Jimquisition: Photorealistic Sociopathy

Rad Party God

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Feb 23, 2010
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I agree and disagree with Jim at the same time. While I 98% agree that developers need to focus more on art direction instead of technology, the other 2% disagrees, because I've been playing The Secret World the entire weekend (AMAZING game) and that game has some serious technology behind it, backed up with an amazing and stellar art direction.

That game has both great technology and amazing art direction, it has both colorful and gritty scenarios, but the grittiness only enhances the mood Funcom was trying to convey and seriously, that game just oozes atmosphere wherever you turn around.

I'm all up for great technology, but only if it's backed up by great art direction.
 

Gottesstrafe

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Oct 23, 2010
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C'mon Jim it's pronounced "Col-bear Repore". The T's are silent. Take a listen. [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/86305/may-07-2007/intro---5-7-07]

Back on topic though, yeah I teared up too my first time playing FF VI when I reached the opera scene.

And what, no shout out to WALL-E or To the Moon [http://freebirdgames.com/to_the_moon/]?
 

ElPatron

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Nicolaus99 said:
"I think no religious statement has any place in something that isn?t a church or a religious topic." - Jim Sterling

Golly gee Jim. Maybe you should go and try to do some more of that actual Journalism you were talking about earlier. Do you even know where Dan Cathy made his statement concerning his personal opinion on gay marriage? Of course not. You're too busy stroking your outrage in defense of your liberal opinions.
Hey, I hate the so-called "liberals" as much as the average sane person, but I think his point was that Chick-Fil-A isn't a damned church and people shouldn't give a fuck about the brand just because of his president.

We get it, Jim thinks that the food is disgusting. Maybe I am inclined to defend Jim but I think that he meant that we shouldn't let religious debates sink into our lives.

Rellik San said:
"Says the man who shelled out £50 for a 6 hour wank fantasy because he's too scared to join the real army..."
I don't like your opinion.
 

Aeonknight

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Apr 8, 2011
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Graphics serve to do 1 thing, enhance the story by allowing better representation of what the developer had in mind when creating the game. If there's nothing worthwhile to represent, then it's all a waste.

captcha: "respect me"
answer: no, fuck you.
 

Xan Krieger

Completely insane
Feb 11, 2009
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Jim that just means more chicken for me. Seriously if everyone boycotted companies they disagreed with nobody would be buying anything.

Also I fully agree with your points about photorealism, every game in the metal gear solid series made me cry at some point. They had some of the most emotional moments of any game series and I've never even played MGS4. Just the ones on xbox or PS2 and that was far from photorealistic.
 

TitanAura

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Jun 30, 2011
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I'm going to disagree with you on one thing, Jim. A religious statement has a place anywhere and everywhere regardless of whether anyone agrees with it or believes in it, including the speaker him/herself. As much as it grates on my nerves more than anything to have someone try to win an argument against me by throwing an "insert religious text here" quote at me and think that it trumps all other arguments because you can't prove a religious statement or opinion as being false.... I would rather have the freedom to do the same than suppress anyone's right to say otherwise. I believe Chick-fil-A has a right to express such an opinion even if doing so is a very very stupid thing to do indeed.
 

Trishbot

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May 10, 2011
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What I find somewhat ironic, that none of these big companies seem to realize, is a lot of their "modern games" fail to reach the emotional heights of their older, outdated, less-graphically impressive games.

Final Fantasy IV and VI made me feel far more emotion towards its characters than FFXII or FFXIII.

Silent Hill 1 & 2 have stories and emotional characters far beyond SH: Homecoming and Downpour.

In fact, some of the most "emotional" games I've played have very unrealistic graphics. ICO, Okami, Alice: Madness Returns, Killer7, Xenoblade, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Limbo...

2K is WRONG to assume that graphics equate emotion. We could still be using SNES-era graphics and creating stories that resonate with characters you empathize with. Technology is a poor man's tool of expression. The real meat of creativity and talent lies in everything BUT the technology; the art direction, the writing, the story pacing, the music. Technology is merely the paint.

