I disagree with the review. For one, it only considers the standpoints of "old-school fans". For some reason the only perspective possible for this release is that of someone who has already played the game. Was the GameCube version of Ocarina of Time worth it if you own the one version on the N64. Not really. Was it worth it if you had never played the game before? Sure.
I have never played All-Stars before. I only played it at some places (a friends house, and once in a shopping mall I believe), and I would really like to own this package. Getting the original cartridge is certainly going to cost you more than 25$, especially if you don't own a SNES (which I don't). I'm going to buy the game this Christmas, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a superb time playing the game. Why is it so impossible to just write a review and say "Hey guys, it's a superb game, but you know what, if you already own it, don't buy it twice!". That would have made more sense, especially because everyone is just trying to act all shocked and all, but there really isn't anything surprising about all this.
First of all, this isn't Mario's 25th anniversary. I've been trying to tell this to everyone for so many times, but we're celebrating the 25th anniversary of SUPER MARIO BROTHERS, released alongside the NES in 1985. Mario is older than that. His first appearance is arguably in Donkey Kong, though he was only named Mario in Donkey Kong Jr. I believe, back in 1982. So we're only celebrating the "Bros" games.
Next fact: Super Mario World, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine and a whole bunch of spinoffs ware available/playable on the Wii. Did anyone really expect Nintendo to try and meddle with the sales of its own games on the VC? Did anyone think ANY company for that matter was going to do that?
Considering these two facts, I'm ALMOST inclined to say Nintendo has more than enough reason to release ONLY these four games on the collection. And that's just fine by me. And I'm guessing 95% of the unsatisfied people already own these games. I don't see how getting these games in their exact same form was going to alter the situation. Were you really going to get the game so you could have Super Mario 64 on both a N64 Cartridge, the Virtual Console AND a Wii Disc? Why would that be worth your money?
The last thing I was going to talk about is something I'm only vaguely knowledgeable about, so pardon me if I make some (or a lot) of mistakes here and there. Super Mario All-Stars is a SNES game. If I'm correct, SNES games are programmed in Assembly Language, right? I think most game developers would consider programming a video game in assembly language an absolute pain, especially now that we're 25 years into the future, and such a thing has become obsolete in the world of game development. Going back and "altering" a ROM from 1995 written in assembly language is not all that easy, and I'm pretty sure "making it widescreen" is actually a pretty daunting task. I'm sure there wouldn't be a whole lot of people working internally at Nintendo who would be even comfortable doing so. Now, someone might say, "What about those GBA remakes, they did it for those games, right?". I'm not sure. I think they were actually remade from the ground up for that system, using SMAS as the base. And those games retailed for 50$ EACH. Surely that would have supported the development costs. Surely, they could have done a "complete remake" of SMAS, That would have cost them a bunch of cash, and perhaps the remake wouldn't even have seen the light of day. And perhaps this would have resulted in an uproar of the fans who wanted them to stay true to the original games.
What I mean to say is that the situation isn't as simple as it looks, and we all knew this was just going to be a simple port when it was first announced, right? Who seriously expected something else, looking at the evidence on display?
So, I'll write my own little review of the game:
Super Mario All-Stars is a collection of three superb remakes of three already fantastic games, plus a nice remake of a somewhat mediocre game (The Lost Levels). Those who have never played it should consider it a must-buy, and those who already own it probably shouldn't consider buying it again. Unless of course they really, REALLY want two copies of the game. Sure, Nintendo could have included some nice extra stuff in here, but you can view as much old commercials, art-work, music or whatever for free on the internet. If we're going to judge the game merely on the cosmetic aspect, I think we're doing something wrong here.
There. That's it. That's pretty much wrapped up all there's to say about it I think. In conclusion, I think I should summarize by saying that I think people have judged this based purely on their dissatisfaction with the goodies, instead of just admitting that this is a superb game. I don't think this was made for the fans at all. I think Nintendo just wanted to re-introduce younger folks to great games of yore. If more companies decide to do this, fine by me. You can call it a cash-in, cheap, a sell-out, call it whatever you want. But I'm enjoying it immensely, just like many other people, and surely there can be nothing wrong with that?
