is astro bot the best example of the hyperreal we have to date?

I have seen other examples before, but never have I seen such a pure distilation. any other examples people wanna mention? or anyone have any thoughts regarding this? Kinda just feel like I need to bitch about this game's existance.

on the other hand it does seem like a perfectly platformer for relaxing experience. vibrant colors, nice graphics, great movement diversity. the mechanics and presentation are literally tailor designed to be flawless. not perfect, but without any rough edges, defects. it's spotless.
and as such it is also souless. it has no message at all. it exists as a reference to previous works. the collectables are literally play station branded coins. render unto sony that which is sony's.

i find it utterly offensive.

Yeah this game looks pretty sovlless desu. Like walking through a museum or something. Like any friction would get in the way of getting you to the next contextless reference.

if you really think about it the og assasins creed games were pretty close to showing hyperreality

>>3
maybe? iirc it's a game where a guy plays a historical vr game. so i could see the argument, but i never played it. but it seems like the distinction that astro bot doesn't portray hyperreality, it is a hyperreal artifact.
assassins creed takes place in a world where hyperreality dominates. astro bot makes the world we inhabit one where hyperreality has taken more ground.
but again, since I never played it and know very little about it this could be baseless supposition.

assasins creed is supposed to be a replay of historical events, through which the protagonist learns more about the order of the assasins and the reason they are fighting against the templars. Im saying it is hyperreal is because it removes a layer of reality or rather adds one on top of another in order to gain understaning of a situation. I might be reading wrong though

mmm i see. the normal idea of hyperreality as some layer above reality.

I was intending the philosophy meaning where the hyperreal is a state where signs and symbols supplant the things they represent. re : Baudrillard via Simulacra and Simulation - "hyperreality"

when i look at astrobot all i see are corpses. sony is reanimating all these old properties for the "I Know What That Is" gamer dopamine hit, but wont encourage the development of old, or new franchises. instead of "Celebrating Playstation History" with a museum of dead bodies, why not make some New playstation history, with some characters who arent legally distinct funko pops

>>6 no i agree with your use of the word im more so following baudrillards disney land example, with hyperreality being a layer of reality above what you enitially understand. idk i might be completely wrong with the ac paradigm

A younger sibling of mine is loving Astro Bot, and they have never played or heard of the playstation properties the game is riffing off. You've totally missed in your analysis how FUN the game is. It's constantly throwing particles around, putting coins in little nooks and crannies to explore, giving you interesting gimmicks etc and generally revels in being a joyous time.

>>9
mechanically spotless. vibrant colors. nice graphics. great movement diversity. fun can easily be found there, but fun is a subjective emotion. I could never find it fun, because my brain would be vomiting at me about the uncanny soulless nature of it.

>>10
Have you ever forayed into "live service" games? Slop like Gotham Knights or Babylon's Fall. Those are soulless games. Do the same thing for 10 hours. Watch number rise. Pump in more money. Play more. Watch number rise. Pump in more money. More money more playtime more numbers more money etc etc.
Astro Bot isn't high art. It has nothing to say. But at least it wants you to have a good time, y'know? But if you have some kind of philosophical objection to its existence I guess I can't convince you otherwise

>>11
i mean. live service games are just generally "bad games". im not interested in astro bot as a good or bad game, but as an example of simulacrum. it's a copy without an original. built of symbols stripped of context and packaged pristinely for consumption. this has nothing to do with it being fun or not. the soullessness comes from this one aspect of it. these live service games are skinner boxes so they might be interesting to analyze in a psychological/sociological context, rather than a philosophical one.

the word that comes to mind when i think about astro bot's story is "masturbatory".

the word that comes to mind when i think about astro bot's story is "masturbatory".

the word that comes to mind when i think about astro bot's story is "masturbatory".

agreed