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Audo

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There are a lot of threads around here focusing on various games, but I've kind of noticed that almost all of them take more of a fan-style approach. I was wondering if there was any interest in the community of sharing game criticism for various games? You know, essays or analysis of games and the gaming industry that take a more critical in-depth look. Personally game criticism has always been a passion and interest of mine and I'm always looking for new pieces. I don't know if anyone else here is interested in it, but if they are maybe this could become a thread where we share pieces that catch our eyes.

Here's a sample of some recent stuff I've read and thought worth reading (not that I necessarily agree with all of them):
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ON VIDEOGAME REVIEWS (AND BIOSHOCK INFINITE) by TEVIS THOMPSON

"Let’s recap: a racist, nationalist, religious cult secedes from the Union, and the planet, and proceeds to oppress all people of color, enslave its workers, and stone interracial couples, all while its privileged white citizens bask in an orgy of Americana. So far, so good. This is a videogame, we have a gun, let’s shoot the shit out of this place.

But Infinite has higher things in mind. Halfway through, the people of color who constitute the rebel Vox Populi actually manage to overthrow their oppressors. And lo and behold: the white man’s fear comes to life. The Vox slaughter, they scalp, they paint their faces and play the part of the bloody savage. See what happens when you let these people out of their cages? No better than beasts, Infinite says.

Many reviewers were impressed by this insight:

“Infinite slyly submits that both sides of the coin have their demons, and neither can claim the moral high ground in Columbia.”

“This doesn’t boil down to the typical good guys/bad guys scenario. Due to the nature of the world and the way it changes over time, you’ll also see that Vox Popul’s rebel forces are capable of just as much cruelty as the forces they seek to overthrow.”

Why are the Vox capable of just as much cruelty? Because the legacy of violence is passed on from oppressor to oppressed? Perhaps, but that’s not actually in the game. Is it because history is full of examples of bloody rebellions and reigns of terror? But then that ignores the actual historical context in America that Infinite claims to care about, where the long struggle for civil and political rights was remarkably non-violent (at least on the side of the disenfranchised).

No, the Vox are just as cruel as the Founders because Irrational decided they would be. They wanted to show a city fall, not just the aftermath as in the original BioShock. They wanted a new set of enemies, a literal skin palette-swap, halfway through the game. They wanted to make a point about how any extreme position is dangerous. Even if that position is racial equality, fair wages, or medicine for your daughter dying in Shantytown. Infinite is a game that lets you peck a man to death with crows, but hey, let’s not get too worked up, too extreme, about suffering and social injustice."

[KEEP READING HERE]



THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE (SPOILERS) by ERRANT SIGNAL



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THE FRAMERATE DEBATE: WHY VIDEOGAMES NEED TO TAKE A FILM THEORY CLASS by GITA JACKSON

“Game developers want to mimic the Hollywood mode of storytelling and the Hollywood feel of the moving image, but they ignore the fact that almost every movie their consumers have seen has been shot on strips of exposed celluloid, and has all the associations thereof. Film and video—what AAA videogames most closely resemble— have completely different connotations, so much so that Hollywood directors still see shooting a movie on video not only as a completely different process but as more than a little controversial. Video has traditionally has been associated with TV and is seen as faster and cheaper, which suits the format—it’s not necessarily bad, but it’s different. The first time movies shot on video were shown at Sundance, a conversation ensued in the film industry about whether or not it looked right in a 16:9 format, if video is fit for the silver screen. That conversation is not over, and it could be argued that the ongoing development of cinema grade video cameras has been in service of making video look like film, and ergo appropriate for movies. The fear is that even if your end product ends up as bold, sharp, and full of personality as Once Upon A Time In Mexico, it will look like General Hospital.


AAA game developers don’t seem to have paid any attention to these conversations. AAA is going to need to choose which framerate would best suit the story they want to tell, but it doesn’t look like they’ve even thought about that. As long as the consumer demands both a high framerate and Hollywood-style storytelling, game developers will continue to try and fail to deliver both, no matter how nonsensical the final product may appear. In the first person-perspective, when you see a lens flare, is the implication that your head is a camera? The world may never know. I think the only way to move past this without seeming like a luddite is to ask how this phenomenon is going to change the way we read the moving image.”

