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[Mael]

Other M was given a lot of shit but that was for things other than what you are arguing about. Older Metroids don't really justify going around extincting a whole planet's populace of different kinds of animals but it's a game and the animals (mostly) look mean/disgusting so no one gives a shit when you smatter their brains onto the walls of caves & buildings. The henchmen in Uncharted are no more meaningful. They are bad guys who are out to shoot & kill you on sight.

Actually Metroid games usually don't need to give justifications about all the killing.
You're a bounty hunter on a mission to do something using any means necessary.
In Metroid 1, you're infiltrating a base and have to destroy an army. Yeah she's going to kill everything on sight.
Metroid 2 is literally "go kill them all" the game.
There's no dissonance here : you're a baddass super hero in armor killing everything on sight, the gameplay and the story help each other.
Only in Other M where they try to shoehorn some kind of narrative like the bounty hunter that go on extermination missions alone and blow up planets is somehow some fragile thing.

 

[Plum]

Of course it works, because that's exactly what they are and they do succeed in it very well, considering how much people enjoy these games and most people aren't bogged down by moral dilemmas of having to kill so many people. Again, there's an argument to be had of whether games rely too much on violence or not (much like violence in movies is a bit too prelevent) and that is certainly something Uncharted is guilty of, but ludonarrative dissonance doesn't really apply all that well to Uncharted.

And Indiana Jones has it's own quippy "haha, isn't murder entertaining!" moment(s). And I'm not talking about Indy 4.

Other M was given a lot of shit but that was for things other than what you are arguing about. Older Metroids don't really justify going around extincting a whole planet's populace of different kinds of animals but it's a game and the animals (mostly) look mean/disgusting so no one gives a shit when you smatter their brains onto the walls of caves & buildings. The henchmen in Uncharted are no more meaningful. They are bad guys who are out to shoot & kill you on sight.

I'll ask you one simple question in regards to the first point: Would you be saying the same thing if this discussion were about a lack of diversity in games instead? After all, most of the best-selling games out there have predominantly straight white male protagonists, that must mean they can't be criticised, right?

And, yes, Indy quips, but it's nowhere near as often and nowhere near as brutal as much of Uncharted's. Nate and his companions quips whilst destroying the livelihoods of innocent civilians, quip after breaking some guy's neck, quip after throwing some poor security guard of a ledge. Some of the quips in the four games are just downright mean.

And no, comparing abstract enemies in a Metroid games to human enemies in an Uncharted game is not a good comparison. That and, as Mael points out, you're wrong with Other M.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I'd disagree that, with Uncharted being an adventure serial, it shouldn't concern itself with morality.

As for

Spoiler

him and Rafe. Yeah, of course Rafe is the worst one there and he deserved the fate he got. They're not exactly the same, I'll give you that. However, since we're talking about character endings here, I'll go through what I've found to be the three endings a character can get in a pulpy adventure story:
1) Unredeemed Death/Exit: A character is despicable until the very end (The Emperor,
Voldemort, Rafe)
2) Redemmed Death/Exit: A character pays for their mistakes in life but is redeemed by ultimately doing the right thing (Darth Vader)
3) Happy Ending: Self-explanatory
I see Sam as fitting squarely into the second category. He's an asshole who does things for selfish reasons that are slightly sympathetic but, ultimately, make him an asshole.
Yet instead he gets the same ending as everyone else; morally he's nowhere near the level of Nate or Elena and he does so little in the story to turn that around. Again,
it's a pulpy adventure so morality should be adhered to instead of ignored; I see Sam chilling with Sully at the end in the same way I'd see Darth Vader/Anakin chilling with Luke and the Ewoks at the end of Jedi.

Spoiler

I see it as a second chance for Sam. Even though he's the older brother it's important to remember he hasn't had half the life experience that Drake has. But Adventure is still his calling, just like Drake, Elena, and Sully and UC4 makes it clear that it's not an inherently ignoble calling, but you have to do it the right way and for the right reasons. He's basically where Drake was at the start of the franchise, and now that he's had his humbling moment it's up to him to embrace that the way Drake did, instead of going down a dark road like Rafe or Flynn or any of the other antagonists. Which is why it's good he's with Sully, he's proven to be an anchoring force in Drake's life without necessarily stifling his potential, so he can do the same for Sam.

Basically, I feel that if Drake deserves a second (and third, and fourth) chance then so does Sam, though maybe it's because I don't see him as having done anything irredeemably wrong. He just did it in a very short sighted and underhanded way.

