Zero Punctuation: Metroid Other M

[anime2k3]

You hit the nail on the head with this one.

 

[Nomanslander]

You know, I keep hearing the Moviebob argument on how gamers are just acting pissy over the fact that they're unwilling to look at Samus as a third dimensional flawed character since she's proven herself a badass in a one dimensional mute sort of role.

But the fact is Team Ninja weren't the right people to go to give the Mass Effect treatment to this game. Team Ninja just did not do a good job fleshing out the character and they substituted bland and toneless melodrama for story.

You want a good example of an emotionally scared and jaded bounty hunter take Wrex from Mass Effect.


Samus on the other hand sounded and looked like a 15 year old cheerleader rehearsing for a Tennessee William's play.



Moviebob's argument is flawed for this fact, he's willing to accept and applaud the courage of taking such a risk, but unwilling to accept that it was a failed attempt at doing so.

I honestly am not against adding some depth to this series and to Samus' character, but like Yahtzee said in his review, it's a matter that needs to be handled very delicately since Samus is already a long time established character that we all know. And If Nintendo is still willing to take this series in this direction I'd hope for a reboot with a more qualified team because to me Other M was nothing short of a disaster.

 

[Razhem]

@Razhem:

-shakes head- Wat veterans DO black out, it's called PTSD. You can't get over it, you merely learn to COPE, you find ways to live your life despite that damage. Samus has not been "pussified" as you like to claim, she's just been brought down to a more human level. She still kicks LOADS of ass across all creation.

As for the time this game is taking place, that also doesn't matter. It's not like people STOP having insecurities when they're 30 or older and it's not like characters stop having doubts and fears beyond their origin either. She's been through a lot and seeing Adam again has brought up some memories in her.

Oh right, like when Solid Snake blac... or when the guys from Gears of Wa... or how even Master ch... well the guy in Call of Dury probab... well, the GTA IV guy probably had one of t...

Oh wait, I just remembered that I can't think the last time I saw a main character have a complete freak out outside of a JRPG, also aumisngly enough, it happens when it is a woman, har har, because those can't control their emotions, am I right?.

Also, something tells me that the people that still suffer PTSD long after the traume happened aren't capable of picking up what caused the trauma and beating the shit out of it, Samus on the other hand has beaten the cause of her fears, 4 times no less.

The point is she is a power fantasy character, she embodies strength, power and being able to go beyond your limits and fears. The manga did the job nicely, we have a young Samus who is in dire need of experience, who doesn't really know what shje is doing most times and so on. But here comes the funny part, she overcomes that, she learns to deal with it and the sad thing is in this game she isn't a young green lass that is full of insecurities. This is a woman that has been hunting for menaces all over the galaxy for I would dare say at least 8 years. So we have a character that never had any semblance of doubt till now when they decide she is a bloody emotional wreck after 8 years??? Good god man, she isn't a heroine, she is an incredibly insecure person that is a danger to herself and everybody around her if she is that much of an emotional wreck.

Also, people act like if she only saw one death in her life. She saw the death and betrayal of the chozo, she lost comrades in the army and she has probably killed and seen more death then a hell of a lot of people, and she keeps going at it. You know what they could have done that wouldn't have been bull about her character? The idea that she desires to be alone, to not be hurt again by losing them, would also fit in nicely with the loner concept we have always had of her, but gives it an extra dimension as to why. Hell, it could be a running theme about how after she tries to open a bit more, she ends up alone again.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Now, the way she's given depth may suck ass. As I've said, I can't comment on that. But the fact an attempt is being made to give her depth at all is, to me, noteworthy.

I think criticism of professional media writers needs to be a bit more savage than primary school sports day where everyone gets medals just for taking part.

It would have been noteworthy if they'd succeeded, but if you try something bold and fail spectacularly all you did is call attention to how much you failed.

 

[Kais86]

*long string of expletives-deleted*

For some reason it just clicked in my head, I'm not sure why it took so long I guess it was simply too stupid for me to consider an option, Other M is a really, really, really cheap anagram of "mother" hence all the parent-related issues with this colossal turd. Suddenly Samus feels like a mommy to the thing she captured and brought back -TO HAVE PEOPLE PERFORM EXTREMELY PAINFUL EXPERIMENTS ON- and then there's her daddy issues and it all takes place on a bottle ship.... something with a disappointing lack of alcohol. Now, I'm going to go curl into a bottle of Jack Daniel's, partially because I feel like an idiot, but mostly because I don't want to remember this sudden revelation.

