2012
27JAN
Frankly That Sounds Made Up - Part 3
Last time: Tones and shades.
Progress Report: So, IMTS won a couple of technical awards by popular vote on another site, which surprised me to say the least. This gave me a little supportive push to frantically work on the next episode for a couple of days, after which I immediately burned myself out again. Things aren't looking too grim, though; the very first mission introduces a game-changer of a battle mechanic, and the implementation of it went pretty smoothly. Since said mechanic ups the game's difficulty considerably, I'll have to restrain myself from having it show its face in too many places. I'll probably finish banging out the story missions in the next month or two, then work on the new bounty hunts. I save the character conversations for last, because there is only so much text box lining-up you can take without a fifth of scotch in your system.
So, it's no surprise that I swear like a sailor with a stubbed toe. And yet, I find movies/games with characters who swear a blue streak to be extremely off-putting. It reeks of laziness in developing a nuanced character, and while it can effectively demonstrate a "rough" background or upbringing, oftentimes any level of subtlety stops there. With proper timing and rhythm (see: Joe Pesci in just about anything), it can be fun and almost natural-sounding, but more often than not it just ends up sounding forced and terrible.
Not that I'm advocating censorship, of course. Maybe restraint is a better word. Vulgarity is an alienating practice by nature (though some would argue that it has the opposite effect - on the youth, especially). A lot of people (okay, Americans anyway) have the movie ratings systems in mind when they think about vulgarity - "PG-13" language nowadays is basically equal to "General Audiences," while "R-Rated" language is either for a more mature work or, as seen in pretty much every comedy of the last 10 years, just plain hilarious on its own. Wow, that was kind of a mess. What I mean is, vulgarity has become a cheap tool for ramping up (or ramping down) the perceived maturity of a work, regardless of its actual content. (Note that, as an American, I feel that violence isn't really as much of a hot button issue here, but that's another rant for another day).
Ironically, this perception does depend on context (stoner flick versus gangster thriller), so what may very well be the same vulgarities will have wildly different emotions behind them and effects on the audience. I guess that's what makes language so wonderful, though. Like with many things, the cheapness or effectiveness of vulgarity is dependent on its implementation. Which leads me back to my original point - does vulgarity maintain its punch when used sparingly at the right moments, or do we need more Holden Caulfield-style extremeness in popular media just to keep up?
Swearing was pretty much unheard of in most video games until about the late nineties. This is probably due both to the perception that they were children's entertainment, and the limited amount of text and dialog outside of certain genres. Of course, there were a few adult-flavored products that slipped through the cracks - Snatcher, Phantasmagoria - and the ESRB eventually sprang up as a need to watchdog these sorts of games. Nowadays, just try to find an RPG (or any game without a Nintendo stamp on it, really) that isn't at least "T"-rated. So, since vulgarity has experience a shift in acceptableness in the last decade, it's gradually becoming ubiquitous, and therefore, pretty much ineffective. Sure, you may read about the outrage at Elvis swinging his hips and laugh at the quaintness of it, but it seems like we're going through a similar change in cultural acceptability now, and it is fascinating.
I still think it can be used effectively before it loses all meaning, though. I don't put a lot of swearing in my dialog, but I do keep consistency in how vulgarly some characters speak. And I don't drop any f-bombs - I find that especially alienating in any sort of game. However, when a lunkhead like Tezkhra suddenly cusses over his space-microphone, you know something's up. And that's how I think vulgarity should be handled - not as a singular character-defining habit, or a punctuation mark, but something in between, either through its absence or prevalence.
Next time: Well, since I got a couple technical awards, maybe I should bring back a little Tech Talk Corner!
Progress Report: So, IMTS won a couple of technical awards by popular vote on another site, which surprised me to say the least. This gave me a little supportive push to frantically work on the next episode for a couple of days, after which I immediately burned myself out again. Things aren't looking too grim, though; the very first mission introduces a game-changer of a battle mechanic, and the implementation of it went pretty smoothly. Since said mechanic ups the game's difficulty considerably, I'll have to restrain myself from having it show its face in too many places. I'll probably finish banging out the story missions in the next month or two, then work on the new bounty hunts. I save the character conversations for last, because there is only so much text box lining-up you can take without a fifth of scotch in your system.
So, it's no surprise that I swear like a sailor with a stubbed toe. And yet, I find movies/games with characters who swear a blue streak to be extremely off-putting. It reeks of laziness in developing a nuanced character, and while it can effectively demonstrate a "rough" background or upbringing, oftentimes any level of subtlety stops there. With proper timing and rhythm (see: Joe Pesci in just about anything), it can be fun and almost natural-sounding, but more often than not it just ends up sounding forced and terrible.
Not that I'm advocating censorship, of course. Maybe restraint is a better word. Vulgarity is an alienating practice by nature (though some would argue that it has the opposite effect - on the youth, especially). A lot of people (okay, Americans anyway) have the movie ratings systems in mind when they think about vulgarity - "PG-13" language nowadays is basically equal to "General Audiences," while "R-Rated" language is either for a more mature work or, as seen in pretty much every comedy of the last 10 years, just plain hilarious on its own. Wow, that was kind of a mess. What I mean is, vulgarity has become a cheap tool for ramping up (or ramping down) the perceived maturity of a work, regardless of its actual content. (Note that, as an American, I feel that violence isn't really as much of a hot button issue here, but that's another rant for another day).
Ironically, this perception does depend on context (stoner flick versus gangster thriller), so what may very well be the same vulgarities will have wildly different emotions behind them and effects on the audience. I guess that's what makes language so wonderful, though. Like with many things, the cheapness or effectiveness of vulgarity is dependent on its implementation. Which leads me back to my original point - does vulgarity maintain its punch when used sparingly at the right moments, or do we need more Holden Caulfield-style extremeness in popular media just to keep up?
Swearing was pretty much unheard of in most video games until about the late nineties. This is probably due both to the perception that they were children's entertainment, and the limited amount of text and dialog outside of certain genres. Of course, there were a few adult-flavored products that slipped through the cracks - Snatcher, Phantasmagoria - and the ESRB eventually sprang up as a need to watchdog these sorts of games. Nowadays, just try to find an RPG (or any game without a Nintendo stamp on it, really) that isn't at least "T"-rated. So, since vulgarity has experience a shift in acceptableness in the last decade, it's gradually becoming ubiquitous, and therefore, pretty much ineffective. Sure, you may read about the outrage at Elvis swinging his hips and laugh at the quaintness of it, but it seems like we're going through a similar change in cultural acceptability now, and it is fascinating.
I still think it can be used effectively before it loses all meaning, though. I don't put a lot of swearing in my dialog, but I do keep consistency in how vulgarly some characters speak. And I don't drop any f-bombs - I find that especially alienating in any sort of game. However, when a lunkhead like Tezkhra suddenly cusses over his space-microphone, you know something's up. And that's how I think vulgarity should be handled - not as a singular character-defining habit, or a punctuation mark, but something in between, either through its absence or prevalence.
Next time: Well, since I got a couple technical awards, maybe I should bring back a little Tech Talk Corner!