I Saw Dasein

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Posts posted by I Saw Dasein

  3. Posted

    I think that does validate Vanillaware's choice; it's just not a validation some people are happy with. The game is set in a fantasy realm and they chose to mimic the style prevalent in high fantasy with numerous shout-outs and references to existing works. It is pandering, but not in a purely sexually-demeaning fashion.

    But even in this interpretation, the game is just mimicing a style of art (basically cover art from pulp fiction novels) that was explicitly designed to appeal to teenage boys. So Vanillaware is mimicing a style of art that was itself sexist. How is that better? 

     

    Here's an admittedly controversial analogy. Say that there is a game with really hackneyed stereotypes about black people. Would it really be better if the artist claimed to have been influenced by a prior style of art: a minstrel show? 

  6. Posted

    Polygon feature

    http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/8/19/4614410/xcom-the-bureau-development-2006-2013

    JP Lebreton just tweeted about this feature, saying its a great piece of investigative journalism, and how working on the game in 2010/11 was pretty tough going

    Great article! I love the early vision for the game:

     

     

    The elevator pitch was essentially the original X-COM meets The X-Files, set in the 1950s to 1960s. The time period — something close to it, at least — would survive years of revisions. Practically everything else would not.

     

    As a government officer, the player had neither the weapons nor the technology to fight the futuristic aliens that were invading Earth. But they did have a handy camera. The core mechanics of the game were researching and running, with a splash of shooting. The player's most important skill was photography.

     

    The pitch was, in some ways, strikingly similar to those of the original X-COM games, despite being first-person. The player would select missions from a number of locations on a map. While the general construction of a stage would remain the same each playthrough — the streets and homes of a suburb would be static, for example — certain aspects of the missions would be procedurally generated. So the enemies you encountered, the location of valuable information, the entrances to rooms, the time of day and the mission goal would be a different combination each time, allowing the player to freshly experience the same stage multiple times.

     

    The other half of the pitch focused on the X-COM base. After collecting information, the player would return to an appropriately retro 1950s military base. Here, the player would complete research goals and devise strategies for future missions.

     

    The art direction was abstract. aliens would be wisps of air, globs of goo or puffs of clouds. the first enemy was the titan, the large obelisk that would later be the iconic centerpiece of the game's marketing materials.

     

    I totally want to play that game! Too bad they couldn't make it work. 

  7. Posted

    I've been playing a bit of my new 3DS and loving it. It's a pretty sweet system.

    I'm curious though, does anyone else here still keep the 3d turned up all the time or only for specific games? I think it's pretty cool but I have a hard time keeping it at just the right distance/angle without some slight double images coming up.

    I just got one too! It's pretty rad. I haven't played a mario game since SNES days, and it turns out Mario is still super fun and cool. Good job, Mario.

  9. Posted

     Effective national security methods are incredibly boring to watch on a screen.

     

    Good point, but I wonder if the success of Papers Please calls that into question. I would definitely want to play the Video game version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, or really any good, fairly realistic police/spy procedural. 

  13. Posted

    Does your friend not realize that the whole point of Galaxy Truckers is to have your ship explode into like a million pieces bit-by-bit while your mans spew out (screaming) into the infinite blackness of space? 

  14. Posted

    But to say a Supreme Court justice like Scalia is persuaded specifically on that intuition alone is a naive view of both belief and jurisprudence. A more likely scenario is he's disposed to adduce examples which fit his (necessarily ideological) legal opinions in response to government lawyers arguing that there is an imminent threat that allows the executive to strip normal legal rights and use some forms of torture that are deemed humane (Charlie Savage had spoken at length about how insiders in the Bush administration who are experts on interrogation who think these methods are ineffective were run over by executive branch lawyering )

    Of course it would be naive to say that Scalia's views on torture were driven solely by 24. But at the very least 24 provided him with a convenient hypothetical that justifies torture. Effectively Scalia says that since Jack Bauer's use of torture is acceptable or admirable in 24, we should conclude that it is effective or admirable in real life. 

     

    I'd also point out that the whole "ticking time bomb" scenario is a product of a fictional work: John Larteguy's The Centurions. It is a hypothetical that was originated in a fictional work (The Centurions), thrust into public consciousness through a fictional work (24), then used as a convenient trope by various political figures as a way of justifying torture (John Yoo, Michael Chertoff, and Justice Scalia all referenced 24 in justifying the use of torture). 