Spoiler

Given the Drake family history with Libertalia and Avery's treasure I'd argue it really was their adventure to have and that Rafe didn't deserve to profit from their, and their mother's,
work. Sam was just doing what he was born to do, same as Drake, but he still had some growing to do in understanding his own motivations.

Yes people died but from the story logic standpoint they were morally ambiguous mercenaries and, technically, they shot first.

Spoiler

If anyone got off easy it's Nadine, to be honest. She had every opportunity to abandon Rafe and take the loss once the writing was on the wall but she threw away her entire company and the lives of her men just to chase a payday. She even makes it perfectly clear that she isn't motivated by revenge or ambition, simply greed, yet she walks away scott free.

 

[Joeku]

Except the game really isn't implying at all that Snake is a monster in those two scenes.

Spoiler

Snake feels like a demon for killing his own men at the quarantine plant. The game isn't actually implying that he is a monster for shooting everyone. Snake feels guilty and ashamed in not being able to protect his soldiers, but everyone knows that he did the right thing. The demon symbolism is how the character sees himself at that moment.

And there is a lot of interpretation about the ending, these are just me feelings. Again, I don't see the game implying that Snake is a bad guy in the end. The character himself feels guilty in his choice to follow Big Boss. He sees himself in the mirror as a demon, but the game is not implying that you were a monster for your actions.

The story really isn't about men becoming demons. It's more related to the loss of identity and the endless cycle of revenge.

Sorry about getting back to you the better part of a day later, but I appreciate this take. Gives me something to think about. Thank you.

GTA V was also smart with this. Red Dead Redemption's John Marston and GTA V's Michael DeSanta are family men, but due to the nature of an open world game they can be played in a way where they're crazed lunatics. Red Dead Redemption doesn't set up any context that accounts for that possibility - it doesn't make sense. GTA V, however, does something genius - in Michael's cutscene therapy sessions it adjusts the characterization of Michael to fit how the player is playing him. If you're playing him as a good guy, it's reflected there. If you're playing him as a crazed killer the therapy sessions present him as suffering from a mental breaks, giving onto violent urges he can't control. Ludonarrative dissonance averted.

If I was ever aware that the game did this, I have since forgotten. Backwards reinforcement of player-defined characterization is super neat. Wow.

The Last Of Us story is about a man on a Escort Mission. The gameplay has nothing to do with escorting a character.

Joel has to keep Ellie alive, yet during gameplay she is never in danger (she can even bump into Clickers and they won't notice it).

The game is entirely an escort mission, just one that the developer cheated at because you can't fail it by the escorted person dying. When the AI is working optimally she's supposed to be on your tail and the enemies wouldn't notice her, but, well...ellie_comic.jpg. I'm with you that the limitation of AI sells their goal short because you see Ellie running in front of a clicker occasionally. That's not on Joel's characterization in cutscene or gameplay, though.

I may be unique here but I didn't notice that at all in either time I've played through Uncharted 4, but at least the companions there were capable too.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I just don't think the objectivism angle works at all regarding gameplay. In the story it's about the ultimately unsustainable economic system of Rapture. I don't think the gameplay undermines that in any way.

And yeah, you can't have an altruistic approach when it comes to what are essentially zombies that can't be negotiated or cooperated with. It's kill or be killed, that's it. With the one rational, reasonable person you come across (Tenenbaum), cooperation and altruism are rewarded.

The setting being a zombie apocalypse only provides a paper-thin excuse for it. Self-interest is bad! but the game ties your survival to your willingness to gain resources for yourself without regard for the consequences on anyone else. Self-interest is good, then, except the narrative forces you to obey Atlas regardless of your own desires or what you feel is in your self-interest, which probably doesn't include half the objectives in the game. The gameplay is in direct opposition to the story's theme, and the story doesn't allow you to embrace the philosophy the game is examining in the same way the mechanics do.

The twist only makes this more blatant since outright mocks the player for handwaving this dissonance away as just a genre convention.

Thing is, Jack isn't profiting off rational self interest, any more than the very basic ability to stay alive. At least, in the good ending, where he uses the riches of Rapture to spend his life helping children (not a terribly Randian goal). The "evil" ending is the one where he gives in to the temptation to profit and gain power from the city, and its deliberately labeled as such and requires you to make the arguably one deliberately selfish act in the game of murdering a Little Sister.

