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BrawlMan

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I'm good at math.

In other news, Pokemon's newest game is not getting great reviews because it once again has shitty performance, wack graphics, and the Switch simply is an underpowered machine that is crippling game development.

OR Gamefreak just can't afford good developers despite making more money than God.

I dunno.

Time to roll it again.


I'd a little sad to see the SR reboot fail hard
I find it crazy that there are so many reboot games from 7th gen, 8th gen, & and now that are worse than DmC (2013) from a gameplay perspective at least.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Kudos to Cory for seeing past the fanaticism.
 
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CriticalGaming

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meiam

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Kudos to Cory for seeing past the fanaticism.
Considering every souls game has had literally thousands of video exploring their respective narrative, some hours long, I'm surprise there are people who are suprise ER would be nominated. Good on him though.
 

CriticalGaming

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Considering every souls game has had literally thousands of video exploring their respective narrative, some hours long, I'm surprise there are people who are suprise ER would be nominated. Good on him though.
I mean to be fair, I don't like ER has a narrative either.

But to me, Lore and Story, are very different things. Fromsoft games have Lore, they do not have much story. So ER being picked for best narrative doesn't count for me because it's got Lore which doesn't have narrative. But most people don't know the difference so I can understand why it's in the category.
 
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XsjadoBlaydette

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Oki guess am sold already.





Move over Stray, there's another cyberpunk kitty in town.

Described as a "cuddly, ultraviolent skate-slasher" on publisher Wired Productions' website, Gori: Cuddly Carnage certainly lives up to its name.

You can check out all the action in the trailer below.



"Death to humans" reads graffiti at the start of the trailer, showing off a typically neon cyberpunk world.

And then in comes the cat, a little ginger puss... on a hoverboard? It then proceeds to murder a unicorn. Sure.

Gori - I'm presuming the cat's name - can grind and flip and wall ride with the best of them, but also shoots missiles from the board and slices open enemies.

The trailer ends with it licking blood from its paws. Huh.

Cats have always been in vogue, but this year Stray captured the hearts of many with its adorable playable cat and charming cyberpunk world of robots.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage takes a more outlandish route in an attempt to steal the cyberpunk cat crown.

It's set for release across PlayStation and Xbox consoles, as well as PC and Switch, though the date is unknown.


MOAR CAT!


 
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hanselthecaretaker

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I mean to be fair, I don't like ER has a narrative either.

But to me, Lore and Story, are very different things. Fromsoft games have Lore, they do not have much story. So ER being picked for best narrative doesn't count for me because it's got Lore which doesn't have narrative. But most people don't know the difference so I can understand why it's in the category.
Terminology can make things confusing and it’s open to interpretation of course. What you’re referring to seems to primarily be about narrative structure, of which there are several blueprints.


Gaming as a medium allows a story the chance to be told through interactivity and expands the scope of player engagement. Kinda like investigative journalism. Giving the means of discovering a story vs being told one is what makes it distinctive.

 
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CriticalGaming

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Gaming as a medium allows a story the chance to be told through interactivity and expands the scope of player engagement. Kinda like investigative journalism. Giving the means of discovering a story vs being told one is what makes it distinctive.
See this is where I disagree.

Lore and Story are two very separate things that I define like this:

LORE - This is everything that HAS happened, usually past but can also be the future of events like prophecies, this type of exposition is usually there to give context to the story you are currently experiencing. For example learning why the world around you is dying, or why a villain is doing whatever they're doing. Lore can be summarized as anything the characters aren't experiencing first hand.

STORY - This is everything that happens in real time to the characters in the work. Kratos rushing Atreus back to Freya when Atreus falls ill is story. Kratos being a Greek God of War is lore. Story is essentially current events of the movie, book, game, whatever it is.

Now here's the thing these two things typically happen together. God of War for example has all the tales that Mimir will tell while you are on a boat about the mythology, which makes the world and the characters feel more important when you actually encounter them. Also God of War has the journal which adds to the lore around the events happening in the game.

