34 réponses à ce sujet

[Laurelinde]

I found a bit tasteless and OTT myself.  It didn't offend me or anything, I'm not penning angry letters to the Daily Mail as we speak or anything, but yes, 'ham-fisted' seems like an apt description.  Ser Alrik was evil, we got it, no need to Godwin the game.

[TJPags]

MPSai wrote...

TJPags wrote...

MPSai wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Totally agree with the TC and the OP.

Using horrific history as the basis for plotlines in a video game is NOT a good idea.

The holocaust, 9/11 are not plot devices for entertainment.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I find it offensive because it's a sensitive subject I just think it's lazy writing. 

I'm not offended, either.  A little shocked, actually, and also think it was lazy.  Basically, as I said, I just think these are not good things to use as plot devices for what should be entertainment.

Well see now that could be taken as video games can't or should never explore ideological, political or philosphical issues. Taking cues from history when developing fictional politics or moral issues is fine and dandy, but it's just so unsubtle in this case. Not to mention drawing comparisons to hilter/holocaust/whatever is so overdone it's become one of those writing cliche no-nos. 

Well, there are so many different types of history that can be used as a basis or a game or a plot within one.  Certainly the Total War series takes inspiration from history, but they don't seem to try to balance the opposing views.  Virtually any game that includes religion is likely borrowing inspiration from some actual form of religion through history.  The same can be said of any with a form of government.

It's not that which I find in poor taste. It's the use of some very controversial episodes of history, and not just one, but at least two.

Should a video game explore ideas like this?  I'm not sure.  Movies do it, books do it.  Is it fair ground for video games as well?  I'm not going to say no it isn't, but personally, I view video games as entertainment, not social commentary.  Others may disagree.  But viewing them from a purely entertainment perspective, I'd think my opinion would be no, they shouldn't. 
 
It is an intersting question, though.

[MPSai]

Some people would view movies as only entertainment too (and certainly some movies ARE mindless entertainment), and when film was relatively new there was all sorts of restrictions of what they could say and show. Video games are just a very young medium, and like any new medium people balk at the idea of it doing something that has already been legitimized in older media. And though there have been video games that were also storytelling devices since the oldschool PC and 8-bit eras, it's only been in the last decade or so that games are expected to tell stories. 

I think the "game" part is what throws some people. I think it was on Extra Credits on The Escapist where they mentioned video games may need a re-branding, kind of like how more serious comic books are often called "graphic novels".

Modifié par MPSai, 19 mars 2011 - 08:52 .

[TJPags]

MPSai wrote...

Some people would view movies as only entertainment too (and certainly some movies ARE mindless entertainment), and when film was relatively new there was all sorts of restrictions of what they could say and show. Video games are just a very young medium, and like any new medium people balk at the idea of it doing something that has already been legitimized in older media. And though there have been video games that were also storytelling devices since the oldschool PC and 8-bit eras, it's only been in the last decade or so that games are expected to tell stories. 

I think the "game" part is what throws some people. I think it was on Extra Credits on The Escapist where they mentioned video games may need a re-branding, kind of like how more serious comic books are often called "graphic novels".

All good points that you make.

I do see movies as entertainment, although I recognize that certain movies are, indeed, more about social commentary than about pure "entertainment".  Schindler's List, Roots, A Convenient Truth come to mind.

I guess it's partially how you view entertainment.  For example, I read for pleasure, for escape.  I don't tend to read biographies, or books about social issues, for this reason.  I gravitate more to Sci-fi or fantasy, or horror novels.  Likewise, I want my television and my movies to entertain me, and to take me away from the real world.  Sit-Coms, shows like Bones or House, that's my preference.  I do like action movies (was watching Live Free or Die Hard not long ago) but while based in the real world, they explore fictional situations.

I rely on news for my social commentary, and otherwise will read a book about something, or otherwise research, only if the issue is of importance to me.

I tend to like my entertainment mindless, and I put video games into that "entertainment" umbrella I described above.  Certainly, as a mainstream and acceped media, which games seem to be becoming, it's perhaps inevitable that they would branch out into more serious topics.  Probably wouldn't be to my taste, though, which is perhaps why I noted even in my first playthrough the themes in DA2 we were discussing.

[MPSai]

Video games are an escapist entertainment for me too, but I like to be mentally stimulated. I don't mind games, especially RPGs, exploring philosophical or moral or ideological or what have you concepts in a general way. In fact I like games with intelligent stories. It's when it's supposed to be a commentary on real events, a very poorly written and stupid one at that, that it annoys me. But it would annoy me in a book or movie too.

Though this whole N.azi parallel with the Tranquil Solution isn't really a commentary, again it's just lazy writers using an obvious parallel so we'll know it's evvviiilll without them having to put any extra effort into it.

Modifié par MPSai, 19 mars 2011 - 09:17 .

[TJPags]

They should have put more effort into it. Or at least fewer insane blood mages.

Because while I saw the parallel, I was still going to side with the Templars at the end.

[Last Vizard]

MPSai wrote...

Akron1983 wrote...

I think its one of those "Its so bad that its good" things. I groaned too, and then I giggled.
Its a bad "joke" thats for sure but not bad enough for me not to just let it pass. I guess its also used to give you the feeling that mages are in pretty much the same situation as the jews were during WW2.

Except no, they're not. And for another thing making Holocaust allusions is just about as lazy and shallow as making N.azis the bad guys in a movie. Only Indiana Jones can get away with that 

And I still have a problem with the plotholes this creates. I don't even like Anders. I didn't even like Awakening. And even I know he was in the Fereldan Circle. Until this point I thought this extremist anti-Mage stuff was a problem unique to Kirkwall or the Free Marches. 

I mean I just remember Wynne describing the Circle as a gilded cage but on the whole a peaceful place of learning. Now all Circles are abusing mages? And I still don't know why they'd even let them use magic if all Circles had this attitude. 

Times change however the impression i gt was that it was only really bad in Kirkwall but once one circle rebels (with good bloody reason) then the others either take their chances with chantrys overreacting with fear and killing them all just to start another more strict circle system or take this one chance at Freedom, in DA: O it said that all Circles have the three or four groups, one of them to do with gaining Freedom.

[Dante Angelo]

TJPags wrote...

Totally agree with the TC and the OP.

Using horrific history as the basis for plotlines in a video game is NOT a good idea.

The holocaust, 9/11 are not plot devices for entertainment.

I didn't see any 9/11 reference.

[Brawne]

Nothing new in the world, lobotomizing mental patients was big hit pre-WW2 and even few decades after that.

[Last Vizard]

Dante Angelo wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Totally agree with the TC and the OP.

Using horrific history as the basis for plotlines in a video game is NOT a good idea.

The holocaust, 9/11 are not plot devices for entertainment.

I didn't see any 9/11 reference.

How the hell do you get 9/11 from a church blowing up? house is on fire... 9/11 and as for the "Tranguil solution"... well i thought it was just showing the comparison of madness that the higher ups in the Templars such as Knight Commander to the madness shown by another person in a postion of power during WW2 and that siding with the Templars was siding with those who for the most part don't even see mages as human but just Abominations... even though Andrastate herself was a mage.

All comparison is made by the one observing, a rock is hard, something else is hard too so i'll say this thing is as hard as rock.... building blows up so it has to be evil terrorists that attacked a country... (if that is what really happened to trade center building 7).