If anything Jack is a "parasite" from Ryan/Rand's pov because he arrives in Rapture and simply takes. He doesn't create, he doesn't work (unless killing is work). He just collects and takes from others. The game makes a clear value judgement by deciding that the material value of Rapture, its money and ADAM and stuff, is less than the human value of the Little Sisters and allows you to make that choice to spite the Objectivist creators of Rapture who chose the opposite.

As for you making a larger profit for saving the kids there is no way to know that for sure the first time you play the game, unless you were spoiled. The game hints at it but tells you outright at the start that killing them gets you more so those first few Little Sisters are a deliberate values test.

Also, I'd argue that the fact that Rapture collapsed so completely on its own is the primary argument against Objectivism. You just get the survival horror walking tour and don't get much say beyond if you agree or disagree.

Jack certainly does profit off of self-interest, I don't even know how that's up for debate. Even if you choose to save the Little Sisters, you're more or less required to kill the largely benevolent Big Daddies to progress through the game. Jack is not a "parasite" according to Objectivist philosophy, he's simply acting in his rational self interest.

You do not make a larger profit from saving the Little Sisters, you get more ADAM for killing them (and get it up-front, no less). Again, encouraging self-interest.

 

[Sande]

The setting being a zombie apocalypse only provides a paper-thin excuse for it. Self-interest is bad! but the game ties your survival to your willingness to gain resources for yourself without regard for the consequences on anyone else. Self-interest is good, then, except the narrative forces you to obey Atlas regardless of your own desires or what you feel is in your self-interest, which probably doesn't include half the objectives in the game. The gameplay is in direct opposition to the story's theme, and the story doesn't allow you to embrace the philosophy the game is examining in the same way the mechanics do.

The twist only makes this more blatant since outright mocks the player for handwaving this dissonance away as just a genre convention.



Jack certainly does profit off of self-interest, I don't even know how that's up for debate. Even if you choose to save the Little Sisters, you're more or less required to kill the largely benevolent Big Daddies to progress through the game. Jack is not a "parasite" according to Objectivist philosophy, he's simply acting in his rational self interest.

You do not make a larger profit from saving the Little Sisters, you get more ADAM for killing them (and get it up-front, no less). Again, encouraging self-interest.

I think you're painting with too broad strokes. Bioshock doesn't try to say "self-interest is bad" as a blanket statement for all situations ever. Of course not. That would be asinine. It says that every man for himself mentality doesn't work as a basis for society. The gameplay and its systems are largely detached from that.

You can google the little sister rewards. It comes down to personal preference whether you prefer 320 ADAM over a bunch of plasmids, tonics, ammo and other supplies, but I think the latter is easily the better deal. In either case neither option is objectively superior.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I think you're painting with too broad strokes. Bioshock doesn't try to say "self-interest is bad" as a blanket statement for all situations ever. Of course not. That would be asinine. It says that every man for himself mentality doesn't work as a basis for society. The gameplay and its systems are largely detached from that.

You can google the little sister rewards. It comes down to personal preference whether you prefer 320 ADAM over a bunch of plasmids, tonics, ammo and other supplies, but I think the latter is easily the better deal. In either case neither option is objectively superior.

The gameplay and its systems are not detached from the discussions of Objectivism, because that's what the gameplay is built on. In order to complete the game (at least, without insane amounts of grinding) you are required to kill the benevolent Big Daddies. You are further rewarded for killing the Little Sisters (it's a straight experience upgrade, dude). This is in keeping with Ayn Rand's ideology that acting in one's objective best-interest is morally right, while the game takes place in a city that has been destroyed by that very belief. To progress through the game, it sets up that you are buying into the very ideology that destroyed the city surrounding you.

On the flip side, the narrative puts you in altruistic support of Atlas who opposes Ryan's ideology and is fighting against it. Yet (as mentioned above) following an Objectivist approach to play through the game is very beneficial. The story condemns you for harvesting the Little Sisters and murdering the Big Daddies, while the gameplay encourages (if not forces) you to do so. This problem is compounded by the fact that if you accept Objectivism as valid, you have no way to oppose Atlas and support Ryan. The gameplay asks you to explore Objectivism via interaction, but the story does not support that experience. Even after the mind control is supposedly lifted, the narrative does not actually adjust and you are still shackled to altruistically helping someone else.

 

[Sande]

The gameplay and its systems are not detached from the discussions of Objectivism, because that's what the gameplay is built on. In order to complete the game (at least, without insane amounts of grinding) you are required to kill the benevolent Big Daddies. You are further rewarded for killing the Little Sisters (it's a straight experience upgrade, dude). This is in keeping with Ayn Rand's ideology that acting in one's objective best-interest is morally right, while the game takes place in a city that has been destroyed by that very belief. To progress through the game, it sets up that you are buying into the very ideology that destroyed the city surrounding you.

