Zederick
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Posts posted by Zederick
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I tried standing up to them on Twitter. It went... poorly.
It's a very special feeling to be shouted down by randos on Twitter, with 30+ notifications per minute, where most of the people derating you have accounts that mysteriously are only 3 days old yet have over 1000 #GamerGate #NotYourShiled posts.
I'm going to step away from Twitter and take a shower for a bit. Possibly while drinking a bottle of whiskey. -
The really frustrating thing is that this is largely an orchestrated action of 4chan, which has been behind this harassment for weeks, back when it was just targeted at Zoe Quinn. There are screenshots of 4chan posts planning the whole #NotYourShiled tag as a "special jamming op" to have minority posters (and people who are experienced "shitposters" who with fake accounts) join together to undermine "Social Justice Warriors" in gaming. Which apparently means women in game journalism and anyone who defends them or points out how strange it is that they only seem to go after women.
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I dunno. I keep asking myself that question when I go to work in AAA after all the studio layoffs. I just stick with it and try to improve things, but that's because games are a vocation for me. But maybe that'd be different if I had any marketable skill outside of narrative design.
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I started poking my head out of my game of Civ about 8 hours ago, and made the mistake of kicking the beehive on Twitter. It's been a frustrating 8 hours.
The thing that pisses me off about this--other than the obvious, general horribleness of harassment and driving off of talented voices in our community--is how many genuine (seeming) people were duped into supporting what has always been a sexist witch hunt from the start. Going back as far as when I first stood up for Zoe, I had a friend who was "just raising some ethics concerns" about Zoe Quinn, and I know he actually meant well.
And even 8 hours ago, when I was looking on Twitter to figure out all this #GamerGate #notyourshield nonsense, there were rational-sounding, seemingly-human people were defending their genuine interest in journalistic ethics and intersectional definitions of gaming. And I agree, there are problems in games journalism, especially in how AAA plays most of the press. But there's plenty of hay to be made there, but somehow they're still just talking about a couple women (and guys they can try to use to shame the women).
And now that there's evidence of 4chan planning the #NotYourShield tag as a "Special Jamming Op", with bullet points like "Equality is our word against the SJWs we paint as extremists." It might as well have a headline reading "Breaking News: These Guys Really Are As Horrible As You Thought."
https://twitter.com/kunikos/status/507390649180508160
Anyway, the moral of my story is that I should have realized to just come to the Idle Thumbs forums for all my gaming news.
*advertising jingle* -
Theoretically, a multi-video of Spelunky could show each player on a single, static map of each level, with each of them running around that level simultaneously. But that would take a fair amount of video-editing to really compile: you'd want to construct a "background image" of the level from the footage of each player, then track their individual video-feed as they scroll through it, and then properly blend the video when their paths inevitably intersect.
A good programmer might be able to automate such a thing. I'm sure if Derek Yu really wanted to, he could set up something that could make it easier (even if it was just releasing the maps the day after each daily challenge). Hell, if there's enough interest in something like that, it might be worth asking him. -
There's only one way the Card Hunter pizza-girl storyline can progress:
After all of Gary (the DM's) lies about what they're doing downstairs, Melvin (the jerky brother) needs to try to embarrass them by revealing that they're playing Card Hunter. Then Karen (the pizza-girl) can reveal that she's an expert Card Hunter player... and that it's so much more fun when you're playing it with a bunch of friends, as she introduces co-op multiplayer.
Ball's in your court, Blue Manchu. Make it happen. =} -
I know the '90s were a time of strange FMV gaming dead-ends, especially on the 3DO, but Duelin' Firemen seems like such a strange beast that Idle Thumbs must know about it. Yes, even despite the fact that it was never released and exists only as the strangest game trailer ever made:
With cameos by Rudy Ray Moore, Tony Hawk, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Dr. Timothy Leary. All it needs is Jeff Goldblum.
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Seriously? I missed that episode, but 'think of the children' is a pretty weak criticism of what is ostensively a co-op loot whore shooter with negligible plot.
It wasn't a matter of "think of the children"; They never declared that people who enjoyed the game were morally unfit or harmful to society. I think they just find a tone of ridiculous violence to be gross and off-putting to them, which is their prerogative.
Also, while the plot of Borderlands 2 is (deliberately) shallow, I give it seriously high marks for quality of writing, humor, and character. Anthony Burch and his team did some excellent work and made it far surpass the original's half-done tone and clumsy references.
