#anymore than Seinfeld was the “anti-sitcom” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thekimspoblog · 2 months ago

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Is the video game really subverting its genre? Are you sure it's not just doing clever things within its genre, because otherwise the game would be boring and unchallenging and say nothing interesting? I'm just saying, it's cool and all that the internet allows horror game fandoms to overflow into eachother, but not EVERY 2 hour video essay needs to be spent breathlessly sucking off the devs. Sometimes a game is just REGULAR difficult and REGULAR high-quality.

Besides RPGs made over a decade ago, what is the thing supposedly subverting? Clearly not other contemporary indie horror games, because there is clearly a convergent ethos forming of cosmic horror and beginners' traps; that's just what the genre looks like nowadays.

#pathologic #fear and hunger #inscryption #in general I just hate overly reverent video essays; you guys ruined Airbender for me #this is NOT me hating on Pathologic!#Icepick is a good studio; their story is interesting their characters are well written #introducing needs decay mechanics into a first-person adventure game is a good idea; I just wouldn't call it “subversive”#this IS me hating a little bit on Patho fans just because I think hyperbole about the game's difficulty is tedious #and distracts from an equally valid conversation about what you get if you approach the game like a sandbox #I get it the algorithm incentivizes youtubers to talk about every new game like it's a complete departure from what came before #but if everything is special nothing is #and i swear if one more person tries to read me HP Lovecraft's wikipedia page like i was born yesterday im going to scream #Just saying; if fucking with the player's expectations is all it takes to be “subversive” then Stick of Truth is “subverting its genre”#except... no... Stick of Truth is a bog standard RPG just with a quirky tutorial #and creative integration of its off-beat story and mechanics RIGHT??#my point is Patho and F&H aren't actually much different; they still play like RPGs still handle like RPGs #the fact that you die more than you would in COD or Skyrim or whatever doesn't make it the “anti-RPG”#anymore than Seinfeld was the “anti-sitcom”#“subversiveness” is just a basic bitch way to analyze things; and I think “How does the art take ADVANTAGE of its genre?” is better #media criticism

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