On Art

 

I love art. And I think about it too much. And sometimes something within me makes me want to share them, like how startled sea cucumbers eviscerate. This is why I want to discuss what art means to me. It can also serve as a reference to other posts, something that better explains the way I talk about art. If you are looking at this page, it is likely that you don’t mind it as an overwrought topic or my lack of academic rigor, so I hope you can find it interesting.

Art is a type of play which constructs a parasocially shared reality. Artistic creation either results in a physical medium, such as making a sand castle or writing a novel, or it is absorbed during creation, such as playing with dolls or conducting a stage play. This is flexible, for example a sand castle maker may only focus on the moment of creation and not be interested in the fate of the sand castle. Conversely, a stage play can be recorded and be carried into a medium where it can be viewed and examined second by second. Art can be performed in many forms and any human activity can be art, though everything is not art. Creating a beautiful chair is not art if it is only viewed as a chair and nothing else. Books are typically art when they are read, discussed or imagined but not art when they are used as a coffee holder or as material for a question in an exam. Art is not inherently useful beyond a vague sense of fulfillment, this typically manifests as joy but even this is not necessary. As such, even the act of playing is not art by itself. For example acts of play like destroying a sand castle, throwing a snowball or participating in a chess game is often quite pragmatic and, unlike art, is done with universally agreed expectations and can be perfected for maximum returns. 

Defining art in this way can receive several major objections. Throughout history, art has been a sphere of professional labour with bold political, religious and economic motivations. And also, again for most of history, art has been closely intertwined with crafting and understood as creating novel, enriching or if not beautiful things. First of all, this definition does not ignore any “serious”artistic endeavor, precisely because art is inherently trivial it can turn into any shape and mean anything for anyone. Second, while art is often a heavily intense labor, if it wasn’t an act of play, so many people would not go out of their way to choose to be and perish as animators, illustrators, figure actors and many, many other insecure, low wage positions. Third, this blog post does not aim to end hundreds years of art discussion but merely contribute it with a viewpoint of someone who isn’t neither academical, nor particularly skilled but just likes to think about these things a lot. And fourth, if art can mean anything to anyone then it is impossible to define it in a definitive way. 

But this doesn’t mean that all definitions or art is equally respectable.

In particular, art is not necessarily “a craft”, craftsmanship is often a part of it, but the artist alone cannot craft a creation. For art, there must always be an audience: There must always be a person who witnesses every touch, every stroke, every attempt, every minute revision; not just as a critic or editor, but as a phantom twin who watches the performance of their sibling. Finishing a work is not necessarily when the creation stops, a work having multiple iterations is fairly common, but rather, it is when the artist quits being their own audience and leaves the seat open for others. This means that the audience does not merely observe, or dreadfully, consume but actively creates art. People create art because their imagination wants an audience and they want to be an audience to their imagination. Performance seeks audience and audience yearns for performance. One can imagine but only two can create. And so, art is a result of double-creation.

Art is important because it allows us to be frivolous. But if that was enough, daydreams would suffice. But we hunger for sharing, not just socially, from those who close to us, but parasocially, from people who will we never meet. The parasocially shared worlds are the true “product” of art.

 When I look at a statue, at first I only see a landmark, a symbol of its surroundings. When I look at it a little longer I see a symbol of a history, a likeness of an historical figure or a memory of a bygone civilization. Then I realize how expertly it captures human anatomy. But if I look at a statue long enough the inherent oddities of trying to represent a human by stone becomes unavoidable. The statue impresses me by how much it pretends to be so. The sculptor and I constructed a reality where this stone human is real. Perhaps the sculptor didn’t quite intend this. Perhaps they just  wanted a monument to glory or resilience. But that makes the parasocial reality stronger somehow, because I can only see a cold, quiet giant helplessly submitting to the pigeons. I am interested in defining what art is because I simply want to explain that art uniquely creates such feelings.

In popular media discussions, a great deal is made about “interpretation”. Correct interpretation, wrong interpretation, “media literacy”, so on and so on… It is usually assumed that interpretation is a voluntary action imposed on a factual text, which is then compared and contrasted to the “authorial intent”, which is assumed to tangibly exist aside from what is already present in text. While the audience can intentionally assume a perspective and look at art from that viewpoint; most interpretation happens unconsciously. Art is a living being that feeds on interpretation, re-interpretation, analysis and even mere remembrance. It is only due to the interpretive nature of the double-creation that the art can be alive.

If art is a living thing, then there is a moment it comes to life. Often this is when a project is born, but sometimes the audience needs to see it in full flesh, sometimes time is necessary to see beyond what is written, said or shown. Advertisements seldom cast an artistic spark, not because the capitalist cynicism snuffs out “creative soul”, capitalism cynicism can be a great foundation actually, but because advertisements solely exist to represent what they are advertising. In the distant past, ads were structured as actual sale pitches, but it was discovered that using pseudo-artistic techniques to aggressively imprint the brand works much better.  And for the most part advertisers are good at their jobs. Ads are expertly crafted to tunnel any image, object, person, joke, absurd scenario or social cause into the singularity of a brand, just as how the letters of an alphabet or national flags have universal, unmalleable meanings. But sometimes an ad gets too smart for its own good, it gets too caught up in the battle of brands that they forget to include the brand in the ad or the “message” simply gets eroded with time. When I see an advertisement and genuinely fail to see what it’s advertising, something magical happens: now I, the audience, am free to interpret, free to participate in the creation and thus a new work of art inhales for the first time. This is perhaps how humans created art out of nowhere, we always wanted the world to speak to us somehow, we always wanted to be the audience.

If art is a living thing, then it might die. It can be starved of interpretation, nibbled little by little into a final, irreducible, atomic meaning. Smarter people call this “reification”, for example with overuse and aggressive association a piece of music can only come to result in a singular, rock solid meaning. Just as advertisements can become art when they are bad at advertising, media we understand art can be reduced to a signpost, only representing something else rather than itself. This usually doesn’t happen in a single stroke, and not always from an entirely cynical mindset. 

Sometimes artists become too possessive of the audience seat, getting wound up in “correcting” everyone else into their mirror image. A famous example of a work earning such a fate is Harry Potter (1997-2007) novels. The author leaves no stone unturned in teaching the reader what to think in every possible opportunity, at the meager expense of shrinking and bleaching the setting a little further. The most notable damage is done to the character of Albus Dumbledore. We have a figure who can be seen as someone who atoned for sacrificing his loved ones in his quest for power but only to do the same thing again for the greater good, manipulating an orphan kid for his entire life to his early grave. But with each detail added, this characterization is peeled away, we become so sure of his ultimate innocence that not only do we get to see him in the Christian heaven, his story also hijacks a cousin franchise ostensibly about a guy chasing silly magical monsters. This isn’t merely unfortunate because we end up with yet another story only cowardly alluding to a complex morality nor it results in a less interesting character for anyone who is not a chronically conservative Churchill worshiping Brit but I am being tut-tutted for engaging in a story so much, when I am stopped from re-creating a story I can only become a passive viewer, and passive viewers can’t witness art, they can be only preached or advertised to.

If the audience can breed art, then it can kill it too, and often are the ones that end its life. They always ask “What’s the message here?”, “What does this really say?” “Let’s break it down”. They hunger to reach to the core, to excavate the truth, to obtain the prize once and for all, and in doing so it no longer exists as a living breathing thing, but a dead thing, preserved in formaldehyde. Solved and put away.. Sometimes the desire becomes so insatiable they curse their own eyes and abdicate from the audience seat and can only stand to see art from the mirror of someone else, someone with “better knowledge” who would explain and solve the art for them. Humans are hopelessly social, we cannot handle our emotions and thoughts on our own, it is only natural that witnessing art parasocially just doesn’t cut it beyond a certain point, as we create and seek meta-art, media talking about art, just like I am writing this very post right now. But our innocent zeal may burn the art we cherish to crisp, leaving nothing but smolders of themes, concepts, plot summaries and wiki entries.

Here, it is easy to roast the plot puzzlers, the lore lurkers, the funko-pop fanatics, the cinema-sin seekers but let’s try to tumble a taller tree: It’s all too common to criticize works of art as meaningless, as having no reason to exist, as frivolous and saying nothing of importance, and the cream of the crop, as having “style over substance”. Such remarks are, of course, utterly correct but it’s weird to say them when discussing a specific artwork. All art is meaningless and frivolous. If you wanted to have something important to say, you wouldn’t want it to be interpreted, you wouldn’t risk it fading away in noise, you wouldn’t leave it to the whims of taste or comfort. An important message ought to be said through a megaphone not a trumpet. Art is undoubtedly style over substance. An oil painting is not a ballad, a short story is not a novel, a live action show is not an animated movie. Unfortunately we can’t teach people via telepathy, but the next best thing is to tell something as irreducible, as unmalleable, as incorruptible as possible.

But, surely I am being facetious here. A poem is more memorable than a dull paragraph. Assuming a movie that speaks to people is much better at propaganda than a tacky party poster, then a single picture can capture the human condition better than a huge, dusty tome of a history book. Why do I sound like those gooners who say “fiction doesn’t affect reality”? After all I am not smarter than every diligent follower of the Enlightenment, be it the nationalist, liberal, fascist or Marxist variety, that all agree that art is capable of transforming society and that good art educates the people with correct morals, it reflects and advances our values and that art shouldn’t be left to hedonistic, haughty, heroin-ridden hippies. 

