majora13 said:
ehhhh... fine.
Fine, I'll play along.
Thank you. It is bad form to respond to a small section of a post if there was discussion value in the rest of the post. I was legitimately curious as to what you would say.
So you think the "no russian" level was artistic? In that case, I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on what art means. In my opinion, No Russian was a pretty shameless case of controversy whoring with absolutely no interesting implications. It's the kind of deep moral dilemma that the show 24 would present in its later seasons. Silly and unrealistic. The nuke in CoD4 was a nice touch, but I can't say it caused me to learn something about myself, as you say.
Well, the first question is did you actually play "No Russian" or did you skip it? If you skipped it then you learned what was too much in a video game for you. If you played it then did you gun people down, did you shoot into the air, did you not shoot a round, or did you try to shoot Makarov. The biggest question is did you think about WHY you did what you did? I do believe "No Russian" is artistic because I learned something about myself when I stopped and looked at why I made the choice I did.
What did you do with your doomed life after the nuke? Did you stay in the chopper to look for survivors? Did you try to crawl to safety? Did you just sit there and die? Again, did you think about WHY you did that?
There can be no enlightenment if there is not first contemplation.
Also, just for grins and giggles. What do you consider art, or the meaning of art? I don't think you have said up to this point.
Not ostracizing anyone. In case you haven't noticed, "nerd" hasn't been an insult in about a decade.
I have noticed that "nerd" has continually been used as an insult since the last decade. Unless, of course, you are an all knowing god that can disprove my statement why not try some decorum?
I really don't give a flying fuck about your theory on why ME doesn't count as a "real" RPG.
Why the harsh language? If you notice I was making the case that there are NO RPG video games. To role play one must be able to make decisions that can, at any time, completely change the course of the story.
I'm not talking about Dungeons and Dragons, I'm talking about the video game genre of RPGs. The Mass Effect series is a great example of intellectually lazy AAA games. The first one less so, but since then it's devolved into a braindead cover-based shooter. The relationship bits serve as your reward for basically suffering through the same combat sequences again and again. I don't see how that's art, personally. And I don't need it to be art. I just need it to be interesting or stimulating somehow. But it doesn't achieve that either. It's just addictive and boring.
So you are ok with ME1 because of what? It had the same cover based shoot em up gameplay and about the same writing quality (omitting the last 15 min of ME3). The only thing was different was long elevator rides and a pointlessly difficult inventory. Or is it that "difficulty" that you find attractive? That inventory was a lot like modern RTS games that you said were the only good things being made. Pointlessly difficult but easy to game if you understand the system. I would argue that regardless of what you have to do to get the relationship bits they are art. Is a painting any less of a painting if I got stuck in traffic or got into a wreak on the way to see it? As for ME not being exciting, that is a personal feeling and has no implications on this argument or ME's status as art or not.
*sigh* rebuttal is a noun my young friend. "Rebuttal" away...
I will rebuttal this statement with this video, and don't assume to know my age or call me your friend.
Don't care about the story. I was talking about games with interesting or complex gameplay.
Don't care about "art".
Here is the root of our differences I think. You don't stop to think about the story or perceive them as art. You want the cold calculating RTS gameplay. While I hate the cold calculating RTS gameplay and love the story. I actually play CoD games for the story, yea I'm that guy.
Sarge034 said:
Wut? lol...
>Technically any problem solving and/or pattern recognition qualifies as requiring higher thought functions so all genres qualify. Yes all of them. Even Gears of War has problem solving and pattern recognition.
"wut lol" I addressed this in my other post.
No you did not. You were first making the case that only your beloved RTS require higher brain functions. I would quote you, but I can't be bothered. I turned around and made the case that all games require pattern recognition and problem solving. That effectively destroyed your argument... and it still does.
You think the only two categories for games to fall into are "juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy" and "artsy"? How about just a good, intelligent game?
What is intelligent? That is a matter of person opinion which is where the problem is. I think the relationships in ME3 were done intelligently. I think CoD presents intelligent moral and ethical dilemmas. You do not. This is why I went with the definition of art that leaves out personal opinion.
I consider a lot of the old Nintendo games to be intelligent. I would be hesitant to call them art, but they are designed very smartly, with a great amount of respect for the players intelligence and time. They don't make you jump through stupid, boring hoops to get your reward, like most modern games do. The gameplay is the reward.
ha ha Ha Ha HA HA HA HA! Wait, you're serious? One word, Mario. Moreover, the entirety of those games that had a story was nothing but hoops to get to the boss. All the fighting games had the same character models that tried to deplete your health so you didn't get to the boss. All of the RPG-esc games had you running errands to get things essential for the boss battle and leveling up. They are exactly the same hoops employed today, but they were in 8 bit.
You might think Braid was "about" a relationship or maybe even the metaphysical questions posed by the levels mechanics. Jon blow has stated that one of his main goals was to create a game that respects the players time and offers real rewards rather than just some meaningless dopamine booster to keep people playing.
What I think of Braid or what I think Braid is about has no bearing on this conversation. However, because of the aforementioned differences in personal opinion there is no one "game that respects the players time and offers real rewards rather than just some meaningless dopamine booster to keep people playing."
One could say that... But one would be wrong. He's said many times that he's a big counter-strike player, that he likes it, etc...
Wow, again with the all-knowing god complex. I say I am a five foot seven inch male with blond hair. You have no other information so you must take this as fact and defend it to the death on the forums if someone says otherwise.
Already responded to this in my reply to Purtabo.
That's all good. I was actually only responding to purtabo so s/he would get a copy of this and read my attached post to see that I was making the same points with different examples.
Huh? Yes, like I said, the production values, writing, voice acting, graphical art, etc... are all improving. But that's not going to make a game good if the gameplay is utter shit, like Call of Duty.
You keep jumping around with your arguments it is hard to keep up. If you look at JUST the gameplay CoD is actually pretty solid. It boasts a solid 60FPS, solid controls that are easy to remember, solid user interface, solid hit detection (on NPCs), solid level design. Are you really going to argue that RTS games have better gameplay than a FPS? Again personal preference.
And even these good qualities that modern games have, writing, acting, visuals... they still don't compare to films. So what good are they? If they aren't good games, and films outclass them in every other attribute?
In short games fulfill a role movies never can. Games are
interactive media.