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They're hardly comparable titles in truth.
Oh, there are huge differences between BL2 and SR3, definitely. I'm just saying that they both share a common tone of "self-aware ridiculous violence" which they simultaneously embrace and critique. How well they may succeed at doing the latter while so gleefully doing the former is a subjective matter left to the player.
Personally, it's a reason I enjoy both games, but then again, I'm a big fan of postmodernism like that; in the same way the Old Spice ads used absurd extremes of "manliness" to advertise to both those who were irritated by such ad campaigns and to those who didn't see them as a joke, or the way fans of the Colbert Report include both people who love satire of conservatives and conservatives who don't realize it's satire.
Anyway, I remember the Thumbs saying they were turned off of Borderlands 2 because of the early scene where you kill a bunch of bandits and Claptrap responds "Minion, what have you done?! These were human beings with lives and families and--I'm totally kidding. Screw those guys!"
If that sort of tone will put a person off of Borderlands 2, they're probably not going to enjoy the tone of the Saint's Row games.
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One nice small thing I noticed while messing around with the editor is that all the hair styles are available to each gender. Usually haircuts are gender specific in these kinds of editors, but here it shows that making the distinction doesn't make sense and also just limits player expression.
And even more than that, each outfit is available for either gender, too.
But I can see how the ridiculous violence and gleeful dumbness could turn people off, despite all of the other positives. If a person doesn't like Borderlands 2 for those reasons, they're probably not going to like Saint's Row, and that's their choice to make.
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weird, i played saints row 3 and it felt super gross to me. the gameplay and story do mesh but the world it inhabits is fucked up to the point of being really off putting. I know it's trying to be this weird dumb thing and kind of light hearted even as insane, sadistic shit is going on but it ends up feeling like nothing in the world is of any consequence except for these chosen few people.
For example all of the citizens of this city are just totally enamored with you and the saints, even as you're going around shooting everything and smashing through crowds of people (either on purpose or as part of a mission) and everybody thinks that it is just great and they are super excited that they could thoughtlessly die at the hands of the saints. The police don't even want to stop you and they think you're really cool too even though in the beginning you kill a ton of them as part of the story. it made me feel like a sociopath and it was unsettling.
there is a really great use of music near the beginning though. There's a part where kanye west's 'power' comes on during a short cut scene as they are preparing to assault an opposing gang's hideout and then it transitions into the player controlled sequence as you approach the hideout and the music continues to play. It was really appropriate and that section was great to play.
That's a totally legitimate reason to be put off by the series - it is ridiculously violent, to a degree that I'd call "cartoonish" if it wasn't so gory (much like Borderlands). Of course, the sociopathic feel is perfectly in keeping with the story and overall theme of SR3, which is all about the ridiculous power invested in celebrities - with people starstruck to see you on the street even as you pile-drive their friends, or police demanding that you "sign and put down your gun."
Also, their use of music is consistently good throughout; the "Power" use is spot-on for the theme, but one of the endings also makes amazing use of Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out For a Hero."
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The thing about the Saint's Row games (particularly 3, and hopefully 4) is that their story and gameplay perfectly mesh, in exactly the way that GTA's never do. Saint's Row has every bit as many weird activities and bizarre results of playing around in the open world, but rather than try to tell an unrelated story of renouncing violence that flies in the face of the gameplay, it tells a story about runaway celebrity and fame, and the excesses and distractions that come from them.
Even more importantly, Saint's Row is entirely aware of how much of a self-parody it is, and it owns every moment of it - often while sneaking in subtle humor between the big, blatant dildo-jokes.
If you're even slightly interested, I recommend giving Saint's Row 3 a chance (especially if you pick it up through the Humble Deep Silver Bundle). If you don't get a kick out of a tutorial mission where you help a movie star prepare to star as you in your own bio-pic by taking him on a bank robbery where you hide your identity by wearing Mardi Gras masks of your own faces, then I suppose the series just isn't for you. -
Is it just me, or do these three trailers just read as "Here are the three types of players we hope to target: middle-aged guys who feel smothered by real life, 'urban' youth, and trolls"?
Don't get me wrong; I'm sure it'll be a good game. But I'm pretty much a Saint's Row fan for life, so maybe I'm a little biased.
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Brought over from the Episode 101 thread, since it seemed more appropriate here:
I've seen this argument elsewhere, and I think it's a misunderstanding/misrepresentation of what the ending is actually presenting.