Alright, time to add my two cents to this article!
First of all, I respect everyone's opinion about this, and I have no intention to offend anyone (I can often be a bit harsh), but I do have a rather strong opinion on the subject.
Let's get some things straight first. I like Metroid: Other M. It's a great action game, and despite some occasionally wonky controls, I think it's a great attempt to bring the classic Metroid side-scrolling games to a more modern 3D style, and I would like Nintendo to continue down the 2D/3D road. However, I have some problems with the story in Other M, and I think this article largely ignores the TRUE reasons of the negative backlash.
You see, Other M is not the first game to portray Samus as a character with real emotions. Pretty much every game since Metroid II have given us insight into the protagonist. I think the designers have always managed to put a great amount of story into the key sequences of the games, and I do have the feeling that Samus has developed a strong character over the course of the games, perhaps a little slowly.
Other M differs in two different ways for me:
1) The narrative framing is TOO different. Let's take the previous Metroid games and have a look at them. Samus does talk a few times during those games, but it's all pretty limited. It's safe to say that Samus remains largely silent throughout the series. To me, Samus was always a character that seemed cursed in a way. Since the assault on KL-2, Samus seems destined to hunt down the Space Pirates, and the Metroids they try to abuse. All of her attempts seem futile, as she constantly seems to re-encounter the enemies she thought she had wiped out for good (Ridley, the Space Pirates, Mother Brain, the Metroids). She's locked in an eternal battle that is both intensely personal and of intergalactic important at the same time. And yet, she seems to accept this terrible destiny without hesitation. She knows she was made to do this, and I find this strong selfless behavior very touching. I think we all wish we could of be of importance to someone, but we get scared when it asks too much of ourselves. Not for Samus. She has no home. She knows no peace. She's always out there. Now, some people might say: "She's a bounty hunter, of course she's always doing missions!". For me, that's not entirely true. Sure, Samus frequently receives "missions" from the Federation, but we don't actually see that happening in the games. In fact, we never see Samus receiving a "true" reward, we don't see her enjoying fame and the biggest reward I can remember that she gained was either the 5 second applause from the Luminoth in Prime 2 or a salutation from Admiral Dane in Prime 3. Other M creates a stronger connection between Samus and the Federation, featuring a large amount of Federation soldiers and a HUGE amount of voice acting. To me, this diminishes the feeling of selflessness that was always such a strong part of Samus because it once again puts an emphasis on the fact that she, after all, a bounty hunter. Metroid Prime 3 already had voice acting and a more cinematic presentation, and I never liked that. However, I could sort of understand the decision. After all, Corruption was the end of a trilogy, and no doubt Retro wanted to give the game a more "epic" feel to make sure players really felt like they were playing the closing chapter in a long saga.
