Shaky Cam Games

[Choppaduel]

insightful and entertaining. Keep the brilliance coming, Yahtzee!

 

[cefm]

Well to get technical, a LOT of what God of War did was initially invented by games like the old Castlevania for Ninendo. The whip as a weapon, for one. The real crime is that Nintendo kept making shitty updates for one of their key franchises, and left the field open to God of War to show the world what the current generation of Castlevania games should have been like all along.

 

[RockPlazaCentral]

I dream of a game-camera not with the moving patterns of Cloverfield but in the style of
Children of Men.

Yeah, I loved how the camera revolved around the car going in reverse in that scene when they were being attacked. If you've seen the DVD extras, the set-up for that scene is remarkable.

 

[KP Shadow]

Hack and Slash games are essentially 3-D Beat-em-ups. Essentially, God of War is today's Double Dragon, and Devil May Cry is today's River City Ransom.

 

[RelexCryo]

Extra Punctuation: Shaky Cam Games

Yahtzee dishes on "shaky-cam" games like Castlevania and retires the phrase "like God of War."

Read Full Article

"The fact that the personal agenda almost always involves getting your woman back clearly reflects misogyny, which in itself is a symptom of a fear or lack of understanding of women."

-Yatzhee

Wanting to rescue your wife from rape/murder is a form of misogyny? Since when? Would it be bigoted against men if a gay man tried to save his lover? And if the answer is no, does that mean only homosexual partners have a right to care if their lovers get kidnapped?

Saving the world, saving your family, and personal revenge are all common motives. Perceiving the act of saving your family as sexist is in itself sexist.

 

[lleihsad]

Hack and Slash games are essentially 3-D Beat-em-ups. Essentially, God of War is today's Double Dragon, and Devil May Cry is today's River City Ransom.

I guess in that sense, we can say that God of War is "like Dynasty Warriors, but...".

I have a hard time thinking of Gabriel as a big angry bloke, by the way. A friend of mine likened him to Lars from Brutal Legend, and I have to agree with him.

 

[Cap'n Moe]

Yahtzee, I believe you quoted:
"I also think it's interesting that all three of these games involve the main characters pursuing extremely personal agendas, but end up saving the world from Satan regardless"

I don't distinctly recall Kratos saving the world per sey, I remember Kratos offering the gift of free will, but saving the world? He pretty much did the human Fuck-Up wrecking ball thing and gave everyone that wasnt a mountain (or on top of one) a bad freaking day.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

Whenever I see misogyny mentioned, it harkens me to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CKErKJy8c

Not game related, but it sounds about right for how most become misogynists.

 

[RootbeerJello]

Mario is being filmed by a dude on a cloud
He has a camera on a fishing line
The camera pans to to show him and his camera
THEN WHO WAS CAMERA!?

...
Op: When are third person developers gonna get the camera right. First step, make sure you can see the action at all times.

 

[PinkiePyro]

personally i feel that cloverfield is the only thing that ever pulled shaky cam well
(to be fair i never saw blair witch project) cloverfield pulled in my opinion because they paired it with those "glitch" flash backs making the whole thing seem a little more real helped you connect with the characters and therefore a little more scary

 

[Sicram]

Wow, all of a sudden I feel so much better and so much more above most people. I don't even own a console and them "hack and slash" games are fun for... 5 minutes, tops.

I guess this article just fueled my elitism complex even more, thank you consoles and "hack and slash", you make me a better person! Oh and Thanks Yahtzee for indirectly telling me that I'm so much better!

 

[Laggings]

I dream of a game-camera not with the moving patterns of Cloverfield but in the style of
Children of Men.

Yeah, I loved how the camera revolved around the car going in reverse in that scene when they were being attacked. If you've seen the DVD extras, the set-up for that scene is remarkable.

yeah I've seen it, I bet it wasn't the only scene this complicated, but perhaps the one with the most separate 'layers' ... pretty sick. Luckily that wouldn't be necessary in a game.

