You're weird. During HL2: Episode 1, I literally talked to Alyx twice. It was embarrassing, but I was surprised to find myself so immersed in what was going on that it felt almost natural to converse with the characters.
You talked... out loud to an imaginary person, and you call me weird?
Haha, hey, this is all just another step to the holodeck, right?
I do not understand the appeal of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, is there a Texan here who can explain it to me
Metroid Prime 2 didn't happen.
What's wrong with MP2?
I know you're asking him, but I'll give my input since I repeated what he said. I don't not-like MP2 as much as I sounded, but it felt the least Metroid-y out of the entirety of the series. The ammunition and different weapons in it put me off more than it probably should have. The dark-world and light-world thing they had going on was also very un-Metroid for me. Like it was trying to do too much? I can't explain. It just felt weird.
Maybe it's related, but I also didn't like Majora's Mask in the Zelda series. I guess I have something against the second 3D games in classic series.
that's the appeal of HL2 for me. he doesn't say anything, so your emotions are your own, not that of the character being projected onto you.
There's nothing unusual about a blank slate protagonist, but most games like that let you choose what your character will say and do. Gordon's only means of communication is to pull the trigger on a person... and any plot characters are transparent to bullets. It's a game where nothing you can do matters for minutes on end.
that's the appeal of HL2 for me. he doesn't say anything, so your emotions are your own, not that of the character being projected onto you.
There's noting unusual about a blank slate protagonist, but most games like that let you choose what your character will say and do. Gordon's only means of communication is to pull the trigger on a person... and any plot characters are transparent to bullets. It's a game where nothing you can do matters for minutes on end.
To be fair, I've always assumed that those characters were laughing at me on the inside for trying to kill their immortal selves. So that's kinda like a "response" button.
that's the appeal of HL2 for me. he doesn't say anything, so your emotions are your own, not that of the character being projected onto you.
There's noting unusual about a blank slate protagonist, but most games like that let you choose what your character will say and do. Gordon's only means of communication is to pull the trigger on a person... and any plot characters are transparent to bullets. It's a game where nothing you can do matters for minutes on end.
It depends how "into" the game you get. If you're really immersed in the game, then it doesn't seem odd, because your instinctive reaction is the one the game requires anyway. In many ways it's sophisticated sleight of hand. For me, at least, it definitely builds a sense of being a participant in events, rather than an observer.
I find that the polar opposite of this approach is the typical JRPG, where I always end up with the feeling that I'm being told a story, as opposed to acting within it. As an experience, I find that much less satisfying.
I'm playing through Bioshock now and one of the storytelling methods of it and games of Half-Life's ilk is realllly starting to annoy me: the parts where you see someone behind indestructible glass, and watch a cutsc-.. sorry, storytelling sequence - which you basically just have to watch. And the person on the other side nearly always dies. It's getting very obvious and predictable.
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
edited September 2007
I think the future of Silent Hill (sorry for being somewhat offtopic) is first person. It gets you into character a lot more than 3rd person AND allows for greater appreciate of the enviroment.
Anyhow, back on topic. To me it goes like this. There are 3 types of games, Japan only, US only, and Hybrids.
Most are the 3rd.
A Japan only game is something that will really only sell in Japan. Not to say it won't sell at ALL in the US but we're talking a HUGE difference. I'm not super familiar with Japanese series (outside the popular ones) so I can't give an example.
US is the vice versa. This is your Halos and whatnot.
Hybrids are games that it doesn't matter where you're from, you'll like them. As I said, most games are like this.
I'm playing through Bioshock now and one of the storytelling methods of it and games of Half-Life's ilk is realllly starting to annoy me: the parts where you see someone behind indestructible glass, and watch a cutsc-.. sorry, storytelling sequence - which you basically just have to watch. And the person on the other side nearly always dies. It's getting very obvious and predictable.
I feel the same way, honestly. It's like a cutscene only more boring. Don't get me started on the audio files.
