boo boo

I remember someone citing Halo 3's story as an epic masterpiece that "belongs on the self alongside Homer's Iliad and Odyssey".

I'm sorry, dosen't the main character in this game look like a freaking paintball player?

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

boo boo

Well, I don't really think he tries to hide his bias, he uses it for comedic effect. When he did a review of Brawl he admitted to not having played the previous Smash games and for hating fighting games in general.

So yeah, he's biased as all hell, and everybody but his stupidest fanboys know it. However I credit him for never trying to be objective.

Also, he makes point and click adventure games for a living, they look pretty bad.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

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Guybrush

Oh yes, he's not hiding the fact he's not the best reviewer so I don't think he tries to trick people into thinking he's more able than he is. I've hung around some gaming forums though where threads were made every time he reviewed stuff and then I was surprised at how many people seemed to take him more serious than I would.

It's really a problem with those people though, not so much Yahtzee who I think is occasionally funny.

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Something Completely Different

Fruitonica

I wasn't trying to be all that negative, just poking some fun. But if we get down to it, I kind of felt like it was a regression from a good point. Games like Mario and Sonic run on a lovely childlike logic, and some detailed backstory is the last thing they need.

Not that you shouldn't, it's no different than me plunging my troupe of stuffed monkeys through various misadventures when I was a kid.

boo boo

I was pondering about that earlier. This is what I've come up with.

Ocarina of Time is the first one. The creators pretty much said that this takes place before all the other Zelda games, LTTP, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess all directly reference the events of this game.

There's a lot of things that makes it confusing to sort the timeline out, one is the fact the events in Ocarina have triggered two alternate timelines. Yeah, that's right, there's actually two timelines in the Zelda universe, no wonder it's so confusing.

The first one starts from when Link is still a child in OOT, in this one Ganon has been properly defeated and sealed away forever (or so we thought), Majoras Mask is part of this timeline as it's set right after the events of OOT, with Link still in his child form. Twilight Princess is also a part of this timeline.

The other timeline starts from when Link is an adult in OOT, in this one, Hyrule is still the way Ganon left it. Eventually Hyrule is flooded, becoming the great sea as seen in Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. Now if you remember, in Wind Waker one of your subquests was to plant trees throughout the world, the purpose of which is that over time these will become massive deku trees that will drawn out the great sea.

IMO the next game in the second timeline is Minish Cap followed by the Four Swords games, there are cutscenes that show these games being set on a small island in a vast ocean, so it's easy to make the connection to Wind Waker for that reason alone. Also, from these games onward, Ganondorf is always in his beastly Ganon form, which is a cursed result of him using the triforce of power. FSA explains the origins of Ganon's trident, which he never had in the previous games in the timeline, it also proves that this game takes place before LTTP.

Link's Awakening is considered a direct followup to LTTP, and I'm compelled to believe that the Oracle games feature the same link as LTTP as the artwork depicts him with a very similar design as that of LTTP, and once again they feature Ganon, with his trusty trident.

We know that LOZ and Zelda II are set after Ocarina and LTTP. So that leads me to believe that the first two Zelda games are also the last two in the second timeline, funny how that works.

So in short.

Timeline 1:
Ocarina of Time
Majoras Mask
Twilight Princess

Timeline 2:
Ocarina of Time
Wind Waker
Phantom Hourglass
Minish Cap
Four Swords and Four Swords Adventure
LTTP
Link's Awakening
Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages
Legend of Zelda
Zelda II

I don't quite know where Spirit Tracks will place in the timeline but Wikipedia states that it takes place 100 years after Phantom Hourglass.

So yeah, I hope you found this helpful. I'm the greatest source of useless knowledge on this forum.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

LoathsomePete

So far this video has done the best job at explaining it for me

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Last.FM
101 Albums That May Not Change Your Life, But I Really Like And You Might Too

boo boo

He makes some fascinating points, like that undead guy from TP actually being Link from OOT and MB. Seriously the Zelda series is FULL of these kinds of cryptic clues, like the reappearing sheikah symbol for example.

But I think his timeline is way off, I think mine makes a whole lot more sense.

He has LTTP and the Four Swords games way too far apart, they're very closely connected. In the GBA version, the Four Sword actually makes a cameo appearance.

Though it's now a bit confusing, I think MC and the FS games take place before LTTP because they explain where Ganon got his trident, which he had in LTTP. But if the master sword was destroyed before the events of MC then how did it end up in LTTP?

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

boo boo

57: "Video games are not a true art form"

We've all heard it before, either it's not an art form or it's still in it's immature stage.

Well I got news for you, it's always gonna be in that immature stage, get the f*ck used to it.

Weither it's fat plumbers jumping on turtles or somebody getting teabagged. Video games are by definition, immature. That is what's so ingenius about video games. It's the ultimate form of role playing. It's not for those who want to be mature, it serves the exact opposite purpose and that's what makes it more distinctive from other forms of art.

Games are meant to be fun. Where is the fun in maturity?

The people who refuse to accept video games as an art form are no different from people who refused to accept rock n roll as an art form in the 50s.

