athelind: (Default)
athelind ([personal profile] athelind) wrote2009-08-06 10:30 pm

The Hoard Potato: Heroic Head-Bashing Harp Seal Hunters

I announced today, to my FurryMUCK clique, that I didn't want to see any more trailers for Monster Hunter 3. The game doesn't just annoy me: it actively pisses me off, and worse, it makes me think badly not only of gamers in general but of Japanese culture, in wide, bigoted swaths.

The game is beautifully animated, and the eponymous monsters of the title are magnificently designed. Every trailer looks like a wonderful Discovery Channel nature documentary of a world that never was, full of dinosaurs and dragons and even more exotic creatures -- right up until you get to the gameplay, which involves killing things and dismembering them for their body parts to make cheesy, tawdry consumer goods kewl weapons and armor and magic items.

It's jarring.

The generation that grew up on Cute And Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters has graduated to Heroic Head-Bashing Harp Seal Hunters. Look at these marvelous creatures! The loving detail that went into their creation! The magnificent, balletic fluidity of their motion! LET'S HIT THEM WITH CLUBS!

This is a game that comes from one of the last whaling nations on Earth. I'm sorry -- this is that "wide, bigoted swath" I mentioned -- but I can't help but see a connection.

This doesn't piss me off as a guy who pretends to be a dragon online. This pisses me off as an Environmental Scientist, and a human being raised with some semblance of decency and empathy toward the natural world.

I don't put much credence into combat games as "murder simulators", but I do think the prevalent attitude these games have that animals serve no purpose other than to exploit, enslave or slaughter provides a bad example.

I wish I could believe that this was meant ironically, or as a commentary on the exploitation of the natural world. The unambitious modeling and jerky animation of the player avatars certainly suggests that; they're raw, brutish intrusions on the elegantly savage ballet of the "monsters". A decade of Happy Cartoony Cockfighting Games For Little Children makes that hard, though.


And after all that self-righteous ranting to my homies about how terrible it is to brainwash kiddies into seeing the slaughter and exploitation of magnificent animals as something fun and exciting, I announced that I was gonna go grab a burger before work.
And then, at work, I was chatting with two of my regular customers, and one of them said, "you really need to get a PSP. Do you have any consoles at all? There's this game..."
"Funny thing, that", said I...

[identity profile] silussa.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
I've always found the disconnect between what we advocate and what our games advocate a bit jarring. ("we" in the societal sense)

[identity profile] cpxbrex.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 06:51 am (UTC)(link)
I have a similar struggle with the Splinter Cell games. They're about an illegal NSA black-on-black organization that goes around killing brown people. But, damn, I like playing these games. Even though I know they're a symptom of America's obsession with state sponsored murder in the name of foreign policy, and the idiotic belief a military-intelligence elite should not be restricted by morality or law. But . . . fun games. Oh, no, hehe.

[identity profile] bfdragon.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 07:17 am (UTC)(link)
It's hard for me to decide on this one because I know I'm a bit more sensitive then the usual to the idea of killing dragons and the like, and indeed, monster hunger makes me rather uncomfortable.

However, you brought up the burger you were eating as a joke, but like any animal product that we deal with every day, it's not in essence much different then what whalers might be doing. A cow is slaughtered, then divided up and it's pieces used. Much of it for some low quality fast-food meal. I have to wonder if the seas were brimming with whales, would people see slaughtering them be any different then a cow? Indeed, they didn't in any way until their numbers started becoming scarce. I'm not a vegan, mind you, I don't object to meat or meat eaters. I just think that there is a huge lack of moderation, and a big disconnect between what's behind that brown circular food between the bun and the lettuce.

So my personal disdain of the idea of butchering dragons aside, I think at the core the idea of the game is less disturbing to me then what is really going on behind the slick fast-food marketing where meat is breakfast, lunch and dinner.

[identity profile] athelind.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 02:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Which is exactly why I brought up the burger: not as a "joke", but as a self-examination of my own habits.

[identity profile] silussa.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 07:25 am (UTC)(link)
It's cheap, and people don't have to confront where it comes from. I'm certain that if either changed, the demand for meat would drop off noticeably. Referring to it as "dead flesh", for instance (which is pretty much how a vegetarian DOES think of it) is a major turnoff for folks.

As for whales....at one time they were, and they did. Then they got rare and expensive...and they found alternatives.