But the big important thing is that usually, you can understand what's going on without the Lore. You understand Kratos and Atreus have trust issues, you don't need the lore to understand what's happening when the father and son are trying to get on the same page with each other in that regard. Without STORY, you have no fucking clue what's happening or why. At the same time that doesn't mean both have to exist in a piece of work, you can play through Souls games without any knowledge of "lore" and still have fun with the game, it's built that way. But if you played God of War and skipped all the cutscenes and muted the dialog, you'd have a much lesser experience because the story is gone.

Hope I make sense there.
 

Dalisclock

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I mean to be fair, I don't like ER has a narrative either.

But to me, Lore and Story, are very different things. Fromsoft games have Lore, they do not have much story. So ER being picked for best narrative doesn't count for me because it's got Lore which doesn't have narrative. But most people don't know the difference so I can understand why it's in the category.
I think it's hard to quantify the two for the purposes of a game award and yeah, I generally feel that FROM games have the puddle-like story of "Kill More Bosses" while the Lore is like a deep dark ocean full of sadness that always seems to get just a bit deeper no matter how deep you go and can be very compelling if lore appeals to you like that. I also get a lot of people aren't gonna have the patience to want to dig to find the lore where so much of the storytelling meat is in these games. I can't say they're wrong to not like that form of storytelling because it's preference, but it is storytelling.
 
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CriticalGaming

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I think it's hard to quantify the two for the purposes of a game award and yeah, I generally feel that FROM games have the puddle-like story of "Kill More Bosses" while the Lore is like a deep dark ocean full of sadness that always seems to get just a bit deeper no matter how deep you go and can be very compelling if lore appeals to you like that. I also get a lot of people aren't gonna have the patience to want to dig to find the lore where so much of the storytelling meat is in these games. I can't say they're wrong to not like that form of storytelling because it's preference, but it is storytelling.
Basically yeah. I feel like for the purposes of the Awards category, the placement of ER there is fine. It will probably win there too watch.

Thankfully I don't really see any games like TLOU2 where everyone will be sucking it's dick and it'll win all the awards even ones that make no sense. So hopefully this will be a reasonably good show this year.
 

meiam

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See this is where I disagree.

Lore and Story are two very separate things that I define like this:

LORE - This is everything that HAS happened, usually past but can also be the future of events like prophecies, this type of exposition is usually there to give context to the story you are currently experiencing. For example learning why the world around you is dying, or why a villain is doing whatever they're doing. Lore can be summarized as anything the characters aren't experiencing first hand.

STORY - This is everything that happens in real time to the characters in the work. Kratos rushing Atreus back to Freya when Atreus falls ill is story. Kratos being a Greek God of War is lore. Story is essentially current events of the movie, book, game, whatever it is.

Now here's the thing these two things typically happen together. God of War for example has all the tales that Mimir will tell while you are on a boat about the mythology, which makes the world and the characters feel more important when you actually encounter them. Also God of War has the journal which adds to the lore around the events happening in the game.

But the big important thing is that usually, you can understand what's going on without the Lore. You understand Kratos and Atreus have trust issues, you don't need the lore to understand what's happening when the father and son are trying to get on the same page with each other in that regard. Without STORY, you have no fucking clue what's happening or why. At the same time that doesn't mean both have to exist in a piece of work, you can play through Souls games without any knowledge of "lore" and still have fun with the game, it's built that way. But if you played God of War and skipped all the cutscenes and muted the dialog, you'd have a much lesser experience because the story is gone.

Hope I make sense there.
But the award is specifically for narrative, not story.
 
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Dalisclock

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But the award is specifically for narrative, not story.
I agree there's some issue with the semantics, partially because there doesn't seem to be a category for "Story" and someone felt "narrative" was close enough for the purpose. Arguably the broader term should be used if FROM games are gonna be considered.

