Crysis 2 Writer: Halo is "Full of Bullsh*t"

[Giantcain]

not to be a troll but is this guy basically going day by day saying games story suck because he does not like them and feels the need to tell the world or is it to hype up crysis 2 story when its eventually released i would really like to know

 

[Giantcain]

I agree with him 100%, but that kind of comment is best left to when your new game is out already and has raving reviews about fantastic characters and story lines.

If Crysis 2 doesn't deliver on both fronts then he will become a laughing stock.

The most frustrating thing about Halo and Gears of War is that they actually do have some depth to them, it's just this depth is not shown in the games themselves, instead it is in the books and other forms of media based upon them. Anyone who thinks Gears of war is just full of macho, steroid inducing hard-asses should read 'Aspho Fields' and 'Jacinto's Remnant'.

i agree with ya there and im sort of hoping crysis 2 story fails so he gets this back at him as it will teach him to not rip everything that people say is good and tell everybody i mean everybody got a game they really hate but its rare we write about how much we despise its narrative and gameplay to in the end have people say can you sdo any better and then watch you fail at it

 

[Giantcain]

In other news, The sky is still blue, H.P Lovecraft is still the most consistently scary author of all time and Valve is still awesome.
Seriously, Halo is mediocre on almost every level. I believe we knew that, Just move on.

you're right about HP lovecraft his books are creepy but god i still love to read them and listen to them

 

[Andreas Ulvig]

what a great day! x)

 

[Starke]

Crysis' story wasn't much to talk about either.

All I could gather was, Koreans had nukes on an island, you wear goofy suits with other guys, crazy alien shit goin on, everything freezes, mushrooms were involved at some point in the story I'm sure (mainly when you go in that big alien thingy with low gravity), and you blow some big alien up and eveything is solved.

All in all, that's pretty much what goes on with Halo.

I don't play Crysis for the engaging story, it's for pretty explosions.

nor did you play crysis for this author's writing...because he did not write for that game

Whoops, I assumed they'd be using the same guy for the story between the games.

Of all the mistakes people keep making in this thread, this is probably the most innocent of them. We've gotten into the habit of assuming game series are written by the same teams, and in some cases, (Modern Warfare, Mass Effect are the two I know actually do this) this holds up.

I will say this, Crysis has a kind of cheesy charm to it, that I will miss, but I'd much rather have this.

Spoiler

Nope, there isn't. There are "opinions" that are factually inconsistent with reality. And, that, my dear friend isn't an opinion, it's being an idiot.

While an opinion may or may not be idiotic, that doesn't stop it from being subjective. Also, don't bother referring to me as your "friend" not when you are trying to accuse me of immaturity and pretentiousness.

I'll admit, I've been condescending towards you.

Confusing? No. Poorly written and inconsistent with its own setting.

Most other people would disagree with you, although no doubt as you disagree with them that probably makes them objectively wrong.

I've read some well thought out defenses of Mass Effect 2, and I've seen some very viable favorable opinions regarding the quality of it's story.

You have offered neither.

Only when you look at it from a certain perspective. Mass Effect takes a great many pains to create a plausible universe. Mass Effect 2 fucks a fair amount of that up.

In. Your. opinion.

Yes. Also. In other people's too. Sorry to burst that bubble for you.

Except it isn't. Quantifiably Mass Effect 2 isn't part two of a trilogy. It's a pointless filler episode that produces nothing.

This is starting to get repetitive. It expands on previous characters, introduces new allies, and motivations and sets up the final battle. The Geth, Quarians, Krogan and potentially the Rachni are all ready to fight the Reapers. The Reapers are personally trying to destroy Shepard for killing Sovereign and they attempted to absorb humanity like the Protheans but failed. It added a hell of a lot really.

In your (alleged) role as a professional writer, what narrative components are actually different at the end of Mass Effect 2, compared to the end of Mass Effect 1?

Nothing offended me. You just used a very shitty logical fallacy in your argument. I drew a big red circle around it.

