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[IdreamofHIME]

I'm glad humans always win. I hate playing as a non human in a straight game. A cartoon platformer is ok, but in an RPG or mmo I cannot stand playing as an alien or fantastical creature.
Hate in gears when I have to play as a locust, makes me play less good because I just don't care.

 

[HK-47]

You want something that shit on humanity and all it thinks is so great about itself? Read Blindsight.

 

[Karl Hawk]

Same reason why aliens always have to probe us and AI wants to kill us: immaturity of the literary experience and form. Basically, through understanding we evolve our form of expression and elevate our art form. Most people sadly do think The Terminator scenario and aliens coming to rape us is realistic- hence why the horror genre uses it. It's the same reason I think in the future, society will look back in amusement that we had sitcoms and TV shows where the primary hook was sexual orientation and nothing else.

We need to mature, and education is the way. Literature reflects the understanding of a culture/civilization.

Wow, what a pretentious post.

Only good alien is dead alien after all, OP.

 

[Red Mage]

I have the opposite problem. I'm tired of the "humanity is the real evil" cliche in fantasy and sci-fi. I'm fine with humans being shown in a bad light, but the other species, be it elves, na'vi or whatever, are so much better than us and we should be more like them. Why can't both sides be flawed?

OP, I agree with your sentiment. The "humans are special and superior to all other species" thing is a boring, lazy, overused trope. It's like how so much sword-and-sorcery fiction was cookie-cutter good vs. evil with no moral nuance until the popularity of authors like George R. R. Martin gradually overturned that.

Games are especially bad with this, and I can't think of any serious space sci-fi settings that avoid the trope, while novels have moved past it. Try Iain M. Banks' Culture novels for a good example of a universe where humans aren't magically special.

Sword and sorcery doesn't encompass all of fantasy. Martin isn't sword and sorcery. Even within the subgenre, Conan has been a very big counter example.

 

[Funyarinpa]

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke fits this bill, I think.

 

[PdotMichael]

I hate how often non human races are showed as one unified race without intern conflicts and subgroups.
Or that one super intelligent race which is stuck at some religious nonsense.

 

[Catatafish]

Because we are the chosen species to rule the earth.

 

[DeadTrees]

Hell, what great works of fantasy fiction result in the hero/humans failing totally at the last second?

Wouldn't necessarily call all of these great (definitely not failing at the last second), but:

Lovecraft's stories are basically a deadpan trolling of the concept of human enlightenment.

Childhood's End (human culture is treated as a babby phase, to be erased from existence once the kids are ready to join the interstellar hivemind.

Spoiler

All of which pretty much ends up happening.

)

The twist at the end of I Am Legend is that

Spoiler

it's the vampires, not the soon-to-be-extinct uninfected humans, who are destined to rebuild civilization.

In Galapagos, what's left of the human race has devolved into sub-sapient mammals on the Galapagos Islands (in Vonnegut's typically discursive fashion, the extinction of humanity is mostly handled in an aside),

Then you have dystopias (1984, Brave New World) where humanity has been hopelessly conquered by one insane ideology or another.


...Wait, this isn't Off-Topic? Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (the game) more or less ends on the same note as the stories, despite some ridiculous battles where you're BFG9000-ing Dagon in the face and such.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Spiral Energy

 

[EpicBox]

Humanity definitely doesn't win in The Last of Us. In fact, it is humanity's flawed nature that ultimately dooms it.

 

[redcrayon]

I mean, they sort of did. The human joined the savages and brought them his great enlightenment because on their own the navi were too dumb to win, or whatever. God, fuck that whole movie.

What always gets me is why, when the planet is on it's knees and we need to deal with the only other sentient species we've ever encountered, we send the biggest bunch of violent, literally xenophobic amateur arseholes we can scrape up to do the job a long way from home rather then someone more competent.

 

[Funyarinpa]

Wouldn't necessarily call all of these great (definitely not failing at the last second), but:

Spoilers about

Spoiler

Childhood's End

there.

 

[JoeMartin]

They're called telescopes.

 

[John Kowalski]

I wish all humans would die.