The same will probably happen with meat one day; the entire world can't eat like the US does now. The ecosystem simply won't support it sustainably.

Apologies; I appear to have gotten onto a rant which was not intended.

[identity profile] cpxbrex.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 09:01 am (UTC)(link)
I certainly believe that meat should be more expensive, taking into account its environmental effects. But that should be true of everything and meat is hardly the only, or even worse, offender (tho' it's high on the list).

But, uh, no, having to slaughter your own animals does not, in fact, reduce meat consumption. I say this with considerable historical perspective. Farmsteads, manor houses, colonia - people who lived close enough to the land to raise and slaughter their own animals - as well as hunter-gatherer societies were not detracted by either the mess or pain suffered by the animal in slaughter or hunt.

[identity profile] silussa.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Couple of points.

Economically, I suspect meat has the "virtue" of a lot of externalized costs (costs which are not paid by the product, but by others). It certainly does have some success in using almost every bit of the animal; that may subsidize the cost of the meat somewhat.

As for farmsteads and such, if I'm not mistaken, meat was a rarity on the table; it's expensive to raise, relative to vegetables, fruit, and the like. But they certainly knew where it came from; most people, I suspect, would answer "the supermarket" if they were asked where their hamburger came from.

[identity profile] wy.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
I would imagine the amount of meat in a 'farmstead' would be determined by the amount of pasture lands which were not suitable for crops, or the amount of excess foods that require 'reprocessing' by pork, and the total size of the chicken flock. Just a thought. Or, if there were not farmstead at all, but instead it was, say herders...

[identity profile] paka.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 08:06 am (UTC)(link)
I think it's part of the basic disconnect of games.

I mean, you know this one; the designer ideally wants to give the player characters this amazing experience. A DM spends hours making props and writing out detailed, often beautifully imaginative worlds, or a company will hire amazing concept artists, skilled animators, talented composers all to make sure the player has this immersive experience. Then the players will show up.

In a tabletop game, players can and will go anywhere. But options are more limited with computer games, and killing stuff to get boss gear is the straightforward option to set up. It's like having Tolkien set up all of Middle Earth for the sole purpose of having the Fellowship wade through orcs in Moria.

[identity profile] athelind.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 02:36 pm (UTC)(link)
And this is why I don't play computer games.

[identity profile] cpxbrex.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I will slightly disagree. When I was playing Planescape Torment, I was sitting there playing it and, uh, I felt I had more options than in many tabletop RPGs I had been in. You could go and interact with NPCs, your interactions would largely determine the fate of those NPCs, you could solve virtually every mission in a way that was more open ended than many tabletop games.

While it's true that playing with human beings makes your options theoretically more limiting, for many games, most RPGs are, basically, "Walk down this corridor and kill this beast." And a fair number of computer RPGs nowadays, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, games of that ilk, are actually more open-ended than most tabletop games.

Even in a lot of action or shooter games, the stories generally are more open than many tabletop games. They have "morality" systems that change some of the story events in the games. Oh, you end up fighting pretty much all the same people and all, but the games usually have several significant stories to choose between. Which is more than many RPGs where the players don't. They can't choose to save the Republic or destroy it. They don't get to decide if the galaxy will be a democracy or a brutal tyranny.

A few thoughts, hehe.

[identity profile] athelind.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
You know, that's something that we deliberately tried to avoid with the setting material and adventures in Ironclaw. The political situation was set up with the idea that PCs could shift the balance of power, tipping things in favor of one House or another.

Hell, the very first adventure supplement effectively puts the PCs in the position of deciding who sits on the high throne of the land. One of the fun parts about sitting down with IC players from different campaigns is that everyone has a different answer for "how did Rinaldi play out in your campaign?"

The second adventure includes a section about "What Happens if the PCs Fail?" -- which includes options up to and including Zombie Apocalypse Survival Horror Anthropomorphic Fantasy.

On the flip side, that's why the guys GMing the Star Wars Saga games I'm currently playing in have picked Big, Empty, Untouched Chunks of the canon timeline. One's set in the Legacy era, 140 years after the movies (and based on comics written by John "GrimJack" Ostrander); the other's in the Old Republic, in one of those centuries that the KotOR games haven't touched yet. That's expressly so we can decide if the Galaxy will be a democracy or a brutal tyranny, at least for a generation or two.

