For Want Of A Horse, The Game Was Lost
Horses can be more than just vehicles with good hair.
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Horses can be more than just vehicles with good hair.
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For Want Of A Horse, The Game Was Lost
- Thread starter Rachel Verkade
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I'm not a rider but yeah I can tell the difference and it does matter, Shadow of the Colossus was a master class in how to do it right
Aye, re-read that line a few times to make sure that yes, she was saying that Ocarina was a SNES game ("an" SNES game no less).Azuaron said:
Aside from that the article was ok I guess. Never really considered horses to be that important in any game and she is right in the aspect that whenever I see them I tend to sigh as they're typically so cumbersome to use.
I'm sorry, but if your immersion is ruined by that, then you were never at risk for immersion in the first place. Immersion should take you beyond nitpicking and mechanical issues, which is clearly not the case here.Rachel Verkade said:
When writing stories, a lot of authors ask themselves hard questions about every person, animal, or even object they introduce. If it's not going to serve the story, it needs to be left out. Basically, if you're going to include it in your story, it should have character (whether or not it is "a character").
The problem is that video games have two masters to please. An object might not serve much narrative purpose, but it serves a mechanical purpose... and we often allow that to be good enough. "We have a horse because it's the wrong time period for cars and tanks, but we need to travel quickly."
What's more, games tend to frame every NPC, location, or object in relation to the player character only. There is little sense, in many games, that anything on the screen has any existence beyond your interaction with it. NPCs just stand there waiting for you to pick up or drop of quest items. Guards patrol predictable paths in some of the most unintuitively-built structures ever seen... because both are designed as challenges to the player character, not as guards or buildings in their own right.
This is not, however, about the narrative-versus-gameplay debate. It really isn't. This is about taking existing logic and applying it to game design. For instance, I have a small apartment, so I tend to buy furniture with more than one use -- a futon instead of a couch, a coffee table with shelving underneath, etc. -- to get the most bang for my spatial buck. As economical as narratives have to be, authors often do the same thing by having characters serve multiple roles (which also gives those characters a bit more depth, coincidentally).
Game developers do this quite often, too. The rise of "secondary fire mode" in shooters is evidence that someone figured, "Hey, we can get more use out of these assets if we give them two functions." All they need is to take that one step further to give these items one more function: character. It's not about whether narrative or gameplay is the more important, but rather about the importance that -- whatever they balance -- the two are connected.
Your trusted sidearm can have character (James Bond, more in the novels). Your favorite hat can have character (Indiana Jones). Your car, plane, or ship can have character. And your loyal steed can, too.
The problem is that video games have two masters to please. An object might not serve much narrative purpose, but it serves a mechanical purpose... and we often allow that to be good enough. "We have a horse because it's the wrong time period for cars and tanks, but we need to travel quickly."
What's more, games tend to frame every NPC, location, or object in relation to the player character only. There is little sense, in many games, that anything on the screen has any existence beyond your interaction with it. NPCs just stand there waiting for you to pick up or drop of quest items. Guards patrol predictable paths in some of the most unintuitively-built structures ever seen... because both are designed as challenges to the player character, not as guards or buildings in their own right.
This is not, however, about the narrative-versus-gameplay debate. It really isn't. This is about taking existing logic and applying it to game design. For instance, I have a small apartment, so I tend to buy furniture with more than one use -- a futon instead of a couch, a coffee table with shelving underneath, etc. -- to get the most bang for my spatial buck. As economical as narratives have to be, authors often do the same thing by having characters serve multiple roles (which also gives those characters a bit more depth, coincidentally).
Game developers do this quite often, too. The rise of "secondary fire mode" in shooters is evidence that someone figured, "Hey, we can get more use out of these assets if we give them two functions." All they need is to take that one step further to give these items one more function: character. It's not about whether narrative or gameplay is the more important, but rather about the importance that -- whatever they balance -- the two are connected.
Your trusted sidearm can have character (James Bond, more in the novels). Your favorite hat can have character (Indiana Jones). Your car, plane, or ship can have character. And your loyal steed can, too.
Eh. Let's go a bit further.
And in my first playthrough, my horses would do both, sometimes within seconds of each other. These are not discrete personality traits, but rather a behavioural system that seems to be completely random. I think you are inferring a lot more than was actually present in the game.
But Guitar Hero doesn't do that, and I challenge you to say those games weren't immersive, what with how they drew people in.
