The God Problem

As you know I recently played Prince of Persia, and it's storyline is basically about a dark god escaping his imprisonment. Pretty usual story yes? But it reminded me of an argument I have with myself often (Dont ask), especially after reading or watching a storyline that has gods as a central theme.

When you create a new setting for a story, especially if it's fantasy, you have to ask an important question.... Are your gods real? If you say no you actually save yourself alot of trouble.... because in that case the gods exist as a men believe them too, and in that way they become a kind of mirror of the culture that worships them.

But if you say yes, you've caused yourself a little grief.

The trouble stems from the fact that there is no right or wrong answer.... which means there is a right or wrong answer for your reader. Everyone's set in their ways and has a clear idea how certain things work, or how they should. Religion is no different, it's been one of humanities biggest arguments for a long time. No matter what you do, if you have a god that is real and effects the story in some way (They dont have to be an active deity to have an effect) your probably gonna bump into readers that dislike your vision (Not declaring holy vengeance of course, this is fiction were talking about).

This happens for me alot whenever I read a story that has light handed deity's or heavy handed deity's... Sometimes there is something there that just.... rubs me the wrong way. It's not that there wrong, or that their image could be improved... Perhaps it could have been improved, but the point is I'll look at it and go "Hrmm, dont really like that approach".

In alot of cases I'll dislike it because the gods are too human, or perhaps if there not human enough. My personal belief (Story lines, not religion, Haha) is that a deity should be recognisable as a person, and yet totally unknowable.... So basically somewhere in the middle and far away from one of the extremes.

One of the problems you'll run into in your narrative is when your god does something, but does not deign to answer why they did it. When you have a god that is somewhat active, and in a kind of communication with it's subjects but does not explain it's reasoning always gets on my nerves. This kind of deity does not need to explain its justifications (If it has any) and it's people are like children, not able to comprehend it's vast vision. Yet I feel if your going to mess around with someones life they deserve to know why, and if it's too 'complicated' then at least make an attempt....

Now your probably thinking "Well, their a god, they are above mortals and can do whatever they like" But it's that idea I dislike. If you have gods who can do what they like (Even with limitations) without having to answer for their actions then it belittles the importance of people... Makes them less somehow. Now if thats the aim of your narrative, then go right ahead.... but the trouble is I see this happen alot and almost by mistake, like the writer never thought about the consequences of adding a god that answers to no one but themselves.

For example I recently read a book which had a small Pantheon for these desert people. These gods were very real and possibly the most powerful beings in the world (A world of magic and wizards etc), and yet they were the only ones of their kind. When a neighboring nation came into some big trouble (A dragon that not only breathed fire, but melting acid breath too) these desert people came to them with their sultan and holy man and a small army. Yet there gods would not help this other nation in the way you'd expect, instead it shielded their own people and left the problem to the hero of the story (It was his fault there was a dragon at all). Now these guys did help all the injured people and helped evacuate them... But the thing is the hero begged them to help, and even though they could they left him to face this terrible ordeal alone... To teach him a lesson and give him a chance at redemption...

Yet the way it happened was completely horrible, and they would not say why they would not help. The problems not the way they acted, the problem was who they would help... This other nation had 'gods' but only make believe ones with no power.... no one could come to their aid... And so it almost seems like these desert people horde the power and benefits of their gods to themselves...

This was a world where gods were real, but only helped you if you'd been born in the desert. I'm pretty sure the writer wasn't aiming for something so bleak, but that's what we have... A deity only interested in it's own. For those of you paying attention this is an example of the unknowable deity, who is so far removed from its people they don't even know what their worshipping.

But what of evil deity's? Well you have two kinds, much like villains. Those who are born bad, and those who become it later on. Like the villains they share their birth with, I dislike deity's who are evil just cause. Not because I dislike the black and white of good vs evil but because solely evil deity's promote lazy writing and tend to be handled pretty badly. One's who become evil later on.... Are usually handled pretty badly as well... They usually go bad because they want something (Usually exclusive rights to the world) which comes off as very childish for a supposedly supreme being.