Self-evidently, art is profound and transformative, otherwise I wouldn’t write about this at all. I merely believe that the audience creates the performance they seek and that the artist is the first audience. Birth of A Nation (1915) did not create a racist audience, it was created by an audience that wanted to howl and hoot at the most racist imagery they could dream of. Jaws (1975) was made and seen by people who shared a fear of the vast, untameable ocean. People gravitate towards war stories because either they can at least abstractly understand the horrors of war, they want to feel triumphant or they have a fetish for conducting war (not mutually exclusive). Art is powerful at transmitting unfiltered and unorganized information. Many people casually believe that plate armor is much heavier than it actually is because they saw art made by people who had seen art made by people who only saw plate armor from museum replicas. The audience can be misled by casual trivia they have no reference of, children are particularly susceptible to this b works precisely because art is not reducible to a collection of facts. The wrong details are but a small facet of the constructed reality. Compared to this, art is truly terrible at ideological training. Art is created by audience participation, when they are able to connect to the artist, the audience will inevitably see themselves. People often don’t respond favorably when art tries to construct a world contrasting theirs, much less actually change their opinions with it. Art might be able to shake someone’s worldview, but only when that person already readied their mind to do so. It is quite possible to enjoy art despite great ideological disagreements, mind you, but there still has to be a thin thread of connection, otherwise there can be no art, there is only a message. Even children can recognize when they are being preached to, despite not quite understanding constructed realities. Right-wingers seeing artworks in a completely alien way then we do is not surprising nor is a matter of “media literacy”, For a group of people who are already primed to fix any observation to validate their unchanging truths and also who are hyper-conformists, an uneasy confrontation with a work is not possible, art is either heretical for having women kiss or, well actually, it is but a maidenly sign of friendship which is not really important in the face of “the real themes''.  But even those of us who can embrace ideologically opposing art, we can only engage with art to the extent they recreate it. It’s not that artists shouldn’t try to send messages, it is as good as any reason to create art, but it is weird to pretend it’s a high-brow aspiration when it is such a mundane part of art, pretty much anything is about examining the human condition, it is only a smart piece of what tempts us to art. 

However, I am not merely saying that art is more important than its message. Why does art have to be important in the first place? Let’s return to what I originally disagreed with: Art is about creating quality products and thus, art is important if it’s good. Well...

Quality is populist. “Good art” is often understood to be art that’s popular in a given group, regardless of how “elite” the group may be assumed to be. While this doesn’t always correlate with dividends for the artist, good art often eventually earns a certain level of respect. In contrast, “bad art” is often understood to be unpopular in its own target audience. People who profess to care about art think that more art, more artists being heard and more art made by freer artists is usually good, meaning that unpopular art also has to matter. But the fatal error here is to assume that masses, whom refined people like me and you are not a part of, simply cannot appreciate good art. This is just a very comforting fairytale. 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (2008-????) is a good study case. The movies on the whole don’t inspire any particular strong feelings in me, which is the worst outcome I can have with art, but it doesn’t take an academic of movies to understand that first couple of Marvel movies undoubtedly are well-crafted in ways that latter examples aren’t, it is simply enough to look at the dip in popularity. MCU’s and similar franchise movies’ successes rightfully worry those who want more independent voices in cinema. The independent voices are unpopular because they aim to be less universal experiences which demand more from the audience, they want to create art with more friction. But friction is often bad-craft, creating art that breaks the mold sometimes does require the work to look shoddy from certain angles. The mold exists as it is likely because it has been already perfected. Sometimes art can only go forward when it gets “worse”.

Indeed, perfection is the true enemy of art. By simply wanting to get the best out of their knowledge, artists can doom themselves to chase perfection forever, for they do not realize that, when they first touched their tools, when their mind met the physical world the first time, they had already left perfection behind. Perfect art doesn’t need to be created, anyone can instantly imagine it. But please do not see this as just ideas having to conform to reality, even when we want to perform or be performed perfectly, all we still want in the end is actually, a new, different kind of imperfection. All the people in the world can reach to one and the same perfection but a single person can achieve imperfection infinite times. An object can have infinite corners but nothing cannot be rounder than a sphere. Zero is perfection and perfection is nothingness. Video games provide a great opportunity to observe this. In a short amount of time, so many tools and techniques have been and are being invented, perfected and discarded in the endless greed to achieve, to become bigger, bolder and crafting entertainment software. And every time, people discover something special in what was left behind, outdated, redundant, has existed as a mistake or just plain bad. We find out, again and again, every imperfection is a different expression, a different way to satiate our base desire to share what’s in our mind.

If that’s the case, is it even worth judging art as “good” or “bad”? Perhaps, it’s not a question of worth, is it? Stripping all trappings of objectivity, “good art” touches us somehow and “bad art” doesn’t, and this is not something we get to decide consciously, not so different from not being able to see eye to eye with certain people. But I am aware that I have a nerd-brain, so if a work gets me to think about it enough, even because of what it doesn’t get it right, that’s quite enough for me to consider being touched by art. Of course some art captivates me far more easily just like it does anyone else, but as you understand by now, I can’t “start from a perfect score and subtract the mistakes”, as so many reviews seem to do. Disappointment, anger and even boredom can qualify to show that there is something worthwhile to see. I think Valkryia Chronicles (2008) has one of the worst narratives ever, but at the same time, it is fascinating as an example of how much a story spirals out of control when a writer insists that they are telling a different story from the one they are actually telling. If someone was able to reject the warm embrace of perfection to bring something, anything into this cold world and I was able to drag myself into participating (please believe me that both of those things can be very hard), it is probably just good enough. In contrast, when it is bad, I really can’t find much to say about it. I have heard it often that talking about bad art is easier than good ones, and even though I also quite appreciate people discussing bad things as a performanc, this is not true for me. When I truly don’t like a work, trying to find individual mistakes feels insincere because in truth, I simply fail to connect with what I have found in a more fundamental way. There is a great risk of being dishonest, because when I cannot feel any chemistry towards something, it is very easy to find faults in every insignificant thing, even when there is none.

When other people talk about “bad art”, they often refer to three kinds of art, terminally bad, technically bad, and morally bad.

Terminally bad art is what I would consider as actual bad art. Unfortunately, even with a good faith look, you can’t find any inspiration in what you are recreating. I have given Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind (2002) more than 20 hours, and it was one of the few times I have truly regretted doing so. I have visited wikis, watched videos, downloaded mods, tried this and that and patiently waited for something to happen but besides the brief amusement of taunting random NPCs to their demise, there was no joy, no tension, no anger, no disappointment. I can list many small grievances like: the snail-like walking speed, the stilted look of the people blending in an aggressively muted world, its penchant to hide it’s allegedly good narrative and atmosphere behind its generic wall-of-texts, the fact that it obscures a rather simple game under busywork and superficially complex systems or the fact that it’s a chronically western action-RPG where the action part merely exist as a concept but you have to abuse the left mouse button regardless. And while I won’t deny the fun of roasting it, I really wish I liked it instead. Some say it’s a sign of a refined taste not to be easily pleased, but I don’t like not liking art. When I encounter bad art it’s like I am looking at a party that I haven’t been invited to only to receive a call about how everyone was so sad that I wasn’t there. It’s like I am missing something but I don’t even know what to look for. The reverse is equally true too. There is much to complain about Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (2011) in theory but I liked patrolling woods and caves with an exploding sword, a bow or an eternally angry demon-knight. I liked collecting books to make a library at my own house, I liked to pretend to make breakfast and dinner for my adopted daughter, I liked the “place found” and “quest completed” jingles. Today, most core concepts of an “open-world game”, much less another Skyrim, feels repelling, but the person who I was many years ago had great fun for a few hundred hours. In the end, art is not a machine that yields better output with the right input, It’s not something analogous to a craft like food, where “taste” can be predicted with good confidence. When it comes to art, it’s often not the artist, but the audience that will create something they end up hating, despite themselves.

Technically bad art is art that can be said to fail as a craft. Because they are easy to make fun of and allow many opportunities to dodge subjectivity with smart-sounding words, their presence is greatly exaggerated in popular art discussions. In reality, badly crafted art will rarely see the mainstream, there are many checks to prevent this from happening, the greatest of them all is that artists who are not comfortable with their own craft. Such works usually won’t be on a bestseller list, on Netflix or on an art gallery but on blog sites, on the depths of Youtube or on Deviantart. In few cases where the checks aren’t present or bulldozed by either nepotism or sheer luck and blind confidence, or arrives too late to catch an honest attempt going wrong they quickly become infamous flops, most people do not have a taste for bad craft, simple as that. But unfortunately this is not the end of the story, because people are likely to behave as customers rather than art enthusiasts. When they don’t like art, they will always pinpoint to easily identifiable flaws in craft, they will even invent it when it isn’t present, and demand to know the criminal who is responsible, the allegedly talentless artist. Despite how hard it is to find truly amateur work without intentionally searching for it, the artist (usually just one artist even in a production of dozens of people) will be subjected to to a series of increasingly inexcusable insults and even persistent bullying, The artist will be lazy or lacking in “passion”, (the darling word of reviewers of the world) despite accepting to work in miserly conditions just to get the of honor finishing a project, or enjoy sabotaging a beloved franchise as a part of vague five dimensional conspiracy, or a hack who poisoned the creative space with their miasma.  

In all honesty, sometimes art can create great disappointment. And it often makes sense to get angry at the producers and those who profit from art for shoddy presentation of media, for unfinished games, for badly preserved movies, for inexplicably censored books, for unprofessional subtitle work, for diminishing ruining an initial reception with bad advertising. But harassing artists does not happen merely out of misplaced ire or being carried by immature emotions, it happens because of a fundamentally cursed motivation. They are complaining because the market isn’t meritocratic enough, if it was, they would get better products for their money. Dreadfully, there are few things truly anti-art like meritocracy is. I will admit that I am quite averse to competition in general but in art, competitiveness feels especially perverse even if I can see the potential benefits of award shows or fairs and the like. But in even its most innocent form, competition is a double-edged sword held tightly to the chest. and when it cuts, it cuts really deep. 

Just recently, anyone lurking on the artist scene in social media could witness a sizable clique of artists whipping themselves into a frenzy over image generation. Some of this came out of sensible concern over generators’ potential uses by companies to discipline workers, some of it is a correct but perhaps over-cooked association with “tech bros”, some of it is detestable but unsurprising rentiers conning naive artists into kowtowing to a even greater regime of intellectual property. But the saddest one is the anxiety of being outcompeted by the machines, the anguish over the possibility that the good and just meritocracy is being eroded by lazy cheaters. Those honest craftspeople hear the silly claim that “AI is democratizing art” and respond to it in complete sincerity even though most statements from AI people are platitudes to hype their own existence. Obviously the opposite must be true then, they say with full confidence, they say there are no barriers to art, none, even those crippled and the mentally feeble can do it. You just need to work hard. Working hard is good, good art comes from hard work, the honest craftspeople work hard, that’s why they are respectable. We need to embrace our meritocracy like a student zealously embraces the exam paper to shield it from lazy, vagabond, good-for-nothing cheaters. Indeed, if we agree with the logic that art is about creating quality, then this concern is perfectly reasonable. A machine can always be perfected more than a human can. Perhaps a machine output can never be this or that adjective, but it is faster and more consistent. And for a craft this might be the most important aspect of quality, after all every craftsperson wants to be comfortable to such an extent that they can craft without any friction, that they can be a little like a machine. It is only natural then when an artist, who has for their entire life validated for their merit in creating quality products, becomes so alienated from the joy of mounding a snowman, frolicly pressing the buttons of a piano or drawing a smiling sun with pastels, has been imprisoned in meritocracy so long that they can only despair even at most obvious snake-oil-salesman suggestion that the prison might break down. If you look at mass media and say that there is so much slop because commercialism is too merciful to the artist, that the tyranny of quality is not omnipresent enough, know that you only wish that every artist should be subjected to this psychological torture. Of course, some netizens on social media would gladly agree. But bad art, much less badly crafted art, is not a sin, it shouldn’t be. Bad art can touch someone’s life, inspire people to good art, please the artist, or even simply help someone to keep their paycheck. That’s why most bad art is a net positive for the world. Never listen to people who say art is doomed because the quality in [the current year] is too low. As long as we are away from the world of quality, the world of images, animations, sculptures and stories of perfectly anatomic people who live perfectly, art will be fine. But it would truly thrive in a world where every artist is equipped with the confidence of elderly people who send poems to newspapers. Some say, socialism enables great art but if the artists were truly free, many of them would dig corners for niches that serve smaller and smaller audiences, it would be truly the time for the terrible, the laughable, the rejected, the forgotten; a world where even the most unremarkable is treasured by someone. Would you be surprised now if I said that I find lost media search rather uplifting even if the fans get weird about it sometimes?