They're not just moving to another reality, but actually replacing Booker at the moment he undergoes the baptism and chooses to become Comstock. When he's drowned instead, that choice is never made and no universe containing Comstock is ever produced to branch into a quantum infinity of Comstock-universes. The tears are, after all, repeatedly presented as also accessing other times, particularly when it comes to music, but also in, say, the scene where Elizabeth opens one onto a movie theater advertising a Star Wars film. But they have to have a Booker that's willing to make that choice.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it hangs together well enough. Insofar as these sorts of stories ever do.
On an unrelated note, I highly second the earlier recommendation of Nier. That game is fantastic.
Are we at a point where we aren't spoiler-tagging the ending yet? I feel like someone coming to this thread ought to know what they're getting into by now, but I'll tag it just to be sure.
I've got no problem with the time-travel part of the phenomenon, but if Elizabeth is able to replace the Booker of another world with her local one, then why not do that anywhere else in the game ever? It would have solved any number of problems (or in one setting, probably trapped the player in a coffin), but it never occurs or is hinted at in the other tears. Even after unlocking her powers, we see multiple different Bookers and Elizabeths along the lighthouses.
Perhaps her now-unlocked powers do allow her to go to some sort of prime-reality where they can replace the local versions of characters - but if so, then why is she joined by multiple copies of herself? Wouldn't they each be replacing her?
And even if they are in the prime-reality where Booker replaces the original Booker and can make those decisions (say, traveling not along an objective timeline, but along a subject's personal timeline and resetting them to who they were at that moment), then it's still undone by the whole idea of the branching realities. If Booker chooses to sacrifice himself, that would also split into another reality where Booker decides *not* to sacrifice himself -- which means there's still a Comstock out there branching off of those realities. And then Bookers to oppose them. And so forth.
I mean, I totally dig that it's a good emotional end, but by the laws they've established, it just doesn't work.
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I've seen this argument elsewhere, and I think it's a misunderstanding/misrepresentation of what the ending is actually presenting.
They're not just moving to another reality, but actually replacing Booker at the moment he undergoes the baptism and chooses to become Comstock. When he's drowned instead, that choice is never made and no universe containing Comstock is ever produced to branch into a quantum infinity of Comstock-universes. The tears are, after all, repeatedly presented as also accessing other times, particularly when it comes to music, but also in, say, the scene where Elizabeth opens one onto a movie theater advertising a Star Wars film. But they have to have a Booker that's willing to make that choice.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it hangs together well enough. Insofar as these sorts of stories ever do.
On an unrelated note, I highly second the earlier recommendation of Nier. That game is fantastic.
Perhaps we should move this to the Bioshock: Infinite thread. There's some good conversation going on here about representation in games and I don't really want to derail it by posting a billion spoiler tags.
I'll post a reply there.
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i will never agree with you
!!!
Then we agreed on that, AND IT BLEW THE MIND OF THE UNIVERSE.
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Zederick: That's all fine and dandy, but you're arguing with me about something unmentioned in my post. STOP!!! I'm only addressing the idea of changing the ending to something that had no relevance to the core story presented in Bioshock Infinite. And that core story is absolutely not about racism.
(emphasis mine)
I'm absolutely not saying you're wrong for feeling that the story is weak. I'm only saying that an ending like the one proposed would be even worse.
The shift of focus happens less than halfway through the game. The race stuff is used as a means to an end for developing the relationship/revelation of secrets between Booker and Elizabeth
I really disagree about the idea that racism is irrelevant to the story of B:I. It's treated irrelevantly, but it's still the origin of the major conflict and a major piece of set dressing in the location. The idea that racism and actual historical massacres were brought into the story just to help develop the connection between the two (white) main characters is actually worse than it just being dropped partway through.
But I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on the whole issue. Here's to enjoying future podcasts and agreeing on other subjects!
(Edit: highlight added to the original quote about racism's relevance to the story in response to edit complaint below in response to this post and ARGH I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH THIS DANCE LET'S ALL JUST PLAY FTL AND BE HAPPY INSTEAD.)
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That would have been absurd and outside the scope of the story.
It wasn't about racism. It was about Booker and Elizabeth (and Comstock). It just wouldn't have fit the last 90% of the game at all. Sure, maybe it would have been a "happier ending", but it would've been completely out of left field. Fair complaint if you think Comstock came out of left field despite the foreshadowing, but at least he was relevant to the story of Booker/Elizabeth. Such a sudden shift in focus at the end like that, well, wellll.
