Charlie Brooker's GameWipe

Sabre0001

Wanted to post this here even though it revolves around a TV programme - more relevant to us "socially inept" "nerds" Did anyone catch the above titled programme (BBC4 - started at 22:00)? Thought it was very well done myself - a break down of gaming genres, plenty of humour, external opinions and more!

Some interesting points made. Dara O'Briain commented on how he cannot access certain parts of games because he isn't good enough. Observational comedy mentioning that other media (i.e. a book) doesn't stop you to check that you understand what's going on (although many who go to the cinema may wish that they weeded out those not paying attention so we wou;dn't have to endure "who's that guy again?" ). Some games do allow you the option - Splosion Man allows you to skip levels if you're failing too much, Trials unlocks tracks in batches (obviously if you can't tackle Medium, Extreme may be too advanced so it's right to keep that locked!), God Of War allows you to modify difficulty settings...and so on.

Graham Linehan talked about the story of games. Many are getting weaker because the writers don't read books anymore - just do their research from movies (and targetted movie writers with the same accusation). Interesting comparison between Driver and GTA - simple: In Driver, people dive out of the way (like in a good movie); in GTA, they accept the inevitable...making it feel like a game. Also mentioned that when writing Left4Dead that they read books regarding Spanish influenza - storyline doesn't transfer to the game obviously but does deal with the collapsef society and so on.

So, was I the only saddo to catch it?

anonymous_joe

I enjoyed it. Could have done with more depth though, tbh.

ciano1

Ah Crap..

Anyone know if itll be repeated?

Sabre0001

BBC4 1:50am Wed 30 Sep
BBC4 11:20pm Thu 1 Oct
BBC4 3:00am Fri 2 Oct
BBC4 10:50pm Mon 5 Oct

(Basquille - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055695806)

Worth the watch I think!

Retr0gamer

Balls, missed it and I've been looking out for it since Charlie said he was working on it.

citizen_p

BBC plyer maybe???

or does it have crappy out of country blocker...


edit yes

edit again proxxy didnt work.. must be uk based brb.

Creature

I think Graham Linehan needs to play more games. Especially more RPGs and less shoot 'em ups if he thinks storytelling hasn't progressed. Also He distincly claimed that Driver was more realistic because the pedestrians always jumped out of the way of the car yet GTA was unrealistic due the the opposite happening..riiiiiiiiight...


Realy liked the rest of the programme though. Brooker is a very funny man.

Sabre0001

Loved the critical review of Fiddy-Cent's game! Might actually be such a bad game that it could be good (like some movies suddenly become golden!)

Also thought it was interesting that he covered the social debates - example: health warnings flashing up on screen. Still there years later, even moreso! Any driving game says not to drive this way in real life - could be dangerous. Forza 3 goes so far as to say that "airbag deployment is not simulated"!

The coverage of news shows // public opinions just goes to show how uneducated / ignorant people are at times. Games creating killers....yeah...Suppose it's a matter of time - afterall, as mentioned TV received the same views (although not to the same extent). Yes, games are interactive (which in a way, makes it a better pasttime than TV) but that doesn't mean we are being desensitised to the idea of violence / hurting people...and it doesn't mean we are being trained to kill. I mean if I took everything from a game to real life, I'd feel much better after eating a sandwich!

The YouTube clip featuring a shoot-em-up (forget which one) had a voiceover that was a little disturbing ("You can smell the burning flesh"). It wouldn't have sounded as evil if his accent didn't make him sound like Dracula though

5uspect

I just watched the first half,

youtube

, has a bit of zero punctuation about it. Which is no bad thing.

Decent article on it here......

If there's one thing that the last 20 years has proved, it's that TV and gaming very rarely make a good match. From Thumb Bandits to Bits (both featuring our own Aleks Krotoski) to Gamesmaster, no one's ever managed to come up with a treatment for videogames on television that feels like a natural fit. BBC2's cult Videogaiden has its fans for its anarchic humour and watching Patrick Moore's disembodied head doling out gaming tips that he clearly didn't understand exerts a weird fascination, but there's never been a treatment that's managed to break down the feeling that, for most people, it's just all too niche or childish.

So Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe, airing as part of BBC 4's Electric Revolution season, had a lot of ground to make up. It certainly helps that Brooker has more credibility in the eyes of the general public than anyone who's presented a gaming programme before. Even more importantly, his history in games journalism and his love of the medium means that he's eminently qualified for the job.