On the flip side, the narrative puts you in altruistic support of Atlas who opposes Ryan's ideology and is fighting against it. Yet (as mentioned above) following an Objectivist approach to play through the game is very beneficial. The story condemns you for harvesting the Little Sisters and murdering the Big Daddies, while the gameplay encourages (if not forces) you to do so. This problem is compounded by the fact that if you accept Objectivism as valid, you have no way to oppose Atlas and support Ryan. The gameplay asks you to explore Objectivism via interaction, but the story does not support that experience. Even after the mind control is supposedly lifted, the narrative does not actually adjust and you are still shackled to altruistically helping someone else.

Let's put it this way:

"An individual acting purely based on self-interest can be beneficial for that individual."

"Everyone acting purely on self-interest will inevitably be destructive to society as a whole."

These are the messages you can derive from the gameplay systems and the fall of Rapture storyline, respectively. I simply don't see a contradiction. That's all it comes down to for me. You can twist and turn and oversimplify these two scenarios presented in the game until you arrive at "selfishness - good" and "selfishness - bad" but that's quite disingenuous imo.

(You are demonstrably wrong about little sisters regarding harvesting vs. saving by the way, but that's besides the point)

 

[eot]

Nice to see someone using the term correctly for once

 

[gfxtwin]

Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

1. Drastically reduce the amount of firefights and enemies.
2. Allow for an open-ended, more stealth-oriented and experimental approach like MGS V (encourage stealth, give Nate a tranquilizer gun like the one he briefly had in U2, but for the whole game).
3. Make the bad dudes some REALLY bad dudes.

 

[Clear]

1. Drastically reduce the amount of firefights and enemies.
2. Allow for an open-ended, more stealth-oriented and experimental approach like MGS V (encourage stealth, give Nate a tranquilizer gun like the one he briefly had in U2, but for the whole game).
3. Make the bad dudes some REALLY bad dudes.

Making a completely different game doesn't constitute a fix in my view

 

[Majukun]

the video takes a number of different stances,so i can't really say if i agree or not because there is not one single thesis..all i can say it's how i think about videogames and story...and the fact is,most developers and most players are getting things horribly wrong.

many gamers..or developers like David Cage, are consistently trying to put the uninteractive narrative aspect of the story in the foreground,while gameplay is seen as unimportant. And that's because they are trying to make videogames like movies with interactive parts in-between,which is quite honestly wasting the potential of an entire medium.

videogames DON'T NEED uninteractive narrative..they have an entire new dimension to explore to narate (the gameplay),and yet they still try to do what other mediums already do and do better.
it's like if cinema ,instead of improving and discovering the power of camera work and cinematography, would havelimited itself at just filming a static stage, like in a play, imitating theatre but at the same time wasting all it have of unique compared to it.

ludonarrative dissonance comes from the developers not being able to embrace the new instruments and instead going back to what is known,safe and already proven...let gameplay narrate the story, let him say what he has to say and leave movies to movies

I know it's hard,i know it's unexplored,i know it takes trial and error and talent, but it could be worth it.

 

[MikeBreezy92]

It pains me that Bioshock was the genesis of this term, as I'm actually a big fan of the first game.

It pains me that the word was pushed at the Last of Us and Bioshock when it didn't apply

 

[GoldStarz]

Making a completely different game doesn't constitute a fix in my view

How does adding additional options and changing your bullets to tranqs make Uncharted a completely different game, if I may ask? It seems like, at the very least, changing the bullets into tranq darts while keeping them functionally the same pretty much removes any real issue with Drake's character between gameplay and story.

 

[MikeBreezy92]

How does adding additional options and changing your bullets to tranqs make Uncharted a completely different game, if I may ask? It seems like, at the very least, changing the bullets into tranq darts while keeping them functionally the same pretty much removes any real issue with Drake's character between gameplay and story.

Why change anything at this point though? I don't think it's anything to change like you would with most criticism given. It's just something to recognize and even then it's something only a few people will have issue with.

 

[gfxtwin]

Making a completely different game doesn't constitute a fix in my view

Agreed. That's why all you have to do is imagine a game like Uncharted 4 only with about 25% less firefights, Nate holding an optional tranq gun the entire time, and the bad dudes are pretty much the same only maybe connected to genocidal extremists or something instead of other treasure hunters that aren't any more or less entitled to the treasure than Nate and his buds. Add in a bit more platforming and puzzles to pad things out and that sounds like a good time to me, personally.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Let's put it this way:

"An individual acting purely based on self-interest can be beneficial for that individual."