2) The next issue is the biggest problem with the game. In fact, I'd say it's a huge problem that's been plaguing Japanese gaming for the last 12 years or so. I'd something I always like to refer to as "explicit characterization" (I know, it's a stupid term). What this means is that the developers try to make the protagonists more interesting by giving them several different characteristics. And then they shove it in your face. They shove it in your face so HARD that your nose starts to bleed. How common is to see characters from Japanese games complain about their feelings or give you elaborate explanations about how the feel or experience a certain situation? It's pretty much in every contemporary jRPG. Now, you may say "What's wrong with that?". My problem is that this is not how it works. People aren't like this. Our minds don't work like this. For starters, we usually don't talk openly about our problems. Two people often have to work very hard to truly "understand" each other. We also don't understand our own minds well enough to explain our behavior. We often find ourselves being happy or sad, but can we truly explain why? We are often afraid of things. For example, I'm afraid of talking to people I don't know or entering buildings that I don't know the layout of. I would have a lot of trouble explaining someone why, even though it's a big part of my life. The human mind is immensely complex, and we lie to ourselves constantly to make things even more difficult. I now of very few people that are willing to talk so openly about their ACTUAL emotions. Sure, you must of met hundreds of people that complain about this or that, or act like they were hurt by something, or who say they hate someone, etc. But these are all very superficial emotions that mostly take place within the frame of our society. Samus is open about her feelings in a way that not only works in an alienation way, but also in one that comes across as unconvincing. Let's take another medium/form for example. Let's say you were watching a (good/mature) movie about a dysfunctional family where the husband and wife are having trouble living together. How would we notice this? Would the film be successful by letting the husband or wife narrate the entire thing in first person rambling on and on about how she feels towards her husband? Most likely not. The feeling of social discomfort is often achieved by given away by small signs of annoyance. They might not take much interest in each others hobbies. They might talk about different things to each other over dinner, or they might be silent during a ride in the care. Perhaps the wife would never looks her husband in the eyes, or they might sleep with their backs turned to each other. These are all small and perhaps silly examples, but I think you get my point. Telling us about the characteristics and emotions of characters is much more satisfying when it is slowly revealed and when the viewer/player/reader has an active involvement in the process (the process of deducting those very emotions from the behavior of the people that play a large role in the story). In other words, it's often better to avoid the "explicit characterization". I recently saw the film adaption of Richard Matheson's brilliant novel I Am Legend. I didn't expect all that much from it, but I still wanted to give it a chance because I loved the novel so much. In the end I thought it was a piece of for various reasons. The most obvious criticism would be that the film was not even remotely similar to the novel (Here's a small anecdote: leading up towards the release of the movie, there was a small qui that was being organized on the main site of MSN. My sister saw it and asked me to answer the question because she knew I read the novel. The question was "What creatures live on the post -apocalyptic Earth in I Am Legend". I said the answer was "Vampires". Everyone who read the novel knows that this is the correct answer. But according to the quiz, it was incorrect. The correct answer was "Zombies". And indeed, as I afterwards saw, the movie barely explains that the creatures are Vampires, and it is indeed more likely to assume that they are zombie-like creatures. THAT'S how unfaithful it is to the novel. But I'm getting off-topic). But another criticism is that the main character was WAY too vocal for my tastes. If I would have made the movie, I would have chosen to let the Robert remain largely silent. The power of telling us messages through visual and aural means is HUGELY underestimated these days. Another example: The Thin Red Line. A lot of people I know HATE Terrence Malicks third masterpiece because of the voice-over narrations. To a lot of people, the poetic first-person narrations (I couldn't find an example on YouTube, but a good quote/sample is used in the first part of a song called Have You Passed Through This Night by Explosions in the Sky, which you can listen to here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cr1w9liUjE) of the movie sound pretentious or impenetrable. I don't agree. I think a lot of people mistake the actual words being spoken for true things being told by the characters. I don't see it like that. To me, these narrations are simply thought from the deepest subconsciousness of the characters put into words. These thoughts are unframed by the definitions of emotions found in our contemporary society, thus making them more free for interpretation and (for me at least) more touching. Yet ANOTHER example would be the first person narration used in the film adaptation of The Road (which I thought was a very fitting, beautiful and humble adaptation of a deeply moving novel). In the opening lines The Man (played by Viggo Mortensen) gives us an overview of the situation on the devastated Earth. He talks to us about the death of trees, animals, the cannibalism, and the fading hope in both him and his son. Some people once again interpret this as an "explicit way" of talking about the emotions of the characters. ONCE AGAIN I disagree (are you surprised?). It is the cold, dry and hopeless way of speaking about these terrible things that makes this scene so beautiful and haunting, not the actual things being said per sé. One last example from that same film. There is a scene where The Boy basically says he want to go up to his dead mother, who he believes is in heaven.
They could have said it like this: The Boy: "Pop, I want to die so I can be with Mommy in heaven."
But that would have ruined the entire movie and would have resulted in either a facepalm or a loud yelp of agony from me. Instead this is what was really said.
The Man and The Boy are sleeping in a truck. The Man is still awake but The Boy is lying in a bed behind The Man. The Boy: "I wish I was with my Mom." The Man hesitates: "Do you mean you wish you were dead?" The Boy: "Yeah."