But then, there is morally bad art. Do you think that art can be evil? This can prove to be rather confusing because what we often think of ethically dubious art is just art that has collapsed into an unshakeable brand. When this branding is born with association, we hear the classic “separating art from the artist” meme. What is often missed in these debates is that people don’t really willingly alienate themselves from art, especially one they cherished a lot before. If they could separate the art from the artist, they already would. But equally often, the now demoted work is put to trial for having the obvious signs of the artists’ cursed mind, where the accuser is given free reins to stretch and exaggerate as they wish, under the guise of “looking more critically” and the jury is often quite welcome to participate by remarks like “Well I never liked their work anyway”, “Lucky me, I only like morally good thing”. “Me is a good consumer, me me me.” But sometimes it's just enough to say “well I liked this but the creator did this terrible thing, so it’s soured now”, sometimes the all-consuming specter of liking or disliking art can greatly derail much more important conversations.

It even derails the discussion of the artwork themselves. It can be quite difficult to assess how messed-up a work is without veering into another review. It is natural for the audience to recreate art in their value system but it is another thing to say failing that always stains the artwork, or worse, the judgment about art is also a part of the value system. But even “you can like the work while acknowledging the faults' ' can be too much customer-like, as if we are buying tasty food that invites diabetes. The more critical acknowledgment is that a certain kind of art requires a deranged mind. Fictional violence is great but certain types of violence, especially horror violence can’t really exist without it lighting up a certain bulb in the artists’ head. And that’s great, art can be a great way to unpack or even excise the dark side of our minds. Sometimes it’s not quite clear whether the artist endorses or criticizes something, and the beauty of the work is often a reflection of a confused and conflicted human mind.

What if art is created by evil means? I strongly believe that bad craft is always preferable to avoidable suffering but it can get really awful when we are deceived to think that an artist’s clear ego trip is so critical to the experience. It’s one thing where artists have to method act or work long hours but they still want the work to be appreciated, it’s another when they just shoot real animals or wherever, that’s where “good art” or “bad art” kind of just fade away. The fact that perfection is often presented as a justification should be enough proof that it is truly poisonous to art.

What if art is created by evil ends? Despite the go-to example of something as extreme as Nazi propaganda, when people find a connection to art, this is the easiest one they can be comfortable with. Some video games are created with the explicit purpose of exploiting players. Some developers are just cynical about this but the others put in serious work to create stories and gameplay loops to ease players into obsessive spending because that’s why many companies demand to develop games in the first place. Perhaps it would be better to risk becoming indie rather than contributing to evil, but it gets a little murkier when you risk not only your career but also having your work being niche and overshadowed by the very thing you want to escape from. In this situation, it is undeniable that the audience is a kingmaker and it is possible to elevate more games, without hostile monetization and without worker abuse.

Finally, If there is one thing more reviled than “bad art”, it has to be “mediocre art”. It seems that the more the audience gets competitive over enjoying art, as if artists being forced into competition wasn’t enough, the more “mediocrity” seems to be reviled. When this reaches to its zenith, art can be either a “masterpiece”, “classic”, “thumbs up”, “100” or “mid”, “slop”, “terrible”, “worst thing ever”, “70”, “1 star”, “thumbs down”. Now, this is not a call for being “even-handed” or “unbiased”, not at all.  Sometimes we just cannot connect with a work, and expressing this clearly is a much better critique than praising some aspect that is ultimately irrelevant to our experience. And as long as perfection is not held as the upper ceiling, review scales can be useful, because we all like certain art clearly much more than others, and certain art clearly wants to be compared and contrasted with another. But surely, you don’t have to share my brain worms to agree that there is much more to being the audience of art than to say “yes” or to say “no”, to defend or to attack, to buy or to boycott. If something I really like is truly mediocre, that only implies there are new peaks that I haven’t seen yet. Only in the perverted logic of the market  and in the never-ending charade of “liking art” that the peak I am currently on is somehow worthless, that art has to be a zero-sum game for everyone involved. Life mostly exists by maintaining delicate standards, art can be amazing because it is a rare thing that can get better forever and ever.

Art means something to me for not only what it can achieve, but because it doesn’t have to achieve anything. Long before we walked on it, the Earth already achieved mesmerizing melodies, captivating colors and stellar shapes. Yet we still want to make and share even if it is less than what came before, because it is just a little different. This is why I find it very unfortunate that aspiring artists are often encouraged to accept what they make first will suck and that they should practice patiently until they get “good”, because the often unintended implication is, not that what they do still matter but they should hinder their own confidence that’s necessary to release art and somehow gain it back at a yet unknown threshold. We should instead say that it’s fine if they don’t like what they create at first, because with more practice they will get more comfortable, but if the process is fulfilling they have already created something worthwhile, they are not stealing attention from someone who is more deserving and they cannot destroy culture with unleashing abominations. Abominations too are ought to be loved by someone.

In the end, there are worse things than bad art, even in the realm of art critique.  As artists and the audience, we share myriad realities again and again, we are desperate to share, because we don’t need to. Art is not a title that elevates spectacular media, as art is spectacular because it is mundane. It is the most serious endeavor and also it’s not serious at all.  Art is where failure becomes success, dullness becomes recreation and self-destruction becomes fulfillment. Art matters because it doesn’t have to.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Kelsey Fyfe, Laura, Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Rita, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@punishedgenetic on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

Waiting For The Demise

 

(content warning: suicide)

How does it feel to be a death row inmate who knows the very date of their execution, someone who is stuck in a tiny elevation above a mighty raging flood and watching the waters slowly rise and swallow the feeble material they are holding on, a terminally ill patient who has to carry a hastily deteriorating body, a passenger who is on a burning falling airplane, a soldier preparing and walking towards a battle they are sure to turn disastrous or someone who is simply laying on the bed and impatiently, anxiously waiting for the pills to kick in? I have always thought that it must involve a great sense of terror, but it might not be so. There is a certain feeling of certainty, closure and even comfort knowing that whatever is happening to you will pass and your state of affairs will irrevocably change. No more annoying noises of self hatred, gnawing doubt, ever ballooning, the possibility of failure, heart-piercing betrayals and no more room for pessimism. You have truly hit rock bottom, rock bottom is cozy in a strange way., you don’t have to climb up anymore.

Once the ember that warms up your life fades away, you can truly change. You might become more of an amoral creature. Not because “nothing matters”, but the opposite, now everything you do matters, perhaps for the first time in your life, everything you do, to the sip of water in your throat from the spicy bit of the shit in your anus, everything matters immensely. Self importance breeds self-assurance. Self-assurance overrides one’s common moral hangups, anxieties, external pressures. The moment becomes ripe to do the right thing, the right thing that you should have always done. You should have always done this, if you had already done it, everyone would be happier and you would not suffer as much. And look, now you just have to do it. Sometimes fate binds you to do a gross thing. So just dress your best, say your goodbyes and do it. Someone has to bear the sins for everyone else. Those people have real pasts, presents and futures. You, you and I, have nothing, nothing of importance in comparison. So we are the perfect candidate to do this grim thing, this morbid self sacrifice, this act of liberation..

Our view is clear, our determination is iron-clad, our souls are calm, we feel happy. But what do we do in the meantime? How would you pass your last day? What do you do? Reminisce about your past? That’s not an activity. That’s something that already happens by itself. Eat your favorite food, watch your favorite movie once again, talk to people whom you care for the most one last time, write a painstakingly crafted goodbye letter or an overly emotional will, do something obscene or crazy you wouldn’t have done otherwise or be consumed by the thoughts of the moment and simply do nothing?

I think the easiest solution is to merely continue your routine as you do. It might be dull and wasteful at first. Go to work, chit chat with people as if nothing is going on, eat fast food, be occupied with your usual hobbies, finish the assignment, continue the 40 hour save on that game, clean the house, prepare dishes, take a shower, feed stray cats? Just live like nothing will ever happen, just live as if you are immortal.

That’s also a sure-way to dodge any existential dread about immortality. Routines are immortal themselves. You do the same thing everyday because either you want to do the same thing forever or you have already done the same thing forever. This only looks machine-like to an outsider. For the insider, this might feel like heaven or hell, both have the same fundamental appeal: your life will finally become an endless, timeless routine. Best way to get close to someone is often acting like you have always been close forever. Most people don’t think about how they will outlast their pets because they have been looking after them “forever”, a forever of 10 years, 2 years, 3 months or a whole 20 minutes. Infinity is not alien, it is a comfort blanket. Finiteness can make something too valuable indeed. Concepts like “last meal” are true torture fuel, because there can be no meal ever good enough to be the last one, whereas if you just had your regular breakfast you can feel like you are just starting another exciting or dreadful day. Salvation through the same!

And we must always consider the other possibility. Sometimes we say that there is no choice, that there is nothing we can do, that things will surely be quiet forevermore. You might have really felt your doom a long time ago. But it’s not always that certain isn’t it? What if it doesn’t happen? You turn out to be too sturdy, the survival instinct kicks in, you escape at the very last second, things turn out to have an easier solution? What if hope drowns your embers of self annihilation? What if your dreams aren’t completely crushed? What if you can’t be sure? What if your glorious self-annihilation is thwarted? What if the day you have prepared for gets delayed? Delayed! What then, are we simply to languish with our foolishness? Good for us, another day wasted. Now we are alive and we feel even worse and our only salvation might have slipped through our hands for good.

