Serious S*** Goin' Down

[Instant K4rma]

Well, yea, it's war. War itself is serious shit. I mean, you need to establish some sort of conflict, and when that conflict is war, serious shit is bound to ensue.

 

[lacktheknack]

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.

Play Silent Hill 2 and try again.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

You do know what a WAR is, right?

Because if not, I should tell you that it's pretty much the most serious shit out there. It's a coincidence that all those games have guns in them, too.

EDIT: Also, I believe you're referencing the "Wolfenstien" review.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

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

True enough; both (Valve-produced) Half-Life games gave you plenty of what I call "faff-about time". Even Blue Shift let you putz around on a firing range and watch Otis eat a donut. Opposing Force, however, had your Osprey get shot down within a minute of your opening fade-in... no room for faffing about there.

Soldiers don't get to faff about, it seems.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

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.

They are following the action movie format. If a show starts with an intense sequence before getting into the main plot or back story, it is this type.

 

[the protaginist]

Uhhh, the first thing i can think of is Psychonauts, it starts fairly slow... "shit" does not "go down" til about 1/3 way through the game.

 

[Zhukov]

Drama requires conflict.

So the defecation has to hit the oscillation sooner or later. Might as well be sooner.

 

[Valiance]

I think Close Combat III, the Russian Front, started off relatively slow.

edit: Old real-time tactics game. I picked III because in II, it starts out with operation market garden, which was a pretty crazy first level. Bridge blowing up and everything.

But it's a war game, technically.

 

[Thaius]

Wait, you're suggesting that shooter stories always start with a big, important event that requires action on the part of the protagonists?!? This is huge! I must tell everyone who's developed narrative theory for the past few centuries!!!!

[/sarcasm]

 

[Good morning blues]

You're right! More video games should start out boring, because that's what's going to make me want to keep going with it.

 

[Tennou486]

The ZP reference is from the Wolfenstein episode where he reviewed it in limerick form.

And Metroid Prime has a pretty quiet beginning, until you lose all your powers.

 

[glyphseeker]

oh oh oh its Zero punctuation: Wolfenstien
I can haz cookie now :3

edit (idk if thats auto added) dammit ninja'd

 

[maturin]

So you're asking if any war games start with something other than combat...

 

[MorsePacific]

Play Silent Hill 2 and try again.

Note the "may". There's exceptions to everything.

 

[Kennian]

CoD 4: SAS commando
MW2: sas commando
Mass effect: N7 commando, and XO of special ops frigate..
Halo and Gears: geneticly engeneered super soldiers

Do you realy see these people sittig around jerking off? Hell even so halo one and two have 10 minute non combat intro's and mass effect 1 runs for 30 before the first shot is fired...

 

[Lullabye]

Uhm...ARMED AND DANGEROUS?
*intro below*

 

[Lullabye]

*ignore, double post*

 

[Ashcrexl]

it's called a hook. game draws you in, you're like SHIT there's SHIT goin down and even if the game slows to a crawl later, you've already been hooked and are obligated to finish cuz there might be more SHIT goin down later. maybe.

 

[Drakmorg]

Well it would be kind of boring if the game never had any serious shit go down. Imagine what any of those games you listed would be like if serious shit wasn't happening.

Imagine what Halo would've been like if everything was fine and humanity didn't need master chief, it'd be a space-colony simulator or something. (not that there's anything wrong with that)

Mass Effect might not have been such a good game if Commander Shepard went around doing... whatever the hell he/she did before becoming a specter.

And Gears of War would've been boring as hell if all the main characters did was practice chest bumping and high five-ing and lumber-jacking since they don't have any unambiguously evil monsters to fight.

 

[DPutna17]

It's called a hook, if the game started out slow you wouldn't want to play it would you.

Also Wolfenstein was the ZP video. Cookie please