/lit/ - Literature

no one on /lit/ played that game

It's a funny, entertaining game but not a piece of groundbreaking writing by any means. It was essentially South Park the game.

Fallout series attracts some decent writing, New Vegas is quite good at depicting war. LA Noire is also pretty decently written though it gets in the way of gameplay.

>>2911296
I played the shit out of it as a child.I remember spending an entire hockey training session telling my friend all about it in detail.

Only later did I get all of the references. Really good game.

>>2911307

I think you are short changing the post modern elements of it within an absurd world.

The game constantly references the fact that it is a game, but it also picks apart at gaming conventions of the time (like collectibles, lives, etc). Not to mention that the ending was really a coy play with deus ex machina, and there is a growth of the character through the tale.

Rare was great at everything. Writing, art, music, mechanics. Too bad they suck now.

Games with good writing:
Deus Ex (transhumanism + scifi + dystopia)
Alpha Centauri (see above)
Arcanum (fantasy + philosophy)
Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas (political philosophy, human condition)
Legacy of Kain series (drama)
Max Payne (camp noir)
Morrowind (magical realism)
NWN2: MOTB (philosophy, fantasy)
Planescape: Torment (philosophy, fantasy)
Knights of the Old Republic 2 (philosophy)
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (drama, fantasy)

>>2911334


I hesitate to put KOTOR 2 with the rest of those mate, just because the ending was so rushed and it really didn't build to anything.

Rare had good writing, but I think CBFD just out paced everything else they had. Not saying the other stuff wasn't good though.

>>2911359
I think you have to put it in there, even if it was rushed by the retard publisher, if only because of how fucking ambitious Avellone was. He was trying to critique the entire setting of a juggernaut of genre fiction, and simultaneously torture it into a philosophically compelling take on its internal morality. The way he used the division of major powers (antagonists/protagonists/other) to examine the Force has literary merit all by itself.

I mean, for a video game.

Video games are not literature. Please go away.

>>2911373


I'm not saying it was bad. It was definitely one of the better ones I ever played for a story.

OP, While I essentially agree with you that CBFD is a great game and all (especially with how much dialogue is in there), I wouldn't go around saying it has the best writing.

True it may have had a lot of funny jokes we all thought were very clever and practically everything about the game was fresh in the way you'd expect if looney tunes and south park had a child, but bear in mind there are plenty of other games that have good writing. Even if the said ones are RPG's (and to be honest with you, some of them aren't necessarily cliche as you think they are, There was one RPG I remember where it was basically about 7-9 stories in one which actually were all connected in a way you wouldn't expect.)

One more thing I would like you to bear in mind is that in the modern age of gaming a whole story could be possible. This has been proven several times in most games in this generation, even if the story is shit you have to admit that this isn't necessarily that big of a thing to talk about.

>>2911405


It is moments like this where I think it goes beyond South Park in its writing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch1uOmEl744

>>2911381
Hate to kick your balls with this logic but.... Video games can be practically anything now and days.

True, they're not books. But they still have a story, therefore I hardly see how it's not literature in the sense that "Oh hey, lets look up a good story"

In other words, it's indirect literature. Much in the same way movies are. Please stop being a purist otherwise don't post.

>>2911425

> Hate to kick your balls with this logic but.... Video games can be practically anything now and days.
> now and days

Pompous illiterate gamers who wanna pretend their wasted years weren't wasted are a diamond dozen.

>>2911430
Go on, off you fuck.

>>2911425
Games are not literature. There is nothing remotely to argue there. Nevermind the fact CBFD has Scary Movie level writing, >>2911334
Is hysterical and has never read a canonized novel, and at this point most video games are terrible at being video games, much less something more.

Fuck off back to /v/ so you morons can circlejerk about SOTC and Dear Esther.

>>2911430

>>2911423
That's kind of a fourth wall joke when you think about it. I really doubt that conker's bad fur day was the first to do so but

It's not south park writing (since usually the guys who make that show try to teach people about specific issues while actually entertaining a wide range of audiences in ways you wouldn't expect them to) but when you actually look at the joke chances are the "20 Intelligent people" thing could point that if you gave Conker's Bad Fur Day to several smart people then you'd have smart people talking about it, probably over-thinking things after they tried to interpret how the game's story goes along.