Both my Star Wars GMs were exposed to Ironclaw relatively early in their gaming careers. As I said in the OP, "I can't help but see a connection." =D

[identity profile] cpxbrex.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I wasn't even doggin' on the one path style of gaming. It's not a bad thing. It's just a thing. A lot of players want to really really be told, "This is the game and your role in it is THIS." They want to be told, "You are the adventurers who save the land from the evil king" and want there to be a series of adventures constructed with only one, really, choice.

Which I think is fascinating. In video games, I'm not really interested in cut scenes. I'm there to play the game. I kind of like them, but they don't make or break a game for me. I have friends - in the Final Fantasy crowd - who live for those cut scenes, that the cut scenes define the game for them, these triggered events over which they have absolutely no control. I asked them why, and they said that it was like watching a movie except you got to play the action scenes. I suspect that a large number of table-top players are after the same experience. They really like bein' on that railroad. ;)

As you know, I don't like it. I'm all about the sandbox. And as a GM, I flatly tell my players, "Ideally, I want YOU to come with the adventures. You will come to me and say, 'I'm interested in those bandits, let's go and kick their asses' or whatever." Hehe.

[identity profile] wy.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 08:17 am (UTC)(link)
I'll disagree. :P

As long as the harvest of baby seals is done in a sustainable manner, and care is taken to ensure that there are no population effects, I don't have a problem with clubbing the little beasties upside the head. it's a bit more sustainable than bullets, after all. I don't buy into this charismatic megafauna squee. They're cute, sure, but they're even cuter when I know that the harvest is being done sustainably, and that the entire critter is being used. Baby seal shampoo, anyone?

I'm an omnivore. And a dragon. Look. Critters are food. Sometimes we kill them ourselves. The best you can do is to do it in a manner that is sustainable, so that we will have cute, tasty noms in the future, and treat it in a manner consistent with your own internal morals prior to doing so. Oh, and enjoy every tasty last bit, hopefully prepared with the greatest of care.

Frankly, I'm slightly dissapointed that y'all don't see this.

[identity profile] athelind.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 02:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Great! Now rationalize cockfighting.

[identity profile] wy.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 03:06 pm (UTC)(link)
(= personal property rights, it's okay to do as you will as long as no sentients get hurt. (Note: harm to sentients can be defined as psychological as well as physical, ymmv greatly). The animals won't care much, it's their instinctual imperative to dominate other animals of their species in a hierarchical society.

And heck, if two sentients want to, willingly, get at fisticuffs no-holds barred, be my guest as long as the are not imposing a social cost to others (health care, etc)

(Anonymous) 2009-08-08 09:05 am (UTC)(link)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

[identity profile] silussa.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
I believe the counter argument is that the seal hunt is necessary to maintain a stable population, as it appears we've done in most of their predators.

I do not know the accuracy of the pair of arguments, which is one reason I tend to avoid that particular subject; I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to make an informed judgement.

[identity profile] mocha-mephooki.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 01:19 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry, but how could people have not known that candy-coated-cockfighting-for-kids games would evolve eventually into an even bigger beast... I mean, wasn't that the whole point of those games?

Keep beating an idea around until it gets tougher and grows into something more powerful that you can beat around all over again?

[identity profile] tombfyre.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I tend to frown upon the battle-monster hunting and slaughter games too. Hell, even Pokemon and Digimon didn't have you roaming around KILLING them all to gut them for weapon components. Blargh. I've always asked myself what I would do if I were in the games actual situation.

The answer would be likely observing and wanting to pet the wonderfully detailed critters, not add their gall bladders to my collection.

[identity profile] galis.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 04:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I really, really liked Shadow of the Collosus. I dunno if you've played it, but this is exactly what you do - go about this big pretty world, find these amazing, incredible beasts, and arbitrarily kill them. Some of them can't even fight back and you can only get hurt by falling.

And all the while, you constantly get this feeling in your gut that this is all so very, very wrong and you're violating something sacred by just being there.

Some folks felt the game needed "normal enemies so it didn't feel so empty" but that's sorta the point. They're not enemies, and the only hostile thing in the game is you.

[identity profile] jirris-midvale.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 04:48 pm (UTC)(link)
You forgot the twist ending - it was basically all a set-up from an ancient evil on some idiot kid. And no one is really too happy you killed all the giant monsters.

Road to hell being paved with good intentions is kind of the theme of the game.