Like I said, minus a few words, my sentiments were the same as Andrastes, if my points were so different then I don't think she would have quoted me stating "This", now would she?

My, well you've got me now. You see, in your original post, the one we've turned into ground chuck through quote splices. In that you rambled incoherently for a paragraph or so and then pointed to her post and said "THIS!"

Now, what she said, and what you said aren't the same thing, so, either, you don't know how to communicate through written text, or you misunderstood her point.

It's not "the way you write", it's your use of grammar, and your incorrect usage of a couple homonyms. Whatever you do for a living, I'd wager it doesn't involve writing, at all.

Uh-huh. I guess the fact that I am writing on a forum and not officially would have nothing to do with how I write, it's considerably better than a lot of peoples (more on this later).

Yeah... see... this is the counterpart to what you said earlier. In simple words, you say something that suggests you know how to write, I say, "no you don't, because of 'the way you write,'" and then you say, "I'm writing casual."

In reality, that doesn't happen. You see, writing is one of the few skills that you practice constantly if it's your job. You don't have a choice. Even when you're fuckin' around, you still understand how to write.

Put it this way, a race car driver knows how to operate a vehicle at unusually high speed. When he's driving on the city streets he doesn't use the same skills, but his proficiency still has an effect on his driving.

Writing operates the same way, if you're a professional writer, and you come onto a forum, you're not going to start posting like a non-writer. You'll start posting in a way that is more casual than you usually will write, but it doesn't result in the same thing. You, don't write like someone who's come off of work and started working off a more relaxed form of your job in here.

Maturity isn't a factor.

Clearly it isn't.

Because where's the fun in that?

Andraste is a writer, professionally, for this site. The difference between the way she writes and the way you do, reinforces my earlier assumption.

I already stated her point was worded in a better way than mine was. The way I write depends on how quickly I want to reply and for what purpose. You don't seriously think I'd write a real letter like this do you? (don't bother answering that Mr Presumptuous).

So, by your own admission. Someone else who is a, you know, professional writer, posting, to this thread, writes better than you, but it's all okay, because the way you write in here is worse than the way you write in here because you're really better than that? Right...

Civilized has a Z, not an S.

Not in the English used by people from England it isn't. That'd at least explain why you keep trying to insult my use of the language.

Your use of language? No, your spelling? Yeah, that's explained. On this single topic you have my apologies.

No, it's not confrontationalism. It was my tolerance for self-indulgent idiocy, like yours, deteriorating over the course of the day.

The pot calls the kettle black? "confrontationalism" isn't a real word either.

So, you're a, you know, "real writer," and that cliche is the best you've got? Riiight...

Culturally we've gotten to a point where we say, it's my opinion, it can't be wrong. You used that argument yourself, almost verbatim, in the post I'm responding to. The problem is, opinions should be backed by some kind of facts, or at least a logical underpinning. Otherwise, they're not really even opinions, they're "I wishes" or "I believe on faith". To your credit you did try to back your opinions with arguments. It's just that you did it very poorly.

That's what opinions are. That doesn't make them good ones and I never stated otherwise.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here. Someone fucked up the definition of opinion on here recently. I thought it was you, hence the infodump.

Well, i get the feeling what i'm about to do is roughly the equivalent of insert my penis in a wasp's nest, given your apparent knack for getting into "intellectual cockfights", but here it goes anyway:

Wow, that's a mental image I'm going to need brain bleach to get out... >.<

You need to chill. Seriously, take a step back, breathe, and calm down. I can't help but get the feeling your back-and-forth with Machines (or Legion now, as it seems), does somewhat seem like taking matters to a personal level. And he's not the only one, you've been insulting people throughout this thread, which i feel doesn't really help get your points across. Most of which i have to concur with, honestly, though it seems you have an unhealthy obsession with having the final word on matters.