>>2911447

>>2911451


Conker has several fourth wall jokes though. The amount of playing with the conventions of gaming, pointing out the fact it is a game, etc. gives it a real post modern slant.

You don't have to be dark and edgy to be well written, but lets look at the end of CBFD. It isn't a fairy tale ending. Everything doesn't go back to normal.

>>2911455
>You made me look like an idiot and I have nothing to reply with
>y-y-you mad b-bro??

>>2911447
Are you supposed to be some purist guy who has to worship books as the only thing that counts in literature?

Don't like the subject of writing in a video game being posted in /lit/? then don't post in it. Doesn't mean other people can say that video games can count as literature.

Wow, who would have known it was that simple to ignore.

>>2911447
>Is hysterical and has never read a canonized novel

I've read the first third of Bloom's canon, and I'm a Classics student. My main background is in historiography and my weakest area is probably 20th century lit.

Those games all pale in comparison to the accomplishments literature but they represent the potential of vidya. Avellone is a software programmer, a mediocre one at that, and he's trying to replicate the malleable first person narratives of live narrated tabletop games, with a huge infusion of literary and philosophical themes. Kirkbride is an excellent fantasy and magical realism author (and a fucking nutjob). Just because the formative nature of their medium hampers them, doesn't mean they shouldn't be fostered. Every medium has a shaky start, including basic concepts like writing, vernacular fiction, prose fiction, fiction in general, secular drama, etc. Every epic poetic tradition starts with vulgar baldic poetry, derivative shit with backward vocabularies.

>>2911430
Wasted? they enjoyed themselves. You only ever do things that are purely to get you a job that makes lots of cash bro? what are you doing on here wasting your time? Go learn something bro so when you die you will have not wasted your....wait a second.....

>>2911463

>>2911444

No son.


>>2911449

Why are you doing that to yourself? Every word I wrote was both relevant and accurate, including the joke. Did you miss the point?

>>2911471
Random guy with an arab name trying to troll.

you're doing it wrong.

good day to you.

>>2911465
Holy fuck you're retarded. I'm a purist because a literature board is for literature and a video game board is for video games? Do you think about what you say or do you just let your retarded fucking opinions roll out of your fingers?
A film is not literature because it has a script. A shitty, clunky game with amusing dialogue is not literature because it has words. Get your head out of your ass.

>>2911474

Enjoying yourself isn't a waste of time, and I never said it was. But the problem is, lots of young men who've ruined their ability to understand anything serious through lifelong triviality are now feeling like all that fun *was* a waste, and in true Protestant style, are trying to elevate it into something 'improving'. In true secular style, they're trying to do it without applying any work or commitment. Hence, the 'vidya is art' lobby. How else to justify all those piggish weeks spent in their own filth, going round one more time?

Unfortunately, there are still lots of adults in the world. I think they should go back to their rooms and play some more games.

>>2911470
That's just dandy, it simply makes it more bewildering you would try and class any of those under 'philosophy'. Most, with KOTOR2 and MP as very glaring exceptions, are examples of good writing in games. Only a few are worthwhile contributions to their genre, and the philosophy tags are hilarious.

>>2911480

>>2911479

I'm not trolling. You wish I was trolling. Unfortunately for you, I am telling the truth.

>>2911480
Let me look at the rules again.

>All literature discussion is welcome, however fan-fic is not allowed.

see that? as long as it isn't a fan fic, it's fine. Anything that has some degree of legitimate writing in it is literature. Poetry, Book, Script, and Dialogue.

In truth, I'm not the one with my head up his ass, and if your just going to respond with some illogical argument about how video games are not literature then please, don't bother. You're just wasting your time trying to get your silly opinion in my head while trying to insult some one.

>>2911490
>>2911490

>>2911487
I never said they were "philosophy" in the sense of being a major contribution or anything. But those are the themes they touch on. Here's a quote from Tim Cain, another visionary game designer, about Fallout:

>My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.

