The Hoard Potato: Heroic Head-Bashing Harp Seal Hunters

[athelind]

I announced today, to my FurryMUCK clique, that I didn't want to see any more trailers for Monster Hunter 3. The game doesn't just annoy me: it actively pisses me off, and worse, it makes me think badly not only of gamers in general but of Japanese culture, in wide, bigoted swaths

Comments

[wy]

I'll disagree. :P

As long as the harvest of baby seals is done in a sustainable manner, and care is taken to ensure that there are no population effects, I don't have a problem with clubbing the little beasties upside the head. it's a bit more sustainable than bullets, after all. I don't buy into this charismatic megafauna squee. They're cute, sure, but they're even cuter when I know that the harvest is being done sustainably, and that the entire critter is being used. Baby seal shampoo, anyone?

I'm an omnivore. And a dragon. Look. Critters are food. Sometimes we kill them ourselves. The best you can do is to do it in a manner that is sustainable, so that we will have cute, tasty noms in the future, and treat it in a manner consistent with your own internal morals prior to doing so. Oh, and enjoy every tasty last bit, hopefully prepared with the greatest of care.

Frankly, I'm slightly dissapointed that y'all don't see this.

[athelind]

Great! Now rationalize cockfighting.

[wy]

(= personal property rights, it's okay to do as you will as long as no sentients get hurt. (Note: harm to sentients can be defined as psychological as well as physical, ymmv greatly). The animals won't care much, it's their instinctual imperative to dominate other animals of their species in a hierarchical society.

And heck, if two sentients want to, willingly, get at fisticuffs no-holds barred, be my guest as long as the are not imposing a social cost to others (health care, etc)

[wy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

[tombfyre]

Yeah, I tend to frown upon the battle-monster hunting and slaughter games too. Hell, even Pokemon and Digimon didn't have you roaming around KILLING them all to gut them for weapon components. Blargh. I've always asked myself what I would do if I were in the games actual situation.

The answer would be likely observing and wanting to pet the wonderfully detailed critters, not add their gall bladders to my collection.

[galis]

I really, really liked Shadow of the Collosus. I dunno if you've played it, but this is exactly what you do - go about this big pretty world, find these amazing, incredible beasts, and arbitrarily kill them. Some of them can't even fight back and you can only get hurt by falling.

And all the while, you constantly get this feeling in your gut that this is all so very, very wrong and you're violating something sacred by just being there.

Some folks felt the game needed "normal enemies so it didn't feel so empty" but that's sorta the point. They're not enemies, and the only hostile thing in the game is you.

[jirris_midvale]

You forgot the twist ending - it was basically all a set-up from an ancient evil on some idiot kid. And no one is really too happy you killed all the giant monsters.

Road to hell being paved with good intentions is kind of the theme of the game.

[athelind]

I've heard about Shadow, and I've always liked that twist. The only way to win is to not actually play.

...so I guess that's the only video game that I can actually say I've BEATEN.

[jirris_midvale]

It was a very beautiful game, actually. Besides being very breathtaking and excellent in the story telling, it was the first game I played that really made me question a lot of the elements that exist in most of the videogames I played.

What I played after that was Bioshock, which was the other 'this game will make you question the guiding voice' I've done. Very interesting back to back.

[jirris_midvale]

The only thing I can point out in a devil's advocate way here is this

[athelind]

Most games in a fantasy setting do have the 'find this monster, kill it, and bring me stuff'.

This had occurred to me, actually.

You will note that, whenever the subject matter comes up, I complain that the "dungeon fantasy" genre lost most of its appeal for me decades ago. I think you just hit on a big part of the reason why.

Perfect icon for "playing Devil's Advocate", BTW.

[jirris_midvale]

Yeah, I kinda lost the love of killquests a while ago myself. Part of why I like games that are much more character driven in general, be they tabletop, crpg, or otherwise. Part of why I couldn't stick with WoW.

I'm absurdly happy with the sporadic dnd game I'm in just because of that - there are monsters and dungeoncrawls, but they definitely take a backseat to what magnificent bastards all the humanoid characters are. Pretty much everyone, pc and npc, are such huge assholes that monsters are really more like scenery and plot-driving than the point. Sure, there are monsters, but the real drive is the jerk who keeps sending them to screw with us. The only real 'kill those things/take stuff' we had I mostly dealt with off camera all sneaky rogue-guy style.

And yes, I love this icon. You know I am an arrogant bastard, so you know why it worksm

[stalbon]

I highly suggest you go and find the trailers for 'The Cove', which is a documentary/real-life thriller of sorts regarding the Japanese whaling industry. It's slated to come to theatres soon. As for the game in question, I've never played it. I saw the first one, realized what it was about, and knew that it didn't really appeal to me.