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The Last of Us director Bruce Straley on ludonarrative dissonance.

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Another thing Yoko Taro explored in original NiER is "people can kill each other as long as they think their side is right" NiER could able to kill thousands because in his eyes they were nothing more than "monsters"

In Drakengard 3 they also explored that in on one the sister DLC, Lady 4 slaughters elves and the the Dragons tells her this manslaughter but she said "We are fighting elves remember?.....So it cant be manslaughter." So she justifies it because they are not human.
 
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Whitesnake

Banned
I wrote like 3 times that it does NOT need to shift focus.
I wrote like 3 times that it's not about problems./"inherent failings".

I won't respond anymore to you.

So if Nathan Drake literally just said the words “I’ve killed plenty of people” that would 100% satisfy you? You would never again have any objections regarding “ludonarrative dissonance”?

Something tells that wouldn’t satisfy you. For there to be “a deep dive” into the sociopathic traits that you’ve attributed to Nathan Drake, the character and tone would have to change wholesale.

And you very clearly believe that it’s inherently a problem, seeing as you see any avoidance of it as an inherent improvement, say you wish wasn’t in games, and that games have to try to avoid it. All point to you believing it to be a failing, a problem that needs fixing, which is a ridiculous way to view things.

Again, the game doesn’t have a problem, you have a problem with the game. That’s fine, you can have whatever opinions and likes/dislikes you wish. But do not speak as if it is anything more than your subjective opinion.
 

Whitesnake

Banned
The bold reminds me of Extra Credit's "Stop Normalizing Nazis" video. The "This piece of media does not address X the right way. Therefore, it's problematic and it must address X with Y" shtick doesn't work.

Exactly what I was thinking when I typed that.

People like this believe things they dislike are problems that need solving, as if their opinions have some sort of objective basis. In EC’s case, they felt that including nazis without following a laundry list of progressive-friendly changes was an inherent moral failing. In this case, this person is saying that having Nathan Drake kill tons of people without drawing attention to it in the way he wants is an inherent narrative failing.

It’s the difference between “I don’t like X” and “X is bad and shouldn’t exist”.
 
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Belmonte

Member
I think everyone takes too seriously the "Nathan Drake is a everyman dude".

He is not. He is a criminal. His job is to steal artifacts. He is not a mindless common criminal though, he is a mythology/history nerd and he seems to have a genuine interest in the artifacts he steal. He isn't a violent dude per se but since he is among thieves (it is even in the title!) for his entire life, it is not farfetched that he learned how to defend himself and be ok with the consequences.
 

Helios

Member
Ludonarrative dissonance has been a term thrown around a lot in the past few years. Don't really know what the obsession about that term is other than some developer's fetish with making games more cinematic.
How about we talk about the ludonarrative dissonance of throwing a rag and some alchohol toghether, calling it a health kit and patching up your bullet wounds in TLU? Does that not count? How are you going to fix it? Remove everything that can hurt you in the game?
 
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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
I get these arguments and I'm not sure what reaction they want from Nathan Drake/Uncharted fans, ok? Games are pretty fun because you can kill enemies.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I get these arguments and I'm not sure what reaction they want from Nathan Drake/Uncharted fans, ok? Games are pretty fun because you can kill enemies.
I think the problem is both Uncharted 1&2 were more Hollywood action vibe but later games especially 4th game (still enjoyed) went for more grounded vibe and also they made Drake more grounded character which makes harder for us to believe Drake able to kill so many people and still be fine with it.
 
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CamHostage

Member
With Uncharted, the story is being a treasure hunter - not being a sociopathic killer. You have gameplay that doesn't match the story. There is no ethical questioning going on here.

Or like you've just absorbed bullets 19 times in the past stage and snapped the necks of a dozen grizzled mercenaries with the push of a button, but then an old man pulls a Derringer on you in a cutscene and your character just goes, "No, don't shoot, I give up..."

