Serious S*** Goin' Down

[harv3034]

I was just re-playing Modern Warfare while my room-mate played the new Medal of Honor when it hit me... do any war games start out without you getting involved in some serious shit???

Modern Warfare had that "assasination" thing, MoH had the Rangers getting shelled half way to hell, and Bad Company 2 (or 1 I can't remember) started with you being "sent to a town, where some serious shit's goin' down."

Hell, even most of the Science-Fiction shooters follow this trend. All four Halo's, Mass Effects 1 and 2, the Gears of War series, and the recently released Reach (see Halo fans I didn't forget) all involve the player getting ploped waist deep in excrament. Even fantasy games like Demon's Souls, Dragon Age Origins, and the soon to be released WoW Cataclysim follow this same shit covered starting road.

What's the deal? Is the shit hitting the fan the only thing that can kick off a story now a days?????

*PS*
Cookie to the first to correctly name the sourse of the ZP reference.

 

[FlyAwayAutumn]

What exactly is your idea of a game starting out with some serious shit?

Most of those games start out relatively slow before dropping you in the action.

Halo 1, for example, starts out with you waking up from cryosleep...

Getting up...

Following a guy around getting you familiar with the HUD...

I'm just curious is your definition of "Starting out with some serious shit" just mean the first mission being action packed?

 

[harv3034]

Pokemon doesn't follow this trend.

Well..............

It kind of does, but on a smaller scale.
What with your rival (who in my case was named Ballso) pick the starter Pokemon that is strong against the one you pick, starting a game long hatred that eventually pisses you off to no end especially when you meet him later and all his Pokemon are an ass load better then the ones you've caught.

(or is that just me?)

 

[CD-R]

In the Overlord games you're the one that causes the serious shit to go down so I think that counts.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I was just re-playing Modern Warfare while my room-mate played the new Medal of Honor when it hit me... do any war games start out without you getting involved in some serious shit???

Modern Warfare had that "assasination" thing, MoH had the Rangers getting shelled half way to hell, and Bad Company 2 (or 1 I can't remember) started with you being "sent to a town, where some serious shit's goin' down."

Hell, even most of the Science-Fiction shooters follow this trend. All four Halo's, Mass Effects 1 and 2, the Gears of War series, and the recently released Reach (see Halo fans I didn't forget) all involve the player getting ploped waist deep in excrament. Even fantasy games like Demon's Souls, Dragon Age Origins, and the soon to be released WoW Cataclysim follow this same shit covered starting road.

What's the deal? Is the shit hitting the fan the only thing that can kick off a story now a days?????

*PS*
Cookie to the first to correctly name the sourse of the ZP reference.

Shit going down causes conflict, and conflict is a major part of storytelling.

What I want to know is, what do you consider would be another method to kick off a story?

To start off a story, you have to have some kind of inciting action to get the plot going. What other action can get the plot of an FPS, RPG, or MMORPG going? The games you mention are games with combat and war. The whole thing behind combat and war is that shit is going to go down. So it would be odd for those games to have starts where absolutely nothing is going on. And if you think about it when the plot gets going, some shit will have to go down.

It is a common rule of writing, some shit will have to go down to get a story going, at least in stories from those games.

I am obviously now just going for the record of "shit going down" in a post.

 

[harv3034]

What exactly is your idea of a game starting out with some serious shit?

Most of those games start out relatively slow before dropping you in the action.

Halo 1, for example, starts out with you waking up from cryosleep...

Getting up...

Following a guy around getting you familiar with the HUD...

I'm just curious is your definition of "Starting out with some serious shit" just mean the first mission being action packed?

.................

Really?
Halo 1 startes out with you JUST escaping the soon to be destroyed planed of Reach (where some REALLY SERIOUS SHIT wnet down) and you are woken up as the Covenant is about to attack your ship.

I guess my definition of "Starting out with some serious shit" includes said shit happening within the first level or before all the playable characters have been introduced (see the Ranger mission of MoH).

 

[Shoggoth2588]

War is serious shit. You can't make light of something that involves, nay, REQUIRES the lives of many, many, many people. Not to mention all of the property damage and families being torn apart.

What bothers me is how you, a single entity with skills and equipment similar to everyone else in your game's universe, are the only one qualified to fix everything.

Just Cause 2: Shit doesn't hit the fan until you start getting bored and realize you are carrying a gun able to take down heavily armored aircraft carriers

 

[archvile93]

Pokemon doesn't follow this trend.

Well..............

It kind of does, but on a smaller scale.
What with your rival (who in my case was named Ballso) pick the starter Pokemon that is strong against the one you pick, starting a game long hatred that eventually pisses you off to no end especially when you meet him later and all his Pokemon are an ass load better then the ones you've caught.

(or is that just me?)

I can't speak for others, but I tend to kick his ass whenever I see him.

OT: CoD 4 start pretty tame, just going through some basic training if I recall.

 

[Swny Nerdgasm]

I was just re-playing Modern Warfare while my room-mate played the new Medal of Honor when it hit me... do any war games start out without you getting involved in some serious shit???

Modern Warfare had that "assasination" thing, MoH had the Rangers getting shelled half way to hell, and Bad Company 2 (or 1 I can't remember) started with you being "sent to a town, where some serious shit's goin' down."

