Triple Click - Why Games Keep Trying To Be 'Cinematic'

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

Black Game Devs: http://www.blackgamedevs.com/The Last of Us 2 epitomizes one of gaming’s longest debates [Chris Plante, Polygon]  Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

If you don't think masks are cool, well, you know who wore a mask? Spider-Man. And how cool is Spider-Man? Seriously, though, please wear a mask. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. We're answering some burning listener questions this week about the fixation on comparing games to other media like novels and movies, as well as what to make of fantasy races like orcs, elves, and Argonians. There's a lot to talk about, so let's get into it.

I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Jason Shrier. And I'm Maddie Myers. We're back for another episode of... We are. Hello, hello, hello. Hello, hello. And you know what? This isn't just another episode of triple click. This is... It's not? It's the 10th episode of triple click. Yes. It is our 10th anniversary. That's what that means, right? An anniversary is just... I think so, yeah. It's... We've been together for 10 years. Like a decade, but it's only 10 episodes. Sure. There's no Latin in there or anything. It just means 10 of anything. So this is our 10th anniversary episode. Happy 10th birthday to us. Yeah, happy birthday, guys. It's very exciting. 2020 has really felt like 10 years.

It has. Each week has felt like at least a year long, so this seems fair. It does feel a little like it's been 10 years since we started making this show. If you've been with us that whole time from the beginning, all of you long-time listeners, thank you so much. And if you want to support us making this show, as always, I will remind you that you can become a maximum fun member, which you can do by going to maximum fun.org slash join. and that not only gets you the good feeling of helping us make this show possible, it also gets you access to maximum fun bonus content from all of the maximum fun podcasts, including Triple Click.

And Control Beanscast just went live. There will be a new Beanscast that just went up this past Monday on the feed for the game Control. That was pretty fun to record. Great game. Fun beans cast. Fun to talk about. And then, of course, the next one in July will be for The Last of Us 2, which I actually just finished

and we'll talk about for my one more thing later but I'm sure a lot of people are working their way through but we will not be spoiling on this episode no no no no there will be no beans spilled here only on the beans cast

yep only beans on the beans cast so yeah however on this episode we are going to be answering some burning questions yeah let's get to it shall we we shall let's jump right in

so first of all before we even start we should say that to reach us you can send all questions comments, feedback, whatever, dog pictures, fan art of us. We haven't gotten fan art in a while. Yeah, not yet, not yet. No, please send it. Our profile pictures are fairly accurate representations of what we look like.

You can send that to triple click at maximum fun.org. And we read every single email. We don't read every single one on the show, but we do read every single one. All right, let's start off. So a few people have asked the questions along this line that are basically, I want to support Black Game Developers, but I'm not sure where to start. Can you guys help out? Kirk Maddie, what do you guys think?

Let's answer this. So I have a real quick answer to this one. There's a great website called Blackgamedevs.com that is put together by Arthur Ward Jr., Kat Small, and Chris Algu. And it is just a database of Black Game Devs and also some companies where Black Game Devs work. And just all their Twitter handles and personal info, I really recommend. just following a bunch of cool people on Twitter in general. Like this is true for Black Game Devs or really any marginalized developers.

There's just cool people out there making sweet indie games who aren't getting that much regular press as much as we all try as reporters to highlight everything. But it's impossible. So, you know, just diversify your social media feed and check out some cool projects. And this website is a good place to start. Yeah, so we'll link that in show notes. And yeah, check it out. There's a lot of good stuff on there.

Cool. All right. Let's get to some other. questions. Maddie, do you want to read this next one? Sure. So this email is from William who writes. My question is, what do you think of the rhetorical move of elevating games with comparison to film or novels? I've been reading and watching some Last of Us Part 2 reviews and several have praised the game for its quote unquote cinematic feel. I've also heard the game compared to novels. Are these comparisons useful or is it a cheap way of elevating status? It seems to imply that games have to be more

than games to be that good. Haven't deep involved stories with chapters and complex characters been part of games for a long enough time to not shatter our impressions of the medium? Do we need to act like any game that succeeds at those things is more than a game? Do we give games, like The Last Vost Part 2, too much credit for their amazing production value and not spend enough time considering if what the game has to say is worth all that fancy presentation? That's a few different questions.

Such a good question. Because, like, the games, the insecurity of the video game industry and the fact that the games industry has just been like, like, trying to emulate Hollywood has been one of the kind of bug bears of AAA games development for at least 20 years now and just like trying to recreate. And also, like, critical reception and the way that we as critics cover games and try to deal with that insecurity fair or unfair about how people perceive what we're writing about. Yeah. I think, I think for starters, I mean, I think for starters with this whole conversation, I think games are game developers are told and believe that AAA game developers specifically are told to believe that cinematic quality is like the benchmark for graphical fidelity. And in order to make a game that costs that reaches the millions of millions of people

that the EAs and Activisions and Sonys of the world want to reach, you have to therefore spend tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars creating these cinematic graphics and making a game feel like you're there at the movie theater. And then, yes, like you said, Maddie, like the critical coverage of like, like, in the, some newspaper will be like, it feels like you're playing a movie. And that's just been the story, the cycle for years and years now. And I really, I actually do think that it's kind of hurt the medium because there's so many other games and indie games and creative games that like, like challenge what a game can do. And I think just like relying on these same cinematic

tropes has really kind of made for a stale, a stale kind of stifling. genre and medium. I want to hear what Kirk thinks. I guess I do understand why the trend has gone this way. So the way I look at it is kind of like movies used to be the super medium if that is a term and I don't know if it is

but I'm making it up. What does that mean? The or medium. I think a lot so I obviously think a lot about music and I think of music as an elemental medium and that means that it is it's like, it is fundamentally just sound. Like, you can really break it down to its elements of, like, rhythm and harmony, but it's, like, very elemental.

