I have to agree with the lack of attachment to your wife in fable 2, which also ties into the ending. The main problem was that, at least when I played it, the entire land of Fable wanted to marry me within an hour or two of gameplay (basically because I was rich), which meant you never really formed an attachment to your spouse. I did have a vague sense of fondness for one of them, but then I had to marry someone else to complete a quest, and they bumped into each other and left me.
Overlord 2
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Quick side note to, in the first Overlord you could choose your wife... I don't think Yahtzee has played that one.
Overlord is supposed to be a fun game with silly black humor, its not trying to invoke deep or loving emotions like he seems to be painting it as but saying its not.
I enjoy your videos and agree with some of the said games here, Fable doesn't make me care when its trying to but Overlord ISN'T.
EDIT: And I just know many are going to agree blindly even if they haven't played it.
Overlord is supposed to be a fun game with silly black humor, its not trying to invoke deep or loving emotions like he seems to be painting it as but saying its not.
I enjoy your videos and agree with some of the said games here, Fable doesn't make me care when its trying to but Overlord ISN'T.
EDIT: And I just know many are going to agree blindly even if they haven't played it.
More ZP this'll be great
Another reason I think Overlord II fails to interest me is because at times I think it's trying to be humourous and it just flops.squid5580 said:
Sure the minions have a bit of interesting character to them, but there are many opportunities
for a twisted sense of humour that would be been quite beneficial.
Half-Life 2 does a much better job at characterizing and making us empathize with the characters.
That's one of the reasons Fable felt quite unsatisfying when dealing with the NPC's...
The NPC characters in Fable where uninteresting flat characters with that strange hive-mind reactions to your poses or actions.
When the main character of a game is a voiceless person, it's the interactions with the other
characters that becomes very important for generating empathy or interest in the game.
If the only reason for a player to do something like having two wives in Fable II is for an achievement.
Then really, why bother?...
Then it just feels like something that the developers tacked-on, they didn't spend enough time developing that aspect
or creating motivation for the player.
There needs to be an actual reward for doing something like that or it needs to help a character that you actually empathize with.
People need to feel involved with the characters and the story...shallow / broken side quests break the immersion factor of a game.
I dunno. I understand what he is saying, but at the same time, I'm beginning to think that a lot of this is based upon personal expectations. Dead Space is a perfect example: Yahtzee complains that the big 'reveal' moment is "about as emotive as using subtitles", but at the same time, I didn't see any particular level of emotional depth to the main character in the original Half-Life, does that make it a bad game? Or have those people who value that sort of thing just come to expect it everywhere because of games like Half-Life 2? In that light, I think the absence of an emotional investment is entirely based upon the preference of the player. I still think Dead Space was brilliant, and was probably my favorite game of '08, in part because it was among the best implementations of the Hollywood Big Budget Action Flick motif that I've seen yet. Of course, I'm the guy who got irritated with the Newt-as-a-surrogate-daughter-for-Ripley shit in Aliens. I spent that entire time thinking "just shut up and shoot some fucking xenos!"
Again, that's me. Dead Space created just enough of a connection to help further the atmosphere, and didn't waste my time by trying to expound upon it simply to manipulate my emotions. Yahtzee (and Pedro and others, obviously), feel that the connection needs to be deeper, so they don't like the game-- which is fine, but I don't think that you can legitimately completely disparage a game for it... if nothing else, because that is your taste. Can you honestly say that the game is absolutely not worth playing because of that?
Look at it this way:
Objective:
Poor/unresponsive controls- that affects everyone who plays the game.
Terrible graphics/sound- ditto
Repetitive combat mechanics- same
Crappy camera- as above
(etc.)
Subjective:
Didn't connect with the main character- pretty sure not everyone is going to agree there.
Moral 'choice' system is bogus (basically binary)- a lot of folks probably don't care
Didn't find myself 'invested' in the plot - see above
(etc)
Yes, there is a lot of gray area there, and of course, something subjective might become objective when it's promoted as a selling point of the game (Fable's 'moral choice' system becomes hugely relevant because that was supposedly the whole fucking point). But I'm sure you get my drift.
Since I first started watching ZP, in the back of my head, I've always had that filter seperating his objective observations from his subjective ones; since I don't know Yahtzee personally, I take all his subjective observations with a grain of salt, unless past experience has demonstrated that we tend to have the same attitude about something. (JRPGs, for example)
I appreciate the opportunity that Extra Punctuation seems like it will provide: the ability for Yahtzee to speak about points he makes in his reviews which deserve elaboration, but the format of ZP prevents it. I still may or may not agree with him, however.
Again, that's me. Dead Space created just enough of a connection to help further the atmosphere, and didn't waste my time by trying to expound upon it simply to manipulate my emotions. Yahtzee (and Pedro and others, obviously), feel that the connection needs to be deeper, so they don't like the game-- which is fine, but I don't think that you can legitimately completely disparage a game for it... if nothing else, because that is your taste. Can you honestly say that the game is absolutely not worth playing because of that?
Look at it this way:
Objective:
Poor/unresponsive controls- that affects everyone who plays the game.