The people who didn’t really want to die and feel merely obliged to, ironically, end up in the worst position because they believed the finality of their doom for so long. Yay, we live for another day. Another day for what? Dreams I have cast away, people I have driven away, good food I put away, books I locked away, the heart I have tucked away, the life I have thrown away? The most foolish of us all shall bear the greatest responsibility. To have to trudge on living. Not for the sake of another person, not even themselves, but simply there is nothing else to do...

And my friends, this is why you should fold your clothes, brush your teeth, wipe the table and do the dishes. There is a difference between spiraling in a clean kitchen or a freshly dusted room and spiraling in a sweaty bed or at a smelly dinner table. There is never enough time to properly sulk about your life’s gigantic failures but realizing that you didn’t scoop the cat litter while doing that? That’s awesome, and you can’t “end it”, you just tried that. Just get up, get up, get up and take the garbage out, you can feel drowsy on the sofa later. Just check social media too, later why not?

The knife, the pill, the bullet, the chasm might be too reassuring, too blindingly bright, too bewitchingly beautiful, too deliriously delightful. That might be the biggest curse itself, unfortunately, there might always be a tomorrow.

So we might as well act like there will always be one.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Kelsey Fyfe, Laura, Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Rita, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@punishedgenetic on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

Gender Dysphoria

 

What is "gender dysphoria"? A mental condition which forms the basis of identity of trans people, a distress born out of mismatch of the body and the mind? Or are we distressed due to the pressure of society's hidden and open expectations, rigid laws, backwards traditions, malicious apathy and even open dehumanization? Is gender identity merely an inner reaction to transphobia?

The truth is certainly not in the middle. If you have seen any study or news about the brains of trans people and felt weird about it, your intuitions are spot on. Natural sciences usually take gender and sex as self-evident truths, otherwise it would risk being too "ideological". Despite the sincere intentions of many, it is hard to believe that psychology can be a stable ally to trans people because gender is fundamentally an unfriendly institution to trans people. I understand that nonsense like "brain gender" might be useful to appease your parents or your therapist but folks, it is not a coincidence that trans people who defend these things the most, the loudest transmedicalists, are plainly bad people who enjoy kicking down poorer, more marginalized trans people. They might hate themselves and don't know how to deal with it without projecting it to others or think they are above being a freak based on getting some validation but either way, they alone disprove the idea that "dysphoria" is an illness that simply requires a cure. Even the most well intentioned versions of the idea concede that certain ways to self-identify are more legitimate. Gender is a social construction, one which fitting in clearly necessitates putting down an underclass of "other". So gender dysphoria has to be a construction as well. Gender is not something that can be merely assigned, it needs to be personally actualized too. There will be those who cannot fit in not just because they don't want to participate but also can't because their actualization goes against how gender is constructed in the first place. Of course, participation is not optional so there are consequences for failing to do so. More than a relationship between body and the mind, gender dysphoria is a cluster of feelings that manifests by the struggle against the punishment.

But why do do only some people carry the type of feelings that forces them into this struggle? People are always more complex than what they show on the outside. Some people come out as trans after decades. Some people struggle with it but for one reason or another don't ever act upon it for their entire lives. But I am still confident that most people don't really have such issues. On this topic my mind always goes back to a Turkish sitcom from years back. I don't know when it aired, I don't remember its name. I did not even watch a single episode start-to-finish. But I remember it's trailer: A guy breaks up with his girlfriend, and as punishment she makes a deal with a witch to turn him into a woman. "He" wakes up, goes to the toilet and finds that there is nothing there. It's not like this show circulated for years and years or I watched TV so frequently that I saw it often enough to burn it into my memory. I did not even think about it during that time. No, it really aired a short while, then vanished, just like hundreds of other Turkish shows. And yet I still remember that trailer in particular, as a memory frozen in time. Safe to say that this doesn't happen to everyone.

Trans people are clearly not distinguished merely by action, be it self-identification or a set of procedures for social recognition but by thought as well. No wonder Western conservatives are so worked up about gender-neutral pronouns. Having a gender-neutral pronoun does not make a society less patriarchal, for example Turks have a very patriarchal culture despite speaking a mostly gender-neutral language. It only makes writing more convenient but no, even this small space of conceptual ambiguity is too much to concede.

There is probably nothing wrong about trans people's brains but there is probably something in there. Because no matter how hard it is repressed, gender nonconformity is always present somewhere in all of human history and the patriarchal society demands its continuous repression. It might be labeled a sin, a bad influence, a rebellious streak, a mental illness or a subversive ideology. But it must be ironed out from children by proper discipline. Failing that, adults must be made into outcasts.

If you offered me a dress when I was little I would have considered it insulting. I remember trying to get into football many times because most boys liked it. I had never been curious about my mother's makeup. At least the way most people saw it, there was nothing unusual with my interests. I just had a myriad of daydreams about a girl that grew up with me. She did many things but always thought like I would and acted in a way I admired, strangely very close to my personality without its most noticeable flaws. Strangely she never ever spoke to me or existed in the same thought-space as me but she was quite frequently in my imagination. This only intensified in high school, in a glaring way that affected my school grades. (They were still good but nowhere near good enough to justify the total hours spent on attempts at studying.) Even though I wrote very little about it, I conceptualized a lot of stories where she was inserted in my favorite media. And yet, I never told anyone about it.

For a long time I have not even thought about what those daydreams were. Perhaps I was thinking of my ideal woman? There were times she was romantic with generic non-descript guys and even was pregnant in some scenarios. For some time, I have thought that I would one day get married, have kids, then get old, just like other people. I frequently thought about how I would care for my future wife. But I have never seriously thought of myself as a groom, a husband or a father. I hated wearing fabric pants and those leather shoes adults wear. It took me a long time to get used to wearing belts and jeans, mostly succumbing to exasperation. I hated anything that made me look like an adult man. Especially the beard...

Even though no one really bashed my head on how "men do this and women do that", no one restricted my toys, no one in my close proximity was openly sexist. Despite adopting a mostly "live and let live" outlook and having a clear sympathy towards things that aren't "normal", the society I grew up in clearly ironed out my behavior. Maybe I had read about it in newspapers once or twice, but I didn't even have a conception of what a trans person was. If not for a series of chance encounters I could have just lived my life getting more alienated from the world day by day. But even if the repression became complete, I would always look at my own photos, and hear my own name and feel a little strange without ever understanding why. The thought was always with me since I knew myself. I would always think about her. Did my brain separate itself from my body at birth? I don't know. But there is clearly a large separation between my physical existing self and what I have always wanted to be. Today even if I had the perfect guarantee that everyone would perceive me as a woman I would still not like how I sound, because puberty happened without my input and I don't like the result. Truly if people thought of me as beautiful and desirable but my voice remained the same as now that would make the disconnect worse. Trans people who are confident in their voice are cool, admirable and uniquely captivating. But I always wanted to be a cis woman, I am sorry. I ignored how much this irked me for so long already so I don’t think I can ever be convinced to quit being bothered by this. I have a deep seated issue on this subject in particular, passing is really a secondary issue.

Had I grown up in a different society (without oppression) would I feel different? Perhaps. Of course, in a different society I would be a different being. In a better society, we would be able to take any steps we need in the ways we want to look without any judgment. Then perhaps a specific designation like "gender dysphoria" would not be necessary. perhaps differentiating between trans and cis people, or even men and women would be obsolete. But perhaps I would still be dissatisfied with my puberty. But even if we somehow knew it wouldn't matter, because I grew up in this society. I know that I have certain desires that have been with me for a long time and know several things that would satisfy them at least somewhat. But any sort of idea that suggests these desires would go away in this or that scenario is not only irrelevant but fails like all naturalisms do.

Humans are inseparable from their environment and we can't view humans as something that simply takes a parameter from society and gives a result. Bio-essentialism asserts that the environment can be reduced to mere cause and effect and a "pure human", an "essence" can be reached by sufficient isolation. However, this supposedly anti-essentialist stance agrees with that. Whether the pure human is heritable or a clean slate is actually a small difference. And not even a very sturdy one. Here, the criticism of the beauty industry provides an excellent case study. In a push for impossible beauty standards, young girls and women in particular are continuously disempowered to make them isolated unless they join in to the painful and expansive perpetual consumption. It is clear that there are a lot of industries that are sustained by this pain. Diet, cosmetics and fashion are among the largest offenders. When someone says something like "Makeup is fun" the obvious response is that personal experiences and societal trends can exist in opposition and they should be critical towards the advertisements targeted at them, especially when the advertising is done by their peers. No, that sounds too sensible. The "choice feminism" needs to be completely defeated. So, it turns out that women actually never authentically enjoy makeup, they always do it for men and it's "fine" to do it but you are giving in to the system. People have dyed their faces everywhere since humans learned how to, you might want to specifically appeal to other women, women pursuing beauty at all is also considered vain so perhaps patriarchy as a whole is less about specific actions of women and more that "woman" itself is wrong? No it is very simple, capitalist patriarchy in, makeup is out, no capitalist patriarchy no makeup. Thus it becomes necessary to imagine a "pure human" that is not contaminated by capitalism. Unfortunately we see this a lot in discussions where the anti-patriarchal argument falls into naturalism by making assumptions that are both irrelevant for those who are alive currently and can be easily modified into supporting an oppressive system.

But even if essentialism did not creep in, the argument would still be reductive. If dysphoria merely reflected oppression, why, even though many trans people do, do I not dislike my height? No matter what the world deeply tried to instill in me to equate smallness and womanhood but it could not. I might feel insecure about it if it caused people to clock me but in that case, it becomes so easy to distinguish the external pressure. Many trans people are comfortable with their genitals, or would care much less if the society did not fixate on them. Some trans people’s drive clearly is motivated not merely by dysphoria, but other thoughts that are still, fundamentally, very transgender. There are those people who explicitly don't want to be seen as man or woman, others aspire to become a "butch woman" or a "femboy". There are those who are mostly fine but nevertheless decide that they would be happier as a different gender. For some, autism makes the cis society difficult to swallow and embracing being trans becomes simple. There is probably a good case to be made for why neopronouns could emerge in an early 21th century Western society, but it could seldom explain why people are motivated to adopt them. What we can clearly understand is that they are personally important to some people. The more someone deliberately chooses to be outlandish about gender, they become motivated less by society and more by themself. Surely, part of it is a reclamation of the outcast identity but the larger part is that people clearly find pride and enjoyment in having a fire-forged identity right out of their hearts, living as unbothered by the boxes of society as much as they can. Gender is a theater and all trans people reject their roles but some people want to be playwrights, they want to play in their own play.

