On Farenheit

[BlindChance]

I initially was going to post this in the Featured Content thread, but it's off topic. So, here instead.

Going Gold: Gaming Doublespeak

In the gaming world, why do we say "mature" when we really mean "immature"? Going Gold examines this and other gaming doublespeak.

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From the article:

Going back to Heavy Rain for a moment (you may be detecting a theme here), look at how many so-called "gamers" are immediately dismissing it as a QTE-fest, a modern Dragon's Lair, or so on without having so much as picked up a trailer. Oh my god! It doesn't look and play exactly like everything I'm already playing! Kill it with fire!

Wait up. A lot of these comments aren't coming from the trailer, they're coming from people who played David Cage's previous game, Farenheit/Indigo Prophecy which was...

Wait for it...

A bunch of QTEs. A modern day Dragon's Lair.

I'm all for trying new things; I tend to seek them out. But David Cage has proven before that he can package a poorly considered film into something he can claim as a 'game'. And frankly, his constant putting down of games before his do not bespeak of someone who loves games, and understands what makes them work.

I played Far Cry 2, and understood how Clint Hocking loved videogames, but wanted to how play mechanics alone could tell a story. I played Ico, and understood how Fumito Ueda loved videogames, but wanted us to feel the emotions between two characters. I played Passage, and understood how Jason Rohrer loved games, but wanted us to think about what they said about us.

And I played Farenheit, and understood how David Cage loves film.

We have a right to be skeptical of him. It's not irrational.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I don't understand how I'm supposed to think of Heavy Rain as anything other than a bunch of quick-time events. Yes, the full game has not yet been released and I'm judging it based on what I've seen in trailers. But a trailer is supposed to tell me some basic things about the game. The trailer almost always shows what kind of game it is, and Heavy Rain's trailer tells me that it is a quick-time event fest. I understand that Heavy Rain is trying to take a new approach to story-telling in video games, but that doesn't make up for poor game play.

However I'd love to be proven wrong. Perhaps someone with more knowledge about the game could show me that it's game play amounts to more than a bunch of quick-time events?

 

[Thaius]

Looking at either of the games as nothing more than a bunch of quick-time events is like looking at Mass Effect as a bunch of conversations and firing a gun now and again. It's an incredibly one-dimensional view of the game, and anyone who really cares about story in video games should at least be able to look past that, regardless of whether or not they necessarily liked the game.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Looking at either of the games as nothing more than a bunch of quick-time events is like looking at Mass Effect as a bunch of conversations and firing a gun now and again. It's an incredibly one-dimensional view of the game, and anyone who really cares about story in video games should at least be able to look past that, regardless of whether or not they necessarily liked the game.

Then tell me; what more is there to Heavy Rain? What game play does it have beyond a series of quick-time event's?

I've played Mass Effect so I know it's gameplay is more complex than just "firing a gun". I'd like to say the same thing about Heavy Rain, but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that it's game play is more than a bunch of quick-time events.

 

[BlindChance]

Looking at either of the games as nothing more than a bunch of quick-time events is like looking at Mass Effect as a bunch of conversations and firing a gun now and again. It's an incredibly one-dimensional view of the game, and anyone who really cares about story in video games should at least be able to look past that, regardless of whether or not they necessarily liked the game.

The different between the two, as I'd see it, is that Mass Effect is coming out of a long tradition of games: the RPG. It's got a lot of conversation, yes, but that's a convention of the genre. Had Fahrenheit been an RPG wherein I used more conventional controls for action sequences (such as the car park scene, which is my favorite whipping boy for the game) I'd have probably criticized the flat characterization and rapidly degenerating story, but praised its willingness to explore new directions for the RPG to take.

But Fahrenheit isn't an RPG. Whenever an action sequence occurs, it becomes a film in which you need to press buttons at the right time to keep watching. Imagine that car park scene again, but this time with you in control. You would roll under parked cars, flatten yourself against pillars, try to find a way past the trap and escape. It would have been compelling, and players could have spent long amounts of time trying to figure out good strategies. That's a great way to make a game. It's not cinematic, but that's not a problem unless you're desperate to make your game look like a film.

And David Cage then did his best to make it look like a film.

This is my problem with the man. He doesn't seem to actually like games. He doesn't seem to think that 20-30 years of experimentation and evolution of the medium actually produced any conventions worth preserving. Rather, he appears to have the arrogant viewpoint that he's the first person to seriously explore emotion in the medium.

Which is just bunk.

We need good creators to challenge the boundaries and explore new territory in games. But we also need to decry pretension and laziness. I think David Cage is the latter, not the former, and I think he's harming gaming, not helping it.

Edit: And this trailer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyubR1rknBM] does nothing to change my mind, either.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Edit: And this trailer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyubR1rknBM] does nothing to change my mind, either.

This actually shows another gripe I have with this game; the animations look terrible. The character movements just look clunky an unnatural, and something the facial details look strange, it's like they almost look real but not quite. I guess you could say that, for me, the characters in this game stumble into the uncanny valley.

You could argue that the trailer is outdated, but this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQHHwcDYgs&feature=related] more recent trailer carries the same problems. Worse yet, it calls itself a game play trailer yet all I see are a string of quick-time events. Is that really all the game has to offer?