When I first saw this scene in the movie it hit me like a sledgehammer. I literally felt like the air was knocked out of my lungs and I immediately felt tears well up in my eyes. It's a moment you only experience a few times in your life.
Okay, now I'm really getting a bit off-topic. What I'm trying to say is that it's pretty much NEVER a good idea to serve your story, characteristics and emotions in an "explicit" way to your reader/player/viewer. It makes little sense compared to our real world, it destroys all room for interpretation, and it insults the intelligence of the reader/player/viewer, as it insinuates that we wouldn't be able to figure it out on our own. All those things are situations a competent script-writer would want to avoid. The writes of Other M made those mistakes on top of a script that was already mediocre, and slaps some so-so voice-acting on top of it, including a rather unfitting.
And, as a final note, I would like to chime in on the entire "high heels" issue. I usually find high-heels very unattractive, and I often find it irritating that this is imprinted on the mind of women as "universally attractive and feminine". We should all wear what we find attractive, not just because we know other people think we look good because the person resembles the stereotype built up in the media. It makes Samus more of a female stereotype than she ever was in my opinion (Yes, I know she only wore a bikini at the end of the first Metroid on NES, but how else would you make it so that there would be absolutely no mistake what so ever about her femininity with 8-bit graphics?). On top of that, it makes absolutely ZERO sense for the tasks she has ahead of here, including sprinting at lightning speed and wall-jumping! And it makes her look like the stupid shoe-shopping shallow blonde that I always thought she wasn't.
There. That's pretty much all I've got to say about the subject I think. It's not her emotions that are most bothersome, but the way she shows them to us. Sorry for going on for so long, but I wanted to make my first post here super-awesome!
Comments 153
Re: Review: Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition (Wii)
I disagree with the review. For one, it only considers the standpoints of "old-school fans". For some reason the only perspective possible for this release is that of someone who has already played the game. Was the GameCube version of Ocarina of Time worth it if you own the one version on the N64. Not really. Was it worth it if you had never played the game before? Sure.
I have never played All-Stars before. I only played it at some places (a friends house, and once in a shopping mall I believe), and I would really like to own this package. Getting the original cartridge is certainly going to cost you more than 25$, especially if you don't own a SNES (which I don't). I'm going to buy the game this Christmas, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a superb time playing the game. Why is it so impossible to just write a review and say "Hey guys, it's a superb game, but you know what, if you already own it, don't buy it twice!". That would have made more sense, especially because everyone is just trying to act all shocked and all, but there really isn't anything surprising about all this.
First of all, this isn't Mario's 25th anniversary. I've been trying to tell this to everyone for so many times, but we're celebrating the 25th anniversary of SUPER MARIO BROTHERS, released alongside the NES in 1985. Mario is older than that. His first appearance is arguably in Donkey Kong, though he was only named Mario in Donkey Kong Jr. I believe, back in 1982. So we're only celebrating the "Bros" games.
Next fact: Super Mario World, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine and a whole bunch of spinoffs ware available/playable on the Wii. Did anyone really expect Nintendo to try and meddle with the sales of its own games on the VC? Did anyone think ANY company for that matter was going to do that?
Considering these two facts, I'm ALMOST inclined to say Nintendo has more than enough reason to release ONLY these four games on the collection. And that's just fine by me. And I'm guessing 95% of the unsatisfied people already own these games. I don't see how getting these games in their exact same form was going to alter the situation. Were you really going to get the game so you could have Super Mario 64 on both a N64 Cartridge, the Virtual Console AND a Wii Disc? Why would that be worth your money?
