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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

On Videogame Characters And The Poochy Effect 59

Posted by simoniker from the verified-simpsons-reference dept.
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing videogame characters/settings that excessively ape popular culture. The writer summarizes: "A new evil is spreading throughout the industry to stifle gameplay and original game characters, the need to set games in 'cool' or 'hip' settings that meet with mainstream approval", and points to Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil, which he says underwent a "...last minute change in the main character to make her more Gen X compatible." He continues: "For Jak II, developer Naughty Dog seems to have wanted to incorporate every possible 'hot thing' in gaming, from a goateed main character to dark themes." But he concludes by lauding some "breakout successes" in terms of original characters, including Halo's Master Chief and Viewtiful Joe.
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On Videogame Characters And The Poochy Effect More

On Videogame Characters And The Poochy Effect

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  • You Know You've Been On Slashdot Too Long When... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jantheman ( 113125 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @05:29AM (#7576268)
    ..in gaming, from a goateed main character to dark themes..

    Hands up who thought this meant something else when you first read it?

  • Won't matter in the long run... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Danse ( 1026 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @05:35AM (#7576285)

    This is just another stupid marketing fad that will eventually fizzle out like all the rest. If the game is good, buy it. If not, don't buy it. That's how you tell them how you feel. It's the only thing they understand.

    • Re:Won't matter in the long run... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Thursday November 27, 2003 @05:59AM (#7576331) Homepage Journal
      The problem is they don't understand that anymore. If sales are down, they won't for a second think it's due to a problem with the thing being sold, instead they blame it on getting bad reputation online, piracy, the phase of the moon, too little legislation or whatever.

      This is increasingly becoming a problem but I have no idea how to fix it short of starting to put CEOs up against walls...

    • Re:Won't matter in the long run... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:52AM (#7577029)
      You mean a fad like boy-bands and crappy pop music? or maybe like crappy movies that flash some tits to keep the audience interested?

      I like what you are saying, the world would be a great place if dumb ideas just went away when it was obvious that they don't work, too bad the marketing execs of the world don't have the same insight you do.

      • You mean a fad like boy-bands and crappy pop music?

        I don't think pop-music is a fad. It exists because it's what a lot of people like. Of course people don't often like the same person or group for very long, so there's a high turnover rate for boybands. One minute you're at the top of the charts, the next you're only at number 27.

        or maybe like crappy movies that flash some tits to keep the audience interested?

        erm.. yeah.. damn shame about that. *cough* damn shame.. :-P

        the world would be a gre

  • Is it just us (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @05:57AM (#7576327) Homepage
    I'm wondering. There must be a reason the industry does this. If you want to make a lot of money you have to appeal to the large majority. So apparently the large majority likes the games that we, as /.-ers think are way too 'overproduced'. This proves that we are but a small, insignificant community. Sad but true.

    • Re:Is it just us (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      i don't think them as 'overproduced', i just view quite a lot of them produced into the wrong way.. take 'nfs: underground' for example. it's obvious that makers of nfsu had some idea that buying stuff for your car is cool, but what they did was that you can only buy what they let you buy(upgrades being locked) and you have to race the races that are pre-chosen until you win in them all and you get few more races. now, upgrades like that have little point since they could come on automatically(i've yet to
    • So apparently the large majority likes the games that we, as /.-ers think are way too 'overproduced'. This proves that we are but a small, insignificant community. Sad but true.

      One of the urban legend statistics that I've never found evidence of but sounds so right it must be true (heh heh) is that 90% of games released lose money. Given that, perhaps it isn't that our wants are at odds with those of consumers--its sounds like what the industry supplies is what's truly at odds with consumers.

      I think it

      • I hope you're right (it sounds reasonable :-) ). It's a pity that companies don't release non-profitable games every now and again just to please the people you describe. In this way they keep themselves in the picture by these people.

        • Re:Is it just us (Score:2, Informative)

          by SScorpio ( 595836 )
          There are several companies that do this.

          You should check out Atlus: http://www.atlus.com/ and Working Designs: http://www.workingdesigns.com/ (Who's web site appears to be down at the time of this posting).

          Both of these companies offer more nitch games that the general public normally wouldn't go for. Due to this their releases are normally done in a limited run where a small number of units are produced, I keep hearing around 10,000 as a minimum print run.

          Eidos also experimented with a "Fresh Games" l

  • Halo's Master Chief? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27, 2003 @06:49AM (#7576431)
    The Master Chief is an original character? Since when? He's a man in a suit of armour - that character goes back to the Middle Ages. Or you might get excited that it's powered armour, which dates back to the '60s at the very very latest. Soldier held in hibernation until he's needed? That's Joe Haldeman's Forever War, at the very very latest, which is the '60s again. He's not an original character at all. He's a good character, but he's not original.