Yeah, I'm working on the staying calm thing. I let myself work myself up into a bit of a lather early on, not helped by some truly staggeringly idiotic posts early on in the thread. I was kind of aware of this already, but, honestly, I do appreciate the input.

My apologies if this is incorrect, but i get the feeling you have a negative bias towards Bioware, and jumped on him at the slightest sign of praise, and i *really* hope it has nothing to do with Bioware vs. Relic during MM (tentative extrapolation due to repeated mentions of Warhammer 40k).

I didn't even really remember Bioware went up against Relic in the face offs. My bias against Bioware honestly probably started in the wake of their pre-release hype for Dragon Age, and then the mediocrity of the writing that resulted. They followed that with Mass Effect 2, which has serious narrative issues, and they said some really stupid self-congratulatory things about themselves that has made me view their writing very harshly.

On the other side of the coin, I've found a fair amount of Relic's writing equally bad, they just seem to approach it with such a heavy dose of ham and cheese that I tend to be much more amused and forgiving, in contrast to Bioware's attempts at grimdark.

But anyway, what i really would like to correct, is that you were apparently so eager to tear apart and eviscerate his post, that you actually misunderstood him (while ironically accusing him of misunderstanding). He was referring to this post, her follow-up post (which you essentially praised) came later as an effort to rationalize the less logical, more empirical initial approach:

Well, isn't he just Mr. Chatty McChat lately?

I love someone who's willing to disagree with the inertia of groupthink as much as the next chica, but now he's talked a big mountain for himself to climb. Writing a great game is waaaay different from writing a great book.

I agree with him 100%, but that kind of comment is best left to when your new game is out already and has raving reviews about fantastic characters and story lines.

If Crysis 2 doesn't deliver on both fronts then he will become a laughing stock.

This.

And incidentally, his assumption that Bioware's writers would have it easier to make that sort of claims wasn't technically incorrect either. Whether you or a like-minded small group of people may agree with it or not, the general consensus among gamers and gaming press is that their writing is good. If this pans out objectively or not is pointless. As for Mr. Morgan, he his acclaimed as a writer, yes, but he has yet to prove himself in writing for games. This is irrelevant, i agree, the basic elements that constitute good story-telling transcend mediums, and the rest is a matter of adapting the output process, but it's not unreasonable to assume that the bulk of the gaming audience and press will look shiftily at his claims until he proves himself in this particular field. Again, i agree that it shouldn't be the case, but it's understandable. The crux of the matter is, that if the story of Crysis 2 is anything short of spotless, someone will remember what he said, and this will come back to bite him in the ass. It shouldn't, really, if it was mandatory that opinions and work output in the same field should always be congruent, most critics that dedicate themselves exclusively to opinion would be living under a bridge.

Well, fuck. I did misread that one.

Anyway, your latest posts seem to have been toned down a bit, so i guess my point is a bit moot by now, but take it easy. Everybody makes claims and decisions without basing them on facts and logic, and while this may look asinine to a hyper-rational kind of personality, sometimes it's the healthier thing to do. Over-thinking and over-rationalizing is stressful, can be counter-productive (after all, procrastinating is essentially an obsessive tendency to over-weigh every little decision and eventually avoiding it altogether, akin to maladaptive perfectionism), and quite frankly leads us closer to emotionless automatons, denying the big emotive part of our very nature. That judging by a few of your outbursts, not even you are exempt from, and even make mistakes in the process (as i pointed above). Really, have we learned nothing from the character of Jon osterman? I don't mean by this that one shouldn't make an effort to educate people, but the response is generally better when one expounds oneself politely instead of breaking out the you're-an-idiot-hammer.

I learned wearing pants was important from him...

But in all seriousness, I've certainly got enough stress going on at the moment. This has been one stress valve.

Though my current procrastination has more to do with insurmountable fatigue than self doubt...

And yeah, i do realize that i'm somehow shooting myself in the foot, because denying primal urges to bash people in the head when they don't make sense is in itself an example of over-rationalizing, so in a sense, i'm even worse. Ah well, i knew i should have at least used a protective cup

Don't worry, I'll find enough brain bleach for the both of us...

