ravoll on 22/11/2009 at 20:06
Hey people,
Just had the opportunity ,while channel surfing ,to see a game review on MTV-Germany's "Game One". Showcased was the Dark Project.Was really suprised.The most suprising about it was the moderator,whom I had a hard time of believing that he ever played the game.He explained rather lamely about the storyline ,about stealing stuff and knocking people out.He also mentioned something of Garrett collecting talismen to destroy the world .What a Pud! But the even bigger pud was the guy in the background,asking stupid questions like,"Don't you think this game is immoral,to hurt people and steal from them"?And then the best question that can only come from an idiot was,"How would you feel,if someone came into your house and took thinks from you".What the f**k?Are these people serious?
This coming from a program that otherwise glorifies games like Metal of Honor,Call of Duty,Grandtheft Auto,and the likes,on a channel that only turns our kids brains to mush with programs like Happy Tree Friends,and Celebrity Deathmatch,to mention a few, in a country that airs Die Hard on at least one public T.V. channel on Christmas Eve.(and war movies on others).Where's the moral in that?
I know that everyone is entitled to there own opinions,as I to mine.So at the risk of getting kicked off this forum I say,"#*$% you MTV,*@#* you Game One,and the horses you rode in on!!! You make me sick."
Finished ranting now.
KoHaN69 on 22/11/2009 at 20:24
:thumb:
Komag on 23/11/2009 at 02:13
meeeeee too!
jtr7 on 23/11/2009 at 03:26
:mad::mad:
Let the marketing department at EM hear how bass-ackwards the outside view of the games is, and let them correct this!:idea:
:thumb:
Elentari on 23/11/2009 at 06:01
It won't help if the idiots don't even play the game.
What I don't get is WHY on earth would they be concerned about a game that is about stealing yet promote horrendously violent, crime filled games? That makes no sense to me.
One thing I have always loved about Thief is the downplay of the violence. I mean. . .I suppose it still is to a level. . .but the general idea is to avoid it.
Even the general stealing is not aimed at the random 'innocent' people, its at big, corrupt villian types. The innocent people who are being robbed are not being cleaned out - so much as just losing a little that they got careless with. IE, leaving your coins on the open windowsill. One way or another, thats just asking to lose it. If nothing else, they could fall over and roll out the window. Or we take a shortcut through some random person's house and lift a gold vase as we run by. Thats hardly going to break the owner. And after all, by the end of the game we have saved their homes, their lives and all the rest of their possessions so they can go on the way they always have.
Compared to the games mentioned above, this is actually very mild!
And how is this much worse than having 'loveable' thief characters, that not only steal, but make us laugh and feel like excusing them anyway? (Autolycus from Xena/Hercules is one that comes to mind, but I know i've seen others out there, and the thief characters are NOT unusual in fantasy fiction/games and tv)
Ah well. I suppose I could keep going, but I'm probably just preaching to the choir here so I'll shut up. :D
There's also the thought that - if these people *Wanted* a negative review, it doesn't matter what the game is or is about. . .they'd find something to negative it about. And we all know the game isn't for everyone - if they played part of it and didn't like it . . .they would find a way to rip it down anyway.
Want to make a bet that if they DID try it, they went about it wrong anyway and tried to treat it like all the other shoot-em-up games.
jtr7 on 23/11/2009 at 06:09
My best guess about the violence vs. stealing fears is that game-influenced stealing is much much more likely to occur than the brutality and murder. It can happen with less evidence and not be noticed it's occurred for much longer.
We know that Thief-influenced real-world stealth has occurred a lot.:cheeky:
And yeah, the reviewers need to really play the game and pay attention as if their livelihood as a columnist depended on it.
Elentari on 23/11/2009 at 06:15
So it should. Then again *all* reviewers/media should pay attention to what they are reporting on and do it with accuracy as if their lives depend on it.
On a side note, how on earth is the 'stealing' in Thief any different from any other game? I mean aren't MOST games based on picking up anything that isn't nailed down and keeping it? Even the old adventure games I used to love were about running around and picking up anything you could find, whether it was in a character's house or not. Some of the clever ones 'fixed' it so that it wasn't quite stealing, but just as often you took it without anyone commenting. So how is thief any different? Except it calls it what it is. Some of the newer games (Morrowind being the last one that I am aware of to do that) did make an issue out of it and you had to literally steal it when no one was looking or get everyone mad at you. But in general - ALL games have stuff sitting around in the explorable areas for you to just pick up, regardless of who it might have/should have/would have belonged to. Why pick on Thief in that regard?
jtr7 on 23/11/2009 at 06:54
I know. Weird. Thief isn't about collecting power-ups to survive the game, but stealing from servants, the mouths of babes, as well as nobility and other thieves. Nothing Garrett steals is a necessary power-up, and he likes to steal indiscriminately. He's not taking what he steals and using it to destroy flesh and bone in direct confrontation. He steals and individuals and groups collapse from it, later on.
