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

[y1fella]

personally i reckon he is being harsh on halo and while i admit I'm a fanboy but halos story is not bad not spectacular but it does have a number of surprising twists and developments. while I'm not saying it's a master piece it provides plenty of motivation and if your like me and follow the back story it actually does become a lot significant. besides you really can't accuse halo of ignoring its story the levels are riddled with cut scenes and references to the original.

 

[Starke]

The point of research is to try to avoid writing another game like the original Crysis. Now, understanding that you're not a professional writer, and I'm not a creative writer, why he approaches this the way he does isn't entirely apparent to me either, but I know a lit review when I see one, and that's what's happened here.

In simple terms he's trying to get a handle on the environment he's writing in. A writer doesn't simply sit in a corner and dream up how the world works (or at least they shouldn't, I can think of a few who try). And when they do try, the results are fucking horrifically bad.

As an aspiring creative writer, I take exception to that. The majority of fantastic fantasy and science fiction worlds are the result of someone sitting in the corner of their room and thinking "Huh, that'd be nice". Lord of the Rings, most of Robin Hobbs' stuff, Matthew Reilly, to mention a few from my bookshelf. Looking through other games to get a good handle on their stories would be "research", in a very loose sense. Unless he's thinking of starting up a reviewing career once Crysis 2 crashes and burns from his subpar storytelling, throwing his opinions into the faces of innocent denizens of the internets isn't.

Well, you shouldn't, and as an aspiring writer this is good stuff to hear and consider. Writers don't work well in a vacuum of information. Lord of the Rings isn't based on Tolkien sitting around and thinking up what he thought sounded cool. It's grounded in his fascination with medieval history, and the books reflect this. They are a strange mash up of various historical philosophies and influences. The same goes for most good writers. Their work is dependent on them having some material to rework. What that material needs to be is determined by what they're working on.

For Example: If I'm going to write political analysis of liberal ideology in American Foreign policy then rereading Chalmers Johnson is a good idea, but if I'm going to write a critique on American Noir, then Johnson is, unsurprisingly almost completely useless, but watching L.A. Confidential is incredibly useful.

Creative writers have a lot more latitude in what they draw from, but the underlying philosophy is the same. In this case Morgan has decided that in order to write a video game he needs to look at what's out there and evaluate it.

In contrast, look at a lot of Anime that we get in this country, paying particular attention to their handling of simple scientific information, such as the way human genetics work, or something similar. What you find (usually) is some strange pseudoscience mash that's almost as much Plato pontificating about how things might work as it is using modern scientific terms. And, in a sentence, that is why all writers have to research what they're doing.

I don't know everything, neither do you, and neither does Mr. Morgan. What Morgan's doing here is trying to learn more on a subject. I recognize it, having done the same before, and I'm explaining to you why he's doing it.

As a writer, what he's doing is also pretty common. He's collected data and now he's disseminating it. Its not about stoking his own ego, he's trying to share what he's learned, in order to help others, like you and me.

Mindlessly gabbling off whatever Yahtzee did last is a different kind of attention getting. It's trying to attract people to your content through being anti-establishment, or something. You're right, I should have addressed that and didn't. The fact is you can generate as much traffic by pissing people off as by being their friends. It doesn't change the reviewer/publisher relationship fundamentally, however.

I'll give you that.

With respect to you, and some of the other Halo fans in here, it's not a blanket statement, but it does happen. That you're frothing at the mouth now is an indicator that I'm not completely off in the wilderness here.

I'm frothing at the mouth (or at least was, before I had a three hour sleep and calmed down a bit) because this guy obviously has no respect for Halo, or Bungie. I could care less how he thinks about it, as I said in my previous post, but that is no reason to be a wanker. To be honest, I can't stand any Valve game bar Portal, and I think that the Half Life games are blander than butter, the culmination of some nerd writers' fantasy that if the aliens came, he could somehow be a competent combatant. Left 4 Dead and its sequel are retreads of everything that's been done before, and feature a hell of a lot more "Lets go up there and kill those guys" than Halo ever has, and leave me feeling unfulfilled and bored out of my brain. Modern Warfare 2 (not Valve, but still) was absolute crap, and Infinity Ward should pack up their desks right now, end of story. But I don't go into an interview with a magazine and say these things loud and clear for the interviewer to plaster all over their front cover, I keep it to myself and, at times, flamewars.