I mean, you don't have to be a softie to acknowledge that there's a truth to this, whether or not you're the type to feel it when you play your favorite games. The reality of the world these games are trying to portray often clashes with the mechanics of the gameplay you are in control of, and the more game producers focus on reality, the harder the clash can be. If you're supposed to just turn your brain off and play, then sure, nothing matters. But game campaigns have evolved to be "art" and the creators are putting detail and emotionality in them that they expect you to find value in experiencing, and ludonarrative dissonance is something that comes with the territory.

(Also, with graphics becoming more detailed, even if the story isn't connecting, you're still seeing more lifelike and relate-able characters/environments in them that you connect with unconsciously. That said, I wonder if there's a kind of uncanny valley or digital oversaturation we've experienced to combat that? There was a time when gibs and death animations were shocking and effective, when even MK1 was considered dangerous, but I don't think it's just that we've grown numb that these aren't a big deal anymore. I think we see so many digital creatures in our lives and are so aware that even millions of dollars of de-aging for The Irishman still feels inhuman that, despite massive improvements in character modeling and texturing, we just don't care if we see their heads explode. Contrast that with if you see a practical pumpkin-full-of-guts head-pop in Scanners or Rikki-Oh, THAT catches your eyes and never lets go!)

You could look at something like Mega Man: in those games, the hero is a robot sent to murder his colleagues after Dr Wily has reprogrammed innocent worker bots to be bad guys. On paper, it's tragic... but in the game, you get supercool weapons every time you win and the stages are colorful and the play is great and they don't tell you a lot about the story outside of the manual and an occasional non-voiced cutscene, and so you can go 9, 10 games no problem of just slaughtering Robot Masters or, heck, everybody else you meet in Monsteropolis so long as you get cool gear after you've MegaBusted them. It all just goes together, and the game never asks you to consider much about the reality of what you're doing. Have fun, Blue Bomber!

If they did a game like that today, there would be cutscenes showing the backstory with Rock building Monsteropolis with friends, and there would be dialog of Mega Man shouting, "No, Cutman, don't make me do this!", and you would see the anguish on his face as he ended the first of many Robot Masters who were once just like him... and then you'd press Start and do it all over again.

FWMpqH6.jpg



Probably they WOULDN'T go that deep in a Mega Man game (they didn't during Powered Up, it'd be silly to really go there,) but that's what games like Uncharted set out to do. Games today are heavily into "immersion" and "reality" and "emotional impact." Uncharted is all about humanizing Nathan Drake (partly because, IMO, the mechanics are too basic to sustain gameplay without narrative, but that's a different discussion of how fun Uncharted would be without a story.) Lara Croft is just a tiger-murdering, back-flipping chick raiding tombs in the original games, but the more they humanized her, the more inadvertently they make clear that her adversaries are human (and they tried to battle against that by making bad guys really vicious and seem even rapey, but that just heightens awareness and makes it less "just a videogame".)
 
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This argument is so stupid this is the problem I have with current ND they do not treat games like games. There is no ludonarrative dissonance in uncharted point blank period
1. its a game games do not follow real world logic or rules
2. everyone in UC is a thief,pirate,mercenary,treasure hunter or bounty hunter alll of them are trying to either kill or one up each other.
The fact that ND thinks they fixed this in TLOU is even more laughable since almost everyone in that game has the IQ of a cave man since everyone in that game just blows what ever stands away in there path with almost 0 thought.
 

Kadayi

Banned
In a weird way this is now a movie thing too at least for me.. john wick while being short of being Terminator 1&2 awesome action movies... it just feels fucking weird and even a bit disgusting with just how many people the dude kills lol

I think the thing is though, with something like John Wick, you know that you're buying into a fictive fantasy reality through its stylistic choices, wherein the whole world-building operates in this other space of Gold Coins and Markers that is distinct from the real world. The inherent problem with certain games is the more they cater towards realism, the more jarring their unreal nature can become at times when you're carrying out mass murder with aplomb and abandon. it's a fine balancing act really. I think the solution long term is better AI (smarter opponents that become more of a challenge individually rather than reliant on the collective challenge of sheer numbers), more robust environmental challenges and better writing with richer storylines. If you think about say your standard Bourne/Bond flick there are generally a few hoodlums plus a couple of mini-bosses to contend with on top of the big bad, Sure films are shorter than games, but there's still a lot of scope to adopt a less is more/quality versus quantity mindset when it comes to design.
 