EDIT: @Andy Chalk

Next time, please consider changing the original title. It only perpetuates the fallacious nature of the interviewer's intention to everyone that spots this, reads only the title and maybe the original post vertically, and misses the point altogether. Just a little suggestion.

Honestly, Andy Chalk, please, edit the title now, to stem the tide.

 

[Starke]

What a jerk! I mean, I'm not going to defend anyone on this, but jeez, I don't think anyone should ever use such harsh language to any pretty decent game out there!

Maybe it's because he's British? If I recall correctly I've seen Warren Ellis pop up with some pretty colorful language in interviews before.

 

[William Brayton]

I heart this guy....he has said what I've been screaming since I first played Half Life(about 3 years ago...Yes I was late for the PC world).

I've been cursing and screaming about this like a frickin' American that thinks he's gonna lose his right to scream and curse(hehe..jab at tea party).

I'm going to looked this guy up, read his stuff...and use him as inspiration...god speed and may you be the right man the wrong place.

 

[Starke]

fuck that guy. i like the halo universe and i think its interesting

There is better stuff out there, you know? Besides, he wasn't bashing the universe, the games, or anything else.

i could think halo is the best thing out there. i dont, i actually think mass effect is the best IMO. keyword. people value things differently

*Pounds his own head into the desk until the blood flows freely.*

 

[ethaninja]

Ah, finally someone who sees eye to eye with me. I mean, even though I was brought up with Doom, at least that told a little bit more story then Halo. Nothing makes me more immersed than a game with a kick ass storyline.

 

[Reboare]

Yeah Halo has a pretty terrible story. Oh well this'll probably come back to bite him in the ass if the story for Crysis 2 isn't absolutely brilliant considering the love some people have for Halo.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

The way I see it, by Crytek hiring a professional writer for their sequel, they have acknowledged that the story of the first game just didn't cut it, and they want to do it right this time around. They have a concept, and now they want to tap into its potential by using some who is actually skilled at crafting stories and i say smart move Crytek.

A professional writer from a different medium. You don't hire a plumber to repair your air conditioner.

You would if there was noone else to do it better. =/

And that is precisely the problem that game writing has always faced...that there are very few people actually dedicated to the profession of game writing, since games are not taken seriously as a storytelling medium. While this attitude has changed somewhat over the years, we still have ways to go before we can talk of "professional game writing".

Overall, it is kind of sad how most game developers are willing to pay through their nose for top-of-the-line artists, musicians, voice actors etc......but as far as story is concerned, they are willing to rely on the scribblings of a random game designer which he wrote while he was bored during lunch.

I must say, though, I am (pleasantly) suprised Crytek decided to hire a professional writer to write the story for Crysis 2, especially considering the games were never renowned for their narrative. I am interested to see how this pans out.

 

[Doodlebox]

Halo writing is pretty suckish.

Anyone remember "To war"? That made me want to turn off the game and never touch it again.

 

[RadicalDreamer90]

Lmao...boy is he kinda stretching his faith in gamers. I share similar views on halo, and of course that shooters and all genre's of games should have meaningful narratives to go along with them, but thats an ideal fantasy, and the belief that most gamers want a narrative in all contexts is just as much bull shit. Most gamers could give a shit about graphics and narrative as long as they have fun.

