toxicitizen

If you haven't heard of Star Citizen then not many news source must reach that rock you live under. I have zero interest in it and yet I hear about it all the goddamned time. It's hardly unimportant or irrelevant, it's the most massively successful video game crowd-funding campaign. It just doesn't stop raking in the millions. So yeah, I think you're full of shit! I just love how you accuse others of ignoring evidence yet keep doing exactly that yourself. What it proves is that there's massive interest in the space sim genre. This is a project that is nearing 50 millions when its initial kickstarter goal was 500 thousands.

Well, they're both Vita compatible. I think you own one, right? The bundle itself doesn't show up on the Vita store for some reason but the individual games do. I had to buy the bundle from my PS3 but was able to download the games straight to my Vita.

2 for 1 bundle sale on PSN. I've heard really good things about this series and have wanted to try it for a while but 20 bucks a piece seemed a bit much. I would've preferred getting just one to see how I like it first but they don't seem to go on sale very often and I've been waiting for a while so I just went for it. They sound right up my alley, anyway, so I'm not too worried there.

I did say that the trend has been changing for the better. Those examples are all pretty recent. And I'm hardly the only one who feels this way about mechanics. Quantic Dream's games are often bashed for being little more than interactive movies, you know. TWD and Gone Home were similarly criticized. I personally loved them all but I can definitely see how someone might feel that they were lacking something. And the Metal Gear Solid series puts a heavy emphasis on narrative but the series still has very solid mechanics underneath it all. Have you never played MGS3? There's a lot of depth to that gameplay. If it was only about the story then that simply wouldn't be the case. As for JRPGs, what are you going on about? The genre tends to be more narratively-driven than others but the mechanics are still as important as they would be anywhere else. People praise older Final Fantasy titles for things like the job system and the active-time battles. They bash Final Fantasy XIII for basically playing itself and lacking mechanical depth. A JRPG needs solid mechanics every bit as much as it needs a good story. First off, I consider those 90s titles to be fairly modern. So, it's not really the period I was talking about. And yeah, you can find examples of games that had stories even before then. I wasn't making an absolute statement by any means. I still fail to see how that contradicts anything I've said. A game having a story hardly says anything about how mechanically-driven it was or wasn't. I mean, most of your examples are RPGs, for fuck's sake. Do you seriously not realize that those games tend to be based on fairly complex systems and rules under the hood? Besides, your pre-90s examples are a bit more obscure than Pac-Man and Space Invaders, both of which were pretty big hits in their times. And you accuse me of picking confirmation bias examples? Are you for real, man? I never said that storytelling isn't an important part of games, I said that it's secondary to mechanics. Especially when it comes to categorizing them since a lot of them simply don't have stories. That's just a fact. A few cherry-picked examples of story-based games from the late 70s and early 80s doesn't contradict anything.

The current system isn't perfect but there's a reason why it is the way it is. Games are mechanics before anything else. Why do you think so many games had shit stories for the longest time? Because their developers made the game part first and only brought in a writer at the last minute, almost as an afterthought. That writer had no involvement or effect on development whatsoever. That situation has been changing for the best but I still think that says a lot. If mechanics aren't the most important, then how do you explain a game like Minecraft being such a massive hit? It has no story and its aesthetics aren't particularly appealing. It's nothing but a set of mechanics to play with. And the same is true for a lot of games. SimCity is basically a toy box and most 4X games have no story, just a set of rules and systems to play with. There was a time when games didn't even have stories. What's the most important part of Space Invaders and Pac-Man if not the mechanics? Or are they not real games, for some reason?

Bingo. It's the core of the experience that you need to describe. In the case of games, that core is a set of mechanics. Alien is a horror film, Portal is a puzzle game, Civilization is a turn-based strategy game. The what and when of their narratives belong in the plot summary on the back of the box, not tacked onto the genre label. Even perspective is often irrelevant. Spec Ops isn't all that different from Call of Duty from a purely mechanical standpoint. Sub-genres can be useful but few of them provide info you really need to know. Civ plays differently enough from XCOM to specify that it's a 4X. But much like Alien could take place in the present, on a submarine and with a more generic monster and still essentially be the same film, Halo without the sci-fi would be, well, pretty much Call of Duty, come to think of it.

What Ethan said. Most of my friends own a console but if their parents game at all it's casual stuff on phone or PC. I know very few older adults who are dedicated gamers. My mother plays hidden object games and Popcap-type stuff and recently got into facebook games but that's about the extent of it.

You can't just decide that something isn't a matter of opinion simply because you think yours is the correct one. That's asinine. You claim to be a smart guy, maybe try arguing like one? And, again, don't assume someone's offended simply because they disagree with you. I think you're being ridiculous, not offensive. Gamer is a very broad term, it applies to anyone that plays video games as a hobby. Casual or not. Like Ethan said, you don't get to redefine words simply because you think they apply to you more or less than to others. It's not meant to describe only the most dedicated enthusiasts like cinephile would. Pretty much everyone will regularly watch movies or listen to music. The same is not true for video games.