Trans people are persecuted ruthlessly over mundane and trivial requests. We, especially those of us who live in particularly repressive circumstances, deserve the world for staying alive each day. By the merit of our struggles alone we can say that our wishes about ourselves deserve special attention. But the struggle does not define everything! I would love nothing more than just waking up as a cis woman tomorrow and yet, despite the struggle, I find some joy in deciding who I really am. Despite the prevalent opinion, I am fine with the MtF label, because I see it as an acknowledgement of my own decision to become myself. Our names are more deserving of respect because we choose it for ourselves. Years of thinking made me understand myself in a way that most people will never bother to do and that's why I can be certain that my self-image issues come from a wrong puberty, thus I need and deserve any medical procedure that undoes the damage. Gender dysphoria, euphoria, confusion, decision, none of those are meaningful just by the mere act of struggle, they mean something because of how I decide to shape myself.

Very often however, this is seen as a rhetorical inconvenience. I have seen sentences like "X is good/justified because it was born out of oppression" a bit too many times, the x can be really anything here. The lazy materialism is bad enough but the implication that the oppression passively bestows virtue is even worse. We hardly ever need this clutch, something can be good or bad on its own terms. Most things don't need to be justified with collective trauma. It is not less serious when we feel pain or simple comfort for reasons we don't entirely understand. Oppression just sucks. It doesn't bring validation. There is nothing enriching about having to choose between filial love and self-respect, between my safety and dignity, between paranoia and ennui. It is all cruel, heavy, crushingly dull and heavily maddening. But I will never accept that I am merely a sponge absorbing my misfortune. My infinite appreciation for pleated skirts will always triumph over the lost time I am accumulating each second I am in the closet.

Gender dysphoria is not enough to define me. It is not the universal trans experience. It is certainly much more than a collection of heritable impulses, if they exist at all. Society is at fault for our distress. Yet, even though I can't say this for any other trans person, I am the problem to myself, I am the only person that can fulfill my oldest wish.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Laura Watson, Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@punishedgenetic on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

Pokemon, Sequels and Perception of Change

If you see discussions about video games online you likely have heard about a sentiment that Pokemon as a series is stale and unwilling to change. Looking at the “mainline”[1] games at a glance it is easy to see why: All of the games share a wide variety of tropes: The player begins the adventure in a small cozy town, chooses a starter between Fire/Water/Grass types, engages in many simplistic battles, has to defeat regional leaders that usually stick to a single type, gets the ability to make their Pokemon cut grass, swim and fly, cleanses their region from some type of evil team, faces the cover legendary Pokemon, reaches the credits by defeating the champion and entering the hall of fame and after this, is able to access a couple of side challenges, new areas, mini-games and of course, can complete the Pokedex by “catching them all”. Longtime followers of the series are not wrong about something feeling off, the series has several problems regarding its presentation and ability to satisfy the myriad of  desires of its huge and diverse fanbase. Stagnation is not one of them.

Flashy Changes

Pokemon games treat their features as disposable. Often these are tech gimmicks: Companion apps, peripherals, minigames to show off the console capabilities and make co-op more appealing. Sometimes certain features feel more experimental and don’t make the cut in sequels. Despite looking light on big changes, Black & White (2010) in particular are notable with the number of orphaned mechanics. Do you remember Triple Battles?  Some mechanics come and go between games. Heartgold & Soulsilver (2009) allow the player to walk around with their mon. If you have enjoyed that you can also see it again in Lets Go:Pikachu & Eevee (2018)… in a more limited form.  Some cuts are more brutal. Mega Evolutions were a highly advertised feature for 2 generations and then disappeared into the aether. Remember Battle Frontier? Press F to pay respects…

From this angle, Pokemon games certainly “innovate” a lot, too much perhaps. “Oh these aren’t real, just gimmicks” you might say. But they have real thought and effort behind them all the same. They don’t feel tangible in large part because they don’t stick around. This is a constant in game history: No matter how much players may speak of innovation, they always seek familiarity in sequels. And this creates a paradoxical response to Pokemon games, people think Pokemon is stale because it changes too much. One thing you might like in a game may disappear completely in the next. Sword & Shield (2019) gathered so much controversy because it showed that even the pocket monsters themselves aren’t safe from the cutting floor.

Is this merciless approach a good thing? You can argue that they make games more memorable in retrospect and it is admirable that Gamefreak commits so much to short-lived features. Many of the cutting decisions are justifiable in isolation. While there were many potential Mega Evolutions I would like to see, I still prefer regular evolutions and regional variants. I love Battle Frontier but it’s quite involved for a post-game attraction that most players don’t even attempt to complete. I also still stand in defense of the Dexit,[2] a limited, rotating roster can be potentially great for the series. Feature creep is also a real design problem, the designers can’t just continuously add and mix mechanics without risking oversaturation. Nevertheless, losing major features is never fun and especially so when they’re robbed from reaching full maturity. As much as people focus over the lightning-in-the-bottle achievements of pioneer games, most gameplay language and conveniences we take for granted today are the result of gradual perfection over multiple different series, development teams and even decades.

Gradual Changes

Thankfully, Pokemon made many gradual changes since the first sequels Gold & Silver (1999) and Crystal (2000) were released. It’s not a coincidence that the games which feel like a proper sequels the most are very well remembered among fans. Generation 2 games truly codified most of the big and small features Pokemon is known for today, from weather moves to being able to play as a girl. But really, every generation has made similar leaps. Gen 3 entries brought the familiar sprites to the games, added key mechanics like Natures and Double Battles. Gen 4 added many staple items, reworked how the damage was calculated and made many improvements that made battling with other players viable. I have stated that Gen 5 was full of experimental features, but the developers seem to have kept a lot of ideas around. Z Crystals in Gen 7 look like they have evolved from the abandoned Gem mechanic, they were then developed further into Dynamax feature. Pet interactions and Hidden Abilities from the Dream World feature were realized much better in subsequent games. These are still relatively big compared to the many subtle additions to the games. Quality of Life improvements, small adjustments in base Pokemon stats, updated mechanics, easier navigation of the world, more moves, more items…Not only that, these stuff aren’t just added for the sake of more content. In the last few gens in particular Gamefreak seems very interested in making mons more life-like and increasing the tactical depth of the games And of course, every new generation comes with a host of new and old but painted critters. When listing like this in conjunction with the big gimmicks added, tech migration and frantic-looking development cycle this is nothing short of impressive. Compared with other venerable game series, and I use this word rarely when talking about media, this assessment becomes objectively true. This is not really about whether the changes are good, or worth paying attention to, the right kind or unable to answer a core dissatisfaction. (ex. “battles should be real time!!!”) Imagine a new Shin Megami Tensei game with 100 previously unseen demons or an Elder Scrolls sequel with 30 new spells and 2 new spell categories. The level of change Pokemon games go through are usually only seen in reboots to old and dormant series.

The changes are impactful too. Some object to this by claiming that mechanical changes are mostly relevant to the competitive scene. In truth, the metagame always finds its way one way or another, but even minor changes make the older games feel weird. Despite replaying the games over the years again and again, today I cannot return to the games older than Diamond & Pearl (2006). Sure, when you pick the Water starter and go through battles by choosing the strongest Water attack available, they are not that different. But when I put any amount of thought into the mechanics, I cannot just get through the incredibly sparse distribution of level up moves, not having future evolutions around, so many mons being impossibly grating to level up or near useless in battles. After playing B & W  I instinctively expected TMs [3] to be reusable. But even those games feel a little strange with the absence of the Fairy type. And I am not alone in such feelings. S & S sparked a controversy by a decision to have a previously optional item that gives passive mons in the trainer’s party experience always switched on. Many thought that it made the game too easy, which is another fascinating topic related to fan perception, but even this minor change clearly mattered. 

This is why it is ignorant to criticize the series as being stagnant. This applies to most other series too. People often discuss every minor difference in Souls games in meticulous detail but to onlookers like me, it’s just an armored person rolling around and hitting big weepy monsters with a broadsword. In some sense, both observations are equally correct. When two things have many similarities the differences only become more visible on a close look. And it is fine to be ignorant about the details of a game, but it is not fine to pass the ignorance as insightful criticism. Pokemon is unlikely to be affected by some loud voices in social media, but higher standards for game criticism can only improve the way people perceive games. Players owe themselves and the creators the chance to think more seriously about games and at least should be critical enough to not want groundbreaking changes and still expect the games to evoke childhood nostalgia at the same time. 

That Which Remains the Same

Having written all this, there are notables cases where people are justified to feel a stagnant air in the series:

The visuals have been… underwhelming. But before that point, let’s address a common type of argument: Attributing clear creative decisions to laziness or pure irrationality is plainly bad criticism. Pokemon’s visuals are like that in part because there is a faithful commitment to minimalism and consistency.  It isn’t that helpful to compare mainline games’ visuals to games like Pokemon Stadium(1999). Those games were designed with spectacle in mind. Mainline games give brief and unimpressive animations to basic, low damage, early game moves like Tackle or Scratch because battles are intended to be reasonably fast. But Stadium-like games don’t have such concerns, they can take their sweet time in long wind-ups and reactions. Minimalist visuals also fit handheld screens better, for example flashing screens can become overwhelming. [4] Minimalism also makes consistency easier. Majority of the moves in the games share animations throughout the series. [5] Environments, rooms, and human NPC designs are generally unmistakably “Pokemon”. Even the monsters themselves avoid overly busy designs and are able to carry a level of consistency between a ball with eyes and a mythical dragon while also avoiding mons blending into one another. And this direction has paid off: At its worst the visuals have still kept a level of charm despite whatever limitations they have been under. At their best they burst with life and emotion. And yet... 