Hell, even most of the Science-Fiction shooters follow this trend. All four Halo's, Mass Effects 1 and 2, the Gears of War series, and the recently released Reach (see Halo fans I didn't forget) all involve the player getting ploped waist deep in excrament. Even fantasy games like Demon's Souls, Dragon Age Origins, and the soon to be released WoW Cataclysim follow this same shit covered starting road.

What's the deal? Is the shit hitting the fan the only thing that can kick off a story now a days?????

*PS*
Cookie to the first to correctly name the sourse of the ZP reference.

It's called In Media Res and it's a very well used literary technique designed to get readers/viewers/players into the story, for example look at Star Wars, the opening scroll finishes and BAM we have a spaceship getting chased at by a bigger spaceship.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

I know it isn't a war game per se, but Far Cry 2 had a fairly slow beginning...at least I seem to remember it being that way.

 

[aldowyn]

There's a TV trope, I don't remember...

Anyway, a game almost HAS to have something interesting happen at the very beginning. It doesn't matter how slow the rest is, almost ALWAYS something interesting happens near the beginning to hook you. This is especially so in shooters since it actually makes sense that you can do something like that at the beginning, as opposed to the beginning of an RPG where you suck!

 

[MorsePacific]

Moments of tense action catch the player's attention and helps immerse them in what's happening. A slow beginning may not keep someone entertained enough to bother continuing to play the game.

For that matter, Fallout: New Vegas starts off fairly slowly, however it gives you a reason before you start playing to continue the game. You're not directly involved in any action, but the idea of finding your murderer is enough to make you want to play through the slower paced beginning.

 

[JoJo Bizzaro 7]

Their is no story without conflict. Most audiences are fickle and will judge many things based on the first 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, there needs to be as much action, exposition, and character development to keep the audiences attention. Now, if these 3 things are not weaved properly and are just padded on then that will lose some serious points, but that something completely different. For now, I'll just finish with this: Heavy Rain's first 15 minutes were getting dressed and stick fighting with a little kid. Look how well that worked.

 

[Judgement101]

I was just re-playing Modern Warfare while my room-mate played the new Medal of Honor when it hit me... do any war games start out without you getting involved in some serious shit???

Modern Warfare had that "assasination" thing, MoH had the Rangers getting shelled half way to hell, and Bad Company 2 (or 1 I can't remember) started with you being "sent to a town, where some serious shit's goin' down."

Hell, even most of the Science-Fiction shooters follow this trend. All four Halo's, Mass Effects 1 and 2, the Gears of War series, and the recently released Reach (see Halo fans I didn't forget) all involve the player getting ploped waist deep in excrament. Even fantasy games like Demon's Souls, Dragon Age Origins, and the soon to be released WoW Cataclysim follow this same shit covered starting road.

What's the deal? Is the shit hitting the fan the only thing that can kick off a story now a days?????

*PS*
Cookie to the first to correctly name the sourse of the ZP reference.

Get sent to a big german town where some serious shits goin' down, there's an active resistance in need of assistance and everythings gone grayish brown. Do I win? (ZP Wolfienstien)

 

[Sonic Doctor]

OT: CoD 4 start pretty tame, just going through some basic training if I recall.

Same goes for CoD 3 which I played on the Wii. It was some training to get accustom to the controls. Though, I ended up causing shit to go down by making the instructors and buddies angry by throwing grenades at their feet and shooting them in the back of their heads. Not that it did anything to them, I was like, "Sorry guys, just testing out the friendly fire mechanics, heh heh heh."

 

[WolfEdge]

Twilight Princess starts out SUPER slow.

Makes replaying that game a ***** and a half.

 

[harv3034]

I was just re-playing Modern Warfare while my room-mate played the new Medal of Honor when it hit me... do any war games start out without you getting involved in some serious shit???

Modern Warfare had that "assasination" thing, MoH had the Rangers getting shelled half way to hell, and Bad Company 2 (or 1 I can't remember) started with you being "sent to a town, where some serious shit's goin' down."

Hell, even most of the Science-Fiction shooters follow this trend. All four Halo's, Mass Effects 1 and 2, the Gears of War series, and the recently released Reach (see Halo fans I didn't forget) all involve the player getting ploped waist deep in excrament. Even fantasy games like Demon's Souls, Dragon Age Origins, and the soon to be released WoW Cataclysim follow this same shit covered starting road.

What's the deal? Is the shit hitting the fan the only thing that can kick off a story now a days?????

*PS*
Cookie to the first to correctly name the sourse of the ZP reference.

Get sent to a big german town where some serious shits goin' down, there's an active resistance in need of assistance and everythings gone grayish brown. Do I win? (ZP Wolfienstien)

HELLS YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And thanks for including the rest of the stanza.

 

[twistedheat15]

I like how ppl make threads similar to this where they name like 4-5 popular games of the last 3 years, and suddenly it constitutes all of what games are doing now a days, dispite the 800 other games that also came out w/o the same premise.

OP: PPL like to jump into drama, and not always get spoon fed random side stories. Shit hitting the fan is big, loud, and direct. No need to listen to boring back stories and slow building, just "crazy shits over there and it's coming for you, deal with it!" Details can be told after I dealt with it. Chances are if you told most "a world of shit is over there" they walk run toward it unless they're in a jrpg, but when shit drops on your lap or coming toward you, you're thrown in the action at start.

 

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

Half life doesn't start with serious shit. i mean you spend half an hour on a train. And In HL2 you go through customs, I mean really. Customs. BORING

 

[lacktheknack]

What about Portal? The whole point of the game for the first two thirds was to FIND OUT that serious shit was going down.