The voices in my head told me to make a Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice thread - by Thirith
van HellSing on 9/10/2017 at 20:59
So did I. It's not a really great *game,* but it's a great experience. I absolutely love the concept of the aesthetic - the world as seen by a Caledonian girl fed Norse mythology by a half-crazed scholar, and for some reason I couldn't help coming back to the sea of corpses segment. The sort of trance-like tranquil fury it inspired thanks to a combination of visuals, music and gameplay is something I rarely experienced in games, save for maybe something like Hotline Miami, as bizarre as that comparison might seem.
Starker on 10/10/2017 at 03:26
Quote Posted by Thirith
I finished
Hellblade and would definitely recommend it to anyone who can forgive a game for being mediocre
as a game if it does interesting things with mood, atmosphere and storytelling.
Quote Posted by van HellSing
So did I. It's not a really great *game,* but it's a great experience.
Shirley, video games are more by now than merely the extension of games onto a video screen?
There are even board games that have a focus on aesthetics and the experience rather than on game mechanics.
Thirith on 10/10/2017 at 05:13
Shirley, not everyone who plays games is looking for experiences. For some, gameplay and gameplay only is king. It only seems fair to try to give people an idea of what expects them.
Mr.Duck on 10/10/2017 at 05:38
I, for one, was, and certainly got it. Thus, for me, it was a great game.
<3
Also...
[video=youtube;n0oR_F4Jxuk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0oR_F4Jxuk[/video]
(Video may contain spoilers, you have been warned)
Heart melting, gah...
Starker on 10/10/2017 at 08:01
Quote Posted by Thirith
Shirley, not everyone who plays games is looking for experiences. For some, gameplay and gameplay only is king. It only seems fair to try to give people an idea of what expects them.
The point is more that games are not necessarily defined by their gameplay. Otherwise, if games are judged based on how "gamey" they are, it paints a very narrow view of the medium. A lot of great games have mediocre gameplay, like Silent Hill 2.
It's like films are judged not only by their cinematography, but also by the characters and the dialogue and the plot and the music. And yes, not all people are looking for those things. For some, cinematography and cinematography only is king. And these people can have their pure cinema in films like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka.
All that said, though, my real point is that there's no need to apologise for Hellblade or to look at it as a sort of an interesting failure when it succeeds on so many fronts.
Mr.Duck on 10/10/2017 at 08:39
Couldn't have said it better myself, Starker.
<3
Sulphur on 11/10/2017 at 16:50
Quote Posted by Starker
The point is more that games are not necessarily defined by their gameplay. Otherwise, if games are judged based on how "gamey" they are, it paints a very narrow view of the medium. A lot of great games have mediocre gameplay, like Silent Hill 2.
It's like films are judged not only by their cinematography, but also by the characters and the dialogue and the plot and the music. And yes, not all people are looking for those things. For some, cinematography and cinematography only is king. And these people can have their pure cinema in films like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka.
All that said, though, my real point is that there's no need to apologise for Hellblade or to look at it as a sort of an interesting failure when it succeeds on so many fronts.
So I had to dust off my login credentials for this: I don't disagree with what you're saying, but what you're saying is also just sliding towards the the opposite end of the spectrum of the argument with no room for a more balanced take.
There are certain expectations everyone has of video games, which is a base level of game-ness that is usually non-negotiable. Let's say you go to watch a movie at a theatre. You buy your ticket, get your popcorn, find your seat. The lights go down, the soundtrack fades in, but there's nothing happening on the screen: ten minutes in you realise that either there's a technical issue at the projection booth, or someone's hustled you into experiencing a radio play instead of a movie. Either way, it's unpleasant.
With video games, especially the kind of video game Hellblade tries to sell itself as, if there are in fact sequences that require user skill to negotiate successfully - set patterns of stimulus leading to prescribed reactions within a certain window of time - these can be universally appraised as executed well, or not so well. And that's a fair criticism of both Hellblade's combat and its early 'run to the exit' sequences. Were they thematically apt? Absolutely. Were they properly designed and sign-posted? Sure, but subjectively -- only to a decent extent most of the time.
Does Hellblade do other things well? Absolutely. As a player of it, though, what are my expectations? Well, I'm a contradictory ass, so while I want its skill-based gameplay to be tight and predictable, I also want it to be novel and locked-in thematically to explore the dimensions of its themes -- which it does only to a certain extent. Past a certain point, there's nothing new to be gleaned, and things become tedious. Is that a comment on the protagonist's state of mind? Sure, we can say it was authored that way, that was the point. But what did we learn from it?
You know, it's interesting that you bring up Silent Hill 2. That's a game on my top 10 list of games, and in terms of gameplay, its
mechanics were rote, but its
execution wasn't. SH2 is a game that monitors how you do things up to a certain extent - how often do you look at certain items in your inventory? How often do you heal up? What are the things you choose not to do? Those things help the game decide what ending you get. From a sheer design perspective, it was novel, remains novel, and somehow these things manage to enhance the core story instead of detracting from it (well, except the things you do to get the UFO and dog endings). And yet: yes, its combat was shitty, some of its puzzles were silly, and all that could have been better.
Hellblade deserves its accolades, but it also deserves to be held up to the design standards it brings to the table. If a movie has shitty editing and cinematography, its other elements had better pull double their weight to make up for it. Hellblade manages this feat, yes, but at the same time you can't ignore its flaws because, by virtue of the fact that it's a video game, the flaws are in integral parts of the experience. The combat never stopped feeling off, and its puzzles never stopped seeming just a little contrived in a way that didn't actually help its story. Instead of enhancing the story, they manage to detract just that much from it, and that means there's room for it to be better -- and it can only be better if it is appraised by virtue of how its component parts come together, or not.
I'm not going to be back to jaw about this, but that's just one of my longstanding viewpoints, whether you agree or disagree with it. Have a good discussion, folks.
Starker on 11/10/2017 at 17:17
Oh, I'm not saying that you should overlook a game's flaws. By all means, it's perfectly fair to criticise Hellblade's gameplay. That's a different thing entirely.
Thirith on 11/10/2017 at 17:51
But you should also be able to say, "Look, if you like slow, moody sci-fi with a philosophical slant, you should check out Blade Runner. If the only sci-fi films you like are Star Wars and Aliens? Perhaps Blade Runner isn't your cup of tea." That's not making excuses for it, that's giving people an idea of what to expect.
Starker on 11/10/2017 at 18:45
The point I'm making is not that it's wrong to criticise Hellblade's gameplay, it's that the gameplay is not the be-all and end-all of it. Blade Runner is a very flawed movie, but if Blade Runner's flaws don't make Blade Runner a mediocre movie, then why should Hellblade's gameplay flaws make it a mediocre game?
IMO, there's no need to describe games like Silent Hill 2 being "mediocre as a game, but it does interesting things with mood, atmosphere and storytelling". Rather, in my mind, it's a superb game with great mood, atmosphere and storytelling, even if it has pedestrian but serviceable game mechanics.
I guess what I'm getting at is that gameplay can be a tool, rather than the end goal. And it doesn't have to be the tool either.