     

    I'm not sure you really are arguing the same thing as anyone else, anyway. I don't think anyone is arguing that including torture in a game makes individuals more likely to be violent. I think people are arguing that fictional depictions of torture as effective and necessary when used by government makes people on aggregate more likely to tolerate torture by government. In other words, 24 and Conviction basically operate as pro-torture propaganda. 

     

    E; Incidentally, here's a pretty good New Yorker article on how media depictions of torture have changed substantially since 9/11. 

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=1

  16. Posted

    I think this imposition is in part driven by a desire for games to have social and political significance thus inappropriately interpreting works in unserious genre like action as if it reflected a stance about the world we actually live in rather than an entertainment with a narrow transgressive conflict resolution.

     

    Obviously silly things like action TV shows, movies, and games do have an impact on the way the public views issues like torture. Here's a dramatic example: Justice Scalia cited 24 and Jack Bauer as demonstrating the acceptability or necessity of torture. cite I just don't think it's tenable to say that popular media doesn't help shape the public's view on moral issues like torture.

  17. Posted

    On October 4, 1986, as Dan Rather was walking along Park Avenue in Manhattan to his apartment, he was attacked and punched from behind by a man who demanded to know, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?", while a second assailant also chased and beat him. As the assailant pummeled and kicked Rather, he kept repeating the question over and over again. In describing the incident, Rather said, "I got mugged. Who understands these things? I didn't and I don't now. I didn't make a lot of it at the time and I don't now. I wish I knew who did it and why, but I have no idea."


    The incident and Rather's account led some to doubt the veracity of Rather's story, although the doorman and building supervisor who rescued Rather fully confirmed his version of events. The story entered popular lore and remained unsolved for some time. The incident inspired a song called "Kenneth, What's the Frequency?" by the band Game Theory in 1987. In October 1990, the phrase "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" appeared in an issue of the Daniel Clowes comic Eightball as part of the serialized graphic novel Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, and was revealed in a later episode to be a key part of the Mister Jones conspiracy theory.Also in 1990, Scott McCloud used the phrase in the first 24-hour comic. In 1994 the band R.E.M. released the song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" on the album Monster. The phrase became the subject of many jokes over the years and slang for a confused or clueless person. Rather was a good sport about it, and actually sang with R.E.M. during a soundcheck prior to a gig at Madison Square Garden, New York, which was shown the following night on the Late Show with David Letterman before their performance of Crush with Eyeliner.


    In 1997, a TV critic writing in the New York Daily News solved the mystery, and published a photo of the alleged assailant, William Tager. Rather confirmed the story: "There's no doubt in my mind that this is the person." New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said "William Tager's identity as the man who attacked Mr. Rather was established in the course of an investigation by my office".


    Tager was sentenced to a 25-year prison sentence for killing NBC stagehand Campbell Montgomery outside The Today Show studio in 1994. He was paroled in October 2010 and is believed to be living in New York City.


    In the December 2001 issue of Harper's Magazine, writer Paul Limbert Allman speculated that postmodern fiction writer Donald Barthelme (who died in 1989) had somehow orchestrated, or was otherwise connected to, the attack through other unnamed persons, citing unusual passages in Barthelme's writing, including the phrase "What is the frequency?", a recurring character named Kenneth, and a short story about a pompous editor named Lather. Limbert also uncovered the facts that Barthelme and Rather were likely to have known each other professionally early in their careers. 

     

    The world is a weird weird place.

  18. Posted

    Hm, based on enthusiasm in podcast I think I'm going to buy one of these. But I haven't been following it at all so what are the "must have" games? I have pretty broad taste; I'm not that interested in Harvest Moon/Pokemon/Animal Crossing (because I'm a heartless monster) but other than that I'm open.

  20. Posted

    At least part of the appeal of stealth games is that they tie into a voyeuristic power fantasy; people enjoy the illicit thrill of being where they're not supposed to be, seeing and hearing things they're not supposed to see and hear, and having power over the people they're stalking. Dishonored nails that voyeuristic thrill, even though Sno's right that mechanically it doesn't insist on stealth or even really encourage it.

  25. Posted

    I won't get any support for this opinion over here, but I feel it needs to be said:

     

    It really bothered me that Danielle Riendeau reviewed this for Polygon and gave it a perfect score just a few days after guest-starring on Idle Thumbs and admitting that she's good friends with people that worked on this game. It doesn't affect my excitement for Gone Home, of course, but... man, I really wish they'd found someone else to review it.

    Why would that bother you? There's a ton of video game review sites, so if you think she's biased just read a different review.