And this is why I get uncomfortable when people try and tell me Joel had every right to murder the firefiles and lie to Ellie about it. Why lie about it if it was the right thing to do? Because it risks him losing Ellie. He's not protecting her out of morality, she's his emotional blanket, his replacement daughter and her knowing what he did would risk her leaving him. This is selfish and manipulative and yes, heartbreaking, but more for Ellie and the situation she's left in at the end of the game.
That comment makes me think of how The Last of Us is like Taxi Driver in that way. A work that makes you sympathize with the character it follows early on, then betrays that trust later with it's protagonists selfish actions. But you'll still find people (especially on the internet, in my experience) who think Travis Bickle is a hero for "taking out the filth". It's all sort of related to what the ideas behind what Dan gets at when he's on the toilet :)
So there's no room for empathy in your view? Just black and white, truth and lie. Emotional manipulation or weakness? And aren't they about to murder Ellie, right?
Hotline Miami is an important one to me, being the first time (maybe the only time) I can remember feeling nauseous over what I had done in a game. I had to turn it off and go for a walk and think about just why I was attracted to and repulsed by that neon-cocaine wonderhell. I really treasure the game for that.
I always appreciated it for being a game where I could not exactly say I enjoyed the gameplay, but also thought it was really good and had to keep playing it.
There is another reading of the violence in hotline miami by errant signal which I believe is closer to the author's intent But Folding idea's is actually pretty good - but Errant signal has a lot more indicators to point towards how hotline miami is about necessity of narrative in video games - and deconstructing it
Neon-cocaine wonderhell is the best description I've ever heard of for Hotline Miami. The moment at the end of each level where you walk back though your carnage really makes your actions sink in emotionally in a way most games shy away from, it really hits home for me.
Because Player killed as Joel So all his kills are justified. Those "gamers" wont See it any other way, ever. You killed bad guys, how else could that work.
This is why I love the Metal Gear series so much, if you never played it give it a shot, in almost every game there's an achievement if you didn't kill anybody. Which is basically hammering the idea "Even though you're tasked to complete this mission, you didn't have to kill anybody, you're killing because you think you're expected to kill everybody, you're being told that these people are evil, but you could've finished this mission by being as covert as it's intended, but instead you killed them and in turn you're no better than them". I wish Kojima nothing but the best.
@Danny BRITZMAN It's a game that rewards stealth while also allowing freedom of expression; you can play it however you want. So... your response sounds to me like the response of somebody who didn't really attempt to understand the game and instead wanted to shit on it no matter what.
@Danny BRITZMAN I mean... that's just dumb. You can't analyze a game like it's a book; it's not a book. It has its own structure and nuances; it can do things a book can't, and a book can do things a game can't. MGS3 allows you the freedom to play however you want (within reason), and there's some morality baked in to both the gameplay and the narrative. I don't see how you can think that's objectively bad. There's no right way to play it, but there's a more rewarding way to play it... although I'm sure mileage varies. It's just odd to criticize a game for allowing for more nuance than most other games; I'd think you'd either think it interesting that it's doing something other games aren't, or you'd not care because you only value gameplay and for whatever reason aren't into the MGS style of game.
@Danny BRITZMAN I'm not sure I even understand the basis for your criticism. MGS doesn't have a morality mechanic. There's no karma slider or hammy plot choices, and if you don't care about points the choice is entirely up to you. Even if you do care about points, it's worth keeping in mind that whether you should kill someone or not isn't a simple y/n problem. Killing a person is the easy path, quickly and permanently getting them out of your way with no cost to the player except the knowledge they've taken a human life. Knocking a person out or sneaking past them is much harder, and means there will be far greater opposition if you're ever detected. So of all the games to criticize on the basis of having a bad morality system, I don't see how you could do it here. Seems to me that it's as good as it could possibly be without fundamentally changing the game to be about something else. The unspoken lesson is, in my mind, one of the most valuable things a game can communicate to a player. That being: "Doing the right thing can be difficult and require sacrifice, and it's up to you to decide if you think that's worth it. While it may be difficult to achieve or even just to see, there is a righteous path." What would muddy the waters and cheapen this lesson would be if they forced you to kill someone, or made it some stupid binary choice where whether you're good or evil is just which button you press. For the record, I don't really like MGS. I've only beaten MGS2 when I was younger, and I keep trying to get into it but they just don't pull me in like they do for other people. I don't really care if you call MGS a bad game, but this way of handling morality is pretty much the best way to do it. It reminds me of some of my own favorites, like Fallout 1 actually. I really want to know, how would you do it better? How is that shallow compared to the way most games handle morality? I also happen to enjoy analyzing art in detail, whatever form it may take. To my mind, whether a game is "fun" or not is secondary. I want to know what it's saying, and how it's method of expression affects the experience of the viewer. I hope you can appreciate that I'm not trying to argue with you here. I just really don't get where you're coming from.
Bioshock: Infinite's ending gets a lot worse when you've had time to think about it. On the surface, it symbolizes the desire to break the cycle of violence, but when you look at it more carefully, it's just another example of him trying to solve a problem by killing someone. The only difference is that rather than the violence being romanticized to the npcs in a transparent fashion the player is supposed to be able to see through, it's romanticized to the player instead.
I've heard it said in a great LP of the game by Bobbin Threadbare that the theme the game is trying to get across is this: "violence, while sometimes the only choice, is never a good choice."
My favorite game like this is MGS. The fewer people you kill, the higher your final score and rank. In MGS3 when you fight the Sorrow, the 'fight' is easier the fewer people you've killed up that point. In MGS4, if you kill enough people in a short amount of time (not sure how many seconds exactly), Snake stops in his tracks against the players control, throws up, and hears, in his head, Liquid Snake from MGS1 when he says, 'You enjoy all the killing.'
@Danny BRITZMAN Moral systems in real life are certainly complex, but they're not all "undefined;" in fact ethics has been pretty clearly defining them for the last 2000 years. If a game uses a mechanic to represent morality, maybe it's more interesting to ask "Okay, that means that this game subscribes to a certain moral belief system, what does it tell me about those beliefs, what arguments does it make to support them, do I find it persuasive or unpersuasive, etc. etc." instead of just saying that everything that doesn't agree with your personal belief system is "kinda shit."
@Danny BRITZMAN I see what you're saying! And I see where you're coming from too haha, it sounds like Metal Gear isn't too subtle about getting it's point across!
@Danny BRITZMAN It's still better than having no moral system altogether. Modelling all of the small nuances of morality is as impractical as having a gun that needs to be manually reloaded every time. It's beyond the point for most games (I do agree it could be interesting for a game to focus on either of those, but it's not a reasonable expectation for popular games). Most "heavy handed" moral systems try to do something like the one-click shoot/recharge by adding simple mechanics in order to add nuance to violence. Also, the "mathematically perfect" playthrough isn't something that most games should focus on when deciding their mechanics. Especially with respect to morality. Literally every game will eventually have an optimal solution for most mechanics, but most people won't care that much anyways. The intended play experience and the most often played path are what matters, not what it turns out to be "the most optimal" play pattern*. I do agree that the degree of development of moral systems is way underdeveloped when compared with competition and violence mechanics, and unfortunately they often end up as surrogate to competition and violence, which is one of the facts that makes them feel bad even if some of them do things right. If you look it through the eyes of a hammer, it'll look like a bad nail. Who cares if vomiting every three enemies killed makes you optimise the kill pattern? You're the one choosing to kill through that, and that's a moral decision too: You'll optimise killing even if it is inconvenient and you have an alternative. *As a side note, some of what would otherwise be called the "most optimal" play patterns are often not pursued even by people optimising a game. Some of them might be too boring (hence most speedruners don't focus on the any% category for most games) or too hard to consistently pull off (chess grandmasters often focus on more comfortable possible plays, which can contrast with machines playing chess going for "risky" plays because they are actually more optimal if you don't care for an uncomfortable position).
@Danny BRITZMAN Morality does have biological mechanics, we just aren't always aware of them. The instinct to root out cheaters is pretty basic, which makes sense for a species whose existence is predicated on social behavior. Furthermore, morality really comes into play in how we react to our actions, not our a priori intentions or unconsidered behavior, this is why wealth is corrupting - it hides you from consequence. Additionally, whether a game rewards you for killing, punishes you, or does nothing, all of them are moral choices the game itself is making. Morality is not an entirely internal process, it resides in how you process the moralities you interact with.
@Danny BRITZMAN First of all, "Why should morality be a mechanic" is a bit of an odd question in the context of games, since mechanics are the narrative language that is unique to games. A game that is devoid of morality in its mechanics could just as easily have conveyed that morality through the medium of film. I'm going to assume you meant "why should morality be a score". The answer to this, in the case of MGS, is that it actually isn't. While the final score of the game DOES factor in how many people you kill, it also factors in how often you were detected, how often alarms were raised, and how often you died. In essence, this system isn't scoring your morality, it's scoring how well you did at your job, since snake is generally a "spy" with instructions to leave no trace, and leaving bodies is one of the messiest traces you can leave. What this means for the morality in the game is that through this evaluation of the character's performance, it removes a common excuse for a person's violence: "I was only doing my job". However, in Metal Gear Solid, killing people is usually the easier option. So if you are killing people, it's either because you're bad at your job and taking the easy way out, or simply because you enjoy it. And while killing a LOT of people isn't "harder", you do you have to go out of your way to do so, meaning if you've killed most of the enemies in the game, it's probably for the latter reason. Additionally, the Metal Gear Solid games generally have a wealth of tools at the player's disposal for non-lethal runs. While using these tools is harder, it can be quite fun, and, for a lot of people, it's the more enjoyable way to play the game. This helps to reinforce non-violence because once the player does decide to go in that direction, it gives the message that non-violent systems can be just as enjoyable, or more, than their violent counterparts.
Hotline Miami has an interesting tidbit. The more you kill in a level the longer and more brutal your executions get. Which has the narrative effect of showing you how lost and blood-drunk Jacket gets and the gameplay effect of making it easier to get killed since you are immobile/vulnerable for longer.
There are actually other games that do it half halfheartedly, no game that goes as far as Undertale though. Like in persona you can negotiate with monsters so they will leave you alone, but you still need to kill some for exp to level. In Turok evolution some enemies will surrender when they have been sufficiently damaged.
Was it ham fisted about it? The most awkward part of it was trying to introduce the concept of not killing, just because we are so used to it in video games. Even games where your not supposed to kill. Look at the sims, people go out of their way to find creative ways to kill them off.
Indeed, the game does what it does, as bluntly as it does, because it has the advantage of having such a robust branching narrative. It can show you story path where you killed no one, and everything is great. On the other side, it can show you a path where you killed some people, and everything is less great. And on still a third hand, it can show a path where you kill everybody, and everything is awful. In most other games, the player rarely has the choice to not kill anyone. Even when they do, the story rarely differs substantially between different kinds of runs. This, then, creates a skewed perspective on killing; the story couldn't stray too heavily, so the differences are minor and shallow (save, of course, for the endings, which is usually where such differences in lethality are reflected). Undertale makes the decision to kill _anyone_ a substantive one. In Real Life, you aren't supposed to kill people. In another way it differs from most other games, Undertale seems to agree. It doesn't see Good and Evil as equally valid choices, like most games with moral choice systems do. And it lets the player know. The No Mercy path is as harsh and as "ham-fisted" as it is, because Undertale has already made a value judgement about the killing of its NPCs. It's bad, and the more you do it, the worse of a person you are. Actions have consequences, and choices matter. Undertale refuses to validate the No Mercy route by congratulating the player for pursuing it. It allows it to happen, but it's under no obligation to like it. This is further reflected in how the No Mercy route has an erratic, un-fun difficulty curve; the result of grinding levels in a game balanced around a level 1 run. It's fights are either boringly easy, or unfairly difficult. Undertale wants you to feel bad about Genocide. It doesn't want you to feel cool. It wants to make you suffer, like you've made its characters suffer. Some anvils need to be dropped.