I haven't seen him comment on L4D yet... Just saying. As for the frothing... we're all pretty guilty of that, tempers, and lack of consideration have been ramping up in here for a while, and neither of us are an exception to that.

If I'd suggest something, your issues here might be a good example of language choice. He's using a fairly relaxed and slightly vulgar form of the language. If you read the tone as someone who's simply talking, then the interview has a consistent tone. And for quite a few Americans, that's the way we speak when we're being informal, in my experience the same is true of Brits.

In particular, I'm aware of several British authors who tend to be quite vulgar when they're giving informal interviews (like this one), or writing semi-formal introductions to material.

Is it professional? Strictly? No. But the intent isn't to start a flamewar. The reason a lot of writers don't do this is because it tends to produce shit like this.

What pisses me off, really pisses me off are the idiots who come in here blindly praising Halo, giving him the finger and saying, he doesn't understand the pure genius that is Halo. It really does. That I'm still here after most of the people who agreed with me only indicates how deeply bullshit like your uninformed blathering gets on my nerves.

Excuse me, but if you're including me in that category, I'd like to point out that I never "blindly praised Halo", and I gave him the finger because he was a wanker in an official interview, not because he doesn't "understand the pure genius that is Halo". Halo isn't fantastic, nor is it the greatest fiction ever worked since J.R.R. sat down and thought that World War 2 in a fantasy setting would be interesting. It's my favourite game because it was the first game to make me feel a certain way, I don't even know how to explain it, and because of that I will always defend it if I get the chance to.

Yeah, I do really understand that kind of loyalty.

It's easy to misjudge it for the other variety as well. I stand by blind fandom as something that pisses me off, and we've had a number stagger through this thread that subscribe to that. I like having people who will argue for something, particularly something I don't agree with, but only if they'll do it intelligently. Usually with that variety of fan, there's no intelligence, only rote recitations of why someone else thought it was good.

By the way, it's WWI not WWII, it was a sticking point for Tolkien actually.

I do not, however, praise it blindly. I know where Halo's weaknesses are (Halo 2 is a good list of them), but for the most part, writing is not one of them. Xbox 360-fags aside, the Halo series is insanely popular for a reason, and it's because of people like me who've been in love with the story from the start that the category "Halo fanboy" still holds some credit, in my mind.

Out of deference to you, I'm not going to pick up the snark bait regarding your job title. It'd be too easy to have something stupid and pejorative, that wouldn't be funny.

Thankyou, I'm rather self-conscious about it. It's very awkward responding to the question "So what do you do?" when I'm on a date, I can tell you.

Shit, I thought that was an informal insult at the position... not the actual name. Ouch.

I thought Package Handler was a bad job title.

The other thing is we are fucking drowning in shitty writers these days. People who can barely put a coherent sentence plot together and we're fucking venerating these incompetent shits as the height of videogame writing. I'm old enough to remember when games actually had good writing, so holding up shit like Mass Effect and saying this is good (you haven't, but others have), or claiming that all he's doing is bashing games (because whomever can't be bothered to read the fucking interview) really pisses me off.

Ragging on BioWare is something I didn't expect. And you can add me to that list of people who hold up Mass Effect and say it's good, because it is. Goddamn I love that game.

The game's quite good. The story, not so much.

And if you're looking for a game that can "barely put a coherent sentence plot (?) together", I'd suggest looking at Gears of War. It is, essentially, what Arnold Schwarzanegger would be, were he a game. Halo, at least, has had thought and thousands (at this stage) pages of backstory put into it. Not to mention Mass Effect/2, or Dragon Age: Origins, which really do have about two novels' worth of writing put into them, which is admirable even if you don't like the games.

Honestly, if I was looking for games that lack a coherant plot, I've got a couple on my shelf that I'd go for long before gears, no offense. F.E.A.R. comes to mind rather quickly.

