I like anti-heroes better than heroes & villians (mainly because they are more realistic relateable. They are not 100% good nor are they all out evil, they are realistic! & most anti-heroes have lost every thing leaving nothing else to lose, thats what i love most about them.
Mercer is a monster, he's plainly psychotic and murderous. He's also dead by the time gameplay begins. You(player) are not Mercer. You are the Blacklight virus using his appearance. As the game progresses, players get to watch a biological weapon become a better person than the psycho who unleashed it on a city.
That argument between Wolverine being a good guy vs being a killing machine is kinda build into his character. Just saying that's at least attempting to be fair to the sources character.
That's what help make the twist in Bioshock so great. You were told you were doing everything that you were doing for good, but it turned out you were doing it for this crazy mobster, which made you evil.
I agree on what your saying issue wise but Hulk and Wolverine don't really come off as Villians to me. Both are very violent and enjoy fights but for they usually seem to act that way for different reasons to me. I'm not a comic historian but from what I recall from the movies and TV shows: When hulk only fights when being attacked or made.Dave(I think its his name)gets away before thing get bad. Wolverine,doesn't go around kicking people into traffic or anything uncalled for violently.Unless he
From what I've heard of the second one, it seems like they were trying to not to pretend Alex is a hero, but to show that he's CONVINCED himself he's a hero, despite how clearly evil he is.
"If you want to be a jerk, fine! Be a jerk. Just don't claim to be storming the gates of Mordor when all your doing is just spitting on the overpass."
I myself don't really like nor understand the appeal of anti-heroes. The thing is that most anti-heroes are selfish sociopaths who don't care who dies or lives. I kinda hated Snake Plissken's attitude as I watched Escape from New York.
Eh. I thought it was pretty clear in prototype mercer isn't a hero.
The issue with hulk and wolverine, and is they allow you to play out of character. So of course if you play out of character it doesn't make sense. But it is more fun.
@legacyspy The story writers would disagree with you on Alex's alignment. According to TV Tropes, there're Prototype tie-in comics that depict Alex as being less enthusiastic about all the murder he gets up to and even, at one point, trying to evacuate the civilians out of an area where he's about to enact one of his collateral damage-heavy plans. So the problem is the game's designers (who pretty much rigged the mechanics to encourage mass-murder) weren't on the same page as the writers.
Seriously, I don't understand why killing fascist makes Alex not an anti-hero. I wasn't aware that there was a special way to go about killing them that would make him an anti-hero. Would it be better if he went about it like Dexter? If he did then the whole game play would change. But whatever, I just don't get what you are saying I guess.
its less about killing the fascist and more about BEING ABLE TO KILL EVERYONE (including the inhabitants of the city you're trying to "save"). the storyline of a game doesnt give you a choice between being the good guy or the bad guy. so you, here, are automatically the good guy by default story, where as gameplay has you doing completely different (ie. slicing up innocents for more power).
hmm. Wolverine has done a lot of terrible things as far as killing people goes in his life time, but make no mistake, he doesn't "enjoy" it. The origins game certainly seemed to have confused James Howlette for Frank Castle in points, but Wolverine DOES have this animalistic sense to him. He is wild and he can and probably will kill you if he has to. He still has a human side to him though. He can reason when he wants to. He also has gotten better recently. This comes from a marvel comic reader.
Hmmmm... There's a loophole in your rational here, I think.
Because if the character is actually a psychopath and delusional, could'nt he actually believe he's trying to create a better world by all his killing?
And isn't Prototype actually a story about revenge? not about saving the city? He's basically hunting down everyone thats responsible for his situation, no matter who gets hurt in the process, party, I think, because he's not really human anymore.
@hmurdock That's the problem. You could say that Alex isn't human so he doesn't give a crap about morality or anything like that. He just wants revenge. But the problem is that the game itself doesn't really support that interpretation and never really plays up that angle. The cutscenes often portray him as a decent enough person while the gameplay is very much incompatible with that concept. And the game never really makes any serious attempt to reconcile this contradiction.
