Video & PC Game Discussion

J-Man wrote: TheProgtologist wrote: I really like free roam sandbox games so I hold Rockstar in the highest esteem.I just hope the next Grand Theft Auto game will be a little better than IV.I liked IV,but they concentrated so much on creating a very detailed,realistic world that in doing so sacrificed some of the fun elements from the past games.   I liked the 2 expansions,Lost & The Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony more than the game they are expansions of.   In RDR ,the world is realistic and very detailed but there are so many fun things to do besides the main story.I spent countless hours simply hunting in the game,I got really serious about it,and made quite a bit of money from skinning.I also really dug bounty hunting,gambling & playing horseshoes and such,collecting all the items you needed for different suits,along with all the countless other things you could do.Very deep game. Jody, do you subscribe to Game Informer Magazine? They had an issue this month where one of their writers criticized RDR for being "too big", something I find pretty absurd. If you don't want to go hunting, gambling, or do side missions - you don't have to! You have freedom to do what you choose, and that's possibly my favorite thing about the game. BTW, are there any other open-world games similar to GTA/RDR or Saints Row that you would recommend that's on 360, Xbox, Gamecube, or PS2?

Yes, Robert. I believe I remember us discussing this in the past, but I always enjoy touching upon it again. (And we've gotten to the point where you're calling me by my screenname, now? lol)

Epignosis wrote: I have a question for you gamers (particularly GTA players)- something I was thinking about for a while: Video games- no matter what kind- appeal to our sense of fantasy, whether we play the role of a WW2 soldier or an Italian plumber.  Games like GTA provide the fantasy of criminality.  It is just a game, however, and no one is really getting murdered.  Sure you ran over 12 civilians and shot 11 policemen, but it's just a game, and these sprites don't really have grieving families to mourn their loss.  Yet you get the satisfaction of being a bloodthirsty murderer. I have not played GTA (after 2) but I've watched my brother play them.  Yes, I think getting more health by banging a hooker is bizarre, but no more bizarre, I suppose, as gathering hearts.  But if I recall, there are no (obvious) children in the game.  And if there were children, would they be invincible from your hail of gunfire?  Why should they be?  Would it be acceptable for a company to release a game where the object is to go to your high school and kill as many students and staff members as possible? Or, since this was mentioned in the news a few months back, what do you think about games that simulate rape?  Legally, murder is a worse crime than rape, but it would seem most folk frown upon such a game more than one that allows you to take the lives of bystanders.  Something must be "sick" or "wrong" with people who play rape video games, but nothing is "sick" or "wrong" with people who play games that simulate mass murder. Is this an absurd double standard in the video game industry, or is there some reason it is the way it is? I know JLocke and I talked about this once before.  So, your thoughts?

It is indeed true that video games generally don't let you kill children -- all children in Fallout 3 are labeled as "Essential" characters, meaning they cannot be injured or killed. It is again done for ratings reasons: major retailers will not carry AO (Adults Only -- the highest rating the ESRB will give) games, so an AO rating is considered a death sentence.

Now, I think there are 3 questions here: first, whether the ESRB should consider some actions in video games more egregious than others (in this case, rape and murder of children); second, what actions should be considered sufficiently heinous to warrant higher ratings; and third, whether the de-facto ban on AO-rated games is justified.

Now, for the answer to the first question, I think most people will agree that the ESRB should make the delineation between those games with content appropriate for different ages groups. JLocke hit that one well enough. That's not to say, however, that it should be taken too far. Gaming is play. We acknowledge that it's play in taking part. We're not witnessing a world, we're inventing it. Who didn't play cops-'n-robbers or cowboys-'n-Indians as a child? You shot your friends and they died. You got in sword fights and stabbed them to death. You killed them in all kinds of creative ways (water balloon grenades, carboard box fort collapse, etc). And at the end of they day, you didn't end up a serial killer because it wasn't real and you never thought it was.

To the second question, I think the ESRB is way off base. First, f**king prudish Americans. Is a pair of digitized breasts really so evil that it warrants an AO rating while mowing down defenseless civilians and selling children into slavery is just fine? Idiocy. At the risk of spoilers, you can sell children into slavery in Fallout 3, but you can't kill them. God forbid we save them from a miserable existence in the Wasteland. People at the ESRB have some pretty f**ked-up priorities.

As for the third, I'm sure you can guess that I'm tired of the bullsh*t surrounding games. Gaming has been around almost 40 years. That 17-year-old kid dumping coins into the Pong machine is now 55. The average age of a gamer is somewhere in his mid thirties according to the ESA. Somehow, games are still made for children. I suppose the gaming industry does it to itself, though. Rare is the game with a serious discussion of a moral situation. Everything's a summer blockbuster, replete with explosions and self-importance.

JLocke wrote: ^ I would argue though that games such as Heavy Rain are beginning to change the direction of mainstream gaming, and the really involved RTS games like Civilization have always been the thinking man's game.  I get what you are saying, but there are exceptions, however few they may be.

There have been examples peppered though gaming history. Xenogears in 1998, Planescape: Torment in 1999, The Witcher in 2007, and Heavy Rain in 2009. The problem is that in this 12-year period, we've seen 4 examples in a sea of probably 1400 games. We'd only be able to host a gaming Cannes once per decade.

JLocke wrote: But why is it that bad of a notion that video games aren't art? I mean, do they have to be in order for us to enjoy them? No. They are works of entertainment first and foremost.

Every form of art is first entertainment.

JLocke wrote: I disagree. And you haven't answered my question.

That is my answer to your question. Literature is storytelling. The visual arts are aesthetically-pleasing pictures. Music has no inherent message. All art is entertainment first and never ceases to be entertainment. There is just occasion for it to become more than merely entertainment.


