Shallow Depths

 My latest review is for Rainblood Town of Death.  It's a cool little game, but explaining that proved more challenging than I expected.

I've been working a lot on my approach to reviewing recently, so I feel a bit mixed about my previous reviews going live.  I notice things I didn't at the time.  Game People are always happy to change things when I ask, but there's a point where I just need to let go and put it down to experience.

I also wrote this before the 'Microcosm Gamer' angle was really pinned down, so that stuff feels a bit tacked on.  Or maybe it's just because those bits are not quite my words.

The phrase "pushed all those buttons for me" really stands out because I have almost certainly never said/written that.  I have fairly extreme reactions to clichés.  My partner reminded me they can be shortcuts to understanding, and I probably don't need to have quite such a violent reaction to them.

I realise avoiding clichés is good writing advice.  But recently I've added in a few deliberately here and there as an experiment.  Just trying to get a bit more perspective on them before I go back to avoiding them.  I guess I have a strange approach to understanding writing.

I am documenting my learning process here, so I can point and laugh at some of the things I am trying to do better.  I'll always be my own worst (best?) critic, and little details really stood out on my Rainblood review.

The first paragraph has Rainblood as two words, for one thing.  That part wasn't mine, but it's still partly my lack of observation letting things slip through.

My own bad habits really bite on the second paragraph.  I begin with genre labelling, which is lazy and I'm training myself out of it.  Game genres are pretty unhelpful anyway.  On this blog I currently have the tags "action", "action-adventure", and "action-rpg".  Which are messy, but damned if I know how to fix them.

Roleplaying game is a particularly fuzzy concept (let alone whatever a "Role Play Game" is).  Maybe if I'd specified roleplaying in the sense of old-school console roleplaying games, like classic Final Fantasy, it would have meant something to someone.  But even that wouldn't be a very promising beginning.

To me, the only vaguely important ideas in that sentence were that it was indie, Chinese, and recently translated.  Indie was edited out at some point without me noticing, and suddenly I'm describing a popular game instead of a popular indie game, which is a pretty big difference.  Popular is a subjective term, but potentially sitting Rainblood next to World of Warcraft makes me a tad uncomfortable.

So, I start off with a fuzzy and slightly misleading sentence.  Good job, Cha.

If I can get past my fixation with that particular sentence there is still a lot here I found interesting.  Particularly what it takes for game violence to retain its emotional impact.  I was only touching on the edge of that topic, but it's a big one.

I've been pondering some ideas about mature entertainment. In particular, about people who will argue that something simple containing a lot of sex and/or violence is far more childish than a deeper story that is suitable for all-ages. The word "vacuous" gets used a lot to similar effect, as people glorify their own more-refined tastes.

This feels a bit inadequate to me. I see the distinction, but the value judgement included in the classification bothers me. There are a lot of multi-layered or otherwise complicated creations that I have very much enjoyed. At the same time, there is a lot to be gained from simplicity. I also find a lot of interest in things that appear simple, but looked at from another angle really are not. It's amazing how often people fail to look for that other angle.

Linking all comics to children's picture books, or all animated stories to kids' cartoons, is a pretty clear mistake as soon as you start to investigate those media. But the people bagging out Southpark or MadWorld as childish or vacuous probably aren't going to have their opinions challenged any time soon. And I wonder why it is that entertainment should have to be a deep experience, and why some forms of entertainment are considered more acceptable than others. Surely the nature of something as entertainment in the first place makes it arguably vacuous? That doesn't make it a pointless or meaningless experience, though.

Take, for example, a pornographic movie. It has only the most basic of story, and exists only to satisfy a simple desire or fantasy. Yet people are likely to enjoy it for tapping into those basic desires. At the same time, people are often ashamed of those feelings and try to hide them. The genre as a whole becomes something to be ashamed of, and perhaps dismissed as something only enjoyed by teenagers and lonely old men.

When it comes down to it, people are programmed with fairly basic needs and desires. I think a lot of people like to pretend that isn't the case, and place themselves above more basic instincts. Personally, I've a bit of a habit of switching the value system around, placing primal urges above more affected behaviour. At the very least I'd like people to be less ashamed and stop trying to pretend those elements don't exist within them.

While sex is a natural part of human experience, violence should not be. Its value as part of entertainment can be harder to justify (in reality the opposite seems to happen a lot of the time, which is weird but could also expand into a whole new discussion so I'll ignore that for now).

MadWorld is all about killing other people in violent and gruesome ways. I happen to enjoy it, at least in small doses so it doesn't have the chance to become too samey. I do agree with Rebecca Mayes that it's trying way too hard. Maybe I'm try-hard enough myself to appreciate it anyway. But I would like to be able to justify my enjoyment on some level.

I suppose the first thing to do is point out that virtual ultraviolence is in no way going to inform my real life behaviour. But a lack of negative impact is not the same as demonstrating the value in something.

In the real world, if I grabbed a street sign and impaled someone the likely response would be something like throwing up. But in this stylised world it can even become funny. Ditto TV shows like Happy Tree Friends. These are very stylised examples, which are easily separated from reality. The best non-animated comparisons are probably some kind of slapstick humour. Except that with animation you can pump up the violence level without the associated consequences. There is also a long tradition of cartoon violence aimed at a younger audience. I suspect we are conditioned quite early to accept some animated violence as okay. Though at the same time, I don't normally talk about how I enjoy the humour in Metalocalypse because I don't want to offend anyone. This type of humour relies on a good disconnection from reality.

Once violence becomes more realistic it usually becomes part of more involved stories, which are less likely to be labeled childish. This is where the value is perhaps more recognised, in order to tell a high-impact, serious story. For example, the shocking violence in American History X.

As for the "childish" violence, I think that the value comes from the safety of exploration. It's a rather freeing way to look at violence, where no matter how extreme the images are, none of them can actually hurt anyone. When it's humorous I don't really understand where the humour comes from, only that it exists and isn't dangerous. I suppose it's some sort of absurdist humour.

This could all come down to a discussion of the value of art, and a debate on the merits of different expressions of mature themes. But entertainment is a personal thing. To me, provided you are living your life in a way that doesn't harm others, the most important thing is finding whatever entertainment works for you.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I'm happy to hear discussion and debate. But there is no reason to belittle people for valuing different experiences. I suspect the "childish" crowd are often just using that term to label something they don't personally enjoy.