The last thing I was going to talk about is something I'm only vaguely knowledgeable about, so pardon me if I make some (or a lot) of mistakes here and there. Super Mario All-Stars is a SNES game. If I'm correct, SNES games are programmed in Assembly Language, right? I think most game developers would consider programming a video game in assembly language an absolute pain, especially now that we're 25 years into the future, and such a thing has become obsolete in the world of game development. Going back and "altering" a ROM from 1995 written in assembly language is not all that easy, and I'm pretty sure "making it widescreen" is actually a pretty daunting task. I'm sure there wouldn't be a whole lot of people working internally at Nintendo who would be even comfortable doing so. Now, someone might say, "What about those GBA remakes, they did it for those games, right?". I'm not sure. I think they were actually remade from the ground up for that system, using SMAS as the base. And those games retailed for 50$ EACH. Surely that would have supported the development costs. Surely, they could have done a "complete remake" of SMAS, That would have cost them a bunch of cash, and perhaps the remake wouldn't even have seen the light of day. And perhaps this would have resulted in an uproar of the fans who wanted them to stay true to the original games.
What I mean to say is that the situation isn't as simple as it looks, and we all knew this was just going to be a simple port when it was first announced, right? Who seriously expected something else, looking at the evidence on display?
So, I'll write my own little review of the game:
Super Mario All-Stars is a collection of three superb remakes of three already fantastic games, plus a nice remake of a somewhat mediocre game (The Lost Levels). Those who have never played it should consider it a must-buy, and those who already own it probably shouldn't consider buying it again. Unless of course they really, REALLY want two copies of the game.
Sure, Nintendo could have included some nice extra stuff in here, but you can view as much old commercials, art-work, music or whatever for free on the internet. If we're going to judge the game merely on the cosmetic aspect, I think we're doing something wrong here.
There. That's it. That's pretty much wrapped up all there's to say about it I think. In conclusion, I think I should summarize by saying that I think people have judged this based purely on their dissatisfaction with the goodies, instead of just admitting that this is a superb game. I don't think this was made for the fans at all. I think Nintendo just wanted to re-introduce younger folks to great games of yore. If more companies decide to do this, fine by me. You can call it a cash-in, cheap, a sell-out, call it whatever you want. But I'm enjoying it immensely, just like many other people, and surely there can be nothing wrong with that?
Re: Jason Rohrer Anthology Gets DSiWare All Thoughtful on January 3rd
Three short but amazing experiences for 2 bucks? Awesome.
Re: Features: Don't Touch my Samus: Metroid's Controversial Turn
Alright, time to add my two cents to this article!
First of all, I respect everyone's opinion about this, and I have no intention to offend
anyone (I can often be a bit harsh), but I do have a rather strong opinion on the subject.
Let's get some things straight first. I like Metroid: Other M. It's a great action game, and
despite some occasionally wonky controls, I think it's a great attempt to bring the classic
Metroid side-scrolling games to a more modern 3D style, and I would like Nintendo to continue
down the 2D/3D road. However, I have some problems with the story in Other M, and I think this
article largely ignores the TRUE reasons of the negative backlash.
You see, Other M is not the first game to portray Samus as a character with real emotions.
Pretty much every game since Metroid II have given us insight into the protagonist. I think
the designers have always managed to put a great amount of story into the key sequences of the
games, and I do have the feeling that Samus has developed a strong character over the course
of the games, perhaps a little slowly.
Other M differs in two different ways for me:
1) The narrative framing is TOO different. Let's take the previous Metroid games and have a
look at them. Samus does talk a few times during those games, but it's all pretty limited.
It's safe to say that Samus remains largely silent throughout the series. To me, Samus was
always a character that seemed cursed in a way. Since the assault on KL-2, Samus seems
destined to hunt down the Space Pirates, and the Metroids they try to abuse. All of her
attempts seem futile, as she constantly seems to re-encounter the enemies she thought she had
wiped out for good (Ridley, the Space Pirates, Mother Brain, the Metroids). She's locked in an
eternal battle that is both intensely personal and of intergalactic important at the same
time. And yet, she seems to accept this terrible destiny without hesitation. She knows she was
made to do this, and I find this strong selfless behavior very touching. I think we all wish
we could of be of importance to someone, but we get scared when it asks too much of ourselves.
