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Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

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Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#51

Post by Symmetry »

jmkd wrote: post #29

Forklifts were a highlight for me. When you took Ryu to the arcade to play Space Harrier etc there's a well-established if indirect teasing of the fourth wall. After spending in-game money to beat your in-game (in-game) high score, you begin to ask yourself what on earth you are doing. When Ryu gets the job as the forklift driver this same question leads directly to a beautifully uncomfortable awareness of your self,…

Or Morrorwind if you get through reading the 36 Lessons of Vivec in game.

https://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/the-metaph...

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#52

Post by livueta »

JohnBooty wrote: post #39
livueta wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social issues definitely seem like part of it now, but Kotaku was disliked in hardcore communities well before Gamergate or any of that other nonsense. My recollections of late-2000s Kotaku are similar to how I feel today about a lot of tech publications where personal expertise in their subject area makes it painfully obvious that they don't really know what they're talking about. When you spend hundreds to thousand…

I'm torn here. On one hand, I understand what you're saying. For example, I'm a big fan of Evangelion, and there's a decent amount of meta context to be aware about when going into that series. On the other hand, I think we need fresh (and even naive) looks at these older works. Shenmue, Evangelion, etc -- they should be continually reevaluated and challenged. That's the difference between a living fandom and an echo…

Oh, sure, I didn't mean to critique this article in particular. I thought it was actually somewhat interesting and went off on some fun mental tangents around how the form of the creative medium can influence the message, the obvious example being the interplay of mechanical difficulty and narrative in Fromsoft games. Stuff like this definitely benefits from a fresh perspective. Nobody needs another self-referential addition to the homoerotic subtexts in Madoka fandom wiki page.

Where I and others have had problems in the past tends to be around content that's less interpretive, like this, and more factual, like "a window into competitive play in ___ MMO", where, if you're a competitive player of ___ MMO, the gaps in understanding are on display front and center.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#53

Post by danso »

FactolSarin wrote: post #16
vertline3 wrote: post #3

Who hated forklift driving? Also lots of spoilers here.

The game is 20 years old. I think the spoiler warning period has lapsed.

This made me think on a tangent, on whether divulging spoilers for an interactive experience have a heavier "stigma" than for books or movies. Five or 10 years from now, or even a month from now, I can't imagine being offended if someone were to spoil who dies in "Avengers: Infinity War", or the 3rd season of GoT. Whereas a video game is much more inherently about the "journey" -- e.g. you have to do some work to get to the end. I think I'd be annoyed if people were just spoiling "The Last of Us" 10 years after its release (which is likely to be after its sequel is released).

That said, I don't think I'll ever find time to play the original Shenmue. But hearing more details about why it has cultivated such a fond following makes me very interested in playing its Kickstarted sequel.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#54

Post by bgeeek »

jmkd wrote: post #43
bgeeek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wracking my brain trying to think of early '80s job-simulator games, mostly because there aren't many at all. I'm not sure that I'd class Trashman, Paperboy or Tapper (fond of all 3 btw) as job-simulators. Other than driving and flightsims, I can't think of any from the early '80s :) Late '80s perhaps.

You're probably right. Over time I conflate the concepts found in games like Skool Daze, Make a Chip, My Name is Uncle Groucho, Software Star, Grand National and suchlike that brought together semi-prosaic simulation tasks with a startling self-awareness.

TLL was way ahead of its time, IMHO. Fast forward 10 years and Desert Strike is a hit on the Megadrive! I can vaguely remember proper flightsims on the Speccy (one required a lens-lock! remember those?) :) This is going to bug me now - I'm going to be sat here all evening trying to think up games from back in the day!

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#55

Post by CoolGuySteve »

FactolSarin wrote: post #16
vertline3 wrote: post #3

Who hated forklift driving? Also lots of spoilers here.

The game is 20 years old. I think the spoiler warning period has lapsed.

Unlike other mediums, the number of people who play games has grown exponentially over those 20 years.

I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of people who play games now have never experienced Shenmue even though it was a blockbuster title on the 9 million Dreamcasts that shipped worldwide.