@silentdragon2100 The way I saw it, Alex Mercer is not your character: he's a sick sociopath who tried to take the whole planet with him by releasing the virus, and was the first person consumed by it. You play the result -- the virus infection having only the fragmented memories of a sociopath as a guide to being human. But consuming other, better people broadens its perspective, so that by the end, it hates what it did before. Most cut scenes/voiceovers are from later in the storyline.
@MyOwnNameWasTaken That's an interesting interpretation. Unfortunately that's all it is: one person's interpretation. And that's the problem. The actual game doesn't even try to tackle the question of story/gameplay consistency that it raises. It instead simply leaves the players to try and come up with their own interpretations. The game itself never actually explains itself. This issue may not be unique to Prototype but it's certainly especially obvious with Prototype.
@MyOwnNameWasTaken And by the way I'm not really sure what you're talking about when you say that most cutscenes/voiceovers are from later in the storyline. They are spread throughout the storyline.
Yeah...Its bananas, wasn't Alex a Terrorist?! Jeez, he was an anti hero. The savior of the city? Well...We can call it fat free and know that its going to stuff us so full of saturated ladeeda that our jeans wont fit again and still enjoy it. Am I right or what?
Could say the same for GTA and any sandbox game. In truth the problem's that the gameworld is dead and its' populace doesn't remember the player's actions.
I think Hulk's an odd case. In some ways he's more anti-villain than anti-hero, but he's just an animal or force of nature he has no sense of right or wrong. Occassionally he does some heroic deeds but the focus of his stories are always destruction he causes, So I think IHUD was fair in its interpretation.
Wolverine you can't really argue for, except to say he's a heroic sociopath in the game, kinda like Rorschach in Watchmen
At first, I was going to defend it, but I do get what ya mean now. Killing massive amounts of civilians is fun in game, but doesn't fit Mercer's style. In the comics, he stops and tells some woman to get clear before causing some chaos, rather than chopping her to pieces and eating her just for the heck of it. So the gameplay won't match up with the writer's vision of Alex if you go psycho-murderer on everyone. But it can be lots of fun.
(can you please) make a twitter account so I can follow the plethora of things you post and update (because obviously, I love you... in a heterosexual way. Hell, who am I to judge.)
this video makes absolute sense ive noticed that all the games i play that make you kill thousands of innocence as well as military and still try to play off that the main protagonist is really just trying to help i would just stop caring about the story line and do what ever it means just to get to the next objective and kill more people ive played prototype and i subconsciously just said hey i dont care let me kill more people these are my ideals and i am aristides
Agreed. When I first played Prototype I tried my absolute hardest to keep civilian deaths to zero, but when I discovered that the mechanics of the game made it so that it was almost impossible to get significantly stronger in the game without doing so, I immediately stopped taking the game seriously and disliked Mercer as a character.
Someone made a point that hit my brain like a sledge hammer the moment the video ended. Heroes do kill, you do save the world by killing people by the dozens.
And I thought one of the main reasons Anti heroes are called that are because that play in the gray and the not super-man/batman "Ill never break a law..." kind of good guy.
Um, youtube wont let me make a longer comment. So ill cut it short. lol, meh. I normally like his rants tho, fun stuff.
Did you actually play Prototype? Alex Mercer has no remorse for killing all the military and he never takes time to contemplate what he's done. This is a very unique game that revels in its gore and violence where you're essentially playing a nihilistic villain.
The only "moral" thing he ever does is stop NYC from being NUKED. Even a villain wouldn't want that, because all the fun of killing people would be gone! I'm sure the Joker would understand ;)
"All while Alex is saying some whiny shit" Please give me an example of the cutscenes where he moans. All I remember he moans about is he can't get to the right guy, and more antagonists keep on popping up.
The only people he wants to save in the game is Dana and possibly his GF, but later on not so much.
And yes, I killed the whole population as much as everyone because it was fun. The game never punished you for that. What's your point? That is consistent with Alex being an anti-hero.
You obviously missed the end cinematic where he walks off into the night talking about all the people he's killed.
