Goliath100 said:
Aardvaarkman said:
What you are posting is telling me that "cinematic experience" means cutscenes (in a game context).
Cinematic experiences in games does not necessarily mean scripted events, though considering a game is only a compilation of scripts any event can technically be considered a scripted one.
The term "cinematic experience" was originally used to compliment a game that offered cinematic quality i.e the quality one would experience in cinema. Try to remember a time where the experience of a game was a lot more static with rudimentary animations and limited or non-existent voice acting (unless it was an FMV game). Among that standard, games popped up that had characters animate fluidly and were played by competent voice actors. At first this was almost exclusively tied to pre-animated or pre-rendered sequences.
It's taken for granted these days since the standard of games has pushed forward so far and "cinematic" applies to many titles. However there are still games that outdo the standard.
What you need to understand is that "Cinematic" does not mean pre-determined. A round of Battlefield 3 on a full server can have a cinematic quality to it, unless players start dicking about. A fire fight across a street section between 2 groups of infantry getting up turned by the introduction of heavy ordinance like a Tank or an attack chopper can make a sequence feel immensely cinematic, but lacking the pre-determination that you seem to think cinematic means.
You see it's not the direction of a person that makes something feel cinematic (though in cinema it is the director who ties everything together to make something work) it's the interaction between visuals, audio, motion and (mostly in film) camera.
Goliath100 said:
Is the meaningful storytelling the letters/notes or finding them?
There is more to TLoUs exploration then just the notes. Stashes have their own stories, the environment sshows the ruinage of mankind but also the reclamation of the land by nature (life goes on)... throughout the game, despite never leaving the here and now outside of the opening sequence, we are shown a story that stretches 20 years, from the beginning of a nightmare to the world TLoU has become. Catching a group of enemies unaware will usually get some sense of these characters lives, often carrying a sympathetic element. Stumbling upon an infestation has it's own set of tells and stories. The world tells us about what has happened, it tells us about the nature of things in this ruins of man and more importantly it tells us what Joel has faced in that time and all that Ellie has ever known.
Goliath100 said:
Casual Shinji said:
The problem is that all those games are, by now, old. Resident Evil 4 (which is the close to tLoU) was released in 2005, that is almost 9 years ago. Do not tell me that a game in 2013 should be judged by the same standards as a game from 2005.
What makes you think that a game of 2013 is automatically better then a game of 1990? Bigger budgets? No, if anything the budgets of games has stifled quality and innovation, not enhanced it. Larger studios? I think the old adage is "too many cooks spoil the broth". Better Tech? Certainly this makes a difference, but ultimately the tech are just tools for manipulation. A few hundred years ago to do a painting you need to pluck the hairs off of animal directly to create your brush, mix your own paint from scratch and still create works of art that are revered to this day as exemplary. Just because paintbrushes can be made from plastic fibers instead of horse tail and paint bases are manufactured for ease of use, does not automatically make modern paintings superior.
A lot of modern engineering still uses principles established decades, if not centuries ago.
I just don't see how age matters...
When did age become a disqualifier for greatness? A game that was great in 2005 can still be great in 2013. On average it isn't, but exceptions do exist. If something exemplified what games could do years ago, why shouldn't we hold modern games to that standard, at least until another game pushes the boat out even further? Has any game managed to outdo what Mario did for platforming over 2, nearly 3, decades ago? Heck, modern Mario seems to struggle under its own lineages shadow, let alone all the competitors that ape its formula. It's been refined of course, but it hasn't been improved. Mario of nearly 30 years ago is still basis for platformers today, no matter how much you remix it or splice genres together.
If you think standards are just a linear progression from one generation to the next, then you are incredibly naive. Improvements do happen over time, but things that buck trends or start their own come incredibly infrequently. Sometimes the creators themselves don't know what works, which is why so very often sequels feel alien to the game they are meant to be sequential to.
Standards that are set by the way of excellence are not easily outdone. You should probably stop taking that fact for granted.