Kind of like how visual art, like, just very, like, the most basic visual art is kind of elemental to me, too. And I know this is, like, a rough, whatever, taxonomy, but it's just kind of how I think of it. Where, movies, movies are a super, were the super medium that was dominant for the 20th century, where it was, like, a combination of everything, especially if you take something like West Side Story or, like, like, a movie musical where now you have like music and dance and visual art and costuming like fashion and acting and photography and like all of the lighting and every aspect of that side of things yeah go on right and so I think because of that for a long time criticism and audience appreciation of films was just this super rich complicated thing that was so fun and rewarding to talk about and to experience because you're getting to experience like you can like a movie

for so many different reasons, which is still true. You can be like, I think the story is garbage, but it's so beautiful to look at that I love watching it. Or, you know, I think, yeah, it's like not really well directed and not that interesting, but I actually think there's a kernel there with the story or just this one performance does it for me, whatever. Yeah, the performance, yeah. And so that, I think, has been true for so long

that movies have taken on this kind of outsized role in, like, the world of criticism, just where people still watch movie reviews on YouTube and it's, like, still a really big thing. We're reading literary reviews or listening to music reviews or reading music reviews is like way more niche, like a lot smaller. Those fundamental art forms are actually a little bit diminished in the world of the super medium. And now video games are the new super medium. I think that's also pretty undeniable because they do, they can do everything movies do, but they also add all these other elements in particular interactivity. So it sort of makes sense that there would be this big push to take the existing super medium and be like,

and now you can go there and, like, do that. Like, that is exciting as hell. I mean, getting to star in your own novel, which you can do. I mean, gosh, I was recently playing like an Emily short, a visual novel or an interactive story. Or 80 Days is a good example of this, where it's like you can be in a novel, and that feels like this wonderful novel that you're reading.

And that's a really cool experience, but so much more often, and it's just so much more easily, you know, sort of hypeable to be like, yeah, but you could be John Way here. in that movie. So I do understand why it's gone that way. And I guess it's limiting if you only view it that way. But it's also like pretty logical to me, I guess, when I think of it on that axis. Well, it's limiting in the sense that it makes people think of like games have to follow this specific direction.

And they have to have the cutscenes and they have to have the certain camera angles. And it just feels like it's driven storytelling and games towards a way that it didn't really have to go where like the game is just yelling everything at your face all the time. Yeah. And like storytelling in games could be so much more. And we've already seen like so many games that try to do so much more with storytelling. But they're not those like big AAA like we want to be the movies type games. I feel like the other side of that though is what if games were influenced by more kinds of movies and books and music and so on.

I think that's what my actual answer to this question is is that I think the comparisons are great and fine. and I love comparing pieces of media like across the spectrum because sometimes the comparison serves some value to you as a critic in order to say it feels like this or does something very similar to this other piece of art. But I think really what your issue is, Jason, is the fact that games are trying to emulate like a very specific kind of action movie that means what we mean when we say the word cinematic that is just like a word that has been flattened out into a specific kind of popcorn movie like Star Wars.

basically. And that's fine and it's very cool when a video game feels as good as watching a new hope does. But there are also so many other kinds of movies and kinds of music and kinds of books. And so really when I see those comparisons, usually my first thought is I wish more people would watch more movies and read more books. And that's why I think like what is the citizen kind of games is like still a joke that we all tell to each other as critics all the time is because like it's absurd that Citizen Kane is still even the example there. Like, what, I don't know, like, what's the funny games of games? Like, what's the Little Mermaid of Games?

Like, we could just go on all day and come up with weird examples. Oh, God. I'm resisting the urge to make a joke here. I'm just thinking about the funny games of games. Jesus, Maddie, you want to play the funny games of games? I think it's the Last of Us part two. I don't know. Gita and I were talking about it, and she was comparing the last one's part two to funny games,

and I was like, I don't hate that, honestly. But anyway, there's something to that. I'm saying, I feel like sometimes the comparisons can be very interesting. Yeah, I think that, so I think that a thing William is talking about is like the sense of inferiority, which Jason you were to do to, too, is that like that a movie, a game needs to be elevated to a movie's level, or in the case of The Last of Us 2, to a novels level because of the way that it tells its story out of order and it's got a lot of characters. And it is kind of like a complicated emotionally story, like an emotionally complicated story. you could compare it to a novel, which is something people also do with TV, take the wire, our beloved the wire.

Of course. Frequently, people will be like, this really feels like a novel because of the way that it unfolds. It moves much more slowly. And you compared it to a game, Kirk, on split screen or possibly this show. Who can say? Who can remember? That's true, the systemic gaming, like qualities. And I think that then it does cut the other way around, where now you'll see movies and you'll say, well, actually, this is using some interesting ideas from the world of games and design ideas.

So it's becoming a little more cyclical. I think when I see a critic elevating a game by saying that it feels like a movie in a just purely, like that's just purely positive, it feels like playing a movie. It just is a kind of an immature criticism at this point or observation. Like, okay, so what a lot of these games feel like interactive movies? Like what's really your point? Yeah, and like which movie and why? Right, right, right. That's a more interesting question than just it feels like a movie.

Like that doesn't really say enough, you know? And I will. This will be something I'll maybe talk about a little more when I give my sort of some spoiler-free final thoughts on The Last of Us 2. But that game really feels like a movie in a lot of ways in that you're just watching actors emote and like trying to determine what the performance is trying to tell you. There are some long cutscenes in that game. Right. A lot of cutscenes. And it's just not, it's not telling stories actually through gameplay in the way that a lot of games have become very good at. And as a result, it is a very, like, quote-unquote cinematic game.

It's a very movie-influenced game. Or The Walking Dead. It just really feels like The Walking Dead to me. And so there are those kinds of games exist. But, like you've both alluded to, a lot of other kinds of games exist as well. And I'm increasingly, like, enamored of all these different types of games. Also, like, to the thing you were saying, Maddie, about just watching different kinds of stuff, you don't even have to go that far outside of just like, is it fantasy or is it, you know, military shooting people?

or I guess is it's sci-fi. Those are like the three genres. To get there, because we were just talking about, I used to joke that it would be the two genres are fantasy and sci-fi. Yeah, I think they are, right? What else is there? I guess there's also like military.