Right from the start, Gameswipe gave me the unusual feeling of being in safe hands. Smartly, this one-off show stuck fairly rigidly to the formula that made Screenwipe and Newswipe so successful. While Brooker's love for gaming was evident, the clear-eyed cynicism he brings to his television criticism balanced out any sense of nerdiness. In fact, the most refreshing aspect of the whole show was the way it tackled the subject without anyone involved being too defensive or overly enthusiastic. It presents games as they are - something that huge numbers of people play in a huge number of different ways. For the first time on television, games seemed, well ... normal. Even more surprisingly, this was a gaming TV show that felt like it could be appreciated by gamers and non-gamers alike.

Typically, Brooker didn't shy away from the fairly awful history of gaming on TV and spent the opening minutes of the show addressing not only gamers' failures to communicate the pleasures of their hobby but also the mainstream media's tendency to demonise (courtesy of the astonishing Glenn Beck on GTA IV) and patronise (Mark Kermode dripping sarcasm during Newsnight Review's take on the Wii) in equal measure.

From there Brooker took us on a whirlwind tour of the main genres that constitute today's gaming landscape (describing Mario en route as "the king bitch in platform prison"), stopping off every now and then to review a few more recent examples (The Beatles Rock Band, Wolfenstein and a musical take on the violent slapstick of Clover's MadWorld), cleverly catering for both the established audience and those people who didn't spend their youths delicately adjusting the volume on a tape deck to load up a pirate copy of Jet Pac. I'm hoping that those reviews are an indication that BBC4 might be inclined to see Gameswipe as having a life beyond this first instalment.

It's telling that a lot of the programme was spent bemoaning the things that still make gamers feel like apologists for an unsavoury pastime. Ryan and Rab from Consolevania lamented the demise of the surreal joys of the 80s British software scene and the homogeneity of most modern games, Graham Linehan poured appropriate scorn on the failure of apparently sophisticated 21st-century games to rise above the most primitive levels of story telling and characterisation and Dara O Briain pointed out the stupidity of creating hours of content that developers hide behind absurdly difficult or repetitive challenges. It's an indication of how ghettoised gaming is on television that it was a shock to see talented, popular contributors discussing the subject at such length and in such detail.

For me, Gameswipe is the first TV treatment of gaming to be really convincing for a broad adult audience. Funny, thoughtful, critical and passionate, it feels like the games programme the medium deserves but also needs.

Let's just hope it's not game over...

uncleoswald

Creature wrote: »

I think Graham Linehan needs to play more games. Especially more RPGs and less shoot 'em ups if he thinks storytelling hasn't progressed. Also He distincly claimed that Driver was more realistic because the pedestrians always jumped out of the way of the car yet GTA was unrealistic due the the opposite happening..riiiiiiiiight...

I get where he is coming from. In the GTA cutscenes you are playing fairly decent sorts of scumbags who go out of their way to help strangers and, for the most part, value human life. The illusion of the cutscenes is kind of broken if you have just mowed 30 people over on the way there and not given a rats ass. They shouldn't give the leads that much character if they are going to provide you with so much freedom that won't influence the character in the cutscenes. And as unrealistic as everyone jumping out of the way in Driver was it still meant you never forgot you were playing an undercover cop who could not go around murdering people for fun. Games have different story telling mechanics then any other art form and in their own context I think Driver was more realistic.

And lets face it, the best stories in video games are still no better then an average crime/fantasy/sci-fi movie. I also thought his point about game makers only taking their inspiration from already shallow films was very true, although I think that is happening in movies and TV now too.

Original post by anonymous_joe
I enjoyed it. Could have done with more depth though, tbh.

Considering the history of tv shows about videogames the depth was quite staggering, have you not seen Gameface?

Retr0gamer

uncleoswald wrote: »

And lets face it, the best stories in video games are still no better then an average crime/fantasy/sci-fi movie. I also thought his point about game makers only taking their inspiration from already shallow films was very true, although I think that is happening in movies and TV now too.

I kind of have to disagree here. I find the vast majority of games do fall into being poor imitations of film plots. Just look at what many people consider to be good videogame storytelling. Halo, a poor generic rehash of space invaders. FFVII, commendable attempt at addressing some interesting themes but in the end it's pulled off in pretty poorly with a plot that probably wouldn't pass as average anime. MGS4, utter nonsense.

However there are a handful of less mainstream games that do tell a good story, some even use videogames as a medium for telling a storyline that wouldn't work as a film or book. Shadow of the Colossus, Ico and Panzer Dragoon Saga are a small selection of games that tell an excellent story but also tell it in a way that wouldn't work outside of an interactive medium.

uncleoswald

Retr0gamer wrote: »

However there are a handful of less mainstream games that do tell a good story, some even use videogames as a medium for telling a storyline that wouldn't work as a film or book. Shadow of the Colossus, Ico and Panzer Dragoon Saga are a small selection of games that tell an excellent story but also tell it in a way that wouldn't work outside of an interactive medium.

