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A PAIN IN THE AESTHETICS: A 20-year MYSTERY SOLVED - by Mr Biffo

15/3/2016

17 Comments

 
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. We're all wired differently. Etc. etc.

They're cliches, but it's all true. When I was younger I tried to convince myself that I liked the same things as the masses. So that I could be part of the gang.

I never really got along with Final Fantasy VII, but when it was released I recall giving it a good review on Digitiser.

It was hard not to tell myself I was wrong for not liking it - that I was somehow missing something. So I plugged on and on, denying that I was actually hating every wretched minute of the thing.

It's not a mistake I make these days, but when my tastes go against general opinion I still find myself fighting that urge to believe that it's somehow my fault.

Take Destiny. It's a game that people love. It's a phenomenon, and though it may be waning in popularity now, there's no question that it's a defining game of this current generation. And I wish I loved it the way so many other people love it. I still feel like I'm missing out.

Yet, I didn't understand why it wasn't clicking with me.

Until I played The Division.

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ADVANCED D&D DIFFERENCES
Destiny and The Division are different games - they play differently - but there are similarities in that they're both online loot shooters, which are intended to have a long lifespan.

Yet I'm loving The Division, whereas almost from the moment I booted up Destiny I struggled to enjoy myself.

What catalysed it for me was reading Jim Sterling's review of The Division. He described it as "a 'playable' game in the same way Anaconda is a 'watchable' movie" and "overwhelmingly okay". The Division isn't perfect - god knows I'm going to kick something if I get booted off it one more time - but his critique seems harsh to me. Though it would seem that way, because I really like The Division - as much as Jim Sterling appears to like Destiny.

He compares the real-world loot you grind for in The Division as uninspired next to the flaming swords and huge laser cannons you'd find in Destiny - and that's when it clicked with me why I like one and not the other.

See, I can buy into The Division because the world is based upon our one. I've visited New York half a dozen times. I know it pretty well, and it's cool to play games in familiar environments. I've never been to Mars, and the planets in Destiny are so far beyond my frame of reference that I struggle to engage with them. Which is weird, because I love Star Wars - a franchise that is set in space and on alien worlds.

And yet... as I write that, maybe another piece of the puzzle has slotted into place.


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ITCHY AESTHETICS
See, it's all about the aesthetics. Something about Destiny - and its spiritual predecessor Halo - never felt real to me.

Just like the Star Wars prequels, there's something intangibly fake about it. Even the structure feels oddly alien, with its theme park-style shooting galleries. The art design - while unquestionably impressive - is so drenched in chrome and neon that it looks like nothing I've ever been able to touch physically.

The Division, on the other hand, does a great job of grounding me in reality (even if there are numbers and hit points flying around the screen). There's a weight to it that I never experienced in Destiny. I mean, I know I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptica at the best of times, but it isn't as simple as that. It's something just out of reach... whereas Destiny is so far out of reach as to be on the other side of the Solar System.

Consequently, I think I've solved something that has bothered me for decades - a key part of why I like some games and not others. The more alien a game is - from the art direction to the gameplay - the more I'm going to struggle to enjoy it.

Maybe my imagination only stretches so far - I'm all for living a fantasy, but I want a fantasy that doesn't feel utterly unachievable. I want to see amazing things happening in the world I already live in - not be transported somewhere that's beyond my frame of reference.

And that's ok, because there's enough of both approaches to keep everyone happy. Though this is obviously said with the caveat that I'm right and everyone else is stupid.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
NICE GRAPHICS: A SMALL CELEBRATION - BY MR BIFFO
PLAYING TO THE CROWD: WHY CROWDFUNDING IS BOTH GREAT AND AWFUL - BY MR BIFFO
SEGA DESERVES TO ROT - BY MR BIFFO


17 Comments
Richard Worrall link
15/3/2016 01:08:50 pm

High fantasy turns you off, yet I can't help but notice your fascination with pixelated talking pigs and anuses. I wonder if Chart Cat would be better or worse with a laser monocle.

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Harry Steele
15/3/2016 01:46:22 pm

Interested to hear what you thought of Mass Effect, Mr Biff? The series certainly contained its fair share of shooting galleries (to the point where enemy 'ambushes' were anything but, thanks to the tell-tale defenses present in otherwise empty rooms) but the lore and the variety of alien races gave the world a realness that I hadn't seen since Star Wars.

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PeskyFletch
15/3/2016 04:57:30 pm

I found it to be like an enjoyable entertaining version of star trek( I don't really like star trek)

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Harry Steele
15/3/2016 10:25:26 pm

It was sold to me as 'James Bond meets Star Trek'
- Dunno where the James Bond bit came from - maybe because you play a Spectre Agent? Suffice it to say JB and ST are two of my favourite things!