Also the three genders. I'm not going to figure this off, but I do want to say that I was thinking about the other day, I think on our control show, which is actually the point I'm going to make is about control, so I'm kind of spoiling that. But on our control show, we were talking about, I think Maddie you said that, you go on quests in that game?

And then I was thinking, what games do you go on quests on versus missions? Because in some games, they're missions. I think they're called missions and controls. So, like, I don't know why I decided to call them quests. Oh,

no, no, right. That was what made me think it. Is I was like that. Well, it's sci-fi and military games are missions. Exactly.

So the thing I came up with was... Except for Horizon. I guess Horizon has quests and that's like a sci-fi-ish game. Well, so the thing I came up with was, in games where you have a gun, you get missions. And in games where you have a sword, you get quests.

That's good. I just started laughing because I was like, here we are again with the two genres. But wait, but cyberpunk 27-7 has guns and swords and you get quests. Oh, you get quests in that game, really? I think. Well, they talk about it. So, CD Project Red has a quest design team. You get jobs?

So I guess technically, yeah, maybe their jobs. Do you get gigs? Oh, that's another, that's a new one. A gig would be good. I think we need to expand the vocabulary there. Anyways, that's a side track. Tasks could be tasks. That's a sidetrack.

So to circle, to reel it back. into what I was saying, is that the genre thing is, you can go just a little ways outside and blow everyone away, like control did, where control is like totally drawing from like X-Files, Twin Peaks,

like that kind of weird vibe. And that felt so fresh playing it. It's like, it's not just a post-apocalyptic world or like a military shooter or whatever, sci-fi. And just doing, just going a little ways of field makes a huge difference.

I think one of the problems of this whole comparison is that it like kind of, it treats games as, I think William wrote that like, yeah, William wrote that like games have obviously had good, deep stories for so long now that like making the comparison of like, oh, the story is as good as a movie is kind of like feels kind of pure out at this point. Again, it depends on the movie. There's plenty of terrible movie. But the point, the point that I'm making is that it's like, I don't even think, I think that we, the discourse, the criticism, whatever has to go beyond just comparing the story to story because it's like,

comparing apples and bowling balls. It's like one is a story that is interactive and another is a story that you're watching unfold for two hours. And if anything, I think we should be like thinking about more things that like that kind of play a part in a story of a video game. And here's, last of us too is actually a perfect example because I'm in probably in the second half of that game and I'm already feeling like it's starting to drag. And for some reason, the fact that like a AAA game has to be 40 hours long or 30

hours longer or whatever has become part of like the accepted canon for video games and we don't spend enough time thinking or talking about I don't think by we I just mean the discourse as a whole criticism as a whole yeah um don't spend enough time talking about like does this game really need yet another like friggin scene where you have to crawl around and shoot zombies for a while before you get to the next cut scene and we don't talk enough about pacing and I think that fundamentally is where movies have just are still like way ahead of games is pacing yeah because they have to be yeah yeah yeah well. So that's, and I think that's such an important part of storytelling quality that you can't even, you really can't compare the two. You just have to think of like, it's this game's pacing working

and ask that. And that's maybe, that might be a conversation that critics should be having. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been comparing the Last of Us Part 2 to a television season a lot, just colloquially. And I feel like that comparison works a lot better for that game. Not because it's episodic, but just because, I mean, it probably helps that Haley Gross wrote for Westworld. And I interviewed her and she told me she wrote the game as though she was writing a season of television. So I am also biased by the fact that one of the writers of the game told me she wrote it as though it were that. But I also think a lot of other games can be viewed through that lens for better or worse. And I mean, there's certainly times when I'm watching a season of television and I'm like,

this feels like they just needed eight episodes or 15 episodes. And games can suffer from that problem too. So maybe we should just be comparing games to TV more, I guess is my point. It's funny that that's kind of, like there was a period of time, Alan Wake and Mass Effect 2, sort of in that period of time around 2010-ish or so, in that ballpark anyways, where like a lot of games felt episodic. And that was also when Telltale's episodic thing was like really taking off. Yeah, The Walking Dead. A lot of people were launching episodic games. That's still going on, but I don't feel like there's quite as much excitement around it anymore.

I guess because there have been so many big successes, like. like God of War or I'm sure the Last of Us 2 seems like it's going to be successful. Like of these, the return to the big long game where you play for a while and then you get a big cutscene and then you play a little while and it could be broken into seasons but of course it wouldn't be

because it's being sold at full price. Well, I think maybe that that attempt to translate TV to games doesn't really work or maybe at least it doesn't work for me, maybe because it's too literal as opposed to a game that is like... Well, taking it too literally doesn't work, yeah. Well,

well, it feels like it's, no, for me, the structure of that doesn't work. Like, I always just wind up waiting for all the episodes to come out as opposed to, like, and I think that's, you know, not always, not for shows I care about. And I think that's that because of that, it doesn't, it doesn't work for me. And I think that games really have this ability to actually do more than that. And it's kind of like, it feels like it's a waste almost to take that episodic view, as opposed to like a hitman approach or like so many other potential approaches where like you have a world that's expanding with new stuff and you're in the same world but like hey there's a new mission over here and I can go check that out or like so many other potential ideas that you could do with games that you could never do with TV as far as like delivering stories and exploring the world. There's a clear thing here that I think about a lot, especially the kinds of games that I've gotten more into over the last 10 years.

And that's just that games can tell a totally different kind of story. And while when a game is telling a story that is in some ways novelistic, that's a helpful comparison to make if you're trying to eliminate a point about it or as a player just understand it or using the language of cinema in the same ways, especially with like cutscenes, which are basically just movies. There are so many ways that games do things on their own that you just can't do. elsewhere. I mean, the best stories in games, this is a cliche, but the time that you fought a boss a hundred times in Dark Souls or whatever, and then came up with some

crazy strategy and pulled it out at the last minute when you both didn't have any health left, or the game glitched and you won on an impossible way. I don't know. I think about Jason you knocking the demon, what's his name, the Taurus demon off the bridge in Dark Souls on a stream, and like just that story was an amazing story.