Watching this after the backlash to Last Of Us Part II is nuts, you pointed out what the second game was pointing out before the second game even came out, people will come around on it, I'm sure
Except tLoU2's biggest problem is that it's ludonarratively dissonant: gameplay and story are in strong disagreement with each other. Who's to say that the random npc lady you blew up in the first day as Ellie was two weeks pregnant? And yet two days later, Ellie is shocked when she kills a visibly pregnant woman, but in a cutscene.
I've always read that scene as related to Ellie's desire for revenge vs. wanting to go home with her pregnant girlfriend. Ellie ruins the storybook ending for these two characters, and then sees Dina in the people she's killing. It's not telling the player killing pregnant ladies is bad, but a character moment for our lead character and helping to setup both the final ending and also that Ellie isn't going to stay with Dina in the farmhouse.
@@antoniomendes7961 You're right. Luckily, I heard they're going to release a new update where Ellie will go up to each body after killing them, conduct a quick autopsy, and then the game plays a newly recorded voice line: "Good thing this one wasn't pregnant. Now I feel good about myself. I would feel really sad if they were pregnant." For the final level, this is updated to "I still feel bad about that one pregnant woman I killed."
I actually made it through the entire Firefly Hospital in _The Last of Us_ without making a single kill. I realized, as soon as I saw the Fireflies in my way, that I didn't want to kill them. So... I didn't, and accomplishing this didn't even require 'cheating' for it: I entered the area on Hard difficulty, and the mechanical expressions the game afforded to me were robust enough for me to switch to a non-lethal playstyle without turning down the difficulty. That was really rewarding, and even though it didn't _actually_ change the ending, it made the final walkabout as Ellie feel much more positive.
The best example of an answer to the closing questions is metal gear solid 3. The game can be beaten with zero kills and still the themes of violence and war are addressed through the Sorrow boss level where the player is confronted with all the n.p.c's they may have otherwise killed. it's not a contradiction because it's themes are both generalized to the characters narrative and also specific to the gamers actions
Bioshock Infinite's ending would have worked better - in my mind, at least - if it had established that, no, not all Bookers in all timelines perpetuated cycles of violence. The idea of every potential version of Booker being violent killers is absurd; as if he had no choice in life but to be a monster. Humans are driven by their passions and their desires, but they aren't slaves to them. We're capable of self examination - the ability to recognize why we do what we do. And, through that conscious understanding, break free from those patterns. It's possible for us to change, no matter how hard that can be. If we assume that, it recontextualizes Bioshock Infinite into what it should have been: a Tragedy. Tragedies work by presenting a main character who could have achieved a happy ending, but did not because of their flaws. Hamlet could have avoided a bloodbath in the Danish monarchy if he'd been more decisive, for example, and Romeo and Juliet could have lived happily ever after if they had been less impulsive. The Tragedy of Booker and Comstock is that they had opportunities to break the cycle of violence, yet did not. Comstock is Tragic because he used his baptism to reject responsibilities for his misdeeds, rather than accepting them and resolving to be a more moral person. Booker is Tragic because he acknowledged his misdeeds, but gave up on being anything but a monster. Two versions of the same man. One who saw himself as Blameless, the other who saw himself as too Blameworthy to change.
I always thought it’s more of a meta-comment that every person who plays the game will be partaking in the violence. The “endless bookers” is a metaphor for every player and playthrough
There are plenty of tragedies that are built on inevitability. Oedipus Rex, for instance, is a story in which the main character is prophetically ordained to end up where he does, as a result of his flaws. Booker is defined by violence, it's what makes him who he is. After being shaped by war, it is too late for him. The baptized Comstock sees himself as the "moral" form of Booker, but the morals he has are racist and imperialistic, so the peace he creates can only be based in the violence that defines him.
LISA: The Painful is also a great game that is violent as hell and uses that violence to deconstruct itself and the universe it presents. Brad is a fucked up human being whose entire quest to find Buddy isn't rooted in considering what is best for her but an attempt to try and salve his past wounds and failures. By the end, his attempts at being a good father shatter completely. Resulting in him brutalising the daughter he was supposed to protect, tearing apart the friends and party members who journeyed and suffered with him and leaving the already broken Olathe an even worse place than it originally was. And then the sequel, LISA: The Joyful, for all of its shortcomings with the ending, shows that this violence has been passed down to Buddy: the ultimate consequence of the cycle of violence and abuse and it leads to her massacring every single warlord in all of Olathe regardless of morality. These games are great and I highly recommend getting them.
What about not buying it in the first place? Is that the correct choice? (I don't want to sound angry or bitter. I'm not, and I don't want that to come across as such. I just realized it might, but that's not the intention. but I DO believe that "you have the choice to stop playing" is a very lazy way to explain this, when they could just have ACTUALLY given some sort of choice within the game, instead of making a game with only one choice that then preaches smugly at the player when they take that one choice.)
But the actual choice that people are making in real life is whether or not they want to consume violent media. They are criticizing us for, yes, even buying the game. And then continuing to buy them. Do we feel like a hero when we watch Batman beat up criminals? Do we feel like a hero when we figure out the perfect way for Agent 47 to carry out his missions? It's an interesting question. And I think that question would actually get muddled if they included some amount of choice in the narrative because they are specifically discussing media where there is no choice.
Spec Ops pulls off, IMHO, being a successful critic of its own violence because the whole point of its existence is challenging the customers who (initially) bought it.
Oh boy watching this after the last of us part 2 ... people got so mad the game treated joel not with honor like a "hero " deserves. I'd be really interested to see you talk about the phenomenon that it's been. Cause I believe the reaction it got has everything to do with power fantasy and how nerds feel entitled to it.
dan’s genius shown here yet again as the central idea of this video and analysis of the last of us predicts the themes of the sequel before it was even announced
its interesting how much of the media exploring these questions of characters who become brutal serial killers and the justification for their actions do so in the context of a father protecting his (usually surrogate) daughter. personally father-daughter stories are some the most compelling to me for personal reasons, but its an interesting recurring variable to point out that a lot of these stories (last of us, bioshock and bioshock infinite, the witcher, etc) use the context of 'what a father will do to protect his daughter'.
I always haaate when a game asks something like "oh you enjoy this violence? You must, if you didn't you would stop" and yet gives you no way at all to not be violent, like the violence in Bioshock is the point but it's also the only way to play you can't (reasonably) play a pacifist game of Bioshock infinite and thus from a meta perspective if a player wants to enjoy the story they have to be violent. I don't except turning off the game as a valid form of playing the game or interuptations of the work and thus violence is the only answer to the game's problems.
Specs Ops the line literally tells you to stop playing the game. To stop the violence. The point of the game is to force you to question why you even bought it in the first place. To make you think about what games like modern milsim shooters say about us as people, as a society. You always have a choice. You can turn not play the game. This is a lesson beyond video games, btw.
Wow, we got totally different things from the end of TLOU. I read the final rampage as Joel refusing to lose his daughter again, even at the expense of dooming the world to the cordyceps virus. I also see Booker's whole journey as a failed attempt at paternal redemption.
I was the same but I think that's his point, we're seeing the world through Joel's view. We're empathising with him. Once we jump to Ellie we see this other dimension to Joel. For me it works perfectly in not only feeling heartbroken for what Joel has become but love towards Ellie for also seeing that but feeling the same empathy we've experienced towards him. She accepts him. God only knows what they're going to do in the sequel.
I interpreted that at first, but then I played the game again and picked up much the same things Folding picked up on - that Joel is a manipulative sociopath. So, he and Ellie have grown close, but not only did he murder people who were at first willing to let him go in order to rescue Ellie, he later lied to Ellie about it. As Marlene said to Joel, Ellie dying to provide an actual cure for the cordyceps virus is what she would have wanted. "And you KNOW this..." Joel looks down at the floor and hesitates, because HE knows the uncomfortable truth that yes, Ellie would have wanted that. Before they arrive at the Fireflies' location, Ellie tells him after everything they'd been through, their journey can't have been for nothing. But he can't bear the thought of losing a surrogate daughter because he's thinking about what HE wants, not what Ellie or anyone else wants. So, he kills Marlene and lies to Ellie about all of it, even when she gives him the opportunity to come clean. I empathize with Joel, but... yes, the guy is a horrible, selfish person.
Yes, the finale shows Joel being a *violent* person, but it doesn't just show that. It shows the expansion of violence *in general*. "And you KNOW this" isn't an excuse for killing somebody without *direct* and *blatant* conscious choice to do as such. Just because we are told this, doesn't inherently make it true. As much as Joel is selfish, so were the Fireflies. They each had different reasons to be selfish, but not allowing Ellie to make the choice and NOT show her making that choice to the Fireflies wasn't an accident by NaughtyDog.
I just took killing everyone as the only sane thing to do at that point. My reason for doing so is that the Fireflies are utterly incompetent whenever we see them in the game and the only thing we ever see them do is fail and die. I would not trust them with anything after what we are shown throughout the game. In fact, I'm surprised the hospital at the end isn't already on fire, most of the people there dead or dying, while the place is getting overrun by the infected, by the time you wake up. Because that would be consistent with what we see prior to that in the game. Also, they're a bunch of complete assholes. Because what kind of top-level king of the cunts reacts to seeing a man desperately calling for help, while trying to administer CPR to an unconscious girl, after coming out of a pool of cold water, by beating him unconscious with their gun?! And these are the people we're supposed to trust to save the world?! All evidence suggest they'll kill Ellie, get themselves infected, and all die. In a stupid way, because they fail at everything and die. Which, again, is all we ever see them do. I mean their entire medical approach is painfully stupid! We have one person who's immune, so how should we best utilize this unique resource? The Fireflies answer: _Lets kill her and extract all of the possibly immunizing strain of fungus (which is not proven because they've done no other tests!) so it can wither and die and we'll be left with... nothing._ Which is 100% on point with what we see from the Fireflies prior to that. Because the Fireflies are morons, and killing them is, without any doubt in my mind, the right thing to do. Not just for the world, but for the diminishing gene-pool of humanity as a whole. TL;DR: Fuck the Fireflies, they're worse that useless! Wipe them out and save the world (and Ellie) from getting killed by their rampant stupidity. God I hate the Fireflies... they're the Nazis of the Last of Us. But they'd gas themselves, because they're that incompetent. Fuck em'. :)
I've actually yet to play TLoU, but if i was in his shoes, i'd do the same and i haven't even gone through what's he's been through. Dude's lost everything already, his hope is not a cure, his hope is Ellie.
