Ostriig on 10/11/2008 at 23:03
Quote Posted by demagogue
In cinema, the really great guys started off doing their own projects with their own money, and my secret hope is that will happen in gaming too: People using their college fund to commission assets (the same way they spent their last dollars for equipment & props) and make projects/TC's that go way beyond "mods" in the same way, say, Eraserhead or Kubrick's early docs go waaay beyond mere "home movies".
I remember seeing a documentary on TV a couple of years ago about the beginnings of the film industry, and how the job of actor was hardly a desirable one back then, carrying a poor social standing with it. Oh, and should we even mention rock music anymore?
Scots Taffer on 10/11/2008 at 23:06
Quote Posted by dethtoll
I can't remember if it was catbarf or Aja who insisted games were not art. Probably Aja, which would explain a lot actually.
Really, carrying a torch around for people you find personally distasteful when it comes to gaming preferences is a bit beyond faggoty, just stop it.
Also, this is precisely the opposite of something Aja would say.
Back on topic, I think that any game that tries to deal with the gravitas of laying to waste armies of individuals is one that's always going to rate decently on my scale - that said, as long as they keep throwing lots of interesting things for me to kill and lots of interesting ways to dispatch them I'm generally happy too. oh the tragic human comedy how it keeps perpetuating!
june gloom on 11/11/2008 at 00:54
Quote Posted by Aja
But it was Jashin, you tool.
I was intentionally being an ass, but you know what? I apologize. I'd completely forgotten about Jashin's "games aren't art" bullshit because it was buried in the middle of all his Blizzard knobslobbering.
Aja on 11/11/2008 at 01:00
Don't mention it.
ZymeAddict on 11/11/2008 at 01:20
Quote Posted by dethtoll
...for that matter, very few movies like talking about it too-
Schindler's List and one of the later episodes of
Band of Brothers (which made me cry like a stupid kid- actually all of BoB's episodes did) come to mind first, but aside from
Jakob the Liar I have a hard time thinking of anything else, at least here in the U.S.
Sorry, but that is completely untrue. There are tons of films out there on the Holocaust, as even this (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_films) partial list at Wikipedia attests. And those are just the ones which have it as the main storyline.
Zygoptera on 11/11/2008 at 02:16
Quote Posted by dethtoll
The problem is, most of the folks who might lay claim to that sort of status- the Levines and the Spectors and so on- are a bunch of hacks who got lucky the first time around.
So, you hate SS2
and Bioshock? Because Levine's first writing effort was a little known, poorly remembered and critically panned title called...
"Thief: The Dark Project"In any case, even Ken pales into insignificance before the awesome which is Mr Chris Avellone.
EvaUnit02 on 11/11/2008 at 02:54
Quote Posted by Zygoptera
In any case, even Ken pales into insignificance before the awesome which is Mr Chris Avellone.
He hated Planescape Torment and Fallout 2 as well.
Gryzemuis on 11/11/2008 at 03:56
Quote Posted by demagogue
Watching it again, admittedly it's not as clear-cut as it was in my memory. But I'm still left with the impression that it's doing everything it can to say "holocaust camp" without actually saying it.
Just for the record. Mustard gas was used in chemical warfare, but not in the gas chambers. The Germans used Zyklon B, or plain CO in their gas chambers. If I made a game (or movie) dealing with the gas chambers, I'd certainly use the name Zyklon B, and not mustard gas. Therefor I believe that game is not hinting towards the gas chambers or the holocaust.
demagogue on 11/11/2008 at 04:10
Former mustard gas plant. Now producing unknown gas. (There's some German dialog when you shoot the gas tanks that might help decipher what kind of gas it is, if you want to look into that; maybe a few other hints I could think of, e.g., the whole level seems to be designed to pipe gas across the whole level from the back plant to the front prisoners. That's what you are wiring up to bomb. For that matter, it's also combustible. Mustard gas is a skin irritant, but this gas doesn't seem to be. You could also look at the color, but I don't know enough about it to say.)
Yes, they gave enough ambiguity so there's room for interpretation. But we know three major things about this facility: (1) it produces lethal gas; (2) it's been reorganized as a POW holding facility for large numbers of prisoners coming in on trains; (3) in your CO's opinion, it's not a POW stopping-point but (strong implication) a destination, i.e., a prison camp, with "something more nefarious" going on.
It's the sort of thing that, like all military intelligence, there's never absolute surety but you put 1 and 1 together and get 2. Or put it the other way around: why would a Nazi commander decide to reinstall a bombed out gas plant with the new purpose of holding POWs? What's the connection? What's his logic?
You can try to argue (1), (2) and (3) have no connection, but the handwriting is on the wall IMO.
Gryzemuis on 11/11/2008 at 04:16
Quote Posted by denisv
Games aren't art and never will be perceived as art.
All new art-forms are not recognized as art in the beginning. Comic books were not considered of any value when I was a kid. I bet the artsy folks didn't recognize photography as art, when it was released. Film makers didn't like videoart (too short, ugly technology, etc). Graffiti, popmusic, I bet we can come up with a large list of art-forms that were not recognized as art.
Note, all art-forms can produce heaps of crap that is definitely not art. Not every book is art, not every photograph is art, not every commercial jingle is art.
The key here is that the people in society who define what is art, need to have a basic understanding of a new art-form, before they can recognize it as art. And currently, we have a generation in charge, that has little understanding and experience with computers. People in goverments, in parliaments, judges, executives in newspapers and tv-stations. Most of them are too old to have really used computers. They certainly have never played computer games. Just like the generation before them probably never read comic books, or maybe even never went to the cinema.
Give it 20 years. By then maybe we'll have gamers in influential positions. We don't even need hardcore gamers there. Can you imagine a secretary of cultural affairs who used to play World of Warcraft for 20 hours per week ? Or a new director of the Guggenheim, who used to spend many hours designing maps in the Unreal editor ? I can guarantee you, if the people at the top will have those experiences, the official perception of art will change. But it will take a while. Old people rule the world.