Their presentation of racism reminds me of the time I strangled a kitten to death with my bare hands.
Racism is put forth as the origin of the player's problems, constantly depicted everywhere through the game, and used as a excuse for why the violence in the game is justified (at least at first), but then they don't deal with it at all. After being such a major issue in the game - to the point where they have a museum and murals dedicated to it - they sweep it under the rug when they're done using it. As Chris said, you can't use a big issue like that and then not deal with it.
Now, many gamers may not notice or mind - in fact, if they find the subject awkward and uncomfortable, they may be quietly happy not to deal with it. But there are people in the world who find that racism highly relevant to real-world problems they face on a daily basis - and when it's brought up casually and then dismissed, it's shocking and insulting and problematic.
It would be like casually beginning a conversation with animal torture and then wondering why people are upset with you. =}
(Footnote: No, of course I never strangled a kitten, and I apologize for bringing it up. I needed something horrible and provocative to demonstrate using an issue to get the audience's attention and then not saying anything about it afterwards. Something that could perhaps be described as "Bio-shocking.")
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I just realized I missed like an entire page of posts, sorryyyy.
Yeah, no, I get it. I sorta addressed this in my above post. I feel like that asshole what goes "you're dumb for thinking about it like that". I just... I didn't feel like the game was trying to Say Something. I felt like it COULD have been that game, but it actively chose not to be. Presenting racism as an evil thing isn't really Saying Something, in my book. It's just kind of an obvious fact? The whole Fitzroy arc of Revolutionary to Tyrant is such a typical thing in genre fiction that, again, I'm left feeling like it's just a story element, and not a Something. None of the presented topics are ever addressed. They're just presented. Which is basically the core of your criticisms, if I'm not misunderstanding, where for me, it's the core of my apathy? Apathy's a strong word, but probably the most accurate. I recognize (or, at least, believe) that the game isn't trying to be something special*, and so I accept that and move on.
If a game (or comic, or movie, etc) doesn't want to Say Something about a subject, it shouldn't bring them up. On the subject of raising these large issues and then not addressing them, I have to go back to one of my favorite quotes from Emily Short about games and meaning:
"The trick about working in an artistic medium is that you typically wind up saying something whether you mean to or not. So it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and think about what that is."
By making this a game so heavily based on societal racism, particularly one character's regret and shame about actions at Wounded Knee, and then totally ignore that in favor of sci-fi shenanigans suggests that it's not really a problem that should be cared about. By claiming that the racist leader of a repressive society is equally evil as the violent revolutionary fighting for her people's freedom because they're both violent, they're saying that the oppressed are just as bad as the oppressors--in addition to being lazy storytelling by leaning on an unfair trope of moral equivalence.
I'm sure they absolutely didn't mean to convey those messages, but that's what happens when you bring up big, problematic issues and then don't bother to say something about them.
Right now, at the end of the game,
...the "way to make things better" is to go back in time/reality to stop the player from becoming the bad-guy (in a bit of logic that doesn't actually work). Specifically, that's dealing with a white guy's guilt about racism rather than dealing with racism itself. It speaks volumes that this is the solution rather than using that *exact same power* to go back in time and prevent the massacre at Wounded Knee or otherwise take tangible action against the horrors that are supposedly the root cause of the player's anguish.
Actually, that could have been an ending or climax that actually followed some logical sense, dealt with the racism issue (in an admittedly ham-handed fashion, but at least in some way), and worked in conjunction with the game's "shoot-man-in-face" gameplay.
Anyway, sorry to harp on this, especially since it raises the dread spectre of ludonarrative dissonance, but I spend a lot of time thinking about this, since it's literally my job.
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Have you checked out this article on Bioshock's story? It may help clear up some of the incohesiveness you mentioned experiecing (massive spoliers, obviously):
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/28/understanding-bioshock-infinites-ending-ending-explanation/
It's a nice concept, but it just doesn't work, even by the game's internal fiction.
I dig that giving your life to prevent Comstock from ever existing is a touching narrative end, but it simply doesn't make sense in any version of the world they made. Even if Liz did take the player to some root reality where they could kill that version of Booker at the baptism, it wouldn't be the player that does the drowning, but the "local" Booker in that reality. Just going to a different reality doesn't turn the Player-Booker into the local-Booker, or else the player would have taken Comstock's place in the main game.