Another one that struck me quite hard was the 2008 freeware indie game called Iji, a metroidvania-ish platformer with a rather detailed integrated story in which one could play in an entirely pacifist way (like the later Undertale). News coverage and documentation from the alien forces you are set to fight change drastically depending on your actions, either labeling you a fearful monster, just potentially dangerous enemy, or as a possible friend. Also, the Drakengard and Nier franchise is quite thematically harsh on violence too. Most games penned by Yoko Taro carry the themes or the opinion that victory achieved by violence is bitter; that murdering thousands and/or committing genocide as is normal in heroic fantasy games should not result in a happy ending.
One aspect of hotline Miami I find interesting is how nonstop and high octane it is during the action sequences, you hardly have time to think- the sprites walking around are almost abstract due to the top down narrative. The music gets your blood pumping. The colors add visual noise and a surreal atmosphere, the constant fast paced instant repetition gives it an addictive quality. It’s on the walk back- no music, no constant threat, that the sprites suddenly look a lot like people, and the details in the gore and the environments are noticeably dense. I love how grounding that it, and how well the game puts you into Jacket’s mindset. Kane & Lynch 2 and Manhunt both have similar and interesting takes on violence to TLOU.
Remember that time in The Last of Us where, at almost every single opportunity, the Fireflies showed themselves to be unbelievably incompetent at basically everything they attempt to do, and how that makes it kind of hard to trust that their idea of "immediately muder-surgery a teenage girl without her consent" is a good one? Remember that time in Bioshock Infinite where the character cast as a blatant allegory to Harriet Tubman is written as a basically unrepentant criminal murderer gone mad with power and is totally going to kill your precious rich white children?
The later one was shown to be a ruse in the DLC. The DLC also does again reflect on Bookers violence and has Elizabeth questioning herself how much meing a DeWitt predestins her for it. But the trend in the 2013 games to have a black women as rebel leader was uncanny if you want to accentuate that.
That is true, but irrelevant. When Joel was mowing down fireflies in the hospital, he wasn't thinking "I gotta save Ellie because the fireflies are incompetent". He was thinking "I gotta save Ellie because she is my new daughter-figure and I don't care about the fate of the world beyond her" Joel wouldn't have allowed her to undergo the surgery even if she consented to it ( because he lied to her about what happened in the hospital)
@@troyareyes Actually, he was thinking" what the FUCK makes them think that murdering Ellie without ANY attempt to study her is the right thing to do? What the FUCK makes them think that they have the moral right to kill her with no guarantee that her death will accomplish ANYTHING? What the FUCK have they done that makes them think they can demand my unquestioning loyalty and trust?" But, you know... I guess you weren't paying attention to that part.
@@SchulzEricT having played the game many times, I never remember Joel outright questioning the fireflies in this way. As the audience, we can ask these questions, but I don't really think Joel is asking them. On some level, I'd like to think that Joel is compelled to act because the fireflies are incompetent, and they often are, but that doesn't seem to be what actually happens. Mind you, I love the game, but I disagree with this particular reading.
I'm a little sad you touched on Spec Ops here, but didn't actually give it a dissection. Bioshock 1 was probably the first game to make me think about player action and narrative; Infinite's ending I found beautiful. But Spec Ops was a whoooaoooah moment for me. Spellbinding.
As a studying Video Game Designer, I'd like to offer up the opinion that violence is so prevalent in video games, because it's the easiest thing to program. Does X overlap with the space Y occupies? Yes? Report success to the player and give them feedback. Other things like diplomacy, trade or craft are much harder to program, as the player always needs feedback and the feeling they are progressing, otherwise they'll see no use in playing. Even Undertale, a game known for its pacifist runs, expresses peacefulness only in fights and combats. The obvious answer to this is of course innovation, but AAA games are million dollar projects, so few companies are willing to shoulder such risk.
You really should play Undertale. It deals these elements pretty extensively and has them impact the world greatly. Plus, it's a very good game to begin with. OFF also does this to an extent, though it is less thorough/meta about it. Maybe make a minisode on those?
Danny BRITZMAN It might be heavy handed and a bit too black or white, but that doesn't make it a worse game. There's a good portion of gamers that play games for escapism, and in that matter, simpler worlds with clear decisions are better. Undertale manages to present a deeper and more interactive story with very simple mechanics, a low budget and a workforce of one than a lot of triple A titles.
Yes, there is no contradiction. A game can force you to play it, forcing you also to feel like crap while doing so, and thus not be hypocritical. See: Undertale, as I'm sure most people who've seen this reccently have told you. Also, Transistor (I've been told. I haven't actually beaten that one).
I'll back you up on Transistor there. The game sees you through an apocalypse from beginning to end, but ultimately puts the deaths of the last remaining residents -- the ones responsible for the apocalypse and much more besides -- on your hands. They are at their wit's end trying to recage the force they unleashed, but through, well, attentional bias (helped by some darn heartbreaking dialogue from a mute protagonist), they are the enemy; their designs cost the protagonist something dear and now you and she seek to right that wrong, to unravel the mystery -- to find a reason for a cruel twist of fate -- and find some sense of justice even as the world you know crumbles around you. But when you face those responsible, because of obstinance and circumstance, the only option presented to you is payment in blood. You can argue you are only hastening the inevitable; you can argue that those responsible can only make matters worse by trying to "help" and thus sparing them only dooms them to a slower death later should you fail to stop the apocalypse or essentially acquits them of their misdeeds should you succeed. Regardless, Red still becomes the last woman in Cloudbank pretty much by her own hand. However, in doing so, she gains power and in that empowerment the game builds up the hope that you can put things right and turn back the apocalypse before it consumes everything. I'll leave how the game pays off that hope to you to find out on your own. I will say it's a shame I can never play the game for the first time ever again.
1:11 'Why is violence so prevalent in video games' jumps over the real #1, which is "early limitations of the medium". When games started as a medium, the binary 'exists/doesn't exist' was one of the only interactive elements available to designers. Making things exist where they don't is a cool mechanic, but everything that exists in the game takes up compute time and memory, which were limited on early machines. So, the mechanic that fit the limitations of the machine best was the other option: eliminate an object. Map this mechanic onto framing a human would recognize and you pretty quickly and inevitably get to destroying and violence. That's the precedent early tech set in the medium, and since games stand on the shoulders of those that came before, unless a creator sets out to subvert the status quo, they are likely to at least incorporate violence, if not base the game around it. It's a really important point that often gets missed.
Infinite's ending has been speculated on so much, but I think there's a rather simple interpretation of the events: 1. The Bookers who chose to be reborn die in the baptism. 2. Comstock ceases to exist. 3. Comstock never offers to buy Elizabeth. 4. She never gets her powers. 5. The whole plot never happens. 6. Booker lives (mostly) peacefully with his daughter.
About your question: I think it does make sense when you consider that the people who get the message are the people who did get through the whole game - in other words, the people who gave up in disgust along the line don't get it. The people who didn't get to the anti-violence message are the ones who don't really need it.
I think a game can still be critical of violence while featuring it. If it points out how horrible certain actions really are, it makes you question things. It makes you uncomfortable. And as you continue to play you become even more uncomfortable and it forces you to examine moral implications of your actions. Not a lot of games will do something like that. You can feature something in your game/movie/book without endorsing it.
I believe that the propose of these games that criticize their own violence is to try to get the player to feel what it is true lee like to be a killer and then question how that makes you feel. I believe that the game designer wants you to feel bad for having to make difficult choices and doubt yourself on weather or not you are making the morally right choice. These games are more or less lessons of morality, teaching us the difficulties of making moral decisions and accepting the consequences for our own actions. In a sene, I believe that these kinds of video games give us the chance to make horrible decisions in a safe environment and showing us the consequences of those mistakes so that way we can avoid making similar mistakes in real life.
Exactly, until some Terminator or Planet of the Apes shit happens, killing a character in a game isn't the same as hurting someone in real life. If you can learn the same message of "violence sucks" without having to actually go out and mow through mobs of people irl, it's a good way to get the point across. I'd rather have to kill someone like the Fireflies and feel bad about it than shoot a real flesh and blood person and feel infinetly worse.
Okay, but that jaunty *ding* as the lights go up on Elizabeth holding the bloody knife mid-murder stance - timed one long beat *after* Fitzeroy's body actually hits the floor. Like, there didn't *have* to be a *ding* - it coulda worked with just the lights going up as the display is activated or whatever, or they could have used a different sound entirely and it would still be a standout shot that gets the message across, focusing attention on the implied showcase of Elizabeth's essential baptism of blood in this moment. But they used the *ding*. Come on, it kinda undercuts the seriousness in a way I just can't help but feel was all too intentional. Instead, it gives the moment that air of "elevator's arrived", or "dinner's ready" , or even those annoying "ring bell for service" things. So with this *ding*, using the elevator example, are we meant to feel like this shot is saying "*ding* Elizabeth's arrived"? Like I legit think even the sliding doors of the backdrop behind her are evocative of elevator doors opening/closing. Anyway, I'm dumb - ignore me. I can't think of the word for it but I kkow it exists and it's description probably includes the words "macabre", "juxtaposition".
I think the fact that the game expects you to play through the violence if anything just strengthens the narrative, because by playing through the violence we feel it, do you think for example that the white phosphorus scene on Spec ops would have been nearly as heavy if it happened all on a cutscene rather than how it plays out, with you explicitly shooting the white phosphorus? no, no it would not because by playing the violence, making the violence, we become not only observers of the violence but also agents of it, and by extension we're no longer observers of the consequences, we are also agents on them
It's very odd watching this for the first time after the last of us 2 has come out, with a petition to unkill Joel and make him the protagonist again. Did you miss the whole point?
I know I'm coming at this 6 years late to the conversation, but since I actually saw this the first time, I stumbled across Drakengard again after getting sucked into the Nier games, and... I would love to hear your take on Drakengard - specifically 1 but the series as a whole - as it uses its repetitive and (in the case of 1 at least ) "purposely" bad gameplay to drive home a point of how if there were a warrior going around acting like a video game protagonist - i.e. enjoying the slaughter of hundreds upon thousands as they get in his way - they would rightfully be seen as psychotic. Also a note I put "purposely" in quotes because I've heard anecdotes that Yoko Taro - the game's director - made the game play like crap on purpose but it also feels like early PS2 jank so it's hard to say. But yeah, all of Yoko Taro's games have this really interesting throughline to them that amounts to "Yeah, violence really sucks but... we're hardwired to be violent in some cases and that's a double edged sword. We can fight for what we believe in, but that often means hurting others who are doing the same."
i think its not really a contradiction? ive noticed 2 types of games with these themes: one type is more choice-based like undertale (it encourages you not to be violent but doesnt promise any reward for that or punishment for violence until the very end) and the other is more consequence-based like the games youve talked about. its kinda making you do what you expect from the game and then jumping out with this "look what youve done. is it really fin okay and normal?". i think both are a valid moral learning experience just different
I think games that want to criticise violence should either provide less obvious, but plausible methods of solving problems without violence that force players to think outside the structure of the game. If we see a highlighted weapon, we're gonna pick it up and follow the instructions. Also making violence actually cost something to those around us, give us consequences beyond an easily surpassable bounty or short-lived police chase. But I don't think willingness to be violent in games translates well to real life in the same way sexual objectification does.
I'm surprised that Undertale didn't bring this up, seeing as it's the only game you really get criticized by both the game and the fanbase for doing a genocide run.