I think thats the point I was trying to make. Those games above are exceptions, made by people completely aware of the confines of the medium they were working in. If you took their plots and tried to form it into a novel or film they would look threadbare, which is not a criticism as they are perfectly designed for each game and therefore are better told stories then most films or even novels.
But many games like the others you mention get lauded for their story telling when really they are amateurish and written by people who really should just be concentrating on gameplay and design.

uncleoswald

And I loved Graham Linehan's comment about "I don't want to play as you, you're an idiot!" line. So true about so many games.

L31mr0d

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I find the vast majority of games do fall into being poor imitations of film plots.

In fairness though, I'm playing through Valkyria Chronicles atm and it is ticking all the generic/clichéd anime boxes.

Oh we have a mix of timid, adventurous, aggressive and intelligent teenage girls all surrounding a naive and innocent boy learning from his mistakes and trying to live up to his ancestry.

You might as well call it Naruto Chronicles: Tank Edition.

Gameplay is solid though, the story and dialogue is pants.

Retr0gamer

Well the thing about Valkyria Chronicles is that it knows it's really only an anime storyline but it's a very good one. It does an anime storyline but does it very well. It also manages to mix in some quite relevant WW2 themes into it and some rather emotional moments but keep an anime feel to it so I think it's a huge success even if some of the dialogue comes off as wooden due to some translation issues. It's the same reason I like the story of FFIX. It's a very simple old school JRPG story but it knows it is and plays it up. It might be generic but it does generic very well. My problems are with games like MGS4 and Halo 3 that have aspirations of pretention but are in fact very simple or utter nonsense.

L31mr0d

Just watched it over my lunch break on youtube. It's more something I'd direct my parents, or my critical friends attention to and say "see, that pessimistic guy who sits in the dark, he plays games also"

Sabre0001 wrote: »

Loved the critical review of Fiddy-Cent's game! Might actually be such a bad game that it could be good (like some movies suddenly become golden!)

It really is. I was laughing my way through it. The gameplay is also pretty solid. Comparable to Gears of War actually. It almost feels like a parody of the image gangsta rappers try to portray, and the dialogue is just hilarious "yo dawg, pop a cap in his ass, fo'sho b!tches"

Retr0gamer

Whez ma skull bitch!

BopNiblets

It's on youtube in a few parts:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=videos&search_query=Gameswipe&search_sort=video_recently_uploaded

ongarite

Thought it was a good show, more for the unwashed masses who have no clue about games.
The FEAR 2 video with the narration by the German sounding kid was hilarious along with the crazy Atari 2600 sex game.

L31mr0d

ongarite wrote: »

The FEAR 2 video with the narration by the German sounding kid was hilarious

Thing is he didn't sound that strange. I'll usually notice some gory features in a game and think they are excellent. Exploding heads never gets old. L4D is particularly good for this, veritable chunks of Zombie brain and skull flying all over the place.

Bioshock was another one of those games for your plethora of slapstick methods of killing the enemies.

Particularly liked in Crysis strength throwing someone into the air then trying to shoot them on the way down.

I also don't think I took 1 bulletcam shot in Stranglehold that didn't land dead square in the groin of whoever the poor sod was that was receiving it.

That kid in the video was just verbalizing what we are all thinking and then recorded it.

Greyjoy

For a one-off show it wasn't bad, I hope there's potential for a recurring series. I did particularly enjoy the bit about jet set willy being a broken game as if the designers thought "nobody's going to get this far in the game....aah f*** it".

ongarite

The potential for a series must be higher now. The viewership figures are out and it pulled in 400,000 viewers last night which is excellent for BBC4 and the highest of all the "swipe" shows that Charlie Brookers has done.

Sabre0001

Has also been uploaded here: http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Ali+D/charlie-brooker-gameswipe-vids--150467.phtml#story

Enjoy!

I didn't see either of his other works but must try and catch them. A series would be interesting but hopefully not overkill - would he have the material to stretch over a series rather than short bursts?

DarkJager

Sabre0001 wrote: »

Has also been uploaded here: http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Ali+D/charlie-brooker-gameswipe-vids--150467.phtml#story

Enjoy!

I didn't see either of his other works but must try and catch them. A series would be interesting but hopefully not overkill - would he have the material to stretch over a series rather than short bursts?