 

[Noitshado]

If i recall correctly humans lose in the end of Phantasy Star 2 =D

 

[thelastcrusader]

I would say Warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne are good examples. Humans lose nasty. It's the nightelves that save the day. And in the Frozen Throne everyone loses. This was until WoW butchered the story.

Also OP if you want to talk movies - Ferngully. The fairies kicked human ass.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

It has more to do with that stories in most popular media (and particularly games) rarely deal with the other side. The dark side.


That's why you haven't played a World War 2 game from the perspective of a german soldier who is forced to fight for his country, regardless if he believes in the cause or not. Nobody would dare make a game were you play a guard in a concentration camp, or play a Panzer tank operator stranded in the russian winter waste as you slowly decay to frost and hunger.
Playing as the good guys, the heroes is always the easy sell, and so that is the fiction that is mostly made. When your dealing with sci-fi, fantasy or the supernatural and you have foreign races and/or species, its easiest to bank on humans for their relateability, or something close to it (humans with improvements, or minor alterations).



It's like pop music. Nothing wrong with it, easily absorbed by the masses, with not a big calling from the mainstream to experiences stories that are difficult and uncomfortable or hard to stomach. It's easier to go for a easily digestible experience than something which might be profound but will leave you feeling like shit.

We all know this feeling from movies were we are suggested to watch something really depressing or fucked up, but we end up going for Mission impossible ghost protocol or the avengers instead. Nothing wrong with that. It's just about knowing what you want, and not hating something for being something else.

 

[Noitshado]

Can't believe I forgot in the end of Starcraft Karrigan and the Zerg wins out.

 

[thelastcrusader]

It has more to do with that stories in most popular media (and particularly games) rarely deal with the other side. The dark side.


That's why you haven't played a World War 2 game from the perspective of a german soldier who is forced to fight for his country, regardless if he believes in the cause or not. Nobody would dare make a game were you play a guard in a concentration camp, or play a Panzer tank operator stranded in the russian winter waste as you slowly decay to frost and hunger.
Playing as the good guys, the heroes is always the easy sell, and so that is the fiction that is mostly made. When your dealing with sci-fi, fantasy or the supernatural and you have foreign races and/or species, its easiest to bank on humans for their relateability, or something close to it (humans with improvements, or minor alterations).



It's like pop music. Nothing wrong with it, easily absorbed by the masses, with not a big calling from the mainstream to experiences stories that are difficult and uncomfortable or hard to stomach. It's easier to go for a easily digestible experience than something which might be profound but will leave you feeling like shit.

We all know this feeling from movies were we are suggested to watch something really depressing or fucked up, but we end up going for Mission impossible ghost protocol or the avengers instead. Nothing wrong with that. It's just about knowing what you want, and not hating something for being something else.

I'd play the shit out of a WWII game from the other side. I love games where the protagonist loses or dies.

 

[Rudimental]

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

 

[Noitshado]

Well considering it would be based on real events I bet that wouldnt sit well with the general public esp with the jewish community for it to ever see light of day lol. I mean you have folks who refuse to buy Mercedes to this day because they believe they made the gas chambers.

 

[EGM1966]

Read Forge of God by Greg Bear, we sure don't win that one (better avoid sequel though!)

Watch AI by Stephen Speilberg, we real sure don't win that one.

EDIT: also play Alien Isolation on hardest difficulty and let the Alien beat down on you

 

[prag16]

Probably because we're humans.

 

[Polioliolio]

Yeah, concerning games, please make more games that have nothing to do with and don't involve humans at all. Let me play as an ant, and not an anthropomorphic human ant, but just a plain old fucking ant. That's what I want to play,

 

[Htown]

Yeah, concerning games, please make more games that have nothing to do with and don't involve humans at all. Let me play as an ant, and not an anthropomorphic human ant, but just a plain old fucking ant. That's what I want to play,

how would you feel about playing as a tarantula or scorpion instead?

 

[luka]

I wish all humans would die.

but they're so attractive

 

[BouncyFrag]

Most of the humans in the Witcher games are awful, despicable creatures.

 

[Polioliolio]

how would you feel about playing as a tarantula or scorpion instead?

I would feel good about that.
You're probably talking about that Wii game right?
Put that on steam and I'm there.

 

[NeonZ]

Well, there's always Dragonball Z. The good guys win, but humans themselves are powerless against most alien threats and need to be saved by Saiyans time and time again.