To be honest, I'm not sure if "Narrative" or "Story" is the more appropriate term if we're taking the broader approach.
 
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CriticalGaming

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But the award is specifically for narrative, not story.
Narrative's definition is " a spoken or written account of connected events; a story. " Which I argue that ER doesn't have strictly because the way it presents its lore is purposefully disconnected and disjointed so that the player has to make their own interpretations of what happens. In fact The lore itself is typically a puzzle that the player has to piece together themselves, which fails the definition of both Narrative and Story.

Look it doesn't matter, it's fine for the award because there aren't better categories for what FromSoft does with it's lore. So it's fine.
 

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Well we gotta wait until Mihoyo drops Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero.
 

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Borderlands set on Mars, when?

Lore vs. Story
So, everyone and their mother has given their opinion on this, so here's my 2 audio logs:

Overall, I'd say there's a divide, but I wouldn't use that terminology. For instance, there's the idea of the Five Elements of Story, of which plot is one of the five, whereas the other four are storytelling, characters, worldbuilding, and themes (you can mix and match a bit, the principle is the same). But on that subject, I'd say there's a distinction between plot and lore, in that:

Plot: The sum total of everything that happens over the course of the plot - character(s) go from A to Z, etc.

Lore: The background that the plot takes place in - everything that fills in the world, but isn't directly relevant to the plot itself.

This isn't just a games thing - for instance, the plot of Lord of the Rings is evenly spread across three books, whereas a fair chunk of the lore is isolated in the appendicies of the third book. But if we're using games as an example, something like Mass Effect has good plot and good lore, something like Doom 2016 has bad plot and good lore, something like Super Mario Bros. has no plot and no lore, and something like Warhammer has no plot but good lore. These are generalizations, but I'd say there's a distinction between the two.

So should Elden Ring have beat God of War? No idea, never played either of them. But from the sounds of it, Elden Ring is lore-focused, while God of War is story-focused. Make of that what you will.

I’m more annoyed about Diablo Immortal being nominated for anything positive, let alone best mobile game.

Is mobile game market THAT bone dry of any good games?
Diablo Immortal is the worst Diablo game I've played, but the best mobile game I've played.

Make of that what you will.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Narrative's definition is " a spoken or written account of connected events; a story. " Which I argue that ER doesn't have strictly because the way it presents its lore is purposefully disconnected and disjointed so that the player has to make their own interpretations of what happens. In fact The lore itself is typically a puzzle that the player has to piece together themselves, which fails the definition of both Narrative and Story.

Look it doesn't matter, it's fine for the award because there aren't better categories for what FromSoft does with it's lore. So it's fine.
I guess what I was getting at is that videogames as a medium add a few ripples for how stories can be told, and “narrative” as a definition must be expanded to encompass them in the absence of a better term. A story-driven game is much more easily associated with the term “narrative” as it is traditionally defined due to the delivery and framework resembling other established forms of media. With more gameplay-driven stories the term requires some augmenting. The gamedeveloper article above elaborates -

There are also several different ways that narrative can be shown and conveyed to the player in a game. The first is through cutscenes, which is an exposition of the story in the form of a short cinematic. Cutscenes can combine dialogue and action in a way that keeps the player in action, and are used to convey plot development in games the same way film does. Text is a very traditional way to convey plot. A block of text used at each story event is the primary way a lot of older games give context to the player. Dialogue is another way that players can uncover story elements. Talking to NPCs in the game world can uncover plotlines and context for characters and events, as well as giving quests in games that use the amusement park model.

The other, and perhaps the most interesting form of storytelling in games is storytelling through the environment and the game world. Letting the player interpret the story through objects, places, and people in the game world allows them to form their own ideas about the plot. This is the rarest form of storytelling in games, however it is prominent and successful in the game Dark Souls [29] and its subsequent titles. Most games use a combination of these narrative techniques to convey story elements to the player.


Because like you say, how else would it be categorized for an awards show. We’re kinda in new territory here, making stuff up as we go along.