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"It ain't exactly Shakespeare..."
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i was actually thinking the other day, you've got the start of both Half-Life 1 and 2, where you're just walking around and taking in the atmosphere. There's no guns, there's no action, just characters, scenery and setting. Those bits are used as breathers elsewhere in the games, where you're free to just walk around and take things in at will, without fighting and stuff. I would like to see what happens if someone extended those bits, and took out needless combat and action altogether. Like, it could still be in there if necessary, but not build the game around it.
AJ2 soundtrack: NAME YOUR PRICE ON BANDCAMP! Album: BANDCAMP! iTunes Spotify Amazon UK
I feel the same way. Several times in "tell us about the video game you'd like to design" threads that we have from time to time, I've brought up an idea where you would play out a detective story. In the story itself, there would be a LOT of gameplay like the first level of Half-Life 2, but less linear. Usually, I don't think anyone pays attention to this idea, but at the very least, this is where I'm trying to go with it.
Oh shit..maybe that's why I didn't like it. I can't actually comprehend english.
Heh, I read that earlier today. But I'm not sure if I like their conclusion: "But when they get a few more tastes of what games can be, they’ll be back. They will be back, and they will beg us for more."
I think games can tell great stories, and much like Half-Life, we can involve gameplay into that story. For example, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time allowed you to change the flow of time should your character die. While it feels a little bit gimmicky to some, I think it helped tie in the story with the game extremely well. Everything felt more real because you didn't have these ridiculous new tools, skills, or equipment only usable in cutscenes. There was no idiotic "GAME OVER" screen to remind you it's just a game. You worked with what you had, and what you had was a pompous prince with a dagger that had the ability to turn back time, release the sands of time, and capture the sands of time.
But the game sold extremely poorly.
It wasn't a bad game, the issue was there is no market for that kind of game. People don't want an intelligent, mature story. They want bitches with guns and anime emoticons. But I don't think sending more games out to slaughter is the kind of solution we should be expecting. With the DS, (and to a lesser extent the Wii), I think we have a perfect tool to create games with a powerful story. Not because a story-driven game would lend themselves better to those platforms, but because the market would be easier to create there due to high cost restrictions on the 360, PS3, and PC. The faster they could break even, the faster we could turn a profit on them, and I think that, in turn, could create both a market and publishers interested in backing those kinds of games.
I think what I'm trying to say, is that I don't think game storys are cheezy because we have a hard time telling great stories, but because our budget doesn't allocate enough funding towards it.
Unfortunatly, the game was never finished and never will be, so I'm not sure if it could have kept up the fantastic story all the way to the end. What was present was amazing, though.
yeah, i love looking for ways something like that could be fun. I think as Felron says (and as another gamasutra article, about Merchant Ivory games, says), it wouldn't be a big success. Wide audiences just don't seek out games of that ilk, they're generally perceived as being action-based. But personally, i would love to see something based purely around storytelling and atmosphere. Even a game like HL2 is held together primarily by action, with story-developing sections interspersed. I'd be much happier to see something reverse this, a detective game like you said, would be ideal.
AJ2 soundtrack: NAME YOUR PRICE ON BANDCAMP! Album: BANDCAMP! iTunes Spotify Amazon UK
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
Oh, and Xagarath, questioning your mortality in a game like Planescape is not nearly as enjoyable as Planescape's twist was. I thought Planescape was great but, come on, both Jade Empire's and Planescape's plots hinged on surprises that made the games even better in the end. It's not like Planescape's story was super before the plot twist, right?
Questioning your morality was the entire direction of Planescape's plot, right up until the final confrontation.
Plus, you're obviously forgetting the development of the other characters around you and your relationships with them, and forgetting the points I made about lyricism, description and dialogue.
Read my post fully next time?
For that matter, I'm baffled as to what you think the plot twist in the game was, as the entire game was a long sequence of plot reveals.
Edit: beat'd on the latter question.
Seriously. Half Life 2 delivered its plot by locking you in a warehouse and having the plot shouted at you by animatronic puppets. You cannot talk back to the puppets. You cannot interact with the puppets (marvel as they smash aside anything in their scipted path like humanoid bulldozers!). In later stages you cannot even move: the only way it could be considered a 'game' is that you can elect whether to stare at the floor or at the ceiling. I had felt more involved in 'talking heads' JRPGs, because at then you could communicate.
if the best way to deliver a scene is as a cutscene, then just do it. Don't cry about you game 'becoming a movie'. Just do it. Do each scene in the way it would work best.
Callum - Sniper (Lethality), Brax - Commando (Healing), Xintoch - Assassin (Tank)
Like the cover system in Gears of War or R6:Vegas (where playing ANY other FPS or shooter feels so out of place because you cant duck behind cover. Im looking right at Halo 3 here)
Jade Empire spoiler.
To be fair, most adventure games, be they point / text / whatever, lean on their story more heavily than other games because they don't have a whole lot else going for them.
Seriously, we didn't play Monkey Island because the control scheme was awesome. We played it for the story and the humor.
The Journeyman Project games, although not funny, also told a decent story, I thought.