The stories we tell outside of games. Yeah, that's a whole big part of video game story. in games themselves, some of the best stories I think, at least for me, are the stories of exploration and finding things and being kind of led by the designer to follow this story. I mean, Return of the Oberdin comes to mind as like one of my favorite stories in games. Or even Outer Wiles, which we all obsessed over last year. It's a game that doesn't have any cinematic qualities to it. Not at all.

Other than you walking around and just enjoying the world and being known camera person. It's pretty, it's pretty, but there's nothing cinematic about it. But it's this phenomenal story and it's a story that you kind of uncover in this really unique, like, nonlinear way that I don't think movies could ever do. And I think that's where games are kind of like, especially AAA games. That's what's wasted for me. It's not even, Maddie, to your point earlier, it's not even just that everyone's trying to be the last, the Star Wars game or whatever, the Star Wars movie. It's more that everyone's trying to recreate a certain type of storytelling that's like the cutscene, like action, cutscene action. And that, like, linear, very linear storytelling.

And that to me seems like a waste. Like, imagine if a AAA game, like, tried to do things. Was like Outer Wilds, yeah. Like, Outer Wilds. Yeah. Like Outer Wilds and told this wacky story. I don't know. I don't know if it's possible.

But I do to put things on a slightly optimistic note. I do think that that sort of thing will turn up more. Just because I look at The Last of Us 2 and the way that that game has all this stuff from, like, gone home and sort of more. Yeah. Yeah. It has these, they've been increasingly adding. Plays with perspectives, which is pretty cool. And Noddy Dog isn't the only studio doing this.

A lot of AAA games now will really embrace these long, you know, narrative sections where you're just walking around looking at stuff and talking to people. And that would have been revolutionary, like 10 years ago that people were saying the same thing. Oh, I wish there were just more time to hang out with characters. I remember in Uncharted 2, there's the sequence where, like, Nate arrives in this Tibetan village and you just walk through it and you can, like, kick a soccer ball with a kid. I remember at the time, there were people like writing blog posts being like, this, this is so cool, because that was before any of those games had come out. So I could see that sort of game design making its way into more like really big budget, big team games over the next 10 years.

And yeah, a thing I just thought about when you mentioned Outer Wilds as an example is just when I've seen a great movie that I really love, like a movie that I just can really live in, this is a weird example, but actually the Cura Nightly remake of Pride and Prejudice. It's like this extremely, and it's so beautiful. Like that movie is really kind of earthy and natural and it just the piano soundtrack and the light filtering through the leaves. There are things when I think about that movie, I haven't seen it in a long time, but it just exists in my mind in a certain way. Like it takes me to a certain place. And games do that too. And I think about, I mean, a Souls game is like that. I think about places in Bloodborn and it gives me that same kind of feeling.

And that is something that, I mean, all good art does, I guess. And I'm more interested in conversations that kind of try to nail down that feeling. And like take it out to be a, you know, it's applicable to anything and any great art will take you there. Rather than like getting so caught up in like the specifics of the medium and being like, oh, yeah, they got the lens flare right. There's chromatic aberration in this game's what looks like it's shot on a film. You know, that stuff is much less interesting to me. Yeah. Okay.

I think we have time for one more question. Kirk, you want to read this next one? Sure, this comes from Clover. Clover writes, Hey, I love the show. Your discussion about cops in video games, as well as real world events over the past couple of weeks, has gotten me thinking about race in video games

and how allegories for race can go wrong. Games like Detroit become human come to mind, but also games like The Witcher, where elves are an oppressed minority. While it can be helpful to simplify serious, complicated topics so they're easier for a wider audience to consider, it can be incredibly harmful and can wind up reinforcing prejudices instead. This can be very problematic,

but is every fantasy race an allegory for a minority, or are some fantasy race is just a fantasy race? Is it even possible to separate video games from reality when race becomes a major part of the story? You touched on this in last week's episode while discussing Resident Evil's depiction of minorities as zombies and how obviously racist it was. I agree, and in fact I think it's a very important conversation to have right now.

I hope this isn't an out-of-line question to ask. I honestly want to know if my love of orcs and Argonians is problematic or not. I'm not sure that's an easy binary question to answer, unfortunately, which is true for a lot of these things, right? I mean, you can say. I did have an initial response to this, which is, I don't know if you two saw this news, but Wizards of the Coast is actually changing a lot of its Dungeons and Dragons characters in the way that it describes those characters for this exact reason. Like, for example, like, orcs are often described in those books as, like, lusting for battle and so on, and, like, the drower described as evil. and that's just how those character archetypes, fantasy races have been described.

And I mean, this has been a debate in fandom for as long as I can remember, because people will talk about how Tolkien conceived of a lot of these fantasy races, and that's impacted Dungeons and Dragons and so many other fantasy games that we have all played, and fantasy pieces of media, and just that, those permutations of those fantasy races, like, you can try to take away some of the implications of them, but it is, I would say it's almost impossible to do that. I fall on the line of thinking that those original, that original intent of fearing the other, it's kind of like how whenever you adapt like something from Lovecraft, it's always going

to include some of his fantasy racism as well because like so much of his work was rooted in his fear of the other that like you need to completely rethink those stories in order to have it change. And that's always possible. But if you're just doing a one-to-one recreation, I think, I don't know, I think you can fall into some serious pitfalls in terms of those stereotypes. Well, I think that with D&D, I think that it was the exact opposite problem,

which is that it seemed like an allegory, even though I don't think it was intended to be. Maybe Tolkien intended for orcs to be an allegory. I mean, we have no way of asking him now, yeah. But I'm saying in Dungeons and Dragons, I mean, the people who are at Wizards of the Coast right now and, like, have been, like, updating these games and books for the past few years, I don't think it occurred to any of them that, like,

oh yes, orcs are an allegory for black people or anything like that. I think it's more that people saw that stuff and thought, like, oh, this, this like encourages harmful racist stereotypes and we should change it. Or confirms my own racist ideologies that I have and I'm going to play the game this way. But I think what Clover is talking about is more the opposite, where the creators of something intend to make it a racial stereotype or not a racial stereotype and an allegory for a race. And I think like The Witcher or like Dragon Age came to mind as a game where like the elves are this oppressed group and insert your own like stand in for oppression here. Or obviously