In the Prince of Persia game you have the God of Light and the God of Darkness, and they are brothers. One day the God of Darkness didn't feel like sharing anymore and just started to break everything, so his brother tricked him into a tree. Now an interesting thing that doesn't get explored alot (As far as I know) is the idea of the whole imprisoning and what it means. Think about, these brothers must have existed forever, and while they have their differences in essence their still brothers. One gets out of hand and starts wrecking the party for everyone, and then his brother, who the bad one didn't actually do anything to... seals him away.... forever. If I was the bad brother I'd feel utterly betrayed... that my brother would do something so.... so evil is unthinkable.

Perhaps the God of Darkness was really out of order smashing the world up, but that shouldn't excuse the God of Light of his terrible deed of shutting away his own brother.... If anything in many respects there as bad as each other. Darkness for not playing nice, and Light for not finding a way to balance the problem his brother had created.

Lets Talk About: Mass Effect

Ugh....


God damn it Bioware, why do you do this to me...

It should be no secret that I have a problem with Mass Effects overall narrative. The problem I have of course is that alot is really stupid, and not thought out well. Saying that, some of the stuff in there is really good.... for one reason my favorite is the exploration of the fact that not only do salarians have shorter lives, but that their perception of time is completely different from everyone else's (The blue chicks are supposed to live for like hundreds or thousands of years, but talking to one you would never believe that... their own perception of time seems to run alongside our own, and if that was the case then they would mentally age into something we would be totally unfamiliar with... but no.... There just blue 'hot' chicks.... le sigh).

One of the main problems I had with the last one was the fact that in the end everyone was like "OMgosh there after Earth next!" but then if you actually look at it.... the collectors ship is not equipped for that... not even a single reaper would be equipped for that. A species home planet would be massively defended... and I did not believe for a minute that the collectors could have pulled that off.... Taking out fringe colonies no one cares about... fair enough... but anything above that? No.

Now it has been revealed that in Mass Effect 3 earth will mostly likely be the main stage, as the reapers are coming for it.

This is a poor decision for the writer.

It's the same issue I have with any sort of made up medium.... if your not using the tools of your genre, why are you even in that genre? There are over a billion possibilities for location for this battle against the reapers... and you pick the boring option...

But ok, lets let that go.... and look at this another way....

Shepherd has almost zero attachments to earth. The writer seems to be relying on the fact that, hey, we all live on earth so you'll make a connection right? If that's the case why did you give the option for the player to choose a spacer background... You need only look at say, the Gundam series to get an idea how spacers would feel about earth (I.e. Earth can go f*** itself, I live in space).

The worst part of this decision I think is the fact that we haven't been able to visit earth once. Aren't you supposed to show us all the happy people before attacking? Couldn't you have shown us a peaceful earth, an earth we would care about in the first two games? This is a problem Bioware have keep falling into, assuming you'll care about something because they told you to care.

Honestly, the final battle should take place on the citadel.... not only does it actually belong to the reapers, but it is the core of the allied races. Surely that would be the main target? You know, the place where all your enemy's make alliances with one another against you? Plus we've been there before.... even if you hated it it would still make an interesting and stark shift if the whole place had its white shine burned away.

While were here, perhaps we can discuss Bioware's naming of stuff? It's got a very Christian theme, which isn't a problem... it just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Oh Bioware, did you get jealous of Obsidian's Mask of the betrayer? Did you get angry that it turned out they could make a great fantasy game with under tones of death, heaven, hell, and rebirth? Did you spit vile as you witnessed them ask very big questions about how gods act and if judgement is right? Did you realise that your ability to tell complicated story's appears to have floated away?


Ahem.


Finally it is bullshit there isn't girl on girl with Tali.

.... Don't judge me, you want it too....

Marvel Anime

Hahaha.

Ok we need to talk about this Marvel. What your doing is stupid. What your doing is also just a declaration of something I talked about for a while… the loss of western animation over eastern animation (When you’re not just copying the style but actually having eastern studios do your shows for you… la sigh), but were not here to talk about that…. No were hear to talk about why your being stupid by trusting the Japanese with these shows.

Now you might not know, but when the Iron Man anime came out quite a few people were pretty pissed, or just disappointed (I’m in the latter). See what happened was they released an amazing test trailer for it, it was right up there with some great animations… and then the show started… and all the robot models were… 3d….

