Crysis 2 Writer: Halo is "Full of Bullsh*t"
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Their existence, no, their necessity, yes. The games delivered the story just fine, and I don't need no friggin' book so they can explain the outcome of some obscure battle in the gameworld's history. I feel the same way about movie novelizations and video game tie-ins. Except for Spider-Man 2, though. That one was great. Especially the narrator.The Critic said:
"'Bruce Campbell is overrated,' Says Crysis 2 Writer"
I suppose.ddq5 said:
I've been thinking, the Halo novels don't tell the story of the actual games (the Flood being the exception), they just provide backstory. The same could be said for Mass Effect, but seeing as how well presented the story of the Mass Effect universe is within the games (Halo has servicable story presentation, it's just more by-the-book, so to speak), they do seem kind of redundant. In a way.
hahahaha! Indeed, I have a feeling he is going to be eating his damn words when Crysis 2 launches.ddq5 said:
I sense a change for the better ahead for the world of Crytek gaming. It really doesn't surprise me in this context that Morgan didn't write Crysis: Warhead, since the story in that game was utterly average and barely better than any of the stuff in Halo.
Warhead was just as full of "bullshit archetypal characters". Look at Psycho, the protagonist. He doesn't even have a real person's name. He's tough, large, and likes to kill stuff. At first he says he "follows the rules" of the Geneva Convention (except, you know, making illegal warfare in secret, but it's a game, shrug and never mind the facts), then he loses it and gets vengeful when his buddy, who is a drunken pilot who often disobeys orders, gets wounded. Suddenly he thinks the rules are bull.
Have we seen this set of characters before? Hundreds of times. You couldn't get any more textbook than that. Realistic for the battlefield, perhaps, but textbook and archetypal. So, I'm glad that Morgan is hitting out against archetypal writing for Crysis 2. That will certainly make it a more worthwhile experience than the others in the series.
Warhead was just as full of "bullshit archetypal characters". Look at Psycho, the protagonist. He doesn't even have a real person's name. He's tough, large, and likes to kill stuff. At first he says he "follows the rules" of the Geneva Convention (except, you know, making illegal warfare in secret, but it's a game, shrug and never mind the facts), then he loses it and gets vengeful when his buddy, who is a drunken pilot who often disobeys orders, gets wounded. Suddenly he thinks the rules are bull.
Have we seen this set of characters before? Hundreds of times. You couldn't get any more textbook than that. Realistic for the battlefield, perhaps, but textbook and archetypal. So, I'm glad that Morgan is hitting out against archetypal writing for Crysis 2. That will certainly make it a more worthwhile experience than the others in the series.
Any skilled writer distances himself from such popular culture if he wants to create an enriching and interesting experience.Nurb said:"bullshit archetypal characters"
He must hate the star wars movies then, those were all cliche archetypal characters.
Star Wars is fun, but it's not very adult in theme or evolved in character development. Games generally rely on popular culture like that for writing, and I think that a greater reliance on high culture could really add to the appeal of gaming. BioShock already started the journey in this direction.
EDIT: Oh, fie. A double post. My apologies to the moderators.
No, he's not. If you could read you'd understand this. Unfortunately you apparently can't. Life goes on... well, for most of us anyway.The Critic said:
Honestly, what you're doing is far more childish. Please stop, for the sake of my sanity, you aren't demonstrating your superiority, you're demonstrating your ignorance.The Critic said:
As an afterthought I wonder what that has to do with anything. I wonder if you've read his novels. And I wonder what your point is. But, by now, I just do not care.The Critic said:
I think he does, actually, let me go digging and I'll see if I can find the article I found.Nurb said:"bullshit archetypal characters"
He must hate the star wars movies then, those were all cliche archetypal characters.
Here it is [http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/bsfa-survey-response-richard-morgan/].
It's a little obleque, but his response to question 10 does have some derision aimed at both Halo and Star Wars in the same breath.
Hillariously that is exactly what he is doing. It's called a literature review. He is then sharing his findings. Look it up on wiki. Also for the love of fuck, stop assuming that he was bashing on your goddamn beloved halo, he wasn't.The Critic said:
Honestly though, they do. We have postmortems, usually these are by developers on their own projects, though, I've seen the occasional postmortem where another dev will chime in. It's not about tearing something down, its about building something better. The big difference is, this isn't about technology, its about narrative which is something the industry has been neglecting for the last decade or so. In other words, it's about goddamn time someone did this again. The last person I remember participating in a narrative postmortem was Warren Fucking Specter, and you might be able to guess how long ago that was.The Critic said:
Even if he's a bland author, he's still a hell of a lot better than the brain dead hacks like Karpishan. I say if, because I haven't had the chance to track down one of his books yet, nor have I had the time in the last few weeks to think about such things.The Critic said:
Crit, the truth, and an opinion are, almost by definition mutually exclusive. Heavy is, for the most part expressing his opinions and perceptions, and while he does a far better job of articulating them than you do, that doesn't make his opinions some holy writ of truth. Sorry, that word you are using, I do not think it means what you think it does.The Critic said:
I can kinda generally forgive Halo for using novels for two reasons. One, there isn't a lot of narrative material in the game themselves, and two, the games stand on their own.The Critic said:
That said, Mass Effect and Dragon Age have wandered off into the territory of mandating their EUs under penalty of not making any damn sense. Really, to me, and in my opinion, the Mass Effect novels are nothing more than a venue for Drew Karpishan to be able to claim that he's "a real writer" now, because he has horrifically bad books in print. The only way I can explain the Mass Effect novels being as shoddy as they are is if EA licensed them out as promotional material, and not a true tie in, otherwise I'd expect the publisher would have simply staffed it out to their bullpen and turned out something far superior.