Detroit become human, which we, I haven't even played, but that seems like such a clumsy stab at it that it's not even really worth getting into. But I actually think, I think that there is room for allegories for race. And I'll say this as I don't want to speak about allegories for black people or other minorities. So I will speak for my own minority, which is like, I can totally see a story working that is like an allegory for Judaism and Jewishness. And like, I don't know, I would play a game that is like a fantasy version of Jewish people and in a ghetto being persecuted, like being pogromed or whatever. I can totally see that working as long as you avoid sticking in the stereotypes. Like you don't give them all like Harry Potter like the goblin, hook noses. And

you know, make them all bankers. You just make them into people who happen to be oppressed by like humans or whatever. You make them elves who are oppressed by humans. And then you, you tell a story involving that world. I think as long as it's handled well and written by Jewish people, I think it could be done really well. And I kind of, I don't see why that wouldn't also be the case for other races. I think the most important thing is like if you're going to tell a story that's an allegory for a minority, you need that minority in the writers' room, like making up, if not the bulk of the writer's room, like at least 50% of the writer's room there. Yeah, I really agree with that. And Kirk, I will let you talk, but I want to quickly say that, like, re-detroit become human, which is a story that sort of uses robots as an allegory for a variety of oppressed minorities. I would say slavery is one of the allegories in that game, but also the Holocaust. I feel like it's not that that's impossible, because, like, the collected works of Janelle Monet also use robots as an allegory for a oppression in ways that I think are pretty clever and interesting and speak to a lot of people.

And she, like, has spoken about being a queer person and being a black person and, like, how that influences her work. And that's very clear to see. So it's not like you can't do a story where somebody is a robot and that means something to them. And it, like, says something about the experiences that they've had. Like, there was a version of Detroit Become Human that was cool and good. And it's just too bad. They didn't hire Janelle's write it, I guess.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It's kind of a shame. But yeah. Yeah. I think, so I have a couple of thoughts on this, I guess. One is that the allegory where it's not racial, but you're talking about things that in the real world are drawn along racial lines can work great. Like that can be a really good place for creativity. Like you said, if you're making something that's going to be a metaphor for a certain type of oppression, you definitely want someone or writers and people to be speaking from experience. And like, understanding it, you know, that's, that's going to be better. But, you know, I'm thinking of, like, I haven't seen Pleasantville in a long time, but, like, that movie is playing with this idea, at least, of, like, people being in color versus people being in black and white. And it's not actually about race at all, even though it really, I do remember, like, it very clumsily gets into, like, you know, no color, it's allowed here and stuff. And, like, which is, like, extremely clumsy and drawing, it's, like, hitting you over the head with it. But that's the sort of imaginative

approach that obviously robots is like the really easy one that any video game writer would go to. But you can come up with stuff like that that handled correctly and written by the right people could be really great. I think anytime the actual race of the character is involved, it's already on shakier ground. The more I've thought about it, this isn't something, you know, this is something I'm still thinking about and like, especially recently thinking about. But the Tolkien thing is a great example where everything is kind of based on, these archetypes that he built, a lot of them are, yeah, very much, like, the dark race from the east, you know, coming to, like, destroy our fine very clearly, like, you know, Anglo-Saxon

European. Yeah, that's a whole other, well, that was in the 1940s, so it's like... No, right, but all of these races were kind of built on that, you know, on that fundamental sort of starting point. Framework, yeah. Yeah. And if you look at, I mean, you can make it explicit and it can totally not work. take, for example, the terrible Netflix movie Bright, which tries to literally make orcs into racial minorities and, like, modern day L.A. and then tell a story about it, and it's awful

and it's just unwatchable. So making it specific doesn't always work, but keeping it vague also doesn't always work. And thinking about, like, the Witcher, you know, the way that elves and dwarves are oppressed in those games, I remember there was this ad or something. It was like, this game deals with real world things like war, racism, and something else. And people kind of, That's sticking in the craw of some people. They're saying, like, this is this really dealing with racism or is it just, like, in this world, people don't like elves. And it's kind of just any time, like Clover mentions Argonians, just any time, like in a character creation tool, you're picking a race and it has intrinsic qualities, like it has higher strength or more dexterity. You're already talking about these things that maybe just aren't true, like that races are somehow different.

Or do you make a game where they are true, then what are you actually implying by that? And is your game going to interrogate what that would mean? Because it's not true in real life, but there are people who think that it is true. So what are you going to do with that? Well, so I think this is, this is, it's really interesting territory. Because when a fantasy world says race, it's saying something different than what we talk about. When we talk about race, we're really talking about ethnicity, right? And like, that's how we use the word race is to talk about humans, different variations on humans.

That's a very good point. When a fantasy world says race, it's almost like they should think of a different. They mean like species. Yeah, they should be saying species. Because, like, in our world, if you were born as an alligator, you would have different traits than... Yeah, because you'd be a different species. Right. So, like, I think the thinking of it is race.

Like, we're kind of using bad terminology, and that's the fundamental problem here. Right, though, thinking about the elder scrolls, for example, there are, like, Bretons and, right? And, like, Nord's. Like, there are races. They're human ethnicities. So I know, I know what you're saying, that's actually a very important distinction, because Argonians and Cajit are like cat people and lizard people. Like they're a different species essentially even though they're sentient and intelligent and

have humanity. I actually, I think D&D is actually the good example of a bad way to do this because in D&D, everybody is humanoid. So it almost feels like race is like the correct word for that because the orgs are like humanoid. They happen to be green and like be a little bit stronger and more powerful. But like the fact that they're an evil race bred to be evil. Like that is where you get into clumsy terrorism.