 

[geizr]

sorry yahtzee, bob's argument makes more sense to me in this case then your does, so it looks like i'm gonna get this one
http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-40-Heavens-to-Metroid

Yeah, taking a look at that linked video, I also have to agree with the basic premise that Movie Bob is putting forward. While Team Ninja may not have handled the implementation of the character and story well, it really seems that what people are complaining about is more that their fantasy of Samus, which was based on no information at all, is not being upheld. This, naturally, is upsetting folks (most people don't like having their ideals, no matter how far fetched, pissed on).

EDIT: I had a much different post, which, after some consideration, just sounded too preachy and accusative. Plus, I feel it was too much for me to be saying as one who has not played much of the Metroid series(I have played some, just not much). However, I still stand behind my original statements about escapism: it's not a good habit as a prime coping mechanism (in fact, the fact you engage in a coping mechanism at all should be a personal red flag, as I have personally learned over the years, that something is very wrong and needs to be addressed directly), and it can destroy your life in the long run if you engage it too much (I speak as one who has spent 14 years escaping). I also stand behind my original statement about memes: they're usually just shit people make up and fail to re-examine for validity and veracity.

 

[Warachia]

Well, I can't really agree on any points, not having played the game, or even watched any cutscenes, but I do hope that Yahtzee was exaggerating about Samus's new character traits. I mean, it is nice, I suppose, that she *has* character traits now, but I'm unsure that generic dependent female was the best way to go about it...
Still, I'll reserve judgement on that until I've played the game, or at least watched a let's play.

If anything, he was under exaggerating Samus's new traits. know what would have made this a better game? Not calling it Metroid, and not calling the lead character Samus. Maybe then we would be much more open to it.

 

[cefm]

Damn - the game must REALLY suck, because Yahtzee didn't even have time to spare a jab at the Wii for being a shitty platform.

 

[Nomanslander]

You people need to stop taking MovieBob as a credible source for video games, like I've stated before and I'll state again the man is just way too invested in the Nintendo brand name to take him seriously. Any sense he tries to make is always bend around this fact and it becomes way too clear when you've seen enough of his Overthinker videos.

Moviebob has done nothing but twist the Other M argument to where he's blaming the players perception in female protagonist instead of the developers in failing to create a fleshed out third dimensional character. Another words he's pretty much saying it's our fault for not liking the game not the developers....0o

Moviebob is the Michael Moore of Nintendo.

I bet when Mass Effect the movie comes out, if the movie turns out to be any good, he'll start lamenting on how a Metroid rip off (yeah, he would claim such a thing!! I mean in one of his videos he went so far as to say Half Life was in some degree a Metroid rip off, I'm not making it up!!) got a chance into being made into a decent movie before Metroid or (and I know he'll squeeze in Mario some on) Mario ever did.

Don't believe me? Well he's already done it to some degree....-_-

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/1740-Prince-of-Persia

 

[Prankman]

Every time somebody posts here and uses Zero Punctuation, a comedy-based 'review' platform, to seriously 'confirm their suspicions' about games, it makes me want to bash my skull through a wall.

 

[Warachia]

sorry yahtzee, bob's argument makes more sense to me in this case then your does, so it looks like i'm gonna get this one
http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-40-Heavens-to-Metroid

Yeah, taking a look at that linked video, I also have to agree with the basic premise that Movie Bob is putting forward. The real thing that people are bitching about over this game is the fact their preconceived fantasies about what Samus is supposed to be like did not match the reality.

From what bits of the series I have played and understand about, Samus' personality and history are never really explored, at least not to any depth such to be sufficient. In prior games, she's nothing more than a woman with a gun running around shooting things, but that's not enough to actually tell us anything about her. We don't know anything about her reasons or motivations for doing anything. Everyone has just made up a fantasy that she's a complete badass because it fits current thinking and expectations in the gaming community about protagonists in general. It's a meme, and, like most memes, it's just shit people made up and failed to re-examine for validity and veracity.

Now, all of a sudden, Samus is revealed as being a human being, complete with flaws, hang-ups, quirks, etc. Yet, she still goes and gets a job done, despite any emotional or mental issues she may have to deal with. Many human beings can be totally messed up and still go out to do a normal hard day's work. In fact, many people do precisely this (it's part of being a responsible adult; when you have a job to do, you save the crying for later). And, as many should know from life experience, it is difficult to tell fully what a person is like when you only see them at work. For example, some fun-loving people can be a complete brick-*****/bastard at work, and vice versa.