This is a problem I’ve had with the Japanese for a while now. I remember when they started first doing it (yes that’s how long I’ve been watching anime) where they’d replace certain things with 3d. Slowly however it became more frequent and now major pieces were turned 3d, most notably the giant robots.

This is horrible.

3d mixed with 2d has never looked good. I know why they do it… its much cheaper and less labour intensive to use 3d modelling, but it looks like someone shat on a whiteboard. I have stopped watching shows because they use 3d for all of their fights…. Because it just looks so bad.

The big problem with 3d of course is that it’s very rigid, where the main strength of any animation is its fluidity. So when you replace scenes that would have looked awesome and flowing with 3d it just looks… it looks like a kid smacking two action figures together.

Now the point I’m getting to Marvel is this is how the Japanese will treat your shows. Do you know why Iron Man is 3d? Because the studio making it put all their best people on a different project. I’m not saying the Japanese did that cause there racists… it’s just they might be racist.

Marvel you need to understand some things… despite what you might think 3d has always looked terrible, and those cartoons you had made recently all look like balls. The Japanese are not going to put their best effort into your shows…. Which means they will not pierce their market. You need to look no further than the Xbox to see how well your brand will perform in japan Marvel… Despite my fan boying the xbox is not a bad console… but the Japanese will always buy the Japanese product. The only reason the IPhone did so well in Japan is because there wasn’t a Japanese equivalent of it (I’m not making that up).

So while your attempts to attract a new foreign market is likely to crash and burn I did want to say one thing Marvel…

Love the shows. They are so retarded and cliché they remind me of the good old days. I can’t wait for the X-men anime and the Blade anime…. Man… Just thinking about how stupid they’ll be is making me all giddy inside.

The Final Fallacy

Now before I carry on I want to make it clear that it might be unfair of me using Square Enix as an example, I only say this because I haven’t played any of their recent games myself and this post is working purely on hearsay, but a critique was brought up against them recently and I thought it made a good topic.

Now I don’t know if you ever played or heard about Final Fantasy, but for gamer history it was kind of a big deal. Now the latest one came out of a while ago, and a lot of people didn’t like it (I’ve kept away from recent games because they remind me of everything I hate in anime right now). One of the problems someone pointed out was that Square Enix opted for style over substance.

What many final fantasy fans might not release is that the games have always walked the tightrope of style and substance. Many would claim that this ‘decline’ of substance actually started around the most popular one, 7, and continued onwards until the latest one, but these people don’t quite understand what the substance of these later games actually was.

Now you outsiders have an interesting position on this debate, if you’ve heard of Final Fantasy you’ve probably heard a fan’s almost crusader like admiration for their favourite Final Fantasy. But your just sitting there wondering, aren’t they just the same games?

This is the core issue at work here during this debate between the series, everyone, especially the fans, on some level expects them to be the same game.

You see Final Fantasy is a very interesting specimen because despite having so many similarities with each instalment, there all radically different from one another. Each game has a unique theme with which to tell its story, and at the end of the day the debate about which is the best is actually all about this central theme.

For example 8’s central film is friendship and trust, it’s about learning to believe in others and yourself. 9’s is Mortality, the inevitability of death and how the characters interact with that. 10 is all about the sins of the past, how they shape us, and asks, should we suffer for the sins of our fathers?

Now the great final fallacy (Haha, see what I did there?) is the fact that the first one you play is most likely going to be your favourite. After you have a favourite one you’ll expect the others to be much like it. So the reason that there is so much outrage between the games is because most people are expecting a continuation of their central theme, and thus are disappointed when this doesn’t happen. When you first play one you’re usually judging it on its own merits, but the instant you play another your now judging it against the one you like… There is no way to stop this, it’s just human nature.

In many cases you might simply dislike these themes, or not understand that their there at all. For example I really really dislike 7. I played it, and I hated every moment of it. I was never going to like 7 because my heart already belonged to another, and I was never going to give it a chance.