While some people prefer oil paint over watercolor, or pastels over pencil sketches, the true talent lies, not in the material used, but in the way it is used. And I've seen some gorgeous pencil sketches in my day.

Off-topic: I have no problem being bisexual and supporting Chick-Fil-A. If I was going to boycott everything I don't agree with, I'd never shop at Wal-mart, never watch a film by Roman Polanski, never play Dragon Quest, never read H.G. Wells, and never listen to 90% of available music. Do what you like, and if they support a cause you disagree with, well, gosh, deal with the fact they don't share your opinion. That's just life.
 

stringtheory

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Anoni Mus said:
blackrave said:
It is fairly simple for me
1.Story
2.Gameplay
3.Visual style
4.Animations
5.Controls
6.Graphics
Putting story over gameplay? Why even play games? Just grab a book or watch a movie since you must love cutscenes.

Yes, I don't get how someone can put story over gameplay, specially considering that story in games mostly suck.

Also, you missed sound and music, pretty important too.
I follow Yathzee's stament of 'Gameplay drives the car while story navigates and picks the radio station' damn accurate, too bad so many games manage to get it wrong
 

Trishbot

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Anoni Mus said:
blackrave said:
It is fairly simple for me
1.Story
2.Gameplay
3.Visual style
4.Animations
5.Controls
6.Graphics
Putting story over gameplay? Why even play games? Just grab a book or watch a movie since you must love cutscenes.

Yes, I don't get how someone can put story over gameplay, specially considering that story in games mostly suck.

Also, you missed sound and music, pretty important too.
No, I agree. A well made story can surpass awkward gameplay in my book, provided the story is good enough.

Some great examples include Silent Hill. The game controls very poorly, but the story is so insanely good and rich and full of meaning and depth that I don't care one bit how clunky moving around and combat are. The same applies towards many RPGs, whose mechanics I hate but whose story, world-building, and characters are so indelible to experience that I would gladly suffer through random battles and bad menus to see more.

And sometimes a great game can be ruined by a bad story (Mass Effect 3, Bionic Commando, Final Fantasy XIII, etc.)

Granted, you can have great gameplay and a bad story (Mario!) and you can have a great story and bad gameplay, but I'm of the opinion that it's all in the approach. While I'd like BOTH to be good, sometimes a great narrative can overcome bad game design, and sometimes great gameplay can overcome a stupid story.

And sometimes, just sometimes, we get something like PORTAL. Yay.
 

BreakfastMan

Scandinavian Jawbreaker
Jul 22, 2010
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Anoni Mus said:
blackrave said:
It is fairly simple for me
1.Story
2.Gameplay
3.Visual style
4.Animations
5.Controls
6.Graphics
Putting story over gameplay? Why even play games? Just grab a book or watch a movie since you must love cutscenes.

Yes, I don't get how someone can put story over gameplay, specially considering that story in games mostly suck.
Easy: Because the way one experiences a story in a game is far different from a movie or a book, providing something that both movies and books cannot provide, and many enjoy that difference. Simple as that. :p
 

brazuca

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Jun 11, 2008
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blackrave said:
It is fairly simple for me
1.Story
2.Gameplay
3.Visual style
4.Animations
5.Controls
6.Graphics
Visual style, animations and graphics are all part of the same thing, visual presentation. Great graphics are a trip to the uncanny valley without good animation. Games like Witcher 2 and Metro 2033 failed to show great animation. Visual style can criple the exp. if they are the one element your game shows too much. The cheerleader, zombie game. Forgot what it was called and No More Heroes. Lots of visual style, in fact too much.
 