I agree with the rant to a degree but Prototype isn't the problem. Likewise you only have to kill civilians if you want to, I've managed quite well chowing on only infected (dead for all purposes) and military (shooting at me so legitimate targets).
the reason you like kratos is the reason i don't; since there's no reason for me to empathize, there's no motivation for me to play and allow kratos to succeed. god of war might be consistent in its characterization through in-game events (it actually isn't -- kratos fights to avenge his wife and daughter that he killed, yet you take on his role and murder thousands in a glorified and cinematic fashion), but it has the very basic problem of a morally repulsive avatar.
A morally repulsive avatar isn't meant to be empathetic; not every main character has to be relatable or empathetic. They have to be interesting, and the events that surround them have to be interesting, which Kratos and his adventures are. Charisma and relatablility are not the only things that attract the player to a character.
i would argue that every character meant to be followed by the participant, in any media format, must be relatable on even the most minor scale. kratos is an unredeemable villain, with his power-up gangbangs and blind bloodlust. it would be different if you were switching between figures, but always being kratos wears itself out. whatever interest there is becomes irritation. that may be "the point," but what value does it have? does this make manhunt 2 a good game? why revel in self-disgust?
Manhunt 2 is a crappy game because it is a crappy game. God of War isn't reveling in it's self-disgust, it's reveling in it's misguided passion and anger. It's thematically relevant for the destructive nature of Kratos to be exemplified in the gameplay. Always playing a good guy or a bad guy with a daughter gets old, and playing a man who is a complete villain is a breath of fresh air.
hm. i guess i don't think god of war is a good game because it succeeds at what it does, or because it's "fresh." i don't believe in commending a product simply because it's successful unto itself or new; a game, like any other product, needs a hooked, caring participant to make it work. kratos doesn't interest me because there is no ambiguity to his character; he's a straight-up bad dude, so there's neither room for my apathy or investment.
I can see why you don't like it, so it's all fair. I'm just trying to get across why I do. This is why I love Rev Rants, it always gets us thinking and talking!
Except Kratos IS played up as a "bad guy with a daughter". Quite specifically that, as a matter of fact. If the games were very clear-cut about the fact that Kratos is an irredeemable asshole, that'd be one thing, but really they are inconsistent; one minute he's portrayed as that, the next we're supposed to be sympathetic toward him because boo hoo, his family. And it openly glorifies his depravity. That's why he's a mess of a character and more than being unsympathetic, is outright repulsive.
Yeah, they kinda screwed that up in the first game with that inconsistency, however the second game pretty much has him being an asshole the whole way through.
Although I believe the PSP game did the same thing sadly.
Add Nathan Drake from UNCHARTED here, too. He LOOKS like an everdayman, but what he does in the game solely consists of murdering 100s of goons and doing impossible feats with jumping that contradicts his "MacGuyver" personality in the cutscenes.
this isn't even a matter of anti-heroes. most anti-heroes follow a more sane path, this is just a matter of them trying to put the wrong story with the wrong game.
wauw out of all rev rants this one is by far the one i COMPLETELY agree with, since in other revrants i tend to disagree with some points but either way fuck yeah revrants rule
Production quality went out the window on this one...
... but good rant none the less. Not too sure about Wolverine as an example though. He is more of an animal than human but he tries to fight it, which is why he gets so pissed when his brother reminds him I guess.
What no mention? I actually brought this up in the comments of you last video. The guys at Naughty Dog said the same thing in a recent 1up interview. Anyway great rant. Looking foward to the new season of HAWP.
while I may not always agree with your points of view, these rants consistently force me to consider concepts I never would have given a passing thought otherwise.
Although I haven't madeit through to the end of prototype just yet, I was under the impression that this was alex's own reinactment, and that everyone else has been accusing him of being a monster.. the army guys/marines/wtfever all do it, and there's more than one point where his sister is actually scared of him..
Infact, there's a moment about 30% in that alex talks to his sister and tells her he can feel the pain/memories of his victims and she's sickened and forces him
i like the sentiment but just by the etymology of the word, hero originally meant someone who killed a lot of people in battle, a war hero. achilles is the archetypal hero. so in some sense hero has always meant 'someone who kills as many people as possible and enjoys it'
While I find my self incredibly agreeing with the points you have made in this video, the video has, above all, left me wondering about the progression of your gnarly beard.
