5:54 pm Jun. 20, 201221
At the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles earlier this month, a crowd of gamers cheered on a camo-clad tough guy as he went room to room beating people to death and setting them on fire.
It was a typical third-person-shooter video game action, except that the realism was stunning. A nearsighted person without glasses could have mistaken it for a movie scene.
I wasn’t at the event in person. I just watched the game demo play on YouTube, with the “live” audience response mixed in. But they seemed to be thinking the same thing.
Just when it seemed a brawnier guy with a two-by-four would overpower our hero, a petite female sidekick stabbed the assailant in the back. The hero kicked his attacker to the ground and leveled a shotgun at his face. “No, no, NO!” the brawny guy shrieked, a split second before the hero unloaded. After the man’s jaw shattered in a spray of blood and bone—smash cut—the title THE LAST OF US, white-on-black, filled the screen. The crowd roared.
The video game industry is currently in a war that the movie industry fought and decided last decade. It’s a struggle between loud, assaultive, photorealistic game design that rewards wispy attention spans while demanding minimal problem-solving skills of its players and … games where shotguns to the face and chainsaws to the jugular are not so essential.
The American film industry settled on high-resolution ultraviolence as the default multiplex experience sometime after 9/11 and sometime before its superheroic screen response, The Dark Knight. The violence is not necessarily a matter of content but of the graceless way shots jam up against one another now, keeping us invested through a constant state of agitation where narrative suspense used to do the trick.
During that decade, many viewers retreated from mainstream blockbuster cinema into the bosom of what critics call a television renaissance. So many smart, adult, spellbinding, hilarious TV shows, the story goes. Any stragglers still hoping for an immersive experience at the multiplex were suckers and masochists.
Meanwhile, games for the major home entertainment consoles, XBOX 360, PlayStation and the upcoming Nintendo WiiU, went to HD resolution, after the fashion of home video, and employed increasingly cinematic techniques. The cut scenes that punctuate game play began to weave in plots as intricate as any Hollywood screenplay. And the resurgence of 3-D at the movies was concurrent with new 3-D gaming technologies.
2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the second highest-selling video game of all-time in the U.S., was in many ways the Dark Knight of gaming. It solidified an ongoing franchise while exploring themes of terrorism and reprisal from the point of view of American protectors working Dick Cheney’s “dark side” to produce results. As Seth Seichel wrote in a New York Times review of the game, “Basically, the player, in the guise of an American commando, can participate in a massacre of unarmed civilians. ‘It will cost you a piece of yourself,’ your commander says of the mission. ‘It will cost nothing compared to everything you’ll save.’”
A slew of movies and TV shows like "24" and "Alias" worked that dark side of the street all last decade, alternating between discussions about torture and civilian casualties as unfortunate necessities in a new kind of war, and scenes of the brutality in question. But a fidgeting camera and disjunctive editing became the standard for representing both action and the most casual dialogue. Panic and disorientation were built into every frame.
Games didn’t want to be left out. The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare titles established a standard of documentary war-zone faux realism and moral handwringing that dozens of other games soon emulated.
In this climate, game developers who seek to captivate the player-viewer through more sensual and less violent means are odd men out. Game reviewers almost unanimously praised two grisly action games as highlights of the E3 Expo, the aforementioned The Last of Us and yet another spin on espionage, hacking and surveillance, Watch Dogs. (In Watch Dogs, the hero wields technology that identifies any passerby’s vital information, from date of birth to HIV status.)
The odd men out tend to be Japanese game developers. Japan, formerly the epicenter of world game culture, is generally perceived as lagging in appeal behind blockbuster North American and European games, with their emphasis on shock and awe. In Japan, certain game creators have attained auteur status largely through works that encourage the players' creativity rather than their flight-or-flight response.
Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary creator of Nintendo’s Super Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, provided a striking contrast to other corporate reps straining to come off as hip and friendly gamers (rather than anxious middle-aged shareholders) as they forecast world domination for their products. Boyish and beaming energetically at 60, Miyamoto described what sets his company apart in the Call of Duty era: “At a show like this, it’s my job to show we’re all having fun. People come to E3 and they want to talk about competition and who won the show, and all these companies combating one another. But what we’re meant to be doing is bringing fun to the world. So rather than focusing on competition, I feel it’s my job to go up on stage and show how I can bring fun to the world by having fun myself.”