"Everyone acting purely on self-interest will inevitably be destructive to society as a whole."

These are the messages you can derive from the gameplay systems and the fall of Rapture storyline, respectively. I simply don't see a contradiction. That's all it comes down to for me. You can twist and turn and oversimplify these two scenarios presented in the game until you arrive at "selfishness - good" and "selfishness - bad" but that's quite disingenuous imo.

(You are demonstrably wrong about little sisters regarding harvesting vs. saving by the way, but that's besides the point)

Bioshock's narrative is not about Rapture being destroyed by Objectivism. If the proper role of the government was a big theme the game wanted to explore, then they presumably would have allowed more interaction than "Shoot dudes in the face." Bioshock's narrative is about the protagonist helping Atlas take down Ryan.

Bioshock's gameplay deliberately sets it up so that the player explores Objectivism via the mechanics, and allows them to accept or reject Objectivism (the philosophy that destroyed the city) via harvesting or rescuing Little Sisters (let's put aside whether or not it's beneficial to save them) (it's not). Hocking argued that it would have been thematically appropriate for the player, having chosen to embrace Objectivism, to be led into a "trap" where he's destroyed by his unchecked freedom and selfishness.

(Of course, the player is still required to selfishly hoard stuff and murder Big Daddies even if they reject Objectivist, which is some dissonance in and of itself)

Bioshock's narrative (which, again, is not about the fall of Rapture) is about you altruistically helping someone else and rejecting Objectivism, even if you have aligned yourself with it by killing Little Sisters. The gameplay spends a ton of time allowing the player to explore Objectivism, but your choice of whether to support or oppose it is ultimately swept under the rug as the game's linear storyline acts as though you rejected it no matter what. That's the dissonance Hocking refers to, and it absolutely undercuts the game's anti-Objectivist theme.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Really strong video and I kinda didntnpick up on it but yeah the original transformers has every check box ticked off except the most important ones

 

[DeadTrees]

Hocking argued that it would have been thematically appropriate for the player, having chosen to embrace Objectivism, to be led into a "trap" where he's destroyed by his unchecked freedom and selfishness.

...

...

...That's...exactly...what happens. Unless you think becoming Sea Hitler and keeping a bunch of kids as slaves in a crumbling hellhole is a fistpump of an ending compared to sparing them, and subsequently living normal lives on dry land.

You're continuing to assert that a) killing insane homicidal mutants in self-defense implicitly makes you a Randian monster, and b) killing helpless kids for your own immediate benefit is exactly the same thing and has no long-term consequence for any of the characters. Why are you expecting anyone to take these seriously?

 

[TheRedSnifit]

...

...

...That's...exactly...what happens. Unless you think becoming Sea Hitler and keeping a bunch of kids as slaves in a crumbling hellhole is a fistpump of an ending compared to sparing them, and subsequently living normal lives on dry land.

The bad ending doesn't actually make sense within the context of the narrative. Jack goes from being (in the words of Finale Fireworker) a guy acting "100% in the altruistic interest in benefiting other people (the Little Sisters)" to an evil slaver stealing nukes and shit. It's dissonant in the context of 99% of the game's narrative, fails to justify the dissonance up to that point, and fails to really illustrate the flaws of the unchecked freedom and self-interest the player may have chosen.

You're continuing to assert that a) killing insane homicidal mutants in self-defense implicitly makes you a Randian monster, and b) killing helpless kids for your own immediate benefit is exactly the same thing and has no long-term consequence for any of the characters. Why are you expecting anyone to take these seriously?

I'm simply explaining Hocking's rationale, and he's a rather optimistic fellow who bought into the idea that Bioshock was trying to be an innovation in storytelling and conveying themes through gameplay.

I personally agree with you that there is no dissonance, and that his thinking is flawed here. The fact is, and this is true with Infinite too, is that Bioshock's gameplay has no deeper meaning, and that it's not really about Randian Objectivism or the moral status of rational self-interest or absolute freedom or anything else. It simply uses these themes as set dressing to create nicely-rendered and rather original but ultimately pretty broad and cartoony settings and characters based on the themes of greed and power and freedom, and is not a referendum on these things. When you examine what it has to say about these "big ideas" it evokes, it really doesn't have much coherent to offer.