Not for Samus. She has no home. She knows no peace. She's always out there. Now, some people
might say: "She's a bounty hunter, of course she's always doing missions!". For me,
that's not entirely true. Sure, Samus frequently receives "missions" from the Federation, but
we don't actually see that happening in the games. In fact, we never see Samus receiving a
"true" reward, we don't see her enjoying fame and the biggest reward I can remember that she
gained was either the 5 second applause from the Luminoth in Prime 2 or a salutation from
Admiral Dane in Prime 3. Other M creates a stronger connection between Samus and the
Federation, featuring a large amount of Federation soldiers and a HUGE amount of voice acting.
To me, this diminishes the feeling of selflessness that was always such a strong part of Samus
because it once again puts an emphasis on the fact that she, after all, a bounty hunter.
Metroid Prime 3 already had voice acting and a more cinematic presentation, and I never liked
that. However, I could sort of understand the decision. After all, Corruption was the end of a
trilogy, and no doubt Retro wanted to give the game a more "epic" feel to make sure players
really felt like they were playing the closing chapter in a long saga.
2) The next issue is the biggest problem with the game. In fact, I'd say it's a huge problem
that's been plaguing Japanese gaming for the last 12 years or so. I'd something I always like
to refer to as "explicit characterization" (I know, it's a stupid term). What this means is
that the developers try to make the protagonists more interesting by giving them several
different characteristics. And then they shove it in your face. They shove it in your face so
HARD that your nose starts to bleed. How common is to see characters from Japanese games
complain about their feelings or give you elaborate explanations about how the feel or
experience a certain situation? It's pretty much in every contemporary jRPG.
Now, you may say "What's wrong with that?". My problem is that this is not how it works.
People aren't like this. Our minds don't work like this. For starters, we usually don't talk
openly about our problems. Two people often have to work very hard to truly "understand" each
other. We also don't understand our own minds well enough to explain our behavior. We often
find ourselves being happy or sad, but can we truly explain why? We are often afraid of
things. For example, I'm afraid of talking to people I don't know or entering buildings that I
don't know the layout of. I would have a lot of trouble explaining someone why, even though
it's a big part of my life. The human mind is immensely complex, and we lie to ourselves
constantly to make things even more difficult. I now of very few people that are willing to
talk so openly about their ACTUAL emotions. Sure, you must of met hundreds of people that
complain about this or that, or act like they were hurt by something, or who say they hate
someone, etc. But these are all very superficial emotions that mostly take place within the
frame of our society. Samus is open about her feelings in a way that not only works in an
alienation way, but also in one that comes across as unconvincing.
Let's take another medium/form for example. Let's say you were watching a (good/mature) movie
about a dysfunctional family where the husband and wife are having trouble living together.
How would we notice this? Would the film be successful by letting the husband or wife narrate
the entire thing in first person rambling on and on about how she feels towards her husband?
Most likely not. The feeling of social discomfort is often achieved by given away by small
signs of annoyance. They might not take much interest in each others hobbies. They might talk
about different things to each other over dinner, or they might be silent during a ride in the
care. Perhaps the wife would never looks her husband in the eyes, or they might sleep with
their backs turned to each other. These are all small and perhaps silly examples, but I think
you get my point. Telling us about the characteristics and emotions of characters is much more
satisfying when it is slowly revealed and when the viewer/player/reader has an active
involvement in the process (the process of deducting those very emotions from the behavior of
the people that play a large role in the story). In other words, it's often better to avoid
the "explicit characterization".
I recently saw the film adaption of Richard Matheson's brilliant novel I Am Legend. I didn't
expect all that much from it, but I still wanted to give it a chance because I loved the novel
so much. In the end I thought it was a piece of for various reasons.
