How political is it?

[CypressRoux]

Is it ambiguous when it comes to its ideologies? I see it mentioned Morales in the trailer but does it have a political bias?

[braaaur]

Originally posted by TheKingofPies:

It's ambiguous when it comes to its ideologies. I see it mentioned Morales in the trailer but does it have a political bias?

It's pretty political :)

[Grimdaddy]

Curious to know more, if anyone has more info.

[Bivoj]

I have like 1h so far and it is surprisingly leftist and modern-day progressive. Too much for my taste and a bit out of the theme for kind of 70s setting...

[AcidSweat]

Originally posted by Bivoj:

I have like 1h so far and it is surprisingly leftist and modern-day progressive. Too much for my taste and a bit out of the theme for kind of 70s setting...

Maybe not working for 70's, but in the present day anyone who's not leftist or socialist is a faschist.

[Rabble]

It mainly ♥♥♥♥ on the massive inequality of the 1960s-1970s era.
If that stuffs is too political for you, I don't know what to tell you.
Jim Crows laws ended in 1965, systemic racism is still quite fresh.

[CypressRoux]

Was really wondering how it treated the subject of religion. For some reason it's okay to be stereotypical, or show Christianity in a bad light, just because people in any large group can have bad apples.

[FarWestMonk]

It IS biased. Look at the androgenous protagonist to start with. Very feminine features: eyes and stance. No hoss or gent would identify with that. Choosing a male or a female character would be a way better approach if identifying is that important to someone.

[FarWestMonk]

Originally posted by Bivoj:

I have like 1h so far and it is surprisingly leftist and modern-day progressive. Too much for my taste and a bit out of the theme for kind of 70s setting...

Based on the release of Ford LTD Crown Victoria P72 police car the game takes place between 1981 and potentially early 90s (P72 got a facelift in 1988). Or the devs didn't care to research the source material.

[Felexiia]

Good to know. Big pass, I don't need others to do my thinking or tell me what to think.

[Dasparado]

Originally posted by AcidSweat:

Originally posted by Bivoj:

I have like 1h so far and it is surprisingly leftist and modern-day progressive. Too much for my taste and a bit out of the theme for kind of 70s setting...

Maybe not working for 70's, but in the present day anyone who's not leftist or socialist is a faschist.

This might be the stupidest comment I have ever read (sadly many seem to think this way in our failing society). This person clearly has no idea what fascism means.

[Dasparado]

"The Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term "National socialism"). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities-where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.
And then, there's this:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." --Adolf Hitler, Quoted in John Toland, "Adolf Hitler", p224."

Straight from a political text book. Fascism is on the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum, not right wing vs left wing

[nitta]

It's very political, which in and of itself isn't really a problem for me. What is a problem is that the political aspect of the game is . . . really boring. The "bad guys" in some of the scenarios are 2D villains that are completely unconvincing and wholly uncompelling. The "good guys" are exactly the same way.

In one scenario, you pick up an old Nazi and your options are to a) dump him out of the car when he's sleeping or b) rob him and beat him up, THEN dump him.

How is this a compelling choice? Why even have this character in the game at all?

In another scenario you meet what I guess is supposed to be a Middle Eastern disabled guy (not kidding) who offers to have sex with you after you exchange a meal of rice and beans? There's also a wedding, which of course, is between two women. Whereas I had kind of expected the narrative scenarios to be interesting and compelling, they are basically high school-level tumblr fantasies.

Someone above mentioned the ideology in the game doesn't really "match" the 70s outlaw feel, which I agree with. But more than that, the whole "rebel without a cause" vibe I should be getting from the game doesn't really work, because the story clearly gives the rebel a cause! Sort of ridiculous.

I've been comparing this to Disco Elysium. There, you had a bunch of ideologies on display in the game; the arguments the characters presented on behalf of their ideologies and views were compelling, interesting, and thought provoking. You can steer the MC in any direction you want, which gave the game a kind of vitality that's totally absent from this game (so far -- I'm not too far into it). More than that, it made you feel like committing to one ideology or another has a kind of moral cost or weight. Maybe you sympathize with the dockworkers and trade unionists, but you think the radical communists go to far; maybe you don't really get the capitalists' arguments but at the same time the alternatives are equally unappealing. On top of that, the game has tons of characters who don't care AT ALL about politics -- they're just folks trying to survive in the world they inhabit.

At the end, in DE, I feel like the humanity of all the characters was there. You may have found some of them vile, or annoying, or pathetic, but they felt human. You could see them and kind of relate, in a way. Or I could anyway. I think that was an actually powerful moral lesson.

This game is like, the exact opposite of that (I repeat, so far). There is ONE ANSWER, ONE IDEOLOGY, your character MUST inhabit it. It's not even a question, the game seems to say, "Well obviously if you're playing this game, you'll AGREE with these points, how could you not?"

And for that reason there is no complexity, and therefore, nothing compelling about the story the game is trying to tell. Again, it's about as complex as a reddit post from a freshman Gender Studies major at a middling state university. The ideology is very "in fashion" but hollow, pathetic, and worst of all, totally boring.

ETA: The road trip in American folklore is kind of meant to be a metaphor for personal growth or in other cases personal healing. As you travel across the countryside, the horizon of possibilities expands into infinity, and the encounter with the immensity of a life's potential leads to internal change.

But in this game, there isn't much of that. You're running away from "fear', which I think is actually a sort of cool narrative device (if a bit on-the-nose and literal, but whatever, this is a video game). But the horizon of possibility and freedom isn't a horizon, it's a narrow tunnel. Where's that growth supposed to come from?

