story telling thoughts

[Onslaught Six]

Indeed. Mind you, I'm pretty sure I'd like the God of War games (never had a chance to play them due to not really having the consoles they were on) because I enjoy smashing things in virtua land. Also, you kill Zeus! Awesome! 86 and I literally just wrote a song about that!

[Shockwave]

How is Kratos an "audience ID character"? And while he's definately the protagonist of the games, he most certainly is not a "good guy".

Interesting TF factoid: Zeus in the GOW games is voiced by G1 Shockwave voice actor Corey Burton.

[Dominic]

How is Kratos an "audience ID character"?

Think of what part of the audience consists of. Think (wayyyyy) back to when you were 14 or so. Kratos would be so kewl and everything you want to be....if not "just like you man".

An adult who identifies with, or wants to identify with, Kratos is in need of help and/or a fair amount of growing up. In that sense. Croshaw is right. But, he is forgetting that adolescent boys probably make up a goodly chunk of the audience, which means that some people likely identify with Kratos, if only in a round about way.


Dom
-cuz teens is grim and gritty you see.

[Shockwave]

Ok, there's a couple of things wrong with this argument. 1, the gamer demographic has changed pretty dramatically over the last 15 years. Mostly because the teenagers that were gamers back then grew up and are still gamers. 2, And you could hardly be faulted for not knowing this, but when I was 14, the coolest thing in video games was that Super Mario Brothers 3 had just been released on the original NES. 3, I would hate to meet anyone who could "identify" with Kratos on pretty much any level. Everyone I know that plays the GOW games are adults. We're not in it because we "identify" with Kratos, we're in it because it's an interesting story with interesting characters, good graphics, excellent sound, music, etc... but Kratos is definately not an "audience ID" character. I think you're really generalizing almost to the point of stereotyping the American Adolescent.

Shockwave
-Is curious what Dom thinks of the GOW storyline.

[Dominic]

I am not saying that every gamer is an adolescent, or thinks like one. And, I am not saying you and your friends are consistent with that. But, I have seen enough people, (some I know), who fit the above stereotype. Gamers are getting older on average. But, there are still plenty of young/childish gamers out there.

Maybe "audience identification" is not quite the idea. Maybe it is more "audience ideal". Think of the appeal characters like Lobo have to 13 or 14 year old boys. Now, think of how silly Lobo appears when somebody turns 16 or 17. But, at 13 or so, Lobo is awesome and easy to identify with because he is so awesome and takes no guff from nobody.

"God of War" looks to be a meaned up bildungsroman/quest story, with killing gods being a part of it.


Dom

[Onslaught Six]

The problem with Lobo is people started taking him seriously. He was good when he was being a parody of 90s hero stereotypes.

Also, it's interesting that some of the traits you're mentioning very much apply to my working-class father and many of his coworkers. (Literally, my father often proclaims stuff like "I don't have to take shit from fucking anybody.") It's a macho attitude that, in part, I think feels out of place in this modern world of ours. Society doesn't work like that anymore! Although then we start getting into a meta-conceptual debate about whether or not humans really are civilized and how we're all still animals. (But! That's an *idea!* And it can be expressed in fiction! Oh ho back on topic.)

GoW is definitely adolescent fantasy fulfillment. Kratos is just as over-the-top stupidly badass as Conan The Barbarian, He-Man and bunches of other 2-D macho stereotypes. But sometimes it's okay to devolve into that.

Also, Yahtzee covers this more in his video review for GoW3, but in the first game (which actually wrapped up pretty neatly) he was actually more of a well-rounded character. Some of the people in the game, he doesn't even kill! And there's bits where he's all, "Boo hoo, dead family, this sucks." And then he kills Ares and becomes the new God of War and everything's wrapped up pretty well. GoW2 is really where things start to go downhill in terms of Kratos as a well-rounded character--Zeus strikes him down from being the God of War basically because he's just being a right dick to everyone, so Kratos goes to enact revenge. (GoW3 is actually just Zeus pushing Kratos off Olympus into Hades instead of fighting him, so Kratos has to go through a bunch of crap just to get back to where he was again. Pretty much the definition of filler--but it's GoW so nobody seems to mind.)

