Blue sky in American games?

[Tanukitsune]

It seems that when a Japanese company tries to make a game that should appeal to the West they make dark, gritty and gory, some people would call it offensive, but... Isn't it what most American games are?

I've been trying to find relatively recent American games that are dark and gritty, when ever I do remember one that is actually "light", it happens to be European or Japanese.

Ubisoft is French, Tomb Raider is rather colorful, but the it looks like the new game will be "dark n' gritty" too since she covered in cuts and mud the last screenshot I saw here in!

Of course, there are the smaller or medium companies, Costume Quest is pretty "blue sky", but do the bigger companies ever dare make "blue sky" games? Mirror's Edge is by a big company, but it was developed in Sweden.

Can you really blame Japan for making "dark n' gritty" games for the West? Can you really think of a "blue sky" game made by a big company recently? If you can was it was actually developed by an American team?

[brkl]

This one:

[Tanukitsune]

Now that's a blue sky!

[Nappi]

I don't see why Japanese studios should make their games dark and gritty even if every American studio did.

[Chris]

[toblix]

[Kolzig]

[Tanukitsune]

Did you guys check the site? "Blue sky" games aren't just pretty games, they are "happy" games too. Damn, I though everybody here knew the old "blue sky in games" thing.

It doesn't have to be "happy" happy, just not dark n' gritty. A game where not only the sky is blue, the game is a "blue sky" too. It can't be gory, that's for sure, but it doesn't have be a kiddy game, you can punch and shoot people, you just can rip their heads off or blow them up.

Red Dead Redepmtion may have actual blue skies, but it's a Rockstar game, it's dark n' gritty.

Enslaved was developed in the UK.

As hilarious and pretty as Deathspank is, can it be called a "happy" game? It has gore in it.

Does Team Fortress 2 have gore in it? If it doesn't then it counts.

[Patters]

Sonic isn't a happy game, it's about a crazy scientist who kidnaps animals to perform what I can only assume are horrific science experiments. The same with Megaman, which is about robotic slavery.

[mikemariano]

Did you guys check the site? "Blue sky" games aren't just pretty games, they are "happy" games too.

Super Mario Bros. may start out as a blue sky game, but things get dark and gritty in World 3-1.

It's because that's when the Hammer Brothers show up!

But seriously, Tanukitsune, that Blue Sky Campaign page is from 2005, and it isn't anti-violence; it's anti-limited imagination.

Obviously, we still have a game development environment that can turn Dante's Inferno into Dante's Inferno, but I don't think we're lacking in high profile fun, colorful games. Especially when you factor in Kinect games, Angry Birds, etc.

[Tanukitsune]

If you're going to be that way, then there is no such thing as a "happy" game, even Tetris is a monstrous game from the block perspective!

When Japan makes a game for the West, they make the hero and the world dark, gritty and bleak and they are as gory as God of War, so I'm asking if America, specially the bigger corporations, have made games that don't have a bleak world or hero and no gore. I'm not talking about non-violent games I'm talking of games with no exploding heads and similar.

I don't think the campaign is about anti-violent games either, I think it's about more cheerful games, you still punch people in the face, you just don't eat their heart after punching them. One of the ads clearly says "Happy games only", I doubt it's about uncreative games, since when have Megaman and Sonic have been creative?

[elmuerte]

Rockstar North and Ninja Theory are not American game studios.

Hothead is Canadian... so... it's a North-America game studio.

[Nappi]

Rockstar North and Ninja Theory are not American game studios.

Hothead is Canadian... so... it's a North-America game studio.

And Red Dead Redemption is by Rockstar San Diego if that was what you were referring to.

[elmuerte]

And Red Dead Redemption is by Rockstar San Diego if that was what you were referring to.

Oh, I thought North made it.

[Orv]

Man Remo, some shiny shell casings you have there. (The better to shoot you with. )

Someone around here has a signature with a comment from Tim Schaefer about originality in video games, which fits the idea perfectly.

That said, I don't think any major (definition may vary!) video game has ever been lacking for ideas. Perhaps no video game by this point is completely original, but still.

Also! I see your Oblivion and raise you one. . .

[Lu]

I loooooooved the night skies in Oblivion and Morrowind. Just staring at the stars for like 10 minutes before moving on. Preferably I'd just look at our the real stars, but with light pollution an all that... Can't see a whole lot.