Although in Xenoverse you can play as a human and somehow stay right behind Goku.

 

[Dahbomb]

Don't understimate us OP.

Humanity... FUCK YEAH!

 

[SchrodingerC]

I did think Shepard forcing the all the races in Mass Effect to help save Earth was a dick move, especially since their home worlds were being destroyed as well. Don't unite them for Earth, but for the entire galaxy, you ass.

Still sticking with Bioware here, I was among the annoyed fans when Bioware made DA2 human PC only, after the varied PC selection from DAO. I was happy they returned the other races for DAI, even though that game has its problems.

 

[PensivePen]

I do typically play as non-human races whenever the option is presented, the more alien and bizarre the better. I think there could be more games that try to use different kinds of protagonists and characters other than people, but I bet animating a protagonist who's not a person and has to do a lot of different things is a ton of work, and if you're going for something more story-driven you'd need a very good writer to pull it off. Most games that let you play as other species are cartoonish platformers.

Try reading At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Call of Cthulhu and some of Lovecraft's other late-in-life works OP. They're sure to tickle your human-hating fancy.

 

[MadSexual]

The humans are all dead and gone after the tutorial level in Darksiders.

 

[MindGamingMantis]

Just pick different species in games when given the chance. My problem is similar. I hate how the protagonist always wins and how we never get to play as the bad guys, unless they use it as a plot twist.

 

[Bending_Unit_22]

Tell me about it. All I want to do is play a game where I can kill all humans, is that so much to ask? Anyways, HK-47 is the best video game character ever.

 

[JeffZero]

I love the Cavil reference. Stockwell was phenom in Galactica.

 

[...Scatter...]

Sorry, OP. You will never defeat the human species!

We will, we will, ROCK YOU!

 

[pislit]

We have yet to see a game with a species that is equal to humans in terms of technology or physiology. They are either too advanced or too uncivilized or with psionic powers.

It would be very interesting to have this set up. But i know what will happen next, the humans will extinguish thhis "equal" race upon contact.

 

[Breads]

I dunno man. Dune is one of the most incredible sci fi series of all time and the only intelligent species in the universe is the human race and these stories are pretty god damn great.

 

[ThomasCro]

I love the idea of humanity losing. I was ready for the movie adaptation of War of the Worlds to have a bad ending, but alas.

The Mist comes closest to what I would say an enjoyable but not so happy conclusion.

 

[Lonely1]

I always thought a game where you started off as human only to be revealed that you actually weren't halfway through and the humanity was the enemy would be fun.

Thats the end of an EShop exclusive game.

 

[Steel]

I always thought a game where you started off as human only to be revealed that you actually weren't halfway through and the humanity was the enemy would be fun.

Robotech: Invasion does this.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

I wish all humans would die.

Except me, right?

 

[Timeaisis]

Oh so this is a video game thread

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Blizzard historically has been good about this. Even when the Horde was evil, you could play them for example.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke fits this bill, I think.

Heh. It's pretty much required suplementary reading for JRPG fans.

 

[Darkstorne]

What I loved about Mass Effect 3 was how all the advertising was aimed at a dudebro market, making it out to be about Earth and humanity, yet most of the game was away from Earth and spent on alien homeworlds. You go from the moon of Palaven, to Surkesh, to Tuchanka, to Thessia, to Rannoch, and holy shit man seeing Liara, Garrus, Grunt, Tali, etc react to the events on their own homeworlds was so much more moving than anything that happened during the brief stints we spent on Earth.

So yes, humans suck and marketing focused on humans sucks in Mass Effect, but that series was still all about the aliens.

 

[king picollo]

Its less about human race and more about THE AMERICAN RACE. FFFFFUUUUCK YYYYEEEAAAAHHHHHH

Yeah humans/Americans always save the day.

 

[Taruranto]

Man, The Plan fucking sucked but the ending was good.

 

[MattKeil]

Why do humans always have to fucking win? Why is our potential always beyond that of other species?

Humanity being inherently superior or having a distinct advantage over other races is pretty rare, especially in sci-fi. Mass Effect is more of an exception than the rule.

 

[Clevinger]

Play Nier.