The Big Picture: Off the Charts

[D_987]

The argument people have presented: most games in general have lackluster story, western games are no worse than non-western.

That argument does not conflict with Bob's statement. Most western games have lackluster story even if most non-western games also have lackluster story.[/quote]

Incorrect, in fact most posters [at least when I posted my original post] have presented the same two or three games as examples of good stories; leading me to beleive there is more of a consensus on games generally considered to have strong story-telling.

Did that clear it up for you? I could try being more detailed if you need it, but it's not a complicated position.

It cleared up the fact my hunch you were making a statement based on what you want to see, and not the reality of the situation was correct, yes. Furthermore, Bob's statement implies that Eastern games do a better job of telling a story, not that they are equally as poor.

 

[Shjade]

The argument people have presented: most games in general have lackluster story, western games are no worse than non-western.

That argument does not conflict with Bob's statement. Most western games have lackluster story even if most non-western games also have lackluster story.

Incorrect, in fact most posters [at least when I posted my original post] have presented the same two or three games as examples of good stories; leading me to beleive there is more of a consensus on games generally considered to have strong story-telling.

Furthermore, Bob's statement implies that Eastern games do a better job of telling a story, not that they are equally as poor.

The implication is there. Then again, Bob only has about as many examples listed in his video for what games he think have stories worth making into movies (Zelda, Mario, MGS, Castlevania - that is the guy from Castlevania on the left, isn't it?) as the flamers here are listing for Western games, which indicates he isn't seeing a whole lot of options in the non-Western bin either. You can read as much or as little into the minutiae of his presentation as you want; there's support for both sides in it.

As to your first point, you realize you're supporting my position there, right? Yes, most posters have presented the same two or three games as examples of good stories. Key phrase: "two or three games." Two or three is not the majority of games, the majority of games having weak stories, thus going back to what I said - "The argument people have presented: most games in general have lackluster story, western games are no worse than non-western."

There is a consensus on games considered to have strong story-telling, that consensus being, "There aren't many of them."

 

[Acting like a FOOL]

Apparently bull-shit storylines are non-existent in the east where perfection is achieved with ease due to cultural superiority.

 

[D_987]

this and on a side note the statement is backed up by the the reality of the world in witch you inhabit. if you have been a serious gamer for any period of time and do not have your head up your ass( are honest with yourself) you are aware that 99% of games have terrible stories and that a 1st grader could count the number of western games that have good stories without using his toes.(not commenting on eastern games, have not played enough of them to know if their any better)

[spoiler = Define "good story"]

Call of Duty 4 had a good story.
Bioshock had a good story.
Red Dead Redemption had a good story.
Mass Effect had a good story.
Assassins Creed games period [going by your logic that's 3] have good stories.
The Witcher had a good story.
Beyond Good and Evil told a good story.
KOTOR told a good story.
The Longest Journey told a good story.
Grim Fandango told a good story.
Second Sight told a good story.[/spoiler]

There - 11 perfectly good examples [and I really couldn't care less if you agree or not, these are just examples] of games from this and the last console generation alone [so we're not touching the classics] of Western made games with strong story-lines; as accepted as general consensus by players and reviewers alike.

 

[D_987]

As to your first point, you realize you're supporting my position there, right?

Unless your position has suddenly changed no, I'm not.

Yes, most posters have presented the same two or three games as examples of good stories. Key phrase: "two or three games." Two or three is not the majority of games, the majority of games having weak stories, thus going back to what I said - "The argument people have presented: most games in general have lackluster story, western games are no worse than non-western."

Hate to break it to you but that doesn't support what you're saying at all - you're arguing neither Western or Eastern games hold a general consensus when it comes to quality story-telling; yet the fact the same few titles keep getting brought up indicates there is a general consensus that those games are the pinnacle of game story-telling [now whether that's a good thing is an entirely different matter] and not those Bob supports, because posters see these games has superior.

I can't imagine anyone agreeing with Bob's example though - there was a Mario movie, a Zelda TV series - they were terrible, what more evidence does he need that those types of games would not transition well?

There is a consensus on games considered to have strong story-telling, that consensus being, "There aren't many of them."

Which has nothing to do with your point at all.

 

[dragonburner]

Ok: 1. Uncharted has a great story. The problem with it becoming a movie is that it is essentially a playable form of the Indiana Jones type of treasure hunter.