The huge problem here is that in order for some people to accept video games as a true art, it should adopt the same characteristics as movies, literature and so on. But then video games would lose all it's uniqueness and the only difference about it would be the interactive element.

People mostly criticize video games for being too simplistic in their story structure, and following the same old traditional archtypes. The charismatic hero (Mario, Link, Sonic), the dorky but lovable sidekick (Luigi, Navi, Tails), the damsel in distress (Peach, Zelda, Amy), the evil twin (Wario, Dark Link, Shadow) and of course the bad guy (Bowser, Ganon, Robotnik).

But what might be lacking in film and literature is a virtue in video games, the story is not as important to a game as the experience, these age old archtypes just plain suit the gameplay better than a script by J.D. Salinger ever would. Again I'm not against complex stories in video games.

I would love to see more video games based on literature. Seriously, why haven't they made games based on Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Homer's Oddysey or Frank L. Baum's Oz books? Who wouldn't want to experience these classic stories? I admit I'd rather see games based on classic literature then crappy movie tie ins, perhaps the industry would benefit from such an idea.

While an epic story is good to have though, the important artistic elements in a video game is the aesthetic appeal of it and the gameplay mechanics, yes. Gameplay is a form of art in my opinion, the gameplay is the interactive experience, that is what makes a game... a game.

So for that, I don't consider Pac Man any less of a work of art than the sistine chapel. And yes I say that with complete seriousness.

Ocarina of Time IMO was the height of video games as an art when it came out. It wasn't the story that made it great, it was how you felt like you were a part of the story, the experience, the feeling like you were actually part of this vast world different from your own. That is the beautiful quality of video games.

I'm glad we have games like Okami and Ico that are pushing foward the aesthetics of video games to new heights. I do consider aesthetics to be important to a video game, and note that I use the term aesthetics rather than graphics.

Video games are a form of art, and I don't really care what art snobs have to say about it. But it's not really art snobs that most annoy me concerning this topic, it's modern gamers.

So now it's time to take my rant into a completely different direction.

Most gamers now don't value video games for their artistic potential, but how quick a fix they can get from a game, that's why they play the same unimaginative space marine games over and over, they don't value the experience, they value "the fix". This is why I think video games are going through the sh*tter right now. Too many gamers care about how much content the game has and how much instant gratification they get because too many gamers now are f*cking impatient, they can't appreciate a real challenge and the beauty of video games in the past was that they rewarded your patience. Too many gamers are stupid and ADD afflicted to understand that concept now.

Where's the fun in getting everything right away? Working hard for something and getting rewarded for it is one of the most important parts of video games as an experience, gamers now don't care about the experience, they care about "the fix" and how much time they can kill before they go to a bar to get wasted with their douchebag friends, even the so called "true gamers" seem to think of games as nothing more than a diversion, and that is sad.

Modern gamers only care about the retarded technical stuff, that is what keeps video games from being taken seriously as an art form. Gamers call the Wii a piece of sh*t because it dosen't have advance graphics, then turn around and call an artistically ambitious game crap because "the graphics don't make the game". What a bunch of f*cking hypocrites.

These people don't have a goddamn clue what good graphics are, they have no souls, everything is just numbers to them. They equate quality with technicality.

Wind Waker had great graphics, not technically advanced graphics mind you. Gears of War has technically advanced graphics, and yet I think the graphics f*cking suck. Now tell that to an Xbox fanboy and see what happens, they tell you that it's a "fact" that it has good graphics.

No, it's not a fact. And this is what gamers need to learn. There is nothing factual about the experience one gets from a game. Games are no different than movies or albums, they mean differnet things to different people. And gamers need to stop looking at themselves as part of a consumer demographic and more as different inidividuals with different tastes.

Too many gamers objectify what "good" graphics are, or even what "good" gameplay is, or even what "good" video game music is, or what a "good' video game story is. Every video game review I've ever read is nothing but the technical aspects of a game, nobody ever talks about how a game makes them feel and that bugs the piss out of me.

Today's gamers forget that video games are like every other form of art and entertainment, it's subjective.

Good gameplay is not just how convenient everything is made for you (which is what stupid gamers today think), it's the experience. I want more than just f*cking convenience out of a video game. I want video games that suck me into the world I'm playing in, that is the artistic brilliance of video games and I hate that so many gamers don't even f*cking understand that concept.

So for all you art snobs out there, don't hate on video games for not being able to reach it's true artistic potential, hate on the stupid f*cking idiots that play them.

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It's only knock n' knowall, but I like it

http://www.last.fm/user/kingboobs

mr dave

art is meant to reflect the human condition.

how does a video game achieve that? final fantasy 7 came close, the majority of everything else does not. escapism != human condition.

we literally spent a week in college tearing this idea apart.

like it or not, they're not art. artsy for sure, but not art.

same as your 'gripes about video games in general' are just veiled nintendo fanboy rants / ghost arguments against all the 'modern gamers' who've never looked at this site.

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i am the universe

WolfAtTheDoor

To detract from the ensuing argument, I checked out Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation reviews. I have to say, I find them very amusing.

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