Spoiler: There Is No "Rape" Level In DNF

[elchevalier]

I think this quote would serve well to this topic:

“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” – Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"

It will be a rental for me, you know me, motion sickness is not my friend. As for the "scandal", who the hell actually pays attention to all the people bitching about video game violence and sexism? See, the actual serious debates the industry should had about this subjects are eclipsed by them morons. The very same people that screamed "RACIST!" when they saw images of Resident Evil 5. Seriously, stop this bullshit, problem is, the video game "media" fuels this crap.

[ECM]

I'd also point out that game sales aren't AT ALL influenced by reviews, so PR getting in pissing matches w/ the game 'journos' is a total waste of time and makes them [the alleged journalists] feel more important than they actually are. (Even worse, game 'journos' get 99% of their 'scoops' from PR departments...let that sink in for a minute...people calling themselves journalists get the freakishly huge majority of their stories from PUBLIC RELATIONS departments...this actually puts them lower than sports 'reporters' and on par w/ E! 'Courtney is hotter than Kim¹' Entertainment Television...Hell, E! might actually be better in at least there isn't this layer of pretension--which many game journos employ completely un-ironically--slathered over Courtney's delicious curves.)

1 It's true: she's way hotter than her pornstar sister. It's a true fact.

[elchevalier]

Also would i look bad if i say i have no remorse in killing hookers in a GTA game? I don't see it as some kind of statement or agenda from the game, i just see it as a gameplay device and nothing more. You see, the thing with video games and their take on "adult" themes is: 99% of them have the maturity of a 13 year old when they tackle said subjects. Mind you, i rarely if ever get offended by anything, vgs are in the last place in the list of things and places that could offend me, because again, their juvenile take on adult relations, social and political issues and what not is something i can't take seriously at all, thus i dismiss it.

In other words: people should quit getting mad at video games.

[ECM]

I'm not mad at it, I just don't care to support it (and it's not just because of shooting hookers)...so I don't

[elchevalier]

Certainly, i play them at a friend's house. Basically, mediocre gameplay and level design shouldn't be supported, at all. That said, i liked the Vice City games, mostly because of the soundtrack and city designs.

[elchevalier]

Ok, so i haven't played the game yet, but i decided to read some of the reviews. For starters, they say the game looks and plays "dated" and that it's not in pair with the "standards" of modern FPS (read: Call of Duty) That and that the humor is gross, but mostly they are attacking the gameplay and level design.

[ECM]

Well, yeah? I'd hope that *most of the review* would beat up on the game itself, and not spend multiple pages on the off-color humor.

But the fact is, the reviews for Duke do dwell on it in a way that they do not for games like GTA or, really, any other game that features scantily-clad chicks which is, basically, *all* of them. In other words, you can't damn Duke for things that you don't damn other games for (and for things far, far more morally questionable) just because Duke is any easy target in that everyone is using it as a punching bag. Nobody is going to 'call out' GTA because everyone is supposed to like GTA, just like everyone is supposed to like Halo, and CoD and on and on and on.

This Duke shit is on a par w/ the 'racism' in Resident Evil 5, another game where the critics lambasted it for perceived crimes against humanity/good taste, because you were shooting black people...in Africa...where there are, last anyone looked, a lot of black people¹.

Whereas if the enemies were, I dunno, a bunch of evil Spaniards (I know, a big stretch, so work w/ me on this) they have nothing at all to say because gunning down Spaniards is, apparently, morally justifiable to people that don't believe in having a shred of consistency in what they write.

So no, of course they don't dwell on the 'rape' and the 'misogyny' for the width and breadth of a review because that would be going way, waaaay over-the-top. The point is, you cannot even utter a peep about something for which you give a pass in just about *any* other game, if you're not trying to prove something to someone (that is: to people that are right-thinking and don't put up w/ 'misogyny' in their games...unless it's in GTA, then it's totally cool to shoot women in the face).

(And, hell, you saw how Smithee reacted to it, and he hadn't even *played* it and had gotten all of his info about it from the game media.)

