Idle Thumbs 228: New Game Plus or Minus World

[Vasari]

How cool would it be if there was a Video game about clowns and your save file was represented as an egg with your character's makeup painted on? And you loaded your game by picking the egg of the character you wanted to play?

[namman siggins]

Here's the Waluigi video if anyone is interested:

[your name here]

Dear Nick: The wheezing is pretty much only on Flaming Buffalo. Most other female recruits won't have that.

[d L c]

  On 9/19/2015 at 10:16 AM, Vasari said:

How cool would it be if there was a video game about clowns and your save file was represented as an egg with your character's makeup painted on? And you loaded your game by picking the egg of the character you wanted to play?

Presumably that's what's on the back of the Last Express egg.

[Henroid]

So something worthwhile is the Game Grumps episodes on Mario Maker. They're playing levels made by Ross (a guy on their network of shows who is infamously a jerk) (and that jerkiness is definitely in his level designs).

[Apple Cider]

  On 9/18/2015 at 1:00 AM, nel e nel said:

Tolerating Tarantino: The Uma Thurman Story

 

 

I am glad that Tarantino was brought up in context of "auteurs with obvious fetishes" because it's so transparent on many levels when a particular visionary laces his creations with his own interests in women's bodies. It's hard  to put your finger on how you know, but you know it when you see it. It's a certain loving camera angle or repetitive theme to poses or clothing or body parts. It's seriously laughable at times. A friend of mine were talking about some of the more illogical parts of Quiet's outfit, like her tiny bikini being hiked up half-way on her boobs and I remembered that that's literally how they dress up gravure models in Japan. 

[tberton]

Not to mention feet. Tarantino loves feet.

[Patrick R]

Considering his primary influences, I always found Tarantino really restrained as far as sex goes. You have a movie like Death Proof that goes farther with the objectification, but for what that movie is trying to do it's entirely appropriate and you could even say necessary. But compared to pretty much everyone else in Tarantino's lane (exploitation and those influenced by exploitation), he's downright prudish.

 

I think he's a good analog to Kojima, but more for his indulgences and the odd shapes his ostensible genre films take than for any kind of leering eye. 

[Dewar]

  On 9/21/2015 at 12:05 AM, Henroid said:

So something worthwhile is the Game Grumps episodes on Mario Maker. They're playing levels made by Ross (a guy on their network of shows who is infamously a jerk) (and that jerkiness is definitely in his level designs).

 

Are they involved in that Youtube Nintendo deal?

[Henroid]

  On 9/21/2015 at 4:49 PM, Dewar said:

Are they involved in that Youtube Nintendo deal?

That's a good question, and actually I'm really curious about what's going on RE: Mario Maker and YouTube. I was really surprised to hear from IT that Nintendo was putting out a lot of take-down notices, but whenever I look up Mario Maker on YouTube there's no shortage of content at all.

[syntheticgerbil]

Wasn't the issue with romhacks and not actual Mario Maker videos?

 

Game Grumps is part of Polaris, which is Disney, which always secures the rights.

[nel e nel]

  On 9/21/2015 at 3:48 AM, Patrick R said:

Considering his primary influences, I always found Tarantino really restrained as far as sex goes. You have a movie like Death Proof that goes farther with the objectification, but for what that movie is trying to do it's entirely appropriate and you could even say necessary. But compared to pretty much everyone else in Tarantino's lane (exploitation and those influenced by exploitation), he's downright prudish.

 

I think he's a good analog to Kojima, but more for his indulgences and the odd shapes his ostensible genre films take than for any kind of leering eye. 

Yeah, I am inclined to agree with you re: Tarantino's indulgences leaning less towards the sexual, and more to the gore/race side of the equation. 

 

The first thing that popped into my mind when they mentioned Tarantino on the podcast was the Dead N***er Storage scene in Pulp Fiction. And of course you can cite any number of violent/gory sequences in any of his films. 

[Badfinger]

Does "This game has really shitty ways of dealing with female characters... GOTY" mean as long as the mechanics are really good we're still at a place where games get a pass for not knowing how to deal with anyone but burly white dudes?

[TychoCelchuuu]

I don't know if it gets a pass - it's sort of like saying Gone With the Wind is a great film even though it's racist as fuck. I'm sure everyone would be thrilled if MGS V weren't shitty and regressive when it comes to women, but t he fact that tit is makes it worse, not bad. If you want to say that everything with problematic elements is bad, then there's pretty much going to be nothing good left.

[Gormongous]

Listening to everyone talk about Super Mario Maker again, it seems really obvious to me that the game lacks "playlist" functionality and general persistence in order to keep people from using the tools to recreate all the official games wholesale. Rather than find a way to recognize and take down copies of World 1 from the user store, they just make each level self-contained. It's not a great decision, but it seems consistent with Nintendo's approach these days.