Could stretch it into a series possibly by examining the different genres (fps, survival horror etc) in each episode.

cherryghost

that was feckin awesome! MOAR!

humanji

DarkJager wrote: »

Could stretch it into a series possibly by examining the different genres (fps, survival horror etc) in each episode.

I finally got to watch it last night, and that's what I was thinking they could do.

I have to admit, when I first heard who was on it I was thinking that it's probably people who've never really played games before talking about things they don't understand (you know, the kind of people Brooker despises), but I was surprised to see how much Dara O'Briain knew about the games he was talking about (and also the image of this huge Irishman playing a tiny plastic Guitar Hero guitar makes me laugh).

The song review was pretty cool too. I'd never heard of her before and thought she was some singer they got just for the show. Didn't realise that she's got a load of singing reviews (on Zero Punctuation, no less).

pixelburp

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I kind of have to disagree here. I find the vast majority of games do fall into being poor imitations of film plots.

I think there's also a further problem in the nature of the games themselves rather than their plotting. After all, lots of great movies have weak plots.

I mean think about; what's considered the most cerebral, "artistic" and adult game that came out in the last couple of years? Bioshock. Critics and gaming apologists (for want of a better word) lauded this game because of its deep and meangingful Ayn Rand inspired mythology, coupled with a unique retro / steampunk art direction. I read genuine essays on its supposed Objectivist philosophy. Which was all well and good but 90% of the game involved setting people on fire and shooting them in the face. It does kind of make the artistic argument redundant.

As much as we want games to grow up and be seen as something deeper than they currently are, it's only going to be difficult when the base mechanics of the game are so arbitrary and base.

As for the show itself, I love it. Charlie Brooker can be a funny guy when he's in full rant mode & it's a refreshing change to see a show about games are a normal, common medium, featuring people who actually play the damn things. It's also nice that they avoid either doing the "games are controversial" line (even if they do actually bring it up) or acting like a bunch of fratboy knobends.

davearthurs

As much as we want games to grow up and be seen as something deeper than they currently are, it's only going to be difficult when the base mechanics of the game are so arbitrary and base.

Plenty of artistry and depth in the base and depraved though - look at silent hill series, or resident evil, Half Life, GTA etc.,

The call of duty series also have a level of sophistication to them. Crysis too.

Its about depth of experience as much as plot. And Bioshock delivered in spades IMO as a genuinely original game. Sure the combat wasn't quick perfect but the Plasmids etc., worked very well.



The footage of the games on Gameswipe was poor I felt. The celebs experiences was probably one of the bits that worked well, and the 50 cent review.

Commentary and gaming actually works really well on many gamers youtube sites - the likes of nextgenwalkthroughs and others who go off track on their video walkthroughs or analysis of the games. Not sure it would work on TV, but who needs it to really.
maybe a few years ago I would have said tv should really be covering gaming, but now there are a ton of websites that actually do a great job. After all we don't even really get any decent TV film review programmes so it's no surprise there are no gaming ones. I don't think newsnight is ever going to get its reviewers to pitch in on the latest Batman game etc., but that kind of TV validation isn't needed anymore really anyway.

pixelburp

davearthurs wrote: »

Its about depth of experience as much as plot. And Bioshock delivered in spades IMO as a genuinely original game. Sure the combat wasn't quick perfect but the Plasmids etc., worked very well

Think you missed the point, whether the shooting mechnic was any good or not is not relevant; Bioshock is heralded as some kind of champion in the "games as art" camp, but the whole concept was at total odds with the arbitrary shooting & violence. Run around the world of Ayn Rand and club people to death. Or freeze them & shoot their frozen bodies into bloody ice chunks. No matter how deep the game's mythology is, the perception of the game itself (particularly for non-gamers looking in at our hobby) is of a generic violent shooter. Oh and the actual FPS shooting was crap which made it feel even more jarring than it already was.

davearthurs

Well that's probably more the limitations of the FPS genre than anything. They probably could have turned it into more of fallout 3 rpg/fps but I think the legacy of the game design was system shock 2 which was a fps with brains.

I don't think they originally touted the game themselves as Art as such. Few game companies would actually want to attach the word 'Art' to their games anyway - they want to sell them, and they cost a lot to make.

Again I don't think the violence was arbitrary - it totally fit the plot. But the majority of FPS' are pretty dumb it has to be said, so that is probably what made it stand out. So to that brigade it probably would be 'Art' - or as artistic a game as they'd ever play.

You could make a great RPG out of that world but I think sales wouldn't be as big. One downside of the next gen graphics progress unfortunately is more lovely realistic 3d worlds in FPS format.