But this doesn’t just apply to the theme you see, it applies to every single aspect of these games. The graphics are different, the visual style, and even the gameplay is always different in some way… and it’s hard to not be disappointed that it’s not just all the same. I think the best example of this is the character Sid… In final fantasy Sid is always a character, there’s always someone called that, but his role in each game is usually vastly different… from being a background character, to a side char, to a main one, to even a player character… This is the point I’m trying to make, in many ways the Final Fantasy games are the same, but in just as many ways their very different.

At the end of the day this is what separates the fan base and it’s not something easy to admit to yourself. You might think to yourself “Duh I already knew this” but you need to have a good long look at yourself… no weaselling out of it, and understand that you do this and you are not correct in any way for doing it. By simple human nature it is very hard to comprehend that you could be mistaken, and that your opinion might have no merits what so ever.

Another complaint that rises up often between the games is the fact that the main character is annoying and dumb, or that some other character is annoying. First of all you don’t truly understand what annoying is if this gets you riled up, you think to yourself that there’s no way there could be anyone more annoying than this. You are wrong. Perhaps you thought Jar Jar Binks was f*** annoying, but you took solace in the fact he’s not real… and then you will meet that person who is just like him… and your faith in humanity will die that day….

Anyway.

You might think that this critique doesn’t apply to your favourite main character, but it probably does. There would be no character growth if there were no failings, so they have to be annoying or dumb in some regards. Perhaps you were upset that the latest characters look like wimpy girls? News flash, if the hardware had allowed it that’s probably what all the characters would look like. Did you not see that amazing wind like art that *is* Final Fantasy? If you’re thinking your 2d characters were immune to that you’re wrong, that’s exactly how they would have looked.

Alright so hopefully we now all understand a little more about the Final Fantasy games, but we still need to talk about the latest one. Now as I’ve already said I haven’t played it so I can’t be sure… But from what I’ve heard I think I’d agree that the latest one has chosen style over substance and not released what a mistake that was. If you look seriously at the final fantasy series the gameplay and the story have largely been two separate entities… they might have crossed over here and there but largely the context of the gameplay makes no sense in the context of the story.

Now you might be thinking, how would that work? Surely that hurts the whole game? But actually if anything it might have been FF’s greatest strength. I mean think about it for a second… you can tell any story you want… but have any sort of gameplay that you want. For a game designer this must be great, because you’re not limited to the rules of the setting and can go bat bananas with the gameplay (Which is why the characters can summon meteors, but when the story comes around suddenly giant robots worry them).

To me it seems like the latest FF has tried to merge the story and the gameplay and discovered that if you do this you are limited by the setting, which could be one of the many reasons they chose to take out lots of gameplay features. But I don’t really know.

The point I'm trying to make is that Final Fantasy fans are insane, and you should stay away from them.

... Myself included.

(Man, you don't even know.... When someone says something bad about the FF I like I become F***ing irrational... I can not control it at all)

Episode 3

You know…

At the moment I’m trying to get back into console games (I.e. By fixing my Ps3) and so I make sure to keep up with the latest news so I’m not left behind. So I’m looking over the news and Value announce their releasing this new game… I don’t normally care about this sort of thing because the only valve game I like is portal, but it’s hard not to notice something in any of the responses following these announcements.

Episode 3.

God damn you people sound like a broken record about this shit.

It’s a weird thing to do with human nature, but at the suggestion of a new thing that you like it suddenly becomes as important as your human rights. For some reason you’re no longer looking forward to it, but now you’re entitled to it.

So haters gonna hate.

Whenever I see this I just want to sit these people down and talk about two things…

One: Development cycles of ‘epic’ games have shot through the roof, Blizzard has proven that you can spend 12 years without a sequel and it will still be successful. If episode 3 is going to be as good as you somehow believe it will be, it probably needs a long time to make.

Two:… This is my preferred response… Valve doesn’t care about Half-Life at the moment. This isn’t hard to imagine really, more than any other company at the moment Value still retains alot of its own personal identity. They’re not like the big publishers, churning out sequel after sequel, they can pick and choose what they want to work on and when they want to work on it.

From a creative stand point (The one I’m familiar with) dropping Half-Life is a great choice. Just looking at all the other games Value have released (Not even taking into account Steam) you can tell their spreading their wings and doing things they actually want to do… Half-Life might be there golden child, but like any success story focusing on only one of your hits will get you remembered… for only that. You only need to look around a little to find famous authors etc that are only remembered for one of their works… and how frustrated they were with that.