    • Re:Halo's Master Chief? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Master Chief was one dimensional and lacked personality. Duke Nukem could kick his butt anyday of the week.

    • Re:Halo's Master Chief? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mantrid ( 250133 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @08:10AM (#7576643) Journal
      Beat me to it! I agree - Halo is a fun game (MP anyways) - but the Master Chief an original character??? He's a soldier in a suit of powered armour! You can't even see his face. The computer AI chick in Halo is more original - kind of like one of David Drake's "control crystal" type characters (Lord of the Isles or Northworld).

    • Master Chief isn't a 'hip modern' character; he's an archetype. He's the calm, capable, competant non-com who holds his shit together and gets done whatever needs doing.

      In Rome, he'd be a Centurion. In the dark ages, he'd be a paladin. In any modern army, he'd be the career sargent major, or in the navy, obviously, a master chief.

      • Re:Halo's Master Chief? (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        So...you agree he isn't an original character, then?
      • He's the calm, capable, competant non-com who holds his shit together and gets done whatever needs doing.

        maybe i'm misinterpreting your use of "non-com" but i though that MC was in command of an entire squad [amazon.com] :P

      • In Rome, he'd be a Centurion. In the dark ages, he'd be a paladin. In any modern army, he'd be the career sargent major, or in the navy, obviously, a master chief.

        The funny part is, in the modern Navy, it's not the chiefs who hold the game together, it's the second classes. (E5's.)

        Chief's (E7-E8) have more experience in toto, but they are managers, not techs, and frequently political. By the time they make Master Chief (E8) it's frequently been years since they actually stood a watch in-rate. First cla

        • Ah, but if you look at the literature, it's the exact opposite.

          That, and you're looking at a peacetime Navy. During wartime, which Halo is in, historically, military forces tend to shed their cruft pretty quickly, or lose.

          • Ah, but if you look at the literature, it's the exact opposite.

            Ah, but that depends on what literature you read, and who wrote it. Much military literature, even that written by those who should know better, tends to perpetuate myths. (Doing so establishes credibility, and not just in the field of military studies.)

            The myth of the calm stable senior NCO being the center of a unit really took hold in WWI and II, because WWII is the largest and best known war in today's society, it tends to dominate soci

            • All very good points, and you're right. Look at most WW2 based movies, and you'll see the snot-nosed lieutenant crumbling, the out of touch general, and the grizzled old sergeant keeping it all together.

              And seeing as how Halo is a work of fiction, dare I say, digital literature, that's where it's going to be. As I said, he's an archetype, or an ideal, if you will, and most ideals don't match the reality.

    • The cleverness isn't the Master Chief.... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      it's the marines he fights with. They have a fairly large and amusing script. From the hushed, "It's a Mark V" down to their pithy one-liners when you, or they, kill vacuume sucking alien bastards. For the most part they do a good job, as opposed to getting in the way as is the norm for their ilk. They help set the tone, and string the narrative between cut scenes. The simple play control leading to a rich varied play experience with a setting so completely drawn it's frequently mistaken for characteri

  • All over the place (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bugbread ( 599172 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @07:27AM (#7576542)
    I'm sorry, but this article is so all-over-the-place I can't begin to really understand it.

    First, can anyone tell me what they did to Good And Evil to make it more Gen X? I haven't played it, and he helpfully fails to provide any examples.

    Second, since when is a goatee Gen X? If I remember, goatees went out of style like 4 or 5 years ago.

    Third, how does Viewtiful Joe not meet these criteria of evil that he describes? It's based on an amalgam of movie and TV characters, and the author of the article himself says in his Viewtiful Joe review that "Joe, the star of the game is a Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit's singer) look alike".
    • First, can anyone tell me what they did to Good And Evil to make it more Gen X? I haven't played it, and he helpfully fails to provide any examples.

      I'm not certain, but I've looked at a few screenshots and I noticed that the earlier ones have her wearing jeans and the latest ones have her wearing patchy cargo pants.

      Second, since when is a goatee Gen X? If I remember, goatees went out of style like 4 or 5 years ago.

      So did Gen X -- Generation Xers are now in their 30s :). Goatees still convey "attitude

  • hey kids, remember, always recycle (Score:3, Funny)

    by jeffehobbs ( 419930 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:06AM (#7576840) Homepage
    ...TO THE EXTREME!

    ~poochie
  • ....for jive-ass 'cool' culture to be seen for what it is.

    Young people have a need to rebel against something. The important thing is to get through the damn-fool years without taking it too far.

