Support NeoGAF

[NotLiquid]

No More Heroes.

The goal of the game is to literally "become number one", or basically beat the game. For the protagonist, Travis Touchdown, the assassination stuff is all just a game to him and he thinks that coming out on top will lead him somewhere in life and that his talents will wow the people around him, as well as scoring him a hot babe. All the bosses in the game have already been down that road and are infinitely more interesting than he is, which ironically makes Travis that much more of a compelling character because of how he embodies player mentalities. Everyone is quick to call him a loser, a bum, a prick, a dirty otaku nerd etc.

And at the end of the game he doesn't get with the girl, realizes he got conned and gets slammed with a bunch of late game plot twists that he reflects upon having been a complete waste of time. He does get the showdown he'd wanted for the entire game in the extended true ending but that's only for him to be hit with another plot twist that basically ends with him admitting he wants to end the game.

It's not a very polished game but as the last pure-bred, directed Suda51 game, it had some really fun and subtle social commentary about video games.

 

[Pinko Marx]

MGS2 isn't exactly satire but it has some brilliant commentary on life in the information age.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

I game like Katamari Damacy could be considered as satire of materialism.
It would also be a rather "pure" form of satire in the sense that the gameplay mechanics themselves convey the critical message, rather than relying on external elements that have to be conveyed to the player through text or cutscene.

 

[Molemitts]

which is why according to the definition in my post (which doesn't have to be the agreed upon definition in this thread, it was just a suggestion made to try and move the discussion forward) in the context of the question: "is it satire or is it parody?" the meaning of the word satire should be understood to be: "something that qualifies as satire but does not qualify as parody".

In that context, I think GTA qualifies more as parody than other forms of satire.

Yes, GTA is more of a parody, than a satire, by that definition. My point is: it can still be satire, even if it is parody.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

gta the thread lol

specially this mission

http://youtu.be/SacTswzRbpA

the tears of laughter i got from it, is gonna make me triple dip

 

[orthodoxy1095]

The article takes GTA as a big joke instead of several jokes of which many are indeed satire. " The gameplay lacks an ironic punch" the game play is a vehicle to get you from point to point. Who you are playing as , why and the situation at the momento may or may not be satire. The guy is looking at GTA as a whole, he done already fucked up. GTA is a bunch of things, sometimes is satire, sometimes its complete absurdist comedy, sometimes its quite grim and dark comedy, sometimes its introspective comedy, sometimes its not comedy at all.

And as far as you not liking it, its fine that's your opinion. That doesn't make it not satire, you just aren't a fan and that's ok.

I do like GTA, and I agree that it's a kind of satire in places. It's just terrible satire. It's more often simply a parody, and as a parody, it functions fairly well. If you want a satire, Hotline Miami is what you're looking for.

Have you played any of the Pikmin games?
It'd be interesting to hear the opinion of someone who was more versed in literature than myself.

Pikmin is definitely a social commentary. Not all social commentary necessarily has to be a satire though. It could be. I'd really have to read some interviews with the creators to hear their thoughts.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Video games can definitely be satirical.

The GTA series has satire, but, for the most part, not in game form. That image in the OP is of a cartoon within a GTA game — it doesn't take advantage of the game's interactivity aspect in a satirical way.

The series only makes passing observations and surface level mockery of america, even at it's most satirical. The closest GTAV came to actual video game satire was that mission where you have to kill someone for the FBI based on extremely sketchy intel.

A "Police Simulator" game satirize U.S. law enforcement by giving the player essentially free reign to do almost anything without repercussion. It would illustrate the ridiculousness of what it's trying to satirize through gameplay in a way that wouldn't work in other mediums.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Pikmin is definitely a social commentary. Not all social commentary necessarily has to be a satire though. It could be. I'd really have to read some interviews with the creators to hear their thoughts.

Yeah I'm not sure myself if they had clear intentions in mind when coming up with those parts of the game.

As far as the setting, what we know for sure is that it takes place on earth, in the far future, and that in that future humanity has been gone for a pretty long time time, and that according to the traces left behind, they were at about our point in history when they disappeared. We also know that some of the materials left behind decomposed, some didn't, and some were incorporated into new life forms that evolved in between humanity's disappearance and the arrival of the aliens from Hocotate.

Of course there's also the other commentary that comes from the gameplay and the interaction with the Pikmin themselves.

 

[conman]

Now, satire is an intent. It is not "less satire" because it is "bad" or, much, much worse, because you disagree with it. This is just the "are games art" "no games are bad art and bad art is not art" argument. By saying it's not genuine satire all you're really doing is admitting it is satire but saying it doesn't "count" because it doesn't meet your personal standards.

To be fair, the same crap is drug up against a lot of non-game satire. It's a situation where lots of people like to attack whether it's satire rather than the points brought up. I obviously don't agree with the validity of that rhetorical attack, but it does make satire a fairly unsafe vehicle of criticism due to the amount of pedantry you expose yourself to (as, frankly, evidenced in this thread).