Frission

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May 16, 2011
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Nicolaus99 said:
"I think no religious statement has any place in something that isn?t a church or a religious topic." - Jim Sterling

Golly gee Jim. Maybe you should go and try to do some more of that actual Journalism you were talking about earlier. Do you even know where Dan Cathy made his statement concerning his personal opinion on gay marriage? Of course not. You're too busy stroking your outrage in defense of your liberal opinions. Here, I've done it for you since you were too busy to bother:

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=38271

Here, I'll even reference some of your fellow liberals:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a-president-anti-gay_n_1680984.html

He said it in an interview with "The Baptist Press: News With A Christian Perspective". A relevant place for one to speak his mind on religious opinion? Have some crow to go with that side fat you'll be scooping out and eating. Maybe you can open an episode with you stuffing some Chick Fil A into your maw.

"Oh no, I'll defend a guy on his free speech, by saying that someone else should not say something"

Oh wait, you forget the fact that he's using the money to pursue his own viewpoint.

Since you're not overtly pleasant, I can say without guilt that you should do your own damn research before running your mouth.

On topic: I liked the fact that you talked about books. You can make an engaging character with only the power of words.
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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I think MovieBob covered this in his"Reality Sucks" Game Overthinker video, although he said it was mostly because he didn't LIKE reality in his games because he hates the real world and prefers video games as an escape from that. Others, like Extra Credits, have said there ARE merits to photorealistic graphics, but we're not quite there yet, and it's a lot cheaper more cost-efficient to make a good-looking, yet less graphically impressive game. Really, though, I think that reality has it's place, but too many games are trying to hard to mimic the look of reality, without actually getting the appeal of reality, or using it properly in a game.
 

Frostbite3789

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Rellik San said:
I regularly have this debate with so called 'hardcore' gamers.

"Urgh... you're not hardcore, you're playing that stupid ball rolley sticky thing game, that's for kids."
"Says the man who shelled out £50 for a 6 hour wank fantasy because he's too scared to join the real army..."
Yeah! That'll teach them! Fight their sorry flawed arguments with sorry flawed arguments of your own!
 

Illessa

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Mar 1, 2010
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Anoni Mus said:
Putting story over gameplay? Why even play games? Just grab a book or watch a movie since you must love cutscenes.

Yes, I don't get how someone can put story over gameplay, specially considering that story in games mostly suck.

Also, you missed sound and music, pretty important too.
Because games can tell stories in ways that other mediums can't.

Take Journey - that game had me in floods of tears at the end and sure a film version could have had similar striking visuals, religious overtones, and Austin Wintory's beautiful score; but it was a game so it was me climbing that mountain and forming an emotional connection with my companion and that made it far more effective than a film could ever be.

Hell, Psychonauts is possibly my absolute favourite game and it's only middling in the gameplay stakes. It gains points for wonderfully inventive level, art and sound design of course, but where it really excels is the detailing in the narrative. Most people just run through the game in a few hours, and the story makes perfect sense if you do that, but the game constantly rewards you for exploring, even the most incidental characters have little plot arcs and character quirks that you can entirely miss even with multiple playthroughs. Obviously skimming through a book can have a similar sort of effect, but the way this kind of variable pacing can be a natural part of games is really interesting to me.

I don't know if I'd be able to make a straight-up prioritised list like blackrave did (and I would absolutely agree that kickass sound design is really important), but I can say that having interesting storytelling is the one way to guarantee that I will sit up and pay attention to your game. And whilst I extoll the virtues of games with interesting or well-executed game mechanics, its the ones with interesting narrative that stick with me for years.
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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Also, the idea that "games need to be photorealistic to be emotional" is akin to those idiots who think that animated movies or TV show can't reach the depth or maturity that live action can give, completely ignoring what REALLY drives the emotions in those fields.
 

Alandoril

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Jul 19, 2010
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I agree, it's complete nonsense. I've felt plenty of genuine emotional reactions to games from this generation. So many in fact that I've lost count of them.

All this photo realism things comes across as is corporations making excuses for the fact that they are running on empty.