And The X Quest games always had a half-decent story to go with their item-focused puzzle solving. When you don't have gunplay, jumping from platform to platform, or some other gimmick, the story really has to click, be funny, or something.
He wrote the story for a Buffy game.
Everyone else:WHAT?
"The average RPG plot would never make it past an editor's slush pile." Typically cheesy? Must be a slow news day.
I just got back from Borders and i saw ANOTHER Tom Clancy book, ANOTHER Hannibal book now a movie, ANOTHER Steven King lookout its a killer lamp book, ANOTHER oh look its Oprah endorsing a lesbian book book, etc etc etc. Books churn out just as much cheese as do video games, if not more so. This falls more into the realm of video games not being art because some grad art student or the monopoly man says they arn't art.
Meanwhile, yes there has been a decline in good stories these days... mostly because of the death of adventure games and the rise of these bullshit Japan demon plots. Then again most scifi/fantasy books suck to begin with.
Mainly this rant is about how there has been nothing new worth reading that has come out over the past 2-3 months. (taking recommendations)
FF6's story is certainly better than most anime I've seen.
I think it's more fair to compare videogame stories to film/TV stories than literature. There is no payoff in literature except the words in the book. But TV and film, like games, have visual and audio payoffs too. I know that when I play a Zelda or FF game, one of the driving forces is the anticipation of seeing what the next weird place or temple looks like.
The best games have pretty good concepts and visuals—on par with Hollywood, at least. The problem is the delivery and figuring out how to work the story around the interactivity. And games like Zelda and Okami need to tie their fucking storylines together at the end so they actually make sense internally—although many animes have the same problem.
A game must include actual gameplay, though, and this alone breaks up even a good narrative. Goodness help you if the gameplay is at all difficult, too.
Besides, why bother with a good story? Put a twist or two on a few cliches, or don't if you feel like "getting back to the roots of the genre", and games can often get by with below-average stories so long as they have acceptable gameplay, pretty visuals, or even their very own name recognition.
Plus, one more thing; making games isn't free or cheap, the goal is often to make money rather than art, and can you be surprised if the majority of products reflect this?
A game can have the greatest story ever, but for me the selling point's in the storytelling, and that includes the characters I'm playing as and with. Get me to like the cast, I'll sit through the same show one more time; if they do something new with the story, then all the better. I find this generally doesn't work as well in reverse, though - if I wind up hating the character I'm playing, then I probably won't care too much how good the story is.
I'm also of the opinion that a story should have to conclude (note: this does not preclude ambiguous endings) before it can be considered good.
I write for these people. Just reviewed: Drox Operative
You meant obligatory dig on MGS's patentedly terrible writing, right? Usually I play through games because I'm interested in how the story will develop, but playing through MGS2 was more akin to being unable to look away from a trainwreck. The jokes consistently fall flat. The dialogue alternates between being excessively goofy and unbearably philosophical. The plot twists do not make sense, even after they have been explained. Seriously, it's like they wrote 3 endings and couldn't settle on one.
Yes, MGS2's plot sucked, but since it was the first MGS I ever played, I loved the gameplay so I was able to look pass it.
But I'm guessing neither of you have played MGS3, since it takes the dumbest concept of MGS2 and actually makes logical sense out of it. I have to give Kojima kudos for that one.
EDIT: Sorry Kami, but Lost isn't a good example.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/16/tv.lostratings.ap/
Metal Gear's narrative is a puzzle, in the truest sense of the analogy. The more pieces are brought out, the more the overall story develops. Much like LOST, in a lot of ways.
I really wish that ninja gaidens story made more sense, it was really a beautiful game.
alma. I beleive that is the bosses name. AHHH! DIE IN A FUCKING NINJA INDUCED FIRE! YOU EVIL BITCH!!!!)
I thought it was just, "Dude, your village just got royally fucked. You should go kill some people. Especially the ones who fucked your village up."
And like Kami said, I'm sure Kojima will flesh the story out more in MGS4.
You haven't played Lunar Knights, another Kojima game. Aliens are giving vampires magic armor so they can live in sunlight, and they've built a system to control the weather and block the sun! Humankind is enslaved! The son of a famous gunslinger and a half vampire vampire hunter need to kill vampires and seal them in caskets so they can take them into outer space so they can be shot with a solar satellite.
It's a hilarious concept, and if the writers had approached it with any modicum of humor (or any fucking iota of talent), it might have been half decent.
Alas.
But for some reason I am compelled to eat it all up!
Hell, the only reason I want to play MGS4 is for the plot. I want to know what Liquid Ocelot is up to, I want to know what the deal is with the Patriots, I want to know who the man behind the curtain is. The plot may be ridiculous, but it sure sucks me in.
I'd like to submit that explaining a stupid idea doesn't necessarily make it less stupid, especially if the explanation is lacking. MGS4 may be able to explain half of the insanity that went on in MGS2, but that won't somehow make it okay that the President of the United States of America got to second base with Raiden, to say the least.
Not to rag too hard on 2, of course, since it at least had the courtesy to be fun to play. But I have a growing suspicion that 4 will ultimately just pile on to the craziness.
I write for these people. Just reviewed: Drox Operative