Tony_Tarantula on 29/3/2021 at 17:54
So...
I'm in that group that some of you all are getting angry on behalf of and am pretty strongly anti-war.
Let me put it this way. I wouldn't play it, but I find this type of game far less distasteful than sanitized power-fantasies about the War on Terror. Games like this, Spec Ops, and ARMA I can stand to mess with. Call of Duty type games I avoid entirely because after you've seen people on your team killed the way those games portray it is entirely crass.
Jeshibu on 30/3/2021 at 10:45
Quote Posted by DaBeast
So either I agree with you or I'm literally Hitler, nice, fair and balanced, not at all reactionary.
I must be literal Hitler because haven't viewed the not at all biased, premium grade, curated media? thats not at all insulting...
Yeah you're definitely arguing in good faith there, good job.
Quote Posted by DaBeast
With that logic, surely every game or film/tv series ought to be lambasted for the same reasons? Band of Brothers episodes opened with interviews from the soldiers who were there and they didn't kneel or beg forgiveness for bombing Dresden. Look. this amounts to engaging in whataboutisms and its futile at worst, self-serving at best. This game clearly isn't about the decisions that led to the 2nd Iraq war, it might only loosely feature decisions closer to the ground (like ordering "fighting age males back" out of fear of insurgents hiding among the civilians), its quite clearly, specifically, about the "marines' experiences" and trying to translate that into a video game...that features some replayability. If you watched the video and immediately envision MAGA hat neckbeards jerking off over it, that says more about you than the game.
If I didn't agree at all with the politics behind either Afghanistan or Iraq 2 would that surprise you? I know I'd feel a bit of a presumptuous twat :tsktsk:
You complain of whataboutisms and then whatabout Band of Brothers? A series where the main characters were never involved in anything that caused mass civilian death, let alone the bombing of Dresden?
You're right that the scope and framing basically prevents telling more nuanced stories than just those of the American troops on the ground, but that choice of scope and framing in itself is also political. What you consider normal or "our side" and what you focus on is political.
Quote Posted by DaBeast
Can those themes adequately be applied/explored in much bigger scale games? Arguably Spec Ops tried, I'm not sure how well it succeeded.
I was thinking more about how in all the Total War games they don't really bring up the horrible rape that tends to follow the pillaging etc. A game, much like a film, tends to have a narrower scope.
Is it the passing of time or general ignorance that leads us to stuff like 300, glamorizing a nation of child buggering slavers who gave zero shits about freedom unless it was their own (not much different to anyone else at the time, but still).
300, Total War and the like are not that big a deal because the political situations they depict don't really influence current day politics (except maybe for people glorifying the perfect past that never existed, like fascists tend to do). I'm not sure Spec Ops succeeded either, if its message really landed with most people more than "whoa what a twist!" after spending a few hours getting sick headshots. I think the fun element takes some of the sting out of it, even if the game does try to guilt you for having fun.
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
So...
I'm in that group that some of you all are getting angry on behalf of and am pretty strongly anti-war.
Let me put it this way. I wouldn't play it, but I find this type of game far less distasteful than sanitized power-fantasies about the War on Terror. Games like this, Spec Ops, and ARMA I can stand to mess with. Call of Duty type games I avoid entirely because after you've seen people on your team killed the way those games portray it is entirely crass.
I think we'll continue to see pushes for more "gritty" games about war, while still being sanitized. One of the latest Call of Duty games had you raid a house and possibly shoot civilians. It's now about "yeah shit happens but they're individuals making mistakes/going crazy rather than systemic problems with warfare." The soldier shooting a civilian is either making a regrettable mistake or has gone crazy. The generals and presidents ordering the war are out of the picture, out of the blame being thrown around other than vague mutterings of the goddamn higher ups. The war itself is shown as just something that happens, or as righteous and just.
DaBeast on 30/3/2021 at 18:25
Quote Posted by Jeshibu
Yeah you're definitely arguing in good faith there, good job.
You complain of whataboutisms and then whatabout Band of Brothers? A series where the main characters were never involved in anything that caused mass civilian death, let alone the bombing of Dresden?
You're right that the scope and framing basically prevents telling more nuanced stories than just those of the American troops on the ground, but that choice of scope and framing in itself is also political. What you consider normal or "our side" and what you focus on is political.
Technically it was the other way around, which is why I framed it that way. An attempt to question the acceptance in certain types of media. I guess I could have just asked his thoughts on gritty realistic tv shows, like BoB, is it acceptable to just sit back and enjoy the gritty realism? If so, is it as equally unacceptable for games, irrelevant now I suppose.
What you're suggesting is that every decision a developer makes is on some form of left/right political scale? Swat 4 featured the ability to beat up civilians and effectively be reprimanded for it, iirc it amounted to a reduced score, which wasn't very realistic, but serves its purpose both as an attempt to coral the player into being moral whilst working within the context of a game.
Does this mean they were trivialising the fight against police brutality or does it mean they were trying to making a videogame and did what they could to both make it realistic and at least in some way balanced? Where their personal politics on display at all thematic levels?
I would understand if 6 Days was a junk bargain bin game like I said earlier, I just don't think it is and the reaction on the first page was more likely a result of the currentyear outrage fetishism that broke commchat. For christs sake, it was a teaser. We don't know if its going to be all "Support the Troops" when it could be more Generation Kill.
Arguments about developer ignorance is one thing and likely valid, I disagree about intent and in particular its politics. I think I was trying to be reasonable and balanced since it's just a teaser for a game that isn't out yet. Or perhaps I merely reacted to what I perceived as reactionary, which makes me just as reactionary, I definitely reacted to thinly veiled insults. Maybe I'm a centre-left dinosaur and ought to just accept that everything is political and if you don't voice the right opinions or argue an alternative you
get subjeff'd lose.