    Commercial games that latch on and make 'cool' seem not so cool help nudge people into a reaility. It helps keep people from going too far. Though sometimes the feeling that they way you've been acting is jive-ass nonsense can drive people further.

    It's all fun, kids. Have yours, but try not to permanently dam
    • Definition of the Damn -Fool Years: the years during which one still possess dreams that go beyond getting a comfy job and procreating to spread your genes to the next generation.

      An awful lot of people throughout history--most all of the people we still remember--lived their entire lives without ever leaving the Damn-Fool Years. I see so many thirteen year olds today who are already past their Damn-Fool Years. Horrible.

      • That isn't my defintion for the 'damn-fool years.'

        My definition is "that period of time when a young person thinks that he knows a lot more than the older more experienced people around him." Losing vision and no longer having dreams and aspirations has nothing to do with that. A key to being a productive and creative person is discovering you don't 'know it all' and figuring out how to weave your voice into the culture you are a part of.
        • Losing vision and no longer having dreams and aspirations has nothing to do with that.

          The truth of this statement depends on which particular older, more experienced people tend to be around the particular younger person. The corporate culture that surrounds too many of us is manufactured to discourage creativity. The growing revulsion that people of all ages are begining to feel, the voice in our heads that says "I refuse to be a part of this organized despair!" is humanity's last hope of remaining non

  • Article is a bit off (Score:5, Informative)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @09:59AM (#7577059) Homepage
    First of all, comparing FMV gaming to making stylish games is like comparing a nuclear blast to a firecracker. FMV gaming, as a mechanic, had no redeeming qualities. It removed control from the player, limiting gameplay to a choose-your-own adventure game with extremely few options. Adding pop cultural references to a game, however, simply risks diluting the original vision. Many games have been both hip and great, but no games have been both FMV and great (Dragon's Lair fans... Watch a video).

    To support this assertion, the reviewer points to Jax and Dexter 2 and THPS. Jax and Dexter 2 is generally viewed as one of the year's best games... Adding liberal cultural references hasn't hurt the gameplay one bit. And Tony Hawk wasn't cool or hip until it was so embraced that it defined culture. Even so, gameplay has not been hindered one bit, and the series continues a surprising streak of great games.

    Second, Jade from Beyond Good and Evil's original incarnation was hardly a socially ackward girl. Pictures of the original Jade are available here [ign.com]. As you can see, she went from a trendy, hip early 20 something wearing a t-shirt and jeans (look at that off-kilter waist bag), to a trendy, late 20 something dressed like an undercover reporter. She had large breasts, a visible buttline, a waistline like a carrot, and a midriff. The only non-stereotypical aspects of her character are the short hair and short body. Her second incarnation has the same pants, a lower-cut shirt, a green jacket, and a green headband. The last time I went to a club, headbands were not trendy. Though a little desexualization wouldn't hurt, the character is hardly a cash-in.

    Licensed games are largely ignored by gamers in-the-know, and are hardly a new scourge. ET on the 2600? Simpsons on the NES? Lethal Weapon for the SNES? Anything THQ touched before the Playstation? If anything, the proportion of licensed drivel on consoles has gone DOWN, if for no other reason than the expense of developing 3d games has reduced the cash-in opportunity.

    Breakout characters, and characterizations, are a rarity based more around great games than great design. The Master Chief as the pinnical of character design? One or two new games destined for legend come out every year... And as such we get one or two new characters in our vocabulary. That's not a weakness of the industry so much as a reality of shared experiences. Otherwise we would have Bubsy 3D 11 shoved down our throats. Characters are born, they live, and they die. It is one of the few motivations to create original content.

    And as a final note, XIII wouldn't be anywhere near as engrossing an experience if designers had kept the comic book people away. The Final Fantasy series wouldn't be great if they had kept the movie people away. Embrace the artistic qualities and abilities of other forms of communication. Don't use them in inappropriate places, just as they wouldn't put footage from a House of the Dead game into a movie. But don't push them away. We are all entertainment brothers and sisters.

    • As with everything else, pop culture does sometimes turn out crap. I enjoyed the Enter the Matrix game, but I really wished I'd rented it -- nothing new, hardly much plot, finished it in 3 hours. Most people do seem to enjoy cutscenes.

      I see two main problems. One -- too much money involved. A game should not cost $50. Let me reiterate: A game should not cost $50. Especially not if there's going to be a sequel in a year.

      Two, often the technology involved sucks. Look at Jak & Daxter (I and II) t
    • Perhaps you need to check out Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within.