I found the HL2 style of narration kinda annoying because you don't feel like you're playing gordon freeman at all. I felt like it was a case of mistaken identity where everyone thought I was him, but I didn't have a clue what the fuck I was supposed to be doing "HURF DURF I R SCIENTIST OOPS WORLD ASPLODE". It would make sense if your character had amnesia or something and you had to learn about them based on your interactions with the other characters.
I think it works better in games like call of duty where you're mostly just a nameless grunt and people don't pretend to know anything about you. I found those games really immersive. They had their fair share of scripted events, but you were more involved for the most part.
I don't mind the weeaboo cutscene oriented storytelling either. In a game where my guys are walking single file through a desert and randomly stumble upon a huge fucking sand beast, immersion is the least of my concerns. Well animated cutscenes can be a nice break from a typical grindfest. I really liked them in Lunar and Snatcher for sega CD.
What would happen if you stitched Shigeru Miyamoto's and Will Wright's brains together to form a super brain? Would the resulting games be so good they could cure disease simply by being played or would it be a trainwreck? There have been plenty of videogames from both Japan and North America that blend each other's respective defining elements but I don't think there's ever been one with a 50/50 split. The character design is done by the Japanese but the environments are modeled by Americans. The story is designed to appeal to a Japanese audience but the dialog will be written by a Bioware writer. The music will be created by Koji Kondo and John Carmack will whip up an engine and bilingual tools.
I'm playing through Bioshock now and one of the storytelling methods of it and games of Half-Life's ilk is realllly starting to annoy me: the parts where you see someone behind indestructible glass, and watch a cutsc-.. sorry, storytelling sequence - which you basically just have to watch. And the person on the other side nearly always dies. It's getting very obvious and predictable.
I feel the same way, honestly. It's like a cutscene only more boring. Don't get me started on the audio files.
I found the HL2 style of narration kinda annoying because you don't feel like you're playing gordon freeman at all. I felt like it was a case of mistaken identity where everyone thought I was him, but I didn't have a clue what the fuck I was supposed to be doing "HURF DURF I R SCIENTIST OOPS WORLD ASPLODE". It would make sense if your character had amnesia or something and you had to learn about them based on your interactions with the other characters.
I think it works better in games like call of duty where you're mostly just a nameless grunt and people don't pretend to know anything about you. I found those games really immersive. They had their fair share of scripted events, but you were more involved for the most part.
I don't mind the weeaboo cutscene oriented storytelling either. In a game where my guys are walking single file through a desert and randomly stumble upon a huge fucking sand beast, immersion is the least of my concerns. Well animated cutscenes can be a nice break from a typical grindfest. I really liked them in Lunar and Snatcher for sega CD.
The whole reason in HL2 to why Gordon has no clue what's happening is because he was in stasis for a good several years. You can't miss this if you've played the first one
Not to totally derail. Are there any other examples of North American giant robots/mechs?
Heavy Gear from Dream Pod 9, along with its sister game Gear Krieg and Jovian Chronicles.
I absolutely love Heavy Gear, and though the setting, mechanics, and engineering are quite Western, the designs wouldn't be what they are without anime.
Supposedly the V-Engine is a real thing, though.
Can't really say it's an example of Western giant robot design, though. It's wearing Japanese skin.
There's Japan and there's not-Japan. The Witcher is Polish, STALKER is Russian, Mafia 2 is Czech, Allen Wake is Finnish, etc.
Not-Japan countries outside of North America or the UK tend to make Western style games so it's just easier to lump them together and replace 'not-Japan' with Western.
Though I would love to see a zany chibi anime-inspired RPG romp from a Ukranian developer ... it'd be wacky.
That also makes me wonder why aren't there more Indian or Chinese game developers? There are oceans of programmers in those countries so I figure you'd at least see some involved, complex Flash games floating around on the internet. All I know of is Ubisoft Shanghai.