On the second point, not really. The critical test here isn't how much text they can write, but what the quality is. Morrowind has something like six novels worth of text, but, it's good.

Dragon Age and Mass Effect have some good background world building going on, and I can respect that, but the front end narrative in Mass Effect is a bit dicey. For example: It's almost impossible to play Shepard as a consistent renegade character. You can try, but Shepard will osolate psychopathicly between ends justify the means hardass and childish jerk, without much warning as to which you'll get at any particular moment. A lot of your story choices in 1 end up being cosmetic in at best in 2. While my issues with Dragon Age easily exploded into a 1200 word post earlier in this thread... I think.

Peter David is seriously a fantastic writer. The guy made the fuckin' Hulk an interesting character to read. A fact that still blows my mind to this day. Brian Michael Bendis is probably one of the best (and most prolific) writers working in comics today. As I mentioned before, from people who know what they're talking about the Halo EU is probably one of the best Video Game EUs out there today. The problem is, none of that is relevant to the case at hand.

Halo is competent in that it doesn't mandate the EU novels to make sense (at least as far as I can recall.) But, as a subject of analysis, the EU is completly irrelevant for analayzing the games themselves. Which is what's going on here.

I didn't say that the extended universe was necessary for analyzing the games, I said that it's impossible to get the full experience that is Halo from just playing one of the games. And it's true. I'm willing to bet that out of 10 Halo haters, if they read the novels, then played the games through in order (the main trilogy, anyway), then at least half of them would change their opinions, if only to "Bad" and not "I WANT TO STAB THINGS". Thus, claiming that Halo is full of archetypical characters is really unwarranted when the characters are quite clearly cut in the EU (I keep thinking European Union, here), and make sense emotionally. Again, if I may gesture uncomfortably towards Gears of War once more, there are games that are truly full of stereotypical archetypes.

Honestly, you don't have to look as far as Gears of War. A number of people have wandered into this thread and unintelligently blurbled something about pots and kettles before being bludgeoned to death informed that Morgan had nothing to do with the first game. Crysis is full of exactly that kind of cliched archetypes passing for NPCs. As are Mass Effect and Dragon Age for that matter.

In fact there aren't a lot of games I'd single out as having really good characters. Max Payne works up to it, but it plays with the archetypes intentionally at times. The Grand Theft Auto games, ironically are actually pretty good about this overall. Honestly, off of everything on my shelf that I can see at this moment, those are the only two I can see at the moment that really do this.

If you incorporate the EU, this is alleviated for Halo, but, when you're evaluating the games themselves, then examining the EU isn't good research. If you're examining the franchise, then, it is.

Bioshock is amazing, too, I don't deny that. But Bioshock is an insular story (or at least it should have been until Bioshock 2 came along and sort of ruined that).

I do like Bioshock, but it's rapidly headed towards contracting a terminal case of Resident Evil syndrome.

Agreed, although I liked Bioshock 2. Here's hoping that's it though.

Except for two things. One Halo has an ending. The game ends, the credits roll. It's not over, but there is closure... well some. Halo 2 is a lot like ESB, it ends on a fuckin' cliffhanger. It's also supposed to be part 2 of 3. So, Halo, and Star Wars are trilogies. Parts of a larger whole.

The issue, and I'm not sure if you misunderstood, or let your attention wander, is, you don't need the EU to make Halo work.

In contrast we have Mass Effect, where the EU novels are the only way to glue chunks of the stories together. It's a shitty design decision by Bioware that the game's writing suffers (more) for.

See above.

To leap to BioWares' defence as well, the Mass Effect novels are actually marginally related to the games themselves, and just explore different aspects of the ME universe (Cerberus, Andersons' past, what have you) that didn't get the attention they deserved within gametime.[/quote]
If that was all they were used for, I'd be fine with that. Unfortunately the ME novels get used as a rough patchwork, overhauling the setting and introducing characters. Without them, Mass Effect 2 has some serious plot holes. I've gotten into huge arguments over this one before, there's a lot of depth and nuance to both sides, but at the end of the day, the Mass Effect novels contain critical plot information for Mass Effect 2 that isn't replicated in the game.

