A quick look at a bunch of upcoming or recent games, with my thoughts in what these games about the current zeitgeist we are currently in. I will send out an open invitation to the well known philosopher Slavok Zizek to also comment on these game videos. He probably will be too busy, but think about it – Zizek commenting on these videos, I can almost salivate with anticipation. The guy is metaphysical in his stand-up comedy.
Hawken. (In progress). This has a visceral quality of technological immersion. It looks great, and fairly realistic, as far as games with battling robots go, but would it be fun? Afgter a while I would lose touch with what its all about. And isn’t just what it’s all about -losing touch with what it’s all about? Being encased in a machine in a unrelentingly unnatural world because as a human you wouldn’t be able to cope any more?
Firefall. Now this looks like fun, and it’s innocent, unpretentious techno-toon fantasy. Kids playing tag with elaborate toys. No heartwrenching story or message other than stuff that does pow pow.
Iron Core. An extremely realistic feeling game of a future run amok, a global conflict with technology we cannot even start to envision. I am quite impressed by the cinematics, the design, the art direction and the music direction of this clip. Realize full well that this level of cinematics will be the staple game five to ten years from now, and that fact will have dire implications. Games such as those will be deeply addictive. The message in this game is very sincere and very viscerally mature. The world is tearing itself apart and this is how it looks. Also – this game cinematics left the actual movie Terminator 4 looking like an episode of the A Team. I haven’t been to a cinema in half a year I think? Last move I saw was in the US… Can’t even remember what it was about.
Deus X proves ‘Transhumanism’ as a concept has won, even though I have trouble believing the world will look as col and glamorous as this. I state that transhumanism is the new guernsback continuum and it will be bigger than anything – but largely feeding design and gaming. Transhumanism will not be as demonstratively visible in the real world as in maybe for half a century or more.
Crysis is not a realistic representation of anything – it’s a shooter with so,me cool looking design. It is just a well designed backdrop for people to play a game,. It has no uplifting or philosophically deep message. It steals from Alien and Aliens and Starship Troopers and Blade Runner and Robocop. As a game Crysis 1 was stunningly designed as it was morally and spiritually barren.
I do not know the mass effect franchise but I am shocked at how negative some game designers are willing to take their game message. Games routinely lay down premises where 95% of humanity has just died in a pretty horrific manner. It is almost as if games tap into this genetic imperative in humans (consumers of games) to ‘start over”, to experience a cleansing reboot of the world and start fresh. While understandable in the light og history and human genetics, this is an instinct that is simply infantile. What this cinematic depicts is pretty horrific.
This is just silly -I mean it is well made and I am sure there is a demand for gore and a layer of ego gratification where the gamer transcends the human fleshy carapace to associate with a visceral predatorial chunk of death – especially if established in a seetting that is easily to recognize as hold in contempt – i.e. everyday life.
Wonderful game, wonderful design and amazing development. But let me go on the record that what Tom Clancy is saying makes this man an asshole. I am dead serious – this is an american supremacist fetishist. This is an idiot who actually believes the US stands for good, and is acting like the world’s police force or should act as such. Games such as these I categorize at the moral level of “left behind”, i.e. eliminationist propaganda of the sewage level of “America’s Army”.
Brink reduces the reality of someone shooting a metallic spike at hypersonic speed through another humans body to a game of tag. The trailer is beautiful. If this is gameplay (no it isn’t far off) it is truly amazing. Not something I would excell at – I’d only think it were fun if I had a really well-functioning immersive VR headset or cave. On a screen and with a keyboard I think this stuff is kinda silly.
Again, this looks like fun. Rage. But it presupposes a world gone to total shit. Think about what kind of premises we presuppose to come up with a nice game., Think of what kind of worlds we regard as plausible (or desirable?) in this day and age and draw a dotted line from here and now to rage.
Dead space 1 gave me severe motion sickness and triuggered my post traumatic stress disorder in full. I got the shakes and had nightmares afterwards. Nevertheless Dead Space is one of the most clean games in this series – it is a total fiction and by and large one of series of cultural legacy kabuki horror staples almost exclusively a derivative of Alien and Aliens. This is so much a raging cliche it probably has become a core feature of western culture. Thanks Ridley, I suppose. It is nothing more than a horror show, and has no pretense at realism. It is shockingly well made and unpretentious beyond that.
I am somewhat baffled.
Never heard if it, looks a bit conceptually dated, and imitation. I mean, it’s amazingly done but far from groundbreaking.
Yah sure another in the old series. I actually never played Unreal. It’s a horror show, with a very well developed dystopian backdrop. But again, it presupposes a series of horrific things to happen with humanity.
Other than that the Samaritan demo vid was really infantile. Like a schoolyard brawl. Pathetic. A-Team morality.
I won’t repeat myself, but it is always hilarious to see gigadeath can be presented as slapstick humor. The makers of this game do have a point but I sure would have loved a fallout MMO NOT primarily based on combat. I would love an MMO based on four elements other than PVP and PVE – (i) social dynamics and socializing of players based on stats; (ii) commerce and trade and investment and resource building where players can treat the world as a strategy game; (iii) a total and consistent linkage of everything, i.e. animations and sounds and equipment and skills and training times and locations and components and npc’s; (iv) a world that changes as it is explored, that does not frivolosuly works by endless instantiation, but works by having all players participate constructively, destructively or just doing whatever it is they want to do, and in effect leads game designers to make things the player base moves towards collectively – by popular demand, and infrastructurally – yes that means players should be able to settle and develop new regions and build things there and then discover new content there – and then explore the new content and if they see fit then go and change an old ‘dungeon’ into a player or faction controlled city.
Now let me emphasize -0 while this would be cool in wow or eve – it would be even cooler in a game like fallout, since such a game emphasizes things that are both recognizable yet new (a world destroyed in nuclear armageddon, riddled with endless hordes of mutants), and such a world world be suitable to fill with a near endless torrent of familiar and unfamiliar things.
Now this is just artistic.
Halo. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Ace Comat Aassult Horizon. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Tomn Clancy’s End War. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Firefall. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Hellgate London. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Dawn of War. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Dark Void. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Killzone 2. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Devil May Cry 5. Phhooh let me add some more comments tomorrow.
Infamous.
Bullet Storm.
Vanquish
Enslaved. The basic idea is that he now will get laid with a girl who is hot and will have absolutely no alternative, finally.
WTF. “No More Heroes“.
Kingdom under fire. Now let me emphasize the rule that female armors must have ample breast space even if she’s flat as a door underneath. And dreaded hair is the new cool. But seriously if that guy hadn’t fired a gun, I would not have included this game.
Bioshock Infinite. This is not just beautiful, I’d say this is an ethereal, platonic level of aesthetic accomplishment. This is so beautiful and original and well-crafted it stings.
Armed Resistance 3. What that Duke Nukem lying dead next to that Truck?. Vewy funny 🙂
Bayonetta. I’d say, get rid of the guns and stop fighting and this game has potential. These games should team up with a locked masturbation sleeve such as RealTouch – win a level and unlock ten minutes of screen-linked play time. I mean seriously, this is the most brazen stealth-porn since Kelly Bundy made sly references to triple penetrations. Stop being so hypocritical about it.