Terrible graphics/sound- ditto
Repetitive combat mechanics- same
Crappy camera- as above
(etc.)
Subjective:
Didn't connect with the main character- pretty sure not everyone is going to agree there.
Moral 'choice' system is bogus (basically binary)- a lot of folks probably don't care
Didn't find myself 'invested' in the plot - see above
(etc)
Yes, there is a lot of gray area there, and of course, something subjective might become objective when it's promoted as a selling point of the game (Fable's 'moral choice' system becomes hugely relevant because that was supposedly the whole fucking point). But I'm sure you get my drift.
Since I first started watching ZP, in the back of my head, I've always had that filter seperating his objective observations from his subjective ones; since I don't know Yahtzee personally, I take all his subjective observations with a grain of salt, unless past experience has demonstrated that we tend to have the same attitude about something. (JRPGs, for example)
I appreciate the opportunity that Extra Punctuation seems like it will provide: the ability for Yahtzee to speak about points he makes in his reviews which deserve elaboration, but the format of ZP prevents it. I still may or may not agree with him, however.
Good to see Yahtzee moving into new territory. Oh, and a good article too. I look forward to reading this in the future.
Wow! Well I was in complete agreement with the carrot and the stick anology till I remembered GTA4. GTA was may favorite franchise and 4 is the only one, of the 3D bunch, I haven't finished and can't get myself to pick back up. I simply refuse to take my ganja smok'n, gangsta ***** homie bowling one more time cause he feels we aren't spending enough time together. Of course, if I don't, I can't have access to the guns I want. So fuck him. Nice carrot, but I'm tired of having to stroke his stick for access to it.
Honestly, each game simply needs to be judged on it's own. What may work for one, might not work for another.
PM games are always (ALWAYS!) full of unfleshed potential everywhere you look. While I've enjoyed most of them at points I'm always left with bluballs over what could have been.
The bottom line is that when games get repititious, boring or tedius we, as players, need a damn good reward to justify the time. Balance makes good games. The Carrot/stick formula is not necessarily needed.
Honestly, each game simply needs to be judged on it's own. What may work for one, might not work for another.
PM games are always (ALWAYS!) full of unfleshed potential everywhere you look. While I've enjoyed most of them at points I'm always left with bluballs over what could have been.
The bottom line is that when games get repititious, boring or tedius we, as players, need a damn good reward to justify the time. Balance makes good games. The Carrot/stick formula is not necessarily needed.
IceStar100 said:
The bloke. I can't stand him. I loathe him so much I don't even remember his name.
LMAO at players starving their wives and kids in Fable 2 then eating food in front of them. I wonder if its possible to do that to Milo when he comes out? I wish I had thought to do that, because being a dick in a videogame is really quite fun. I remeber slowly stalking random pedestrians in GTA IV then running them over, then waiting for them to get back up before running them over again.
An enjoyable read Mr Croshaw. Although now you mention it, "Hit me with your best shot" could indeed be a song about cumshots.
I think Bodyklok's post should have endedKstreitenfeld said:
/sarcasm
That clear things up for you?
OT: I really liked reading this; I like that Yahtzee will admit when he has changed his mind about a game he played earlier, of course it is much funnier to be continually scathing of every aspect of a game, but it takes much bigger critical balls to turn up the next week as say 'I was wrong about X' than just to let it pass with the rest of the proverbial poop he flings.
I don't know if the makers of Overlord II really expected people to care. The Fable game writer however did and I agree with the point that if we are supposed to care, the game developers really shouldn't take it for granted.
From what I've observed, how much real life emotion that caries over from real life into the game varies from player to player and it varies quite a lot. It becomes very obvious when half the posters consider scene X touching while others found it dull. It's not only how much of the emotion player carries over to the game that varies, which situations the player cares about also varies. Some are easily offended when children are killed, even if the scene is poorly written and the children didn't even exist prior to that scene. Some are big fans off love stories and easily get emotional over fictional love troubles. Again, you can often see how that manifests itself in message board discussions.
I can't really agree that there has to be a carrot. When it comes to characters, how much I care about them depends how effective the game is a writing them as living people rather than as plot devices. What gameplay benefits they grant doesn't matter the slightest. Characters that are poorly written, but gives me great gameplay benefits will just make me care about the gameplay benefits, not the characters themselves.
All in all, I guess I agree about half of the article.
From what I've observed, how much real life emotion that caries over from real life into the game varies from player to player and it varies quite a lot. It becomes very obvious when half the posters consider scene X touching while others found it dull. It's not only how much of the emotion player carries over to the game that varies, which situations the player cares about also varies. Some are easily offended when children are killed, even if the scene is poorly written and the children didn't even exist prior to that scene. Some are big fans off love stories and easily get emotional over fictional love troubles. Again, you can often see how that manifests itself in message board discussions.
I can't really agree that there has to be a carrot. When it comes to characters, how much I care about them depends how effective the game is a writing them as living people rather than as plot devices. What gameplay benefits they grant doesn't matter the slightest. Characters that are poorly written, but gives me great gameplay benefits will just make me care about the gameplay benefits, not the characters themselves.
All in all, I guess I agree about half of the article.