That was a good point really although I will say that at least some of the (admittedly flawed story) in Wolverine was about him becoming more "human" in away and not killing more. Still I see what you mean, I never played Assassins Creed but didn't it have the same vibe?
Actually, Assassin's Creed's story involves a lot of intentional self-contradiction when it comes to Altair's motive. He begins to question what he's doing and why. His master tells him one thing, while his targets tell him another. Really, I think it's a very interesting story.
Agreed and in Assassins's creed II in a certain codex page Altair admits that he realizes the contradiction but isn't sure what to do about it.
Also,Anthony,isn't the definition of an anti-hero someone who does evil things for their own selfish reasons in which the result will also inadvertently be good for someone that isn't evil?In god of war 1 Kratos wanted to kill Ares for revenge but the result of Are's death would save Athens which kratos doesn't care about at all.
I thought one of the Legacy of Kain games (I think it was the PS2 Blood Omen) made a good job of telling you straight off the bat that you are an evil evil vampire person
I like anti-heroes better than heroes & villians (mainly because they are more realistic relateable. They are not 100% good nor are they all out evil, they are realistic! & most anti-heroes have lost every thing leaving nothing else to lose, thats what i love most about them.
radewi1 5 days ago
Like Leon in RE4, yeah, I got your cure right here.
buttermen1 1 month ago
Wow, Mercer can get around. I wanna play infamous or prototype now...
Aldowyn 1 month ago
On the subject of Alerx Mercer,
SPOILER ALERT
Mercer is a monster, he's plainly psychotic and murderous. He's also dead by the time gameplay begins. You(player) are not Mercer. You are the Blacklight virus using his appearance. As the game progresses, players get to watch a biological weapon become a better person than the psycho who unleashed it on a city.
belshamroth 4 months ago
That argument between Wolverine being a good guy vs being a killing machine is kinda build into his character. Just saying that's at least attempting to be fair to the sources character.
zuschnell4u 7 months ago
"violence can be used for good."
son12509 7 months ago
That's what help make the twist in Bioshock so great. You were told you were doing everything that you were doing for good, but it turned out you were doing it for this crazy mobster, which made you evil.
superhippie87 8 months ago in playlist Rev Rants
Kratos is the gayest video game character ever.
bigniggurdick 8 months ago
@bigniggurdick yeah man kraotos is like the most stupidest game ever! now god of war now thats an amazing game :D
OFswag666 6 months ago
is being attacked or the situation calls for it. Someone else even mentioned that Saber Tooth reminding him hes a monster,made him snap.
operater190 9 months ago
I agree on what your saying issue wise but Hulk and Wolverine don't really come off as Villians to me. Both are very violent and enjoy fights but for they usually seem to act that way for different reasons to me. I'm not a comic historian but from what I recall from the movies and TV shows: When hulk only fights when being attacked or made.Dave(I think its his name)gets away before thing get bad. Wolverine,doesn't go around kicking people into traffic or anything uncalled for violently.Unless he
operater190 9 months ago
From what I've heard of the second one, it seems like they were trying to not to pretend Alex is a hero, but to show that he's CONVINCED himself he's a hero, despite how clearly evil he is.
Abocreature 9 months ago
In the words of MovieBob:
"If you want to be a jerk, fine! Be a jerk. Just don't claim to be storming the gates of Mordor when all your doing is just spitting on the overpass."
Mikodite 11 months ago
I myself don't really like nor understand the appeal of anti-heroes. The thing is that most anti-heroes are selfish sociopaths who don't care who dies or lives. I kinda hated Snake Plissken's attitude as I watched Escape from New York.
RocMegamanX 11 months ago
Who is David? o.O
TennysonXII 11 months ago
Eh. I thought it was pretty clear in prototype mercer isn't a hero.
The issue with hulk and wolverine, and is they allow you to play out of character. So of course if you play out of character it doesn't make sense. But it is more fun.
legacyspy 11 months ago
@legacyspy The story writers would disagree with you on Alex's alignment. According to TV Tropes, there're Prototype tie-in comics that depict Alex as being less enthusiastic about all the murder he gets up to and even, at one point, trying to evacuate the civilians out of an area where he's about to enact one of his collateral damage-heavy plans. So the problem is the game's designers (who pretty much rigged the mechanics to encourage mass-murder) weren't on the same page as the writers.