There are, and always will be more casuals in anything mainstream than hardcore players. Look at games like farm ville that makes millions off simplistic concepts that keep the viewer amused for maybe 15 minutes at a time. Look at Halo and half the Call of Duty games too. There stories are mediocre at best, and narratives get worst and worst as far as action and fps' go, but the fact is. These are games, not interactive story telling. If you can get a player to have fun, more times then not, they will not care about anything else. Ever had any trouble playing card games? How about alot of 1st generation games? Mario? Hell Poke'mon? These games have a basic objectives that the game runs by, but they have sold millions more than Crysis and most games with good narratives, and will continue to do so. The first objective of a game is entertainment, that is the entire point of the game. Story telling is optional, a gimmick that got widely accepted as part of games, but as much as I love stories within games being a Final Fantasy fan, they are not needed.
To be even more direct, Crysis was a terrible game that flaunted gorgeous graphics and nothing else. Game play was old, stale, and dated, and it didn't do anything creative story wise. So while Richard Morgan may be the new writer, he's got alot to learn about games and people. A good game isn't defined by the story, and a story seldom defines a good game. Entertainment supersedes everything, and if you don't believe me, look up the top selling/greatest games of all the generations, even series wise.

 

[YuheJi]

Lmao...boy is he kinda stretching his faith in gamers. I share similar views on halo, and of course that shooters and all genre's of games should have meaningful narratives to go along with them, but thats an ideal fantasy, and the belief that most gamers want a narrative in all contexts is just as much bull shit. Most gamers could give a shit about graphics and narrative as long as they have fun.

There are, and always will be more casuals in anything mainstream than hardcore players. Look at games like farm ville that makes millions off simplistic concepts that keep the viewer amused for maybe 15 minutes at a time. Look at Halo and half the Call of Duty games too. There stories are mediocre at best, and narratives get worst and worst as far as action and fps' go, but the fact is. These are games, not interactive story telling. If you can get a player to have fun, more times then not, they will not care about anything else. Ever had any trouble playing card games? How about alot of 1st generation games? Mario? Hell Poke'mon? These games have a basic objectives that the game runs by, but they have sold millions more than Crysis and most games with good narratives, and will continue to do so. The first objective of a game is entertainment, that is the entire point of the game. Story telling is optional, a gimmick that got widely accepted as part of games, but as much as I love stories within games being a Final Fantasy fan, they are not needed.
To be even more direct, Crysis was a terrible game that flaunted gorgeous graphics and nothing else. Game play was old, stale, and dated, and it didn't do anything creative story wise. So while Richard Morgan may be the new writer, he's got alot to learn about games and people. A good game isn't defined by the story, and a story seldom defines a good game. Entertainment supersedes everything, and if you don't believe me, look up the top selling/greatest games of all the generations, even series wise.

You should read the entire Q&A. He puts forth arguments why story doesn't have to be be bad for the gameplay to be good. His entire point is that it is possible to have both.

And... did you really feel that Crysis's gameplay was old and stale? I would agree with you about the story, but I felt that it was a fairly new and fresh experience, letting you play around with all the different powers, and letting you attack enemy bases however you wanted to.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Wasn't Crysis given low scores because of its lack of story? It was all about graphics in that game, and the story was poor. That's what I remember hearing.

 

[Weaver]

Wasn't Crysis given low scores because of its lack of story? It was all about graphics in that game, and the story was poor. That's what I remember hearing.

It was given high scores despite it's mediocre story.
Of course, Morgan didn't write Crysis' story so I don't know what that has to do with anything.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Wasn't Crysis given low scores because of its lack of story? It was all about graphics in that game, and the story was poor. That's what I remember hearing.

It was given high scores despite it's mediocre story.
Of course, Morgan didn't write Crysis' story so I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Oh ok, that sounds right. I couldn't remember. I didn't know who wrote the story.

 

[Starke]

Wasn't Crysis given low scores because of its lack of story? It was all about graphics in that game, and the story was poor. That's what I remember hearing.

It was given high scores despite it's mediocre story.
Of course, Morgan didn't write Crysis' story so I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Oh ok, that sounds right. I couldn't remember. I didn't know who wrote the story.

It was someone who then went on to write a short film and disappear.

It is relevant as a positive argument though. Crytek knows how to make a game good enough for us to not care about the writing, and they're pairing that with a good writer. If I was less jaded, this would have me on the edge of my seat in anticipation... actually it almost does.