I'm not sure American and Japanese tastes can be categorized in a mere bipolar dynamic, like some kind of Cold War mechanic. Most of the American video game market is made up of conservative white males. We know from TV, film, and music market habits that whites and blacks listen to fairly divergent forms of music, watch different TV shows and movies, and the cultural tastes are even more different between conservative whites and liberal blacks (most white men are conservative, and most black men are liberal). But no one short of David Duke would argue that blacks are less American than whites.
So which demographic within America are we talking about when we talk about "American tastes"? And which demographic are we talking about when we say "Japanese tastes"? Neither nation has many women playing games, or if they are, they're not being included in this topic very much, despite the fact that women make up half of both countries. The point is that academics in America have a hard time figuring out what "American tastes" are without being bigoted. Most corporations use marketing demographic data that says that "American tastes" don't even exist, but that the 300 million Americans there are fit into dozens, if not hundreds, of different demographic and psychographic groups.
This all being said, I would say that most of the big budget Japanese games I've personally played seem to indicate a left-wing bias, while most of the big budget American games I've played seem to indicate a right-wing bias. (Read the latest issue of Game Developer magazine. It has an interview with Blacksite Area 51's developer, Harvey Smith, about how he thinks so many games have a right-wing bent to them.) When I think "Japanese game", the first thing that comes to mind is Final Fantasy, which I've been told has a lot of pro-environment messages. When I think of "American game", I think of the Tom Clancy series of games, which is a conservative Republican line of games, designed specifically for that political demographic.
Anyway, I think I'll go create a topic asking how white and black American tastes differ, and see what you guys think.
The Metroid Prime trilogy is probably the most even synthesis of eastern and western philosophies out there. On one hand it's almost Zelda-esque in design and gameplay progression, on the other it's first-person and you shoot lots of things. It's halfway between Halo sci-fi and crazy anime sci-fi. It's like right in the middle. And incidentally, it was developed by western developers, based on a Japanese franchise and advised by Miyamoto and other guys from Nintendo Japan.
Posts
Haha, hey, this is all just another step to the holodeck, right?
I know you're asking him, but I'll give my input since I repeated what he said. I don't not-like MP2 as much as I sounded, but it felt the least Metroid-y out of the entirety of the series. The ammunition and different weapons in it put me off more than it probably should have. The dark-world and light-world thing they had going on was also very un-Metroid for me. Like it was trying to do too much? I can't explain. It just felt weird.
Maybe it's related, but I also didn't like Majora's Mask in the Zelda series. I guess I have something against the second 3D games in classic series.
Yep. :P
There's nothing unusual about a blank slate protagonist, but most games like that let you choose what your character will say and do. Gordon's only means of communication is to pull the trigger on a person... and any plot characters are transparent to bullets. It's a game where nothing you can do matters for minutes on end.
To be fair, I've always assumed that those characters were laughing at me on the inside for trying to kill their immortal selves. So that's kinda like a "response" button.
The best part of the MP2 multiplayer was launching out of those tubes in morphball form and exploding other people. >.>
300
I look forward to more of this, then.
It depends how "into" the game you get. If you're really immersed in the game, then it doesn't seem odd, because your instinctive reaction is the one the game requires anyway. In many ways it's sophisticated sleight of hand. For me, at least, it definitely builds a sense of being a participant in events, rather than an observer.
I find that the polar opposite of this approach is the typical JRPG, where I always end up with the feeling that I'm being told a story, as opposed to acting within it. As an experience, I find that much less satisfying.
Oh gods I hope not.
hey, I hope not too.
Just expect more movies influenced by video games and anime in the future. And you thought movies were bad now!
Apparently The Collective has a shitty track record, though.
They should've given it to Atlus.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Silent Hill RPG
It could work.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Neither did Retro before Metroid Prime.
???
Heavy Gear from Dream Pod 9, along with its sister game Gear Krieg and Jovian Chronicles.
Oo\ Ironsizide
Anyhow, back on topic. To me it goes like this. There are 3 types of games, Japan only, US only, and Hybrids.
Most are the 3rd.
