I Saw Dasein

Do you have the rust ring yet? That's pretty helpful for Blghttown (and the depths, for that matter).

I don't think anyone is saying that Civilization has to incorporate every aspect of human history to be a good game. Obviously every game has to be selective about what it wants to be about. But at the same time, Civilization has chosen to be exclusively about a particularly approach to history, and that approach to history is practically and morally suspect, at least in my opinion.

This kind of ties into my criticism of Civilization as being essentially "realist". World history is not really made up of great powers vying for dominance on the world stage. That is only one way of looking at history, and not always a very accurate way of looking at history in my view. In my view, two of the biggest world events in the past 20 years were the Great Recession and the War on Terror. Neither of these events were primarily driven by world powers acting out of self-interest. What I think I'm trying to say is that history doesn't reduce to the interactions of nation states. Civilization makes history exclusively about nation-states vying for various kinds of power. That is a normative statement (perhaps unintentional) about history and civilization.

For me, the basic perspective of Civilization is the troubling part. The player acts as a sort of uber-dictator, charting the course of a nation state, always in competition with other nation states for wealth, prestige, territory, and resources. It makes nations the primary unit rather than cultures or societies or individuals. Culture, religion, and government are all essentially window-dressing. People don't matter, only the nation-state matters. That is a very particular view of history, which is sometimes called "realism", and which has a pretty ugly history in the real world.

There's nothing wrong with a game being inaccurate per se, just as there's not anything necessarily wrong with any other historically-themed work (perhaps a movie or a book) being inaccurate. However, certain inaccuracies can have a normative dimension, in the sense that they appear to promote a particular set of assumptions or ideology. I don't see any normative dimension to Mario's ability to jump, but I do think there is a normative dimension (perhaps unintentional) to Civilization's treatment of history.

I'm not sure I really follow you. My point is that when you choose to use a historical theme for your game, it's fair to criticize that theme as inaccurate or deceptive. Here's an analogy. Say there's a WW2 real-time strategy game. In that game you can play as the Nazi's, and they have SS troops that are portrayed as super-valorous ultra-elite soldiers. Someone might criticize that portrayal of the SS as being historically inaccurate and really a distortion of what the SS was actually about. I think that would be a fair criticism. I don't think "it's just a game" or "it's not intended to be a simulation" are very compelling answers to that criticism. As I understand it, you don't think that kind of criticism is fair when it comes to Civilization, because Civilization isn't really about history and so it shouldn't be criticized for poorly portraying history. I don't agree; to me, Civilization obviously sets out to explore the course of human history and some of the forces that have shaped that history (geography, economic growth, warfare, religion, etc.). To the extent that the designer wants to use those historical themes in service of the game, I think it's fair to examine how and why those themes are being used.

Well, if it's not intended to model history, then why make it a historical game at all? Whenever you pick a historical theme for a game, you invite the criticism that your game does not do justice to that historical theme. That's a valid criticism, in my view. It's great that Sid Meir likes fun, but history is a fraught subject for many people and may not be that great a topic to be made into a game. I understand that point of view. I feel the same way about many war games (not that I cast any judgment on those who do enjoy those games). Ultimately, I think it's OK to be grossed out or bothered when a heavy subject gets turned into an object of fun; it's not like Alex Covic is saying that no one can enjoy Civilization, just that he doesn't enjoy Civilization.

legal positivism itt

Here is what I think the problem is. Studio A and Studio B both put out the exact same game. The game is identical in every way: art, gameplay, and so on. However, Studio A is much-beloved, with a long history of great releases. Studio B is a total unknown. If a studio's history informs the review, then the game will review differently depending on whether it was released by Studio A or Studio B, even though objectively it's exactly the same game. Borges illustrated this issue in the story "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote". In that story, Pierre Menard is an author writing in the 20th century. He "recreates" Don Quixote word-for-word, in its entirety. The narrator "reviews" PIerre Menard's Quixote, and argues that Menard's Quixote is in fact better than the original Quixote, because Menard's Quixote benefits from all the historical context of the years between Cervantes's writing of the original Quixote and the writing of Menard's Quixote. So despite the fact that they are literally the same exact book, the narrator argues that Menard's version is superior. So I guess this is a long winded way of saying that while I think a reviewer's background does matter because it necessarily informs their interpretation of the work, I don't think that the author of a work (whether it be a book or a game) is important, or that we should generally judge a work based on who created it. Look at the work itself, and not at the author of the work.

