Lazyimperial

After having spent the first six years of my college-life earning a Master's in English Literature, which proved a comically unwise choice for The Great Recession's job market, I burned out on being critical about stuff like this. On an off-topic aside, that burn out (and job market experience) is why I switched gears, went into accounting, and am halfway through an M.B.A..

Now don't get me wrong, I'm still an English Major at heart. I nit-pick on both little details and core gameplay features. I "rose and thorn" critique films, tv shows, games, and music so much that some of my work colleagues openly wonder how my wife puts up with me. I wonder too. :-P

That having been said, six years of liberal arts made me very aware that EVERY aesthetic and motif is loaded with baggage and offensive to someone. Fallout 3's 1950s aesthetic offended some of my peers, who claimed that utilizing such said aesthetic was ethically irresponsible and implicitly promoted a sugar-coated, mainstream American "Leave it to Beaver" recollection of Post-WWII American history that ignored the plights of ethnic minorities and marginalized, assimilated sub-cultures.

Including Feudal Chinese imagery and motifs in Western Art is cultural appropriation to some consumers. Including Viking aesthetics and motifs is making light of the plights of the myriad Slavic and Latin peoples who these Germanic invaders ruthlessly subjugated and tormented for centuries. Using Hinduism as a basis for video games or TV Shows is appropriating a modern religion's and continuing a tradition of Western exploitation and abuse of the sub-continent. Games and movies that utilize fluffy mainstream 1980s pop culture imagery (Ready Player One springs to mind as a modern example) are contributing to a process of marginalizing non-mainstream cultural imagery and ignoring the terrible post-colonial, imperialist policies of the Reagan-era United States.

On and on. These are predominantly contemporary American examples, too. I'm not even skipping across either pond and/or dabbling in older motifs. It's all... a bit much. A lot much. Too much.

I found it exhausting, and still do, especially because it literally leaves me with nothing to work with as either a consumer or occasional short-story scribbler. Buy that new Tolkein-based game from Warner Bros? Do you know how imperialist and offensive Lord of the Rings is? Did you buy Watch Dogs? Do you know how culturally insensitive and exploitative of urban stereotypes that game is? Did you buy Witcher 3? Do you realize how much that game marginalizes real Polish-region minorities and makes light of their plights within society? Did you buy Assassin's Creed: Syndicate? I hope you know that Victorian imagery and motifs were built on the backs of a quarter of the world's population living under the yoke of British tyranny! Think of that as you rope line across your palaces of marble and gold filigree. Did you like Assassin's Creed: Black Flag? Did you know that Caribbean pirate-themes make light of the terrible racism, barbarism, and cruelty inherent in the European territory grabs of the era? Do you know what the Spaniards did to the natives of what became Hispaniola?! Writing something yourself? Get ready for the anger should anyone find it floating on the web. Better be about grey blobs in a land of neutral tones that draws upon no pre-existing human cultures or history (save if you cite such said cultures and histories in order to stand on a soap box and rage against the machine).

On the note of subjectivity, the response to Witcher 3 from some community peers really floored me, because I grew up in a town with an active Polish-American Club and learned a lot about the marginalization of Eastern Europeans of Slavic descent. As a Yankee with a grandmother who viewed Irish people as a group of Celtic others (I'm half-Irish, and it took her a while to come to terms with that) and didn't quite consider Slavic people the same as West Europeans, the whole cast of Witcher 3 was minority representation to me. To others, apparently not so much.

Have I shifted from un-critical to critical yet?

I find it much less exhausting to just give people a benefit of a doubt. You aren't a racist for making a Pirates of the Caribbean game and using early 18th century imperial-era Caribbean aesthetics. Racism is actively viewing your culture and people as superior to others, and giving me a brig with twenty crew members singing "Leave her Johnny, Leave Her" as we sail into the port of Tortuga isn't anything like that. Now if such said game started actively disparaging natives and espousing what its creators perceived as the innate superiority of Europeans, both via the characters and the game's own handling of plot and setting... then my benefit of a doubt goes away. Innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

I see nothing to indicate Strange Brigade is prejudiced. In my opinion, calling it racist is an unsubstantiated accusation.

Edit addition: at the risk of reading too much into some of the stances I've seen, I imagine that often the problem is actually not the art-work's choice of aesthetics so much as perceived whimsy related to its usage of such said aesthetics. If Strange Brigade had the same motifs, but stood upon a podium and spent every level denouncing European empires and railing against injustices in our socioeconomic systems, I imagine it wouldn't be getting this kind of critique. It also wouldn't be lighthearted, fluffy, pulp-fiction fun anymore; it'd be a self-righteous sermon. Frankly, I get enough of those every day as is.