 

  On 9/23/2015 at 3:15 AM, Badfinger said:

Does "This game has really shitty ways of dealing with female characters... GOTY" mean as long as the mechanics are really good we're still at a place where games get a pass for not knowing how to deal with anyone but burly white dudes?

 
I also think that the strained way that Nick said it was meant to signify the uncomfortable tension between liking something a lot, even just as a gut reaction, and hating some of its constituent parts. It didn't feel like he was unaware of what he was saying.

[Twig]

  On 9/23/2015 at 3:15 AM, Badfinger said:

Does "This game has really shitty ways of dealing with female characters... GOTY" mean as long as the mechanics are really good we're still at a place where games get a pass for not knowing how to deal with anyone but burly white dudes?

Basically what Tycho said.

 

Something can be really great while still having problematic elements and it's okay to like that thing while acknowledging those problematic elements.

[Badfinger]

  On 9/23/2015 at 4:23 AM, Gormongous said:

I also think that the strained way that Nick said it was meant to signify the uncomfortable tension between liking something a lot, even just as a gut reaction, and hating some of its constituent parts. It didn't feel like he was unaware of what he was saying.

 

Oh, I know. Idle Thumbs is the last place I'd accuse of having myopic views of games they're caught up in. That drives the point even harder to me. There was a lot of time spent on the really uncomfortable nature of lecherous lakitu and "but GOTY" felt like it just wiped the air clear of tension. I'd feel differently if it was a character's point of view rather than the game's camera. I don't feel the same way about the Bloody Baron being really regressive and awful, while still being a sympathetic character. I DO feel the same way about the really unfortunate costume change DLC the Witcher 3 has. Is this a point of my own perspective or things that are legitimately separate? They feel different to me, of course, but I'm me so I can't be an outside judge.

[TychoCelchuuu]

  On 9/23/2015 at 4:11 PM, Badfinger said:

Oh, I know. Idle Thumbs is the last place I'd accuse of having myopic views of games they're caught up in. That drives the point even harder to me. There was a lot of time spent on the really uncomfortable nature of lecherous lakitu and "but GOTY" felt like it just wiped the air clear of tension.

I mean, it did wipe the air clean of tension in the sense of "that was a really funny joke" - it's actually super dark humor (which is to be expected from Nick, which is one reason I love him so much). The joke is that we live in a world where the best game of the year can be something that hasn't made it past the Stone Age when it comes to gender, and more specifically the humor is that these two things are being jammed together so abruptly, which is always a good way to make a joke.

[Chris]

Listen to this week's podcast to be dissolved of any illusions that Nick Breckon is giving any passes to anything.

[Apple Cider]

Yeah, I didn't get the sense that Nick was comfy/happy of liking a game that sexualized Quiet in that way but this week kinda nailed that feeling to the wall. 

 

RE: Tarantino and non-overtly sexual fetishes or pursuits in auteurs

You absolutely can fetishize something on a sexual level without it being what we think of as "sexual", that's what a lot of fetishes are. Feet, for instance. This is actually how a lot of people fly their shit under the radar but there's still a very "I know it when I see it" aspect to it you can't ignore. 

[Patrick R]

  On 9/25/2015 at 6:15 PM, Apple Cider said:

Yeah, I didn't get the sense that Nick was comfy/happy of liking a game that sexualized Quiet in that way but this week kinda nailed that feeling to the wall. 

 

RE: Tarantino and non-overtly sexual fetishes or pursuits in auteurs

You absolutely can fetishize something on a sexual level without it being what we think of as "sexual", that's what a lot of fetishes are. Feet, for instance. This is actually how a lot of people fly their shit under the radar but there's still a very "I know it when I see it" aspect to it you can't ignore. 

 

But even the feet in his movies are usually limited to a single moment in a film, and actually have narrative meaning. The brief shot of Uma Thurman's bare feet in Pulp Fiction, Melanie's bare feet in Jackie Brown, the "wiggle those piggies" moment in Kill Bill Vol. 1, these are all interesting character defining moments. Death Proof is more gratuitous, but that movie is a very specific simulation of movies that are more gratuitously sexualized, so I still think it qualifies as a more valid choice than anything Kojima does in the MGS games. 

 

Even in scenes where things could totally be sexualized without question, like the comically framed sex scene between De Niro and Fonda in Jackie Brown or Uma's shirt being ripped open to reveal a tasteful camisole in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino tends to shy away from anything explicit. Compare that to any Russ Meyer or Abel Ferrara or Brian De Palma film, and I still think Tarantino is very demure when it comes to sexuality in his films, even when it comes to his own fetishes.

[Ben X]

"...and J.J. Abrams' Cloverfield."

Poor Matt Reeves, he is the Henry Sellick of found-footage kaiju movies.