EETA: Oh I totally forgot the other scenario I saw. A Christian "pastor" (guy is actually wearing very clearly Catholic vestments, which would make him a priest not a pastor) is harassing an interracial couple who just conceived via IVF, and your choices are to a) not intervene or b) intervene. I chose A, and the resulting dialogue was, "A doctor comes out and stops the pastor. Another missed opportunity for you." Or something stupid like that. I mean, it's kind of lame, right? Even when you have an option to do something "different" or against the game's clear ideological stance, you get chided for not following the rules. Yikes!

[Grimdaddy]

Originally posted by nitta:

It's very political, which in and of itself isn't really a problem for me. What is a problem is that the political aspect of the game is . . . really boring. The "bad guys" in some of the scenarios are 2D villains that are completely unconvincing and wholly uncompelling. The "good guys" are exactly the same way.

In one scenario, you pick up an old Nazi and your options are to a) dump him out of the car when he's sleeping or b) rob him and beat him up, THEN dump him.

How is this a compelling choice? Why even have this character in the game at all?

In another scenario you meet what I guess is supposed to be a Middle Eastern disabled guy (not kidding) who offers to have sex with you after you exchange a meal of rice and beans? There's also a wedding, which of course, is between two women. Whereas I had kind of expected the narrative scenarios to be interesting and compelling, they are basically high school-level tumblr fantasies.

Someone above mentioned the ideology in the game doesn't really "match" the 70s outlaw feel, which I agree with. But more than that, the whole "rebel without a cause" vibe I should be getting from the game doesn't really work, because the story clearly gives the rebel a cause! Sort of ridiculous.

I've been comparing this to Disco Elysium. There, you had a bunch of ideologies on display in the game; the arguments the characters presented on behalf of their ideologies and views were compelling, interesting, and thought provoking. You can steer the MC in any direction you want, which gave the game a kind of vitality that's totally absent from this game (so far -- I'm not too far into it). More than that, it made you feel like committing to one ideology or another has a kind of moral cost or weight. Maybe you sympathize with the dockworkers and trade unionists, but you think the radical communists go to far; maybe you don't really get the capitalists' arguments but at the same time the alternatives are equally unappealing. On top of that, the game has tons of characters who don't care AT ALL about politics -- they're just folks trying to survive in the world they inhabit.

At the end, in DE, I feel like the humanity of all the characters was there. You may have found some of them vile, or annoying, or pathetic, but they felt human. You could see them and kind of relate, in a way. Or I could anyway. I think that was an actually powerful moral lesson.

This game is like, the exact opposite of that (I repeat, so far). There is ONE ANSWER, ONE IDEOLOGY, your character MUST inhabit it. It's not even a question, the game seems to say, "Well obviously if you're playing this game, you'll AGREE with these points, how could you not?"

And for that reason there is no complexity, and therefore, nothing compelling about the story the game is trying to tell. Again, it's about as complex as a reddit post from a freshman Gender Studies major at a middling state university. The ideology is very "in fashion" but hollow, pathetic, and worst of all, totally boring.

ETA: The road trip in American folklore is kind of meant to be a metaphor for personal growth or in other cases personal healing. As you travel across the countryside, the horizon of possibilities expands into infinity, and the encounter with the immensity of a life's potential leads to internal change.

But in this game, there isn't much of that. You're running away from "fear', which I think is actually a sort of cool narrative device (if a bit on-the-nose and literal, but whatever, this is a video game). But the horizon of possibility and freedom isn't a horizon, it's a narrow tunnel. Where's that growth supposed to come from?

EETA: Oh I totally forgot the other scenario I saw. A Christian "pastor" (guy is actually wearing very clearly Catholic vestments, which would make him a priest not a pastor) is harassing an interracial couple who just conceived via IVF, and your choices are to a) not intervene or b) intervene. I chose A, and the resulting dialogue was, "A doctor comes out and stops the pastor. Another missed opportunity for you." Or something stupid like that. I mean, it's kind of lame, right? Even when you have an option to do something "different" or against the game's clear ideological stance, you get chided for not following the rules. Yikes!

Thanks for this breakdown. Very helpful review!

This game is clearly not for me, which is unfortunate as it looked very intriguing. I love a good roadtrip movie/game, and the exploration of complex themes, but it seems that is not on offer here.

Ah well.

Originally posted by AcidSweat:

Thanks for sharing some trivia that mindlessly copy-pasted from wikipedia, but you have not a slightest understanding what you're talking about. Nazis weren't socialist. It is in the name, but I guess someone like you would assume that North Korea is a democratic country since it's in the name.

Nazis were persecuting communists and imprisoning in camps alongside with Jewish people (calling them Judeo-bolsheviks). All the political parties were banned except the rulling Nazi party. All the forbidden communist literature was burned. Privatization of publicly owned companies by the government. Should I continue?

I guess you would be the same person to claim that Soviet Union was a communist country because of "it's in the name" argument.
Authoritarian country by definition can't be socialist.

Lol. LMAO, even.

Said with such authority, yet understanding none of it. Impressive!

[Upiór]

Originally posted by braaaur:

Originally posted by TheKingofPies:

It's ambiguous when it comes to its ideologies. I see it mentioned Morales in the trailer but does it have a political bias?

It's pretty political :)

Ale czemu aż tak lewostronnie? Albo ja mam taki przypadek że eventy są takie jakbym spotykał na każdym kroku Feministkę. Ogólnie Dobry zabieg że walczy człowiek z samym wewnętrznym sobą, gra ma głębie ale no u mnie wyskakiwały jednostronne eventy (być może ja miałem taki tylko przypadek)

[AcidSweat]

Originally posted by Grimdaddy:

Lol. LMAO, even.

Said with such authority, yet understanding none of it. Impressive!

I listed a bunch of historical facts you could check it out for yourself. Put a little more of effort next time. Just saying "I'm right, you're wrong" doesn't make you look smarter.