I'm told that the Dragon Age novel takes this even further, introducing characters and setting information that then pop up in Awakenings without any explanation whatsoever. Effectively forcing you to read the novels (or the Wikia) if you want Awakenings to make sense. But, that is second hand information.

I really am trying to be less harsh on you than I've been elsewhere, but, seriously, reading comprehension. "The reason that its fiction doesn?t work has nothing to do with the fact that you don?t get to see Master Chief?s face..." That bolded text is what's called a negation, it means the statement afterward is in the negative.

"...it?s because of lines like ?Okay ? I?m gonna get up there and kill those guys?." In this case, the bolded text is providing you with a simile, it's not a literal quote, but attempting to replicate a perceived understanding of the meaning.

If the best you can do at bitching him out is to accuse him of making a false quote himself and missing a negation, then I really can't help you.

I noticed it says "lines like etcetc", but it strikes me that vaguity doesn't matter when a line that stupid isn't to be found anywhere in Halo. For example, "Starke is known for posts like "Lol ur a douche lolololololcocks". Obviously false (I hope), but by your logic, the inclusion of "like" is defence from that because loosely translated, that could turn into one of your posts.

The only time I've had posts like that was when a root admin was editing them.

What I'm trying to say here on the simile front is this, the dialog doesn't exist in the game. There is a lot of clipped military dialog that goes along the lines of "get in there and clear it out", it's been too long to make sure I'm providing actual quotes. But, I can see where, that could change to something like what he's saying.

On the other hand, I didn't notice "has nothing to do with" in front of "never getting to see MC's face", so I'll give you that one. And I'm not "bitching him out" (nice linguo) over making a false quote himself, I'm "bitching him out" over stating something that isn't true. That quote, nor anything similar to it, can be found in any Halo game, and suggesting that they have writing like that is just being a prick, and an arrogant one at that. I've actually read parts of one of his books, can't remember which one now. It was passable, but it sure as fuck wasn't stellar. Might've been Broken Angels.

Again, I think this is a language thing. When I'm reading this, it reads like someone who's relaxing, being informal and taking the questions as they come. I can see where one could read him as a raving lunatic, but that's not the impression I get off the overall content of the interview. That's strictly subjective analysis though, so...

Being bitched out or bitching someone out is a fairly common American phrase, the meaning should be pretty apparent.

In my experience, when you're in a creative field, no matter the medium, games, books, music, whatever, it is always a good idea to keep your mouth shut and not sling off at the other people in your field. If not out of respect for the time and effort put into their work, then out of goddamn common sense ffs.

The impression I've gotten, and heard from others who've read it is that he's really not expecting or thinking this is anything unusual to say. I mean, you could chew on him for not taking the time to learn about the subculture he's writing for, but ultimately, he's coming out of a field where this kind of criticism is pretty common, and isn't viewed as unprofessional in the slightest.

He's certainly given this same kind of interview in regards to writing and other authors before. Someone with more familiarity with the way writers handle interviews could probably help flesh this out a bit more, but, really, the content of these interviews looks a lot more like the content from an interview a writer gives regarding books, than a game developer.

It's possible. I don't know the man. His comments aren't in line with that perception, but, if that's your perception, fuck it.

His comments are in line with a man who thinks far too highly of his own abilities to write a good video game story and generally when a person like this is given the opportunity to write a video game, the resulting game is shithouse. I also call this Valve Syndrome.

Again, as someone who does analysis of what people say and try to interpret what they mean, I really don't get this. He speaks about other people, but there's no relational connections to himself when he does. When he does talk about his own work, he's actually pretty careful to stick within the confines of explaining how he works with the rest of the team, or in the form of general writing advice. For example his discussion about how you can flesh out archetypes without making them unwieldy for the story (p2), and his discussion about cut scenes (p3).

Particularly in contrast to interviews I've read with Bioware writers, I really don't see what I'd expect to find with an egotist. I'd have to read it again to be sure, but I'm not even sure that a full analysis of the interview could support that assessment.

I didn't realize the SAS retained creative writers. Not that it's really relevant to anything. It's not like being a special operator in this context means... well, anything really. So, congratulations, I guess?