A Japan only game is something that will really only sell in Japan. Not to say it won't sell at ALL in the US but we're talking a HUGE difference. I'm not super familiar with Japanese series (outside the popular ones) so I can't give an example.
US is the vice versa. This is your Halos and whatnot.
Hybrids are games that it doesn't matter where you're from, you'll like them. As I said, most games are like this.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
I feel the same way, honestly. It's like a cutscene only more boring. Don't get me started on the audio files.
I found the HL2 style of narration kinda annoying because you don't feel like you're playing gordon freeman at all. I felt like it was a case of mistaken identity where everyone thought I was him, but I didn't have a clue what the fuck I was supposed to be doing "HURF DURF I R SCIENTIST OOPS WORLD ASPLODE". It would make sense if your character had amnesia or something and you had to learn about them based on your interactions with the other characters.
I think it works better in games like call of duty where you're mostly just a nameless grunt and people don't pretend to know anything about you. I found those games really immersive. They had their fair share of scripted events, but you were more involved for the most part.
I don't mind the weeaboo cutscene oriented storytelling either. In a game where my guys are walking single file through a desert and randomly stumble upon a huge fucking sand beast, immersion is the least of my concerns. Well animated cutscenes can be a nice break from a typical grindfest. I really liked them in Lunar and Snatcher for sega CD.
...it'd probably be horrible by the end.
The whole reason in HL2 to why Gordon has no clue what's happening is because he was in stasis for a good several years. You can't miss this if you've played the first one
Why bother with this categorization at all?
Canada, Europe, and Korea do exist.
In myth, I guess.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I absolutely love Heavy Gear, and though the setting, mechanics, and engineering are quite Western, the designs wouldn't be what they are without anime.
Supposedly the V-Engine is a real thing, though.
Can't really say it's an example of Western giant robot design, though. It's wearing Japanese skin.
Not-Japan countries outside of North America or the UK tend to make Western style games so it's just easier to lump them together and replace 'not-Japan' with Western.
Though I would love to see a zany chibi anime-inspired RPG romp from a Ukranian developer ... it'd be wacky.
That also makes me wonder why aren't there more Indian or Chinese game developers? There are oceans of programmers in those countries so I figure you'd at least see some involved, complex Flash games floating around on the internet. All I know of is Ubisoft Shanghai.
So which demographic within America are we talking about when we talk about "American tastes"? And which demographic are we talking about when we say "Japanese tastes"? Neither nation has many women playing games, or if they are, they're not being included in this topic very much, despite the fact that women make up half of both countries. The point is that academics in America have a hard time figuring out what "American tastes" are without being bigoted. Most corporations use marketing demographic data that says that "American tastes" don't even exist, but that the 300 million Americans there are fit into dozens, if not hundreds, of different demographic and psychographic groups.
This all being said, I would say that most of the big budget Japanese games I've personally played seem to indicate a left-wing bias, while most of the big budget American games I've played seem to indicate a right-wing bias. (Read the latest issue of Game Developer magazine. It has an interview with Blacksite Area 51's developer, Harvey Smith, about how he thinks so many games have a right-wing bent to them.) When I think "Japanese game", the first thing that comes to mind is Final Fantasy, which I've been told has a lot of pro-environment messages. When I think of "American game", I think of the Tom Clancy series of games, which is a conservative Republican line of games, designed specifically for that political demographic.
Anyway, I think I'll go create a topic asking how white and black American tastes differ, and see what you guys think.
Korea exists and has its own gaming traditions.
I fixed that one for ya.
You use the n-word in any context and it's your ass. Pages of veiled and not-so-veiled Japanese racism, hey alright!
Its only been an abomination since you made this post. Racism is a serious issue not to be taken lightly like you just did, you cheapen it.
I like how not beating our meat to japanese video games is racist.
You're not too bright, are you? I didn't say anything about the games.
lol slant eyes and hurhur they rape all the time
No, nothing extremely racist about that. The broad generalizations about "the Japanese like such and such" are just stupid.