Mr Biffo
15/3/2016 08:57:18 pm

Never entirely got into Mass Effect, for similar reasons to Destiny/Halo. I just couldn't connect with the universe it presented - or the gameplay. That said, I should give it more of a chance - I gave up pretty early on with the first one and never went back.

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Lucius Merriweather link
15/3/2016 02:00:39 pm

I'll tell you something I don't get - Bruce Springsteen. I've listed to his records, heard friends and critics enthuse about his greatness, even seen him live, but I just don't get the appeal, even though I've been assured he is without doubt a living genius.

Essentially Bruce Springsteen is my Destiny.

That ended up sounding creepier than I intended.

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Clive Peppard
15/3/2016 03:32:44 pm

I feel this way about Muse.

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RG
15/3/2016 04:01:44 pm

Foo Fighters. Nice people, throwing the right shapes, making the right noises, but for some reason - it just leaves me cold.

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lilock3
15/3/2016 02:03:00 pm

I know a number of people who only play games that simulate things they can (or once did) do in real life. Boy racers who only play Forza, amateur footballers who only play FIFA, and ex-military toughies who only play something where you're in the army. I always blamed in on their lack of imagination, but that's not something I could ever accuse you of Biffo. It's interesting to hear, first hand, a different perspective on the phenomenon.

I've always found the real world to be a restriction that I think games are better without. I remember playing the original Need For Speed: Most Wanted and thinking how much better if would be if the police didn't have the upper hand on you with their radios and road-blocks etc. I wished I had some cool Bond-esque fantasy gadgets on my car to blow them out of the figurative water. That game put me off illegal street racing for life...

Fantasy worlds, or just abstract games like Tetris, can be bent or shaped to fit around whatever gameplay mechanics provide the most fun. I think Japan is better at doing this than the west; "Hey wouldn't it be great if you could jump around in space from planetoid to planetoid and have all this run? We'll worry about how and why later." vs "Hey wouldn't it be great if you could be this guy on the run from the cops? We'll think about what you can do later".

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Nick the Gent link
15/3/2016 03:51:49 pm

Mr. Biffo, you're spot on about the "weight" thing in games. And I agree on Destiny - it never felt real to me either.

When I played Destiny I kept comparing it back to Bungie's Marathon from the 90s. As you say, Destiny didn't seem like it was in a physically believable environment. With Marathon back in the day, I really felt like I was stalking around the confines of this dirty old industrial-looking colony ship.

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Phil
15/3/2016 04:55:09 pm

Is that not to do with getting older, more grounded and not letting your imagination take hold as much as you would have when playing Marathon possibly?

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Nick the Gent link
15/3/2016 05:31:03 pm

Possibly, but other recent games grabbed me and immersed me in a way that Destiny did not.

As Biffo said, it's all in the aesthetics - a personal preference in the end.

Dr Kank
15/3/2016 07:00:49 pm

Just out of curiosity, what about Bioshock? Rapture's a pretty unrealistic location, but it's probably my favourite video game setting. It's number 1 on my "places I'd go on holiday if video games were real and I wasn't worried about being murdered" list.

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Mr Biffo
15/3/2016 08:56:10 pm

Bioshocked worked for me, because it still felt of this world... but at the same time, it's not so much about setting it in the real world, as creating a world that feels believable. Destiny and Halo don't work for me - there's something oddly sterile about them - whereas Bioshock feels lived in.

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colincidence link
15/3/2016 08:27:08 pm

I got Tony Hawk Downhill Jam just because it has Edinburgh. Well, Edinburgh as described by a pigeon with vertigo who was there eight years ago, but it was still a bit cuddly to see the places I recognise cuturally appropriated by wheelkids.

We'll reach the ultimate in familiar gaming environments when Google Maps (/Streetview) becomes real-time and interactive.

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Damon link
16/3/2016 01:39:41 am

I agree with this on some level but I call myself a set-whore. If the setting could be anything and the plot still works then it isn't very interesting or relevant. I feel like too many games make the mistake of having their setting as a collage of details with no big picture. A setting that you can't understand if you try because there is no real substance to it.

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Mr Sweary
18/3/2016 09:16:18 pm

There was this kid at college who was certain that the lyrics to The Prodigy's 'Firestarter' (apropos of nothing, 20 years old today) went thus;

"I'm a paperback Writer, twisted paperback writer..."

We all thought he was taking the piss, but he wasn't, he was deadly serious. Things were never quite the same after that, for any of us.

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