If they were a race of like top. talking cats like Kajid, then you would be able, I think you can look at it a little bit more, like, okay, this is a completely different like genealogy and it's not like a type of human. Well, but like people are always going to want to play as those characters. And then of course they're going to want to see those characters as being similar to human beings and like having all the complexities of humans. So pretty much no matter what, you're going to end up back at square one where you're like, well, I guess I'm supposed to be playing as like an inherently evil guy.

But I don't want to play him that way. I want to play him as like a multifaceted guy who's actually like fighting on behalf of his marginalized community because that's a more interesting story to me. And like because that's possible within D&D, they have to do what they've done here, which I think was the right move, which is just acknowledging it and being like, we're going to stop describing all of these certain races as having inherent personality traits. That's the thing. Yes.

Yeah, I think that's the way to go. Because no one is playing the game this way and anyone who is playing the game that way should stop because it's bad. And literally all you have to do is instead of saying Cajit are born stealthy, you just add another variable. And it's like your type of like playstyle or whatever you call it, like affinity or background or instinct. Yeah, you could say like culturally Cajit pride people who are very good at stealth. And they have like developed all of these techniques within their culture to be spies. Right.

So they're well, yeah, although then you get into culturally orc or savage and brutal. But then you get into problems also. It's a cool Kajit character who's really bad at stealth and really wants to be a warrior and you tell their story. What I like the idea of is more character, playable characters that are not humanoid. Playing as a cat rules. Talking cat. I think that playing as a Hanar and Mass Effect, I'm talking like not humanoid at all.

Because the Kajid just have cat heads. I want to play like a walking jellyfish that has guns and shoots people. That's where I think we go. I mean, look, I don't think anyone's really taking offense to this idea of like a cat race that happens to be more stealthy than humans. I think it's when you get into territory that feels like it's reflecting human stereotypes in nasty ways, such as the orcs being like a savage race. That's when you get into trouble. And especially if you're not like, if you're not, if you're using that in a satirical way or like to prove a point about how this is bad to think of things that way,

then maybe you can get away with it. But if it's just like part of your game is that one race happens to like have all these stereotypical qualities that humans think. And, of as like black people in real life and have used that as like an offensive stereotype in real life, then you get into trouble. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like it's way easier to notice if you're doing that if you hired some black people to help you out with your game. Just a just a small note. Fundamentally, it always comes down to like you need more writers of like different backgrounds and ethnicities in the writer room. And like that is a solution to so many problems. And man, the thing everybody's talking about these days is watchmen and how precious that was and how good it

is. And I think the fundamental reason for that is that they had like this super diverse writer's room. And that is an example, like a good counter example to Bright of going pretty explicit with it of like to being like, no, we're going to actually talk about all the things explicitly. And because, I mean, it was a diverse writer's room and a really good writer's room. They made an amazing show that's like super about the things that's about and is very important. And worth watching, everyone go watch watch watchmen. I guess that's a good note to end. To answer Clover's question is their love for Orks and Argonians problematic. I don't know.

I don't think so. I think it's fine. I think it's fine. More people should love works. Yeah, works are great. And also Argonians are like lizard people, so I don't think that's... Hargonians are the best. I've definitely come around on Argonians.

In 25 years when we play the next Elder Scrolls game, I might play as an Argonian. Oh, man. I'm so excited. All right. Why do we take a break? and then we'll be back for one more thing. I started listening to Ono Ross and Carey shortly after I broke my arm, and the doctor had told me I'd never walk again.

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They take part themselves. They show up so you don't have to. But you might find that you want to. My arm is better. I can walk again. I wrote an entire book this weekend. It's terrible, but I did it. Just go to maximum fun.org.

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Sure. So this isn't a game, except that it is a game we all played in our living room as children. I watched The Flores Lava on Netflix. I thought it was really wonderful and stupid, and I just want to recommend it. So it is a reality competition. show, wherein contestants, usually in groups of three, although sometimes they do groups of two, have to navigate a room. The floor of the room is covered in water, fairly deep water that's been dyed red, and probably there's corn syrup in it to make it like kind of sludgy looking,

and they cannot touch the lava. And it's super hard to navigate these rooms, and they have to like usually solve a series of puzzles in order to do it. So it's sort of like legends of the Hidden Temple E in terms of its structure. If people remember that show from when they were kids, depending on if they're my age or not. And it's nothing, nothing of value happens on this show. There's no other plot to it.

There's nothing else that occurs. It is truly just watching people try to get across a room and failing or succeeding. And you are so excited that they've succeeded. And I would say the most important part of it is that they are only competing for $10,000, which is like, enough money when split between three people after taxes that it's like kind of a lot of money, but it's not so much money that they're not willing to laugh at themselves and be good sports about it when they lose. And I feel like it's like a couple thousand a person. It's like the perfect mix of

high stakes and low stakes and like nobody ever gets seriously injured. I don't know. It's really great. That's very interesting. It's a refreshing watch. The thing about the money is interesting. I've always noticed like on the Great British Bake Off that they don't compete for money. There's no money involved there. Yeah, it helps a lot. Right. And there's so much more kind of camaraderie and everyone. Like you want to win. You want to be the best baker, but there's no money. And it does kind of significantly change the stakes. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. Like if the floor is lava, if you won a million dollars, it would be horrible to watch. Like it would be so stressful. And you'd be like, oh my God, like they need the money really bad. And like they're going to fall. And you'd be like freaking out. But because, you know, it's not that much money. But it's like enough money that you're really happy for them when they make it. And you really want them to get it. It's just, I don't know, it's perfect. It's a great show. Nice.

That makes me want to watch it. Let me go next because I think Kirk's will be a little bit of a longer discussion. I agree. My wife and I have been watching, it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Have other people guys watch this show? Oh, absolutely. At the time, yes. Okay.

Yes. Well, at the time, you say, but it's like still making new seasons. I know, but I did fall off the weekend with it. I haven't watched it in a little while. So, yeah, my wife and I have been going through the entire thing. And, man, it is hilarious. It is so ridiculous. And out of control.

