Ser Drizztos Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 I wouldn't name MCA in the same breath as Bioware's writers, he's on another level entirely. AFAIK he's now working with Larian on Original Sin 2. I wonder how compatible he'll be with the usually very light-hearted tone of their games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Yeah a lot if that is post Halo 3 stuff when different writers took over, but the first three while they have their dark moments don't really approach grim dark levels. If anything that's dark becomes grim dark it kinda defeats the point if the term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Grimdark games? IDK, Maybe Manhunt, Gears of War, Bioshock ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted December 6, 2015 Author Share Posted December 6, 2015 Grimdark games? IDK, Maybe Manhunt, Gears of War, Bioshock ...Bioshock ends pretty happily if you're good karma.Bioshock: Infinite was bittersweet.Burial at Sea made me want to put a drill in my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Nah, if Manhunt is grimdark, than so is The Human Centipede. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artimicia Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 I would say I've kind of lightly weaved into a brand of "grimdark" stories, never really into it but a part of me does want to get to Elric of Melnibone.I don't know if it qualifies but there was a series called Fortress Draconis by Michael Stackpole that had some strong grimdark elements that were kind of interesting, such as (spoilers) the entire first book being a build up to having everyone lose and the main hero guy mind controlled. It was positively Ragnarockian.Incidentally lots of Norse mythology seems like the basis for a lot of grimdark stories although I don't know that for a fact. It certainly can be very bleak at times.Anyway! Just popping in the thread, I don't really have much to say although to be honest as far as the grimdark goes this is the ASOIAF forum and when Martin talks about the importance of having characters die that "you care about" that was the part that resonated with me. A lot of fiction and stories has people dying and so on but his point was something that really struck me, the importance of caring about those people for their deaths in the stories and so on to have meaning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artimicia Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 Oh and grimdark games? Well, Legacy of Kain franchise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Marquis de Leech Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 I would say I've kind of lightly weaved into a brand of "grimdark" stories, never really into it but a part of me does want to get to Elric of Melnibone.Avoid anything written after the early 1980s. This rule of thumb applies to Moorcock generally, not just Elric.(I'd recommend the original Stormbringer novel to anyone though. It's like a classic metal album in literary form). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 I very much enjoyed the Elric Saga as it's a nice antidote to much of traditional fantasy. It's like Moorcock took all of his viable objections to mass-market fantasy and then wrote them as a literary critique within a story--which is a far better way to get your point across than Epic Pooh ever did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Marquis de Leech Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 I very much enjoyed the Elric Saga as it's a nice antidote to much of traditional fantasy. It's like Moorcock took all of his viable objections to mass-market fantasy and then wrote them as a literary critique within a story--which is a far better way to get your point across than Epic Pooh ever did.Except that mass market fantasy as we know it didn't exist during the hey day of Elric (The Sword of Shannara and Lord Foul's Bane came out in 1977). You had The Lord of the Rings, but not the successor works.Elric's antecedents (and targets) are John Carter of Mars, Conan, and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser - the sword and sorcery pulp heroes - combined with a heavy dose of 1960s-era commentary on social change and general addiction. It's also no accident that Melnibone goes from having a world-spanning Empire to becoming a insular island-based remnant reliant on trade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 I was actually going to point out Mass Market Fantasy started with L Sprague De Camp but then I noticed you already knew that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artimicia Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 Avoid anything written after the early 1980s. This rule of thumb applies to Moorcock generally, not just Elric.(I'd recommend the original Stormbringer novel to anyone though. It's like a classic metal album in literary form). I very much enjoyed the Elric Saga as it's a nice antidote to much of traditional fantasy. It's like Moorcock took all of his viable objections to mass-market fantasy and then wrote them as a literary critique within a story--which is a far better way to get your point across than Epic Pooh ever did. Sounds like Stormbringer would be a good start then! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 I haven't played Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim, DMC remake, or the later Gears games yet. I've kinda fallen behind in the electronic gaming department in recent years ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 I haven't played Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim, DMC remake, or the later Gears games yet. I've kinda fallen behind in the electronic gaming department in recent years ...Skyrim is like much of Bethesda in that while I wouldn't recommend the plot, the atmosphere and game itself is beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRevanchist Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 I haven't played Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim, DMC remake, or the later Gears games yet. I've kinda fallen behind in the electronic gaming department in recent years ...Bioshock Infinite has poor game mechanics, but the beautiful world and the fantastic story (arguably the best story in a video game) more than compensates for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Yeah, I did have Oblivion for awhile, so I get what they are trying to do, kind of world's biggest sandbox. Wish I had played that DLC more ... And Bioshock 1 and 2 (which I did play) had pretty awesome stories, powers, etc. The fact that they tried to do something a bit different with Infinite is kewl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 Yeah, I did have Oblivion for awhile, so I get what they are trying to do, kind of world's biggest sandbox. Wish I had played that DLC more ...Yeah, Bethesda improves on Oblivion with Skyrim and Fallout both by the fact it's not purely generic fantasy land. Also, the people in Skyrim aren't horrifically ugly and deformed but actually pretty.http://swg-ent.sakura.ne.jp/sblo_files/xlii/image/Oblivion202007-04-062000-52-16-90.jpgAlso, while Viking Land isn't exactly A+ for originality like Morrowwind, it wasn't exactly wholly generic European fantasy-land either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Yeah, I've been dying to play Skyrim for years. IDK, everything's up in the air now with consoles, what to get ya know. FFVII remake coming out, supposedly Shadow of the Eternals being worked on. Gears of War Ultimate must really be something, but I owned 3 360s at different times and I wasn't terribly impressed overall ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted December 9, 2015 Author Share Posted December 9, 2015 Skyrim improved on previous games' aesthetics and game mechanics, but it sacrificed story. The quests were super anticlimactic. Morrowind will probably always be my favorite.Albeit, some of the questlines had really good storylines like the Dark Brotherhood and Dawnguard.Morrowind will probably never be beat but for high fantasy, Skyrim is still one of my favorite video games of all time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 I can't get behind the traditional fantasy classification system at all. TDT has scenes on earth, thus low fantasy. Tolkien admitted that middle earth was merely a fictional phase of earth, thus low fantasy. Even GRRM calls the dirt of Westeros "earth". Thus it's an technically an alternate earth and would be low fantasy. So only alien stuff would be high fantasy? I don't really understand it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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