Furthermore, if the entire point of the game is that there are infinite realities where each variable changes, then killing the Baptism-Booker still wouldn't prevent Comstock, because there would be an infinite number of realities that split off from that decision point based on you *not* choosing to kill Booker.
I mean, it's a very pretty idea, but it falls apart the moment you actually start considering it. And that's before getting into the unpleasantness of it casually bringing up a bunch of heavy themes (racism in America, morality of fighting against it< religious zealotry and brainwashing) and then entirely punting on the idea of treating them with depth and respect. And, of course, the fact that the narrative and the gameplay are deeply at odds against each other.
Sorry to rant, but it drives me crazy that so many sources are praising it as a good story without realizing that the story doesn't actually work.
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I've done a lot of analysis/complaining about Bioshock: Infinite in the B:I thread elsewhere, but it wasn't until I heard the thumbs' saying some of these things out loud that I had the following stupid revelation.
Booker and Comstock-nee-Booker cover both the past and the future in this game.
Booker bookends Bioshock.God, I hope that wasn't their reason for naming him that.
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And while I would easily nominate Comstock for being among the most evil of video game villains, where other villains wimp out on getting "too evil" he steps up. Even his taunts are just "I'm going to win lol!" which is a nice. But details are missing on his whole "evil plan" like what it is, or a motivation. An interview would go something like X: "What's your evil plan?" Comstock: "Kill as many people as possible!" X: "Ok... just, in general?" Comstock: "Yeah, whatever, as long as they die." X: "Alright, so what's your motivation then, for mass murder?" Comstock: "I've got all this backstory, you know? God and patriotism and such. But really, I just sort of hate people. In general I mean. No me, I love me. I just don't like anyone else." X: "Oh... k. Any, uhhh, maniacal rants while you kill people? Watch cities burn and such?" Comstock: "No, I'll be dead. But, you know, as long as they're dead too it's all good." X: "Welp, great interview."
If I wanted to be charitable, my interpretation of Comstock's motivation would go as follows:
1) Booker-PreStory does horrible things at Wounded Knee and as a Pinkerton and internalizes some pretty bad attitudes about racism/classism
2) Booker-PreStory feels remorse about them but isn't sure how to handle it
3) Booker-PreStory tries to wipe them away by being born again, literally choosing a new name and identity: Comstock
4) Comstock, now thinks he's all clean and knows what's best. With the zeal of the newly converted, he forms a new society.
5) BUT! Comstock is heavily in denial about the attitudes he's still internalized, and those attitudes get incorporated into this new society.
6) Comstock still has some very unresolved anger issues about what he did, but he's so heavily disassociated himself from his actions that he puts the blame for them on the society that left behind.
7) SOLUTION: Get vengeance on that society! Surely that will absolve him of his own misdeeds - and justify his creation of a new, EVEN WORSE society based on those same principles!
3a) ALTERNATE REALITY: Rather than taking an easy out of baptism and pretending everything's better, Booker-PrePlayer is tormented by what he's become, turns to drinking/gambling/etc and eventually-sorta faces his past and tries to do something tangible to make up for them (as the game would like us to feel Booker-Player does over the course of the game, even though it kinda doesn't work at all like that).
Now, that's reading a lot into what's presented in the text, but it does make for an interesting study of a character and of the cycle of societal bigotry, internalization, shame, and perpetuation of those same evils. If the game had delved deeper into that, it could have been a satisfying treatment of a Big Issue, while also presenting a realistic villain (ie "one that doesn't think they're evil").
"It's a shooter" means nothing to me in terms of the standard to which the game's material should be held. It's a deliberate work created by human beings; the fact that it happens to be in a genre we call "first-person shooter" is essentially meaningless from a critical standpoint as far as I'm concerned. It's a game. It has creative choices that were made and those should be judged on their own merits, not given some kind of arbitrary pass because they happen to be part of a genre.
If you choose to use major historical tragedies as window-dressing for your games--or your movie, or your book, or your opera, or your comic strip, or whatever--you better well earn it. I'm not going to hold your work accountable to presenting a nuanced accounting of the history of race in America if you don't put that shit there in the first place. But if you do, I will.
It's like writing a story that ends with a character's death: you have to earn that sh*t or else it's just a cheap emotional ploy that doesn't respect the gravity of the actual subject. Don't use it if you're not ready to get your hands dirty and earn it.
I have to wonder how much of that was a result of the messiness of game production -- Levine said they cut "5 games worth of content", which may explain how the story made some leaps all over the place and rarely seems to deal with any of the issues it calls out.