Besides Gordon Freeman might never talk to the player, but I bet he’s an asshole at work.

KOTOR: Part 2

I think I know the big problem I had with Knights of the Old Republic.

I’ve already gone over how Bioware is unable to do good evil dialogue, and how relying on a single plot twist can destroy the experience for anyone who has it spoiled. But even if they had kept these things, I now realise that it could still have been handled well…

To get to the heart of the issue you need to look at the core theme of Knights of the Old Republic. In a way it’s the core theme for many of Biowares games, wither they realise it themselves or not. You see Bioware is a firm believer in the after effect… I’m not using the right terminology here but you must have heard of the old argument, are you born the way you are? Or is it your experiences that shape you? Bioware is in the latter. Have a good long look at some of the evil characters in Biowares games, you’ll find most of their bad guys are bad for a reason.

From a writing point of view this is a very good route to take, for experiences mean backstory… and that means they become more developed… thus more relatable and therefore more believable. It’s this backstory which gets your audience interested in your characters growth.

It is this concept Bioware handles really badly in KOTOR.

Let me just set up the beginning for you… You wake up in an exploding ship and are very briefly informed that you are part of the republic and that there’s stuff to do so let’s go! Here you can choose to be nice, or bad.

I’ve already gone a little over how being bad pretty much destroys any immersion with the game, but Bioware makes a horrendous mistake here if you know the plot twist. The backstory of your character is given at most, one or two lines… it has no depth what so ever. In most cases it’s expected that the player use their imagination to fill in the holes here, but if you know the plot twist there are no holes…

At the end of the day KOTOR is a story about a second chance, it gives you the option of acting differently from that but as far as the game and the stories canon goes, this is what it’s all about. It’s about being born as a good person, living virtuously, discovering your dark past and choosing to abandon it in favour of your new life.

Most people (My friends are not included) will play the game as generally nice person, and in a way Bioware bets on this. It’s for this reason the games plot twist is highly praised, because most people played the game ‘correctly’.

There are two things Bioware should really have done to make their game much better, and friendlier to people playing during the buzz of spoilers.

The first is to just straight up take out the evil dialogue at the start of the game, not only would you have avoided a lot of awkward and badly written evil dialogue, but it would have given the player time to identify with their character and decide how this ‘second’ life was going to turn out. Even if you knew the plot twist you’d at least be sent through the right door, letting you break the game later.

The second is something Bioware is actually much better at these days, but was really needed in KOTOR. More in-depth backgrounds. A line or two doesn’t cut it, you need a much bigger background if you’re going to get involved in your character. Mass Effect actually does this really well, letting you choose your past career as a soldier.

I know why they would be tempted not to go for the second one, because it has the chance to create plot holes if done badly. Also it is outright tricking your player. I know the whole plot of KOTOR is about tricking the player into making him think he’s something he’s not, but it’s more of “Well, we never really said you ‘weren’t’ this thing…” it’s cheeky but I’d consider it a more socially forgivable trick. But they should have really gone all the way, the more in-depth the background the better the reveal. If you were however spoiled this background stuff would still push you towards making a character that fit the background rather than the ‘real’ one (You’d do this because you’re a story fan, there’s no resisting it).

Because they didn’t do either of these things I was allowed to send the game, the story, and it’s theme way off track.

Having choice in games is good, but when you’re trying to tell a story that only really connects well with one of those choices… it’s frankly a better idea to remove the choice and focus on the theme.

Anime Storytelling

Ok, I feel like I must talk about this.

For once Japan I'll let you off a bit, put you aside for something I loath even more...

Anime Fans.


GRRRRRR.


I really must stop reading anime forums, they really frustrate me. Basically in these places certain shows are held quite high, but... I hate these shows. These shows can go burn in hell for all I care. I honestly can not understand the attraction of some of these things. But what gets me the most, what really grinds my gears is the massive amount of hypocrisy floating about.

I won't name name's but one Anime blogger complained that they didn't understand what was going on in the anime SRW. At first I was like "Ok yeah, fair. SRW is more of a nostalgia anime made for the fans and not for you, so you can complain that you don't know whats going on I guess..." but then the same blogger will love this other anime because it doesn't make any god damn sense.