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It's an interesting discussion and observation to have, but at the end of the day Drake only kills bad guys who are trying to kill him and give him literally no choice.

It really doesn't matter that much, anyone that thinks it's a serious problem with the game is a shithead.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
It's an interesting discussion and observation to have, but at the end of the day Drake only kills bad guys who are trying to kill him and give him literally no choice.

It really doesn't matter that much, anyone that thinks it's a serious problem with the game is a shithead.
Then ND shouldn't try make Uncharted series more grounded like TLOU and still able to kill thousands of people and Drake still be fine with it, you cant have both ways.
 

CamHostage

Member
How about we talk about the ludonarrative dissonance of throwing a rag and some alchohol toghether, calling it a health kit and patching up your bullet wounds in TLU? Does that not count?

I think absolutely it counts. The more real games get, the harder game developers have to work to convince us that the stupid things that happen inside the games fit in our acceptance of the reality so that we can keep having fun without our brains going, "Wait, WTF??"

Yes, med kits are dumb, but how stupid would it be if you were playing Call of Duty and you shot an exploding barrel (which, again, dumb!, but we accept it in that context), and inside you found a whole Cooked Chicken, and you ate that chicken right there off the ground to heal your bulletwounds?

BHrJ7du.jpg


Super dumb, right? People would be pissed if that happened in a CoD campaign. It'd ruin the fabric of reality that has been draped over the game. But in Final Fight, the reality is nowhere near as important to the experience, so if you find a Hamburger after piledriving a thug into a Garbage Can, you go ahead and eat that burger right out of the garbage, then go punch that Wooden Crate over and see if it's got a Ruby inside...

QTkJJBc.jpg
 
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Herr Edgy

Member
Or like you've just absorbed bullets 19 times in the past stage and snapped the necks of a dozen grizzled mercenaries with the push of a button, but then an old man pulls a Derringer on you in a cutscene and your character just goes, "No, don't shoot, I give up..."

I mean, you don't have to be a softie to acknowledge that there's a truth to this, whether or not you're the type to feel it when you play your favorite games. The reality of the world these games are trying to portray often clashes with the mechanics of the gameplay you are in control of. If you're supposed to just turn your brain off, then sure, nothing matters. But game campaigns have evolved to be "art" and the creators are putting detail and emotionality in them that they expect you to find value in experiencing, and ludonarrative dissonance is something that comes with the territory.

[...]
Those are some good examples. I don't get the defense force here. No one is saying that Uncharted sucks, just that there is some factual dissonance going on and there is a discussion to be had and ways to improve. Especially the argument "it's a game, it doesn't need to be logical" is an extremely poor, invalid argument that is the equivalent of "my truth". It dismisses any and all discussion about quality and inherently claims that quality does not exist. I'm pretty sure we can generally determine that some 13 yo's first attempt in Unity or Unreal is going to be pretty bad, while an experienced dev is going to produce something better.

One particular more recent example I can think of is that in Xenoblade 2, while the more serious parts of the story are really well done, in most story fights you end up beating the enemy in the fight, just to have a cut scene happen in which the enemy overpowers you - and there is no transition between those two states.
It's not terrible, it's just something that could be done better. In the original Xenoblade, when you'd beat an enemy, he wouldn't just be shown beating your behind in the next scene. Dialogue, some environmental thing, backup, something would happen that would logically transition from you having beat the enemy to them overpowering you. That level of detail is something I missed from XC2's story, as I felt it was a bit more sloppy - still good, but not as tightly knitted.
 

nowhat

Member
I never thought there was much of a ludonarrative dissonance in Uncharted. What the game presents itself as during cutscenes: a fun, lighthearted and over the top treasure hunt adventure inspired by Indiana Jones, is fairly well reflected during the gameplay.

tenor.gif
Movie trivia: that scene (which is 100% awesome) was actually improvised. There was supposed to be an elaborate fight scene, but apparently local food didn't sit well with Ford when they were filming it, he had terrible diarrhea. So he just cut it short, all for the better.
 