Miyamoto’s classic games aim for the simple problem-solving pleasures and sensory delights of childhood. A combination business Titan-eternal boy wonder like the late Jim Henson comes to mind.
Wonderment and exploration also characterize a designer whose work was curiously absent from E3, Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus). A 2009 teaser for his long-gestating project The Last Guardian is a breathtaking fantasy, with elegant visual choreography worthy of Steven Spielberg and animator Hayao Miyazaki. A set of claws descends out of the shadows into a pool of light on what looks like a dungeon floor. Some kind of dragon-hyena winged beast chases a little boy down a castle corridor until the child reaches a precipice. Nowhere to run. The beast follows him out into the blaring sunlight, nearly tripping over itself to avoid falling into the chasm. Instead of devouring the boy, the creature plays around with him like a devoted puppy. A montage synced to a musical cue from Carter Burwell’s lovely Miller’s Crossing film score advertises the game as some kind of friendship odyssey in the spirit of Old Yeller-through-War Horse. But the grace of its execution, told in clean, sweeping gestures that flow according to very subtle emotions (rather than jumbled fragments that merely goose the viewer), betrays the humanist, poetic influence of French animator Paul Grimualt upon Japanese animators and game designers.
So it's with a great deal of unintended irony that film critics use the phrase “just like a video game” as a putdown for CGI-choked superhero movies. The standard retort from gamers is to accuse such critics of never having actually played a video game at any length. A more relevant accusation is that many of those Westerners who persist in belittling games as mere "games" are responding to the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare culture of loud and homicidal pageantry.
This isn’t the nerds versus the jocks. This is the killers versus the poets.
Japan is definitely the more artistic country when it comes to games, however let us not forget those really...creepy x-rated games that they've made in the past.
Of the two, I think I'd rather play The Last of Us. And complaints that it's too violent are absurd. Shooting bad guys has been a game staple for years, and movies have been more violent and graphic than this for decades now. Is this article really anything other than a lazy journalist's swing at a battered dead horse?
I don't understand your point. Are you saying that The Last Of Us offers little for the player in terms of problem-solving skills and rewards twitch reaction time, that it's some kind of mindless entertainment?
Pretty amazing analysis for a game that isn't even out yet. Also, if you had actually read about the game, you would know that you could make it through that entire sequence shown in the demo without killing anyone. I think that level of player choice leads a lot to the imagination.
One of your points is a bit off. The Last of Us, and Watch Dogs, weren't praised because they were violent, they were praised because they're brand new games. This year's E3 was full of sequels, and there were a handful of new games. But those two were the only ones that were actually shown off. Project P-100 is a game that most people didn't hear about until they read about it on a website, but those who have seen it are fairy interested in it. There are also a few people interested in Quantic Dream's new game, Beyond.
We all love Miyamoto, but he showed off another sequel. The game looks great, but there isn't going to be as much clamor for it, because it's a sequel. We always love to see new games.
It is a pretty good article. I find myself getting sick of the comparison between video games and movies though.
Of the two, I think I'd rather play The Last of Us. And complaints that it's too violent are absurd. Shooting bad guys has been a game staple for years, and movies have been more violent and graphic than this for decades now. Is this article really anything other than a lazy journalist's swing at a battered dead horse?
You realise, right, that the point of that game is to survive in an environment full of desperate, scared individuals, where weaponry is used only as a last resort? They spend most of that video sneaking around trying to avoid confrontation, and when they do eventually get into the fight, its hardly glorified - its just awful and gritty.
A somewhat shortsighted article. While the video game industry consistently releases blockbuster games such as CoD, GTA, etc that depict extreme levels of violence and aggression as well as rewarding the doing of it. There are a veritable host of games that maintain the nuance and poetry of any fine art form. Miyazaki's studio Ghibli actually released a game in its native Japan, one that will be released in the US next year. Other games such as Journey (recently released) has routinely brought players to tears in its closing moments. The video game industry is vast enough and accessible enough to allow small developers who are focused on exploring emotion and expression to find an audience just as easily as major vg developers such as EA, Activision, or Rockstar. In fact, I believe that through mediums such as the Playstation Network, XBLA, Wii Store, and Steam. These fledgling developers and indie designers are far more able to reach out to consumers than the indie or art house film scene.