It's interesting that you bring up that question about whether games who use this violence are hypocritical if they then ask the player to be critical of said violence. Spec Ops The Line is actually all about that question, that game spends pretty much it's entire run telling you to stop playing it, and then at the end points the finger at you for causing all the horrible events in the game by ignoring it's warnings. Ultimately, Spec Ops is about the fact that even in the most linear game, there's always a choice to avoid whatever violence there is in a game, to simply not play the game, and to continue playing is to, in a way, say you are on board for all the violence presented.
I've heard Spec Ops is actually even funkier in this regard, because in early builds there were parts of the game (such as the infamous white phosphorus scene) where you could choose to fight your way through rather than commit horrible war crimes... But playtesters kept choosing to do that, so the devs removed the option before release and thereby railroaded players into committing the war crimes. I can't say it would've been a *good* decision to allow players to somehow cause less harm by doing more fighting, getting the players to do horrible things is definitely part of the point and allowing them to take on personal risk to avoid doing that could mince that message, but I do think that encouraging the player to just quit if they don't like it is not a very good strategy. I mean, if you're going to break the 4th wall like that to tell them to stop, then you're tacitly reminding them that they're playing a game, and with that reminding them that the people they're murdering aren't real... So why SHOULD they feel bad about it? They're just polygons on the screen, no real people are being hurt, and the player didn't have a choice in killing them or not, so what exactly should they feel guilty for? You can't really have it both ways, either commit to locking the players in and keeping them invested or commit to being a 4th wall breaker that cares more about communicating to the player than about the characters in-game. Trying to guilt the player into quitting the game entirely just doesn't work that well, in my opinion.
Just found this channel. Great videos. Have you thought about doing a video about Avatar the cartoon? One of the themes that I like most about the cartoon is Aang's pacifism. It's really unusual for a hero to both proclaim to hate violence and actually avoid violence. Usually heroes that avoid violence only avoid-violence-until-that-scene-where-shit-gets-real. Just thought it might be food for thought and/or make an interesting companion piece. Actually, it makes me think of Luke Skywalker and the emperor. The emperor's tactic is to goad Luke into attacking, and Luke resists the emperor by not fighting him. Maybe a video about pacifism, then?
I know this is a six year old comment, but did you ever see the Big Joel video about exactly what you described here? I'm guessing there's a good chance you have, but if not, it's a good one.
ruclips.net/video/ip1xe7JFb-g/видео.html here a link to it in case. (Also be sure to watch the whole video when you do, there's kind of thing going on with it)
It doesn't make sense for Booker to be able to fight hundreds and hundreds of dudes who should have access to everything he has. That's my biggest problem with the violence in BI. His mission should have been a stealth mission. He's trying to sneak this girl out of this island. Him getting into fights against a large group should be automatic game over. There's no way she would be fine and it's a little silly how she's never really in danger. And almost no one saw the protag of tlou at the end as twisted and wrong. He killed not because he thought it was satisfying but because he loved his adopted daughter. He put the blood on his hands in order to give her more time. He chooses her over the world. We wish we had the agency and courage to choose love over the utilitarian decision. Drakengard 3 I felt was critical of its violence. You had to play through the game 5 times in order to get the ending. No one does that aside from the most dedicated. I think No More Heroes did Spec Op's message better. Also Undertale which probably came out after this video was made.
He "loved his adopted daughter" but refused to give her any agency in the matter, and then lied to her face about it afterwards. No, that's seriously twisted.
No... no there are just too many things wrong with this. He didn't have to resort to shooting. He could have just focused on stopping the operation until he could talk to Ellie. He could have come out and told the truth about it afterwards. Yes, I can understand a protective impulse, but this goes way beyond that. Regardless of whether we can empathize with Joel's actions, and regardless of whether "almost no one saw [Joel] at the end as twisted and wrong," his actions were twisted and wrong, *_period_*. That's pretty much the point Dan's making anyway--it's easy for us to empathize with a hyper-violent sociopath.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 Not really. 1 - They pulled a gun on him and were planning on marching him out of there. If you think the Fireflies were going to listen to him after they DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIM, then either you weren't paying attention, or you've forgotten. 2 - They were planning on murdering a child who also might've been humanity's only hope to cure a plague. He was 100% justified in using lethal force to defend her life; that's how escalation of force works. 3 - Ellie was a child, she isn't qualified to choose to commit suicide because some people lied to her. 4 - Joel lied to her because he thought that she would blame herself for their deaths, because Joel killed them to protect her. She'd be WRONG to think that - they died because they tried to murder a child in cold blood - but she's a child, she can't be expected to be mature enough to understand that yet. Just as she isn't mature enough to make a decision like letting the Fireflies kill her and doom humanity. Joel will tell her when she's ready, not before.
I've yet to see someone mention the fact that the enjoyment of fictional violence isn't a human construct and goes as far as the basis of play behavior in animals, which mostly consists of play fighting, aka, simulating murder. Point is, if you want to delve into the psychology of fictional violence, you're gonna have to go deeper than the featherless biped to get the full picture.
1: Gameplay is simulation; differently in executive factor and personalized agency than Cinema or Novels but no more or less simulation. It’s mockery of the real is no less able to criticize violence in or out of the text. 2: Anything using inserted material metaphor is dichotomous when critically or satirically mocking the real. So Yes. 3: It very variably depends on the lens and content of the simulation and the intent of the critique and/or the perceived intent of the critique.
GTA IV and V have good points on the American Dream and torture respectively, and use their violence and behavior of the characters to deliver it. Fallout also does it well.
Thinking about it, I actually do think that depicting violence for the sake of critiquing it does end up being contradictory. That said, I see it less as a problem for the art itself, and rather just as an indication of the human existence itself [goodness, that last sentence sounded pretentious]. Anyway, as you said earlier in the video, we have that lizard brain impulse to strangle certain assholes. At the same time, we structure our society such that we acknowledge [for hopefully obvious reasons] that violence is wrong. While most people are able to keep those dark impulses under control, others cannot and act them out. Bear in mind, I'm not trying to say that all of humanity is supressing an urge to kill or anything, just that, to varying degrees, there's always that part of us that enjoys violence. Since that dichotomy is a contradiction that we have to perpetually wrestle with, the fact that our art reflects that doesn't seem wrong; it seems inevitable.
In answer to your question: Manhunt. More specifically Manhunt 2. wherein the narrative of the game slowly begins to question and condemn the excesses of it's violence. Meanwhile the latter game gameplay continues to ramp it up. Manhunt the series and the controversy that surround it could warrant a separate critique on it's themes, ambition and how it contextualised a somewhat extreme take on violence.
A game forcing you to participate in the violence it criticizes is hypocritical and that is the point. Violence is not just physical violence. It's any removal of agency. So if I tell you violence is bad and you shouldn't do it, but remove your ability to not be violent, I am demonstrating to you why violence is bad. The player has to be able to come away with the meaning and some games may or may not frame this in a way they can. But the risk of the audience not interpreting correctly is a risk no matter how good the framing.
Speaking of violence as narrative, you should make a film analysis of violence as utilized in God Bless America. It is a 2011 Comedy/Action film with a fun premise in spite of its very bloody and violent nature, with a wonderful character that is relatable to everyone, like "Frank" from Fight Club.
To the best of my knowledge research does not show any relationship between violent media like video games and the actual rate of violent crime, which is more strongly affected by other factors like economic class. And from a perspective of reason, the argument can be convincingly made that having outlets for our violent impulses allows us to expend them in less harmful ways, making us less likely to resort to it in reality.
There isn't a lot of evidence that violent media leads to violent crime--violent crime rates are down even as violent media rates are up--but that isn't the only thing worth commenting on in relation to the over-saturation of violence in video games and other media. Even on a smaller scale, playing violent video games leads to more aggressive behavior and less empathy, and this *is* shown in the research. Just because the kids playing Grand Theft Auto aren't committing armed robberies doesn't mean they aren't being harmed by the desensitization of violence. The celebration of violence and devaluing of human life, condensed into a fun medium and repeated over and over again, is not going to leave your empathy and social relationships unaltered. Also, the notion that it becomes an "outlet" is, psychologically speaking, ridiculous. Anger outlets like sports, art, or therapy are far better at redirecting negative energy than video games. In any case, video games only reward the acting of that anger and violence, which simply encourages more of it. And, eventually, the fictional outlet isn't enough to satisfy the impulse it helped cultivate. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spontaneous-emotion/201008/media-violence-revisited journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167205277205 journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167213520459 www.news.iastate.edu/news/2017/04/11/mediaviolence www.apa.org/pi/prevent-violence/resources/tv-violence.aspx
Quick warning for photosensitive people: there's a short moment right before the credits (at 15:40) that has some pretty intense flashing.
Thank you
He doesn't have enough toilet paper on that roll and it's stressing me out.
mise en scene elements/10
And this is why I get uncomfortable when people try and tell me Joel had every right to murder the firefiles and lie to Ellie about it. Why lie about it if it was the right thing to do? Because it risks him losing Ellie. He's not protecting her out of morality, she's his emotional blanket, his replacement daughter and her knowing what he did would risk her leaving him. This is selfish and manipulative and yes, heartbreaking, but more for Ellie and the situation she's left in at the end of the game.
That comment makes me think of how The Last of Us is like Taxi Driver in that way. A work that makes you sympathize with the character it follows early on, then betrays that trust later with it's protagonists selfish actions. But you'll still find people (especially on the internet, in my experience) who think Travis Bickle is a hero for "taking out the filth". It's all sort of related to what the ideas behind what Dan gets at when he's on the toilet :)
Jessica Bown the thing is, most loving parents, if given the choice, would take the same path as Joel
cool motive, still emotional manipulation and murder.
So there's no room for empathy in your view? Just black and white, truth and lie. Emotional manipulation or weakness?
And aren't they about to murder Ellie, right?
Hoopla10 it's not about empathy it's just self preservation
Hotline Miami is an important one to me, being the first time (maybe the only time) I can remember feeling nauseous over what I had done in a game. I had to turn it off and go for a walk and think about just why I was attracted to and repulsed by that neon-cocaine wonderhell. I really treasure the game for that.
I always appreciated it for being a game where I could not exactly say I enjoyed the gameplay, but also thought it was really good and had to keep playing it.
There is another reading of the violence in hotline miami by errant signal which I believe is closer to the author's intent
But Folding idea's is actually pretty good - but Errant signal has a lot more indicators to point towards how hotline miami is about necessity of narrative in video games - and deconstructing it
Neon-cocaine wonderhell is the best description I've ever heard of for Hotline Miami. The moment at the end of each level where you walk back though your carnage really makes your actions sink in emotionally in a way most games shy away from, it really hits home for me.
weak
Imagine coming out with this analysis of TLOU over 5 years before TLOU2 and people STILL don't get that Joel wasn't the good guy.
Because Player killed as Joel So all his kills are justified. Those "gamers" wont See it any other way, ever. You killed bad guys, how else could that work.
dan totally pronounced 'wanton' as 'wonton', I would be down for dumpling -based aggression.
This is why I love the Metal Gear series so much, if you never played it give it a shot, in almost every game there's an achievement if you didn't kill anybody. Which is basically hammering the idea "Even though you're tasked to complete this mission, you didn't have to kill anybody, you're killing because you think you're expected to kill everybody, you're being told that these people are evil, but you could've finished this mission by being as covert as it's intended, but instead you killed them and in turn you're no better than them". I wish Kojima nothing but the best.