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Spokker

Member
I don't play any games that suffer from ludonarrative dissonance anymore. That's why the only game I play is My Summer Car.
 
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PanzerAzel

Member
People really give a shit about this? I’m not playing Uncharted games thinking “gee, this guy’s a homicidal maniac whose actions don’t jive with the narrative”.

Get a life. It’s a fucking game, and if something like this bothers people so much they need to re-evaluate their priorities.
 

Holammer

Member
Sure, this ludonarrative wank is real, but I'd rather take Nathan's smart-alec quips and spastic jump animations than the rebooted Tomb Raider's beaten, bruised and PTSD stricken Lara Croft "Oh woe, what have I become?" Nietzschean abyss shtick.
Sometimes you just have to run with it and enjoy it for what it is. Just like I've come to accept that Pacman really fucking likes pills.
 
The primary mechanic in Uncharted games isn't violence but platforming. Usually it's interrupted with gunplay and a bombastic setpiece but to talk about it as though it's a more evolved Doom or Half-Life because Nathan "Killing Machine" Drake cracks a joke or gets angry at the bad guy chasing him with a tank is silly. It's not even really uncharted territory for Naughty Dog (see Jak II and 3).
 
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MrRenegade

Report me if I continue to troll
ludonarrative dissonance? do people get bothered by it? I don't think so. Thank god the protagonist didn't stop after every killed enemy and wiped his tears.

ludonarrative dissonance is everywhere, in every action movie ever made in hollywood.

what will be next? urinating and eating dissonance? How come action heroes never piss and eat in action games??

what REALLY BOTHERED me are the

-terrible dialogues,
-idiotic story
-repetitive jumping, hiking, hanging

They can allocate time on urinating dissonance when Uncharted X will resolve these very, basic issues.
 
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Dacon

Banned
The ludo-narrative dissonance argument is one of the most obnoxiously pretentious things to come out of gaming in the last 20 years.

People bitch and moan constantly about this shit with Uncharted, but John Wick kills hundreds of people, survives wounds that would cripple real people, and survives gunfights with dozens of people and no one fucking gives a shit.
 
The ludo-narrative dissonance argument is one of the most obnoxiously pretentious things to come out of gaming in the last 20 years.

People bitch and moan constantly about this shit with Uncharted, but John Wick kills hundreds of people, survives wounds that would cripple real people, and survives gunfights with dozens of people and no one fucking gives a shit.
It's like how PETA called Pokemon an animal abuse simulator because you capture fictional animals without their consent and have them fight other fictional animals, sometimes getting money as a reward for winning.
 

Handel

Member
The ludo-narrative dissonance argument is one of the most obnoxiously pretentious things to come out of gaming in the last 20 years.

People bitch and moan constantly about this shit with Uncharted, but John Wick kills hundreds of people, survives wounds that would cripple real people, and survives gunfights with dozens of people and no one fucking gives a shit.
A game made with the story of John Wick and gameplay mimicking the movie wouldn't be said to have ludonarrative dissonance. Shooters like Doom and Wolfenstein aren't slapped with the LD tag either.

It's studios like ND who go for these contrasting stories and gameplay that get rightfully criticized for it. Now I don't think Nathan Drake should be having mental breakdowns over his slaughterfest or what have you, but the games could have done with way less gunfights and emphasized other gameplay elements more to fit the tone/characters.

They want to have their cake and eat it too, and casual audiences eat it up. There's valid criticism to be had though, and even if ND don't ever listen, it is a worthwhile conversation to be had if other developers want to avoid that kind of dissonance in their games. People complaining about video games being given the critical eye are only trying to hold the medium back, as if you won't still have Doom if your cinematic story shooters get told that certain elements of them can be improved for a more immersive and cohesive experience. That's far from the case
 

vpance

Member
If Kojima made Uncharted he could've pulled it off. Would've had a lot more cutscenes though.

Devs are too afraid you'll get bored so you gotta kill something every 5 minutes. And if you're in the AAA action genre you're not gonna get much leeway on that from the mainstream.