That doesn't make sense to me. I don't think it really matters who creates a game (or a movie, or a book) when it comes to the critic's consumption of the game. Would you have enjoyed Company of Heroes 2 more or less if it had been made by (for example) EA instead of Relic? Or does the game stand on its own as the object of criticism, regardless of its author and context? I think critics are better off by looking at the game itself, rather than bringing in what they believe to be the game's background context. This is not unlike the whole "Pierre Menard" thing.

I think it's pretty useful to situate video games in a broader context. Narrative in video games is necessarily going to be informed by other mediums and stories. I am not saying that the Last of Us is the same as The Odyssey, but I think contrasting the two can provide useful insight. The Odyssey also seemed apt because, like the Last of Us, it is about a character who has to overcome obstacles in the course of a long, meandering journey. But if you don't like that example, what about Django Unchained? Clearly a very violent movie that uses violence often just to entertain or provide emotional catharsis, but also a movie that (successfully, in my view) tells a serious story with some serious emotional heft. My overall point remains the same: a story can have both cathartic violence and emotional heft; the fact that a hero kills a million dudes doesn't mean that the hero can't miss his wife or daughter. A story can employ violence without necessarily exploring the effect of violence on a real person's psyche. Just as an aside, I always thought that Odysseus is a sort of proto-everyman. He's sometimes scared and sometimes cunning, he's proud and over-curious, he misses his family and yearns to be home. Odysseus has always seemed like a pretty "real" person to me, in a way that a lot of classical heroes do not. He's fallible and very, very human.

I haven't finished the game yet, so I can't respond to your spoiler. But I don't understand why we expect that violence must change a character in a story for the worse. We don't have that expectation in other media: I can think of dozens of movies, books, and plays that involve a lot of violence and killing--as much if not more so than the Last of Us--and which don't feature the protagonist suffering great personal cost, and many of these books, movies, and plays are considered to be "good". Killing plays a major role in a lot of really classic stories, and I would argue that in may of those stories violence is not portrayed as something inherently traumatic. Not to beat a dead horse, but Odysseus slaughters at least a hundred people before reuniting with his wife in the Odyssey, which is one of the seminal narratives in Western culture. Maybe it would help if I illustrated with a quote from the Odyssey to show exactly what I mean. Here's some excerpts from the battle with the suitors, which comes at the end of Odyssey when Odysseus comes home to find a hundred or so suitors attempting to woo his wife. The violence here is graphic and intended to excite the audience, in pretty much exactly the same way it is used in action movies and violent video games. In the next scene, Odysseus--presumably still drenched in blood--is reunited with his wife, who after confirming his identity, falls rapturously into his arms. Despite having just slaughtered scores of enemies, Odysseus is no worse for wear. I feel there is a danger in over-emphasizing the problem of "body count" in games. It is OK for a story to be serious sometimes, and wildly violent at other times. And a story can be violent without needing to explore the effect of violence on the characters. Stories and games use violence in different ways; violence for the sake of excitement or action or catharsis is one of those way. If you disagree with this premise, then I don't see how you could say that literary works like the Odyssey are any good, or how you could enjoy movies like Django Unchained. Violent action is a mode of storytelling with a very long pedigree and one that is not inconsistent with telling a serious story. I don't mean that any use of violence is good storytelling. But I do think that "this game has a high body count and therefore can't tell a serious story" is a dubious criticism when considered in the context of our culture.

Citizens Kane and Lynch.

Yesterday was the last episode of Talk of the Nation. I've been listening to that show almost every day for the last five years or so. I seriously feel pretty distraught about the end of the show, like a good friend has died or something. I find it hard to believe that Monday morning I won't be able to download a new episode. Totally sucks.