And you're not only spoiling the 20 year old version, you're also spoiling the HD remaster that can be bought right now on PC.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#56

Post by smacktoward »

livueta wrote: post #36
tdb7893 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ton of other people hated it though. Is there a reason people hate Kotaku so much? It's always seemed like a pretty normal game site to me except for the fact it leans a little more liberal on social issues.

Social issues definitely seem like part of it now, but Kotaku was disliked in hardcore communities well before Gamergate or any of that other nonsense. My recollections of late-2000s Kotaku are similar to how I feel today about a lot of tech publications where personal expertise in their subject area makes it painfully obvious that they don't really know what they're talking about. When you spend hundreds to thousand…

> When you spend hundreds to thousands of hours mastering a game and immersing yourself in the culture surrounding it, an article on "your" game, unless it's written by someone as keyed-in to the meta as you are, is likely to come off as a series of poorly informed hot takes. In other words, generalist journalists frequently have a hard time developing the level of experience in a particular area necessary to write about it in such a way that's not laughable to the "experts".

An alternate way to say this is that these communities are incredibly insular, and the most active participants work hard to keep them that way by using their status in the group to set themselves up as gatekeepers, policing the bounds of acceptable opinion. Perspectives that differ from that of the in-group threaten their status, so they react against them violently in order to signal to the group that they're still in charge, nothing to see here, move along.

These gatekeepers also often see their "elite" status in the group as a fundamental part of their self-worth, so they interpret challenges to their ideas as attacks on them personally, and respond in kind. And it doesn't help either that gaming communities tend to disproportionately attract teenagers and young adults, who are right at that moment in life when their passions tend to run hottest.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#57

Post by Animats »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #44
jmkd wrote: post #29

Forklifts were a highlight for me. When you took Ryu to the arcade to play Space Harrier etc there's a well-established if indirect teasing of the fourth wall. After spending in-game money to beat your in-game (in-game) high score, you begin to ask yourself what on earth you are doing. When Ryu gets the job as the forklift driver this same question leads directly to a beautifully uncomfortable awareness of your self,…

A more apt comparison is probably 1999's Tokyo Bus Guide for Dreamcast. The developers of both games were probably aware of each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBxFiNxdso4

That's more like the many Japanese train-driving games.

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#59

Post by MrMember »

outericky wrote: post #28

I barely remember the forklifting... All I seem to remember is everyone saying "Oh, hello Ryo" and talking about "that day, when the snow turned to rain"

Do you know where I can find some sailors?

What can you tell me about the four wudu?

Re: Shenmue's Much-Hated Forklifts Feel Revolutionary Today

#60

Post by gwern »

Symmetry wrote: post #51
jmkd wrote: post #29

Forklifts were a highlight for me. When you took Ryu to the arcade to play Space Harrier etc there's a well-established if indirect teasing of the fourth wall. After spending in-game money to beat your in-game (in-game) high score, you begin to ask yourself what on earth you are doing. When Ryu gets the job as the forklift driver this same question leads directly to a beautifully uncomfortable awareness of your self,…

Or Morrorwind if you get through reading the 36 Lessons of Vivec in game. https://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/the-metaph...

Speaking of Morrowind, one of the things I liked in the extremely long oral history just published the other day ( https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/27/18281082/elder-scrolls-mor... ) was that the Vivec sermons, among other things, are all conflicting and rival accounts because the dev team itself was internally divided and rooting for particular factions:

"It’s never dogmatic. We would tell the stories basically from a character’s point of view, and we were always very careful that anything that was presented was told from that specific viewpoint. So you had conflicting notions of what went on in the world: “What happened to the Dwemer?” Well, one group says this; another says that. “What happened in Red Mountain?”

What was great about that is you would actually have factions develop on the design team: “Vivec and his buddies were actually the bad guys, and they usurped their power.” And, you know, “Dagoth Ur — our main villain — he was the victim in all this.” You had the room to do that back-and-forth. So, whenever we would present any history, it was never quite like, “Well, the dwarves disappeared because of the following reasons.” Each race has their version. What’s the truth?

And that’s kind of the magic of it all."

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