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Y'know, fellow Fallouters, I've always found myself confounded by the insistence of reviewers to note Fallout 3 as having a great story and great dialogue. Sure, some have no problem distinguishing terrible from good, and freely recognize that neither writing nor voice directing represent strong points in Bethesda's skillset, but the game has gone so far as to win awards for writing. Why? Is there any plausible reasoning behind this? My personal prediction is that the journalists will do an easy 180 on this when previewing TES V and "suddenly" "realise" the previous product was not that good, at all, as Matt Peckham does here. Why do we all know they'll do this? They did it before, and seem completely unabashed about it.
But rounding up Mothership Zeta meant being faced with another idiosyncrasy. While many lambaste the title, only a few (such as WorthPlaying) address the issue of the problems in verisimilitude caused by the spaceship, and attached hints of aliens causing the nuclear war. It is quite possible we should ascribe this only to the fact that most "game journalists" tend to be untrained generalists, with no knowledge stretching back more than 6 years into gaming history, and thus they are simply ignorant of why none of this works. But many instead seem to adopt an attitude by which anything that is "cool" is fine to include in the game as long as it is peripherally tied to the central themes.
The logic is superficially solid; this Sci-Fi is tied to Fallout by being 50s Sci-Fi. But one can easily poke through this by pointing out that Fallout is clearly not tied to all forms of 50s fiction. This logic "anything from the 50s is appropriate to Fallout!" is in no way new to Fallout gamers, as it was first used by Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel producer Chuck Cuevas:<blockquote>Q: just because it has been beat to death, is the thong gone for good?
A: Not to my knowledge. Here's the story ... The now-notorious character with the thong was based on photos of Betty Page, a 50's pinup girl who was notorious due to photo shoots of her that featured black leather, bondage, and (believe it or not) skimpy clothing. We thought that a sadistic female character might pattern herself after Betty Page at her seediest. So the character's attire was based upon some research into 50's pop culture.</blockquote>That's right, people, "50's pop culture research" can be used equally to explain away thongs or aliens in Fallout, and the connection is faulty for the same reasons in both cases.
With its DLCs, Fallout 3 has fallen into inconsistency roughly as much as Fallout 2 had (though with a significantly less plausible game world), but unlike Fallout 2 it seems to be evading a lot of criticism, both of blatant internal inconsistency and of missing the mark thematically. And that, my dear friends, is the second idiosyncrasy: game journalists want to have their cake and eat it too, they wish to claim Fallout 3 has a great world design and writing - design elements that necessitate adherence to internal consistency - and yet shrug their shoulders whenever Bethesda follows its main design philosophy, which Istvan Pely essentially described as slapping on cool li'l bits and at the end of the day, "as if by magic, all of this comes together in a consumable form that is hopefully entertaining". Anyone who thinks that is a valid design formula needs to go back to college.
But it really falls apart when we start ascribing philosophy to this obvious mess. A closing speaker at The Philosophy of Computer Games 2009 will speak on Fallout 3 and Philosophy Amidst the Ashes. It is one of those pieces that is instantly recognizable to connoisseurs of semi-professional literary or cinematic criticism: one that takes an obviously flat and badly thought-through piece and ascribes philosophic meanings by ignoring bits that don't fit their own theory. The speaker - Sarah Grey - cites one of my favourite moments of Fallout 3, and one of the few occasions when I felt Bethesda "got it", Signal Oscar Zulu. But despite the fact that they're right next to Oscar Zulu's location, she opts to completely ignore the Republic of Dave and Canterbury Common's The Superhuman Gambit, a pair of locations that can honestly only be described as "lulzy", events the author opts to ignore in her attempt to present Fallout 3 as a preconceived juxtaposition of violent moments with dark stillness.
This creates a downward spiral: game journalists would like to see their profession and thus the industry as a whole taken seriously, and thus they would want more games to engage in philosophical themes. But most games simply don't. The solution is either to wait for more games to strive to exploit game mechanics and narrative for philosophical purposes, or to ascribe deepness to them despite it not being there. They opted for the latter. This attitude engenders a conservative attitude from game developers; they don't have to try to write intelligently, since game journalists will simply ascribe writing skills and philosophical themes to their games despite the fact that they are simply not there. Call it an innovation killer.
The fact that I had to compare Grey's piece to semi-professional writing from other critical professions really says it all. It is self-defeating nonsense that game writers are trying to present Fallout 3 as top of its class in writing or even a "philosophical piece" while simultaneously embracing its "if it's cool, use it" school of design. But rather than bash the overall level of professionalism in game journalism (they waste half their time grinding their teeth over it themselves, after all), let us sit back and quietly contemplate an industry that is fine with giving design and writing awards to a studio, yet when that studio throws in a heap of inconsistent garbage, this same industry asks us to ignore the elephant in the room, and cops out by hammering on the gameplay instead.
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This was an unscheduled blog-style post, since I didn't feel like just newsposting the pieces by Grey and Peckham. Back to your regular programming after the break.