@Danny BRITZMAN It's a game that rewards stealth while also allowing freedom of expression; you can play it however you want.
So... your response sounds to me like the response of somebody who didn't really attempt to understand the game and instead wanted to shit on it no matter what.
@Danny BRITZMAN I mean... that's just dumb. You can't analyze a game like it's a book; it's not a book. It has its own structure and nuances; it can do things a book can't, and a book can do things a game can't.
MGS3 allows you the freedom to play however you want (within reason), and there's some morality baked in to both the gameplay and the narrative. I don't see how you can think that's objectively bad. There's no right way to play it, but there's a more rewarding way to play it... although I'm sure mileage varies.
It's just odd to criticize a game for allowing for more nuance than most other games; I'd think you'd either think it interesting that it's doing something other games aren't, or you'd not care because you only value gameplay and for whatever reason aren't into the MGS style of game.
@Danny BRITZMAN I'm not sure I even understand the basis for your criticism. MGS doesn't have a morality mechanic. There's no karma slider or hammy plot choices, and if you don't care about points the choice is entirely up to you. Even if you do care about points, it's worth keeping in mind that whether you should kill someone or not isn't a simple y/n problem. Killing a person is the easy path, quickly and permanently getting them out of your way with no cost to the player except the knowledge they've taken a human life. Knocking a person out or sneaking past them is much harder, and means there will be far greater opposition if you're ever detected.
So of all the games to criticize on the basis of having a bad morality system, I don't see how you could do it here. Seems to me that it's as good as it could possibly be without fundamentally changing the game to be about something else. The unspoken lesson is, in my mind, one of the most valuable things a game can communicate to a player.
That being: "Doing the right thing can be difficult and require sacrifice, and it's up to you to decide if you think that's worth it. While it may be difficult to achieve or even just to see, there is a righteous path."
What would muddy the waters and cheapen this lesson would be if they forced you to kill someone, or made it some stupid binary choice where whether you're good or evil is just which button you press. For the record, I don't really like MGS. I've only beaten MGS2 when I was younger, and I keep trying to get into it but they just don't pull me in like they do for other people. I don't really care if you call MGS a bad game, but this way of handling morality is pretty much the best way to do it. It reminds me of some of my own favorites, like Fallout 1 actually.
I really want to know, how would you do it better? How is that shallow compared to the way most games handle morality? I also happen to enjoy analyzing art in detail, whatever form it may take. To my mind, whether a game is "fun" or not is secondary. I want to know what it's saying, and how it's method of expression affects the experience of the viewer.
I hope you can appreciate that I'm not trying to argue with you here. I just really don't get where you're coming from.
HOW DARE YOU SAY WE ARE FANS OF VIOLENCE. I WILL *FIGHT* YOU.
;)
Bioshock: Infinite's ending gets a lot worse when you've had time to think about it. On the surface, it symbolizes the desire to break the cycle of violence, but when you look at it more carefully, it's just another example of him trying to solve a problem by killing someone. The only difference is that rather than the violence being romanticized to the npcs in a transparent fashion the player is supposed to be able to see through, it's romanticized to the player instead.
I've heard it said in a great LP of the game by Bobbin Threadbare that the theme the game is trying to get across is this: "violence, while sometimes the only choice, is never a good choice."
My favorite game like this is MGS. The fewer people you kill, the higher your final score and rank. In MGS3 when you fight the Sorrow, the 'fight' is easier the fewer people you've killed up that point. In MGS4, if you kill enough people in a short amount of time (not sure how many seconds exactly), Snake stops in his tracks against the players control, throws up, and hears, in his head, Liquid Snake from MGS1 when he says, 'You enjoy all the killing.'
@Danny BRITZMAN Moral systems in real life are certainly complex, but they're not all "undefined;" in fact ethics has been pretty clearly defining them for the last 2000 years.
If a game uses a mechanic to represent morality, maybe it's more interesting to ask "Okay, that means that this game subscribes to a certain moral belief system, what does it tell me about those beliefs, what arguments does it make to support them, do I find it persuasive or unpersuasive, etc. etc." instead of just saying that everything that doesn't agree with your personal belief system is "kinda shit."
@Danny BRITZMAN I see what you're saying! And I see where you're coming from too haha, it sounds like Metal Gear isn't too subtle about getting it's point across!
@Danny BRITZMAN It's still better than having no moral system altogether. Modelling all of the small nuances of morality is as impractical as having a gun that needs to be manually reloaded every time. It's beyond the point for most games (I do agree it could be interesting for a game to focus on either of those, but it's not a reasonable expectation for popular games). Most "heavy handed" moral systems try to do something like the one-click shoot/recharge by adding simple mechanics in order to add nuance to violence.
Also, the "mathematically perfect" playthrough isn't something that most games should focus on when deciding their mechanics. Especially with respect to morality. Literally every game will eventually have an optimal solution for most mechanics, but most people won't care that much anyways. The intended play experience and the most often played path are what matters, not what it turns out to be "the most optimal" play pattern*.
I do agree that the degree of development of moral systems is way underdeveloped when compared with competition and violence mechanics, and unfortunately they often end up as surrogate to competition and violence, which is one of the facts that makes them feel bad even if some of them do things right. If you look it through the eyes of a hammer, it'll look like a bad nail. Who cares if vomiting every three enemies killed makes you optimise the kill pattern? You're the one choosing to kill through that, and that's a moral decision too: You'll optimise killing even if it is inconvenient and you have an alternative.
*As a side note, some of what would otherwise be called the "most optimal" play patterns are often not pursued even by people optimising a game. Some of them might be too boring (hence most speedruners don't focus on the any% category for most games) or too hard to consistently pull off (chess grandmasters often focus on more comfortable possible plays, which can contrast with machines playing chess going for "risky" plays because they are actually more optimal if you don't care for an uncomfortable position).
@Danny BRITZMAN Morality does have biological mechanics, we just aren't always aware of them. The instinct to root out cheaters is pretty basic, which makes sense for a species whose existence is predicated on social behavior. Furthermore, morality really comes into play in how we react to our actions, not our a priori intentions or unconsidered behavior, this is why wealth is corrupting - it hides you from consequence.
Additionally, whether a game rewards you for killing, punishes you, or does nothing, all of them are moral choices the game itself is making. Morality is not an entirely internal process, it resides in how you process the moralities you interact with.
@Danny BRITZMAN First of all, "Why should morality be a mechanic" is a bit of an odd question in the context of games, since mechanics are the narrative language that is unique to games. A game that is devoid of morality in its mechanics could just as easily have conveyed that morality through the medium of film.
I'm going to assume you meant "why should morality be a score". The answer to this, in the case of MGS, is that it actually isn't. While the final score of the game DOES factor in how many people you kill, it also factors in how often you were detected, how often alarms were raised, and how often you died. In essence, this system isn't scoring your morality, it's scoring how well you did at your job, since snake is generally a "spy" with instructions to leave no trace, and leaving bodies is one of the messiest traces you can leave.
What this means for the morality in the game is that through this evaluation of the character's performance, it removes a common excuse for a person's violence: "I was only doing my job". However, in Metal Gear Solid, killing people is usually the easier option. So if you are killing people, it's either because you're bad at your job and taking the easy way out, or simply because you enjoy it. And while killing a LOT of people isn't "harder", you do you have to go out of your way to do so, meaning if you've killed most of the enemies in the game, it's probably for the latter reason.
Additionally, the Metal Gear Solid games generally have a wealth of tools at the player's disposal for non-lethal runs. While using these tools is harder, it can be quite fun, and, for a lot of people, it's the more enjoyable way to play the game. This helps to reinforce non-violence because once the player does decide to go in that direction, it gives the message that non-violent systems can be just as enjoyable, or more, than their violent counterparts.
Hotline Miami has an interesting tidbit. The more you kill in a level the longer and more brutal your executions get. Which has the narrative effect of showing you how lost and blood-drunk Jacket gets and the gameplay effect of making it easier to get killed since you are immobile/vulnerable for longer.
Can a game be critical of its own violence if it expects you to play it? Yes, yes it can, Undertale.
There are actually other games that do it half halfheartedly, no game that goes as far as Undertale though. Like in persona you can negotiate with monsters so they will leave you alone, but you still need to kill some for exp to level. In Turok evolution some enemies will surrender when they have been sufficiently damaged.
Worgen33 I wish undertale was less ham fisted about it
Was it ham fisted about it? The most awkward part of it was trying to introduce the concept of not killing, just because we are so used to it in video games. Even games where your not supposed to kill. Look at the sims, people go out of their way to find creative ways to kill them off.
Indeed, the game does what it does, as bluntly as it does, because it has the advantage of having such a robust branching narrative. It can show you story path where you killed no one, and everything is great. On the other side, it can show you a path where you killed some people, and everything is less great. And on still a third hand, it can show a path where you kill everybody, and everything is awful.
In most other games, the player rarely has the choice to not kill anyone. Even when they do, the story rarely differs substantially between different kinds of runs. This, then, creates a skewed perspective on killing; the story couldn't stray too heavily, so the differences are minor and shallow (save, of course, for the endings, which is usually where such differences in lethality are reflected).
Undertale makes the decision to kill _anyone_ a substantive one. In Real Life, you aren't supposed to kill people. In another way it differs from most other games, Undertale seems to agree. It doesn't see Good and Evil as equally valid choices, like most games with moral choice systems do. And it lets the player know.
The No Mercy path is as harsh and as "ham-fisted" as it is, because Undertale has already made a value judgement about the killing of its NPCs. It's bad, and the more you do it, the worse of a person you are. Actions have consequences, and choices matter. Undertale refuses to validate the No Mercy route by congratulating the player for pursuing it. It allows it to happen, but it's under no obligation to like it. This is further reflected in how the No Mercy route has an erratic, un-fun difficulty curve; the result of grinding levels in a game balanced around a level 1 run. It's fights are either boringly easy, or unfairly difficult.
Undertale wants you to feel bad about Genocide. It doesn't want you to feel cool. It wants to make you suffer, like you've made its characters suffer. Some anvils need to be dropped.
I know I'm a bit late, but spec ops the line is a good example too
Watching this after the backlash to Last Of Us Part II is nuts, you pointed out what the second game was pointing out before the second game even came out, people will come around on it, I'm sure
Except tLoU2's biggest problem is that it's ludonarratively dissonant: gameplay and story are in strong disagreement with each other.
Who's to say that the random npc lady you blew up in the first day as Ellie was two weeks pregnant? And yet two days later, Ellie is shocked when she kills a visibly pregnant woman, but in a cutscene.
I've always read that scene as related to Ellie's desire for revenge vs. wanting to go home with her pregnant girlfriend. Ellie ruins the storybook ending for these two characters, and then sees Dina in the people she's killing. It's not telling the player killing pregnant ladies is bad, but a character moment for our lead character and helping to setup both the final ending and also that Ellie isn't going to stay with Dina in the farmhouse.
@@violaglubok1931 That isn't nearly profound as you think it is. It also does not address the ludonarrative dissonant problem whatsoever.