I have always had this uneasy feeling that the visuals have been a little low-balled. Not true for the first two generations, in fact they have tested the limits of their platforms, Gen 3 has a serviceable “this is a Pokemon game” look but not much more, Gen 4 is crisp and colorful enough to serve as a baseline for the visual quality of the series but even less experimental than Gen 3. Gen 5 looks admirable in spades but is let down by the hardware somewhat, Gen 6 has a lot of ideas but experienced the ever-painful switch to 3D, Gen 7 is better at realizing these ideas but lacks the passive benefits of a platform upgrade. Gen 8 without a doubt occasionally has the best looks of any Pokemon game so far, at the same time Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl (2021) uses funko-pop looking characters in the overworld. The series’ visuals became brighter, sharper, more colorful, jumped to 3D, improved upon that, but as the years passed and hardware became more and more powerful, the expectation of a true breakthrough grew larger and larger and so far, it has yet to be fulfilled. Even now; there are no expressive human faces, no consistently fluid animation, no true collusion or particle physics, no real lightning, no detailed textures, nothing to show people that these are AAA console games from the current period. The series doesn't have to implement all or any of these features to look satisfyingly beautiful, and it should be stressed that battles being turn-based or aiming for a particular kind of stylized graphics is not the problem, but it needs to do something to make people say “Wow! This looks slick and new!” but for the moment, no matter how beautiful the visuals can be in places, they can’t hide the scars of troubled development. When discussing the graphics, the players might have unreasonable expectations, focus on the wrong things or make asinine assumptions about how game development works but the disappointment they feel is not cynical.

Another factor that doesn’t bring any favors is that the games don’t really require that much thought to play. Players don’t really have to engage with the big features and subtle changes on a deep level. Players often come to see the promised new content and then move on. When a game is presented as an amusement park, players treat it like one. You may design the attractions as intricately as you can, but if someone comes for a simple merry-go-round ride, they will not pay too much attention. And the problem isn’t easily solved by a difficulty-mode damage modifier, higher enemy levels or adding action gimmicks to battles. The games’ easy battles are not some kind of destructive flaw either, the series owes part of its charm to being able to be so non-threatening and non-demanding no matter what kind of player someone is, what their mood is, how busy they seem to be. You can always open up a game, lose yourself in a whimsical world and enjoy hanging out with dangerous pets for a couple of hours. Being challenging enough to demand dedication or create frustration at any level creates a mental filter for a lot of players. The solution is not obvious here. I have a lot of ideas for a Pokemon game that would cater to me the most but are they reasonable to ask for without compromising anything from the friendliness of the series? Hard to say. But perhaps fine-tuning flashy features like Mega Evolutions or Dynamax instead of throwing them away would go a long way towards an impression of progress in the eyes of returning players.

This task certainly would be much easier, unnecessary even, if the story played a heavier part. Here, Final Fantasy series is a good point of comparison. Like Pokemon, FF loves throwing away major game mechanics in each new installment and like Pokemon, many features across FF titles fall behind their true potential. Some of the games even gained notoriety for their design choices. But the series have never garnered a reputation for growing stale in huge part because the games all promise a completely new epic story in a unique setting. On Gamefreak’s part hand, they have always been keen on experimentation. For example, I am quite impressed with how B & W is able to characterize “N” by leaving most of it to the player's observation. A lot of games and even movies or books are not confident enough in their writing or the audience to do so. Even G & S gives a character profile for your rival deeper than anyone has ever asked for a Gameboy Color game. There is a actually lot to appreciate in the settings of Pokemon game, but you need to have an eye for fine details.  But no matter how high they aim for their writing, it cannot overshadow the primary adventure people seek in the series. The main loop of the mainline games are heavily player-driven. The most memorable moments come from Shiny encounters, fainting a legendary mon on accident, a random battle that is surprisingly difficult, becoming champion with the guys you have been attached to or navigating self-imposed rules, not rising moments of tension or a punching line from a character. The real story of any mainline Pokemon game is the player’s journey to prove themselves as a trainer. A heavily guided tale that wants attention to dialogue is fundamentally different and likely gravely incompatible. For many players such a shift would be unpleasant not only because it distracts from the parts they care about but similar to a noticeable increase in complexity, it turns playing the game into an emotional investment. Not only would this make “just picking up” the game more difficult, if the investment isn’t rewarded satisfactorily it becomes actively hostile to future re-runs. In particular, it might bore children rather easily.

Conclusion

Pokemon games have experimented and evolved a lot in each sequel. In fact a good part of loud complaints come from disliking the changes, such as the switch to the 3D graphics, gradual embrace of the open world gameplay, removed features, discarding updated releases in favor of DLCs, the perceived downgrade in game’s difficulty and more. [6] But with a series as old as Pokemon, it is almost inevitable to feel a certain degree of weariness or  develop unfulfilled expectations at some point, and certain key design choices don't help with the impression. This matters not for the success of the games. The core appeal alone is strong enough to draw a lot of people. Even if the games truly became low-effort advertisements for merchandise, short of stopping creating new pocket monsters altogether, the series will not stop raking in cash. This matters because it gives insight about us. We are not great at perceiving change when it’s slow but also similarly bad at it when it’s fast enough to seem temporary. Inversely we often mistake the changes in ourselves for the change of the world around us. This is a weakness we need to overcome to be able to critique media, and sequels in particular without limiting ourselves but our expectations. It is relevant for the creators on how to approach their fanbases and future sequels. Sequels, expansions, DLCs and alike are useful for building on the good ideas and testing their limits, like changing a particular variable in a controlled environment. But if the sequels cannot walk in synth with the players, they can sow the seeds for a paradoxical desire for orthodoxy and reform at the same time. Players often can feel something is wrong but will often misidentify the issues. An important challenge for any developer is to look at the criticism and determine what’s actually causing the problem. Those who are dedicated to games critique have the power and responsibility to direct the discourse into a productive place. My tiny blog doesn’t matter at all at such a scale of course, but video creators and journalists with large audiences definitely influence how people discuss and perceive games. At least we should be able to see through the fog of hype and outrage.

Some ideas and franchises can be too big to extinguish but they can certainly burn their creators away. Pokemon itself has nearly become an example. While this is chiefly corporations’ fault, on our end, we can at least not be so sensitive about change (either in favor or against it) to take personal offense at creative decisions.

In any case Pocket Monsters provides us boundless ideas to ponder and gives us the chance to explore the human condition. Well, at least mine, it has claimed part of my brain for itself.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Laura Watson,  Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@punishedgenetic on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

----

[1] A designation that groups every game that adds a new generation of monsters with remakes and remasters of these games.

[2] The decision to not include a fairly big number of Pokemon in S & S in any shape of form. A lot of more were added with DLCs later but as of writing this 234 of them are still unavailable. This shocked the fans because it was completely unprecedented for a mainline Pokemon game, you could always theoretically obtain all the monsters in any of the previous games up to the game’s generation. Also the statements from the devs did not exactly help.

[3] Items that teach moves to Pokemon.

[4] In the first season of Pokemon anime, an episode titled “Electric Soldier Pokemon” caused episodes of epilepsy among viewers, some of them became hospitalized. It is not far-fetched to assume that from then on any decision about Pokemon products has kept this in mind.

[5] I don’t mean sharing actual animation rigs or meshes of course

[6] This is a topic fascinating enough to have an article on its own.

Falling and Standing Up

 Last September I announced that I was heading towards a much more productive path. It went nicely for two months. Then the stress accumulated from my parents’ relationship problems from last summer, coupled with the amount of weird waste of time errands I’ve been tasked with, combined this all together has completely destroyed my pace. I slipped back into old habits. Watching Youtube videos that don’t entertain me all that much, getting to bed and waking up late, feeling sleepy randomly during the day, not wanting to cook, not wanting to shower, not even playing any video games properly. I was even too much of a mess to upload cat pictures sometimes. 

Perhaps most importantly, I have become more fragile. Sometimes even small inconveniences bring me to the verge of tears or plunge me to despair. Some bad words from others, dropping stuff onto the floor, slight delays, some leftover food turning rotten, waking up late, falling asleep during the day, seeing the bed untidy,  things of that kind… Recently when I was cleaning the house, the vacuum cleaner’s lid was open and some dirty water spilled onto the carpet, which made me lie on a sofa for three hours thinking how much of a failure I am…

In a way it is a good analogy for my life.

Are these excuses for my deep fundamental laziness? Perhaps to some extent. But it is obvious, in this instance, I have some external reasons that keep me from doing things. To what extent does this play a factor is the question. I could always be more diligent, more disciplined, more patient. Nothing technically keeps me from having a regular sleep schedule, being attentive in school, having regular updates on the blog, studying Japanese or learning to cook better food. I don’t have any debilitating physical issues (sans my crippled hand and foot but they are not relevant here), I have pretty a good standard of living with a nice apartment that has good heating, adequate clothing, a variety of healthy food, constant Internet and good equipment, enough money to go around, and perhaps above all, still being able to study without worrying to much about a career. My complaints do sound like mere excuses, in the past I had this excuse, now I have that excuse… What about people with much more unstable lives, people in terrible jobs, people who live in war zones? What about their dreams? Most of them probably cling to their desires more than I have ever done! 

Even writing this very article is excusing myself. Isn’t this a way to say “oh look at me, I am conscious about those who have worse than me, validate me, tell me how much you understand me,and let me linger on my pathetic existence” Even acknowledging this is a form of self-flattery isn’t it, like, really, sincerely, who cares about whether I am self-aware or not. Writing this means I am beautifying the ways I am allegedly suffering. Choosing words carefully, patting myself on the back when a sentence pleases me, why the heck is my mood so good when writing this? Is this catharsis or mere egotism? Maybe both?   

But is this a rational way of thinking? Can I even judge what is rational or not? I fear that such an ability is above me, at least on this very matter.

I mean at the very least, the fact that people read what I write, some even directly telling me about liking it or even donating money to support it means that it is valued in some way, right? At some point my self-flagellation feels gravely disrespectful to those who believe in me. No, my significant others don’t just placate me when they praise me. It feels even more egotistical to say that everyone is either putting up a charade or falling for mine.

No, the simple truth is, whatever the reason, I am a failure to some extent. People see something in me but I am unable to live up to it. I dream a lot but don’t act enough.

But I am not a total failure.