No, it's not. I'd contend that it isn't even "probably racist." It's playing with pulp fiction motifs from the 1930s that don't conform to the "enlightened" stances and standards of 2010s internet culture (and how could these motifs do so, coming 80 years prior?), but that doesn't make it racist. Now if this game continually denigrated non-European peoples and promoted a belief of European supremacy over all other peoples, then you'd have a case. If the characters all actively marveled that the locals could construct buildings and traps of such complexity and snickered at their music, garb, and customs... sure. I doubt that's the case, though.

For comparison, The Rugrats Movie opens with the four babies imagining themselves visiting a temple of doom and mystery in a humid, tropical jungle. Tommy is dressed up for a safari, Chuckie is dressed like Indiana Jones, Phil is in a colonial soldier outfit, and Lil is a flight jacket with vintage pilot goggles. They escape incredibly elaborate traps, a rolling boulder (because Indiana Jones), and almost claim the sacred statue of "banana split sundae." Is this racist? If you think so, and I'm betting that you do, remember that people 80 years from now will likely have as negative a set of opinions regarding the motifs and aesthetics of your novels and art as you do of those from 80 years prior. Subjective, not objective.

Tastes and concepts of socially acceptable imagery are not constant. They're subjective, and they vary across time and across peoples. As a friendly suggestion, I'd give Rebellion (and artists in general) a benefit of a doubt and not assume ill intent unless you can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

But eh. This isn't an era of due process.

Edit addition: oh, and I like that your posts started with "probably." I respect that. It's good that you don't dabble in absolutes until pressured by the forums. Not everything is yin or yang.

Eh, I was expecting a 3 out of 5 here. Jeff articulated himself well, though. He's entitled to his stance and opinion, and I respect that.

It's been interesting to see the responses to this game, especially since I'm far more used to polarized USER reviews than critical reviews. Forbes, US Gamer, Gamespot, and IGN all loved it but Polygon, Giantbomb, Guardian, and Waypoint all either disliked or outright hated it. Austin Walker even went so far as to begin his review by stating: "By the time I hit the 20 hour mark, I was wondering what could be salvaged. Far Cry 5, after all, was not a complete failure." (emphasis mine) *shrug*

I think Forbes said it best, in my humble opinion. Specifically: "Far Cry 5 is a chaos simulator with a preposterous story, tons of quality of life improvements over past games and an enormous amount of content. It's a blast if you let yourself just accept the silly premise and not invest too much in the politics of the game, or lack thereof."

If you can accept the silly premise and tonal whiplashes, this is a great time. It's absurdist, bipolar popcorn brilliance. I personally love it.

But... if someone watched that 2017 reveal and thought this was going to be the first non-farcical Far Cry that was going to tackle what he or she perceived to be the nation's problems... the final product offered here probably isn't going to work for him or her. On a related note, I have some peers that are very polarized and fixed in their political ideologies, and this was going to be their catharsis via shooting and murdering virtual representations of what they perceive their rival faction to be (a skeevy, creepy, dehumanizing thing if you stop to think about it), and they're downright annoyed. I spent the past couple months trying to temper their expectations (you have a diabetic bear sidekick named Cheeseburger, all the past games always had their tongues firmly in their cheeks despite the grim premises, Division had me listening to a crazy cat man ranting about his fur babies while I sidestepped a mass grave / pit of charred civilian corpses, etc.), but oh no! This was going to be different.

And it's not. *shrug* I do wonder how much politics influenced the divergent critical scores, especially considering how much it has influenced user stories I've heard (you'd think we were playing two entirely different games, but you'd also think we were living in two entirely different countries if you heard our modern-day assessments so eh), but it doesn't really matter I suppose. All in good fun.

I was a little worried that this game would overstay its welcome for Brad. I think he mentioned on the Quicklook that he spent about 20 hours wandering around before doing the first fortress siege, and all I could think at the time was "oh boy.... there are five zones to this game and what sounds like an incredibly grindy end-game of doing fortress sieges and defenses over and over for dozens of hours. 20 hours in the first zone before doing the first fortress? Let's see how long SOW's luster holds out."

It held out for three out of five stars, apparently. :-P

I wish they hadn't gone for an end-game grind-a-thon. The xp needed to level up once you get to level 40 is exponentially obnoxious (perhaps to encourage you to buy the temporary xp booster?), the grinding up of new high-level orc captains in all five zones so that you can actually hold your own during the Shadow War sieges is hardly an appealing endeavor, and the gameplay loop doesn't change very much at all once you get into this grind. Not there yet, but I think you get a few new ancillary skills and that's about it. Otherwise, it's just the same thing over and over as you struggle towards a reward probably better savored on YouTube.

I wonder if this review would have been a 4 out of 5 without Shadow Wars, which might have left Brad wanting more instead of being over-full of orc captains and stabbings.

@coaxmetal: Hehe, I remember that article. Seldom has any piece of game journalism made me roll my eyes so heartily. But hey, Austin is completely entitled to his own opinions and all that. I completely disagree with him and think equating cartoonish, chaotically evil hunchbacks with working class peoples and minorities is an exercise in hyperbolic tom-foolery and grad school madness, but that's my opinion as someone who read way too many peer papers just like his while earning my Master's in English Literature.