Because we never really actually knew anything about Samus, this means that her actual personality and history could be anything at all. But very little of that can really be derived from the job she has of blowing away monsters (remember how a responsible adult just gets on with the job rather than sitting around crying about things). When she's off the job, Samus is allowed to devolve into a complete emotional wreck because she now has the time to focus on herself and all the various problems she has, which include relationship issues (as many normal human beings have). This is what transforms her into a normal human being rather than this iconic, heroic goddess fantasy that people have attached to her.

Basically, we in the game community removed from Samus her right to be a human being in order to satisfy our own desire for a shepherding paragon to show us the way. We became too identified with the character as a heroic exemplar in order to escape from our own frustrations and feelings of frailty in a difficult world. When Samus is revealed to no longer supported that escapist process, we became distraught. I have to agree with Movie Bob, the whole issue says more about the gaming community's warped thinking than it does about the real game and real character of Samus.

(A word about escapism as one who has practiced it for too many years: it's not a good habit when it becomes a prime coping mechanism, because it doesn't solve anything. At that point, it just makes life progressively harder to live with.)

As everyone before posted and since I hate repeating them and myself, we were 100% okay with giving Samus a personality, we were just afraid they'd go and screw it up, which they did.
Her new personality does not fit with any of the past games, only going on missions alone, her fighting style, it even doesn't fit with the manga, as she gets over the whole Ridley thing and evolves more as a person than this robot straight out of Twilight.
I also have to question, what kind of people do you know that are messed up, but go forth to do a hard days work? I know messed up people too, they want nothing to do working to further society, but that's just who we know.

Finally, as a response to the video, I think it says just as much about Bob and others that they prefer these types of heroines.

 

[The Bandit]

So the best way to enjoy a game that's trying not to be an FPS is to play an FPS? Huh.

When was Samus established as having a "bold, independent spirit"? I don't remember that being mentioned at all in any of the games other than the fact that you, the player, are controlling her and she's completely alone. She blindly followed our orders even if it meant smacking into a wall repeatedly when our phones rang or falling into an acid pit when we mis-judged a jump she probably could have handled were she in control of her own body.

This sounds so much like so many other arguments against Other M I'm wondering if Yahtzee either got bored with the ZP enterprise now that his novel's out or has just been too busy to form salient points that he's cribbed notes from other sources. Not that I myself would ever do such a thing [http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-40-heavens-to-metroid.html].

Funny? Yes. Accurate? No idea. I'm too poor to own a Wii. But I find myself kinda confused by all of the hatred. Maybe it's just me.

I am, very sincerely, at a loss for words. You just completely melted my brain.

 

[geizr]

sorry yahtzee, bob's argument makes more sense to me in this case then your does, so it looks like i'm gonna get this one
http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-40-Heavens-to-Metroid

Yeah, taking a look at that linked video, I also have to agree with the basic premise that Movie Bob is putting forward. The real thing that people are bitching about over this game is the fact their preconceived fantasies about what Samus is supposed to be like did not match the reality.

From what bits of the series I have played and understand about, Samus' personality and history are never really explored, at least not to any depth such to be sufficient. In prior games, she's nothing more than a woman with a gun running around shooting things, but that's not enough to actually tell us anything about her. We don't know anything about her reasons or motivations for doing anything. Everyone has just made up a fantasy that she's a complete badass because it fits current thinking and expectations in the gaming community about protagonists in general. It's a meme, and, like most memes, it's just shit people made up and failed to re-examine for validity and veracity.

Now, all of a sudden, Samus is revealed as being a human being, complete with flaws, hang-ups, quirks, etc. Yet, she still goes and gets a job done, despite any emotional or mental issues she may have to deal with. Many human beings can be totally messed up and still go out to do a normal hard day's work. In fact, many people do precisely this (it's part of being a responsible adult; when you have a job to do, you save the crying for later). And, as many should know from life experience, it is difficult to tell fully what a person is like when you only see them at work. For example, some fun-loving people can be a complete brick-*****/bastard at work, and vice versa.

Because we never really actually knew anything about Samus, this means that her actual personality and history could be anything at all. But very little of that can really be derived from the job she has of blowing away monsters (remember how a responsible adult just gets on with the job rather than sitting around crying about things). When she's off the job, Samus is allowed to devolve into a complete emotional wreck because she now has the time to focus on herself and all the various problems she has, which include relationship issues (as many normal human beings have). This is what transforms her into a normal human being rather than this iconic, heroic goddess fantasy that people have attached to her.