One of the most classic shows about terrible people to ever be made, I think. It is straight out. But I think what ultimately makes it work is that the terrible people always, always gets what's coming to them. Yeah. And I think in contrast to, like, I don't know, entourage where the terrible people are always winning. No, there's a lot of shows where the terrible people win. Yeah, exactly. I think always sunny, it's fun to watch these people because they're always just like making complete asses out of themselves and embarrassing themselves.

But some of the situations they get into are so ridiculous. Like my wife and I just watched this episode where they were at the restaurant and like they were all at different tables and like trying to like play these games against each other. These malicious games were like one table. They, they, uh, it was Mac and Dennis and they didn't want to say hi to Charlie and Frank until Charlie and Frank said hi to them. So they kept trying to sabotage one another or like send each other wine as like a passive aggressive move. there's so many good episodes of this so many ridiculous stories I really enjoy it and also the music in it sounds a lot like Dragon Quest music and I can't get that out of my head like that ring ring yeah anyone who if you'll go and like listen to it on YouTube or something and then play it near like Dragon Quest 8 music or something you will hear that

they are exactly the same I don't know if I'm the first person to make this observation Yeah, when is Kirk going to do a deep analysis of the It's Always Sunny music? The smaltz music from It's Always Sunny. I've always liked that contrast of the super schmaltzy music with these extremely acerbic characters. Well, it's very curbinger enthusiasm. I think curb is the one that started that trend. And it's very fun. But yeah, I just really, I think we just hit season nine.

I think, I feel like it hit a new level. Well, they're each only 10 episodes. We're all trapped at home. Look, no, I'm not judging you at all. I watched all of career enthusiasm in like a few weeks, like a couple months ago. So we're all having a time. Each season is like 10 episodes and they're each like 25 minutes long. So it's actually pretty easy to get through all of it.

Oh, yeah. But yeah, no, we're on season nine. And it's around season seven, it really just like hits this level of like they really figured out what they were doing and just got nonstop ridiculous episodes. Cool. So yeah. So Kirk, what is? You're a war-worthy.

He's playing a video game. Well, I'm now not playing a video game. I just stopped playing it. I just stopped playing The Last of Us 2 because I finished it. And given that we just did an episode last week, thank you, talking about it. I figured I'd share some more thoughts on the game, though I'm still definitely chewing on what I think of it. Yeah. Bing!

Kirk, from the future here, as I edit this episode, I know some people are still sensitive about The Last of Us 2 spoilers, so I thought I would drop a little warning in here. Just to say that I actually don't really spoil anything specific when I talk about it here. There were more spoilers than last week's triple play on the game. I do talk a little bit about themes and characters and stuff. So if you're totally looking to avoid spoilers still, you might as well just skip to the end. This is the last thing that we talk about on this episode.

But not really a whole lot of beans spilled in this conversation. Just wanted to give you all a heads up. Okay, back to the episode. Bing! But it's been nice being done with it for a number of reasons. Probably because it is a pretty grueling and intense game. and now I can just play other less grueling and less intense things. Probably because I can go read what so many people have written.

Maddie, I really liked your review a lot. Oh, thank you. I read, I liked Joshua Rivera's review too. I did too. I liked a lot of views. Where is that? Tell people where that. I believe it said vulture.

We can link all these. Yeah, he wrote for vulture and then Riley reviewed it for kataku. These were all ex-Kotaku work Kotaku people, which is cool. But you could go read Rob Zackney's review. Oh, wait, no, he also worked for Kataku. Never mind. I guess that's true. I was saying that that was true.

We're just sort of spreading spreading through writers to the world. I feel like he freelance. I don't know if he was a full time. He was a contractor, so you can decide whether or not you think that. That counts. Well, yes, he wrote a good review as well. So it's been cool reading it.

There's a lot more there. I think there's just going to be like a really robust discussion of so many aspects of this game of like, God, I mean, you could go just down any one vector. Which we will do in our beans cast. We will do. And I'm sure we'll do in future, you know, in future one more things as well. Yeah.

I have to finish it. When you finish, Jason, I'll be curious what you think. But yeah, I think overall, I think it's a really ambitious and really bold game. I liked things about it. I was a little let down by a lot of stuff overall. Like, now that I've played the entire thing, like looking back at just the way the story was structured, the characters they developed, the relationships they developed and didn't develop. It's tough because this game is like, Maddie, I think you described it as it's so close to something that you really, really,

really wanted. Which I think always hurts me more. Like when I, when it's so close to being the thing I wanted to be. And then it isn't that. And I'm like, oh, but just, just move this here and put this here. And then you've got it. You're so close. But anyway. I'm so curious to know what you guys, once we can spoil it. Yeah. You got to beat it, man. Once I finish it. I mean, and I got to say, like, this game, I think this game is like, if you're interested in video games and storytelling, it's worth playing for sure. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And if you want to.

to participate in these infuriating conversations, which I'm sure many of our listeners do. It's worth playing just for that. I mean, heck, that was when I played the first one, even though I wasn't sure I'd like it. I was like, I just want to get in on this. So, Kirk, last week you were saying that you were pretty into it. Are you saying the second half of the game kind of soured you more on it? No, no, no, no. And no, not, I want to push back on both of those characterizations.

I was saying that I thought that it was a worthy endeavor, like, that it was this, like, very confident, very well-made, and very, like, clear about what it was trying to be work. And I think that that's true throughout. Like, I actually, there's one line of critique, and I'm not, I've seen it in a few different places that I don't agree with, and that's that the game is doing the fake-out thing where it reveals to you that you were a monster all along because it recontextualizes some of what you've done. This game does re-contextualize some of what you've done, and it's, like, in a very

ambitious, big way. but I actually didn't feel like it was doing what spec ops and Hotline Miami did, which is something I said last week as a like, those games exist, so why does this game exist? Right. It's not doing that because it is actually all of a piece. It was clear to me from the beginning that everything I was doing was horrible. And then I just got a lot more information about the horrible things I was doing. There is a critique in there of just like, why did we need all that information to know,

did I need 27 hours for that message? and that I think is totally fair. But in terms of the just like, this isn't a game that's like doing the whole ludonarrative dissonance, oh, you thought you were shooting bad guys, but it's really Ender's game and you were killing innocent civilians. Like, it's not that and it's not trying to be that. Like, it's very clear about what it is. I actually really liked the piece that Chris Plant wrote for Polygon about how this

game is like the end game of ludonarrative dissonance because it basically is, what you're doing is terrible. You feel terrible about it. the whole time, and then that's the game. Like, there isn't, it isn't the thing with Nathan Drake where you're like, oh, this guy's supposed to be so affable and charming. And yet he's murdering people. Just murdering people left and right.