Uhm, so Tanu, what is this thread about exactly. I've read your posts several times over an I'm not sure I understand.

[Tanukitsune]

I guess it's my fault, I shouldn't have called it "blue sky games", I though we have more UK Resistance fans who would have caught the reference and know what I'm talking about.

When Japans makes a game for the West, like Quantum Theory or Legends of Troy, the game is dark, bleak and gory, people are saying that it's kinda offensive that Japan sees this when they play American games and I'm saying that maybe they have a point since I can't really think of that many games from the U.S. that don't fall in at least one of the categories if not all of them.

Sure, America can make pretty games, but they still decapitate and eviscerate and the world will look beautiful, but it's still a miserable place.

I can think of a few games from smaller companies like Costume Quest, but I don't think we can blame them for thinking that America likes gritty games with gore, the U.S. might actually make a game or two that's has a beautiful world where you can kill the monsters without ripping out their intestines and while the world might be in trouble, it doesn't feel miserable but the rest are dark, gritty and gory.

And that's what this is what I was hoping this thread would be about, are American games in general that dark and gritty?

I really REALLY regret using that title now.

[Lu]

I'm not sure. If the Japanese develop a game to appeal to Western audiences, you'd think they'd look at what sells the most. Then you'd have your Gears of War and your Call of Duty games and so on. I don't think that in general that is the case, though. I DON'T KNOOOOOW!

That does remind me of a pet peeve I have with a lot of art direction in games. They use an incredibly limited colour palette for a lot of modern games, and while it does make everything look consistently the same, it also... Makes everything look consistently the same. I'm thinking that dark and a limited colour space are a lot easier to do? Maybe? Edit: Though I do think it has gotten a lot better in recent years!

Edited March 24, 2011 by PiratePooAndHisBattleship

[Tanukitsune]

Well, Quantum Theory is Gear of War if they were dressed by a Japanese RPG designer and Legends of Troy is from the Dynasty Warriors people and it's Dynasty Warriors with less charm and more guts and gore and misery.

I can really think of other cases of games from Japan made with America in mind though, does Dead Rising count?

[Patters]

Also the Halo games have lovely blue skyboxes.

[Chris]

Could you post some examples of the blue-sky Japanese games you're talking about? Don't say stuff like Sonic, because that's a decades-old franchise that reflects lingering popularity, not modern Japanese sensibility.

You're saying that a game with gore "doesn't count," and yet some of the most overtly Japanese games in recent years, like Bayonetta, Demon's Souls, No More Heroes, and so on, are crazy violent constant-insanity gorefests to the max. They may have a different aesthetic to most of their Western counterparts, but they're hardly the blue-sky Sonic the Hedgehog games of yore. Demon's Souls doesn't have the same visual intensity of those other two, but it's also the "darkest and grittiest" of the three by far.

Red Dead Redemption, one of the American games mentioned in this thread, is a thousand times less in-your-fucking-face-with-violent-intensity than Bayonetta or No More Heroes. It, as well as other American games mentioned like Oblivion, spend huge amounts of time with the player simply exploring an expansive environment. Sometimes for hours on end, games like those can be experiences that are best described as contemplative, especially if the player desires it to be so, since they are heavily player-paced.

I think most of us understand your point in a very general sense, but I think you're picking and choosing both games and actual criteria to construct a more artificial situation than is reflected in reality.

[Chris]

Oh hey also

[JonCole]

Oh hey also

Purple sky. :-/

[elmuerte]

I loooooooved the night skies in Oblivion and Morrowind. Just staring at the stars for like 10 minutes before moving on. Preferably I'd just look at our the real stars, but with light pollution an all that... Can't see a whole lot.

Same for me. Although those skies didn't measure up to the skies of Unreal. Those were really amazing, with multiple layers of moving clouds and stuff.

But that stuff went away and static skies returned

[Tanukitsune]

Well, it's mostly the obscure stuff nobody cares or hears about.

Most shmups from have cute humanoid girls fighting monsters in a beautiful world, they tend to have paper thin plot, but it's not that bleak.

The average JRPG is colorful, non-gory and not that bleak, they got over the phase of having an emo whiny baby for hero, I've only just started to play Japanese RPGs again, but I've yet to see one that's bleak and serious, unless you count the Persona series, the rest are cute characters fighting cute monsters.

Tokobot, Gurumin, Brave Story, Adventures to Go, Hexyz Force, Half Minute Hero, Gensan...