Quote:
I think we'll continue to see pushes for more "gritty" games about war, while still being sanitized. One of the latest Call of Duty games had you raid a house and possibly shoot civilians. It's now about "yeah shit happens but they're individuals making mistakes/going crazy rather than systemic problems with warfare." The soldier shooting a civilian is either making a regrettable mistake or has gone crazy. The generals and presidents ordering the war are out of the picture, out of the blame being thrown around other than vague mutterings of the goddamn higher ups. The war itself is shown as just something that happens, or as righteous and just.
No Russian is still affects me to the point where I actually shoot over the npc's heads if at all. Friends just saw it as a game and mowed everyone down because 'lol they aren't real'. The question of Infinity Ward's motivation remains and I suspect it was equal parts to shake things up, make some noise and get attention, but also crafted to make the player actually sit back and think about what they're doing, even if only for a moment. Could be crediting them too much.
Now it seems they're just trying to one-up themselves because it's expected?
Developer intent is rarely discussed as it would be with a controversial film that seems to automatically gain artistic license. What we end up with is more marketing wank about upping the ante and making it more visceral experience or some shit.
Tony_Tarantula on 15/4/2021 at 13:38
Quote Posted by Jeshibu
Yeah you're definitely arguing in good faith there, good job.
You complain of whataboutisms and then whatabout Band of Brothers? A series where the main characters were never involved in anything that caused mass civilian death, let alone the bombing of Dresden?
You're right that the scope and framing basically prevents telling more nuanced stories than just those of the American troops on the ground, but that choice of scope and framing in itself is also political. What you consider normal or "our side" and what you focus on is political.
300, Total War and the like are not that big a deal because the political situations they depict don't really influence current day politics (except maybe for people glorifying the perfect past that never existed, like fascists tend to do). I'm not sure Spec Ops succeeded either, if its message really landed with most people more than "whoa what a twist!" after spending a few hours getting sick headshots. I think the fun element takes some of the sting out of it, even if the game does try to guilt you for having fun.
I think we'll continue to see pushes for more "gritty" games about war, while still being sanitized. One of the latest Call of Duty games had you raid a house and possibly shoot civilians. It's now about "yeah shit happens but they're individuals making mistakes/going crazy rather than systemic problems with warfare." The soldier shooting a civilian is either making a regrettable mistake or has gone crazy. The generals and presidents ordering the war are out of the picture, out of the blame being thrown around other than vague mutterings of the goddamn higher ups. The war itself is shown as just something that happens, or as righteous and just.
Probably. The reality is that the following fact needs to be taken into consideration before ordering military actions: some level of civilian casualties are unavoidable in contemporary war because those battles aren't fought in near lines between cities anymore. They're fought extremely quickly, with extremely deadly weapons, In and around cities and infrastructure assets where people live, work, and commute. Such casualties can be significantly reduced but it will still happen, and overdoing it can actually make things worse because an insurgency will recognize your reluctance and begin using the local population as human shields by doing things like deliberately firing from crowds, religious buildings, or Occupied family homes.
One example: a common tactic(as in “favored”. The setup time limited frequency) in the major city nearest is was to instigate a protest, send one team into the crowd with weapons and another up on rooftops with camera equipment, and then start shooting from the crowd Forcing our commanders to decide between just taking fire and casualties without response or giving the Taliban footage of US Soldiers “firing into a peaceful crowd”.
The reality is that no video game can capture how nasty close quarters battle is. Our area was rural but some of the stories my acquaintances who were in Fallujah have are horrific. My CCE instructor was there and he has a story about busting into the back door of a building, catching the dude off guard, and shooting him in the face before the guy could shoot him. The bullet caused the guys face to sink in and he was so frozen by it that he didn't even realize he was being shot at from another room until the guy behind him pushed him out of the way.
Tony_Tarantula on 15/4/2021 at 13:42
Should that yeah. Some of this stuff does still bother me because when you've seen people die that way it doesn't seem cool anymore. I still won't play the games that make it “cool” like that and go for the Hollywood envy glam. I do occasionally play games like ARMA which are making a more good faith attempt to simulate or Spec Ops where there's a genuine attempt to have some literary value on the topics at hand
Red_Breast on 15/4/2021 at 16:21
I believe it was Jaime Griesemer (mentioned in the quote above) who was the sandbox guy on the first Halo and described Halo as "30 seconds of fun that happened over and over again".
I know Halo, at least on Legendary difficulty on the Xbox version, was one of the few games where sometimes I found myself in some sort of tunnelvision, enjoying those 30 seconds over and over again.
I vaguely recall Bungie hired him because he was a Myth modder.
BR4ZIL on 15/7/2021 at 21:05
They could go the route of the "Vietcong" FPS game and make a campaign where you play from "the other side" in a narrative way as well.
But that would require balls and maturity, since unlike Vietnam, making terrorists seem reasonable in their actions is beyond thinkable in most enviroments nowadays.
EvaUnit02 on 31/3/2023 at 20:47
Looks promising. I'd like to see some footage of a player commanding AI teammates, rather than MP co-op footage.
[video=youtube;WAcJh72PJiI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAcJh72PJiI[/video]
SD on 31/3/2023 at 21:55
Always wanting to see quality tactical shooters, and the theatre of the Middle East is a bizarrely neglected one in gaming, so the omens are good.
ZylonBane on 31/3/2023 at 22:46
Quote Posted by SD
the theatre of the Middle East is a bizarrely neglected one in gaming
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