Well, that's exactly why I asked earlier in the thread what kind of story would better suit the gameplay in the Last of Us. Would the game be better if it embraced a cartoon asthetic? Would the game be better if Joel was a total bloodthirsty maniac? What is the story that the gameplay in the Last of Us should be telling? Again, I disagree, for the same reasons I set out above. Violence is not inimical to poignancy; take everything from StarWars to the Odyssey. I don't think the Oddyssey is disingenuous, even though Odysseues kills like a hundred of his wife's suitors before falling happily back into her arms. You could easily add Django Unchained to that list if you wanted a particularly recent example. This treatment of violence may not be realistic, but realism has always been a pretty minor part of storytelling. I think this just reflects a philosophical difference between us. I think that developers should start with a game mechanic, and then develop a theme or story around that game mechanic. I think this because I am most interested in games as play, not as storytelling vehicles. The function of a video game (for me) is to be a game first and foremost, and the aesthetic form the game takes should follow from the gameplay rather than the gameplay following from the narrative choice. Of course, you could feel the opposite and prefer video games as storytelling vehicles; there's nothing per se wrong with that approach, it's just not something I'm particularly interested in. I feel there are already a ton of very effective storytelling media that I am happy to turn to when I want that kind of experience, and as you mention above, books are already plenty interactive. By contrast, video games do offer a unique means of play.

Cool episode! I was glad to hear a shoutout to Wabash Cannonball. I don't think this was mentioned in the podcast, but apart from being an Ipod game, Wabash Cannonball is also a board game (the board game came first). It was released both under the name Wabash Cannonball, and under the name Chicago Express. Chicago Express has the better production values but is otherwise the same game. It is really a great board game and can be a nice introduction to auction games and to board games generally. It's not very complex, so if someone is looking for an intro to train games, you could do a lot worse than Wabash Cannonball/Chicago Express. And unlike Ticket to Ride, it actually is a for-real train game.

I definitely agree with that. Games like Dark Souls show you can have effective story-telling even in violent action games. And I don't think that The Last of Us should be seen as a great story-telling exercise. But what I don't see is how you could have a big triple A shooter that from a gameplay perspective does not involve an absolute ton of shooting/killing. What I'm trying to say is that any story you tell in a third-person shooter will always be super violent, because that is kind of what the gameplay demands. I know people can make good games that don't involve killing things, but I doubt that people can make good shooters that don't involve a lot of violence. So when someone complains that a game like the Last of Us involves a character who kills multitudes, I sort of wonder why that person would want to play a third-person shooter in the first place.

This is actually a really good example of what I meant when I said that in big budget games, narrative mainly provides context for game mechanics. The "story" in Mario (meaning the theme, graphics, and so on, and not necessarily the plot) provides context and meaning for the gameplay. No one would say that the story in Mario tells you anything particularly interesting about Mario as a character or about the human condition or anything; but the story does improve the gameplay, because it provides context for what the player is actually doing, i.e. platforming.

Oh I definitely think that games can have narrative and that narrative can be good or better than the narrative in other mediums. I just doubt very much that really great, authorial narrative can be accomplished in a third-person shooter. But that's OK! I like third-person shooters for what they are. And I like that third-person shooters have narrative, even if it just provides context for the third-person shooting. Ultimately, I think that if you aren't really into the mechanics of a third-person shooter, and especially if you think shooting things is dumb or boring, then there's really no way that you are going to enjoy a third-person shooter no matter what narrative it comes up with. At best you will be putting up with the shooting to get to the narrative, which is just not going to be all that enjoyable.

See, I think this mistakes what big budget games use narrative for. The point of a narrative in the Last of Us is not to tell a great story about parenthood or something. In my view, the point of the narrative is to lend context and meaning to the actual gameplay: the sneaking and shooting. The narrative exists to improve the gameplay; the gameplay isn't intended to improve hte narrative. If you removed the video gamey aspects of the Last of Us, it wouldn't be a third-person shooter any more (and I probably wouldn't play it). Absent the gamey parts, it might be a better story but it would be a much worse game, at least in my opinion. And after all, that's why I bought it: to play a game, not to be told a story.

That's really interesting. Thanks!