(to be fair i never saw blair witch project)

see it. mind that it's different from all the other found footage films that came out recently. the newer ones are all pretty consumer-friendly in terms of having a typical action-film suspense curve. Which is fine. The Blair Witch Project is a little more demanding and much much more psychological. There isn't as much going on on the surface but way more subtlety. Additionally, the 'actors' weren't even aware of many of the things that were going to happen to them, adding a lot of genuine fear to the whole realism thing. They had a vague outline but there was no script, no written dialogue at all, and many of the events shown in the movie are directly taken from real situations. Heather Donahue (lead actress) supposedly still suffers from the late effects of the filming and moved to some remote house, barely accepted any of the offers to do more film projects.

Some would argue the film doesn't work anymore today, due to everyone being aware of it not being 100% real, but I still think it's a very interesting concept. Definitely worth seeing and the best of all found footage films imo.

 

[ElmerFusterpuck]

Hmmm, let me just review the final paragraph:

...emo?no; selfish? check; self-hating? often; physically weak? check; sexist? check; responsibility-avoiding whiner? check; sympathize with Republican economic policies? to a certain extent, check.

Fan of God of War? Check.

Damn you, Yahtzee, and your perspicacity!

 

[hooksashands]

The camera in Dog Days enhanced my experience with a hangover... in a bad way. My friend brought the game over the night after his birthday, which had been rowdy and I was slightly sick already, but there were parts where we both literally had to stop playing because of the screen wobble.

I am saying this game caused me real physical pain.

You can take that as a selling point, I guess

 

[technoted]

i think someone should take into account that not everyone owns all the consoles, so when a "God of War-clone" hits the market that's multi-platform, why should gamers care if its a ripoff? its not like they own a PS3, they'll take the clone and call it awesome anyways because they can't get the real thing

this is why games should not be compared to each other unless there is a GLARING rip-off (like Kratos's name spelled backwards for the main character or villian or the protagonist fighting greek gods)

Because just ripping off the gameplay is enough to call it a rip-off. Stealing the names is copyright infingement but stealing the gameplay is perfectly legal to an extent. I understand where you're coming from with the multiplatform part, like GoW isn't for the 360 owners so people who only have a 360 wont get to sample the enjoyment of Kratos skull fucking everything he sees to death, but that should be their problem not the game developers. I mean think of it like this, a lot of current MMO's are trying to be WoW and they fail, they aren't unique since it's been done before and better, the same goes for every other genre of games, they need to try and stand on their own two feet and create something new or at least improve on what there already is as apposed to just being a bland copy ever lurking in the shadows.

 

[boholikeu]

I could see shaky cams hypothetically working in some games, but I have yet to actually play such a game

So you are saying my opinion is wrong?

I'm saying Cloverfield wasn't good. That's not an opinion, because a plot is kind of necessary to call it a movie. If I may quote from Wikipedia: "A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a story conveyed with moving images." Story needs plot, or it's no story.

Sorry, but you are flat out wrong here. There are plenty of movies with less plot than Cloverfield, and a few a quite highly regarded. You might not consider them to be movies either, I suppose, but that is your opinion, not a fact.

I'm sorry, but that just makes the whole thing a pointless exercise to me. It's a bit like making a competitive first person shooter and then making all weapons deal zero damage because you want your game to promote peaceful ideals. Nice idea, but it really doesn't work.

Mirror's edge is actually kinda like this, yet instead of making the guns do no damage they just made combat incredibly frustrating. Same effect though, and I think it actually worked quite well as a game.

 

[Luke Tideswell]

i found one good one its called "this is war" its off the first days of operation iraqi freedom. recorded on a camera that lt scotti took to afganistan it views war in a actual soldiers point of view (operation araqi freedom was the assult/move on bagdad to capture osama/bin laden). in america i think the films called "called to serve" or something.