[insane_cobra]

Hm, and what about, er, Noir?

Also, A Case of the Crabs, The Goat in the Grey Fedora, Max Payne and Hitchcock: The Final Cut.

[splat44]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Hm, and what about, er, Noir?

Also, A Case of the Crabs, The Goat in the Grey Fedora, Max Payne and Hitchcock: The Final Cut.

What are you trying saying?

Max Payne and Hitchcock are not freewares but Case of Crab & The goat in the Grey Fedora is.

[insane_cobra]

I'm trying to say they have elements of film noir.

[MdaG]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

Kyrandia is progressing rather well, as a matter of fact.
Now, the really exiciting thing about ScummVM is The Feeble Files, as that one refuses to run on XP. But development has just started there, so it's not going to be playable any time soon...
Well, those guys are doing a fantastic job.

Oooooooooooooooh!!! I have a copy of Feeble Files that I cannot play due to XP and it's been in my book case for a year now! This is jolly good news indeed. The ScummVM team and DOSBox team sure are doing a GREAT job!

[TangentBlack]

Well, you can add in those freewares if you want. Max payne is more crime/gangster but does have the New York setting and some of the corruption. Noir is a good call, I liked it to an extent, but it was borderline plotless and stereotypical. You can have noir and have a plot, and I guess Noir forgot that.

[Fop]

Originally Posted by TangentBlack

Can't believe I forgot Beneath a Steel Sky, that's noirish, for sure.

Beneath a Steel Sky doesn't contain any noir elements. No playing with shadows, no freaky camera angles, the plot is completely different, there is no femme fatale. The only noirish thing about it is that the main character wears a long coat, albeit one that doesn't resemble the coats from when Noir movies were made.

[reno6]

Originally Posted by Fop

Beneath a Steel Sky doesn't contain any noir elements. No playing with shadows, no freaky camera angles, the plot is completely different, there is no femme fatale. The only noirish thing about it is that the main character wears a long coat, albeit one that doesn't resemble the coats from when Noir movies were made.

Right. It's more cyberpunk than anything.

Originally Posted by TangentBlack

Well, you can add in those freewares if you want. Max payne is more crime/gangster but does have the New York setting and some of the corruption.

Max Payne is definitely film noir. MP2, at least (which I'm convinced is the best thing Rockstar has ever done). Rain -- check. Gritty urban atmosphere -- check. Femme fatale -- check. Metaphorical storytelling from the main character's point of view -- check. Shady cops -- check. Twisting web of crime and corruption -- check. It's all there in spades.

[Stroggy]

Originally Posted by reno6

Rain -- check. Gritty urban atmosphere -- check. Femme fatale -- check. Metaphorical storytelling from the main character's point of view -- check. Shady cops -- check. Twisting web of crime and corruption -- check. It's all there in spades.

No fedora hats, though.

[reno6]

Originally Posted by Stroggy

No fedora hats, though.

No, but see, there's a reason for that. If they had put fedoras into Max Payne 2, it would have been stuffed with so much concentrated awesome that our puny brains wouldn't be able to handle it any more and our heads would explode. Nothing fancy, just a good old fashioned kapow and then brains all over your monitor.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by reno6

which I'm convinced is the best thing Rockstar has ever done

Hate to be a nitpicker, but published, not done.

And yes, I'd say it's



...pretty noirish.

[reno6]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Hate to be a nitpicker, but published, not done.

Well, you know what I meant. The best thing they've ever put out.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by reno6

Well, you know what I meant. The best thing they've ever put out.

I know, just giving credit where credit is due and all that crap.

[Terramax]

Are you sure Noir films had to have Famme Fatals? Also, I think Payne 2 is considered a 'Noir love story' because the Mona is an enemy he falls for. The game doesn't feel like a Noir, more action. But I guess, seeing that Noir films are a sub-genre then Noir-action can be a sub within a sub.

[Terramax]

Originally Posted by Snarky

Well, then your claim that "abandonware isn't legal" is wrong.

Depends whether they have gained permission, right? Anyway, I hope the underdogs site burns. They have enough pop-ups to crash the fastest of P.C.s and you can't even use the search engine unless you turn popup blockers off. Worse than that, none of their games will download from errors on my p.c. (the ones at my college work fine though).

And to top it off, they advertise sleazy porn and Internet singles lines. How low can you go!

[reno6]

Originally Posted by Terramax

Are you sure Noir films had to have Famme Fatals? Also, I think Payne 2 is considered a 'Noir love story' because the Mona is an enemy he falls for. The game doesn't feel like a Noir, more action. But I guess, seeing that Noir films are a sub-genre then Noir-action can be a sub within a sub.

Not necessarily, but like rain and fedoras, femme fatales were a staple of film noir. And if you ask me, "film noir" refers more to the kind of storytelling than the gameplay.

Also, I think of Mona as a femme fatale simply because she's half the reason Max is in the mess he's in. She's a woman who puts him in danger.

[TangentBlack]

Haha, well it looks like I have some explaining to do.