Why thankyou, I'm off to Somalia soon. The SAS have a time machine, you see, and I plan on using it to get my 6 hours of MW2 boredom back after we covertly spot fucksticks and kill them before the whole Black Hawk Dawn thing happens.

Welcome to the feral city.

 

[DarkDain]

Hes arguing that the master chief, who was raised from child hood on soldiering and warefare, isnt emotional enough and just wants to 'kill bad guys' ? Isnt that entirely accurate with who he is and everything he knows? Halo has great story if you actually read it, they just make you buy the books for most of it.

 

[Buizel91]

*Gets a metal shield* Right...Time to comment.

Personally...i don't mind the game, the characters, the writing or whatever, the Halo games for me have really good stories (in my opinion, one of the best) people like different things, i think some people on this thread need to accept that.

Now i personally haven't played a Crysis game, seen as though i don't have a Necron Monolith to play games on (only got a tiny little Packard Bell *sigh*) so i can't comment on the game, but i do hope that has a "good story". (if it was wrote by the same guy?)

Now we can we all stop our childish bickering of, "HALO IS THE AWESOME" and "CRYSIS IS BETTER, HALO SUCKS" and grow up? before my brain explodes at least.

 

[Starke]

In contrast, look at a lot of Anime that we get in this country, paying particular attention to their handling of simple scientific information, such as the way human genetics work, or something similar. What you find (usually) is some strange pseudoscience mash that's almost as much Plato pontificating about how things might work as it is using modern scientific terms. And, in a sentence, that is why all writers have to research what they're doing.

Not sure whether that's a compliment or insult to anime there, but what I will say is that, as messed up as some of the science involved in some of the anime you see is, it's not only entertaining but it works in its own way. Take Neon Genesis Evangelion, for example. For a person going into the series for the first time, the series will most likely be 10+ hours of "Wat", and indeed it was for me. But then you read some of the glossary on Wiki, and you watch it a couple more times, and it all fits together in its own brilliant, retarded way.

It's an insult. Japanese culture seems to have this, the writer is a master in a vacuum, or something going on. I'll admit, I don't know what causes it, but the symptom is some hillariously bad material. Not as much in general dialog, but in exposition there's bound to be something that will make anyone with a public education's brain bleed. It's not a constant, but it certainly pops up frequently.

That said, Evangelion may be a bad example on your part. It's the equivalent to Twin Peaks on crystal meth. I can respect it as a complete and utter head fuck. If it made sense in a conventional way, it wouldn't be the surrealistic whatever it is.

If I'd suggest something, your issues here might be a good example of language choice. He's using a fairly relaxed and slightly vulgar form of the language. If you read the tone as someone who's simply talking, then the interview has a consistent tone. And for quite a few Americans, that's the way we speak when we're being informal, in my experience the same is true of Brits.

In particular, I'm aware of several British authors who tend to be quite vulgar when they're giving informal interviews (like this one), or writing semi-formal introductions to material.

I can assure you, it isn't his informality. If I haven't mentioned already, I'm from Australia, where generally every alternate word is a profanity and job interviews feel more like high school chats.

There is a huge difference between "Halo is full of archetypical characters" and "Halo is full of bullshit archetypical characters". The first is informal and at least vaguely polite, whereas the second is, at best, (to use a kindergarten word) nasty, and at worst vindictive. If I were to tell you "I think your arguments are flawed", you would likely be less aggravated than if I said "I think your bullshit arguments are flawed", and that would be a linguistic choice on my part, to make my phrase pack more punch.

Is it professional? Strictly? No. But the intent isn't to start a flamewar. The reason a lot of writers don't do this is because it tends to produce shit like this.

Obviously, a "lot of writers" are a lot more intelligent than this guy.

Or more savvy.

By the way, it's WWI not WWII, it was a sticking point for Tolkien actually.

Same shit, different dictator.

And different ideological background. Different economic factors. Different technological factors. But, yeah, when you dig into the environment, WWII has some pretty distinct characteristics. Plus WWII has Wolfenstein, WWI has... what? Iron Storm?

If one war has Zombie Nazis, clearly it's superior.