I think you are getting the wrong idea about The Last Of Us. I totally agree with you about Call of Duty and a whole bunch of other games. But I'm rather confident that there could be something more to The Last of Us. Think of it more along the lines of the film/book The Road that starred Viggo Mortensen. What they showed at E3 was the first ever gameplay displayed to the public. Unfortunately, as a business I suspect they had to show a clip that catered to the largest audience, which usually means lots of shooting and violence. But from previous trailers and information released about the game it is more focused on drama and general survival (running away or not), which does include puzzles.
No.
Who is this guy? The studio that made The Last of Us (Naughty Dog) has the 2 top rated releases of all time on Metacritic, that have been universally praised for their story and rich characters.
Dude. Uncharted 2 and 3 were amazing because of the writing. This guy knows nothing.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's success was primarily (if not wholly) dictated by one key element: multiplayer. The online community for the original Modern Warfare and the brand's follow-up, Call of Duty: World At War, developed into an enormous market. Not only was it gathering a substantial audience, its popularity overflowed into the burgeoning Youtube gaming community - and its new wave of gaming commentators both championing their skills as well as engaging with their subscribers. These rapidly growing communities coupled with the word-of-mouth positivity between gamers and the overzealous marketing hype by Activision set Modern Warfare 2 up to be a blockbuster release. Over 80% of its buyers dove straight into multiplayer and did not set foot in the single player campaign. Some still have yet to do so. There was little to no desire from much of its core audience to satiate their desire to be entertained by "faux realism" or to absorb any post-9/11 patriotic dogma of any kind - they wanted to play online with friends and competitors! The idea that this has deprived video games of all creativity is a bit ludicrous
The issue I have with this article is that you seem to be approaching the video game industry as being the inferior little brother of the longstanding film industry, or something of that ilk. The medium itself is one that not only permits growth of its own, but can more easily wear its influences on its sleeve be they music, films, or even from avant-garde. Not only has it attracted the likes of filmmakers Gore Verbinski, John Woo, and James Gunn to develop video game projects, but longstanding video game properties such as Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil, and Super Mario Bros have been adapted into feature film franchises. If the film industry is a reservoir of originality or imagination then why would they feel the need to borrow creative ideas from the video game industry to make money at the box-office? Why should the film industry have license to use the property from a different medium to work into their own medium and get away with it? I can argue that the film industry leaves nothing to the imagination if it indeed prides itself on borrowing or adapting ideas from other art forms.
In terms of "The Last of Us", developer Naughty Dog has specifically stated that the gameplay urges players to avoid all forms of gunplay at the cost of survival. The title is not a third-person shooting experience: it's a tale of survival at any costs between an older man and the teenage girl. You're merely observing the game from afar - had you researched its inner workings and intentions then I suspect your article would have taken a different stance. It literally appears to be judging a book by its cover.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's success was primarily (if not wholly) dictated by one key element: multiplayer. The online community for the original Modern Warfare and the brand's follow-up, Call of Duty: World At War, developed into an enormous market. Not only was it gathering a substantial audience, its popularity overflowed into the burgeoning Youtube gaming community - and its new wave of gaming commentators both championing their skills as well as engaging with their subscribers. These rapidly growing communities coupled with the word-of-mouth positivity between gamers and the overzealous marketing hype by Activision set Modern Warfare 2 up to be a blockbuster release. Over 80% of its buyers dove straight into multiplayer and did not set foot in the single player campaign. Some still have yet to do so. There was little to no desire from much of its core audience to satiate their desire to be entertained by "faux realism" or to absorb any post-9/11 patriotic dogma of any kind - they wanted to play online with friends and competitors! The idea that this has deprived video games of all creativity is a bit ludicrous
The issue I have with this article is that you seem to be approaching the video game industry as being the inferior little brother of the longstanding film industry, or something of that ilk. The medium itself is one that not only permits growth of its own, but can more easily wear its influences on its sleeve be they music, films, or even from avant-garde. Not only has it attracted the likes of filmmakers Gore Verbinski, John Woo, and James Gunn to develop video game projects, but longstanding video game properties such as Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil, and Super Mario Bros have been adapted into feature film franchises. If the film industry is a reservoir of originality or imagination then why would they feel the need to borrow creative ideas from the video game industry to make money at the box-office? Why should the film industry have license to use the property from a different medium to work into their own medium and get away with it? I can argue that the film industry leaves nothing to the imagination if it indeed prides itself on borrowing or adapting ideas from other art forms.