Basically, we in the game community removed from Samus her right to be a human being in order to satisfy our own desire for a shepherding paragon to show us the way. We became too identified with the character as a heroic exemplar in order to escape from our own frustrations and feelings of frailty in a difficult world. When Samus is revealed to no longer supported that escapist process, we became distraught. I have to agree with Movie Bob, the whole issue says more about the gaming community's warped thinking than it does about the real game and real character of Samus.

(A word about escapism as one who has practiced it for too many years: it's not a good habit when it becomes a prime coping mechanism, because it doesn't solve anything. At that point, it just makes life progressively harder to live with.)

As everyone before posted and since I hate repeating them and myself, we were 100% okay with giving Samus a personality, we were just afraid they'd go and screw it up, which they did.
Her new personality does not fit with any of the past games, only going on missions alone, her fighting style, it even doesn't fit with the manga, as she gets over the whole Ridley thing and evolves more as a person than this robot straight out of Twilight.
I also have to question, what kind of people do you know that are messed up, but go forth to do a hard days work? I know messed up people too, they want nothing to do working to further society, but that's just who we know.

Finally, as a response to the video, I think it says just as much about Bob and others that they prefer these types of heroines.

I had rescinded that entire post after I had thought about it some more, and you caught it before I had a chance to edit it.

It still looks to me like people generated a fantasy of Samus based on little or no information, and that fantasy is not being upheld by the current game. This is why some people are upset.

As for messed up people going to work, I've known a number (one, in fact, I knew personally had worked for years with a fairly distinguished career before she finally did commit suicide; absolutely none of us saw it coming because she was smiling and happy as normal on the job). In fact, coming from a more impoverished background, it was much the norm because people had to survive doing whatever job they could, despite all their frustrations, anguishes, and issues. Plus, they usually were single-parents with several children, which is an intrinsic recipe for mental instabilities, based on having lived around a number such people and coming from a single-parent home.

My point in my original post (which I rescinded because I felt its approach just wasn't appropriate) is that we only have really known Samus on her job and that this is not sufficient information to truly derive any knowledge about what she is like as a person. We've built up an ideal, and that ideal is not being fully upheld. I'll admit, Team Ninja was probably ham-fisted in their handling, but much of the cry I've seen elsewhere on the web (not just Movie Bob) has been exactly that the fantasy is not being upheld.

 

[Madara XIII]

Thank you for summing up my feelings exactly. Particularly the fact that it's RIDLEY who she freaks out over. If they made it Mother Brain then that would at least be within sight of believable. In sight through a long range scope, but still, a hell of a lot closer than her freaking out over everyone's favorite pterodactyl.

Then again maybe Samus just read all the Ridley/Samus fanfiction out there. Rule 34 ahoy!

Ugh... *Looks at all the Samus/Ridley Fanfiction* O___O OH JESUS!!

 

[forsinain42]

About the special episode. A lot of Yahtzee's stuff seems to be about endings recently and he mentions it's three years since he started during this video. Is he going to bow out?

I hope not. :/

 

[AngryBritishAce]

I've heard stupid things, but "Contains fully narrated movies scenes" has got to take the biscuit

 

[0puncfan]

and here comes yahtzee withhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh awesomeness~!!!

 

[lumenadducere]

When was Samus established as having a "bold, independent spirit"? I don't remember that being mentioned at all in any of the games other than the fact that you, the player, are controlling her and she's completely alone. She blindly followed our orders even if it meant smacking into a wall repeatedly when our phones rang or falling into an acid pit when we mis-judged a jump she probably could have handled were she in control of her own body.

Her backstory and the events in Fusion, along with a comic somewhere out there. The games themselves have kept her silent and up to the player but there's plenty of canon out there that's established her character. I know there's an argument against that saying that if it's not in the game then it's less relevant, but I respectfully disagree with that notion.

And the "blindly following our will" argument can be made for any game character ever, silent or loud-mouthed babbling idiot. Gordon Freeman, Master Chief, Kratos, Mickey Mouse, etc. are all subject to the player's input, and thus their failings or shenanigans when they repeatedly jump into a pit of fire. That's not necessarily what defines them as a character, however - it's the other aspects of the game that identify who they are.

 

[lumenadducere]

It's been pointed out that the angle I took in presenting my argument was fundamentally flawed. I'll definitely admit that. My argument was nowhere near as well-phrased or presented as others. Thanks for pointing it out respectfully.

On the other hand, while I will concede that the presentation of Samus as "bold and independent" holds up from the points you've put forward, I don't consider bold and independent to be completely opposed to also being emotionally scarred and occasionally uncertain or insecure. In fact, it could be argued that bold independence is a smoke screen to hide one's insecurities.