 

[BlindChance]

You could argue that the trailer is outdated, but this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQHHwcDYgs&feature=related] more recent trailer carries the same problems. Worse yet, it calls itself a game play trailer yet all I see are a string of quick-time events. Is that really all the game has to offer?

To be fair, we don't know exactly how it works yet. Maybe sometimes a number of options pop up. Maybe there's some sense of strategy to it. Maybe you can escape into multiple doorways, with a sort of maze-like logic building. I don't know.

What worries me more is that it's still trying to ape film. David Cage, I love your desire to expand gaming, but expanding gaming. Don't try to turn it into film.

 

[Thaius]

Looking at either of the games as nothing more than a bunch of quick-time events is like looking at Mass Effect as a bunch of conversations and firing a gun now and again. It's an incredibly one-dimensional view of the game, and anyone who really cares about story in video games should at least be able to look past that, regardless of whether or not they necessarily liked the game.

Then tell me; what more is there to Heavy Rain? What game play does it have beyond a series of quick-time event's?

I've played Mass Effect so I know it's gameplay is more complex than just "firing a gun". I'd like to say the same thing about Heavy Rain, but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that it's game play is more than a bunch of quick-time events.

My point was that we're focusing too much on the gameplay and too little on the story. I had no problem with the QTE stuff in Indigo Prophecy, because they worked, and were actually pretty well designed (the movements actually coincided with character movement on the screen in one way or another, making you feel much more connected to the events than, say, God of War's QTE). But the main thing is that the game is about story. The game truly was an interactive movie. I don't think all games should be like that, but I'm not about to go crazy and claim that it's "hurting the industry" or some crap like that. Just because a couple games are more like interactive movies than fully interactive stories doesn't mean they're somehow an enemy of the advancement of games as an art: rather, they're an exploration of it.

 

[BlindChance]

I don't think all games should be like that, but I'm not about to go crazy and claim that it's "hurting the industry" or some crap like that. Just because a couple games are more like interactive movies than fully interactive stories doesn't mean they're somehow an enemy of the advancement of games as an art: rather, they're an exploration of it.

But that's exactly it: It exists as an interactive movie by being less interactive than another game. Every problem has one solution: Hit the buttons at the right time. Every problem has one fail state: Hit the buttons at the wrong time. It's less involving as a result, and the only benefit in the tradeoff is that it gets to look more cinematic as a result... and I'm convinced this is worthless. If you want to make a film, make a film.

You're right that it's not an either/or scenario, we can have games that go in either direction. But I'm convinced the direction of Fahrenheit is a dead end. It's just aping another medium, with no advancement beyond it. The best it will ever achieve is merely as good as film is right now.

Or, to quote Clint Hocking [http://www.clicknothing.com/click_nothing/2009/07/live-and-let-die.html]:

But I am conceptually opposed to going too far down this path of using narrative techniques - not because we can't make our games much more emotionally engaging than they are currently - but because we already know the limits of this approach. By mastering these narrative techniques and wedding them to our designs (as we did with the Buddy System in Far Cry 2 - but better) we can arrive at Saving Private Ryan. What that means is that 10 or 20 or 50 years from now, we will deliver a brand new entertainment medium that is as powerful and moving as one we already have. That's great, I guess. But if I am going to dedicated my life this, I want to end up with something that is more, something that is better than what we have now.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Looking at either of the games as nothing more than a bunch of quick-time events is like looking at Mass Effect as a bunch of conversations and firing a gun now and again. It's an incredibly one-dimensional view of the game, and anyone who really cares about story in video games should at least be able to look past that, regardless of whether or not they necessarily liked the game.

Then tell me; what more is there to Heavy Rain? What game play does it have beyond a series of quick-time event's?

I've played Mass Effect so I know it's gameplay is more complex than just "firing a gun". I'd like to say the same thing about Heavy Rain, but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that it's game play is more than a bunch of quick-time events.

My point was that we're focusing too much on the gameplay and too little on the story. I had no problem with the QTE stuff in Indigo Prophecy, because they worked, and were actually pretty well designed (the movements actually coincided with character movement on the screen in one way or another, making you feel much more connected to the events than, say, God of War's QTE). But the main thing is that the game is about story. The game truly was an interactive movie. I don't think all games should be like that, but I'm not about to go crazy and claim that it's "hurting the industry" or some crap like that. Just because a couple games are more like interactive movies than fully interactive stories doesn't mean they're somehow an enemy of the advancement of games as an art: rather, they're an exploration of it.

Focusing on story is no reason to have bad game play. No matter how compelling your story is, many players simply can not be entertained by a string of quick time events. It's simply not fun.

And there's really no reason for it either. Why can I only interact with the game via quick time events? Why not give the player full control over the character's actions? Take for example this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQHHwcDYgs&feature=related] gameplay. Why must I rely on quick time events to fend off the attacker? Why not let the player directly control their character's actions. Let the player figure out their own way to escape, let them forge their own path the victory or failure. I would feel very connected to the character's if I had that much control over them.

Now obviously it would be difficult to create such a complex game. It wouldn't necessarily have to be that advanced; limiting the player's control in certain situations is perfectly understandable. But in this modern age of gaming I honestly can't believe that the best this game can provided is just an advanced version of Simon-says.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I bloody loved Fahrenheit!

This could be due to the fact that it was the only time I've ever enjoyed QTE's.
But I can understand those who didn't.

I liked it too. Riiiiiight up until the mindfuck.