I tend to say Super Nintendo, but when I read it, my mind reads the Acronym. Snes is not a word and should never be pronounced as such. An SNES is correct. Kinda like LOL, people that say it out loud as a word sound like simpletons. But then again, at least it's not riding a mechanical horse in a game.Fasckira said:Thats being pretty generous. If I ever heard anyone ever refer to it like that though I'd cringe even more than if you asked me to ride a horse in a game.Azuaron said:
I think some of you are being a bit too harsh. I personally enjoyed the read, Rachel. Mainly, this is the first article/blog post/anything I've read having to do with the evolution and purpose of equines in video games, and I thank you for the insight.
I had the same experience in Ocarina when I beat Ingo and jumped the fence, that's what bonded me to Epona and made me happy that she followed me around. I'm thinking I should replay Shadow of the Colossus thinking of Agro more like Epona, and less with the mindset of "thank god they gave me a horse so I don't have to walk for miles to the colossus".
I had the same experience in Ocarina when I beat Ingo and jumped the fence, that's what bonded me to Epona and made me happy that she followed me around. I'm thinking I should replay Shadow of the Colossus thinking of Agro more like Epona, and less with the mindset of "thank god they gave me a horse so I don't have to walk for miles to the colossus".
My girlfriend rides horses, and whenever I play a game that involves them she ends up sitting there muttering under her breath about incorrect movements and so on (partially to piss me off, and partially because she's damn picky about that kind of thing). So far, the only game she's seen me play that passed her standards for a decent representation of a horse was Red Dead Redemption. And she hits me whenever I injure a horse.
Agro is easily the best horse in all of gaming, and not just because he's intelligent enough to not just run into a wall without you telling it specifically not to. That horse is the very definition of altruism. He doesn't need to be there, there is no real reason why he hauls Wander around a barren, lifeless wasteland so that he can charge into battle against creatures that could crush him with their pinkie finger, but he does it anyway because he legitimately cares about you. Even after sacrificing himself so that you don't plunge to your death, he just shrugs off a broken leg, allegedly climbs out of a ditch, walks across the wasteland, and when he finally returns to the temple the only thing he cares about is making sure that that girl is accommodated for. This is a horse that would drag you out of Satan's mouth, get his back half bitten off, and, assuming he was capable, drag you all the way back to the temple with just his forelegs before digging his own grave.
Why do people care about Epona again?
Why do people care about Epona again?
As far as I can tell, Shadow of the Colossus was the only one to do it right.BrotherRool said:
Well, maybe Red Dead, but Agro is the only one I felt an attachment to. Aw man...Agro *sniff*
Agro was a great character in Shadow of the Colossus. I truly felt as though Wander and Agro were bonding deeply on a very personal level. But I do think that in the game of Skyrim, most horses are lame horses that just hang around and get killed all of the time, except Shadowmere. Every playthrough of Skyrim, I immediately go through the Brotherhood questline to get Shadowmere, and then never touch the Brotherhood again. I truly felt as though Shadowmere was a great character even though she doesn't interact with the world as much as Agro.
On another note, it's sad that Agro had so much characterization in interacting with the environment and yet any time I am wandering around in the Uncharted games trying to solve a puzzle, Elena just stands there staring at the wall. Agro, a horse, had more character than Elena, a human.
On another note, it's sad that Agro had so much characterization in interacting with the environment and yet any time I am wandering around in the Uncharted games trying to solve a puzzle, Elena just stands there staring at the wall. Agro, a horse, had more character than Elena, a human.
Seconded to hell and back. I liked Epona plenty, she was a noble steed and in Twilight Princess suprisingly to scale but Agro was just there. It's weird but I did end up questioning why the horse put up with Wander's crap, why is it willing to help kill these 16 giant things that clearly isn't going to end well? The answer is just he is a Damn Good Horse! I cared a shit-ton more about Agro than any of the followers in Skyrim.gigastrike said:
Considering I've yet to see a game where movement didn't involve wooden legs moving and feet sliding across the floor, getting horses right is probably not much of a priority. When the humans move more realistically, then we can focus on the other things. When hips no longer look like they're gonna dislocate while walking at a slow pace, then horses can get fixed.
It did so by putting them in the mindset of "a lead guitarist." You weren't imitating the skills in any meaningful way (though Guitar Hero and Rock Band games can do wonders for folks looking to develop rudimentary drum set technique), but you were "acting like the guitarist."Zachary Amaranth said:
I mean, when a kid pretends to be a fighter pilot, he's not worrying about fuel or G-forces, he never runs out of bullets or deploys flaps... he's not realistically portraying a pilot, but he's sure in the mindset of one.