See, I felt the opposite. I felt that there was a much bigger disconnect in the Uncharted games, because Drake is supposed to be this affable hilarious guy who cracks wise while killing a bunch of dudes, which just seemed kind of boring and dumb to me. By contrast, Joel seemed to me scared, determined, and desperate, which is in keeping with the way he behaves both in the cutscenes and out of the cutscenes. He is a pretty ruthless guy, and he is treated that way by the story and the other characters. I also don't really agree that in other mediums this story would have to be one about a crazed mass-murder. A lot of "genre" stories feature violence that if taken strictly serious imply the death of thousand or millions. Consider the "attack on New York" city scene in the recent Avengers movie, for example. Other genre stories feature the deaths of a bunch of "goons"; consider something like Star Wars, where Luke Skywalker shoots dozens of storm-troopers and kills thousands more by blowing up the Death Star. Or if you want to get historical, you could consider something like the Odyssey, where Odysseus kills something like 100 suitors (in pretty graphic detail) for having the temerity to woo his wife. None of the protagonists in these stories are portrayed as psychopaths, even though they kill as many or more people as Joel does in the Last of Us. So I don't think it's true that in violent stories in other mediums characters as violent as Joel would necessarily be portrayed as maniacs, at least in genre fiction (and I do think the Last of Us, being a zombie game, is pretty clearly in the "genre fiction" category). Here's a question that might be interesting to think about: what kind of story would better suit the Last of Us's gameplay? Would it be a better or more enjoyable game without Joel and Ellie's relationship, and having Joel be a more maniacal and sadistic killer? Would it be better if the game just didn't attempt to tell a serious story at all and embraced the violence in sort of a wacky cartoon-ish way? e: I hope I'm not coming out defensive or anything. I am just interesting in talking about this game, and I'm surprised at some of the reactions because I thought it was one of the more effective narratives in a third-person game of this kind.

Is there anything other than body count that made you think that the action was over-the-top or intended to be a romp? From my perspective, the action wasn't really over-the-top at all. The violence is extreme but muted (there's not buckets of blood or eeyes popping out or anything, as in Fallout 3). The characters you play are relatively vulnerable and fallible, in the sense that they have difficulty aiming and die easily if you're overwhelmed, and there's no regenerating health. Resources are very limited (especially on hard), and so ammunition counts. You do kill an absolute ton of guys, but in my view that alone doesn't make the game feel farcical or over-the-top, and you do a similar amount of killing in other games that take successfully treat violence more seriously (e.g. Stalker, Far Cry 2). I also didn't really feel a strong disconnect between the cut scenes and the game play. Joel is kind of emotionally stunted and sociopathic in the cut scenes, which is reflected in the game play. He really does seem like a character who would happily kill dozens of people to get his way. I guess I really felt that the story and the game play made sense in this game. Joel is a brutal person who would (and has) done anything to survive, and that comes through in the game. The story in general terms is about Joel and Ellie fighting their way through a savage world, and that's exactly what the player does in the game. e: Maybe this mostly reflects on me and my own approach to Video games. I don't really care about stories in games, as long as they don't distract from the gameplay. In the Last of Us, I thought the story was consistent with the gameplay and I thought the characters were well written and interesting. It could be that the story could have explored deeper themes if it hadn't been so combat focused; but I really don't have an interest in a game that explores narrative themes at the expense of gameplay. I feel that Naughty Dog started with a gameplay concept (an admittedly familiar third-person shooter), polished the shit out of the gameplay, and then developed a story that was more-or-less consistent with that gameplay. It could be that the narrative would have been stronger had the gameplay been different; but I think it would have been a worse game, because ultimately I am there to play a game and not to be told a story.

Fair enough. Personally, I don't really see a difference between them and Zuma levels, for example. They are both mechanically pleasing to me: I would play them with or without a story attached. The fact that there are ton of Zuma levels and a ton of Last of Us encounters doesn't make me like either game less.

I'm having trouble explaining exactly how I feel about this, so I'll give it a shot but I'm sorry if I'm unclear. I do agree that the game doesn't explicitly tell you anything new about the relationship between the characters through its many combat encounters. But as I played my way through the combat encounters, with Joel helping Ellie and Ellie helping Joel, I felt differently about the characters. The experience of working together made me feel that the characters were bonding and learning about one another. I had an emotional connection with the characters that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't spent so much time with them. So in that sense the length of the game may not have really helped the narrative, but I doubt I would be as drawn into the game if I hadn't spent so much time with it. Of course, the reason I was willing to spend that time with them was largely because I enjoy the gameplay; if I didn't enjoy the combat encounters I'd probably feel a lot more like you feel.