@@antoniomendes7961 You're right. Luckily, I heard they're going to release a new update where Ellie will go up to each body after killing them, conduct a quick autopsy, and then the game plays a newly recorded voice line: "Good thing this one wasn't pregnant. Now I feel good about myself. I would feel really sad if they were pregnant." For the final level, this is updated to "I still feel bad about that one pregnant woman I killed."
@@violaglubok1931
Just watch this from Folding Ideas:
ruclips.net/video/04zaTjuV60A/видео.html
I actually made it through the entire Firefly Hospital in _The Last of Us_ without making a single kill. I realized, as soon as I saw the Fireflies in my way, that I didn't want to kill them. So... I didn't, and accomplishing this didn't even require 'cheating' for it: I entered the area on Hard difficulty, and the mechanical expressions the game afforded to me were robust enough for me to switch to a non-lethal playstyle without turning down the difficulty.
That was really rewarding, and even though it didn't _actually_ change the ending, it made the final walkabout as Ellie feel much more positive.
The best example of an answer to the closing questions is metal gear solid 3. The game can be beaten with zero kills and still the themes of violence and war are addressed through the Sorrow boss level where the player is confronted with all the n.p.c's they may have otherwise killed. it's not a contradiction because it's themes are both generalized to the characters narrative and also specific to the gamers actions
sala6220 If the game gives me the option, I will always take the path that requires the least amount of killing
Bioshock Infinite's ending would have worked better - in my mind, at least - if it had established that, no, not all Bookers in all timelines perpetuated cycles of violence. The idea of every potential version of Booker being violent killers is absurd; as if he had no choice in life but to be a monster.
Humans are driven by their passions and their desires, but they aren't slaves to them. We're capable of self examination - the ability to recognize why we do what we do. And, through that conscious understanding, break free from those patterns. It's possible for us to change, no matter how hard that can be.
If we assume that, it recontextualizes Bioshock Infinite into what it should have been: a Tragedy. Tragedies work by presenting a main character who could have achieved a happy ending, but did not because of their flaws. Hamlet could have avoided a bloodbath in the Danish monarchy if he'd been more decisive, for example, and Romeo and Juliet could have lived happily ever after if they had been less impulsive.
The Tragedy of Booker and Comstock is that they had opportunities to break the cycle of violence, yet did not. Comstock is Tragic because he used his baptism to reject responsibilities for his misdeeds, rather than accepting them and resolving to be a more moral person. Booker is Tragic because he acknowledged his misdeeds, but gave up on being anything but a monster. Two versions of the same man. One who saw himself as Blameless, the other who saw himself as too Blameworthy to change.
I always thought it’s more of a meta-comment that every person who plays the game will be partaking in the violence. The “endless bookers” is a metaphor for every player and playthrough
There are plenty of tragedies that are built on inevitability. Oedipus Rex, for instance, is a story in which the main character is prophetically ordained to end up where he does, as a result of his flaws. Booker is defined by violence, it's what makes him who he is. After being shaped by war, it is too late for him. The baptized Comstock sees himself as the "moral" form of Booker, but the morals he has are racist and imperialistic, so the peace he creates can only be based in the violence that defines him.
LISA: The Painful is also a great game that is violent as hell and uses that violence to deconstruct itself and the universe it presents. Brad is a fucked up human being whose entire quest to find Buddy isn't rooted in considering what is best for her but an attempt to try and salve his past wounds and failures. By the end, his attempts at being a good father shatter completely. Resulting in him brutalising the daughter he was supposed to protect, tearing apart the friends and party members who journeyed and suffered with him and leaving the already broken Olathe an even worse place than it originally was.
And then the sequel, LISA: The Joyful, for all of its shortcomings with the ending, shows that this violence has been passed down to Buddy: the ultimate consequence of the cycle of violence and abuse and it leads to her massacring every single warlord in all of Olathe regardless of morality. These games are great and I highly recommend getting them.
I remember a guy behind Spec Ops: The Line say something along the lines of "YOu have a choice. You can turn off the game and stop playing."
+twiexcursori "Truth is, you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not. A hero."
"This is all your fault."
Those loading screens were some creepypasta shit
What about not buying it in the first place? Is that the correct choice?
(I don't want to sound angry or bitter. I'm not, and I don't want that to come across as such. I just realized it might, but that's not the intention. but I DO believe that "you have the choice to stop playing" is a very lazy way to explain this, when they could just have ACTUALLY given some sort of choice within the game, instead of making a game with only one choice that then preaches smugly at the player when they take that one choice.)
But the actual choice that people are making in real life is whether or not they want to consume violent media. They are criticizing us for, yes, even buying the game. And then continuing to buy them. Do we feel like a hero when we watch Batman beat up criminals? Do we feel like a hero when we figure out the perfect way for Agent 47 to carry out his missions?
It's an interesting question. And I think that question would actually get muddled if they included some amount of choice in the narrative because they are specifically discussing media where there is no choice.
Spec Ops pulls off, IMHO, being a successful critic of its own violence because the whole point of its existence is challenging the customers who (initially) bought it.
To date, Spec Ops and Katana ZERO are the only games to make me cry.
Oh boy watching this after the last of us part 2 ... people got so mad the game treated joel not with honor like a "hero " deserves. I'd be really interested to see you talk about the phenomenon that it's been. Cause I believe the reaction it got has everything to do with power fantasy and how nerds feel entitled to it.
dan’s genius shown here yet again as the central idea of this video and analysis of the last of us predicts the themes of the sequel before it was even announced
its interesting how much of the media exploring these questions of characters who become brutal serial killers and the justification for their actions do so in the context of a father protecting his (usually surrogate) daughter. personally father-daughter stories are some the most compelling to me for personal reasons, but its an interesting recurring variable to point out that a lot of these stories (last of us, bioshock and bioshock infinite, the witcher, etc) use the context of 'what a father will do to protect his daughter'.
narratively, men are allowed to express care and affection for a young girl or daughter only by and when committing great violence
I always haaate when a game asks something like "oh you enjoy this violence? You must, if you didn't you would stop" and yet gives you no way at all to not be violent, like the violence in Bioshock is the point but it's also the only way to play you can't (reasonably) play a pacifist game of Bioshock infinite and thus from a meta perspective if a player wants to enjoy the story they have to be violent. I don't except turning off the game as a valid form of playing the game or interuptations of the work and thus violence is the only answer to the game's problems.
Specs Ops the line literally tells you to stop playing the game. To stop the violence. The point of the game is to force you to question why you even bought it in the first place. To make you think about what games like modern milsim shooters say about us as people, as a society.
You always have a choice. You can turn not play the game.
This is a lesson beyond video games, btw.
Just found you last night and I'm LOVING ALL OF THIS please keep it up!
Wow, we got totally different things from the end of TLOU. I read the final rampage as Joel refusing to lose his daughter again, even at the expense of dooming the world to the cordyceps virus. I also see Booker's whole journey as a failed attempt at paternal redemption.
I was the same but I think that's his point, we're seeing the world through Joel's view. We're empathising with him. Once we jump to Ellie we see this other dimension to Joel. For me it works perfectly in not only feeling heartbroken for what Joel has become but love towards Ellie for also seeing that but feeling the same empathy we've experienced towards him. She accepts him.
God only knows what they're going to do in the sequel.
I interpreted that at first, but then I played the game again and picked up much the same things Folding picked up on - that Joel is a manipulative sociopath. So, he and Ellie have grown close, but not only did he murder people who were at first willing to let him go in order to rescue Ellie, he later lied to Ellie about it. As Marlene said to Joel, Ellie dying to provide an actual cure for the cordyceps virus is what she would have wanted. "And you KNOW this..." Joel looks down at the floor and hesitates, because HE knows the uncomfortable truth that yes, Ellie would have wanted that. Before they arrive at the Fireflies' location, Ellie tells him after everything they'd been through, their journey can't have been for nothing. But he can't bear the thought of losing a surrogate daughter because he's thinking about what HE wants, not what Ellie or anyone else wants. So, he kills Marlene and lies to Ellie about all of it, even when she gives him the opportunity to come clean.
I empathize with Joel, but... yes, the guy is a horrible, selfish person.
Yes, the finale shows Joel being a *violent* person, but it doesn't just show that. It shows the expansion of violence *in general*. "And you KNOW this" isn't an excuse for killing somebody without *direct* and *blatant* conscious choice to do as such. Just because we are told this, doesn't inherently make it true.
As much as Joel is selfish, so were the Fireflies. They each had different reasons to be selfish, but not allowing Ellie to make the choice and NOT show her making that choice to the Fireflies wasn't an accident by NaughtyDog.
I just took killing everyone as the only sane thing to do at that point.
My reason for doing so is that the Fireflies are utterly incompetent whenever we see them in the game and the only thing we ever see them do is fail and die. I would not trust them with anything after what we are shown throughout the game.
In fact, I'm surprised the hospital at the end isn't already on fire, most of the people there dead or dying, while the place is getting overrun by the infected, by the time you wake up. Because that would be consistent with what we see prior to that in the game.
Also, they're a bunch of complete assholes. Because what kind of top-level king of the cunts reacts to seeing a man desperately calling for help, while trying to administer CPR to an unconscious girl, after coming out of a pool of cold water, by beating him unconscious with their gun?! And these are the people we're supposed to trust to save the world?!
All evidence suggest they'll kill Ellie, get themselves infected, and all die. In a stupid way, because they fail at everything and die. Which, again, is all we ever see them do. I mean their entire medical approach is painfully stupid!
We have one person who's immune, so how should we best utilize this unique resource? The Fireflies answer:
_Lets kill her and extract all of the possibly immunizing strain of fungus (which is not proven because they've done no other tests!) so it can wither and die and we'll be left with... nothing._
Which is 100% on point with what we see from the Fireflies prior to that. Because the Fireflies are morons, and killing them is, without any doubt in my mind, the right thing to do. Not just for the world, but for the diminishing gene-pool of humanity as a whole.
TL;DR: Fuck the Fireflies, they're worse that useless! Wipe them out and save the world (and Ellie) from getting killed by their rampant stupidity. God I hate the Fireflies... they're the Nazis of the Last of Us. But they'd gas themselves, because they're that incompetent. Fuck em'. :)
I've actually yet to play TLoU, but if i was in his shoes, i'd do the same and i haven't even gone through what's he's been through. Dude's lost everything already, his hope is not a cure, his hope is Ellie.
"how could you not talk about unde- ah the video is from 2013. ok"
Another one that struck me quite hard was the 2008 freeware indie game called Iji, a metroidvania-ish platformer with a rather detailed integrated story in which one could play in an entirely pacifist way (like the later Undertale). News coverage and documentation from the alien forces you are set to fight change drastically depending on your actions, either labeling you a fearful monster, just potentially dangerous enemy, or as a possible friend.
Also, the Drakengard and Nier franchise is quite thematically harsh on violence too. Most games penned by Yoko Taro carry the themes or the opinion that victory achieved by violence is bitter; that murdering thousands and/or committing genocide as is normal in heroic fantasy games should not result in a happy ending.
Hello fellow Iji fan!
3 years late, but I just have to say Iji is a goddamn gem.
One aspect of hotline Miami I find interesting is how nonstop and high octane it is during the action sequences, you hardly have time to think- the sprites walking around are almost abstract due to the top down narrative. The music gets your blood pumping. The colors add visual noise and a surreal atmosphere, the constant fast paced instant repetition gives it an addictive quality. It’s on the walk back- no music, no constant threat, that the sprites suddenly look a lot like people, and the details in the gore and the environments are noticeably dense.