MigeulP 11 months ago
Eh. I thought it was pretty clear in prototype mercer isn't a hero.
The issue with hulk and wolverine, and is they allow you to play out of character. So of course if you play out of character it doesn't make sense.
legacyspy 11 months ago
Dude, my name's David. Congratulations, you totally scared the shit out of me XD
ObsessiveSketch 1 year ago
Seriously, I don't understand why killing fascist makes Alex not an anti-hero. I wasn't aware that there was a special way to go about killing them that would make him an anti-hero. Would it be better if he went about it like Dexter? If he did then the whole game play would change. But whatever, I just don't get what you are saying I guess.
lashkaretoiba 1 year ago
@lashkaretoiba
its less about killing the fascist and more about BEING ABLE TO KILL EVERYONE (including the inhabitants of the city you're trying to "save"). the storyline of a game doesnt give you a choice between being the good guy or the bad guy. so you, here, are automatically the good guy by default story, where as gameplay has you doing completely different (ie. slicing up innocents for more power).
unsuburban 11 months ago
@unsuburban GTA isn't any better. Yep. Don't care.
lashkaretoiba 11 months ago
hmm. Wolverine has done a lot of terrible things as far as killing people goes in his life time, but make no mistake, he doesn't "enjoy" it. The origins game certainly seemed to have confused James Howlette for Frank Castle in points, but Wolverine DOES have this animalistic sense to him. He is wild and he can and probably will kill you if he has to. He still has a human side to him though. He can reason when he wants to. He also has gotten better recently. This comes from a marvel comic reader.
KingKizerKun 1 year ago 2
Hmmmm... There's a loophole in your rational here, I think.
Because if the character is actually a psychopath and delusional, could'nt he actually believe he's trying to create a better world by all his killing?
And isn't Prototype actually a story about revenge? not about saving the city? He's basically hunting down everyone thats responsible for his situation, no matter who gets hurt in the process, party, I think, because he's not really human anymore.
hmurdock 1 year ago 2
@hmurdock That's the problem. You could say that Alex isn't human so he doesn't give a crap about morality or anything like that. He just wants revenge. But the problem is that the game itself doesn't really support that interpretation and never really plays up that angle. The cutscenes often portray him as a decent enough person while the gameplay is very much incompatible with that concept. And the game never really makes any serious attempt to reconcile this contradiction.
silentdragon2100 1 year ago
@silentdragon2100 The way I saw it, Alex Mercer is not your character: he's a sick sociopath who tried to take the whole planet with him by releasing the virus, and was the first person consumed by it. You play the result -- the virus infection having only the fragmented memories of a sociopath as a guide to being human. But consuming other, better people broadens its perspective, so that by the end, it hates what it did before. Most cut scenes/voiceovers are from later in the storyline.
MyOwnNameWasTaken 11 months ago
@MyOwnNameWasTaken That's an interesting interpretation. Unfortunately that's all it is: one person's interpretation. And that's the problem. The actual game doesn't even try to tackle the question of story/gameplay consistency that it raises. It instead simply leaves the players to try and come up with their own interpretations. The game itself never actually explains itself. This issue may not be unique to Prototype but it's certainly especially obvious with Prototype.
silentdragon2100 11 months ago
@MyOwnNameWasTaken And by the way I'm not really sure what you're talking about when you say that most cutscenes/voiceovers are from later in the storyline. They are spread throughout the storyline.
silentdragon2100 11 months ago
You raise a good point but still would you play a game that keeps calling you a sadistic, evil, monster?
ThomasGordonCanavan1 1 year ago
Yeah...Its bananas, wasn't Alex a Terrorist?! Jeez, he was an anti hero. The savior of the city? Well...We can call it fat free and know that its going to stuff us so full of saturated ladeeda that our jeans wont fit again and still enjoy it. Am I right or what?
rollermaul22 1 year ago
god Of War III has overrated graphics, i thought this was a video of it, having to rewind to see the gOWII logo.
disposableculture 1 year ago
overolord yust saying
VPunisher 1 year ago
Bravo! 100% agreement.