The most obvious criticism would be that the film was not even remotely similar to the novel
(Here's a small anecdote: leading up towards the release of the movie, there was a small qui
that was being organized on the main site of MSN. My sister saw it and asked me to answer the
question because she knew I read the novel. The question was "What creatures live on the post
-apocalyptic Earth in I Am Legend". I said the answer was "Vampires". Everyone who read the
novel knows that this is the correct answer. But according to the quiz, it was incorrect. The
correct answer was "Zombies". And indeed, as I afterwards saw, the movie barely explains that
the creatures are Vampires, and it is indeed more likely to assume that they are zombie-like
creatures. THAT'S how unfaithful it is to the novel. But I'm getting off-topic). But another
criticism is that the main character was WAY too vocal for my tastes. If I would have made the
movie, I would have chosen to let the Robert remain largely silent. The power of telling us
messages through visual and aural means is HUGELY underestimated these days. Another example:
The Thin Red Line. A lot of people I know HATE Terrence Malicks third masterpiece because of
the voice-over narrations. To a lot of people, the poetic first-person narrations (I couldn't
find an example on YouTube, but a good quote/sample is used in the first part of a song called
Have You Passed Through This Night by Explosions in the Sky, which you can listen to here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cr1w9liUjE) of the movie sound pretentious or impenetrable. I
don't agree. I think a lot of people mistake the actual words being spoken for true things
being told by the characters. I don't see it like that. To me, these narrations are simply
thought from the deepest subconsciousness of the characters put into words. These thoughts are
unframed by the definitions of emotions found in our contemporary society, thus making them
more free for interpretation and (for me at least) more touching.
Yet ANOTHER example would be the first person narration used in the film adaptation of The
Road (which I thought was a very fitting, beautiful and humble adaptation of a deeply moving
novel). In the opening lines The Man (played by Viggo Mortensen) gives us an overview of the
situation on the devastated Earth. He talks to us about the death of trees, animals, the
cannibalism, and the fading hope in both him and his son. Some people once again interpret
this as an "explicit way" of talking about the emotions of the characters. ONCE AGAIN I
disagree (are you surprised?). It is the cold, dry and hopeless way of speaking about these
terrible things that makes this scene so beautiful and haunting, not the actual things being
said per sé.
One last example from that same film. There is a scene where The Boy basically says he want to
go up to his dead mother, who he believes is in heaven.
They could have said it like this:
The Boy: "Pop, I want to die so I can be with Mommy in heaven."
But that would have ruined the entire movie and would have resulted in either a facepalm or a
loud yelp of agony from me. Instead this is what was really said.
The Man and The Boy are sleeping in a truck. The Man is still awake but The Boy is lying in a
bed behind The Man.
The Boy: "I wish I was with my Mom."
The Man hesitates: "Do you mean you wish you were dead?"
The Boy: "Yeah."
When I first saw this scene in the movie it hit me like a sledgehammer. I literally felt like
the air was knocked out of my lungs and I immediately felt tears well up in my eyes. It's a
moment you only experience a few times in your life.
Okay, now I'm really getting a bit off-topic. What I'm trying to say is that it's pretty much
NEVER a good idea to serve your story, characteristics and emotions in an "explicit" way to
your reader/player/viewer. It makes little sense compared to our real world, it destroys all
room for interpretation, and it insults the intelligence of the reader/player/viewer, as it
insinuates that we wouldn't be able to figure it out on our own. All those things are
situations a competent script-writer would want to avoid. The writes of Other M made those
mistakes on top of a script that was already mediocre, and slaps some so-so voice-acting on
top of it, including a rather unfitting.
And, as a final note, I would like to chime in on the entire "high heels" issue. I usually
find high-heels very unattractive, and I often find it irritating that this is imprinted on
the mind of women as "universally attractive and feminine". We should all wear what we find
attractive, not just because we know other people think we look good because the person
resembles the stereotype built up in the media. It makes Samus more of a female stereotype
than she ever was in my opinion (Yes, I know she only wore a bikini at the end of the first
Metroid on NES, but how else would you make it so that there would be absolutely no mistake
what so ever about her femininity with 8-bit graphics?). On top of that, it makes absolutely
ZERO sense for the tasks she has ahead of here, including sprinting at lightning speed and
wall-jumping! And it makes her look like the stupid shoe-shopping shallow blonde that I always
thought she wasn't.
There. That's pretty much all I've got to say about the subject I think. It's not her emotions
that are most bothersome, but the way she shows them to us. Sorry for going on for so long,
but I wanted to make my first post here super-awesome!
Great game though