At the very least, he's stating his *intent* to discuss philosophy there. Fallout 2 especially deals heavily with the ideology of post-apocalyptic nation-building, and Fallout: NV, made by several History graduate students and headed by J.E. Sawyer (another History major, and a very smart guy who clearly and openly states his intent to make his players think: browse http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer)), deals directly with the eventual conflict of ideologies between those nations. The leader of one of the factions directly cites Hegelian dialectic and Philosophy of History in line with Toynbee or Spengler as his major inspiration for leading a totalitarian war economy against a civilized democratic state, because he thinks it will foster a stronger post-war civilization in the long run. Again, even if it's clumsily done, the intent is there, and that's admirable. That's a genuinely interesting concept and dilemma, and video games allow the player to be thrust into it and feel a sense of agency in its unfolding.

>>2911490
Except no one cares if it's "the truth" as you say it is. You're just being a douche.

Not that I care to say anything but, honestly, I could give two less fucks if you call out someone who made one mistake with his grammar, or agreeing with someone who happens to think books are the only thing in literature, or how you respond to every image macro there is. I doubt other people would give two shits ether since you're only making yourself being taken less seriously.

I'm just throwing that out there, not that you'd understand anyways.

Video games could be pioneers in the second person genre of lit, or at least achieve the level of making "choose your own adventure" satisfying.

>>2911511
With the technology of todays gaming consoles I wouldn't be surprised if it was pulled off.

I've explained this many times, I'll now explain it again.

There used to be a 1-1 overlap between the reading population and the people interested in literature. Over centuries that changed - thanks to the printing press and Protestantism - and there was a direct relationship between the drive for universal literacy and the increase in the percentage of books published that were simply entertainment. At this point, we're living in a time when 'literature' retains its cultural prestige despite no longer having any part in the lives of the majority of people who read. They want the remaining prestige of the word to apply to their enthusiasms, without applying the discipline that defines standards and maintains them. This doesn't just apply to popular fiction - it's happening with the vidya as well. 'Art' or 'literature' are just nice buzzwords, benedictions for your favorite forms of entertainment. To those of us who are interested in art and literature, the boast is ridiculous, and this reaction irritates the fanboy or fangirl out of their economic instinct - so few people care about literature, how dare they exclude us? Don't they want to be popular? Don't they want to be part of the mainstream discourse?

The answer, of course, is yes and no. Yes, we'd love to be part of your discourse. But when we direct you to the real, serious books, we aren't trying to do the *books* a favor. If you stay where you were put, by the economy, by the advertising industry, by a careless babysitter - well, we won't feel ourselves deprived of your company, because no, culture is not made relevant or irrelevant by what you think. You are made relevant or irrelevant by what you think of culture. Good luck quitting the vidya.

>>2911504

You care, that's why you're pretending to be someone else. It's not just a grammatical error, it's the kind of mistake you only make if you HAVEN'T BEEN READING OR LISTENING, ALL YOUR LIFE. Why should anyone respect the definition of 'literature' formulated by such a person? You're only semi-literate.

> since you're only making yourself being taken less seriously.

Look at what you're doing here. You're an illiterate, attempting to dismiss the inconvenient observations of a literate person. That's a perfect model of what the 'vidya is art' lobby do; how they invariably think.

bumpity bump

>>2911567
So basically what you're saying is that, I'm supposed to care about how I'm illiterate I am and that I'm supposed to be all mad that you're calling me out for that when you can not tell that:

a:The person you are talking to is probably tired from having a long day. And you don't even realize he could also be in a different timezone.
b:The fact that you're responding to this out of the fact that people do not agree with you and that other twit who has his head stuck up his ass about what is the definition of literature.
c:You've also responded to some guy who is childish enough to post some random macro to try and prove how smart you are, which arguably isn't making you any better.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate you sir. But I can hardly care for someone who is just straight up being a douche towards nearly everyone he disagrees with.

Sorry for not being perfect as you are but, I don't care. Go spread your grammar Nazi propaganda where people will give a shit if that's all you're going to do. Good night to you.

>>2911621


Don't feed the trolls

>>2911646
Good Point.

>>2911621

No, you've failed.


>>2911646
>>2911659

Don't talk to yourself, it's embarrassing for onlookers.

>>2911699
Oh, okay.

Just in case the lurkers around here see this; Forms of entertainment have always been evolving. There is not clear definition on what is "written art" and it could range anywhere.

Remember how the ancient Greek stories like the Iliad and the Odyssey were originally told orally before they we're written down? In a sense that's kind of like watching a movie except movies are done the other way around. Same could be said for most modern video games since they both have scripts and dialogues. Which is Written Art mind you.