Honestly, if I was looking for games that lack a coherant plot, I've got a couple on my shelf that I'd go for long before gears, no offense. F.E.A.R. comes to mind rather quickly.

Yeah, F.E.A.R was pretty bad story-wise. I just always leap to Gears because it seems to be second only to Halo in terms of blatant fanboyism. Well, third. Can't forget Final Fantasy.[/quote]There also seems to be something about Gears that encourages mindless consumption. I'm not sure what. It's particularly amusing to hold it up to WH40k that does basically the same thing, except, with irony and humor.

On the second point, not really. The critical test here isn't how much text they can write, but what the quality is. Morrowind has something like six novels worth of text, but, it's good.

Morrowind bored me to tears, largely because the gameplay felt like wading through sewage (which you spent half the game doing, for memory) while someone sits on your shoulders holding flowcharts in front of your face and nattering incessantly about alchemy. Preferred Oblivion, myself.

Yeah, there's this word... accessible. Morrowind doesn't know what it means. The writing's still pretty good overall. It's got a cliche chosen one story under the surface, but the background material offers enough texture... anyway. The gameplay is slow and difficult to get into without spending days, while the writing is better than Obivion's. It's kinda sad, because it means I don't have the time to play it anymore, so I end up playing through Oblivion again instead.

What I like about BioWare's games (DA: O and ME/2, anyway. Couldn't stand KOTOR, but I really need to get my hands on Baldurs') is that the sheer amount of writing is pretty much dispensible. The Codex in Dragon Age: Origins is probably thousands of pages long if you printed it out, but you don't have to read any of it. It's there for if you feel like reading up on dragons or dawkspawn, but for the most part it just sits in the corner, unobtrusive. It's refreshing when most games have barely enough story and writing to cover the gametime, and take every possible opportunity to fling it at you saying "LOOK WHAT WE DID, WE WROTE SOMETHING".

Dragon Age and Mass Effect have some good background world building going on, and I can respect that, but the front end narrative in Mass Effect is a bit dicey. For example: It's almost impossible to play Shepard as a consistent renegade character. You can try, but Shepard will osolate psychopathicly between ends justify the means hardass and childish jerk, without much warning as to which you'll get at any particular moment. A lot of your story choices in 1 end up being cosmetic in at best in 2.

That's more an issue with the moral choice system and gameplay in general than the writing itself. It's impossible to have a proper moral choice system in a game with a set story. You're always going to defeat Sovreign. If it were true moral choice, you could choose to sit back with a coffee while the Citadel gets wiped out.

And the lack of proper change in teh universe between ME and ME2 did annoy me slightly. Just a couple of characters here and there who you'd recognise if you played the first, and who'd recognise you if you interacted with them then. Nevertheless, it's still a cool idea, it just hasn't been perfected yet.

Without going into the full argument here, the Illusive Man is actually one of the aspects in ME2 that literally comes out of nowhere. He's never mentioned in any of the Cerberus bases or missions in ME1. There's no mention of him in dialog regarding Cerberus. He was actually created between the games. And introduced in one of the novels.

In fact there aren't a lot of games I'd single out as having really good characters.

Silent Hill 2 and Bioshock 2 are both games I've played recently (I'm behind with Silent Hill, I know) that have had good characters and elicited a major emotional response from me.

I never owned any of the Playstations, and my fondness for survival horror is pretty limted, so I never actually played anything in the SH series, that said, yeah, I've heard a lot of very good things about SH2. Both Bioshock games are kind of hit or miss, there's a couple really good characters in each game and a bunch of cardboard cutouts in the background.

If that was all they were used for, I'd be fine with that. Unfortunately the ME novels get used as a rough patchwork, overhauling the setting and introducing characters. Without them, Mass Effect 2 has some serious plot holes. I've gotten into huge arguments over this one before, there's a lot of depth and nuance to both sides, but at the end of the day, the Mass Effect novels contain critical plot information for Mass Effect 2 that isn't replicated in the game.

I'm told that the Dragon Age novel takes this even further, introducing characters and setting information that then pop up in Awakenings without any explanation whatsoever. Effectively forcing you to read the novels (or the Wikia) if you want Awakenings to make sense. But, that is second hand information.