I love how grounding that it, and how well the game puts you into Jacket’s mindset.
Kane & Lynch 2 and Manhunt both have similar and interesting takes on violence to TLOU.
Remember that time in The Last of Us where, at almost every single opportunity, the Fireflies showed themselves to be unbelievably incompetent at basically everything they attempt to do, and how that makes it kind of hard to trust that their idea of "immediately muder-surgery a teenage girl without her consent" is a good one?
Remember that time in Bioshock Infinite where the character cast as a blatant allegory to Harriet Tubman is written as a basically unrepentant criminal murderer gone mad with power and is totally going to kill your precious rich white children?
The later one was shown to be a ruse in the DLC. The DLC also does again reflect on Bookers violence and has Elizabeth questioning herself how much meing a DeWitt predestins her for it.
But the trend in the 2013 games to have a black women as rebel leader was uncanny if you want to accentuate that.
Sarah Andrea Royce
"pay $15 to hear us maybe call into question the super racism in our game maybe"
That is true, but irrelevant. When Joel was mowing down fireflies in the hospital, he wasn't thinking "I gotta save Ellie because the fireflies are incompetent". He was thinking "I gotta save Ellie because she is my new daughter-figure and I don't care about the fate of the world beyond her" Joel wouldn't have allowed her to undergo the surgery even if she consented to it ( because he lied to her about what happened in the hospital)
@@troyareyes Actually, he was thinking" what the FUCK makes them think that murdering Ellie without ANY attempt to study her is the right thing to do? What the FUCK makes them think that they have the moral right to kill her with no guarantee that her death will accomplish ANYTHING? What the FUCK have they done that makes them think they can demand my unquestioning loyalty and trust?"
But, you know... I guess you weren't paying attention to that part.
@@SchulzEricT having played the game many times, I never remember Joel outright questioning the fireflies in this way. As the audience, we can ask these questions, but I don't really think Joel is asking them. On some level, I'd like to think that Joel is compelled to act because the fireflies are incompetent, and they often are, but that doesn't seem to be what actually happens. Mind you, I love the game, but I disagree with this particular reading.
I was not prepared for the bathroom vocabulary moment
I love these essays so much, thank you
I just wanted to say, This video makes me want to play bioshock more then any review has ever done. (note i don't really get into fps games)
Violence causes video games?
I love your channel but please no more bathroom scenes.
How flavourless is your life if you can't even appreciate this absolute power move
I'm from the future
I did not expect to see his buns
This man got his whole ass out for the sake of our media education
@@casono i am from the farther future
neither did I
I love your channel, but please make an onlyfans of exclusively bathroom scenes
I'm a little sad you touched on Spec Ops here, but didn't actually give it a dissection.
Bioshock 1 was probably the first game to make me think about player action and narrative; Infinite's ending I found beautiful.
But Spec Ops was a whoooaoooah moment for me. Spellbinding.
As a studying Video Game Designer, I'd like to offer up the opinion that violence is so prevalent in video games, because it's the easiest thing to program. Does X overlap with the space Y occupies? Yes? Report success to the player and give them feedback. Other things like diplomacy, trade or craft are much harder to program, as the player always needs feedback and the feeling they are progressing, otherwise they'll see no use in playing. Even Undertale, a game known for its pacifist runs, expresses peacefulness only in fights and combats. The obvious answer to this is of course innovation, but AAA games are million dollar projects, so few companies are willing to shoulder such risk.
Spec Ops: The Line was such an amazing game to experience and it seems like everyone has forgotten it.
You really should play Undertale. It deals these elements pretty extensively and has them impact the world greatly. Plus, it's a very good game to begin with. OFF also does this to an extent, though it is less thorough/meta about it. Maybe make a minisode on those?
Danny BRITZMAN
It might be heavy handed and a bit too black or white, but that doesn't make it a worse game.
There's a good portion of gamers that play games for escapism, and in that matter, simpler worlds with clear decisions are better. Undertale manages to present a deeper and more interactive story with very simple mechanics, a low budget and a workforce of one than a lot of triple A titles.
Yes, there is no contradiction. A game can force you to play it, forcing you also to feel like crap while doing so, and thus not be hypocritical.
See: Undertale, as I'm sure most people who've seen this reccently have told you. Also, Transistor (I've been told. I haven't actually beaten that one).
I'll back you up on Transistor there. The game sees you through an apocalypse from beginning to end, but ultimately puts the deaths of the last remaining residents -- the ones responsible for the apocalypse and much more besides -- on your hands. They are at their wit's end trying to recage the force they unleashed, but through, well, attentional bias (helped by some darn heartbreaking dialogue from a mute protagonist), they are the enemy; their designs cost the protagonist something dear and now you and she seek to right that wrong, to unravel the mystery -- to find a reason for a cruel twist of fate -- and find some sense of justice even as the world you know crumbles around you. But when you face those responsible, because of obstinance and circumstance, the only option presented to you is payment in blood.
You can argue you are only hastening the inevitable; you can argue that those responsible can only make matters worse by trying to "help" and thus sparing them only dooms them to a slower death later should you fail to stop the apocalypse or essentially acquits them of their misdeeds should you succeed. Regardless, Red still becomes the last woman in Cloudbank pretty much by her own hand. However, in doing so, she gains power and in that empowerment the game builds up the hope that you can put things right and turn back the apocalypse before it consumes everything.
I'll leave how the game pays off that hope to you to find out on your own. I will say it's a shame I can never play the game for the first time ever again.
You could extend this discussion with the movie Logan. Same thing.
Great content by the way.
i still love this channel
1:11 'Why is violence so prevalent in video games' jumps over the real #1, which is "early limitations of the medium".
When games started as a medium, the binary 'exists/doesn't exist' was one of the only interactive elements available to designers. Making things exist where they don't is a cool mechanic, but everything that exists in the game takes up compute time and memory, which were limited on early machines. So, the mechanic that fit the limitations of the machine best was the other option: eliminate an object.
Map this mechanic onto framing a human would recognize and you pretty quickly and inevitably get to destroying and violence. That's the precedent early tech set in the medium, and since games stand on the shoulders of those that came before, unless a creator sets out to subvert the status quo, they are likely to at least incorporate violence, if not base the game around it.
It's a really important point that often gets missed.
Infinite's ending has been speculated on so much, but I think there's a rather simple interpretation of the events:
1. The Bookers who chose to be reborn die in the baptism.
2. Comstock ceases to exist.
3. Comstock never offers to buy Elizabeth.
4. She never gets her powers.
5. The whole plot never happens.
6. Booker lives (mostly) peacefully with his daughter.
i'd be really interested in seeing a video about undertale from this channel tbh
Someday. I've got most of a really good script.
i look forward to it then
Great analysis, here.
ive played and completed bioshock infinite 3 times and listening to this is the first time i had any idea what was going on
**FUCKING SPOILER WARNING**
About your question: I think it does make sense when you consider that the people who get the message are the people who did get through the whole game - in other words, the people who gave up in disgust along the line don't get it. The people who didn't get to the anti-violence message are the ones who don't really need it.
And the ones who do reach it often don't get it
Bathroom Vocabulary obviously should have been called Dan on the Can.
I think a game can still be critical of violence while featuring it. If it points out how horrible certain actions really are, it makes you question things. It makes you uncomfortable. And as you continue to play you become even more uncomfortable and it forces you to examine moral implications of your actions. Not a lot of games will do something like that. You can feature something in your game/movie/book without endorsing it.
I love your vids!
I believe that the propose of these games that criticize their own violence is to try to get the player to feel what it is true lee like to be a killer and then question how that makes you feel. I believe that the game designer wants you to feel bad for having to make difficult choices and doubt yourself on weather or not you are making the morally right choice. These games are more or less lessons of morality, teaching us the difficulties of making moral decisions and accepting the consequences for our own actions. In a sene, I believe that these kinds of video games give us the chance to make horrible decisions in a safe environment and showing us the consequences of those mistakes so that way we can avoid making similar mistakes in real life.
Exactly, until some Terminator or Planet of the Apes shit happens, killing a character in a game isn't the same as hurting someone in real life. If you can learn the same message of "violence sucks" without having to actually go out and mow through mobs of people irl, it's a good way to get the point across. I'd rather have to kill someone like the Fireflies and feel bad about it than shoot a real flesh and blood person and feel infinetly worse.
Okay, but that jaunty *ding* as the lights go up on Elizabeth holding the bloody knife mid-murder stance - timed one long beat *after* Fitzeroy's body actually hits the floor.
Like, there didn't *have* to be a *ding* - it coulda worked with just the lights going up as the display is activated or whatever, or they could have used a different sound entirely and it would still be a standout shot that gets the message across, focusing attention on the implied showcase of Elizabeth's essential baptism of blood in this moment.
But they used the *ding*. Come on, it kinda undercuts the seriousness in a way I just can't help but feel was all too intentional. Instead, it gives the moment that air of "elevator's arrived", or "dinner's ready" , or even those annoying "ring bell for service" things. So with this *ding*, using the elevator example, are we meant to feel like this shot is saying "*ding* Elizabeth's arrived"? Like I legit think even the sliding doors of the backdrop behind her are evocative of elevator doors opening/closing.
Anyway, I'm dumb - ignore me.
I can't think of the word for it but I kkow it exists and it's description probably includes the words "macabre", "juxtaposition".
I have this thought all the time
I think the fact that the game expects you to play through the violence if anything just strengthens the narrative, because by playing through the violence we feel it, do you think for example that the white phosphorus scene on Spec ops would have been nearly as heavy if it happened all on a cutscene rather than how it plays out, with you explicitly shooting the white phosphorus? no, no it would not because by playing the violence, making the violence, we become not only observers of the violence but also agents of it, and by extension we're no longer observers of the consequences, we are also agents on them
It's very odd watching this for the first time after the last of us 2 has come out, with a petition to unkill Joel and make him the protagonist again.
Did you miss the whole point?
Thank you for the spoiler warning.
Guys, check out the Band he used for the outro. They are great and as I found out just now pretty unknown.
Me not caring about spoilers is a super safe assumption.
Drowning Booker doesn't break the chain; there are infinite timelines where he isn't drowned. You just saw at least three of them.
I'd love to see what you think of bioshock infinite given the post game DLC and how that changes the ending.
I got a great chuckle out of the bathroom scene. The irony was not lost on me. Well played good sir.
In September of 2013, Dishonored was a thing and had been for some time, and yet it is Not on this list. Hmm
hes like a less cute Jenny Nicholson. love ur channel
Hotline Miami is the glue that binds lefty RUclips together
I know I'm coming at this 6 years late to the conversation, but since I actually saw this the first time, I stumbled across Drakengard again after getting sucked into the Nier games, and... I would love to hear your take on Drakengard - specifically 1 but the series as a whole - as it uses its repetitive and (in the case of 1 at least ) "purposely" bad gameplay to drive home a point of how if there were a warrior going around acting like a video game protagonist - i.e. enjoying the slaughter of hundreds upon thousands as they get in his way - they would rightfully be seen as psychotic. Also a note I put "purposely" in quotes because I've heard anecdotes that Yoko Taro - the game's director - made the game play like crap on purpose but it also feels like early PS2 jank so it's hard to say. But yeah, all of Yoko Taro's games have this really interesting throughline to them that amounts to "Yeah, violence really sucks but... we're hardwired to be violent in some cases and that's a double edged sword. We can fight for what we believe in, but that often means hurting others who are doing the same."
