#awesomeoutof10

[theageofgaming]

AWESOMEoutof10 is no more. The site will shut down in a week. I am out of the job. It is difficult for words right now.

Mostly though, and I want this to be known, I am grateful for the opportunities I was given and the wonderful people I met there.

[goodgameswriting-blog]

Videogames and the struggle with satire

Satire is an escape rope games are all too willing to utilize to get out of tricky situations they themselves have created. And you thought dropping a deus ex machina was a cliche.

David Chandler argues that GTA V is not satire, and hey, while we're at it, neither is Bayonetta nor Far Cry 3. David, take it away:

GTA V’s gameplay lacks both an ironic punch and a didactic end. As often as the game seems to make judgments about a player’s operating in a morally bankrupt world, the gameplay only reinforces the virtues of morally bankrupt activity.  We steal cars and shoot people because that’s what people in San Andreas do. If the game were satire, there would be some type of mechanical, formal acknowledgment that the roles the player perform are repugnant and awful, but there’s no mechanical comeuppance for the sins of the player.

So, what games are satire then? Hotline Miami certainly counts.

Abrasive, pixelated visuals and repetitive music accompany hyperactive violence. Braining an unsuspecting guard with a crowbar or shooting up a room sends red and purple pixels across the floor and walls, but the walk back through the building after everyone has been killed slows the gameplay just long enough for you to take stock in your handiwork.

Chandler hedges his bets, noting that his choice of language--in breaking down "satire" -- may be "splitting hairs". We're using language, though. The words we use makes a difference. If a developer claims their work is satire, then it needs to be satire. Otherwise, they're making use of that escape rope.

Chandler, David. "Video games and the struggle with satire" (AWESOMEoutof10: September 30th, 2013) <http://www.awesomeoutof10.com/features/video-games-and-the-struggle-with-satire/>.

See also: GTA V's jokes are bad...and that's good by Connor White.

[goodgameswriting-blog]

Dystopias pop up all over fiction, though videogames seem like the perfect place for them in my eyes. To get a sense of feeling the scene--the damage caused--can be evoked from any fiction, but games can really bring it together. By far my favourite example is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, though this year saw great examples in The Walking Dead and Dishonored.

Liam Dean talks of these worlds, ending with the notion that the "fact is that the idea of dystopia is just plain fun."

Commenter (and AWESOMEoutof10 staffer) David Chandler tackles why that is:

 Each game presents a broken world that the player needs to fix, whether it's finding a princess in another castle, protecting a girl from zombies, or fitting blocks to make lines disappear. These are all fundamentally dystopic fields of play. The fascination that you point out makes sense in terms of gaming development; what better way to unify the distinctions between narrative and gameplay than a sundered world? Dystopias work in games because they directly comment on the game itself...

Quite an insightful comment.