I have friends. I have long ongoing relationships. I have been more attentive lately. I am able to get up early and get through the day without sleeping. During the last couple of months, I was still able to get progress in some projects. My recent leek dish was quite good. My love of computers and programming has increased, I am slowly becoming a full blown Linux person. I am keeping a diary and semi-reliably archive my thoughts, emotions, night dreams and habits with promising consistency. I have been getting back to studying Japanese too. The word game “Kotobade Asobou” and Duolingo have reactivated something in me. I have been doing pull-ups, I have found that it is a good way to clear my head and fight my worries, my weight has stalled, or is even, ever so slowly decreasing as of writing this. My Youtube relapse could have been so catastrophic, but the time-wasting errands paradoxically prevent it as much as it enables them. I am just too self-aware of watching stuff for the sake of it usually, and still don’t find much joy in most things I have been watching. Instead, I was able to watch a couple of movies, which might be a topic for later. Even various errands and chores aren’t always bad. There is nothing wrong with walking under clear, refreshing wind and I have discovered a domestic side of myself. As much as I have found easy to get desperate, recently I have found it to easier to bounce back too. And, for what it’s worth, even in my darkest moments, I have never contemplated escaping or finishing it all. I have never given up for good.

Things are getting better, maybe?

There wasn’t anything erratic from my parents’ side recently. I guess that helps a lot. Too much perhaps, I fear what will happen if things get heated again? Will my fledgling sleep schedule get reset in one stroke like that? But in a way, being anxious over that makes me more mentally prepared, however little.  

But no, things are getting better because I am trying. What you will read might sound pathetic to you, but it was a true moment of change for me: For the last couple of weeks I was occupied with the game called Red Alert 3. (And its standalone expansion, Uprising) I played it way back in high school, but I was never really good at strategy games. The game has a mode called Commander’s Challenge, a series of loosely-ordered maps you are tasked to beat, unlocking more units as you do. Back then, it kicked my butt. But after playing the game with a  friend, a voice in my head called for it. I felt as if the game challenged me personally. 

Then I played it, and completed the mode, finishing the levels under par times too. Then went ahead and finished the campaigns on hard difficulty. It is not quite as impressive as it might sound, I have taken plenty of help from the Internet. But I have used my own tactics too, and the execution is still mine. Above all, I have proved something to myself. Mere days ago I was too washed up to even play video games. But now, something has awakened inside me yet again. And thanks to that, I am able to write this article, with remarkable speed too..

Obviously there are lots of areas to improve but it’s not all bad, right?

Perhaps the vacuum cleaner is a good analogy, the spilled water wasn’t an important problem and it didn’t affect the cleaning in the end. Just like that, despite relapses and setbacks I can get up. I might move slowly, I might need to get faster, I might stumble a lot, but I won't go back. I really don’t want to do that.

In September I announced a somewhat bold schedule, but was only able to deliver a single article. Now I am wary of actually promising anything. I have even delayed publishing this article for about a month, I didn’t want to give a false impression. But I  truly want to write about something fun in the upcoming weeks. Otherwise the all-consuming void will return and now the void makes me irritated, because the time I spend crawling, mopping or walking around in cold sweat means even more wasted time. I also would like to keep a decent sleep schedule. Just like how not being able to continue anything makes it harder to return to productivity, when I get productive even a little in one area it just gets all that easier to start being productive in something else. 

So, yes, I apologize for the umpteenth time for under-delivering. I draw great strength from all those who keep believing in me. I will fight harder. I can’t say “look forward” without feeling bad, but, just… don’t be surprised if I release an article about something besides my personal woes soon! I hope this isn’t worrying, I just don’t want to break promises. I am supposed to be deliver one honestly-in-most-respects a short article a month, and I should be able to do it, and I want to do it, not for merely clearing guilt, but because it will pleasure me.

If you decided to endure my rant and think you haven’t totally wasted your time, I am really grateful. Hopefully, see you later again!   

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Laura Watson,  Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@jyhadscientist on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

Classic Call of Duty PC Games

 In the twilight years of old-school first-person shooters prior to the modern military shooter invasion, Call of Duty 1 (2003), Call of Duty: United Offensive (2004) and Call of Duty 2 (2005) emerged as among the finest FPS games and WW2 fiction the world could offer. In the days before as the flagship title of sexual abuse enabler Activision’s Call of Duty was a name praised with freshness and movie-like qualities, when this was still a considered a net positive. We will make a close inspection as to why the games still deserve the praise, and also discuss how the games differ from one another in subtle ways. Just in case, spoilers abound.

Call of Duty 1

When isolated from its dreadfully mundane and mundanely dreadful nature, war can be quite enjoyable. When it involves shooting Nazis, the fun increases by a hundred fold. It’s not surprising then this found its way to games as early as Castle Wolfenstein (1981). But for a long time, video games did not represent war as historical epics, opting for either the abstract representation of strategy games or in the almost entirely history-agnostic context of action games. In addition, the first attempts at 3D, epic WW2 games plainly lack the necessary graphical punch. CoD is a fateful  meeting of matured technology, evolved game design and the fresh language of the war movies of the era.

The result is a game that feels great to play. The night sky, the smoke on destroyed machines, apartment block ruins are all chillingly beautiful. The game is clearly made to look realistic, but today its color palette gives it a pastel-like vibe. Even the detail-lacking textures like faces and trees look tolerable, if not charming at times. The sound design is top notch as well. Guns each have their own identity with tiny visual details, the variety in heaviness, the fire spread, reload time, and most importantly, their sound. The footsteps, the random chatter between soldiers, somewhat comical death sounds, even grenades bouncing from the wall are so distinctly recognizable. To top it all off, the orchestral music by Michael Giacchino gracefully guides your mood throughout the game: Sometimes heroic, sometimes sneaky, sometimes intense, sometimes happy, but never too melodramatic.

Much of the good feel of the game comes from the level design. Levels have a nice sense of variety and identity. Even the day/night switches alone on the same map brings a unique feeling. More importantly, they all have a palpable sense of naturalism. War-torn towns don’t bend to my will, the car wreckage does not feel as if it’s there for me to use as a cover, the houses always have a couple more rooms and doors than strictly necessary, there are burning wreckage at seemingly random places that will hurt the player. This is a very linear game, but most of the time the player will be gently directed by natural obstacles, streets, walls, rubble and minefields. Only a few times does the game resort to bluntly placed invisible fences to keep the player inside the game’s bounds.

CoD 1’s breakout gameplay feature is to be able to fight as a team and it deserves every phase it got back in the day. Especially in closed corridors, the fights get chaotic in a way only normally possible in multiplayer games. People shout, hurl grenades, take cover, get injured and –- save for a sparse use of invincible NPCs --  die and you are just one of them. The game normally punishes friendly fire with a game over but in heated combat moments, will tolerate it to a small degree. You can kill or get killed by accident. No matter how skilled you might be as a soldier, in the end, you are still just a guy.

The game tries its hardest to hammer this point to home. Many moments in the game feel out of slightly exaggerated war stories: “This one time, me and the sergeant crossed into the German lines on a car but a tank started to follow us, we sneaked into the streets, then found some other car, and escaped from dozens of German soldiers!”, or “Our small squad captured a whole apartment block then defended it against an entire mechanized battalion for minutes!” They still feel entirely plausible though, especially when you know how truly ridiculous WW2 was at times, the battle that inspired the latter scenario in the game happened for an entire month for instance! [1] In the solo levels, I never feel quite like a superhuman FPS hero. Rather, these levels are actually quite terrifying. In particular, the level when you plant bombs to a warship feels cold, meandering and claustrophobic. Even a glaringly gamey mechanics like health bar adds to the naturalism. Being at low health means I have to be super careful and scramble to find any health pickup I can. It’s perfectly clear the player is just a lucky soldier, and that a stray bullet, an unheard grenade, a wrong step in the open field could end their life. Player won’t even get the most of the heroic moments. They won’t carry the injured soldier, they won’t drive cars in frantic escapes, they won’t destroy a tank by climbing on top of it and throwing a bomb inside, and they are not the one who hoists the Soviet flag at the Reichstag. Most importantly however, the player cannot open doors themselves.

Curiously, such moments are not presented in cutscenes. A couple of times, the game will immobilize the player with something like an explosion to focus their attention to a big scene, but the game never quits the first-person view and never completely takes away the player's control. Most of the time, we are free to look away from the action and even do a little sequence breaking. Like, in a level where you defend a French town, a tank blows up a wall and we are most likely expected to destroy it after it makes a small trip across the street while we escape its gunfire. But if we have an anti-tank weapon ready with us, we can just blow it up the moment it appears! From the same level, anticipating German assault, a soldier is sent to scout the street and gets killed in the first round of fire. But we can prevent his death by running outside and shooting that Nazi first! In the most ironic fashion for a series that gave linear games a bad reputation, the linearity in the original game never feels constricting.

This adds back to the game’s sense of naturalism. With one notable exception, this game lacks any kind of melodramatic excess. There is a moment where the player needs to cover for someone carrying an injured soldier, but despite being unkillable up until that point, the guy might just die. Despite clearly being an important character, there is no slowed-down Sad Moment, whether he lives or dies, the player continues all the same. In the level where we sneak into a ship with Captain Price, he doesn’t make it back. We don’t even see the moment of his death. We just return to our boat and the person waiting is like “Damn, he is dead!” and the level ends just like that. In the American campaign, you save this guy from a prison and for the entirety of the British campaign you go through many, many deadly ordeals together. And yet, he just dies alone in an enemy ship. The game maintains a consistently mundane, down-to-earth atmosphere. These days, most games would not miss the chance to give the player to sneak up and make an epic knife attack or reward them for playing in certain ways with scores, achievements and collectibles. It feels so nice to just play a game that’s a little indifferent to the player, especially when the indifference is actually crucial to the tone.

Call of Duty definitely wants to be a fun WW2 epic that makes the player feel heroic. But it also respects the subject matter a lot. It is not quite “War is hell!” on the whole but it makes sure to show that war is not fun for the people partake in it. The death screen shows player quotes from famous figures of the era, most of which have a clear anti-war streak, perhaps just as a way to remind us that in the real deal, we would have only had one shot.  On mission-loading screens we can see diaries of the protagonists. Even maps and typed-out dossiers have pen writings on them, about changed plans, things gone wrong, or a little quip about the situation.  Every soldier you fight alongside has a name and visible health status. The game’s earnest recognition of the everyday people who fought in the war is what makes its celebration of heroism meaningful.

This might sound like a minimum level of seriousness that the media needs to approach the topic of  wars, and perhaps it is. And yet so many WW2 video games absolutely miss the mark on that. They either have too much sob story about American soldiers, or too much one-man cool espionage, too much cartoonish action, too much self-congratulatory nonsense. CoD itself could not resist the temptation, as apparent with CoD: World at War (2008) and especially, newer Call of Duty WW2 (2017). A level of naturalism is clearly necessary for a graceful approach to WW2, and such a method can lend itself easily to so many more games. There are many theaters of war with little to no media depiction. But it seems like, any WW action game after a certain date was just destined to be a modern military shooter with an old timey skin.

