The Story
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Fascinating. This is an interesting idea and probably a very good assessment. Incidentally it puts into words exactly how I feel about neo-Doctor Who versus classic Doctor Who, and now that I think about it probably explains my fading interest in so many games nowadays.Graham Stark said:
I just fail to see why people even mention Half-Life 2 when talking about story. It is indeed a wonderful game, but it's story... it doesn't even have any. I mean, besides fighting a few hundred battles, what happens to Mr. Freeman? Arrives to City17, is told to meet some doctor at location A, by the time he gets there the doctor is gone, so he's sent to location B, then likewise, to location C, where the game ends. Is this a story, really?
Sure, there's some background, you get to know a bit about what happened to _other_ people, but nothing ever happens to the lead character. This is not interactive storytelling, this is pure gameplay with no story, plus some independent stories told non-interactively. No problem with that, the gameplay is great, just don't praise it for its story.
Sure, there's some background, you get to know a bit about what happened to _other_ people, but nothing ever happens to the lead character. This is not interactive storytelling, this is pure gameplay with no story, plus some independent stories told non-interactively. No problem with that, the gameplay is great, just don't praise it for its story.
There's room in this world for Half Life 2/Bioshock/Metroid Prime as well as Metal Gear Solid, Okami, Heavy Rain, Shadow of the Colossus and Limbo. Nothing needs "improving" in terms of what kind of story presentation style gaming takes; there's just different ways of doing things and all can be excellent if the core elements of storytelling are well done, and even THAT'S subjective based on the object of the game itself. Cutscenes, QTEs, first-person views, minimalism, what have you, what form the story takes is irrelevant as long as the emotions are conveyed.
(incoming rage)
I'm so sick of hearing how gaming needs to "be itself" and "quit copying movies/books/whatever" and other crap; it already IS itself as a result of being an amalgam of so many other media forms, with the element of interactivity and fun. I'm sick of Half Life 2 beign brought up as this thing that every game story has to strive to be. I love that I can have desolate, quiet, first-person Tallon IV right next to busy, chatty, movie-wannabe Kamurocho on my shelf, and they don't have to compete for my attention because I love both equally on their own merits.
If you MUST talk of "improving" things, let's talk nitty gritty details, not bring up some old ass game as an example of what the industry needs to "evolve" into, because no, Half Life 2 is NOT perfect, and it's not the only way to tell a story in a game.
Though none of that (or any of what I said at all, honestly) matters at all because in the end, much like movies and music and books, those who want to be SRSBSNS about the ART! of gaming will do what they want, and those who want to do nothing but blow shit up will do what they want, and EVERYONE WINS.
(incoming rage)
I'm so sick of hearing how gaming needs to "be itself" and "quit copying movies/books/whatever" and other crap; it already IS itself as a result of being an amalgam of so many other media forms, with the element of interactivity and fun. I'm sick of Half Life 2 beign brought up as this thing that every game story has to strive to be. I love that I can have desolate, quiet, first-person Tallon IV right next to busy, chatty, movie-wannabe Kamurocho on my shelf, and they don't have to compete for my attention because I love both equally on their own merits.
If you MUST talk of "improving" things, let's talk nitty gritty details, not bring up some old ass game as an example of what the industry needs to "evolve" into, because no, Half Life 2 is NOT perfect, and it's not the only way to tell a story in a game.
Though none of that (or any of what I said at all, honestly) matters at all because in the end, much like movies and music and books, those who want to be SRSBSNS about the ART! of gaming will do what they want, and those who want to do nothing but blow shit up will do what they want, and EVERYONE WINS.
Yea, I have to agree with you and Graham: if it's a sandbox game you're making, concentrate less on a complex story and more on atmosphere and rewarding exploration.ChupathingyX said:
The pretentious and sentimental stories that have become a part of GTA and Fallout this gen are either unnecessary and/or don't really work. I couldn't buy Niko trying to escape his past when I'm driving on the sidewalk lobbing grenades out the window. It made more sense with my Dr Girlfriend character I made for Saints Row2. Even San Andreas (which I love) would've made more sense to me if I had played as Catlina rather than CJ who reeked of pussy.
I'm sorry Graham, but you're totally in the minority on this one. Dialogue trees SHOULD impact the game, and there should be certain content that you have to replay the game and say/do something different in order to see.Graham Stark said:
I know this screws over game reviewers who have to churn through dozens of titles and only get to revisit a bare handful, but the majority of us play and replay the hell out of the few games we buy; branching content like this adds concrete replay value, which translates to bang for our gaming buck. Bioware, Bethesda et al. are doing the right thing by using this tool.
It's a small price to pay for making the players feel like their choices actually matter, which I think is more important than any completionist anxiety that may result.
i dont understand why HL2 is held up as an example by every blue faced preacher of supposedly "good" storytelling. HL2 was fine but i doubt it was - by any stretch of the imagination - the best way. it's a trial and error method, if developers don't try different things then how in hell will they find anything better? I find people who preach that HL2 is the ONLY way to deliver narrative to be as short sighted as Lord Kelvin in the jackie chan movie "Around the world in 80 days" when he said "Everything worth discovering, has already been discovered!"
