4 ms·

It's very much an anti-war game with civilians lining up on the way in and ending up as gravestones on boot hill on their way out. But it's not too in your face

It's very much an anti-war game with civilians lining up on the way in and ending up as gravestones on boot hill on their way out. But it's not too in your face, which is part of the brilliance of the game. You can just play it as a fun action game.

somenameforme 4y ago
Another excellent example of this was Starship Troopers. There were those that 'got it' and those that did not [1]. The one critical thing about subtlety versus overtness is that the former may be understood by a smaller chunk of your audience than the latter, but it will tend to leave a far greater impression. A point lost on much of contemporary Western media. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/11/11/goosestepping-at-the-movies/83272787-18ae-4126-b8c4-3d46b1b31277/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/11/11/...
- vba616 4y ago
  >The one critical thing about subtlety versus overtness is that the former may be understood by a smaller chunk of your audience than the latter Every time I read a paraphrase of this, I think for a second they're talking about Heinlein, and then I go oh...yeah...
  - zmix 4y ago
    Care to elaborate for the smaller chunk? ;-)
    - somenameforme 4y ago
      Verhoeven, who lived through Nazi occupation as a child, created the film. Initially it had nothing to do with Starship troopers, but gained branding rights later on at which point the original movie (Bug Hunt at Outpost 7) was merged. Might you ever, in a million years, want to live in the world he builds? No, nobody* would. Yet could you imagine reasonable people finding allure in the ideology that's represented? Absolutely. Verhoeven doesn't really misrepresent that ideology, but instead also shows it leads to an absolutely horrific world without ever really appealing to any unimaginable scenarios. In other words he's not trying to show that the ideal is "evil", he's trying to show where it can lead. And this is far more compelling than modern satire of a similar nature which fails because it largely focuses on trying to make the ideals themselves so unimaginably evil that nobody could ever possibly be genuinely drawn to them without exceptional "otherizing", perhaps contributing to the ever widening perception gap. [1] This issue is perhaps once of the many reasons history seems to just play on an endless loop. In an effort to emphasize how wrong the past was we demonize it ever more. Yet if one goes out seeking the Devil, a grizzly beast wielding a pitch fork, forked tongue, and flames lapping about him, then you'd certainly never to stop imagine that the otherwise normal looking man in front of you is one and the same. The more we demonize the past beyond recognition, the less there is to learn from it. [1] - https://perceptiongap.us/ https://perceptiongap.us/
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  "Starship Troopers" is clearly a propaganda film created in a future militaristic society, something like "Why we fight" of their time. Would you like to know more?
vba616 4y ago
>gravestones on boot hill "Here lies a programmer. Killed by a fatal error." https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Source:NetHack_3.6.1/dat/epitaph.txt https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Source:NetHack_3.6.1/dat/epitap...
watwut 4y ago
I kinda feel like the line for "antiwar game" (or frequently movie too) is super low. You put in one small sad thing or one scene of someone in pain and it gets called antiwar. Even if overall players don't tend to come out with no conclusion like that and no understanding of what are the issues of War.

somenameforme 4y ago

Another excellent example of this was Starship Troopers. There were those that 'got it' and those that did not [1]. The one critical thing about subtlety versus overtness is that the former may be understood by a smaller chunk of your audience than the latter, but it will tend to leave a far greater impression. A point lost on much of contemporary Western media. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/11/11/goosestepping-at-the-movies/83272787-18ae-4126-b8c4-3d46b1b31277/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/11/11/...

vba616 4y ago
>The one critical thing about subtlety versus overtness is that the former may be understood by a smaller chunk of your audience than the latter Every time I read a paraphrase of this, I think for a second they're talking about Heinlein, and then I go oh...yeah...
- zmix 4y ago
  Care to elaborate for the smaller chunk? ;-)
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    Verhoeven, who lived through Nazi occupation as a child, created the film. Initially it had nothing to do with Starship troopers, but gained branding rights later on at which point the original movie (Bug Hunt at Outpost 7) was merged. Might you ever, in a million years, want to live in the world he builds? No, nobody* would. Yet could you imagine reasonable people finding allure in the ideology that's represented? Absolutely. Verhoeven doesn't really misrepresent that ideology, but instead also shows it leads to an absolutely horrific world without ever really appealing to any unimaginable scenarios. In other words he's not trying to show that the ideal is "evil", he's trying to show where it can lead. And this is far more compelling than modern satire of a similar nature which fails because it largely focuses on trying to make the ideals themselves so unimaginably evil that nobody could ever possibly be genuinely drawn to them without exceptional "otherizing", perhaps contributing to the ever widening perception gap. [1] This issue is perhaps once of the many reasons history seems to just play on an endless loop. In an effort to emphasize how wrong the past was we demonize it ever more. Yet if one goes out seeking the Devil, a grizzly beast wielding a pitch fork, forked tongue, and flames lapping about him, then you'd certainly never to stop imagine that the otherwise normal looking man in front of you is one and the same. The more we demonize the past beyond recognition, the less there is to learn from it. [1] - https://perceptiongap.us/ https://perceptiongap.us/
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
"Starship Troopers" is clearly a propaganda film created in a future militaristic society, something like "Why we fight" of their time. Would you like to know more?

vba616 4y ago

>gravestones on boot hill "Here lies a programmer. Killed by a fatal error." https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Source:NetHack_3.6.1/dat/epitaph.txt https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Source:NetHack_3.6.1/dat/epitap...

watwut 4y ago

I kinda feel like the line for "antiwar game" (or frequently movie too) is super low. You put in one small sad thing or one scene of someone in pain and it gets called antiwar. Even if overall players don't tend to come out with no conclusion like that and no understanding of what are the issues of War.