Never played the original, but it sounds (with the music tape) completely shit to me. How can people complain about games as art and then praise this?
I don't really complain about games as art, I don't think. I complain about the games as art mob because they're more than a little bit thick for the most part and my tolerance levels for their almost fascistic pressing of their ideals onto people is pretty slim.
One example from something I was reading this morning, tangentially related as it's not per se asking for games as art but it's the same leap of logic that makes me hold my head in my hands.
So, an article on Tropico. Now, Tropico is one of those things that intrigues me - I actually grabbed the demo of Tropico 3 before Xmas but I've not gotten round to looking at it yet. It intrigues me because I think it's likely I'll have a similar reaction to the content and themes.
Now, I'm writing this without playing it yet so this is just me talking about what I think may be the case (ie - completely uninformed therefor possibly talking out of my arse) so y'know, for those who have played it I'm happy to bow to higher knowledge here.
So, I don't really play strategy games often. There's a couple of reasons for this - generally I'm not fond of losing epic amounts of time to things (as my initial CivIV stats prove - this is something I can do easily, especially if I'm under the weather as was the case with when I bought Civ) and also because I prefer mechanics and abstraction as a general rule.
Civ makes no bones that it's an entirely mechanics led game and the whole leaders/world domination thing is merely wallpaper to wrap the whole thing up in. I'm comfortable with that. I don't think for a second I'm actually taking (for example) Winston Churchill on a genocidal mission to wipe out the leaders of the world. I'm toying with interesting mechanics and consequences of using said mechanics.
So far so cool.
Interesting (in context) quote from the EA/Hasbro devson the new Risk game coming to XBLA.
"People tend to associate RISK with the Napoleonic War, but you never really got a feeling of what army you were playing. You played as the green guy, blue guy, yellow guy, etc"
Because of course, with RISK, that's precisely why it works. It's an abstraction and concentrates on the mechanics. Despite it being set on a world map and the ultimate aim is to rule the world, it could be anything. It doesn't really matter. It's so far abstracted that the only really important thing is the mechanics. I'm fine with that. It's not toy soldiers or a despot simulator.
However, I tend to get more uncomfortable the more layers of that abstraction you remove and the more you relate it to recent/current events
if you have nothing to say on the matter. And the problem with a satirical take on events is that it's easy to get it utterly wrong.
See, if you will, the difference between the Four Lions clip I posted in the movies thread which is a marvel and Uwe Boll's take on 9/11 which isn't.
So yeah, the concept that Tropico is built around is one of those things that I'd like to hope is going to be more in the Four Lions vain but I fear it'll slip more into Uwe Boll. Perhaps it's the same thing that's always sat uncomfortably with me about Raid Over Moscow - a fine game but I dunno, there's something not right about its attitude to me.
To sort of get back on track here before I waffle off on another 30 tangents - so you've got something in a game you're uncomfortable with because it feels a bit wrong. In some cases you can laugh it off as completely inept idiocy (Tale Of Tale's The Path for my favourite example of ineptitude in recent times) and sometimes you just think "hey, the developers really don't get it, do they?" which is where I think we come to a bit of a problem.
That leap of logic then. That's what bugs me.
For me, the natural way to think through these things is: "I have an issue with an element in this game. I understand that it does not relate to nor effect every game. It is an issue with this game". It's not to then make that impressive leap of logic that goes "I have an issue with an element in this game. Every game is wrong. Gamers are wrong. Something needs to change. We need to change".
Maybe that's because I'm comfortable with my own opinions. Maybe that's because unless you're an egregious undercarraige I'm comfortable with everyone else having their own opinions even if I think they're wrong or dolts of the first order. And that Tropico article makes the same leap of logic that the games as art mob are want to do.
It goes from "I am uncomfortable with this game and what it portrays" to and a genuine rather than paraphrased quote this time:
If we want our games to grow, to mature, we must also grow as consumers. We can continue to laud productions for their fantastic visuals, to heap praise over immaculate voice acting. We can bandy about progression in game design and writing as evidence that the medium is coming into its own. We can commend scripting and cutscenes for capturing a certain cinematic flair. We can keep praising the cogs and circuits for their glittering intricacy, but without a greater message, we are relegating ourselves to critiquing well-executed action movies. We must allow for the possibility that our games will work against something deep within us – spirituality, literary theory, racial depictions, political reality – which we ourselves may be uncomfortable addressing. We must work against the idea that our idle playthings can both move us, but are inconsequential enough to brush aside when they present upsetting imagery.
Boof! Lost it right there. And that is the very same argument that the games as art mob pull so stupidly often - talk of furthering the medium, we must do this to progress, we need to make each other cry etc... that just makes me hold my head in my hands and think "you fuckwits" and why, after that little roundabout journey, I take the piss out of them for being stupid.
Retro Remakes Chatter