Edited by Gamemako - October 07 2010 at 13:58

Gamemako wrote: JLocke wrote: I disagree. And you haven't answered my question. That is my answer to your question. Literature is storytelling. The visual arts are aesthetically-pleasing pictures. Music has no inherent message. All art is entertainment first and never ceases to be entertainment. There is just occasion for it to become more than merely entertainment.

JLocke wrote: Gamemako wrote: JLocke wrote: I disagree. And you haven't answered my question. That is my answer to your question. Literature is storytelling. The visual arts are aesthetically-pleasing pictures. Music has no inherent message. All art is entertainment first and never ceases to be entertainment. There is just occasion for it to become more than merely entertainment. You answered a part of my post that was rhetorical. The actual question I was asking was why is it so terrible that video games are not art? I keep seeing people get up in arms over this, but I don't see why it should matter. And I've seen and heard plenty of entertainment that isn't intended to be art, and the reverse is also true. Naked City's ''Leng Tch'e'' is clearly an artistic endeavor, yet is agony to listen to. And don't throw that 'art is subjective' argument at me in this case-- it's obvious that the musicians deliberately made something that was misery in music form. Very artistic in its concept, but not very 'entertaining' to listen to.  But setting that aside, I still want to know . . . so what if games aren't art? What is wrong with that?

Just a quick question... how are video games not art?

J-Man wrote: Epignosis wrote: I have a question for you gamers (particularly GTA players)- something I was thinking about for a while: Video games- no matter what kind- appeal to our sense of fantasy, whether we play the role of a WW2 soldier or an Italian plumber.  Games like GTA provide the fantasy of criminality.  It is just a game, however, and no one is really getting murdered.  Sure you ran over 12 civilians and shot 11 policemen, but it's just a game, and these sprites don't really have grieving families to mourn their loss.  Yet you get the satisfaction of being a bloodthirsty murderer. I have not played GTA (after 2) but I've watched my brother play them.  Yes, I think getting more health by banging a hooker is bizarre, but no more bizarre, I suppose, as gathering hearts.  But if I recall, there are no (obvious) children in the game.  And if there were children, would they be invincible from your hail of gunfire?  Why should they be?  Would it be acceptable for a company to release a game where the object is to go to your high school and kill as many students and staff members as possible? Or, since this was mentioned in the news a few months back, what do you think about games that simulate rape?  Legally, murder is a worse crime than rape, but it would seem most folk frown upon such a game more than one that allows you to take the lives of bystanders.  Something must be "sick" or "wrong" with people who play rape video games, but nothing is "sick" or "wrong" with people who play games that simulate mass murder. Is this an absurd double standard in the video game industry, or is there some reason it is the way it is? I know JLocke and I talked about this once before.  So, your thoughts? Here's another thought - Rape in movies or books is not extremely frowned upon by the public - so why should it be banished from video games? Don't get me wrong - I have no interest in playing a game where the main objective is to go around raping people. However, I fail to see why anything that involves sexual violence is considered worse than murder. Isn't the taking of a human life worse than raping somebody? With that said, I still fail to understand all the ruckus about violent video games. It's rare to hear people complain about sadistically violent books, but any video game that's violent (even in a lighter atmosphere) is considered to be worse on a bigger scale. Its interactive nature is "seemingly" worse, but people still can't realize that it's just a game. I've killed thousands of virtual nazis and zombies, and I'm a perfectly happy person. Well... unless a n00b is really getting on my nerves.

Good point.

I went to a Christian college for a year. 

You were not permitted to watch rated R movies and you had to get permission to watch anything else (as I recall).  However, I read about 6 Stephen King novels that year (I can also point you to some pretty "unacceptable" stuff in the Bible).

But you get my point.

Our sense of what is acceptable and what isn't is pretty baffling on all side.  For conservative Christians, the use of magic or profanity in a medium is unacceptable.  For feminists, women as "sex objects" in a medium is unacceptable.  And then you get all manner of shades in between.

Very strange culture indeed.

JLocke wrote: J-Man wrote: JLocke wrote: Gamemako wrote: JLocke wrote: I disagree. And you haven't answered my question. That is my answer to your question. Literature is storytelling. The visual arts are aesthetically-pleasing pictures. Music has no inherent message. All art is entertainment first and never ceases to be entertainment. There is just occasion for it to become more than merely entertainment. You answered a part of my post that was rhetorical. The actual question I was asking was why is it so terrible that video games are not art? I keep seeing people get up in arms over this, but I don't see why it should matter. And I've seen and heard plenty of entertainment that isn't intended to be art, and the reverse is also true. Naked City's ''Leng Tch'e'' is clearly an artistic endeavor, yet is agony to listen to. And don't throw that 'art is subjective' argument at me in this case-- it's obvious that the musicians deliberately made something that was misery in music form. Very artistic in its concept, but not very 'entertaining' to listen to.  But setting that aside, I still want to know . . . so what if games aren't art? What is wrong with that?  Just a quick question... how are video games not art? I'm not saying certain individual games aren't artistic, but are video games themselves an art form? I have never thought of them as such. Most of the time, you are controlling blips on a screen, aiming at beating the game or obtaining the high score, and such. It makes it much more of a competitive medium, and while art crosses over into that, I've always seen games as being something of a sport that doesn't require much physical activity.

No, not all games are highly artistic. Games like Pong or Pac Man aren't very artistic at all. But it's still art.

Compare it to music, for example. Music is art. But people like Britney Spears and Justin Bieber dominate the music scene. Is their music artistic? No. But music is still art.

Compare it to literature. Literature is art. Is Green Eggs and Ham artistic? No. But literature is still art.

The same concept can be applied to any form of art... why should video games be any different?