Platinumoxicity on 23/11/2009 at 08:25
The delusion that violent video games promote violence has no definite start, it's just small lies that were told by the conservative parents when video games were still taking shape. Those small lies, after being repeated long enough and spouted out of context, became parts of a bigger "truth" -that's the delusion that games promote what they present, and there is absolutely no proof of any of it existing.
The whole thing is actually completely backwards. How it really goes is like this:
-You play Thief -where you steal. You can do this virtually as much as you like without getting caught, and yo don't need to really steal anything.
-You play GTA -where you steal cars and kill cops. Just so that you wouldn't need to do it with real cars or cops. And you won't go to jail.
-You play Condemned -where you whack people's teeth in with a pipe. It relieves stress without really hurting anyone.
-You play COD:MW2 -where you shoot 500 civilians with a machinegun. Just so that you don't need to do it in a real airport with a real machinegun.
Herr_Garrett on 23/11/2009 at 09:07
Well, I don't know, but my best friend's house was broken into a couple of days ago, and it's not that I actually feel guilty about playing Thief, but the thought is in there somewhere. And the problem isn't taking their money - after all, people, no matter how downrun or poor they are, always have some more. It's breaking their feeling of security at home, their feeling of intimacy. In Thief, of course, eavesdropping and reading private diaries is exhiliarating, but in real life... Imagine it's done to you. A discomforting feeling. And really, when you get right down to it, Garrett's right: "I have the power to take everything from you. Including your life". How easy it would be to cut a sleeping person's throat. You won't get caught, anyway... That is why, I think, Thief cleverly discourages violence. Garrett, however immoral he might seem to be, is forced by a moral player to play it ethically (at least up to a certain level). But if the player is ab origino immoral, it's small wonder that his playing style will mirror that. The game, essentially, is an extension of our real lives. But every game is. In Thief, however, you have a choice. You can play it peacefully, or violently. MOHA, GTA, and other crap offer you no such choice. And, as we know, the process of observation alters the observer as well.
'Course, it's not that the recent events made me realise this. I always knew it. Just... you know. Kinda strange.
But this is a personal feeling, which has absolutely nothing to do with Thief. It's called thinking, and whatever the instigator may be, a game where you commit burglary or someone actually a-burgl'ing you, doesn't matter. Thief doesn't persuade people in any way to commit larceny - I think exactly the opposite, because in a small way, they can see how the "victims" react. If they are thinking people. Which I am pleased to say that apparently most taffers are, thank the Builder. Anyway.
Platinum, your statements are not true. Or, more precisely, aren't true when talking about, well, the plebs. Thinking people, of course, do realise that what they play is a game, and will not commit such atrocities in real life.
But the plebs will. They think it's a sort of reality (because they have no concept of reality at the first place, so for them, everything will do), and the more they play (and from the more early age), the will begin to confuse the twain. It's called 'simulated reality', or 'stimulated reality'. They lose grasp of what is real and what isn't - in fact, everything will become real. And then you have kids jumping out from windows thinking they can fly, trying to stop trucks, shooting/stabbing etc., each other, and so forth.
I know at least of one case in here, Hungary, when a child kicked one of his friends out from the 10th storey and was genuinely amazed when the boy didn't bounce back. Guess what were they watching? Tom and Jerry.
It's sad, but true. Most people spend 99% percent of their lives on autopilot, and let their body have control while they sit back and watch the show. And the body can't distinguish between stimuli. One visual stimulus is just as real as the other. And thus, you have school rampages and the Matrix.
I, for instance, am by nature pretty peaceful and diplomatic. I ghost. In games where it is available, I always choose diplomacy (I remember how gratified I felt when in Icewind Dale, I got XP for trying to talk my way out of an inevitable fight with a priest of Myrkul, upon totally unlawfully trespassing on a tomb. Yes, the bloodshed was done; but the developers were moral enough not to force its weight on you.) But others do not do so. They realise that a game is 'not real' (even though in a certain sense it is - your choices are just as valid choices in the moral/philosophical sense), and thus try to do what in 'real' life they cannot. And after a while, the borders become blurred and the two merge into each other. It can only be prevented by continuous thinking and conscious self-monitoring. Which, I can assure you, 95% of the actual population of Earth does not practice.
