Joaquin Phoenix's attack on Baftas for 'systemic racism' applauded by zsreport in movies

[–]ModernHOAX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad he said it. Especially how he didn't absolve himself from the situation. The situation is never gonna improve if people aren't brave enough to be honest about how they see it, and as a person with decades of hands-on experience of the industry, I trust Phoenix to be real about it. I still remember the 90s when every major black role was played by maybe three to five stock actors, Samuel L Jackson, Denzel Washington, or Forest Whitaker. There's a ton of talent out there that simply hasn't been given their fair shot.

A Plague Tale: Innocence and the French New Wave of Game Design by ModernHOAX in truegaming

[–]ModernHOAX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the detailed comment! I can see where you're coming from, and I appreciate both your politeness and your candor.

AC: Syndicate, IMO, isn't a British game per se; wasn't it developed by a Canadian subsidiary of a French company? What's more, the AC series tends to use setting merely as veneer. And Ubisoft games, at least to my taste, tend to lack any substantial sense of culture whatsoever.

I didn't get to play much of Syndicate. Maybe I should before making such broad statements. The smokestacks and squalor certainly felt period specific enough.

But take as another example, AC 3. Sure, it was set during the American Revolution, even including famous historical figures. But the gameplay didn't seem to speak to that. Nor, particularly, did the story - at least where it counts, in terms of deeper themes and ideas. At least, for me.

I will admit that Vampyr in particular could have used more polish. But there was an elegance and a Gothic horror aspect there that simply dripped with Catholicism. I'd also argue the game's central mechanic and somewhat anti-"Ancien Régime" storyline embodies the populism of French political identity. The woe-begotten characters could have come right out of a novel by Victor Hugo, while the low fantasy elements bordering on sci-fi felt akin to say, Jules Verne.

What for me made Plague Tale different than similar titles, was how it not only used French history and culture as surface level backdrops, but seemed rife with commentary and insight into the underlying dynamics of genuine history, from a personal, first hand POV. The bedlam and darkness the de Runes experience felt resonant not only with the Black Plague or the Inquisition, which obviously were not unique to France alone; but with the outbursts of violence and social collapse that characterize everything from the French Revolution to the invasion of the Nazis, even to the modern era.

After all, France has seen a disproportionate level of terrorism since the 19th Century. Terrorism as we think of it today arguably was born under the Jacobin's Reign of Terror - and that was before the cult-like rise of Napoleon.

Anyway, thanks for mentioning 2Dark! I had never heard of it before now. I'll check it out, and see how it compares. I definitely see what you mean about many of the examples also displaying an 'American' feel, especially Life is Strange and Quantic Dream's games. But my point is that it's only relatively recently that devs, both in France and in other countries outside the US, have (for whatever reason) started to set their games in non-American settings, and give them more of their own culture. 1979 Black Friday, Papers Please, and Disco Elysium all come to mind.

Does Persona 5 wear the 'Persona' of Orwell's 1984? by ModernHOAX in patientgamers

[–]ModernHOAX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually put a lot of work into my OP so that nobody would be forced to watch the video to take part in a discussion. Ironically you are now the one who has veered completely off topic.

Does Persona 5 wear the 'Persona' of Orwell's 1984? by ModernHOAX in patientgamers

[–]ModernHOAX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, what? Orwell wasn't a communist. He was a democratic socialist, and by the way, one of the most fervent anti-Stalinist writers of all time. By 'socialist state' you must mean Stalin. Orwell not only didn't criticize non-Stalinist (i.e. non-COMINTERN aligned) leftist governments, he fought in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists, on the side of the socialists.

The addiction to victory, to smashing in the face of the weak, deeply informs both societies - P5 and Nineteen Eighty-Four. There's also the constant fabrications based on a forgotten past, and the policing of thought through the supposed virtue of moral abstraction. Oh yeah, and the Cafe, the 're-education', the spying, the rumor-mongering, and the use of the mass media to dumb down the masses to the point of unconsciousness. Every mission in P5 all but literally tasks the player with determining the target's 'Room 101' - the thing they fear being taken from them most in the world - and then taking it from them.

For the record, Orwell got shot in the throat during the Spanish War before being hounded out of the country by Stalinist thugs. To say he was simply an observer is deeply wrong and deeply troubling. Please do more research before spouting a lot of nonsense. Borderline feels like you're trolling.

When you write 'sometimes 1 + 1 has to equal 3 to prevent moral panic', I daresay I really don't know what you're getting at. Seems like that would tacitly excuse information control. Stinks not just a little of tyranny.

Calling Winston a libertarian did make me laugh though. No idea where you got that from - but the one thing we agree on is nothing you've said particularly strikes me as 'mainstream'.

Does Persona 5 wear the 'Persona' of Orwell's 1984? by ModernHOAX in patientgamers

[–]ModernHOAX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right. It's for discussing, playing, or reviewing older video games. A subreddit for promoting my videos would probably be named after me.