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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28979 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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People often forget that video games as an avenue for storytelling is a fairly recent thing in the full analysis of its history. John Carmack (one of the co-creators of the original Doom) once said: “… story in a video game is like story in a porn movie. You assume it’s there somewhere in the background but it’s not primarily why you watch it…”

I never thought Halo had a great story - I thought it was boring at best; but it was most definitely fun playing when it originally came out. And when it spawned off Rooster Teeth and the creation of Red vs. Blue, its capacity for storytelling expanded into other areas.

Childhood favorites of mine like MK2 on the Sega Genesis were iconic for the blood and violence every physically energetic young boy could exact on his opponent. Steve Ritchie had one of the greatest in-game voices ever performed for a video game. He was actually a legend in the pinball scene who once said he regretted playing the voice of Shao Kahn; because he would go to pinball events and conferences and nobody in the Q&A ever wanted to ask him about pinball stuff; fans of his came because they always wanted to ask him about the voice of Shao Kahn. I think overtime he came to accept it with a smile and just go with the flow.

story in a video game is like story in a porn movie

There's a neat old blogpost that gets at how the porn movie grade story still has a hurdle to clear.

I think it’s fair to say the story in a fighting game has the same purpose as the story in a porno: People don’t really care about it, and it only exists to give context to the physical action. And that’s fine. But The story of DOA5 can’t even accomplish this rudimentary task.

In The Big Lebowski, we see a small clip of a porno movie. A television repairman arrives at a woman’s apartment. There’s some stilted flirting, and even though we don’t see more, it’s pretty obvious the scene is going to end with them screwing.

If that scene had been written by the person who wrote DOA5, then it would go like this:

EXT: Public Park. Day.

A woman is sitting on a park bench, looking up at the sky.

WOMAN: (To herself) Is it always like this here?

TELEVISION REPAIRMAN: (Jumps out of the bushes.) I'm here to fix the television!

The woman stares at the nearby fountain. We go close in on her face, which is expressionless.

(Long pause.)

REPAIRMAN: Hey! Are you even listening? I'm here to fix the TV.

WOMAN: (Mutters quietly without looking up.) I don't have a TV.

REPAIRMAN: No! That's impossible!

CUT TO: The two of them screwing in a circus tent.

That’s what this story is like. It’s this strange, disjointed series of camera cuts and dialog lines. You can see it sort of mimics the style of cinema in terms of shot composition and tropes. People linger over their alcoholic drinks, strike dramatic poses, and pause a long time before answering simple questions, but none of it actually makes any cinematic sense. It’s like it was put together by an alien species who doesn’t understand the purpose of movies.

Oh, great. We're now at the age where we have to explain who John Carmack is.

I had to explain to a programmer coworker recently who John Carmack is. Made me feel so fucking old.

As a zoomer, I'm more familiar with him via this quote than I am with his games. Though I have played a little bit of DOOM.

How does a zoomer choose a Star Control reference for a username?

It's a classic video game that is still very playable today vis-a-vis graphics and can be obtained for free from Steam as Ur-Quan Masters, I don't find it particularly surprising.

How did I only just now realize that the Mortal Kombat voice is also the Black Knight voice.

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