...What?

Now before you think, oh grumpy old james probably just doesn't 'get it' but I assure you I do. I've watched this kind of stuff before... It's made on purpose to not make any sense at the start (And perhaps throughout the whole thing).

Then I saw people who didn't understand what was going on in Iron Man.... It's f***ing Iron man, this isn't detailed stuff!

The catch phrase of anime fans seem to be 'the Pace was off' as if they understood what the f*** pace was. I honestly can't tell what these people are thinking... or what their watching... To me everything was fine, expect in Star Driver (I.E the one that makes no sense) where the pace really is all over the f***ing place. Let me break it down for you, from memory this is what we learned from the first episode of these three animes:

Iron Man-

• There is a guy called Tony Stark
• He is Iron Man
• He has come to Japan to make free energy
• He wants to retire and makes a new Iron Man suit for some trainee pilots.
• Something goes wrong with the new suit, it goes crazy and starts killing people.
• Tony Takes it the f*** down.
• A weird robot attacks him and declares his evil group. Tony doesn't give a f*** and kills him.
• The new suit is stolen during the fight.

What did you miss there? These are some very basic plot points that are very easy to understand. None of it goes too fast not to hear or understand, all it does is create the setting and adds the bad guys... Boom bang you've got your plot. Anything else is just characterising Tony.

I'm not trying to call you stupid.... I'm just saying... You might be stupid if you somehow missed all that.

SRW

• There is a bad Robot killing people
• Bad Robot is beaten by good robot, foreshadowing future events perhaps? (yes)
• The setting is then explained very clearly.
• You meet the main characters fighting in a war that has been explained to you.
• New robots appear, friends or enemy's?

As much as I like SRW the basic plot is pretty straight forward, by the end of it only really has one good idea behind it all. But where the show excels is the cool looking robots, there using the old fashioned kind of 80's design (But I really like those), the characters, and the action... lots of action.

I honestly could not tell you what part of all this doesn't make sense... I mean... are you complaining that we don't know some of these characters? These characters we are meeting for the first f***ing time? Did you not catch the bit where the setting was clearly explained? I mean really? Help me out here? My brain isn't stupid so I'm having trouble comprehending your thought patterns.

Star Driver

• WTF?

Haha, ok that's actually not true... I'll go over why it makes no sense in a bit.

• There are... characters?
• The main character is insane and has some kind of father issue.
• There is a school on an... island?
• The school is secretly a base for giant... puppet... mechs?
• There are bad guys who don't like shrine maidens. By... hitting them they break their seals?
• The main character turns into David Bowie.
• The day is saved... for now!

Here, right here is when you could have said the pacing was waaaayyy off. This shit is on LSD. All the sudden scene changes are kind of jarring.... the worst one is when we go from the school, and with only a single line we are suddenly in an underground fetish cultist base. That was really sudden, and you could get lost there and then.

Star Driver is the kind of anime that only anime fans can watch... Anyone else would be "Wtf is this shit?" unless your already deranged. Now I did watch Utena and no, that did not make any coherent sense at all... I'm pretty sure when you watched it, you were having a fever dream... I'm positive that when you switch that show on all your seeing is flashing images that makes your brain wig the hell out.

So I am familiar with the antics of the guys behind Star Driver.

Now with Star Driver we'll no doubt be hitting on some serious metaphysical aspects, these are the writers bed and butter. At one point or another it'll click for viewers what this all probably means.... So this anime is symbolic of something....

Now... Hang on... I remember saying something about symbolism.... what was it... Oh yeah! I don't get it! I look at things like Utena and Star Driver and try to make sense of it, give it natural laws and so on... but it doesn't work for these things so they really don't make any god damn sense to me.

Also these guys are quite happy with exploring sexual themes... So... Yeah.... It could get real gay real fast. Just giving you the heads up, Haha.

Anyway, back to the point. I dislike Anime fans because for the 'hardcore' everything needs to be tripped out on fricken sex or LSD before they'll even look at it. When a story is set in a fantastic setting and makes actual sense they shrug their shoulders.

I mean really? Get off the drugs guys.