I honestly didn't notice any of that. The only characters I took any notice of who were in the novels and the games were the Illusive Man and Anderson, both of whom were sort of introduced in the first game anyway. Also, I didn't spot any glaring plot holes in Mass Effect 2. I did spot the whole "Well we rebuilt your dead body so you can totally change your character now" thing as a bit of a dickmove, but.

Haven't read the Dragon Age novel yet, nor played Awakenings, but I doubt any/all plotholes would be story-breaking.

Again, this is second hand. I did see a review that took issue with it...

What I'm trying to say here on the simile front is this, the dialog doesn't exist in the game. There is a lot of clipped military dialog that goes along the lines of "get in there and clear it out", it's been too long to make sure I'm providing actual quotes. But, I can see where, that could change to something like what he's saying.

Not really. Most of the military order type dialogue is nicely laced in lore and such, and isn't just "Go here and kill this", but generally more like "Go to this place that the Forerunners blahblahblah and blahblah" and so on. The only really clipped militaristic dialogue I can think of off the top of my head is Keyes during the level, Keyes, when he's being absorbed by hte proto-gravemind and is all "Soldier, I am ordering you to get off this ship >:C" and such. And that can hardly be called clipped because he's moaning like a ***** on heat throughout all the readings.

Like I said it's been awhile so my memory is fuzzy. Apparently I'm mixing it over with something else.

The impression I've gotten, and heard from others who've read it is that he's really not expecting or thinking this is anything unusual to say. I mean, you could chew on him for not taking the time to learn about the subculture he's writing for, but ultimately, he's coming out of a field where this kind of criticism is pretty common, and isn't viewed as unprofessional in the slightest.

Hardly. Assuming you're talking about his experience as a novelist, literary criticism is some of the most well-thought out and informative that there is. I've read reviews for my favourite novels that have made them out to be utterly terrible, but they've been so intelligent and concise that I haven't felt ill towards the reivewier themselves. For example, most of Matthew Reilly's books are full of stereotype characters, and I've read plenty of reviews that have called them out on that. But again, there's a difference between saying that something contains steretypes, and claiming that the characters are bullshit, in addition to being stereotypical.

It really does go both ways though. I've also seen some absolutely hilarious stuff where an inexperienced but prominent author, in this case Stephanie Meyer, went off the deep end because Steven King dared to criticize her work. On the other, I've seen interviews very similar to this coming from, again, I think, Warren Ellis, bitching out the comic book industry and it's fondness for the superhero genre. In that case, I'm unaware of any fallout.

At the very least, this bloke needs to be taken down a peg or two, and watch what he says in the future.

Again, as someone who does analysis of what people say and try to interpret what they mean, I really don't get this. He speaks about other people, but there's no relational connections to himself when he does. When he does talk about his own work, he's actually pretty careful to stick within the confines of explaining how he works with the rest of the team, or in the form of general writing advice. For example his discussion about how you can flesh out archetypes without making them unwieldy for the story (p2), and his discussion about cut scenes (p3).

By claiming that Halo (an immensely popular game, as we both know) is full of "bullshit archetypal characters", he is inadvertantly claiming that he can do better. In general, this is just being a prick, but in this situation in particular it's also incredibly conceited of him, since he is actually in the position to attempt to do so. Even if I thought I could write a better high fantasy epic than Tolkein, I sure as hell wouldn't say it, because all it is going to do is show me to be the arrogant wanker that I am and bring down the hate. It is just common sense, and by defying it, he is showing that he is either a raving idiot, or a man who is deep in his own arse.

I'm going to zero in on your "inadvertently" for a second. Saying he's coming across as a monumental jackass is a somewhat viable read. But, I'm pretty sure that the key here is inadvertently.

The other thing is, basically from the word go, the interviewer is being a bigger ass than he is. We end up going round and round on this, but at the end of the day, this is still a really shitty interview in a lot of ways. Biased reporter, questionable language, bad quote attribution. If I was doing an analysis of this guy's writing, I'd honestly just eject this interview and use others he's made since being hired on in this capacity.