That's... a different conversation altogether? I mean, if I'm understanding you right, you're correct that the money raked in by stuff like Assassin's Creed allows to fund the smaller, artsier stuff like Child of Light and Valiant Hearts. But that's not what we're talking about here.

The thing is, casual is already used to describe people that play nothing but stuff like Bejeweled, hidden object games or facebook games. Nothing against Bejeweled, mind you. Fun game, but a casual one. I'm willing to label those people casual gamers. Not because they play those games but because they play nothing but those games. They'd never own an actual gaming console. Maybe they bought a Wii once but they haven't touched it since they got sick of Wii Bowling. Something being "mainstream" doesn't make it casual and neither does sticking to those bigger titles. And you're seriously overestimating the mainstream here, by the way. Few big game franchises are truly mainstream. GTA would be one, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who's at least heard about it on the news. The Last of Us and BioShock definitely aren't, though. I know tons of people who play COD but have never even heard of Bioshock. You really think those people know about Dark Souls or an exclusive like TLoU? Gaming is becoming more mainstream, yes, but a lot of it is still very niche outside of enthusiast communities like this one. Shit, even here there's people who have never played a Platinum game. So fucking what? You're a gamer if you play video games enough to own a gaming system. Simple as that. Some people are more passionate about certain hobbies than others, who cares. There's no need for arbitrary distinctions of who's a real gamer and who isn't. That's just being elitist. And we most definitely don't need that. This is the Hate out of Ten thread all over again. You're using your own personal views to needlessly draw arbitrary lines that either aren't or shouldn't be there.

Don't assume people are offended just because they disagree with you. It's possible they just think you're being ridiculous. Please explain to me how Bioshock (or Call of Duty, for that matter) is casual. You can't say random shit like that without explaining yourself because clearly we're working on different definitions of casual here...

Hahahahahaha, no. No, it doesn't. Besides, Bioshock might be a big deal to us but it's hardly as mainstream outside of gaming circles as you might think. If someone knows about and played Bioshock, they're hardly "casual" gamers. Thinking harder about games doesn't make you more of a gamer and neither does seeking out obscure titles. Cut that pretentious crap.

I think I would be qualified to seriously critique games of I knew more about art criticism in general (literature, film, etc, symbolism and whatnot). As is it's not that I think I'm not smart enough, I just don't have the background knowledge to discuss it in much depth. Pretty much this. When I say "not smart enough" I really mean not knowledgeable enough rather than inability to understand.

Yeah, no. I tried and couldn't take more than 10 or so hours. I do think that it says a lot about the game that the only people I ever see defending it seem to not have liked Origins at all. There's trying to appeal to a wider audience and then there's completely alienating your initial audience.

I never finished Wild Arms 1 but I found it to be an enjoyable JRPG. You can't really go wrong for 99 cents, honestly.

That's weird... Yeah, some PSOne and PSP games aren't on the Vita store because they might have some issues. Most of them seem to work just fine but I know MGS isn't on the Vita store because it has a pretty serious audio glitch. I really hope they fix those emulation problems at some point.

That's your own preference, though. The concept of "better" can still be objective. Just depends how you look at it. I'd never seriously suggest you're wrong for liking DA2 more than DA:O. I would argue with you all day if you claimed DA2 is better than DA:O, though. It can be subjectively more fun for some but it's unarguably a rushed and lazily made game. And that's a big part of the problem with DA2 right there. If Dragon Age: Origins is "pure tactical bliss", then don't you see how there's a massive problem with the way Dragon Age II turned out? Dragon Age II cannot be judged on its own merit because it's a sequel to a game that was "pure tactical bliss". It's the very definition of dumbed down, to the point where it might as well have been a different IP altogether. I mean, it's fine to adjust and refine in an effort to appeal to more people. See Mass Effect. The sequels disappointed me but they're still alright games and are admittedly better made. They retain enough of the spirit of the original and I understand why they turned out the way they did. But DA2 stripped away pretty much everything that made people love Origins so much.

Well, it still affects the ending you get. You just don't get to make the final decision yourself. But yeah, I get what you're saying. I'm with you there. I'm not trying to suggest I'm anywhere near smart enough to make the kind of criticism I've been describing. I just enjoy reading/watching it. I've mentioned it before but check out Errant Signal on youtube if you haven't. That guy knows his stuff and he's way smarter than me. That's the stuff I'm talking about, not SuperGoku69 going on a rant on Neogaf because he thought Resident Evil 6 was so very bad. I've only seen a few eps but they were pretty good. Not quite the same thing I thought we were discussing but whatever, maybe I just haven't seen the right ones. But Anthony Burch is a smart guy, yeah. I've seen a vid of a lecture he did at some uni a while back, dude knows his stuff.