2. Nathan drake is not a douche nor is he Dane Cook.

 

[Bayushi_Kouya]

Watching this Big Picture has actually expanded my vocabulary -- I've got a new word, which I will pronounce 'moviebob' -- it will mean 'to do a stupendously good job analyzing something, then completely fail to make a valid point afterwards.'

WE DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FUCKING MOVIE. Not one little piss-yellow bit.

The point is, games made into movies are a way to advocate the gaming medium to a broader audience. When we're pissed about bad film adaptions of games, it's not because the films are bad -- as is adroitly pointed out in the video, bad films are a dime a dozen -- we're pissed that we're made to look common, or worse, like morons to OTHER PEOPLE. If gaming had a GOOD movie, one that provided the same or better emotional experience as the source material, then we would not look bad.

WE ARE SELF-CONSCIOUS ABOUT OUR IMAGE. Self-reference your own image of the typical video game aficionado (subtract all Facebook games from the equation so as not to skunk the average), and you can see why.

Three Kings was meh, I <3 HUCKABEES was 90 min of my life I'll never get back. I didn't watch The Fighter because I know what calibre of tripe Russel produces now. He's going to bring the same, Brett Ratner-esque level of mediocrity to Uncharted, it's going to fail, and we're going to continue to look like morons.

That's why we're upset.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

The problem is that, regardless of how good/bad Russell's version of Uncharted is, nothing to do with Uncharted based on the available information. Fans of the series are not complaining because they think this Uncharted is going to be a bad movie, they're complaining because it has no connection to the IP it's supposedly based on. It's not an issue of quality, it's an issue of using a somewhat known name simply to get your movie green lit and secure extra unwarranted ticket sales.

And this is a "problem" because.... I'd rather have a good Uncharted movie that has nothing to do with the game, rather than have a faithful adaptation that's crappy. Look at Apocalypse Now. It has almost nothing to do with the source material, yet when you read Heart of Darkness, it still "feels" like a similar idea, while conveying an entirely different message. If I want to experience Uncharted The Game, I'll play the Uncharted games. It's not like he'll win some sort of prize for obsessively sticking close to the source material.

Let's compare bad video game movies for a moment: Prince of Persia Vs. Super Mario Bros. As bad as Mario Bros was, it was at least weird enough to be interestingly bad. You keep watching just to see what random crap was going to pop up on the screen. However, I couldn't make it past the first 40 minutes of Prince of Persia, due to the fact that it involved watching a CGI Jake Gyllenhaal do acrobatics against a vague enemy for vague reasons. When you take a game and simply remove the ability to control what's going on, it's astonishingly boring. Whereas Mario was laughably bad, Prince of Persia was that special kind of middling bad that's not even fun to joke about. It's just okay. Unmemorable. Pointless.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Whoo boy.

You just had to throw in that "for a western developed video game" line didn't you?

I'm not even gonna touch that. Because if I did it would just consist of me yelling, "Bioshock!" over and over.

And now I've started touching that.

...

I'm outa here.

Yea I wasn't really a fan of that comment either...not that Uncharted has a particularly good story though.

In my opinion eastern developed games just continuously re-hash their stories over and over again.

For example, Final Fantasy...sure it may be different but I have found that it is basically the same game with a few tweaks to the story over the years.

 

[Darks63]

seems more like hollywood is trying to reboot the Indiana Jones francheise but without the name in the case of uncharted.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

this and on a side note the statement is backed up by the the reality of the world in witch you inhabit. if you have been a serious gamer for any period of time and do not have your head up your ass( are honest with yourself) you are aware that 99% of games have terrible stories and that a 1st grader could count the number of western games that have good stories without using his toes.(not commenting on eastern games, have not played enough of them to know if their any better)

[spoiler = Define "good story"]

Call of Duty 4 had a good story.
Bioshock had a good story.
Red Dead Redemption had a good story.
Mass Effect had a good story.
Assassins Creed games period [going by your logic that's 3] have good stories.
The Witcher had a good story.
Beyond Good and Evil told a good story.
KOTOR told a good story.
The Longest Journey told a good story.
Grim Fandango told a good story.
Second Sight told a good story.[/spoiler]

There - 11 perfectly good examples [and I really couldn't care less if you agree or not, these are just examples] of games from this and the last console generation alone [so we're not touching the classics] of Western made games with strong story-lines; as accepted as general consensus by players and reviewers alike.

