I recently took a chance on Redacted because I saw a youtube review and it looked like sci-fi Hades. And honestly the gameplay is fine but the announcer making already dated pop culture references and being unfunnily snarky turned me off so much that I refunded it at around 90 minutes in.
It basically is Hades some minor mechanics tweaks, slightly less open environments and a "rivals" mechanic that adds another layer of both strategy and randomness to each run.
I didn't hate it but nothing was so good that I didn't uninstall after the announcer said "this isn't barney the dinosaur" after I died to the level boss.
Game link here if anyone has a stronger stomach for that stuff than I do: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2229940/REDACTED/
The worst trait of millennial creatives--even worse than their tendency towards leftoidism--is their aversion to sincerity. Everything is a joke, everything is self-aware and self-deprecating, every heartfelt moment needs to be undermined by comedy. It is their shield against criticism. The blame is no longer on them for making something that doesn't connect with the audience, but on the audience for expecting their media to take itself seriously. It is this very lack of creative integrity that leaves their media open to hamfisted political messaging, because if the art doesn't matter, why not use it as your soap box?
My theory is that it's rooted in some generational insecurity, but I'm open to alternatives.
The Joss Whedon-style of writing has destroyed pop culture writing for at least a generation or two. Nothing can be taken seriously, everyone has to be snarky and quippy as trailer-bait. Nothing can ever be emotional or authentic, everything reduced down to the soy-mouth, pointing finger JPEG.
what's amazing is I recently rewatched Firefly and it still holds up, despite all the movies and shows ripping off its humor lately. Not only is the show funny, but the emotional moments are still very impactful.
they are all trying to be Joss Whedon, and failing miserably.
This part at the start of Serenity is worth highlighting. The character makes a smartass retort because he wants to undermine the moment for his own self-interest, but the punchline is the escalation.
The aversion to sincerity is another manifestation of millennial snot.
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/on-millennial-snot
That article is great, I've noticed the "everything is a joke I can never be sincere" attitude with younger millennials for years
Yeah I repost it any chance I get because I feel like it explains my generation better than I could.
Hmm...
I'd also bet money that there's an element of "eating nothing but candy" to the mindset too.
Modern writers don't have a sense of restraint, or balance. They see things that they like in other media and then double down on them because more must be better, right? Those quiet, thoughtful, heartfelt scenes don't matter, they just drag the experience down! We need more comedy! More explosions! More violence! More sex! That's all the good stuff, so we'll make our entertainment nothing but good stuff!
It's like a kid making a cake, and deciding it will consist entirely of icing. Baking Soda? Flour? That's not sweet and tasty!
Good tv shows inevitably fall off when the fans become the writers. Futurama is a great example. The original run is among the best comedy television ever created, but later seasons consisted mostly of writers aping the best punchlines and emotional payoffs of previous episodes. The most famous was the episode starring fry’s dog, easily one of the saddest endings to a cartoon show episode ever. Probably 10+ new writers tried to replicate that gut punch in later seasons, and it was always cringe.
You can see this phenomenon within gaming as well. My go-to example being Bioware. Once people who grew up on its Black Isle games joined its ranks, the company just deteriorated overnight.
You mean you didn't cry when after half a dozen seasons suddenly Fry loves him Mom so much that he is willing to destroy the earth to see her?!
You mean it didn't reach the top alongside the dog episode?!?!?!
"It's not my fault I can't pass my classes, I'm actually brilliant but lazy."
"It's not my fault I can't find a job, the economy is bad."
"It's not my fault I can't talk to people, I have anxiety."
"It's not my fault I can't reconcile with my parents, they raised me wrong."
"It's not my fault."
People really need to accept that something not being your fault is not the same as something not being your responsibility.
It’s 100% insecurity imo. I don’t think that millennials are uniquely too self conscious to tell an earnest story though so much as pop culture has dumbed down to the extent that easier-to-produce ironic schlock is just served up more and more frequently