Whereas in this game, Ellie isn't affable or charming. She's murdering people. And like that she is a video game character. It's like, what is a person where a video game character, I think is what Plant wrote in his, in his story that you're referring to. Yeah, which is, I think, I think accurate. And we can link that and shown us. I thought that was a really smart piece.

And there are even times in the first. Last of Us, and there are times in this game, too, a little later on, where, like, you're fighting people that are a little more just, they're just kind of henchmen, like, they're not. But even then, you still get those callouts, the anguished barks, the names, like, the people who died. But it's, like, you've, at that point, internalized that you're killing people. So, I think that it's just, it's very much a game about cycles of vengeance and, like,

forgiveness, or if that's possible past a certain point. And it reinforces this theme, who started it, you know, there's a war going on, and who started, who broke the ceasefire. Like, this keeps coming back. But I do, like, in the end, I'm like, well, I'm glad I play that because I am very interested in video games and this as a creation is so high level and ambitious. Fascinating, yeah.

Yeah. And also, like, a lot of my complaints with the story, like, particular things, characters that didn't get enough time, relationships that weren't developed, you know, the complexity of what they're trying to do, clearly it almost killed people to make this game to begin with. So it was so hard to make it that it's like, You know, I'm forgiving, I guess, of those things. Or I'm like, well, of course there are going to be some things that didn't work as well as they might have.

The fact that a lot of it does work is pretty amazing. Like I've said this a lot of times, but it's like, I'm glad I played it and I'm glad I'm done playing it. And it's just, regardless of the gameplay part of it, like the ludon narrative dissonance, the sort of you're killing people, but are you a hero thing? Removing that entirely because I don't think that that's an issue in this game. There is still a dissonance. And it's just a narrative dissonance. And it's existed in movies as well for a very long time. And it's just, can you tell a story about violence where violence is the main attraction and not run into a kind of conflict there?

And it's possible. Like, there are war movies that are, you know, anti-war in the end. And because they subjected you to the horror of war in the end, you now have a new perspective on, like, what that means. And that's valid. But at the same time, I guess I'm not sure I needed another story like that. I come away from it feeling like I got something about these characters. Like I did come to understand more about Ellie and Joel and Abby and all these characters and like how it all played out. And I've been thinking about it a lot.

Like it's been in my head in a way that like stories that meant something are. But there's still just the fact that like most of what you're doing, like the appeal of this game is like the amazingly rendered fighting in combat and killing. And then also the story is about that. that it's like, it's not that they fucked up. It's not that they told the wrong story. It's not a failure. It's doing pretty dang well, but it's trying to do. It's just that I'm not totally in love with the overall thing.

Like, it's just not that kind of story that I seek out, I guess. And that's kind of how I'm feeling about it now. Glad I played it. Glad I'm done playing it. And looking forward to talking about, like, particulars more, just because, like I said, any one vector of this story is fascinating and can be kind of teased apart a lot. So well, well produced, well done, well told for what they wanted to do, but not for you, but not a story that you.

Yeah. And like, it's almost not even that it's not for me. It's just sort of, it's just a story that I've heard before. It's something that I know already. I did want, something you wrote in your review, actually, Maddie, that I really liked was you were talking about how it presents a view of these different organizations, the Wolves and Ellie's group. I have so much to say about that. Yeah, it presents people in different factions and different groups. And a lot of times those groups are doing awful things.

And the people in them are doing awful things. But it doesn't explore them in a way that I actually feel would be a lot more useful and interesting to me at this moment in time. I agree. Where we're seeing so many structural issues and we're learning so much about how we work together. And like actually, it has this Hobbesian view of humanity that I just like don't agree with. I don't agree with and I don't think it's accurate. And that was really what I struggled with. and I'm sure I'll get into it more on the beans cast because it is somewhat spoilery,

but I just, my issues with the game were more that there were a few scenes where I was like, I actually don't think that these people would do this here. And that started happening to me enough times in a row that I really fell off the game in a big way by the end. I'm glad you didn't, Kirk, because I think your experience more closely hues with how other people felt about the game. And I hope our listeners appreciate it because I realize that not everybody shares my feelings and that's completely fine. But maybe it just depends on what life experiences you have with people

and what you think about human behavior, which that's an interesting philosophical question that the game is raising and the fact that it inspires so many different reactions from people like me who played it and were like, what? Why would Ellie do this here, then? Why? And that other people would play it and be like,

oh, this totally speaks to me. Perhaps that means it did succeed on some level because people disagree so much about it. it and I think that's what they were going for. All right, let's table this before I get spoiled because I'm over like halfway through the game. My hot take, by the way, is that the game is too long because I just hit what I assume is the halfway point. A very common take.

Yeah, Jason. And I'm already like, God, like, I need this to be over. I don't want to sneak around and get killed by bloater zombies anymore. Well, take a break and then come back. And then maybe a lot. Yeah. Well, I mean, I am taking a break and then coming back. Exactly. It works out nicely because I'm going away for a week.

All right, folks, I believe that is it for this week's episode. So I will say goodbye to you both. Goodbye, Kirk, and goodbye, Maddie. All right. See you both next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Shrier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I added and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ.

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to maximum fun.org slash join and consider becoming a member. Doing so helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple-click episode each month. Find us online at triple-clickpodcast.com on Twitter at triple-clickpod

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