¹ And if it was set in Africa and you were shooting white guys, you just know a few assholes would have gone after them for being racist because there weren't enough black people...being gunned down. Basically their only out was to set it in Kansas, where I imagine shooting Midwesterners is basically as OK as shooting Spaniards (and those Spaniards had it coming!).

[ECM]

Jun 24, 2011 18:39:07 GMT -5 Zigfried said:

* but it's okay to kill Medusa in every Castlevania game -- simply because she's blocking the door -- because that is based on Greek mythology and is therefore artistic instead of "misogynistic"

Quote of the week? XD

[elchevalier]

What i don't get is, according to reviews, what is DNF lacking that every other "contemporary" FPS seems to have? The one time i played Modern Warfare 2 i really didn't see anything i would call "groundbreaking" or that made me said "SHIT, NOW THIS IS WHAT A FPS IS SUPPOSE TO BE!"

[ECM]

This response is to chevalier, since Zig snuck in a (good) response while I was grinding my teeth and writing this:

I'm guessing, perhaps, people actually playing it?

But I think you're making my point: they're not bashing it for the game itself, they're mainly bashing it because you're not supposed to like it. Anyone that does is a cro-magnon, knuckle-dragging, jingoistic nutbar that traveled, Buck Rogers-style, from the unenlightened mid-90s all the way into hyper-enlightened[footnote:1]In other words, hyper-PC.[/footnote] 2011 where nudity (unless, I guess, it's hardcore porn) and profanity (unless it's, uh, err...everywhere??) are frowned upon with very, very furrowed brows.

As far as the game being a throwback to the apparent Dark Ages of FPS' (this is a bad thing??) this is a compliment given the nature of modern FPS 'design':


An exaggeration? Only barely! Which is terrifying!

You know what's even more terrifying? This is what the market wants!

The killer, though, is Duke is, in many respects, exactly like that diagram--it's hyper-linear, albeit w/ less cinemas.

In fact, the only thing that I will accept being throwback-ish about it is that you can actually run 'n' gun large parts of it where, if you were to do that in a 'modern' FPS, you'd be cut to ribbons in seconds. The thing is, though, Serious Sam is basically a modernized version of Doom and the media has *no* problem at all w/ that game. (This is exactly what I liked about it early on, but the game actually has quite a bit more going on than just mowing down Pig Cops which, in a sane world, would be a plus.)

Which brings me back to my original point: you aren't supposed to like Duke. It has very little to do w/ its gameplay which is actually a mix of very, very different play types, from FPS, to racing, to platformers to (lame) puzzles all wrapped up in a crazy, B-movie, presentation. It's more like what you might get if you forced GTA into a FPS-shaped sausage-maker and spiced it up w/ a half-dozen B movies.

(And if I haven't been entirely clear: all of these things don't make it a throwback, they make it its own game or, worst case, a clone of games like Halo and Half-Life 2--that's how badly the gaming media has missed the boat in their rush to prove who hates it the most.)

So, for the last time: they hate it because they're supposed to hate it. Period.

(Again I point to Smithee who, without even playing it and only knowing what the gaming media told him about it, decided that no sane, right-thinking, person could ever play something as crude as DNF becaues of "misogyny"[footnote:2]There isn't any. At all.[/footnote] and "jingoism"[footnote:3]There isn't any: Duke is out for himself, period, and there is virtually no mention of the US govt except to mock it mercilessly, since the president is a hand-wringing, sell-out, buffoon.[/footnote], neither of which exist and neither of which have anything at all to do w/ the game itself.)

And that right there is the *last* thing I'm writing about DNF...until (if?) Zig writes a review on it. I mean it. Probably. (But probably not.)

[elchevalier]

Once more, the reviews are so vague in the whole "DNF is not up to the standards of modern FPS" then accuse it of simplified levels when a lot of FPS these days have outrageously simple levels. Are they even reading what they are writting?

[ECM]

No! They aren't and don't! Because it isn't about the game! They are vague because they are not bashing it for the gameplay! They are bashing it as a political statement! Period! YEAARRRRGGHHHHH! ECM SMASH!