In terms of "The Last of Us", developer Naughty Dog has specifically stated that the gameplay urges players to avoid all forms of gunplay at the cost of survival. The title is not a third-person shooting experience: it's a tale of survival at any costs between an older man and the teenage girl. You're merely observing the game from afar - had you researched its inner workings and intentions then I suspect your article would have taken a different stance. It literally appears to be judging a book by its cover.
Before you totally crucify it, you should definitely do some more research on The Last of Us. It's not just a brawny guy and his sidekick, it's a guy trying to protect a young girl in a post-apocalyptic world by any means necessary. It's a cool father/daughter thing they have going on, as opposed to just a slaughter team.
Yes, the author of this article is either ignorant of what The Last Of Us really is or he's just writing a bait piece to get views. However, I do agree with his take on Team Ico's creations as they really show what games are capable of and how many times they are more valuable than any art form in terms of imagination and emotion. Games are not something to dismiss just because of a few of the most popular bad apples (i.e Call Of Duty, Gears Of War etc.).
Yes, the author of this article is either ignorant of what The Last Of Us really is or he's just writing a bait piece to get views. However, I do agree with his take on Team Ico's creations as they really show what games are capable of and how, a lot of the time, they are more valuable than any art form in terms of imagination and emotion. Games are not something to dismiss just because of a few of the most popular bad apples (i.e Call Of Duty, Gears Of War etc.).
reply
This article is absolutely ridiculous. With every sentence the writer proves his extreme amount of ignorance to not only the video game industry but also film. What on earth he's doing writing an article about both is beyond me.
Why the hail of Japan? Sure they have some games that are artistically driven but Metal Gear Solid and Call of Duty are no different in their over the top patriotic banter about heroes and brothers, countries and wars. It's all the same crap, just Call of Duty is short and sweet about it, and Metal Gear Solid is too enamored with its philosophies and story that it comes off more like a Michael Bay film hitting you over the head with its various "meanings" to seem more complex and intricate than it really is. I find Japan to be in the same market as America, albeit in a different way. The primary games that Japan is known for are JRPGs all of which, like MGS, are heavy handed in their messages and story. It's not to say Japan isn't full of games that are of a higher grade of art than most American blockbusters, I just think people assume because Japan releases a few artsy games that they in turn must be the artistic leaders of the medium. Lets not forget their Hentai rape games that they've released and the very skewed concepts of brother sister love that seems to be prevalent in many mainstream Japanese developed games. If America is about violence then Japan is about sex.
Let's not forget Ken Levine is American as is the game BioSchock, which manages to pull more artistic feats than majority of Japanese games, while leveling the player with strong moral choices and philosophies; all while remaining nuanced and cultured.
But the main point here is this; I really don't see why you're commenting on a game you obviously have no clue about. It's a survival story set in a post apocalyptic world where a man and a young girl must fight to survive in an increasingly violent and standoffish world. The point of the violence in the scene is to maintain a sense of tension and suspense. To ground it in reality and discuss the brutalities of survival and the things one must do to survive in a world like this. It's not glorified, it's effective violence that creates unease, much like the brutal violence you'll find in a Cronenberg film.
You seem like another uneducated fool who only assumes games glorify violence, and blah blah blah; same arguments we've heard a thousand times against the medium by people who have no clue what they're talking about. You say with the addition of HD games began to take on more complex and intricate stories, yet there were games released before HD resolution that have plots that rival some of the greatest Hollywood films. You speak of the gaming medium as an inferior bastard child to film, when in reality they couldn't be more different. Comparing the industry to film is like comparing film to novels. Sure they can all blend into one another seamlessly and give the reader, watcher and player a different experience of the same story told through each medium. But each one has it's own way of telling a story, whether it be written, visual or through audience participation.
The reaction of the crowd at the end of the "The Last of Us" demo was pretty shocking to me too, but this article seems to be critiquing the wrappers around a very select few games (I don't mean to be crass, but this is one of the most common mistakes film critics make when they talk about games), rather than acknowledging the diversity that exists in the medium. I wish games would stop needing to engage in shock and awe promotional strategies, but much like stupefyingly popular blockbuster films, this strategy has turned huge profits (and losses, depending if a game failed to catch enough attention). Much like the migration to "smart" TV series that you speak of for passive visual media, games also have a burgeoning independent scene with a wide range of virtual activities. The issue with reliance on ultra-violence is an issue to be taken up with the full gamut of visual media culture, not merely games since it seems to be an infection of popular culture at large.
