“Terrorists are plotting something, stop them!” and “aliens are attacking us” are clichés. They are shortcuts. They are not rich and fulfilling reasons that add a lot to the story. They are thin hangers for game mechanics, just like Jophiel said.
So, we’re back to: Why is a giving the protagonist a clichéd motive ok when it involves a male victim but not a female victim?
If we conclude that women should not be victims of violence in video games, even though men can be, does that mean that female NPCs should be treated in the same way that Fallout and Elders Scrolls treats children and Bioshock treats little sisters?
To take a concrete example, Batman’s parents were killed and that gives him his basic clichéd motive. I don’t hear much complaint about that. What if his mother had previously died of a disease and his father had been shot dead by the criminal, would that be ok? What if it was the other way around?
Kobal:
Do I understand correctly that you demand a rich and fulfilling reason to shoot dudes in the face but when Doom handed you a chainsaw without saying anything, you took it from there?
Sure, but there’s different types of games appealing to different types of players. Some people want to play Total War to test their skill against live opponents and could care less for the fantasy of it all.
Likewise, you have games like Bioshock: Infinite. You had two general reactions to the game: people who were taken by the story and said it was a great game because of it and people who were unimpressed by the story and talked about how bland the shooter mechanics were. Likewise for Spec Ops: the Line – no one was really praising what a tremendous shooter is was because it was a fairly lackluster cover shooter from a mechanical point of view.
On the other hand, the story to Borderlands was crap but people played it for the entertaining shooting. The story to BL2 was crap with a bunch of humorous Handsome Jack quotes interspersed (and a “save the princess!” plot as well) but people still played it because the actual shooting was the fun part. My point is that this second category doesn’t need “deeper plots” because if you’re playing Borderlands for the story, you’re playing the wrong game.
[QUOTE=MichaelEmouse]
Do I understand correctly that you demand a rich and fulfilling reason to shoot dudes in the face but when Doom handed you a chainsaw without saying anything, you took it from there?
[/QUOTE]
What can I say. I was a younger, more innocent boy then. Now I need at least a token excuse to be chainsawing some pixel man’s scrotum off. It’s called growing up, dude.
[QUOTE=Jophiel]
Sure, but there’s different types of games appealing to different types of players. Some people want to play Total War to test their skill against live opponents and could care less for the fantasy of it all.
[/QUOTE]
Which was my point. When you make a blanket statement such as “players [are not] going to demand a rich and fulfilling reason for shooting dudes in the face”, I feel moved (or possibly mooved) to reply “not ALL players”
Fair enough. I meant to convey that people looking to play a straight “shoot dudes in the face” style game weren’t looking for enriching plots but I must not have done a good job of getting that across.