The easy answer is, just make your enemies robots, aliens, or monsters and you don't need to think about dissonance.
 

jonnyp

Member
Ludonarrative dissonance is the conflict between a video game's narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay. Ludonarrative, a compound of ludology and narrative, refers to the intersection in a video game of ludic elements (gameplay) and narrative elements.

Sounds like a grievance study. Eeeewww
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
A game made with the story of John Wick and gameplay mimicking the movie wouldn't be said to have ludonarrative dissonance. Shooters like Doom and Wolfenstein aren't slapped with the LD tag either.

It's studios like ND who go for these contrasting stories and gameplay that get rightfully criticized for it. Now I don't think Nathan Drake should be having mental breakdowns over his slaughterfest or what have you, but the games could have done with way less gunfights and emphasized other gameplay elements more to fit the tone/characters.

They want to have their cake and eat it too, and casual audiences eat it up. There's valid criticism to be had though, and even if ND don't ever listen, it is a worthwhile conversation to be had if other developers want to avoid that kind of dissonance in their games. People complaining about video games being given the critical eye are only trying to hold the medium back, as if you won't still have Doom if your cinematic story shooters get told that certain elements of them can be improved for a more immersive and cohesive experience. That's far from the case
More simpler, both Uncharted 1&2 had more kind of unrealistic Hollywood action movie vibe but with 4th game they went with more serious and grounded feel. If ND wants make Drake more “grounded” then it harder for us to believe him he can kill 1000 people still be normal person.


Edit: also John Wick is much more like Golgo 13 rather than Drake. The thing is Drake doesn’t seem pro at killing people same way John Wick and Golgo 13 are.
 
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Handel

Member
If Kojima made Uncharted he could've pulled it off. Would've had a lot more cutscenes though.

Devs are too afraid you'll get bored so you gotta kill something every 5 minutes. And if you're in the AAA action genre you're not gonna get much leeway on that from the mainstream.

The easy answer is, just make your enemies robots, aliens, or monsters and you don't need to think about dissonance.
Nazis also work. Even then, the trauma of war is touched upon some in the newer Wolfenstein games.
 

Dacon

Banned
It's studios like ND who go for these contrasting stories and gameplay that get rightfully criticized for it. Now I don't think Nathan Drake should be having mental breakdowns over his slaughterfest or what have you, but the games could have done with way less gunfights and emphasized other gameplay elements more to fit the tone/characters.

They want to have their cake and eat it too, and casual audiences eat it up. There's valid criticism to be had though, and even if ND don't ever listen, it is a worthwhile conversation to be had if other developers want to avoid that kind of dissonance in their games. People complaining about video games being given the critical eye are only trying to hold the medium back, as if you won't still have Doom if your cinematic story shooters get told that certain elements of them can be improved for a more immersive and cohesive experience. That's far from the case

How do you even get this. Nathan Drake is a fucking criminal competing with terrorists and warlords for treasure. He breaks the law constantly, and robs graves and has been in and out of prison his whole life. Where's the contrast? Tbh Drake is a dirtbag thief who loves chasing treasure and adventure.

Did you feel the same way about Indy? Uncharted is the same kind of pulp action flick in game form.
 

Herr Edgy

Member
The Anti-SJWs here comparing this to SJW agendas really need to get a grip on the topic at hand.

This is not about taking away 'muh violence' or about disallowing games that include content that offends SJWs. That this is even necessary to state shows the lack of understanding of the topic with some people here.
 

Thaedolus

Member
The Anti-SJWs here comparing this to SJW agendas really need to get a grip on the topic at hand.

This is not about taking away 'muh violence' or about disallowing games that include content that offends SJWs. That this is even necessary to state shows the lack of understanding of the topic with some people here.

Yeah, bububububut the purple hairs are ruining everything!

It's really an issue I've always had with films like Star Wars. Not that I can't handle violence in my movies, but the way an endless body count is presented in such a childish way is somewhat disturbing. I was the guy in Clerks wondering about the maintenance workers on the Death Star when it exploded or whatever.
 

Whitecrow

Banned
The Anti-SJWs here comparing this to SJW agendas really need to get a grip on the topic at hand.