[KEEP READING HERE]




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THE VAST, UNPLAYABLE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES by GITA JACKSON

“Our failure to cultivate a full appreciation of history within games extends beyond just the games themselves and into our collective database of knowledge, criticism and practices within our field. “Collectively, we have a short memory, mostly back to the childhoods of whatever generation is currently not yet fed up with games enough to romanticize it,” says author and professor Ian Bogost.


“It makes our belief in our current novelty innocent on the one hand, but it ensures we build on a very limited version of the past on the other,” he continues. “Yes, there’s always some truly new novelty in games. But the bigger trends always seem to start from scratch, unaware of what came before, unable to incorporate and build upon it.”


Games critics seem to have the same arguments, the same discussions every five years or so; maybe we, all of us, think like Konami. What will get us the most hits? What is the freshest, hottest take on the topic du jour? What Op-Ed will get the readers that make sure that these sites stay open? My friend Max asked me why there’s no annual publication of the best games journalism. This is why: none of us care about our history.”

[KEEP READING HERE]


GAME WRITING PITFALLS - LOST OPPORTUNITIES IN GAMES by EXTRA CREDIT

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ALL THE WOMEN I KNOW IN VIDEO GAMES ARE TIRED by LEIGH ALEXANDER

“We have no freedom to speak or to move. Our own stories, the narratives of our work, are so often taken gently out of our hands while we watch, mutely; while we watch, hitting block and mute.


Another friend and colleague noticed that I seemed frustrated, that I too appeared to be another throbbing nerve in this living knot of frustration. To comfort me she told me that she’s seriously thinking about what else she might be able to do besides games. “I might be depressed,” I wrote her. “But I really hesitate to write off a culmination of structural concerns and long-running systematic disrespect by both my enemies and my ‘allies’ as an involuntary chemical downer.”


“Totally,” she replied.”

[KEEP READING HERE]


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BROFIST INTIMACY by TODD HARPER

“This is a view that Tabata’s comments exacerbate. The idea that FF15 is a “boys will be boys” scenario where we see what “boys” are like without girls around says to me: this is going to be another heteromasculine story that isn’t going to speak to you at all. I look at that, and compare it to the intense feelings of identification and emotional resonance I had with the women protagonists of FF10(-2), FF12, and the FF13 subseries, and am forced to ask: why should I care? I can’t get excited about this. I can’t. Some people can, and that’s fine! But for me, it feels like this huge step backwards.


If I’m gonna care about about the all-male-revue FF15, I need to be promised something of equal value to what I have lost in the process. I need the promise of something as powerful as Yuna’s journey, as affecting as Fang and Vanille’s tragic love and sisterhood. Instead, what I’m being offered is the promise of me having to do a lot of background queering work, a lot of spinning the straw of subtext into the gold of satisfying consumption. To be honest, I kinda don’t want to. If I’m gonna have male intimacy, I don’t want it to be brofists and combat assists. I want to know that these men have complicated relationships that problematize our visions of masculine identity, that suggest there are ways for men to be social with each other that do transcend romance or sex, that are not stuck in this weird binary of “manly men” vs. “feelings-haver fanfic bait.”


What we’ve seen of FF15 is a demo only, and of old content at that. It’s true that we don’t really know what’s coming in the final version. But going solely by what I’ve played, and what I’ve read the creators say about the game? My doubts are many and my comforts, few.”

[KEEP READING HERE]


So yeah! There's a few of the stuff I've found interesting lately. What about you guys? Anyone else here interested in these kinds of pieces? Have any to share?
 

Audo

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Two new vids I've watched recently on queer representation in gaming:

[video=youtube;WnCAXPUqkWI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnCAXPUqkWI[/video]

[video=youtube;-r51IZ2qiq4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r51IZ2qiq4[/video]​
 

rawpower

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Okay, that one about FFXV kind of pisses me off. If you don't want to play a game purely because all the characters are boys, that's fine. But to say that an all female cast is somehow more accessible than an all male cast is just a stupid as the developers trying to say that an all male cast is more accessible. Maybe that's your personal feelings, but saying that female characters are more interesting is an extremely biased viewpoint. The author's favorite game in Final Fantasy is X-2. They pose the question "why all guys?" but never ask the same thing about their own favorite game in the series!