Sometimes, Dear Austin, a chair is a chair.

As an aside, orcs as cockney blokes is a Warhammer thing that happened well after Tolkien. You want to say that orcs in Warhammer are crude caricatures of blue-collar British workers... fine. Every race in Warhammer is a crude caricature of some class or group of Great Britain, so you'd be both right and wrong in taking offense. It's equal opportunity lampooning. :-P

So grateful to be studying business management and accounting, now. I don't miss the post-colonial theorists in the least.

Yeah, I think Austin Walker and the Waypoint peeps might be @coaxmetal77's best bet for a post-colonial lit-theory interpretation of this game.

Personally, I don't mind one bit. These aren't modern fantasy orcs (World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Etc.). They're evil, twisted, warped elves with no shred of nuance about them. Tolkien made them to overtly represent the darker sides of humanity that were all too apparent during World War 2. He didn't make them as stand-ins for colonial subjects, though that's what you'll see bandied about in English grad studies by nascent post-colonial peeps. I honestly think the post-colonial stance is absurd here; they're looking for complexity and moral ambiguity in a black and white morality tale with shining silver knights fighting gibbering ghouls.

Now if this game was World of Warcraft: The Blasted Lands and you were enslaving Blizzard's orcs, which liberally crib from every lazy Noble Savage cliché and traditional tribal Africa stereotype that Blizzard's writers could dredge up from the bottom of their vacuous writing department barrel, then sure. I'd agree with you 100%. This ain't that, mate.

Anyhoots, this looks fun. Wish they had just left the loot crates out, but it looks like I can pretty much ignore them so eh. *shrug* Looking forward to playing this. Thanks for the Quicklook, GB Crew.

Indeed. That's a missed opportunity. You buy a loot krayt and it vomits your random prizes and doodads. A shame.

Also, if this is what enables the game to support a Titanfall 2 rollout of new content for everyone so that the player-base doesn't become divided over time... fine. THAT is a good reason to have loot crates, if ever there were. I can respect your course of action, EA. I just hope you have both enough people willing to gamble for cosmetics and enough awesome cosmetics to make gambling worthwhile. Be a shame if the plan turned out to be a net loss.

Thank you for the review, Ben. :-) Well done, and I hope that Destiny 2 is kind to you and the rest of the crew tomorrow. Best of luck!

I think the strangest thing for me was the post-gauntlet giddiness exhibited by some of the crew as they "opened" their engrams. Maybe I've become a crusty old prick in my mid-age, but there is no way getting a few marginally better pieces of video game clothing would make up for the loss of six hours of my life stuck performing the same tedious, miserable, frustrating thing over and over and over and over and over and over. The only endorphins you'd get out of me at that point would be from me uninstalling the game and snapping the disc in two.

I mean, I was listening and occasionally taking visual peeks at Abby's stream today (and she kicked total butt. It was impressive how consistently awesome she was on the team, to the point of making me feel like a gaming schlep by comparison. Pin point precision on those hammer throws by the end, hurrah!) and the game gave her a pair of 277 shoulders to replace her 271 shoulders and a pair of 270 boots to replace her 265 boots. Six hours of nightmare to go from arbitrary number 269 to arbitrary number 270. What's the point of this game? To bash your head against a wall in the hope that Bungie's skinner box gambling-machine eventually spits out some pieces of RNG gear that make you slightly better numerically at the things you've already done a thousand times already, until you're finally incrementally increased in strength to the point of being deemed numerically worthy of bashing your head against the next new wall?

In all fairness, I guess you could always watch a 90 minute long walkthrough of a new raid to learn your role without as much head bashing... but then why bother doing the raid whose surprises and twists have already been revealed to you in video? Why not just watch the video, play a virtual slot machine for ten minutes, and then go out drinking with your five friends instead? You'd probably come out way ahead, and I imagine they'd be grateful considering the alternative. Eh, this is why I bounce off Destiny, its clones, and World of Warcraft nowadays. Such an overt skinner box approach to game design that just boggles my mind. *shrug*

On a positive note, good job staying civilized the whole time. You guys and gals are a great team. I think I would have snapped after the first hour and logged off to wash dishes, do laundry, or anything else more exciting and less vexing than "dog bottom, goblet middle."

Edit addition: does Bungie really expect the average gamer to be so myopic? To forget all the hours of tedium, boring garbage, grinding, and cheap one shot death mechanics the moment he or she gets a new drop with a slightly higher "power level" number affixed to it? Are we actually that short-sighted and easily distracted? "Oh boy, look at this new gun! 270 instead of 267. Woo! All worth it. Oh boy, I had fun (in retrospect, now that I have this new thing from ye old slot machine)!!! Woo! Where can I get more chips? Double or nothing!" :-/ *shudder*

@jjcregis: Oh good. :-) Totally not in the loop with twitter jargon and humor, haha.