[identity profile] athelind.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I've heard about Shadow, and I've always liked that twist. The only way to win is to not actually play.

...so I guess that's the only video game that I can actually say I've BEATEN.

[identity profile] jirris-midvale.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 06:39 am (UTC)(link)
It was a very beautiful game, actually. Besides being very breathtaking and excellent in the story telling, it was the first game I played that really made me question a lot of the elements that exist in most of the videogames I played.

What I played after that was Bioshock, which was the other 'this game will make you question the guiding voice' I've done. Very interesting back to back.

[identity profile] rikoshi.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Shadow of the Colossus is one of the few video games that I actively consider to be "art."

[identity profile] jirris-midvale.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
The only thing I can point out in a devil's advocate way here is this:

Most games in a fantasy setting do have the 'find this monster, kill it, and bring me stuff'. I'm not just talking about WoW here, but even DnD. I mean, what is a dungeon crawl besides an intrusion into an environment free of man, killing everything inside, and taking the choice bits home? Sure, the dragon is 'evil', but you're still going in there to fuck up his shit and later take his blood to an alchemist for eleventy billion gold.

Monster Hunter basically is a hyper-streamlined version of this. Find a monster, kill it, take its stuff, repeat.

Someone else mentioned Shadow of the Collosus elsewhere on this thread and it's an awesome treatment of ye olde treasure hunter meme. You go around killing these amazing and inspiring monsters because some shadowy dude made a deal to bring back a dead chick for you.

In the end it's revealed what a stupendous fuck up this is, and the girl is more offended that you killed the gaurdians than she is happy you brought her back.

It makes you feel fucking awful and question the sort of 'kill quests' you get in just about every fantasy game ever.

[identity profile] athelind.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Most games in a fantasy setting do have the 'find this monster, kill it, and bring me stuff'.

This had occurred to me, actually.

You will note that, whenever the subject matter comes up, I complain that the "dungeon fantasy" genre lost most of its appeal for me decades ago. I think you just hit on a big part of the reason why.

Perfect icon for "playing Devil's Advocate", BTW.
Edited 2009-08-07 23:42 (UTC)

[identity profile] jirris-midvale.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 06:51 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I kinda lost the love of killquests a while ago myself. Part of why I like games that are much more character driven in general, be they tabletop, crpg, or otherwise. Part of why I couldn't stick with WoW.

I'm absurdly happy with the sporadic dnd game I'm in just because of that - there are monsters and dungeoncrawls, but they definitely take a backseat to what magnificent bastards all the humanoid characters are. Pretty much everyone, pc and npc, are such huge assholes that monsters are really more like scenery and plot-driving than the point. Sure, there are monsters, but the real drive is the jerk who keeps sending them to screw with us. The only real 'kill those things/take stuff' we had I mostly dealt with off camera all sneaky rogue-guy style.

And yes, I love this icon. You know I am an arrogant bastard, so you know why it worksm

[identity profile] stalbon.livejournal.com 2009-08-07 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I highly suggest you go and find the trailers for 'The Cove', which is a documentary/real-life thriller of sorts regarding the Japanese whaling industry. It's slated to come to theatres soon. As for the game in question, I've never played it. I saw the first one, realized what it was about, and knew that it didn't really appeal to me.

[identity profile] bfdragon.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
Actually, one thing that I think bothers me more then the Monster Hunter game is one of the middle Harry Potter movies, where a major scene revolved around a game with wyverns that essentially amounted to bear-bating. At least Monster Hunter sounds like they make -some- use of their query. In Harry Potter they were simply killed for sport.

[identity profile] rikoshi.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
You know, MY big problem with Monster Hunter 3 is that I think it's just plain shitty game design. It's very "Japanese" in that the core gameplay literally revolves around doing the same thing, over and over and over and over, with no variance, just so that you can get better at doing the exact same thing. It's basically "Addictive Cycle: The Game."

...

But then, since I do work in the game industry, I guess my opinion is bound to be a bit skewed from yours. :)

[identity profile] athelind.livejournal.com 2009-08-08 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, The Grind is ANOTHER big reason why I don't play computer games.*

It's just not the one that leaps out and SMACKS me when I watch these trailers.

*And yeah, I know that not all computer games suffer from it. But most adventure games are either Grinds or, as [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] puts it above, "ridin' the railroad" -- if not both.