Alright I'm tired of trying write all this out so I'm just going to get to the point here. The person who wrote that blog comes off as a contrarian feminist piece of trash. They want LGBT and female characters in games just for the sake of having them in games. This is obvious. Once the cast is all straight males, suddenly they have standards about plot and character development. What's even more infuriating is how they're making judgments about character interactions for the whole game based a short demo. Give me a break. Now, this isn't to say that I'm against having female or LGBT characters in games. If the creators want to do that, they should go for it. If two of the characters in FFXV were gay lovers I'd still be excited for it. I don't really like it when people complain about shit like diversity in games because I think it's inconsequential to how the game holds up. If things run their course naturally, we'll eventually see minority characters regularly in media. So just fucking chill.

But yeah, they're making a Stand By Me Final Fantasy this time so maybe next time they'll make a Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants Final Fantasy.
 

Audo

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Okay, that one about FFXV kind of pisses me off. If you don't want to play a game purely because all the characters are boys, that's fine. But to say that an all female cast is somehow more accessible than an all male cast is just a stupid as the developers trying to say that an all male cast is more accessible. Maybe that's your personal feelings, but saying that female characters are more interesting is an extremely biased viewpoint. The author's favorite game in Final Fantasy is X-2. They pose the question "why all guys?" but never ask the same thing about their own favorite game in the series!
It's an opinion piece. It's only meant to represent the author's beliefs and worries about the game going in. And they are very clear that they are speaking from their own perspective about what they value and what resonates with them, and whether or not FFXV will appeal to them. Like, are you new to editorials?

The person who wrote that blog comes off as a contrarian feminist piece of trash.
giphy.gif


They want LGBT and female characters in games just for the sake of having them in games. This is obvious. Once the cast is all straight males, suddenly they have standards about plot and character development.
People who want LGBT and female characters in games still have standards about plot and character development. I'm not sure what makes you think otherwise. You know, especially since these are often the people most critical of media lol. That critical lens applies just as much to games with LGBT/Female chars as it does to those without.

What's even more infuriating is how they're making judgments about character interactions for the whole game based a short demo.
You do realize that a demo is meant to sell people on the game? That the author of the piece is just cataloging their thoughts based on what they saw in that demo, and is even quick to point out that it IS just a demo and that the full game might be different?

I don't really like it when people complain about shit like diversity in games because I think it's inconsequential to how the game holds up.
Well I mean you are free to stay out of the discussion. It sounds like you don't care either way so why get so hot and bothered about it?

If things run their course naturally, we'll eventually see minority characters regularly in media.
How, exactly? What does run their course naturally even mean? People see more minority characters in media because people push for their inclusion, and make that desire known. It doesn't just happen naturally.

So just diddlying chill.
Kinda amusing for you to say this after you just lowkey exploded over one person's opinion of an unreleased videogame lol.
 
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Antifa Lockhart

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Okay, that one about FFXV kind of pisses me off. If you don't want to play a game purely because all the characters are boys, that's fine. But to say that an all female cast is somehow more accessible than an all male cast is just a stupid as the developers trying to say that an all male cast is more accessible. Maybe that's your personal feelings, but saying that female characters are more interesting is an extremely biased viewpoint.
Eh. I say this. I might be biased, as a man, though.

Please, actually pause and hear me when I say this, okay? Like, take a second and try not to get hot under the collar when I make this point: there's a lot of male-centric media in the world. A lot of combinations of stories about white straight dudes. Like a lot. Like a majority, and it's not because there are more straight white men in the world. Just by statistics alone, there aren't even more men in the world than women, but a lot of people try to view things with an "everybody is equal, so these things operate equally in my judgement" viewpoint. Which would be great, fair, perfect even IF ONLY all people were treated and viewed equally. But they're not.

So, as a result, it's not an unsound argument to say anything not about a core group of men is more interesting simply because there's less of it.

I want better representation in gaming, and I don't think demanding to see a world more similar to my own experiences or the ones of people I know is the same as shoehorning in something. I can champion this inclusion and still be critical of the writing and implementation, hell, I have to be. Whenever something is more inclusive, it automatically falls under more scrutiny to begin with.

The author's favorite game in Final Fantasy is X-2. They pose the question "why all guys?" but never ask the same thing about their own favorite game in the series!
X-2 was a conscientious choice to depart from the conventions of those games. If someone dislikes a trope or a common thing of a series that they feel is exclusionary, it absolutely makes sense that they like the opposite of that? Again, we're not talking about a series where men and women have always been treated equally.

Alright I'm tired of trying write all this out so I'm just going to get to the point here.
You literally wrote a paragraph, but sure, let's go.