\

Red dead story is rips offed of various westerns(great game though), Assassin's creed's story started off good but now not so much, all the cod games stories are a joke, Mass effect was pretty good, Bio shocks story and system shocks count as one and the rest I have not played yet. For arguments sake ill cede the 2nd part of my argument, the point I was making in the main statement is still both valid and correct.

You really can't say RDR rips off "various westerns"...it is a genre piece every single genre piece ever made rips off the previous installments.

I agree that Asscreed didn't have a good story, but I thought CoD4 did...and I agree with the rest of the list.

As I said before Eastern Developers re-hash the same stories over and over again...like Final Fantasy.

 

[Shjade]

snip

Please don't take this the wrong way: you are completely misunderstanding my point and I'm unsure of how or why, as you seem to be seeing the opposite of what I'm saying. That's difficult to address.

Posters presented options intending to counter Bob's stated opinion that Western games overall have weak or nonexistent stories. These options are few in number compared to the total of Western games, which means that pointing out a few great examples of stories in that market does not negate the overall point that stories in games - stories in Western games - are weak. Having a consensus on which games are the pinnacle of story-writing does not change the dearth of good storywriting overall in games.

I directly argued that western and eastern gamers hold a general consensus when it comes to quality story-telling in games, specifically that there isn't much of it, and you proceeded to tell me I argued the opposite of that. I don't know how to answer that, I really don't.

Both sides have examples of what they feel are great stories told through games. Those examples are also outnumbered by the majority of games on both sides. Thus, both sides agree that, on the whole, good storytelling in games is rare. Which leads back to good storytelling in western games being rare. Which goes back to "statement is not wrong."

 

[D_987]

Red dead story is rips offed of various westerns(great game though)

No, it's not that's kind of the point - perhaps this explanation will help you understand what makes the games storyline stand out from other Westerns:

"The Real History Behind 2010?s Big Western" [http://kotaku.com/#!5520035/the-real-history-behind-2010s-big-western]

You play the role of John Marston, a former gunman and outlaw, who must now track down and eliminate his former gang mates. You're doing this at the behest of the government, traipsing through the dying remnants of what we once labelled the frontier. So you are, literally, responsible in part for the final demise of what was left of the Old West, rounding up its last surviving populace and clearing them away so that a new world, one of law and order and industry, can take its place.

Assassin's creed's story started off good but now not so much,

Bullshit. The storylines have been unanimously praised; like I said your opinion is worthless because it sounds like you have no idea what you want; anyone can insult something - hell there're people that insult the best films ever created, that doesn't mean they're right or that the work is any less unique and valid due to their critical opinion.

all the cod games stories are a joke,

Gotta mock that opinion - CoD4 has an excellent storyline, it's dramatic, griping, full of twists and turns; the best kind of action storyline - and one that actually has a moral; the same one that has taken the padded out MGS 4 games to explain just as well...

Mass effect was pretty good,

It has a good storyline yes, but it's not the strongest as a narrative on the list.

Bio shocks story and system shocks count as one

Another boring, cliche opinion - if that's true [which it isn't] that doesn't mean the gam is any less powerful as a narrative.

and the rest I have not played yet. For arguments sake ill cede the 2nd part the point I was making in the main statment is still both valid and correct.

No it's not - that's kind of the point of this list; besides 99% of movies have terrible, cliche, unimaginative storylines, same goes for books - it's the few standouts that make the medium great; not the collective.

 

[Shjade]

As I said before Eastern Developers re-hash the same stories over and over again...like Final Fantasy.

Do you really want to go over how many World War 2/It Was The Russians games we've made?

Really?

 

[LittleChone]

"For a western developer," eh?

I still respect your opinion, but you're REALLY starting to push your luck on this site!

 

[Ancientgamer]

Western developers?innovative gameplay, vestigial stories.-EXCEPTIONS NEED NOT APPLY.

Eastern developers-Stagnant, dated gameplay, Colorful stories.-EXCEPTIONS NEED NOT APPLY.

In before some fucking idiot posts 5 or 6 good games to refute my claim even though each industry releases thousands of games each year.