...How odd is it that I know all of this without having ever touched the game? I read up on 'so many' games I've never played. I know the whole schtick for Shadow of the Colossus and I've never played it, either.

[Dominic]

I do not know if class and education play as much a role as some say. But, I can definitely see the connection. But, I think it is less a question of it nor working well in modern times than it not really working well at all.

"Last Stand of the Wreckers" has a moment in issue one dealing with this. When Overlord arrives, the other Decepticons are *not* happy to see him, despite him being the super-duper-bad-ass hero type. Nobody, even members of a galaxy stomping army, want to be around that guy. Overlord is a hype character. He, and everyone around him, knows it.

The character type itself has been around for some time. And, it has a certain age-related appeal. I look at Quaid from "Total Recall" with a certain fondness. (I was ~14 when I first saw the movie.) I look at the guy from "Under Siege", (note how I cannot recall his name), with amused disdain. They are both equally absurd. I have met adults who think both are great movies...and seem identify, (if only in a wishing sense), with the characters.

One is a construction worker (with a better than one might expect domestic life) who is in actuality a .....super duper secret agent! The other is a cook....who is actually a Navy SeAL. Both have to fight "the man" in some way shape or form. Girls are useful, if not wholly trust-worthy.

I have not seen all of "Under Siege", but all the beats are there based on what I have seen. The SeAL/cook runs around the ship fighting bad guys...and he has a hooker (apparently smuggled in by the bad guys?) carrying his stuff around, except when he does not need her....she fits nicely in a locker.... And, "the man" is forced to acknowledge the greatness of the the heroic guy that "the man" forced down....man!


Dom
-supposes there is a certain brilliance to "Under Siege".

[Shockwave]

I know the whole schtick for Shadow of the Colossus and I've never played it, either.

Please feel free to fill me in. I've gone through this one about 6 times and I'm still not sure I get it.

I'll grant "Under Seige" a little bit of lattitude if only because even navy seals have to do something after they stop being navy seals. In fact, we just initiated a guy into our lodge who was a seal. He now works for the state. Now believing Steven Segal to be a navy seal? THAT'S a little far fetched. Both films are perfect examples of standard issue Hollywood drivel. Style over substance. Sure it has appeal to teenagers because they're typically more concerned with their own style and how they present themselves than anything substantial. I can see your argument for Kratos appealing for that reason, but I think the GOW games really do have substance to them and that's what has really driven the success of the franchise.

I think O6 is right, GOW 1 is a pretty solid story unto itself, but GOWII, while fun and took some of the concepts from the first one further does come off as a bit deus ex machina sometimes. It basically knocks Kratos back to square 1 and you spend the game getting him back to god status. Haven't played 3, but it sound like the same formula. I really enjoy seeing how they tackle various elements from Greek mythology.

[BWprowl]

I think O6 is right, GOW 1 is a pretty solid story unto itself, but GOWII, while fun and took some of the concepts from the first one further does come off as a bit deus ex machina sometimes. It basically knocks Kratos back to square 1 and you spend the game getting him back to god status. Haven't played 3, but it sound like the same formula.

Seriously, what's up with all that? It's like they're trying to design a video game around this story or something!

I love it when people try to take the stories in most games seriously.

[Onslaught Six]

But games are art! [/hippie] (I say this as someone who truly believes that, mind.)

And when they present the stories that way, they need to be treated that way. I'm not saying GoW isn't a ridiculous over-the-top story designed to Be A Fun Game, but when you have people making stuff like Heavy Rain and being all "This is a serious work of art!" and then the story has a bunch of holes, then that's a flaw.