They're sci-fi writers. Using archetypes is the only way to establish any sort of context without spending 200 pages on a preamble to build up any sort of meaningful storyline. Are you telling me that Psycho isn't an archetype? Because he is.
Anyway, he's sounding a lot like Peter Molyneaux, just without the friendliness. It's O.K. if you think your game is going to be the second coming, but don't shove it down peoples' throats.
Anyway, he's sounding a lot like Peter Molyneaux, just without the friendliness. It's O.K. if you think your game is going to be the second coming, but don't shove it down peoples' throats.
Honestly people, this is both getting out of hand and going too far. Most of you sound like you didn't bother to even read the interview before forming your opinions, which is by the way, a bad thing. You're blathering on like mindless sheep over something that is really not a big deal. The man has not committed some sort of terrible sacriledge, in fact what he says in that interview is very normal for the industry he comes out of. You know, the ones where reviewers are mostly honest about they think.
Not only that, but you're saying the same thing over and over again. Just stop and start actually thinking. Maybe then you'll start making sense.
Not only that, but you're saying the same thing over and over again. Just stop and start actually thinking. Maybe then you'll start making sense.
You actually missed me getting taken to task over Psycho earlier. And to an extent you're right. People respond well to archetypes. They make it much easier to get a handle on who characters are at a glance. But, that isn't the end of character development. In a book you have 200 pages to explore a given character, and if you're not using it for that, then you've really short changed the reader in regards to the characters.CuddlyCombine said:
To an extent the same thing applies to video games. At the beginning of GTA4, Niko is an archetypal immigrant, wanting to make an honest life for himself in the land of opportunity. As the game progresses we learn more about him, his past, his experiences. These provide the traits that elevate him into a fully formed character. It doesn't break him away from the archetype completely, but it does make him... well, a fully formed character, a unique individual.
What I'm trying to say is, it's fine to begin with an archetype. It's criminal to end with that same archetype. Even Psycho gets some character development in Warhead, which is, honestly, probably, the only reason I like him.
EDIT: as for the second paragraph, please stop projecting, no one wants to see what weird video game fetishes involving messianic resurrections you keep hidden around.
Oh, get over yourself. The only one who thinks this game is going to be the second coming is you and you listening to other people who didn't go and read the interview. He never says that, he's making statements about story-telling and the overuse of archetypes within stories without building actual characters off of them. This is something a lot of video games do and everyone here knows that. (Much as they seem to be trying to ignore it.)CuddlyCombine said:
He actually mentions games that he likes, games with good storytelling like Bioshock and Uncharted 2. In the interview he spends more time talking about those games than he does about Crysis. You're taking this out of context and getting worked up over nothing.
All he's saying is that storytelling in video games could be better and you know what? It really could be.
Oh christ I'm just gonna say what I said earleir:Knight Templar said:
He criticizes TWO, count em TWO games and suddenly everyone thinks he is insulting every popular FPS out there. Hell he even gave valid reasons too. I mean criticizing MW2 for having a craptaculare story isn't some insult, it's pretty much common knowledge as pretty much everyone admits to this claim.
And then he criticizes Halos CHARACTERS and suddenly he's apparently bad mouthing every FPS, because god knows the only two FPSs out there are Halo and CoD.
Its funny how everyone but game developers themselves are able to criticize other games. The second a developer speaks their opinion it's suddenly some sort of cardinal sin. While he may sound rather obnoxious, I'd rather hear someones opinion bluntly than have it sugar coated to avoid the anger of the gamer.
Seriously people, read the interview and actually pay attention and quit getting butthurt over a little narrative criticism. He didn't write the damn story for the first Crysis game, and he's not comparing or marketing Crysis 2 in any fucking way. He was asked his opinion on something, he gave it, what more do you people want? Commenting and criticizing on game narrative, and simple narrative design is a GOOD thing, it has the potential to improve game story telling in the future. If no one is going to come out and say these things bluntly, then this industry will forever be stuck up its own ass and story telling will still mostly be an afterthought for many games.
1) He didn't. 2) You are literally at least the fourth person to make that exact comment.dagens24 said:
This is a different writer who had nothing to do with the original game. He is a novelist, with nine novels in print. And, while there is some debate regarding the overall quality of them, he is quite literally an award winning Sci-fi writer.
I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a bit harsh, but we've had a plague of Teh Stupids going around.
How many people are going to say this? Don't they read the article? It's all in there. Seriously, I'm going to start banging my head against the wall. It's like talking to bricks.dagens24 said:
When I want an interesting and challenging FPS with a ideas and themes I go play Half Life 2 which in my opinion, with better AI would be the most intellectually challenging game I have ever played. However there is still a place for Halo in my mind when I'm with my friends and we just want to shoot things and piss off pre-pubescent 11 year olds screaming into their mikes.
My point is that though Halo doesn't have a great story there is still a place for it. Just like how I periodically re-read To Kill a Mockingbird but will also chew through my collection of Matthew Reilly books just as often.
My point is that though Halo doesn't have a great story there is still a place for it. Just like how I periodically re-read To Kill a Mockingbird but will also chew through my collection of Matthew Reilly books just as often.