otherwise I could say that the X scene in Y game was just as effective.
Here you just shot yourself in the foot. The Rat Man room
s in portal are not just one moment, and "that scene" in Bioshock sure as hell is not just one moment. The Rat Man rooms are multiple instances first of all, and they reference other parts of the game (the infamous cake quote) and what you see in them affects how you perceive GlaDOS throughout the rest of the game, and Aperture itself.
"That Scene" in Bioshock is the
pinnacle of the mechanics-as-metaphor segment, not the sole segment. Every time the words "Would you Kindly" came up in Bioshock, that's a part of it. And those words are, as you put it, overbearing throughout the whole game. So by your own definition, EC's examples were perfect.
Hallow said:
They also don't seem to offer any criticism either, rather than just glossing over That Game Company, they should pick apart their games and discuss what doesn't work just as much what does. WHAT concepts were presented and HOW they were explored in Flower, Flow, and Journey? Were these concepts successfully executed? Why not? How could they've been?
And I really hate to say it, but that's kinda why I like Yahtzee, he'll go into the details (like in his Silent Hill 2 review) and really explain why what works and how, and what doesn't and why. After the end of every Extra Credits episode I have the same "....so what do you expect to DO about it?" feeling.
Extra Credits never really discussed Flower or Flow in big detail. They did discuss Journey, but only with regards to it's narrative. And even then they spoke about the parts of the Hero's Journey that Journey left out and could have included.
Actually, you should just generally pay more attention to Extra Credits, because their episodes follow a pretty samey structure. If they are talking about a problem or a flaw, which they aren't always doing, they almost always structure their episodes so that as they finish discussing that problem, they present a solution. There isn't always an easy or feasible one, but because I watch the show every week I am very used to hearing Daniel Floyd say the words "So what can we do about it?" or "I hate talking about a problem and not presenting a solution". Simple fact. I can go and watch a bunch of episodes and point out where they do that.
And on what you said about them glossing over That Game Company... Ugh. That's not even true. Yes, they loved Journey. They talk about good things in triple A games
just as god damn often. Again, an episode off the top of my head, the one where they discussed LA Noire as a game that dealt with race. People think that because Extra Credits use the term "art" and "games" in the same episode they therefore must be pretentious and therefore only pay attention to artsy indie games. That's just not true.
Hallow said:
Discussing Loneliness, I don't think it's some kind of Rorschach test that uses "mechanics as metaphor". The game has a d-pad, that's it, that's not mechanics, that's 4 buttons less of a controller. Loneliness I think did a terrible job of exploring what loneliness really is. Anyone who's ever suffered the depressing power of loneliness knows that you could've joined any of those groups and you would still have felt alone. They make all these assumptions about the player, I didn't have any fleeting thoughts of acceptance or rejection while playing. This might reflect poorly on me but I NEVER personified the dots, because they're dots. Not people. I just thought "wow, shit's ghey". I have an imagination, but you kinda have to provide a little context.
Well that's fine. To be honest, I didn't get loneliness from it either (When I played it, I assumed I was destroying the patterns when I approached them, so I avoided everything I saw so as to preserve the place as I found it) so the game didn't do what it was supposed to for me. But when I realized what it was about, I liked the idea of it.
However, I don't know why you are talking about this game. Extra Credits clearly said that you could love it, hate it, or think it's a pretentious bore, they didn't care. You didn't have to like it, it was just an easy example of how a game could include mechanics as metaphor - Whether or not it worked here wasn't especially important, it was just to help people understand.