The person who wrote that blog comes off as a contrarian feminist piece of trash. They want LGBT and female characters in games just for the sake of having them in games. This is obvious. Once the cast is all straight males, suddenly they have standards about plot and character development.
Yeah, you need to cool it. Feminist isn't a bad word.

I don't really like it when people complain about shit like diversity in games because I think it's inconsequential to how the game holds up. If things run their course naturally, we'll eventually see minority characters regularly in media. So just diddlying chill.
I kind of feel like you don't care because you're already represented, but I don't know anything about you other than the fact that for someone who says they don't care about something that a lot of people feel personally victimized over, you seem to have a lot to say. If things run their course naturally? What does that mean? If you mean people fundamentally changing the way they see minorities then how do you think that happens? By change, dude. That's how things run their course. Also, I highly object to this "eventually" nonsense. Gay people were not invented by Naughty Dog when the Last of Us came out. Why on earth should people not try to think more deliberately about telling GOOd diverse stories when we've seen that it can be done.

I don't know. I want people with different viewpoints to have their say, I don't think anyone should really go unheard, but I also kind of feel like if you're really indifferent to it then just...get out of the way? Playing the devil's advocate about something so important is really reductive.
 
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Audo

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Chuman

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[shadow fenix applies war paint, rubs hands together]
 

Audo

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Couple more interesting pieces:

[video=youtube;vGl12Sv9SNs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGl12Sv9SNs[/video]

This one's a long analysis of The Walking Dead Season Two. Really good.



This one explores competitive Smash Bros as spectator sport

[video=youtube;AqxEFNFOVTw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqxEFNFOVTw[/video]

Video Games and Cultivation Theory​
 

Zul

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I don't really like it when people complain about shit like diversity in games because I think it's inconsequential to how the game holds up.

I grew up with Warcraft and Final Fantasy, which have practically nothing but white characters. I didn't, and still don't, give a crap that there are hardly, if any middle-eastern characters in there. I wouldn't care in the slightest if I never saw a middle-eastern character in a video game for the rest of my life.

A game is entertainment, and those franchises (for the most part) were entertaining. When it comes to criticism, I focus on product quality(bugs, ui, features and whatnot), story, and gameplay(in that order).
 

Audo

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I didn't, and still don't, give a crap that there are hardly, if any middle-eastern characters in there. I wouldn't care in the slightest if I never saw a middle-eastern character in a video game for the rest of my life.
Neat.

Speaking of Final Fantasy though...

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ON APPRECIATING FINAL FANTASY XIII by BRENDAN KEOGH


“I remember in the past how I felt the only correct response to “Are videogames ‘games’ or ‘stories’?” was “Yes”. That is, rejecting the false dichotomy of the question that implies videogames can only be one or the other. More recently, however, I feel like my answer to this question (if anyone still asked it) would be “No”. That is, still rejecting the false dichotomy of the question that implies videogames can only be one of the other, but also expressing my feeling that neither existing category of ‘game’ or ‘story’ is really capable of encompassing just what the videogame form is capable of. Each has come to feel like convenient ‘close enough’ categories in lieu of actually understanding the particular (but not necessarily unique) engagements we have with videogames.


This felt particularly vivid while playing through Final Fantasy XIII these past few months. On multiple occasions I went to write a tweet about just why I was enjoying this much-derided game so much (and enjoying it I certainly was). I wanted to say that it wasn’t because of the story that I was finding it so satisfying, but I knew that if I said that then people would instantly assume that I am enjoying it for mechanical and systemic reasons. But these weren’t necessarily the reason I was enjoying it either. Neither category of ‘game’ (in the traditional sense) or ‘story’ (in the strictest sense) could adequately function as a shorthand for what I was finding so satisfying about this game. Words that would more adequately fit would be rhythm, style, pace, audacity, flamboyance. None of these really stand on their own as shorthands in casual game discourse, though. For that we have game (gameplay/mechanics/systems/rules/etc) or story (narrative/character/themes/lore/etc) and that’s about it. Box one or box two.”