 

[Starke]

Hes arguing that the master chief, who was raised from child hood on soldiering and warefare, isnt emotional enough and just wants to 'kill bad guys' ? Isnt that entirely accurate with who he is and everything he knows? Halo has great story if you actually read it, they just make you buy the books for most of it.

1. He's not. 2. Sure, why not. 3. Yay books :|

EDIT: In fairness to you, on 2, he was arguing that the characters weren't complex enough, not that they weren't emotional enough. There's a big difference.

 

[iLikeHippos]

He bit of more than he can chew on my part.
And I've not seen yet a game that gives you a good character perspective. Not one.

And I believe no game in the next 10 years will ever concieve it. He'll just have to leave character development to the books and films. It clearly doesn't fit into games.
And just because he called Gears of War unworthy names, I'm oficially hating Crysis 2 before it's even launched.
Say goodbye to one pro player, Crysis.

 

[Riobux]

First Modern Warfare 2 and now this?

I expect a full out astounding storyline to this game or this guy can just go rot in a ditch. I'm not saying he's wrong, just it's a bold statement to make when the main premise of the game is "aliens took over our city and you must take it back!". Especially when Crysis wasn't exactly praised for it's story.

 

[jono793]

Wasn't the original Crysis's story full of bulls**t too?

And an "award winnning sci fi writer," is equivocal to being the one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind*! All you have to do is apply best literary practise to your magnum opus and hey presto, you've risen to the top of the effluent tank! Assuming the awards mean a damn anyway. Thanks to the internet, there are a massive number of awards available for over-hyped writers operating in niche genres.

*I exclude Frank Herbert of course.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

Tomorrow: "Crysis 2 Writer says Gears of War is 'majorly fucking retarded.' "

He does seem to enjoy dissing mainstream games, especially their stories. I supposes Crysis 2 will have to prove that he isn't just talking out of his ass.

Gears of War IS retarded Especially the first one whose story was like a VERY bad Uwe Boll movie, and whose gameplay was stiff and boring.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

First Modern Warfare 2 and now this?

I dunno, I have to agree that MW2's story was lame.... if you played the first, since that use that once epic nuke scene 3 times pretty much XD

 

[Riobux]

First Modern Warfare 2 and now this?

I dunno, I have to agree that MW2's story was lame.... if you played the first, since that use that once epic nuke scene 3 times pretty much XD

I'm not saying that it wasn't crap, just it's a bold thing to say when Crysis wasn't anything special and I don't see the sequel being any better.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

First Modern Warfare 2 and now this?

I dunno, I have to agree that MW2's story was lame.... if you played the first, since that use that once epic nuke scene 3 times pretty much XD

I'm not saying that it wasn't crap, just it's a bold thing to say when Crysis wasn't anything special and I don't see the sequel being any better.

touche

 

[Starke]

First Modern Warfare 2 and now this?

I dunno, I have to agree that MW2's story was lame.... if you played the first, since that use that once epic nuke scene 3 times pretty much XD

I'm not saying that it wasn't crap, just it's a bold thing to say when Crysis wasn't anything special and I don't see the sequel being any better.

touche

Except that this is a different writer from the first game.

 

[MasterKirov]

With all the hot air this man is venting, I'm starting to wonder if Crysis 2's story is any good...

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Halo has a rather simple plot/story...but Cryisis dose not even have one......

 

[jackanderson]

I cannot wait to play this game, just to see if a hell of a lot of egg gets splattered over this dude's face. I don't care about Halo and that, but if you're going to take pot shots at games and their stories, you better have a damn good one yourself. Who wants to start predicting what the plot will be?

As for using Half-Life as an "inspiration" for how you write your story... I don't see your point. I don't get why Half-Life is apparently so great with its plot. What I've gathered it's just you going from Point A to Point B murdering tonnes of dudes before you get forced to go to Point C for some arbitrary reason. I don't care about the characters in that anymore than the ones in Borderlands. And that doesn't even have an actual story!

Despite that, I still want Portal 2 for PS3. That and TF2 were the saving graces for The Orange Box. Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Half-Life, not a good choice for a story style to base your game on. Now, I'm headed for the hills before the Half-Life fans gun me down. (flees)