This is also precisely one of the biggest strengths of the classic CoD. The games not only did depict the Eastern Front, the first game chose it as its cover image and devotes much of its cinematic attention onto it. Unfortunately, it is also the only area of the game deserving serious criticism. The developers could not help being Americans, there is at least one loading screen with a fake Cyrillic front, and the battle of Stalingrad in particular is filled with ahistorical  tropes [2][3][4][5], but even still, it captures the spirit of how terrible war is very well.  



I put the majority of the blame on the movie inspiration, Enemy at the Gates (2001). The game doesn’t seem to go hard on “Soviets bad 1984” attitude, because despite its shortcomings the Soviet campaign is truly the high-mark of the game. Even as a kid with no knowledge of history, it’s the Soviet levels that actually made me think of Nazis as the bad side. The player tries to live unarmed in true hell, has to fight in burned cities and the deepest winter and finally, tastes the glory of taking over Berlin. The game even ends with the Soviet protagonist writing to his mother about how he felt of the American soldiers as his brothers. American and British campaigns are bloody fine shooters, but the Soviet campaign is where the game gains its beating heart, its vulnerable soul, its trembling voice.

It’s a good thing then, the other two games do not repeat weird Americanisms.

Call of Duty: United Offensive

Unlike contemporary DLCs, old expansion packs were made with the assumption that they would be likely bought only by the fans of the original, which gave a lot of flexibility to the developers. For example, they could make the games as difficult as they want, discarding the usual design concerns. United Offensive absolutely relishes being difficult, it’s truly one of the toughest shooters around,  even the easiest setting is not a cakewalk. The challenge feels appropriate as it depicts the intense winter fights of Battle of the Bulge and the utmost brutal Battle of Kursk. In addition, the new levels are much longer compared to the originals, the player will find themselves running from one battle position to another. The game can be quite relentless, in a quite fitting way to the spirit of war. It does allow the player to catch a break in the British levels though, as an inversion of the original, they are much calmer compared to the American and the Soviet campaigns, including a level where you just shoot at German fighter planes as a bomber gunner.

Despite having nominally fewer levels, the levels feel much more varied both in style and the substance. There is more attention to the small details, even similar snow levels feel distinct and memorable. The game’s color palette is quite diverse: the bright whites of the French farms and forests, metallic grays and the medieval stones of a fortress in the beautiful sunset of a Sicilian town, the wet green and brown marshes of Ukraine giving way to the cities under the hellish red of ever-burning flames. The action always stays fresh, even with the longer levels, the game never plainly repeat the original’s nor its own scenarios, when the player is asked to conquer a town, they go through the whole deal; the initial approach, clearing enemy positions and then repelling a giant counterattack all in one level. The gameplay feels more meaty as a result. Small refinements add up as well; there are more guns to use, the player can sprint, the autosaves are more frequent and less buggy, and so on.  

In particular, it’s truly amazing how much the Soviet campaign improves compared to the original, which is already great despite its shortcomings. In the absence of excess dramatization,  the brutality of war comes out much more profoundly, we can even casually encounter flamethrower soldiers, in the classic, plain CoD style. Much more care is given to the dialogue of the Soviet soldiers, there is a real sense that the player character and his comrades care about each other. And the last level, the defense of the train station and eventual rescue can easily rival conquering the Reichstag in its ability to stir my heart.

Call of Duty: United Offense does not contend with being a worthy addition to the first game, it’s one of the best first person shooters period, just by itself.

Call of Duty 2

Everything that makes CoD good continues in full force in the sequel, this time in the streets of Moscow, the valleys of Tunisia and the beaches of Normandy, with crispier graphics. The breath is visible in cold air, the uniforms look busy, the ground is palpably wet in the rain, metals are more metallic, wooden textures shine brighter. There are some gameplay refinements: the player can use smoke bombs which adds tactical depth. Iron sights work slightly better and are more visible. Ally tanks have individual names so I get melancholic when they get blown up.  It is filled with so many great moments: Using a pipe to sneak past the enemy lines, chasing Nazis in an epic counterattack and then blowing up the building they hide, calling artillery strikes on whole tank divisions... On the whole it broadly hits the same notes as the first game, so if you enjoy it, you will also enjoy this one.

The departures from the first game are where things get interesting. The most notable one is the change of the health system. The sequel replaces the mundane,static healthy bar with self-regeneration: The modern system where waiting somewhere away from the line of fire for a few seconds heals the player. This fixes the theoretical problem of the player being stuck in an unfavorable position and forced to break the pacing of the game by searching for items. Now they can hop on between one firefight to another seamlessly and the game remains fair in each individual encounter. However, I don’t like this system all that much.

For one, the problem it solves is actually a positive for me most of the time. It’s not really more or less realistic but it does manage to instill a feeling of mortality. Instead of this, self-healing gives me short but semi-frequent spikes of fear, like getting jump-scared repeatedly.  Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad without the accompanying UI design. Gone is the simple health bar and the number, now when the player gets hurt, the whole screen progressively becomes engulfed in red, and eventually, a condescending “YOU ARE HURT, GET TO COVER!” text appears. It’s so annoying how CoD 2 popularized this understanding of “immersion”. Frankly it just gets in the way of playing the game, I literally can’t see the action when it’s most critical.

The health system brings up it’s own theoretical problem: the player might exploit it and render the game too easy. The devs “solved” this problem by having the enemies focus on the player more than AI allies. For example, in a building defense section, they will go past your teammates and straight to the player's spot. In the first game I could see some encounters end without my involvement at all or even hide in  places where the enemies never find me because they are busy fighting others. In the sequel this never happens. It is also followed by making the enemies spam indefinitely unless the player is at a specific place the game wants them to be and, similarly, appear only when they are at a certain place. In a North Africa level, Nazis have a machine gun position fortified with sandbags and barbed wires, supported by people on the balcony of the building near behind it. Try to clear the position from the front? Nope, the house will indefinitely spit new fascists out until I go around the street and hit them on the rear. In the very last level, when I turn around a corner I find a backyard surrounded by walls and then, see several soldiers materialize out of thin air, and rush to their defensive positions without caring about me right behind their backs, oops! I honestly find silly mistakes in games charming as long as they don’t obstruct me from playing the game, but it  creates a feeling that the player is at the center of everything, which goes against the spirit of the game. As if I have seen the magician’s trick, it’s hard to unsee once caught: The player starts the fights and they end the fights, it feels as if even the AI partners fight a little less effectively. Not having any solo levels makes this even more obvious. Perhaps the original used similar mechanics as well, but if it did, it was clearly far more delicate about it. Here, it definitely hurts the verisimilitude, it’s pestering rather than challenging and it started a trend where the shooters leaned towards micromanaging the player’s experience more and more. It’s not critically bad here, the game is still filled with many spontaneous, frantic, organic gunfights, it’s just unpleasant sometimes, like biting the bitter seeds when eating a delicious fruit.  

The second most notable thing is that the game is a lot more “modern” when it comes to music, i.e. it’s allergic to having music take over scenes. This means, unlike the original, what soundtrack there is is a lot less memorable. Maybe the game wants to prioritize the battle ambiance, which is far noisier and involved compared to the first game. Both your allies and enemies will constantly shout about stuff: Enemies locations, needing reload, demanding support, insulting the other side.  For the most part, it makes the fights feel more natural, but it becomes silly when the last remaining guy doesn’t cease to cry at the top of his lungs, like surely during an intense shootout sometimes combatants would get quiet too. The noise in the original is just fine, and I certainly appreciate having a real soundtrack over what we have in CoD 2, even the menu theme doesn’t want to get your attention at all.

The game is also notable for its lack of narrative structure. The levels are just a collection of WW2 theaters, there is little if any story progression: Each couple of levels you just switch years and place without a sense of resolution. In the original, the player survived in Stalingrad and marched to Berlin, the expansion focused on entire battles on operations stretched on a couple of really long levels. The sequel just ends with taking over a German town, it almost feels unfinished. It doesn’t help that, because series of levels take place in very similar places, they have a tendency to blend into one another, and yes the game’s better moments actually strengthen this feeling. It sits in an awkward spot between CoD 1 and UO,  it lingers on the same-looking scenery a lot, yet it is too short to conclude near anything it starts in a meaningful way. It is a series of amazing moments in between many fine ones.  

It also has a couple of minor annoyances. Pistols don’t have a dedicated slot, making them functionally useless. The ability to switch between semi-automatic and automatic modes in certain gun models is gone. The button for grenades throws them automatically,  leaving less window to decide where the grenade should go. When the player is near a loose grenade, the heads-up display informs them with a sign. This is more player friendly but it also conditions the player into following a marker over being aware of their surroundings. The dialog text is smaller, a harbinger of another annoying modern trend. The game auto-saves very frequently but you can’t manually save, view files in-game or start a level from the middle part. While it isn’t this game’s fault, the North Africa levels feels slightly off, years of modern military shooters gives it a bad vibe.  Mission briefing slideshows are replaced with official military documentaries, which have less personality. Finally, there are very few night levels. Not just because I like the night view but also it could certainly help to make the levels more memorable.

Overall, Call of Duty 2 is a consistently great experience that occasionally fails below its full potential. The fact that the original is one notch better is not really a point against this game.

Conclusion

Call of Duty 1, United Offense and Call of Duty 2 are excellent WW2 shooters that eschew the pulp for having one foot in reality. Anyone that craves good WW2 media or a simply enjoyable FPS game should try them out.

PSA: Don’t buy them though, not just because Activision-Blizzard is evil and doesn’t need your money, but they are also massive cheapskates and never properly discount their games. Paying above 1-2$ dollars for a 10+ year old game is a scam, regardless of the game’s quality.

---
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlov's_House (They even modeled the house accurately!)

[2] Yes, a reddit post, but this subreddit is actually decent:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/22t8dg/did_the_soviet_union_really_use_human_wave/

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/31t5on/did_the_soviets_really_send_soldiers_into_ww2/

[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ef0k1/how_realistic_is_the_depiction_of_soviet_soldiers/

[5]
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2r9az2/is_the_portrayal_of_the_battle_of_stalingrad_from/

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Laura Watson,  Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@jyhadscientist on Twitter) for his perfect editing work