      The game is a point and click FMV adventure game done in the Sierra style norm for the time. This game showed people what a FMV game was able to do and has never been reproduced.

      There are quite a few copies of it floating around eBay so you should be able to get it for $5-$10 + s/h. On a side note the book was also very good so I'd recommend getting it if you like the game.

  • Master what? (Score:5, Funny)

    by JimPooley ( 150814 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @10:43AM (#7577218) Homepage
    I don't know about anyone else, but at a glance I always seem to read "Master Chief" as "Master Chef" - which would be a whole different game...

  • Yeah, Viewtiful Joe's not hip. In fact he's just plain out-of-style. He looks more like a circa 1998 Fred Durst. It's still the greatest game ever.

    • Re:Viewtiful Joe? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CashCarSTAR ( 548853 )
      Exactly. Joe is supposed to be anything but hip. A complete and total dweeb. A guy who would rather watch an old cult movie than make out with his GF. A guy who references EVERYTHING in old movie cliches.

      That said, he has more personality than a whole lot of more fleshed out characters.

      Actually, most of the characters in that game were very well done. Sylvia may be the best DiD (Damsel in distress) ever. As well, Alistor is just cool. I really hope they come out with a sequel, just longer this time with m

  • the joy of franchising (Score:3, Informative)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) * on Thursday November 27, 2003 @11:34AM (#7577453) Homepage
    It's hard to make new characters that players will take a serious interest in, back-story or no. One of Nintendo's strengths (especially as seen in a game like Smash Bros) is a roster of characters that gamers are more likely to find a bit more interesting just because they've 'grown up with them'.

    As for the originality of Master Chief...eh, maybe, but probably not. Actually, a lot like the Marine from DOOM, come to think of it...and with voice acting that reminded me a bit of Duke Nuke 'Em / Bruce Campbell. Still, (despite its Marathon roots) at least Halo was definately not a sequel, just an excellent genre game.

  • Jak & Daxter (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JWhiton ( 215050 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @12:40PM (#7577761) Homepage
    This is why when I first saw Jak and Daxter (or however you spell their names) on a magazine cover I just cringed. They were obviously designed to appeal to as many focus groups as possible. I think the Poochie comparison is a good one because they must've drawn them up with 10 people all saying what they wanted in the characters, creating a bizarre amalgamation that doesn't look very good in the end.

    I guess there's a lot of pressure to create franchise characters these days. There's lots of money in creating the next Mario, but somehow I don't think you'll get there if you just combine all the current popular characters into one frankenstein character.
  • A new evil is spreading throughout the industry

    New? This has been going on since at least the Genesis/SNES era. Remember Sega's slogan? We do what Nintendon't? (translated: we're cool, they're not.) It got really bad after games went mainstream during the Playstation 1 era, and has only gotten worse in the latest generation. Remember the ads for things like Medieval? It's goofy, but cool! DigiMon: like Pokemon, but cool!

    Even stupid kids' games like Zapper are advertised as 'edgy.' He's a grass

  • Characters don't make the games, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @03:52PM (#7578558) Journal
    Characters don't make the games, but they certainly can make money. Not only are good characters a boon for fanboys, but if the mainstream really likes the character, there are marketing opportunities. For instance, take venerable Sonic the Hedgehog. There have been five cartoons, three comic book series, and countless products other than the video games. Result: lots of dollars (and especially yen).

    Relevant article [sonicfoundation.org]

  • Hunh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by borg1238 ( 692335 ) on Thursday November 27, 2003 @04:19PM (#7578688)
    But there are plenty of other games to pick on here with Ratchet & Clank getting a similar "darker" makeover in its sequel.

    Am I missing something here? What in Rachet & Clank was "dark?" It seemed like the same tone as the previous game.

    Of course most of these games are now story driven with plenty of cutscenes and dialogue that most gamers could care less about. How do I know they don't care? Most folks still claim they skip the cutscenes on a regular basis whether they're good or not.

    Most folks? Who are these folks? I never skip cutscenes (unless they are just really poorly done). Some of them are almost movie quality (the animation in Jak and Daxter is amazing). I think of them as a reward for making progress in the game. Plus they usually only last about minute. I think I can control the ADD for that long.
  • we need more work put into villans. Anyone remember Natla from TombRaider1? By the end of the game we knew nothing more about Lara (she's english, and archeologist and has big breasts) but we knew a great deal about Natla, and she was pretty damn cool as villans go. The subsequent (bad)games etc have all been about Lara and she's just not very interesting.
  • So basically...it can't be a Good Game if it's designed to appeal to the audience it's being made for?.

    The only Good Game is one that no one else wants to play, because then you can feel like a Real Gamer?

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