This is not about taking away 'muh violence' or about disallowing games that include content that offends SJWs. That this is even necessary to state shows the lack of understanding of the topic with some people here.
At the end of the day, the root of this and SJWs is the same: creating problems out of nowhere for the sake of it.
 

Blood Borne

Member
Wow. I never this was an actual genuine problem for some people. Some people are just fuckin weird. It’s a video game for fuck sake.
 

Herr Edgy

Member
Yeah, bububububut the purple hairs are ruining everything!

It's really an issue I've always had with films like Star Wars. Not that I can't handle violence in my movies, but the way an endless body count is presented in such a childish way is somewhat disturbing. I was the guy in Clerks wondering about the maintenance workers on the Death Star when it exploded or whatever.
It's not about requiring a realistic portrayal of such acts (some amount of suspension of disbelief is required for every story), it's about improving the story at hand by exploring any absurd portrayal in a way that adds to the story.

Imagine a world in which the mere concept of death does not exist. Absurd? Of course. But, how is that, if not explored, interesting? It only becomes interesting once we apply that idea to various, to us familiar situations.
War without death? Funerals? Consumption of meat? Pesticides? Weapon design? A comedic situation in which someone wants to kill a fly that buzzes around him? Christmas presents to the family? Overpopulation? What happens to people that are hurt? How does the healing process look like? We all know the typical scene in which a rebel gets tortured to reveal critical information. How would that play out?

The point is that you can take any kind of absurd, weird, unrealistic situation, and make it into something tangible. That's art.
 
The Anti-SJWs here comparing this to SJW agendas really need to get a grip on the topic at hand.

This is not about taking away 'muh violence' or about disallowing games that include content that offends SJWs. That this is even necessary to state shows the lack of understanding of the topic with some people here.
This whatever narrative nonsense is basically making a mountain out of a molehill. Criticism is warranted if the creator advertised his/her work as completely realistic and grounded, but then puts in a lot of unrealistic elements.
 

Thaedolus

Member
Post one purple hair that is worth a damn.

The point isn’t whether or not they’re worth a damn, it’s that they’re completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. You can both be totally fine with graphic violence and death and shit in games and still experience ludonarrative dissonance when the tone of a game is disjointed enough. This has nothing to do with SJW politics and everything to do with the ability to suspend disbelief.

Imagine a game with a kid friendly Mario storyline that puts you in this post apocalyptic The Last of Us gameplay between happy cutscenes but plays it completely straight. It would be bizarre at best without any sort of meta commentary.

Anyway, my comment was about being tired of every topic being framed as SJW vs anti SJW when this one really has nothing to do with that shit
 

Ryu Kaiba

Member
The thing is that it doesn't really matter to the story that he ends up killing many, many people. And that's where the dissonance comes in. Sure, I agree that it doesn't need to be the focus - or that it is necessarily a huge problem to be fixed. But to overall quality, making things make more sense is something good. It's a matter of "how can we improve things", not "how can we make things not suck".
You're the only sensible person I've found in here so far. For fuck sake, people are so defensive that someone is going to come and take all their games away and change them. There's nothing wrong with directors wanting to think of creative ways to make the game play match the narrative. He even cited The Last of Us as an example, did that become a "walking simulator." Nothing wrong with games being gamey and just letting the gameplay be for fun but nothing wrong with exploring new ideas either.
 

Katsura

Member
The Anti-SJWs here comparing this to SJW agendas really need to get a grip on the topic at hand.

This is not about taking away 'muh violence' or about disallowing games that include content that offends SJWs. That this is even necessary to state shows the lack of understanding of the topic with some people here.
Yea, just like 'no one is coming for your games, we just want to have a conversation about sexy women' and now we have Outer Worlds...
 

Ryu Kaiba

Member
Yea, just like 'no one is coming for your games, we just want to have a conversation about sexy women' and now we have Outer Worlds...
check and mate lol

No seriously that's different. That's just some jealous sjw's that hate pretty women. This is just a director thinking about how to make their work more cohesive. Not taking away violence just exploring how to make it fit.
 