[KEEP READING HERE]


HILLS AND LINES: FINAL FANTASY XIII by SIMON FERRARI


"Final Fantasy XIII released in Japan at around the same time that Mass Effect 2 released worldwide. It should come as no surprise that both of these series transitioned from a previously multilinear level design to one of unilinear, non-interactive corridors. For years, the makers of this kind of game were told that they needed to embrace the computer’s ability to produce nonlinear game spaces. “Open” worlds of various quality proliferated, and players received hours and hours of “content” defined by the exploration of structureless, monotonous space. Everyone quickly realized that, perhaps, not every genre needs to maximize every affordance of the digital medium. This particular brand of stat-crunching, combat-focused game works just as well in a corridor as it does in a sandbox. It is also possible that many designers weren’t ready to leave the comfort of the line; designing a nonlinear space demands knowledge of the line in much the same way that abstract painting demands a grasp of representation.

And that’s the realization that the designers at BioWare ended with when they sat down to design Mass Effect 2. The designers of Final Fantasy XIII, on the other hand, took the realization one step further: the shape of their game spaces could be used as spatial allegories."

[KEEP READING HERE]​


two pieces on FFXIII i read recently, the latter one in particular is an interesting read that gets very technical.
 

Audo

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1478684974868247335.png


THE NATURAL: THE TROUBLE PORTRAYING BLACKNESS IN VIDEO GAMES by EVAN NARCISSE

"The modern era of video games—let’s call it the last twenty or so years—has barely seen any black lead characters in big-budget or independent small-team video games. Oh, there’ve been sidekicks and boon companions aplenty. Too many of those have relied on tropes and stereotypes that are embarrassingly retrograde. There’s been Dead Island’s Sam B., a street-tough, one-hit-wonder rapper whose single was “Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch.” Deus Ex: Human Revolution had Letitia, an indigent woman on the streets of a dystopian sci-fi future Detroit who somehow sounded like she came off the set of cheesy 1970s cop drama Starsky & Hutch. And a whole parade of hot-tempered brawn-centric bruisers and slangtastic slicksters have appeared in fighting game series like Street Fighter and King of Fighters, with names like Heavy D!, TJ Combo and Dee Jay, all clearly meant to convey a ‘hip’ urban lifestyle in the broadest of strokes. And there’ve been dozens, maybe hundreds of other lesser lights (lesser darknesses?) in the deluge of store-bought and digitally downloaded games. Men assembled in thrall to “gritty” hollow machismo. Women constructed to deliver trite sass or lurid titillation. Each one of them burdened with the weight of expectations they can’t possibly fulfill, because for every character like them, thousands of non-black characters get more spotlight and more chance for nuance.

But games where the main guy or gal—the buck-stops-here character entrusted with anchoring empathy, narrative and design ambition—is a black person? All too few. My quest to find and wear the natural I want might not be quite as quixotic, especially if it already existed in games with set protagonists first."

[KEEP READING HERE]


This piece just won an award for Best Feature 2015. Definitely worth a look.
 
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Cassette-Disk

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In a similar vein to this thread, I've found Game Maker's Toolkit to be an incredibly interesting resource for insight on the construction and creation of video game design. For instance, here Mark Brown discusses how different developers take different approaches to climbing, jumping, and movement in general. He mainly focuses on how Tomb Raider has traded their more complex movement from the earlier games for more complex fighting, but also shows how different games tackle the problem.


Here, he goes over just what made Metroidvania so great, and what other Metroidvanias are missing. He also goes in-depth at the building blocks of Metroidvanias and how Super Metroid and Axiom Verge incorporate those in-game.



And in his latest video, Brown explains the reasoning behind why Dark Souls is 'so hard,' and why adding an easier difficulty mode would undermine the game and the dev's message. All the while, he draws comparisons from other games and how they all lull you into playing them 'their' way with various rewards and punishments.



The entire channel is a trove filled with nuggets of information about game design and I'd highly recommend going through them if you're interested in designing video games, or even if you're just curious about the tricks devs use for their games.
 

Audo

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In honour of Uncharted 4 releasing next week, an in-depth look at the first game in the series:

[video=youtube;uVvHicLY2RM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVvHicLY2RM[/video]​
 

FudgemintGuardian

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Dan of Extra Credits uses Tracer's butt as an opportunity to discuss pose design.
[video=youtube;ZmLkVtqjf1A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmLkVtqjf1A[/video]
 

Audo

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[video=youtube;cKFafPSddGw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKFafPSddGw[/video]

Definitely hits on the kind of stuff that made E3 disappointing for me this year and is making me lose interest in gaming more and more as the years go on and it doesn't get much different.
 
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