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I just finished the game. Overall, I liked it. I do have a question/comment/problem with the ending.
So in the end, Elizabeth kills Booker/helps booker die. This ends both his life and Comstock's in all the possible timelines. You see all the versions of Elizabeth blink out, except for one. But if Booker dies in every timeline, shouldn't Elizabeth blink out too, given that she's his daughter, and if he dies, she never exists in the first place? We know that she was born after Booker/Comstock timelines split, because otherwise Comstock wouldn't have needed to steal her from Booker. So I wonder if she's not Booker's daughter after all?
I also don't understand why Elizabeth has special powers. Maybe that's explained in a journal entry that I missed or something.
I guess the above is pretty nit-picky. But I feel like when an author chooses to do a time-travel/multiple universe mind-fuck, they should do it right and make sure the grand reveal actually makes sense. If the game seemed more allegoric than it does, then plot points wouldn't bother me at all.
The story has four major problems as far as I'm concerned. My apologies in advance for going all SUPER-PICKY-WRITER on it.
CAUSALITY DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT.
I dig that giving your life to prevent Comstock from ever being is a touching narrative end, but it simply doesn't make sense in any version of the world they made. Even if Liz did take the player to some root reality where they could kill that version of Booker at the baptism, it wouldn't hurt Player-Booker, because he's from a branch of timelines where Booker rejected the baptism in the first place.
THE INFINITE ENTERPRISES PROBLEM:
As anyone who has seen Mr. Plinkett's review of Star Trek ('09) knows, the moment you posit the idea of infinite parallel realities for a setting, you must immediately answer a very difficult question for the reader: "If there are infinite alternatives to what you're showing me now, including a version that's just like this but everyone has funny facial hair and more stylish clothing, then Why Is This One So Important?" If every choice also results in another reality where they made a different choice, why care about the choices they're making?
WHO'S THE MOST INTERESTING:
Some of the voxophones of Lutece say that the reason Elizabeth can open tears is because she's from a different reality. And we later learn that the way she came here from another reality is because Dr. Lutece opened a portal there (because applied interdimensional quantum mechanics is easier than going through the adoption process). So why aren't we spending more time exploring Dr. Lutece and her backstory? Her reasoning for being in Columbia is mysterious, she's got quirky interdimensional sorta-family, and her dialogue and schticks are largely stolen from Tom Stoppard plays (which, if you're looking to steal ideas, is definitely a good source). So why are we spending all our time finding out about the more mundane folks around her? It's like playing Portal 2 and ignoring GLaDOS in favor of more time with the sentry pods.
AND THEN, IT NEVER HAPPENED:
Oh, and when you finish the game, you entirely invalidate everything you just did. It's like the opposite of agency!
Sure, I'm over-analyzing the story. But if you're going to get praised on your brilliant story, it ought to stand up to analysis.
That said, the game really was astoundingly beautiful. Nothing but sincere praise for everyone involved in the art, sound, and level-design.
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Completely agree. I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a game for introducing some really weighty topics and then failing to do or say anything meaningful with them.
It's frustrating that people want to give this game a completely free pass because it's better than a 'typical shooter.' Looking at it that way shuts off any possibility of ever critically examining games, which is a huge shame disservice to the medium in general.
Agreed as well. On the one hand, I appreciate that the game is trying to say something (a low bar, but one that surprisingly few games really reach), but I wish it had done a better job of it all:
* The moral equivalence is forced and unfair - yes, the revolutionaries are also violent and extreme, but their uprising against slavery was morally justified
* The racism it depicts is the caricature racism that white guys (like myself) can look at and comfortably say, "You never see that in society nowadays - sure is nice that racism is over forever!"
* The game talks about infinite potential and choices and variety and then goes out of its way to force you into making only one choice (because video games)
It bugs me that the expectations are so low for storytelling and serious thought in games that it has been and will continue to get a pass on all of this.
"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"
in Idle Banter
Posted
Oh god, yeah, I saw that one. I can only imagine the toll it takes on a person, especially when it happens over the course of weeks. Anita Sarkeesian must be made of titanium.
I didn't get any death threats this time*, but then again, I'm not showing the utter audacity of disagreeing while being a woman.
* My team did get plenty of death threats when we were working on Fallout 3, including at least one very graphic comic. Eastern Europe takes its Fallout very seriously, but not as seriously as 4chan seems to take its misogyny.