Yeah, like I said, oversimplification. I wouldn't take seriously someone complaining about HUD elements any more than I would someone saying any of those examples. Choices not having an impact isn't really what ludonarrative dissonance is. Well, maybe it is in some way, I'm not an expert on the concept. But my understanding of it is it's when the story is saying one thing and the mechanics are saying the opposite. Uncharted is more of a funny/weird contrast because Drake still cracks jokes as if he hadn't just murdered three dozen guys in the last 20mins. But it doesn't really contradict the story, it's Indiana Jones. Yeah, he's gonna fight people. It's just that it's a shooter, so yeah, the amount of people he fights and kills is going to be ridiculously disproportionate. Indiana Jones doesn't get all bummed out over killing a few nazis but he didn't kill literally hundreds of them over the span of a trilogy. A better example would be the new Tomb Raider. The story is all about Lara being weak and innocent and gradually becoming the Lara we're already familiar with. But in-game it's pretty much a switch that gets flipped, she gets a gun and right away starts mowing down dudes by the dozen. Then you get a cutscene and she feels bad about killing a deer or is all scared because bad guys all over the place. Then gameplay starts again and she literally screams "I'M COMING TO GET YOU ALL!!!". That's a more stark contradiction. edit: I probably shouldn't play my Vita sitting at my desk. I'm trying to start Ys: Memories of Celceta but I just keep refreshing this thread instead. I've literally been in the tutorial for like an hour and a half...

As opposed to discussions about... what? It's a hobby, discussing it is as healthy as anything else. What might not be healthy is obsessing over it to the point of getting furious about asinine shit. Making thoughtful criticism of games isn't obsessing and neither is discussing them between enthusiasts. I spend more time thinking and talking about games because they're my favorite form of art/entertainment and I know more about them than I do about movies or music. But I like to look at those other two in the same way. A proper film analysis can be pretty damn interesting to read or watch.

Not everyone is a programmer, game designer or musician or filmmaker. What's your point? Just because you're not going to make a work of art yourself hardly means you shouldn't criticize them. Some people study those things and never go on to make them. Their interest in them is purely academic. How is a medium supposed to improve if no one ever voices their problems with it? Again, what you're saying just strikes me as intellectually lazy. Analysis isn't useless, looking at and thinking about things academically isn't useless. And just to be clear, I don't mean the average gamer here. Those guys tend to be idiots who have no idea what they're talking about. You're not going to find thoughtful game analysis on reddit. I mean smart people who are actually thinking critically about games and writing books about it. Dismissing those people as "whiny nerds" says more about you than it does about them... It's not about "becoming art". That very concept is absolutely ridiculous. Things don't become art. They are or they aren't. It's about mainstream acceptance, not some kind of binary state. Movies were always art, even before Citizen Kane and Casablanca and what have you. They just became widely accepted as art, no one flipped a switch. I've never watched that. It sounds like more of a talk show. Again, when I talk about real game criticism I don't mean the fucking IGN podcast here. That shit is worthless, no argument there. But creators are hardly the only ones with insightful things to say about their own work.

Analyzing doesn't mean comparing everything together. I'm not sure where you got that from. And it's not just about tearing it down, either. If you go to the trouble of analyzing something then it must be doing some things right otherwise why would you even bother? As for not analyzing things that don't mean to be analyzed, well that's just irrelevant. Creators don't get a say in whether or not their work is placed under scrutiny. And their intended meaning is hardly the only one that has value to it.

I don't get people who feel the need to be so defensive about games. I mean, shit, I love games too but that doesn't make them above criticism. You do realize it's fine to criticize something you love, right? That's a massive oversimplification and you know it. Immersion is about more than just any one element, it's about believing enough in the fake world you're spending time in to "forget" that it's fake. Suspension of disbelief is another way to look at it. It's like watching a movie and the acting is so bad you can't take it seriously anymore. Why in the name of fuck would you want to limit what people can think about? If people can look for messages and hidden meanings in Michael Bay movies, of all fucking things, then they can do so in games too. It's fine if you don't care about it but to suggest it shouldn't be done at all? I don't even know what to say to that... It's just intellectually lazy. I don't know where you stand on the whole "games are/aren't art" thing but if we want games to be taken seriously then we need to start thinking about them seriously at some point. Cinema started out in a place much like where games are today. How do you think it made the jump to becoming a respected art form? A great work isn't enough, there needs to be people to think about and analyze that work. The people talking about ludonarrative dissonance are doing just that. And I mean people who actually understand it and do proper analysis of games, not just idiots on reddit who are trying to sound smart.

I'm not one to needlessly hate on FFXIII, it wasn't the greatest but I enjoyed it for what it was. But you are out of your goddamned mind, son! Dragon Age: Origins was better than FFXIII. It was better than Skyrim (I mean, what game wasn't???). It was better than Uncharted 3!

Immersion isn't a buzzword, what are you on about? Lack of immersion can kill a game pretty quickly, especially exploration-based ones like RPGs. Also, cognitive dissonance is a very real psychological concept. I think you meant ludonarrative dissonance? Also not a buzzword. Not exactly something to brag about. I can already see the bullet points on the back of the box: Side quests! Guns! Game mechanics completely at odds with the narrative!