Realism-paradox?

For your entire post including issues with "uncanny valley": How is that an objective problem? That is a subjective problem that I have found to not be a problem in my case.

If anything is uncanny valley (which is subjective) to me in games it's photorealism.

And considering Maus to not be prevalent is quite retarded. Really now.

edited 3rd Mar '11 9:54:15 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

...you're seriously trying to claim Call of Duty is not serious? The intro scene of being dragged to a public execution? Slowly dieing of radiation poisoning? The assassination in Pripyat? Watching the world tear itself apart from space?

Oh, I get it. It's Popular, Now It Sucks! negates all that.

^Maus is a single example.

edited 3rd Mar '11 9:59:55 PM by IndigoDingo

...you're seriously trying to claim Maus is not serious? The Holocaust? Gas chambers? Death and emotional and physical trauma?

Alternatively...we have lots of anime...like Welcome To The NHK, Serial Experiments Lain, Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Only Yesterday, Kaiba. I personally thought that while it was goofy Wind Waker was very serious.

edited 3rd Mar '11 9:58:57 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

What part of single example don't you get?

Or a knowledge of adult human psychology. One or the other.

I don't give a crap about it's popularity. I'll enjoy Bioshock just as much as I'll enjoy something as unpopular as Izuna The Unemployed Ninja.

But calling those games serious is like saying 007Wii or a typical Hollywood action movie is "serious".

...you've never actually taken any psychology course have you?

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:01:26 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

You ninja'd me with your edit.

edited 3rd Mar '11 9:59:42 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

I will say that a serious story has more impact for certain people (non gamers and 'hardcore' gamers in particular) if a game looks more realistic and has a greater depth of immersion. A lot of people can only feel immersion with some degree of realism.

But just as many people don't need realism to feel immersed in a game, and many games don't even need immersion to be fun.

Like to know what hollywood movies you're watching that features a first person viewpoint of a man dying in nuclear holocaust.

Two years, Macquarie University. And you?

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:05:13 PM by IndigoDingo

This thread was interesting until people started saying "REALISTIK GRAFIKZ ARE EVILS 1!1!1!!1"

Sorry guys, but we're not in the NES era anymore, deal with it.

"Who wants to hear about good stuff when the bottom of the abyss of human failure that you know doesn't exist is so much greater?"-Wraith

I fully support this mentality.

God what else do we have...A good portion Osamu Tezuka's work. Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Saikano, Bokurano, Naru Taru, When They Cry, some of the short stories in Yuri Monogatari (not entirely Japanese).

You also have to deal with the fact that the concept of "seriousness" itself is subjective. Not everyone considers some of the things I consider to be serious, serious. Children's books are an example. Kamikaze Girls is another example. The book is goofy as shit, but I would describe it as serious as it does deal with some serious themes. Like friendship and what being happy and knowing what you want means and how it can change.

Now I am not trying to argue that photorealism and realism shouldn't exist. They should. There is nothing inherently wrong with these things just as there is nothing inherently wrong with stylization. We should have as many options and as many styles as we possibly can so we can appeal to the many varied tastes in existence.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

That scene is less than 2 minutes in an entire game. It's like saying The Watchmen is about a glowing blue penis...

But plenty of Hollywood action movies have atleast one "emotional" death scene. Mentor shot from behind, etc.

But that's beside the point.

More importantly...the majority of attempts video games tries to be serious just comes off as Narm...only a few games managed to pull it off.(ironically, only three games I played actually did seriousness well, Bioshock, an utterly non-realistic game, Cave Story(Curly's death), and...a certain VN

^^^ You can go to 4 years of university courses, doesn't mean you actually took any psychology courses, major or elective.

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:10:04 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

And the half dozen other scenes I mentioned don't count because......

The scenes you've mentioned count in that they mean that "seriousness" can be achieved in a variety of ways and what it means and how it is best achieved varies. Same as what I've mentioned and what others have mentioned.

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:10:56 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Wow, that was the point. No wait, it wasn't, it was countering someone who was claiming that Call Of Duty wasn't serious.

The execution scene? With the evil foreigners in a bright red beret?

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:14:02 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Because as we all know, there are no public executions in life.

Just like we know Dingo can never be wrong.

And to Signed they aren't serious. Just as to you something like Wind Waker wouldn't be serious. Subjectivity at work.

I personally hate the extremists of both sides. "OH GOD REALISM IS BAD!!!", "OH GOD STYLIZATION IS BAD".

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

And that's a game, and being photorealistic didn't help it all that much for that scene.

^ My problem is the belief that a game must be totally realistic, dark, and gritty in order for something to be "serious".

A developer CAN make a game serious by making it all Darker and Edgier and all brown and realistic, with realistic gritty faces. But if that's the only way they can do it, that just indicates a lack of creativity. Nothing wrong with that...plenty of company stayed alive doing business like that. But it is NOT a healthy trend.

Terranigma

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:22:07 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Call Of Duty is serious.

Yes, the second Modern Warfare game (It feels weird not calling it CoD5) steered into narm, but that doesn't mean scenes like the nuclear explosion scene in the first weren't serious.

Felidae, Grave Of The Fireflies, Shadow Of The Colossus, Persepolis.

You want me to keep naming examples?

Stylization can easily suck the seriousness out of something, but it can also be used to exaggerate the doldrums of life.

edited 3rd Mar '11 10:22:16 PM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

I don't have issues with that view per se, Signed. For some people that is just true. It's not true for me obviously, but I am me. It's also not true for others.

Now people who try to pass this off as objective fact and say that stylization, or in some cases fantasy as well, are a problem that must be dealt with? I have a problem with that particular breed of "Things must be realistic and gritty for it to be serious for me".

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

^^....When did Wander stop looking human? Aside from when he was demonically possessed?

I don't think Dingo regards it as 'a problem that must be dealt with'. It's more like 'something we'll leave behind after technology marches on but for now we live with it'.

Not that I agree.

Why is not being "serious" a bad thing?

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