Again, I'll admit that since I haven't played the games or called up the cutscenes on YouTube, I cannot comment on the plot or gameplay. I'm just fascinated by this idea of Samus being depicted in the way she is has become almost universally reviled. Now, the way she's given depth may suck ass. As I've said, I can't comment on that. But the fact an attempt is being made to give her depth at all is, to me, noteworthy.

I just cringe to think what would happen if it were revealed in a Halo game that Master Chief likes to spend time out of his Spartan armor knitting between firefights.

So I went from the first page to this after my post, so I guess you can ignore my other post with your quote since it's been addressed.

And yes, it's not so much that she's been given depth. Samus was given depth in Fusion, and that worked out really well because it still fit with her character. The Samus in Other M not only doesn't fit with the character, but her reactions don't make a lot of sense. She's faced Ridley about four times by the time that encounter in Other M takes place, and yet for some reason he causes her to cower at that point in time when she never had before...which makes her need to be rescued. She somehow cares about the Metroid baby after willingly giving it up for study and waxes poetic and gets maternal towards it after spending maybe a lump sum of two days with it and after willingly giving it up for study. She submits to the command of another person who she hasn't seen in years and who she had a major disagreement with (although we later learn that it actually isn't all that major, just more poor writing by Team Ninja) when she spent years alone, hunting the space pirates and establishing a reputation for herself as being the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. Hell, Malkovich doesn't even actually ask her to, she just does it to "make him feel at ease" which is an incredibly lame cover and leads to the pseudo-infamous Varia Suit moment.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but if this was Samus just after leaving the Federation to go and hunt the space pirates, it'd be more fitting. Her first encounter with Ridley, the one who wiped out her colony world, her family, and left her to die as a toddler - that would make sense for her to cower with flashes of her childhood and her parents' death. Hell, they could have made an entire game around that and her first steps into becoming a bounty hunter. You'd have to get rid of all the ridiculous motherhood tie-ins, but it would have done a good job of humanizing Samus, showing how she left the Federation, and showing her evolution from Federation soldier into galaxy-famous bounty hunter. But Team Ninja apparently couldn't be bothered to learn anything about the franchise or the character they were working with, and thus they slapped some stereotype onto Samus and then called it a day. Add on the shoddy voice acting and it just becomes a horrible thing to do to a character that was once the best female lead in a game.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I had rescinded that entire post after I had thought about it some more, and you caught it before I had a chance to edit it.

It still looks to me like people generated a fantasy of Samus based on little or no information, and that fantasy is not being upheld by the current game. This is why some people are upset.

As for messed up people going to work, I've known a number (one, in fact, I knew personally had worked for years with a fairly distinguished career before she finally did commit suicide; absolutely none of us saw it coming because she was smiling and happy as normal on the job). In fact, coming from a more impoverished background, it was much the norm because people had to survive doing whatever job they could, despite all their frustrations, anguishes, and issues. Plus, they usually were single-parents with several children, which is an intrinsic recipe for mental instabilities, based on having lived around a number such people and coming from a single-parent home.

My point in my original post (which I rescinded because I felt its approach just wasn't appropriate) is that we only have really known Samus on her job and that this is not sufficient information to truly derive any knowledge about what she is like as a person. We've built up an ideal, and that ideal is not being fully upheld. I'll admit, Team Ninja was probably ham-fisted in their handling, but much of the cry I've seen elsewhere on the web (not just Movie Bob) has been exactly that the fantasy is not being upheld.

This entire debacle has actually made me wonder if the whole player-avatar idea was a good thing to begin with. Quite frankly EVERY silent player avatar (The Warden, Commander Shepard, the SMT heroes, the Dragon Quest heroes, Link, 90% of protagonists in WRPGs, etc) and even some voiced characters like Marcus Fenix or Master Chief are nothing more than Mary Sues. They're blocks we project our wish-fulfillment fantasies onto and who have NOTHING resembling discernible character flaws and because of that we seem to have been STARVED for actual three-dimensional characters with human flaws and insecurities.

We've turned into a bunch of spoiled brats who plug our ears and go "lalalalalala!" whenever negative emotions are brought up in a game's hero even if it is REQUIRED for the narrative and the character. This strikes me as players always wanting THEIR wishes while having no concern for the writers or creators. If we want to have better narratives and deeper characters in gaming we as gamers need to learn to let go of control so someone can tell a story. Which, oddly enough, is something JAPAN is better at than the West is.