TheLordVen 2 years ago
Great point.
Still love Prototype and Wolverine though.
To the grave.
Deadboy99 2 years ago
Could say the same for GTA and any sandbox game. In truth the problem's that the gameworld is dead and its' populace doesn't remember the player's actions.
Rev has stopped ranting.
Kogerii 2 years ago
Alex Mercer is a refreshing change from the "ultimate good" of all those stupid cliche'd hero games.
You kill people, innocent people, and oh how fun it is.
UrbanValkyrie 2 years ago
I think Hulk's an odd case. In some ways he's more anti-villain than anti-hero, but he's just an animal or force of nature he has no sense of right or wrong. Occassionally he does some heroic deeds but the focus of his stories are always destruction he causes, So I think IHUD was fair in its interpretation.
Wolverine you can't really argue for, except to say he's a heroic sociopath in the game, kinda like Rorschach in Watchmen
NickStedmon 2 years ago
At first, I was going to defend it, but I do get what ya mean now. Killing massive amounts of civilians is fun in game, but doesn't fit Mercer's style. In the comics, he stops and tells some woman to get clear before causing some chaos, rather than chopping her to pieces and eating her just for the heck of it. So the gameplay won't match up with the writer's vision of Alex if you go psycho-murderer on everyone. But it can be lots of fun.
Marcwulf 2 years ago
I hated prototype. played it for a good hour to make sure i wasn't missing anything good and haven't touched it since.
SammyBoyEEE 2 years ago
Hey Rev,
(can you please) make a twitter account so I can follow the plethora of things you post and update (because obviously, I love you... in a heterosexual way. Hell, who am I to judge.)
16187317 2 years ago 30
this video makes absolute sense ive noticed that all the games i play that make you kill thousands of innocence as well as military and still try to play off that the main protagonist is really just trying to help i would just stop caring about the story line and do what ever it means just to get to the next objective and kill more people ive played prototype and i subconsciously just said hey i dont care let me kill more people these are my ideals and i am aristides
KingAristides 2 years ago 2
Agreed. When I first played Prototype I tried my absolute hardest to keep civilian deaths to zero, but when I discovered that the mechanics of the game made it so that it was almost impossible to get significantly stronger in the game without doing so, I immediately stopped taking the game seriously and disliked Mercer as a character.
bissonnettekoff 2 years ago 2
Someone made a point that hit my brain like a sledge hammer the moment the video ended. Heroes do kill, you do save the world by killing people by the dozens.
And I thought one of the main reasons Anti heroes are called that are because that play in the gray and the not super-man/batman "Ill never break a law..." kind of good guy.
Um, youtube wont let me make a longer comment. So ill cut it short. lol, meh. I normally like his rants tho, fun stuff.
Ravenbrose 2 years ago
Did you actually play Prototype? Alex Mercer has no remorse for killing all the military and he never takes time to contemplate what he's done. This is a very unique game that revels in its gore and violence where you're essentially playing a nihilistic villain.
The only "moral" thing he ever does is stop NYC from being NUKED. Even a villain wouldn't want that, because all the fun of killing people would be gone! I'm sure the Joker would understand ;)
moeezS 2 years ago
Except you forgot that most, if not all, players pretty much killed the population of the city.
I'm sure I did.
It doesn't punish you for killing citizens, so pretty much everyone decided to just fuck up it. Kill them with tanks, claws and fucking karate kicks.
All while Alex is saying some whiny shit that people much makes the dialogue unintentionally hilarious.
Did YOU play the game or did you just not bother having fun killing the populous of New York?
FlammaMan 2 years ago
"All while Alex is saying some whiny shit" Please give me an example of the cutscenes where he moans. All I remember he moans about is he can't get to the right guy, and more antagonists keep on popping up.
The only people he wants to save in the game is Dana and possibly his GF, but later on not so much.