Not at all what I'm saying. What I'm pointing out is the difference between the kind of "satire" you see in TV commercials and the satire you might in about commercials in a movie. Same idea here. Games like GTA both satirize and sell the same experiences at the same time (violence, sexism, racism, etc). That's not about being "good" or "bad" satire. That's about the confused subject of satire. It's an inherent weakness to an art form like games that are both narrative (passive) and interactive (active).

 

[retroman]

I remember reading about a game called Phone Story a while ago.
It sounds like a good example for this thread:

Phone Story is a satirical mobile video game conceived by Yes Lab activist Michael Pineschi and designed by Paolo Pedercini for Molleindustria with the stated aim of demonstrating what the developers refer to as "the dark side of your favorite smart phone." The game consists of four minigames which require the player to complete activities such as forcing children in the Third World to mine coltan and preventing suicides at a Foxconn factory.

The creators of the game stated the main purpose was to elicit a response from people who "fail to realize how their fashionable consumption can have negative effects on people in the globalized world.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_Story

 

[Schlomo]

How is Hotline Miami satire?

 

[BouncyFrag]

I loved it in the first Bioshock, especially Ryans vernacular.

 

[DarkCronos]

No More Heroes.

The goal of the game is to literally "become number one", or basically beat the game. For the protagonist, Travis Touchdown, the assassination stuff is all just a game to him and he thinks that coming out on top will lead him somewhere in life and that his talents will wow the people around him, as well as scoring him a hot babe. All the bosses in the game have already been down that road and are infinitely more interesting than he is, which ironically makes Travis that much more of a compelling character because of how he embodies player mentalities. Everyone is quick to call him a loser, a bum, a prick, a dirty otaku nerd etc.

And at the end of the game he doesn't get with the girl, realizes he got conned and gets slammed with a bunch of late game plot twists that he reflects upon having been a complete waste of time. He does get the showdown he'd wanted for the entire game in the extended true ending but that's only for him to be hit with another plot twist that basically ends with him admitting he wants to end the game.

It's not a very polished game but as the last pure-bred, directed Suda51 game, it had some really fun and subtle social commentary about video games.

I came here just to post the same thing, good job.

 

[Clefargle]

FFCC is about the struggle between the Free Market/ Corporate Darwinism and Socialist/communist ideas

 

[bomma_man]

Animal crossing is a gentle satire of modern life. Especially consumerism.

 

[gfxtwin]

Good question, IMO.

There are certainly a lot of parodies that come to mind - Conker's Bad Fur Day (that make fun of movies in pop culture), Suda's games (that attempt to make fun of gaming culture), Portal (a tongue in cheek love letter to science that lampoons hard sci-fi movies) and my personal favorite, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (definitely the funniest game I've played).

I guess the GTA series has always had the goal of satire in mind. They do a good job of writing wacky missions, characters, and dialogue that mocks american society pretty well. But the joy in GTA's humor, IMO, comes from experiencing the sheer VOLUME of it all. Most of the observations in the game are nothing new to anyone familiar with satires of America (South Park, Colbert, etc), but every building, every sign, the names of the cars, all the character designs, the dozens of TV and radio stations with their hours of content, and so on...basically, everywhere you look, there's going to be something in the way of a clever graphic design or visual joke. Pretty impressive and, on average, there's a lot of truth to the designers' wacky observations, for sure. GTA seems to be all about making fun of the kind of sleazy, violent person who does sleazy and violent things IRL, as if to say, "yes, I am participating in a videogame with guns, violence, sleazy sex and various crimes, but what about the peeps who do this shit in the real world? Lets make fun of them." But the satire isn't very original. Are there a lot of sharp, truthful observations in, say, GTA 5? Sure, but are most of them not already covered in other popular movies, books, and shows? I dunno about that.

I never quite saw the bioshock games as satire as much as political critiques. I mean, did anyone really consistently laugh in these games? There's definitely a layer of dark humor, as there is with many horror movies/books. But I think the intent is pretty much in the game's title - it wants you to feel shocked. There's definitely a lot of shock and awe in seeing Rapture for the first time. And the sight of the Big Daddy's and Little Sisters is hard to not find both shocking and fascinating at first. Who wasn't shocked by the "would you kindly" twist? Bioshock Infinite kicks it up a notch further. Initially you are kind of put into a false state of comfort when you see Columbia. Then you start exploring it and begin to see how things work there. The uncompromising depiction of racism, nationalism and bigotry in the game is pretty shocking, to say the least. As is the gore. Anyway, I feel like these games are meant to mostly fascinate the player, make them uncomfortable (which is what shocking art/entertainment all tries to do), and force them into taking a hard, unblinking look at the dark side of human nature. In that regard, they have more in common with the horror genre. There's nothing really at all funny in the Bioshock games themselves, lol. But that said....

 

[RooMHM]

Why not but only when these games do not take themselves seriously. So, GTA and not Bioshock.

 

[NewGame]

FFCC is about the struggle between the Free Market/ Corporate Darwinism and Socialist/communist ideas

I'm pretty sure it was about family units being the building blocks of empires and how disillusion and decay of the family unit results in both individuals deaths and their country/state.

See? The Marlboro is weak to Blizzard. It makes perfect sense.