A film is considered Noir when it deals with crime and corruption through the medium of the 1940's and 1950's time setting. Frequently the stories use of smoke-filled rooms, views of light filtered through venetian blinds, seedy downtown areas with neon lights, dark wet streets to heighten the noir effect. Brightly-lit scenes are not used in noir films since the desired effect is that of dreary hopelessness. The content of noir films keeps pace with the settings. Most noir stories feature main characters who find themselves embroiled in hopeless situations, fighting against a force that threatens to overtake them, the force being their inablility to resist temptation. Noir by definition is the underdog fighting corruption in the system. THAT is noir, although some movies/games may have NOIRISH qualities, it is not noir unless it follows the theme of a basic noir. On to the issue of the female characters.
Most often this main character is male, although there are some noir movies in which the main character is female. In any case, the protagonist always has a major character flaw which leads to ruin. It might be that the character is a small-time criminal, adulterer, thief, of a weak-will, etc. The character also may appear to be honest at the outset of the film. In these cases, as the story unfolds, the protagonist becomes tainted by some dishonest deed and is sent to his doom. In most cases, the protagonist, if male, is brought to ruin by another staple of the noir movie--the femme fatale.

It is NOT a requirment to have a femme fatale in a noir, though it is common. The femme fatale is most often depicted as a beautiful woman, cruel and dishonest, who is willing to do anything necessary to reach her ends. She uses the protagonist as a tool to help her accomplish some unsavory deed and the protagonist is powerless to refuse her. The femme fatale is often distrustful and even contemptuous of the protagonist but still holds him within her grasp by using promises of their new life together after the deed is complete.

Beneath a Steel Sky has noirish qualities, but is not a noir. You may not be able to tell, but a STEEL sky isn't the most pleasent conditions a city can be under. The color steel and the material is hard and stark, similar to a noir. The character is running from the law, and the city is a smoky wreck of violence and a facade for the rich to hid behind their own corruption. Albeit it is not noir, it is tech noir, or cyberpunk, or maybe a mix between.

Max Payne has noir elements and I probably would revoke my previous statement and deem it noir, because it fullfills what I layed out above.

I couldn't leave loose knots undone because I write scripts for a living and couldn't leave you guys hanging.

[TangentBlack]

Oh, and the difference between tech noir and cyberpunk is that tech noir deals with the fall of mankind through technological advancements. It often deals with whether science is going too far. It portrays the world as a retrograding wasteland of death and destruction, instead of benifiting from technology. An example is Bladerunner, Minority Report, and other Phillip K. Dick novels. Cyberpunk often deals with the dimensions of reality and virtual reality. Cyberpunks try to define what reality really is, because by definition, reality is space and time. But what if you create those two dimensions technologically? The Matrix deals with a little of this topic. Meaning of the word 'cyberpunk' could be something like 'anarchy via machines' or 'machine/computer rebel movement'. Read Snowbound, Nueromancer, and New Latania for some novel sources. The technology of cyberpunk is ultratechnology, which mixes genetic material from animal to animal, from animal to man, or from man to animal. This technology raises human embryos for organ transplants, creates machines that think like humans and humans that think like machines. This is a technology designed to keep people within the 'system' that dominates the lives of most 'ordinary' people. This is the science of controlling human functions and of electronic, mechanical and biological control systems designed to replace them.

So, to put it simple, tech noir is the fall of mankind through technological retrogration, and cyberpunk is displaying the changes and perhaps flaws of technology (specifically computer AI and genetics) through progress.

[After a brisk nap]

We've been having discussions about noir in some other threads. I find your description a bit too restrictive (and inconsistent: if noir is necessarily set in the 1940s and 50s, how is Max Payne noir?), but am generally in sympathy.

[TangentBlack]

Is there anything to say Max Payne could not have been easily done in the literal 1940-50's time period? The setting is still like it to a point, even the comic books are done in the old fashion style. So in a sense, new weapons, new cars, a helicopter, but in a totally old world.

[TangentBlack]

Keep in mind that noir was created in that time period. Unlike sci-fi, fantasy, or mystery, noir nearly died with the 1950's. There are only a few like us to keep it alive in the general scheme of things. People found it too pessimistic in the 60's and wiped it out, reaching for new age cinema. In with color, out with noir, so to speak. Noir is so restrictive because it needs to be in that time period in order to be true noir. Here is an example: LA Confidential is a true noir because it A. deals with the underdog rising from the impossible to defeat crime. B. Sets in the 1940's. C. Creates the stereotypical staples of the original noir films. A movie such as Sin City, per se, is difficult to interprit because you really cannot say exactly what time period it is in. The weapons are new, some cars are new and some are old. Clive Owen's shoes along with Brittany Murphay's clothes are new. A tech noir is a media set past the alotted time period. It must be so because the with the end of the 40-50's died out the fashion, the jazzy-swing, and the hardboiled detectives. If you bring em back at a later time period it is tech noir because it deals with the future grit rather than the past. I can imagine it is hard to understand my point of arguement from your standpoint, but this is what it is generally thought of in the film world, and possibley the game world.