And yes, I killed the whole population as much as everyone because it was fun. The game never punished you for that. What's your point? That is consistent with Alex being an anti-hero.
moeezS 2 years ago
You obviously missed the end cinematic where he walks off into the night talking about all the people he's killed.
I agree with the rant to a degree but Prototype isn't the problem. Likewise you only have to kill civilians if you want to, I've managed quite well chowing on only infected (dead for all purposes) and military (shooting at me so legitimate targets).
nurizeko 2 years ago
the reason you like kratos is the reason i don't; since there's no reason for me to empathize, there's no motivation for me to play and allow kratos to succeed. god of war might be consistent in its characterization through in-game events (it actually isn't -- kratos fights to avenge his wife and daughter that he killed, yet you take on his role and murder thousands in a glorified and cinematic fashion), but it has the very basic problem of a morally repulsive avatar.
heyguysinternet 2 years ago
A morally repulsive avatar isn't meant to be empathetic; not every main character has to be relatable or empathetic. They have to be interesting, and the events that surround them have to be interesting, which Kratos and his adventures are. Charisma and relatablility are not the only things that attract the player to a character.
MetalLink1979 2 years ago
i would argue that every character meant to be followed by the participant, in any media format, must be relatable on even the most minor scale. kratos is an unredeemable villain, with his power-up gangbangs and blind bloodlust. it would be different if you were switching between figures, but always being kratos wears itself out. whatever interest there is becomes irritation. that may be "the point," but what value does it have? does this make manhunt 2 a good game? why revel in self-disgust?
heyguysinternet 2 years ago
Manhunt 2 is a crappy game because it is a crappy game. God of War isn't reveling in it's self-disgust, it's reveling in it's misguided passion and anger. It's thematically relevant for the destructive nature of Kratos to be exemplified in the gameplay. Always playing a good guy or a bad guy with a daughter gets old, and playing a man who is a complete villain is a breath of fresh air.
MetalLink1979 2 years ago
hm. i guess i don't think god of war is a good game because it succeeds at what it does, or because it's "fresh." i don't believe in commending a product simply because it's successful unto itself or new; a game, like any other product, needs a hooked, caring participant to make it work. kratos doesn't interest me because there is no ambiguity to his character; he's a straight-up bad dude, so there's neither room for my apathy or investment.
heyguysinternet 2 years ago
I can see why you don't like it, so it's all fair. I'm just trying to get across why I do. This is why I love Rev Rants, it always gets us thinking and talking!
MetalLink1979 2 years ago
Except Kratos IS played up as a "bad guy with a daughter". Quite specifically that, as a matter of fact. If the games were very clear-cut about the fact that Kratos is an irredeemable asshole, that'd be one thing, but really they are inconsistent; one minute he's portrayed as that, the next we're supposed to be sympathetic toward him because boo hoo, his family. And it openly glorifies his depravity. That's why he's a mess of a character and more than being unsympathetic, is outright repulsive.
gatotsu911 2 years ago
Yeah, they kinda screwed that up in the first game with that inconsistency, however the second game pretty much has him being an asshole the whole way through.
Although I believe the PSP game did the same thing sadly.
FlammaMan 2 years ago
That is the best, truest thing I have ever heard said about God of War. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.
gatotsu911 2 years ago
Add Nathan Drake from UNCHARTED here, too. He LOOKS like an everdayman, but what he does in the game solely consists of murdering 100s of goons and doing impossible feats with jumping that contradicts his "MacGuyver" personality in the cutscenes.
eternal191 2 years ago
This video needs more Justin Yngelmo. I want him inside me ^_^
diablopanqueque 2 years ago
good point. uo altered my world. i now see games in a totally different way
desertedeagle 2 years ago
i see what you mean. i played prototype just so i could massacre huge crowds of people.
starecrow 2 years ago
this isn't even a matter of anti-heroes. most anti-heroes follow a more sane path, this is just a matter of them trying to put the wrong story with the wrong game.
AncientGearEngineer 2 years ago
muse as intro = automatic awesome = automatic 5 star
jb500000 2 years ago
wauw out of all rev rants this one is by far the one i COMPLETELY agree with, since in other revrants i tend to disagree with some points but either way fuck yeah revrants rule
Tarantula33222 2 years ago
I agree, especially with your last statement! :-)
Also redemption is obviously a justifiable theme to have have in a game, some characters come across as morally schizophrenic!
