@rat-fish Hmm, McShea seems to call out specific mechanics enough that it does seem to be about the game as much as anything, but the game's advertising could be clearer. It is authentic in many ways, but not realistic as a complete package in its depiction of war.
@Hirasugi @c0kemusheen "The People's Liberation and Resistance (آزادیبخش و مقاومت خلق), commonly abbreviated to PLR, is a fictional Iranian paramilitary insurgent group based largely in the Middle East, although with contacts in the Western world."Sorry, but you're still wrong. The portion you quoted doesn't even confirm your previous assertion. And when does this cruel, dehumanizing mowing down of unsuspecting enemies take place in the game? I recall no such sequence.
@Hirasugi Then you weren't paying attention, as the game specifically call out the enemies as PLR, an invading force from Iran. It seems like you're unfortunately using the game unfairly to score political points, so I'll leave that be.
What I want to call out is this idea that art isn't fun. Bullshit. Art does not have a limit of seriousness that enables the ability of something to be art or not. Otherwise, how do you define art?
@rat-fish Indeed, and thus why it's an issue of semantics and what one considers to be the definition of authentic, and perhaps not the best means of criticism for this game.
@rat-fish I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, as it's an impasse we're at. But there's some interesting points to ponder at least.
@rat-fish This is where it gets semantical, however. "Authentic" does not imply realism, or having perfect accuracy, but being evocative of, or containing traits of, the original article. That's why you can get authentic examples of Roman art, or Italian cuisine in Boston, or what have you. Illustrative, but not exacting.Because otherwise, who determines where the line is, and what constitutes that line, for being authentic? Is it permadeath? Resetting back to the beginning of the level, or the entire game? How long should reloading take? How many shots until you die? How many enemies? Even ArmA or Operation Flashpoint take artistic liberties. Are they not authentic then?
@OogamiTaichou While strides are certainly being made, I'd be cautious of holding up Batman as a bastion of storytelling. Even the best games only scratch the emotional surface that other mediums have been mining for years.
@rat-fish What about the people who stood against those things? did they lack integrity? They were standing up for what they believed in, however misguided they were. Therein lies the problem: calling it integrity for standing up for what you say gives a whole lot of people integrity that don't deserve it, such as the people who fought civil rights, or women's rights, or what have you. Do you see what I'm getting at?
@rat-fish The problem lies in McShea's evaluation of the game of something it's not trying to be, which is unfair criticism. The name escapes me, but one of the greatest literary critics said that to criticize a work for being not being something that it wasn't trying to be anyways was not good criticism, and I agree. The game isn't trying to be a sim, so holding it to those standards isn't fair criticism. Something can be authentic, to evoke and reproduce certain feelings or aspects, without being realistic/real, a more direct
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