Y'know, fellow Fallouters, I've always found myself confounded by the insistence of reviewers to note Fallout 3 as having a great story and great dialogue. Sure, some have no problem distinguishing terrible from good, and freely recognize that neither writing nor voice directing represent strong points in Bethesda's skillset, but the game has gone so far as to win awards for writing. Why? Is there any plausible reasoning behind this? My personal prediction is that the journalists will do an easy 180 on this when previewing TES V and "suddenly" "realise" the previous product was not that good, at all, as Matt Peckham does here. Why do we all know they'll do this? They did it before, and seem completely unabashed about it.
But rounding up Mothership Zeta meant being faced with another idiosyncrasy. While many lambaste the title, only a few (such as WorthPlaying) address the issue of the problems in verisimilitude caused by the spaceship, and attached hints of aliens causing the nuclear war. It is quite possible we should ascribe this only to the fact that most "game journalists" tend to be untrained generalists, with no knowledge stretching back more than 6 years into gaming history, and thus they are simply ignorant of why none of this works. But many instead seem to adopt an attitude by which anything that is "cool" is fine to include in the game as long as it is peripherally tied to the central themes.
The logic is superficially solid; this Sci-Fi is tied to Fallout by being 50s Sci-Fi. But one can easily poke through this by pointing out that Fallout is clearly not tied to all forms of 50s fiction. This logic "anything from the 50s is appropriate to Fallout!" is in no way new to Fallout gamers, as it was first used by Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel producer Chuck Cuevas:<blockquote>Q: just because it has been beat to death, is the thong gone for good?
A: Not to my knowledge. Here's the story ... The now-notorious character with the thong was based on photos of Betty Page, a 50's pinup girl who was notorious due to photo shoots of her that featured black leather, bondage, and (believe it or not) skimpy clothing. We thought that a sadistic female character might pattern herself after Betty Page at her seediest. So the character's attire was based upon some research into 50's pop culture.</blockquote>That's right, people, "50's pop culture research" can be used equally to explain away thongs or aliens in Fallout, and the connection is faulty for the same reasons in both cases.
With its DLCs, Fallout 3 has fallen into inconsistency roughly as much as Fallout 2 had (though with a significantly less plausible game world), but unlike Fallout 2 it seems to be evading a lot of criticism, both of blatant internal inconsistency and of missing the mark thematically. And that, my dear friends, is the second idiosyncrasy: game journalists want to have their cake and eat it too, they wish to claim Fallout 3 has a great world design and writing - design elements that necessitate adherence to internal consistency - and yet shrug their shoulders whenever Bethesda follows its main design philosophy, which Istvan Pely essentially described as slapping on cool li'l bits and at the end of the day, "as if by magic, all of this comes together in a consumable form that is hopefully entertaining". Anyone who thinks that is a valid design formula needs to go back to college.
But it really falls apart when we start ascribing philosophy to this obvious mess. A closing speaker at The Philosophy of Computer Games 2009 will speak on Fallout 3 and Philosophy Amidst the Ashes. It is one of those pieces that is instantly recognizable to connoisseurs of semi-professional literary or cinematic criticism: one that takes an obviously flat and badly thought-through piece and ascribes philosophic meanings by ignoring bits that don't fit their own theory. The speaker - Sarah Grey - cites one of my favourite moments of Fallout 3, and one of the few occasions when I felt Bethesda "got it", Signal Oscar Zulu. But despite the fact that they're right next to Oscar Zulu's location, she opts to completely ignore the Republic of Dave and Canterbury Common's The Superhuman Gambit, a pair of locations that can honestly only be described as "lulzy", events the author opts to ignore in her attempt to present Fallout 3 as a preconceived juxtaposition of violent moments with dark stillness.
This creates a downward spiral: game journalists would like to see their profession and thus the industry as a whole taken seriously, and thus they would want more games to engage in philosophical themes. But most games simply don't. The solution is either to wait for more games to strive to exploit game mechanics and narrative for philosophical purposes, or to ascribe deepness to them despite it not being there. They opted for the latter. This attitude engenders a conservative attitude from game developers; they don't have to try to write intelligently, since game journalists will simply ascribe writing skills and philosophical themes to their games despite the fact that they are simply not there. Call it an innovation killer.
The fact that I had to compare Grey's piece to semi-professional writing from other critical professions really says it all. It is self-defeating nonsense that game writers are trying to present Fallout 3 as top of its class in writing or even a "philosophical piece" while simultaneously embracing its "if it's cool, use it" school of design. But rather than bash the overall level of professionalism in game journalism (they waste half their time grinding their teeth over it themselves, after all), let us sit back and quietly contemplate an industry that is fine with giving design and writing awards to a studio, yet when that studio throws in a heap of inconsistent garbage, this same industry asks us to ignore the elephant in the room, and cops out by hammering on the gameplay instead.
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</center>This was an unscheduled blog-style post, since I didn't feel like just newsposting the pieces by Grey and Peckham. Back to your regular programming after the break.