UnderAPurpleSky 2 years ago
Production quality went out the window on this one...
... but good rant none the less. Not too sure about Wolverine as an example though. He is more of an animal than human but he tries to fight it, which is why he gets so pissed when his brother reminds him I guess.
Cimlite 2 years ago
These videos had a beard with a kid attached to it before. What happened to that?
Tofycoco 2 years ago 2
What no mention? I actually brought this up in the comments of you last video. The guys at Naughty Dog said the same thing in a recent 1up interview. Anyway great rant. Looking foward to the new season of HAWP.
steelhorseclub 2 years ago
dana has the sexiest voice in the world
vedicardi 2 years ago
SPOILER ALERTS i am actually playing prototype right now and i paused it as you said "at the end of the game"
now i can't watch the video :'(
MarluxiaKeyblader 2 years ago
while I may not always agree with your points of view, these rants consistently force me to consider concepts I never would have given a passing thought otherwise.
Bravo, sir.
And I will see you at PAX.
KWiP1123 2 years ago 2
This is why I like Infamous better even though I'll probably never own my own PS3.
gumgumningen 2 years ago 2
I somewhat disagree.
Although I haven't madeit through to the end of prototype just yet, I was under the impression that this was alex's own reinactment, and that everyone else has been accusing him of being a monster.. the army guys/marines/wtfever all do it, and there's more than one point where his sister is actually scared of him..
Infact, there's a moment about 30% in that alex talks to his sister and tells her he can feel the pain/memories of his victims and she's sickened and forces him
Reaprar 2 years ago
forces him away,and out of the room even..
I don't know, maybe I'm looking for depth that isn't there.
Reaprar 2 years ago
i like the sentiment but just by the etymology of the word, hero originally meant someone who killed a lot of people in battle, a war hero. achilles is the archetypal hero. so in some sense hero has always meant 'someone who kills as many people as possible and enjoys it'
rinkuhero 2 years ago
True in a lot of ways, but the sidequests in Prototype never ask you to kill civilians; only some of the achievements do, and those are just for fun.
zero10999 2 years ago
While I find my self incredibly agreeing with the points you have made in this video, the video has, above all, left me wondering about the progression of your gnarly beard.
Adantehand 2 years ago
That was a good point really although I will say that at least some of the (admittedly flawed story) in Wolverine was about him becoming more "human" in away and not killing more. Still I see what you mean, I never played Assassins Creed but didn't it have the same vibe?
Youreonawitch 2 years ago
Actually, Assassin's Creed's story involves a lot of intentional self-contradiction when it comes to Altair's motive. He begins to question what he's doing and why. His master tells him one thing, while his targets tell him another. Really, I think it's a very interesting story.
Marcwulf 2 years ago 19
Agreed and in Assassins's creed II in a certain codex page Altair admits that he realizes the contradiction but isn't sure what to do about it.
Also,Anthony,isn't the definition of an anti-hero someone who does evil things for their own selfish reasons in which the result will also inadvertently be good for someone that isn't evil?In god of war 1 Kratos wanted to kill Ares for revenge but the result of Are's death would save Athens which kratos doesn't care about at all.
dadman1988 2 years ago
Great rant, Anthony.
I miss seeing you in the video, though.
hopolko 2 years ago
Fuckin A+
Keep up the awesome work, Mr Burch :)
Soundboy6 2 years ago
One of your best rants keep it up
greatgames148 2 years ago
One of the better rants to date. Love it.
daftbottv 2 years ago
I thought one of the Legacy of Kain games (I think it was the PS2 Blood Omen) made a good job of telling you straight off the bat that you are an evil evil vampire person
Jonamon 2 years ago
These videos are quickly becoming my new favorite thing!
TheoKupo 2 years ago 2
great rant, as usual
alex1314159 2 years ago
You are way smarter then I thought you were from those videos you are in - the ones with that girl...
RichGilly 2 years ago
Another great video Rev hope to see more soon
DarthSparda7 2 years ago