'POSTMODERN' RM GAMES

If not caring about whether they're doing things properly or shittily is your idea of "inspiring," I'm sure you can just click on any random RM game and have a 95% chance of getting what you're looking for.

In seriousness, check out the games submitted to the 2012 Summer Games Event, in which the theme was surrealism. I'm Scared of Girls, Novella, Zephyr Skies, and Aetherion were the top entries. I admit to not knowing the difference between postmodernism and surrealism, but I think you will enjoy what you find.

Keep playing, it gets pretty deconstructive later on.

I'll go ahead and be (regrettably) pretentious by explaining, as succinctly as I can, the apparent differences between postmodernism and surrealism.

In essence, post modernism is a rejection of cultural and social assumptions of objective reality, claiming that all experiences are relative and, thus, all views of the world are subjective. It's implementation varies greatly across medias, but the fundamental idea is to draw attention to conventions and assumptions.

Surrealism is an artistic style which uses non sequitur, juxtaposition, and a view of reality that is in contrast to what is readily apparent, yet nevertheless reveals something new about that reality. As you can tell, the two are closely related, as both were born out of 20th century disillusionment with cultural norms and both are used as tools to criticize customs and established modes of thought (one of the primary duties of all artists).

There is no universally agreed upon definition for either term, but the above seems to generally be the consensus.

Metal Gear Solid 2 'broke the 4th wall' and deconstructed itself and its ideas at the end, which can legitimately be called postmodern, especially in light of its social criticism. It went from being a game that the player was playing to a treatise on society as a whole, and, to be honest, I rather liked that twist ending.

Yellow Magic, it seems like you're talking mostly about being "meta" and breaking the 4th wall, correct? Like, in a way other than for humorous purposes. I'm asking because I don't (and I think, can't) actually wrap my mind around the meaning of postmodern, so this will be helpful in making suggestions. For me.

"Metal Gear Solid 2 'broke the 4th wall' and deconstructed itself and its ideas at the end, which can legitimately be called postmodern, especially in light of its social criticism. It went from being a game that the player was playing to a treatise on society as a whole, and, to be honest, I rather liked that twist ending."

Like everything Kojima makes, it was also incredibly, ridiculously heavy-handed, overly obvious, and obnoxiously, smugly self-indulgent. Don't care though, still love it.

author=Sauce

author=Yellow Magic
Well I guess it's mostly in the last 20% of the game where it gets 'postmodern'...I am crap at explaining such ideas (plus spoilers ;p)

I dunno. Nothing about MGS2 is unusual or not seen in so many George Orwell inspired conspiracy theory settings throughout the last two decades.

Information control, shadow organizations that observers aren't even sure exist. Justification of total information control as a "greater good" for society. 1984 with nanotechnology and the internet.

Postmodern, yeah, but I dunno about uncommon.

It has nothing to do with plot twists but more on the fact that the player was just as dumb and fragile as Raiden for believing and doing every task told to him. This is basically where a game makes you question video games in general. The entire theme of the game was just because someone said so doesn't mean it's true. It was also social commentary on how people want to play the american hero solid snake, but are disappointed that they have to play "sissy boy Raiden" a character they can ironically relate more to in terms of insecurity and willfulness to do any objective in front of them. It goes deeper when you consider all the clashes of western/eastern society generally brings. The whole conspiracy stuff was really just a backdrop even though Kojima probably jacks off to it.

Did anyone play Spec Ops The Line btw?

Yeah, Postmodernism is a cool concept for Video Games.