Idle Thumbs 100: King Chromin' For A Day

[malkav11]

Mass Effect is more horror than Bioshock Infinite (BI). BI is more like Lethal Weapon, where Bioshock 1 is more like Aliens. (i.e. action vs horrory) Sure, BI has gore, but except for the asylum part there is nothing in BI that gives a horror like vibe¹.

 

 

¹Jeff Goldbum fact: He stared in a movie called "vibes"

 

Mass Effect never once gave me the feeling there was something deeply weird and wrong going on behind the scenes, which Bioshock Infinite does repeatedly from the very beginning. It's not open, overt horror tropes, but it's unsettling in a way that very few games (even explicitly horror-oriented ones) have managed in my experience.

The nonsequitur conversation the Luteces are having in the boat. The tortured corpse in the chair upstairs. The unsettling religious imagery throughout much of the early game. The barbershop rendition of a song from a significantly later time period. The raffle turning out to be the celebration of a public stoning. The gruesome violence of human possessees offing themselves. (Ever seen a man beat himself to death with a billy club?) The demonization of Lincoln and deification of Washington & founding fathers. The rotting mess of the KKK-like Order of the Raven HQ. The hideously prejudiced children's literature and casual racism (something all too real historically, unfortunately, but upsetting to modern sensibilities...or at least mine). The observation posts in Elizabeth's tower. The Songbird.  The effects of tears, particularly on those previously dead. Etc. All layered under with this almost saccharine layer of ostensibly picture perfect early American idyll in a fantastic cloud city.

[Berzee]

A new intro song! The last new intro was episode 51, and this is episode 100, so are we entitlted to expect, nay, demand, a new one every 50ish episodes from now unto forever? We probably are.

 

Alternatively, it was 50 episodes before the first new intro, 49 before the second, so maybe it will be 48 episodes before the third and then 47 and so on. If the episodes remain consistently weekly, we should be receiving a new version of the video games song every single week! in...approximately 22 more years of Idle Thumbs.

 

(I hope that Idle Thumbs still exists 22 years from now, and that they are still talking about HIMEM.sys).

[tberton]

Whoooo! They read my question!

 

Just as clarification, because I don't think I was clear about this in my email, I'm not dismissing the Oculus Rift out of hand. Like you guys said on the cast, there is every chance that people will do some incredible stuff with it. I look forward to finding out about it.

 

I was really using it more as jumping off point for a topic that I've been thinking about a lot for the past few years, which is whether immersion should be so sought after in games. I know that the hand of the author is always present in any work, but there is so much talk in gaming marketing and discussion about how "real" something looks or acts, or how people "forget they're playing a game." Comments like those make it seem like there is a large contingent of designers and players who want to obscure the fact that no matter how real a game's world may look or behave, it is still a specific interpretation of reality and not reality itself.

 

Basically, I think somebody "forgetting that they're playing a game/watching a movie/reading a book" should not be used as the highest praise we can give any such work. This did get discussed on the podcast, but I just wanted to emphasize that that was the point I was trying to make.