Jeff Gerstmann's Shenmue Rant (PAX East 2014)
ShenSun wrote: Also Ziming have you got a link to the full video?
"I love Shenmue but I also identify that it's not for everybody. Infact, it's probably not even for most people.
Shenmue is a game that had the balls to be boring on purpose. It's about waiting around outside of the barbershop because it's 6am and they aren't open yet. In some ways its reminiscent of a storytelling method Alfred Hitchcock used; Hitchcock subscribed to the notion that you start out very slowly on purpose, because that way the viewer gets to see how mundane the characters really are. Through that mundanity, you relate to them, because life itself is boring.
And Shenmue starts out VERY mundane. And I really, really love that, because it backs it up with a hard-to-match sense of place. Exploring that little sliver of 1985 Japan is super cool to me, and the things that game was trying to do at the time were revolutionary. Every NPC in that game is unique, and they all have daily routines. Games can do that now through character creators and whatnot, but somebody in Shenmue had to paint textures for 25-50+ unique faces and chart out where they were going to be in the city at any given moment.
Of course, in a gaming landscape where everything is still loud, in your face, and convenient to the point of holding your hand, it's easy to see why somebody would hate the game. It's not even that Shenmue is difficult, either, it's just tedious... but it's intentionally tedious. It forces you to stop and smell the flowers. I can dig that. Most people won't."
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