I really don't know what this article is supposed to be about, there are contradictions in nearly every phrase, the author seem to know very little about the subject and seems to be pushing a very personal agenda which of course can't be backed up by the general feedback about the game and the presentation itself. It's def. the last time I checked in on this site. Wait, what was this about?
- At the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles earlier this month, a crowd of gamers cheered on a camo-clad tough guy as he went room to room beating people to death and setting them on fire.
/ very subjective interpretation of the reaction and the gameplay itself
- The crowd roared.
/ They cut away before you can see the actual result of the shotgun shot, also the crowd is roaring because they were very impressed by the overall presentation and it was the very end of it. It's like clapping and cheering at the end of a movie you like.
- It was a typical third-person-shooter video game action, except that the realism was stunning.
/ please do some research on third person action games. Also please refer to the just released list of E3 awards, showing that Last of Us is shaping up to be more than just your typical 3rd person shooter:
Best of Show
The Last of Us
(Naughty Dog/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
Best Original Game
The Last of Us
(Naughty Dog/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
Best Console Game
The Last of Us
(Naughty Dog/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
Best Action/Adventure Game
The Last of Us
(Naughty Dog/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
Special Commendations for Graphics
Watch Dogs
(Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Special Commendation for Sound
The Last of Us
(Naughty Dog/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
Special Commendation for Innovation
Watch Dogs
(Ubisoft Montrea`l/Ubisoft for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
The best original game should hurt...
- just when it seemed a brawnier guy with a two-by-four would overpower our hero...
/ misleading jump to min. 4 of the 7min presentation, putting the violence out of context
the game is about 2 characters trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic setting. if violence is used it is portrayed as a struggle, with your own ethics as well as the counterparty who are trying to do the same. It is the reason why shows like "The Walking Dead" are a huge success with critics and audiences alike. People's stories are interesting when you are putting them in extreme situations. We want to know what they and ultimately we would be willing and able to do when it comes down to survival.
- The video game industry is currently in a war that the movie industry fought and decided last decade. It’s a struggle between loud, assaultive, photorealistic game design that rewards wispy attention spans while demanding minimal problem-solving skills of its players and … games where shotguns to the face and chainsaws to the jugular are not so essential.
/ the most powerful evidence of this ridiculous claim is supposed to be what? please take a look at the recent success of the wii plattform, or take a look at naughty dog's prior games: Uncharted 1: rated Teen, or their jak and daxter series, or their crash bandicoot series...
/ loud, assaultive...?!? Last of Us designers have been quoted, that they specifically try to avoid a constant loud audio mix, they want the player to get soaked into the world, not blown out of it. The video you posted is evidence that you will encounter an almost silent setting for a majority part of the game which is completely contrary to games like COD and also your statement.
- 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the second highest-selling video game of all-time in the U.S., was in many ways the Dark Knight of gaming.
/ what an awful, awful claim. I remember Dark Knight receiving 1or2 good reviews for its bold and adult take on the subject. Or an oscar or two...While mechanics and multiplayer were largely well received in COD, the story and characters (including the "shock"level) remained a bigger point for criticism, the series has struggled with it for some years now. They only have financial success in common. COD is being called out to have franchise-fatigue, while Nolan's Dark Knight managed to spark new life into a very dead (movie) IP.
.....
I'm gonna stop this now... Chances are that for something this out of touch has been made "just for clicks"... I fell for it :(
Just getting around to a lot of these comments, sorry. I have been far, far away from computers and screens.
Termi, you don't make much of convincing case, to me, at least, by citing industry awards. (I'm a film critic who thinks the Oscars are useless, a pageant for the liberal wing of the 1%.)
Citing consensus opinion regarding Uncharted, The Walking Dead and The Dark Knight (all overblown and overrated titles, IMO) doesn't do much to move me either. I am aware that just consulting the awards listings and aggregators like the Tomatometer settles it for a lot of folks, though.
Citing the stated intentions of a game's creators carries a little weight, sure, but never more than the evidence of the work itself, or, in this case, the way the work was sold to an apparently bloodthirsty audience. And you might have missed it, but we do get to see the spray of blood and bone before the cut to the title card.
See my followup article and my comment under it to get a little more of where I'm coming from. Or try to peek over somebody's shoulder if you're worried about giving me more clicks. So long as you actually read it, brother.