Thanks for the spoiler warning!
Dude posted this a month before undertale came out
i think its not really a contradiction? ive noticed 2 types of games with these themes: one type is more choice-based like undertale (it encourages you not to be violent but doesnt promise any reward for that or punishment for violence until the very end) and the other is more consequence-based like the games youve talked about. its kinda making you do what you expect from the game and then jumping out with this "look what youve done. is it really fin okay and normal?". i think both are a valid moral learning experience just different
surprised shadow of the colossus wasn't mentioned
Nier is a great example.
Who's watching that in2021?
Undertale examined this really well too.
I think games that want to criticise violence should either provide less obvious, but plausible methods of solving problems without violence that force players to think outside the structure of the game. If we see a highlighted weapon, we're gonna pick it up and follow the instructions. Also making violence actually cost something to those around us, give us consequences beyond an easily surpassable bounty or short-lived police chase.
But I don't think willingness to be violent in games translates well to real life in the same way sexual objectification does.
I'm surprised that Undertale didn't bring this up, seeing as it's the only game you really get criticized by both the game and the fanbase for doing a genocide run.
yes, yes and yes. nothing wrong with that, if anything it exposes you to the consideration of case specific situations.
It's interesting that you bring up that question about whether games who use this violence are hypocritical if they then ask the player to be critical of said violence. Spec Ops The Line is actually all about that question, that game spends pretty much it's entire run telling you to stop playing it, and then at the end points the finger at you for causing all the horrible events in the game by ignoring it's warnings. Ultimately, Spec Ops is about the fact that even in the most linear game, there's always a choice to avoid whatever violence there is in a game, to simply not play the game, and to continue playing is to, in a way, say you are on board for all the violence presented.
I've heard Spec Ops is actually even funkier in this regard, because in early builds there were parts of the game (such as the infamous white phosphorus scene) where you could choose to fight your way through rather than commit horrible war crimes... But playtesters kept choosing to do that, so the devs removed the option before release and thereby railroaded players into committing the war crimes. I can't say it would've been a *good* decision to allow players to somehow cause less harm by doing more fighting, getting the players to do horrible things is definitely part of the point and allowing them to take on personal risk to avoid doing that could mince that message, but I do think that encouraging the player to just quit if they don't like it is not a very good strategy.
I mean, if you're going to break the 4th wall like that to tell them to stop, then you're tacitly reminding them that they're playing a game, and with that reminding them that the people they're murdering aren't real... So why SHOULD they feel bad about it? They're just polygons on the screen, no real people are being hurt, and the player didn't have a choice in killing them or not, so what exactly should they feel guilty for? You can't really have it both ways, either commit to locking the players in and keeping them invested or commit to being a 4th wall breaker that cares more about communicating to the player than about the characters in-game. Trying to guilt the player into quitting the game entirely just doesn't work that well, in my opinion.
Just found this channel. Great videos. Have you thought about doing a video about Avatar the cartoon? One of the themes that I like most about the cartoon is Aang's pacifism. It's really unusual for a hero to both proclaim to hate violence and actually avoid violence. Usually heroes that avoid violence only avoid-violence-until-that-scene-where-shit-gets-real. Just thought it might be food for thought and/or make an interesting companion piece. Actually, it makes me think of Luke Skywalker and the emperor. The emperor's tactic is to goad Luke into attacking, and Luke resists the emperor by not fighting him. Maybe a video about pacifism, then?
I know this is a six year old comment, but did you ever see the Big Joel video about exactly what you described here? I'm guessing there's a good chance you have, but if not, it's a good one.
ruclips.net/video/ip1xe7JFb-g/видео.html here a link to it in case. (Also be sure to watch the whole video when you do, there's kind of thing going on with it)
I'd love to hear your analysis of Spec Ops: The Line on this topic
Oh, you totally did already xD
3:04 *insert eventually reference to undertale. even though this game came out a few months LATER after the REUPLOAD of a 2013 video.*
How about 5:37? "It's kill or be killed."
Okay, as a new viewer of this channel, ow come this is the third video in a row I'm watching Published on August 22nd 2015?
My videos were previously published on Blip.tv and a different RUclips channel. After that site shut down I moved the backlog to this channel.
That makes sense.
And then Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea destroys the narrative by introducing a Comstock who traveled to Rapture and turned himself into Booker.
It doesn't make sense for Booker to be able to fight hundreds and hundreds of dudes who should have access to everything he has. That's my biggest problem with the violence in BI. His mission should have been a stealth mission. He's trying to sneak this girl out of this island. Him getting into fights against a large group should be automatic game over. There's no way she would be fine and it's a little silly how she's never really in danger.
And almost no one saw the protag of tlou at the end as twisted and wrong. He killed not because he thought it was satisfying but because he loved his adopted daughter. He put the blood on his hands in order to give her more time. He chooses her over the world. We wish we had the agency and courage to choose love over the utilitarian decision.
Drakengard 3 I felt was critical of its violence. You had to play through the game 5 times in order to get the ending. No one does that aside from the most dedicated.
I think No More Heroes did Spec Op's message better.
Also Undertale which probably came out after this video was made.
He "loved his adopted daughter" but refused to give her any agency in the matter, and then lied to her face about it afterwards. No, that's seriously twisted.
it's selfish but totally understandable. Very few parents would be strong enough to let their child go like that.
No... no there are just too many things wrong with this. He didn't have to resort to shooting. He could have just focused on stopping the operation until he could talk to Ellie. He could have come out and told the truth about it afterwards. Yes, I can understand a protective impulse, but this goes way beyond that. Regardless of whether we can empathize with Joel's actions, and regardless of whether "almost no one saw [Joel] at the end as twisted and wrong," his actions were twisted and wrong, *_period_*. That's pretty much the point Dan's making anyway--it's easy for us to empathize with a hyper-violent sociopath.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 Not really.
1 - They pulled a gun on him and were planning on marching him out of there. If you think the Fireflies were going to listen to him after they DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIM, then either you weren't paying attention, or you've forgotten.
2 - They were planning on murdering a child who also might've been humanity's only hope to cure a plague. He was 100% justified in using lethal force to defend her life; that's how escalation of force works.
3 - Ellie was a child, she isn't qualified to choose to commit suicide because some people lied to her.
4 - Joel lied to her because he thought that she would blame herself for their deaths, because Joel killed them to protect her. She'd be WRONG to think that - they died because they tried to murder a child in cold blood - but she's a child, she can't be expected to be mature enough to understand that yet. Just as she isn't mature enough to make a decision like letting the Fireflies kill her and doom humanity.
Joel will tell her when she's ready, not before.
"wonton violence"
I've yet to see someone mention the fact that the enjoyment of fictional violence isn't a human construct and goes as far as the basis of play behavior in animals, which mostly consists of play fighting, aka, simulating murder. Point is, if you want to delve into the psychology of fictional violence, you're gonna have to go deeper than the featherless biped to get the full picture.
12:01 wonton violence!
1: Gameplay is simulation; differently in executive factor and personalized agency than Cinema or Novels but no more or less simulation. It’s mockery of the real is no less able to criticize violence in or out of the text.
2: Anything using inserted material metaphor is dichotomous when critically or satirically mocking the real. So Yes.
3: It very variably depends on the lens and content of the simulation and the intent of the critique and/or the perceived intent of the critique.
GTA IV and V have good points on the American Dream and torture respectively, and use their violence and behavior of the characters to deliver it. Fallout also does it well.
How do you feel about the hidden third ending of farcry 4? Escape the violence for sure
To answer your last questions: play Dishonored. It's not perfect, but it's close
won't lie, the bathroom vocabulary was both insightful yet uncomfortable.
3:03 my first thought was undertale and the no mercy route
If you revisit this topic, you should talk about violence and death (especially player death)contribute to the narrative.
Thinking about it, I actually do think that depicting violence for the sake of critiquing it does end up being contradictory. That said, I see it less as a problem for the art itself, and rather just as an indication of the human existence itself [goodness, that last sentence sounded pretentious].
Anyway, as you said earlier in the video, we have that lizard brain impulse to strangle certain assholes. At the same time, we structure our society such that we acknowledge [for hopefully obvious reasons] that violence is wrong. While most people are able to keep those dark impulses under control, others cannot and act them out.
Bear in mind, I'm not trying to say that all of humanity is supressing an urge to kill or anything, just that, to varying degrees, there's always that part of us that enjoys violence. Since that dichotomy is a contradiction that we have to perpetually wrestle with, the fact that our art reflects that doesn't seem wrong; it seems inevitable.
but what game were you playing on the ds
In answer to your question: Manhunt. More specifically Manhunt 2. wherein the narrative of the game slowly begins to question and condemn the excesses of it's violence. Meanwhile the latter game gameplay continues to ramp it up.
Manhunt the series and the controversy that surround it could warrant a separate critique on it's themes, ambition and how it contextualised a somewhat extreme take on violence.
Please, what is that gadget you have in your hands while in the crapper?
A Nintendo DS
A game forcing you to participate in the violence it criticizes is hypocritical and that is the point. Violence is not just physical violence. It's any removal of agency. So if I tell you violence is bad and you shouldn't do it, but remove your ability to not be violent, I am demonstrating to you why violence is bad.
The player has to be able to come away with the meaning and some games may or may not frame this in a way they can. But the risk of the audience not interpreting correctly is a risk no matter how good the framing.
Speaking of violence as narrative, you should make a film analysis of violence as utilized in God Bless America. It is a 2011 Comedy/Action film with a fun premise in spite of its very bloody and violent nature, with a wonderful character that is relatable to everyone, like "Frank" from Fight Club.
To the best of my knowledge research does not show any relationship between violent media like video games and the actual rate of violent crime, which is more strongly affected by other factors like economic class. And from a perspective of reason, the argument can be convincingly made that having outlets for our violent impulses allows us to expend them in less harmful ways, making us less likely to resort to it in reality.
There isn't a lot of evidence that violent media leads to violent crime--violent crime rates are down even as violent media rates are up--but that isn't the only thing worth commenting on in relation to the over-saturation of violence in video games and other media. Even on a smaller scale, playing violent video games leads to more aggressive behavior and less empathy, and this *is* shown in the research. Just because the kids playing Grand Theft Auto aren't committing armed robberies doesn't mean they aren't being harmed by the desensitization of violence. The celebration of violence and devaluing of human life, condensed into a fun medium and repeated over and over again, is not going to leave your empathy and social relationships unaltered.
Also, the notion that it becomes an "outlet" is, psychologically speaking, ridiculous. Anger outlets like sports, art, or therapy are far better at redirecting negative energy than video games. In any case, video games only reward the acting of that anger and violence, which simply encourages more of it. And, eventually, the fictional outlet isn't enough to satisfy the impulse it helped cultivate.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spontaneous-emotion/201008/media-violence-revisited
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167205277205
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167213520459
www.news.iastate.edu/news/2017/04/11/mediaviolence
www.apa.org/pi/prevent-violence/resources/tv-violence.aspx