Katsura

Member
check and mate lol

No seriously that's different. That's just some jealous sjw's that hate pretty women. This is just a director thinking about how to make their work more cohesive. Not taking away violence just exploring how to make it fit.
Yea, it was kinda tongue in cheek. It's just that the people who do want to push their regressive nonsense into games use the exact same argument so i can understand if people are wary about it. Even more so when it's related to ND which are without question pushing it. That being said, i don't see any harm with people exploring the topic even if i find it pointless. The only game i can think of where it really stands out is Watchdogs 2, where you're painted as the good guy while going on a murder spree across town
 
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Saruhashi

Banned
Wow. I never this was an actual genuine problem for some people. Some people are just fuckin weird. It’s a video game for fuck sake.

All videogames are not equal though. So it's not that weird.

I liked Pacific Rim. I am looking forward to seeing 1917 this weekend.
So you reckon if at some point in 1917 a giant fucking robot goes flying across the screen closely followed by a rampaging kaiju then I can't say shit?
"Well you enjoyed that stuff in Pacific Rim! It's a movie for fuck sake".

It's nonsense. There's not just a simple "one size fits all" template that all video games should follow.

If a developer wants to push their game as a serious narrative character driven game then yeah there should be questions asked about how the games story and the gameplay are kept consistent.

It doesn't mean that every game needs to have this. It depends on the game.
 

GymWolf

Member
I think the problem is both Uncharted 1&2 were more Hollywood action vibe but later games especially 4th game (still enjoyed) went for more grounded vibe and also they made Drake more grounded character which makes harder for us to believe Drake able to kill so many people and still be fine with it.
And that's why uncharted 4 sucks big boring climbing ass.
 

tassletine

Member
Ludonarrative dissonance. What about cognitive dissonance?
It feels like virtue signalling taken to an extreme degree.

When people start talking like this, acting like that have to be responsible, to that degree with a product. it sounds like they not only have an inflated ego but they are possibly mentally ill. Imagone someone doing that with chess?

It’s like When censors start talking about the damage films can do to society. To have that perspective I think you actually have to have felt that damage — without realising most people just come out of a cinema and forget about it.
 

Saruhashi

Banned
I think the problem is both Uncharted 1&2 were more Hollywood action vibe but later games especially 4th game (still enjoyed) went for more grounded vibe and also they made Drake more grounded character which makes harder for us to believe Drake able to kill so many people and still be fine with it.

Yeah, I don't see why people see this as such a problematic criticism of Uncharted 4.

I'm sure that in the Marvel movies the vast majority of the times when you see the heros beating up tons of enemies they are always like robots or ugly alien monsters or some similar shit?

DC tries to go with the "Batman and Superman don't kill" to try and get away with the fact that the dudes fucking destroy everything around them and beat the shit out of 100s of henchmen. They don't kill though. Haha.

I'm thinking that a few posters on here would freak out if they ever read Watchmen or watch The Boys on Amazon.
Shit, even The Dark Knight, that everybody raves about is basically about questioning the rights and wrongs of Batman doing what he does.

Don't Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2 both kind of touch on this also and try to keep Snake a bit more grounded and a bit more unsure if he is even doing the right thing?
 

GreyHorace

Member
Not this Adam Sessler bullshit again.
Sessler was the one who coined the term? Man that makes so much sense. His game reviews are probably the most pretentious I've seen. His review for GTA5 on Rev3 games was full of cringe. 'A mirror to contemporary society much like Charles Dickens' my ass.
 

zeorhymer

Member
Sessler was the one who coined the term? Man that makes so much sense. His game reviews are probably the most pretentious I've seen. His review for GTA5 on Rev3 games was full of cringe. 'A mirror to contemporary society much like Charles Dickens' my ass.
I don't think he coined the term, but I think he repeated it enough times that everyone thought, hey I too can sound smart!
 

GreyHorace

Member
I don't think he coined the term, but I think he repeated it enough times that everyone thought, hey I too can sound smart!
Sessler would probably be pissed at this comparison, but his review style sounds very similar to Bob Chipman's (aka Moviebob). They both sound like they've combed through a thesaurus to look for smart sounding words to make them seem like geniuses.

Plus, though I've not confirmed this as I don't frequent Twitter, but I hear Sessler's is a diehard anti-Trumpist much like Bob.
 
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