Hey Yahtzee, have you ever played a game called Breakdown? It was the first game I've seen (and still only) that never left a first person view, you had control in most cutscenes, NPC's would get annoyed if you walked away when they talked an people talked when you walked up to them, and to this day I've never seen anything like it, it had most of the mechanics you mention and it kept you involved. For some reason, the game sold REALLY Shittily and I don't know why.
Also, to Graham, I don't see why you need to be scared of choices, choices happen in life, you make a choice and stick to it, don't feel bad about it later if something unpredictable happens, move on and learn what could've been done better next time, you'll know now, even if you never play the game again.
I do agree people seem to prefer an older medium of telling a story though.
Also, to Graham, I don't see why you need to be scared of choices, choices happen in life, you make a choice and stick to it, don't feel bad about it later if something unpredictable happens, move on and learn what could've been done better next time, you'll know now, even if you never play the game again.
I do agree people seem to prefer an older medium of telling a story though.
I find it ironic and troubling that yahtzee says he enjoys it when story is told from the game-play or environment, yet bashes Halo for lack of one.
The AMAZING part of Halo's story is told this way, fromt the broken bodies, audio logs, and atomspehere in ODST, to the easter eggs and ARG's in the main series.
That, and the books, of course.
The AMAZING part of Halo's story is told this way, fromt the broken bodies, audio logs, and atomspehere in ODST, to the easter eggs and ARG's in the main series.
That, and the books, of course.
Well hey, thanks. I appreciate that a lot. Thanks for also being cool, despite our differing opinions.Neogeta said:I like you quite a bit more now.Thank you for being accessible, seeing you on here has put an unreasonably large smile on my face. I still disagree with you, but I love that you came on here to defend/clarify your point. I am also sorry about how I came off, I was pissed about something else and never thought it would actually reach anybody. Once again +1 for being rad.
Oh! Well then you and I completely agree because San Andreas was outstanding.ImprovizoR said:
I respect that, and appreciate what you're saying. Understand though, that I don't get to play game for a living. At all. I play way, way less games now that before we started working for the Escapist. I can see how that's your perception of it though. We don't play more than 15 minutes of most games we use for Unskippable.GrizzlerBorno said:
In no way am I trying to act victimized or anything so stupid--I know I'm super lucky to have an amazing job doing what I love, but it's a job making videos, not playing games. I just beat Dead Rising 2 last week. That's how far behind I am.
If...If it makes you feel any better, I'm just polishing off New Vegas (and loving the drastic implications of your dialogue choices; sorry)?......but, no wait; sorry scratch that, I burned through Bulletstorm last weekend, sorryGraham_LRR said:
Anyway, I apologize profusely for my mistaken assumptions and I'm glad you get to do what you enjoy doing for a living, which, a lot of people would still...well, you know.....
On a friendlier note: May I recommend Bulletstorm? It doesn't have much Unskippable value (no tangible intro, see?) but it is moderately short (not "brown-FPS" short though), very entertaining, and a real kicker to boot.
(If you know the primary gimmick of that game, the intended pun should be obvious)
Hurm. Long, long ago, I dipped my toe into freelance video game reviewing for awhile back when the PS1 was still going strong. I can sympathize.Graham_LRR said:
I did like that you mentioned this:
I would wholeheartedly agree with this statement.Graham_LRR said:
I was watching the Gamespot review of Duodecim and, in the review, they mentioned that the story is pretty blah. I made the comment that I have FF 1-2, Mystic Quest, 4-10 and 12-13 and Dissidia's storyline is really no better or worse than the other FFs. I remember when the fans were practically writing the life histories of the Street Fighters (until the anime came along and threw a bucket of ice water on the theories that Chun-li and Ryu were star-crossed lovers) and how the mysterious Sheng Long fit into all of it.
These days, we do have less to speculate on during the game and the ingame story often doesn't live up to the stories/life histories that gamers used to concoct in their heads. It's no wonder that we're often a little let down by the story.
Where is this week's Extra Punctuation, Yahtzee?
On topic though, I agree with Graham on this topic and I also think his voice has the most weight here because of Unskippable.
On topic though, I agree with Graham on this topic and I also think his voice has the most weight here because of Unskippable.
I still think that certain parts of Half-Life are basically forced cutscenes with a bad camera angle and I disagree with Yahtzee in wanted to be able to move around whilst talking. Just having the choice is distracting and it reminds you that in real life they'd respond if you weren't looking at them.
That said the way dialogue trees are currently done is even worse. I think the problem comes from the shopping list. Otherwise they could have the dialogue trees whilst something visually even a tiny bit interesting happened. At least during important moments.
And I think you were all missing some big places stories could go. Atmosphere stories, like Silent Hill, Bioshock and Half-Life are all good and amazing but that's not the only thing that can happen either. Just because you have stories that focus on setting doesn't mean that's the only way.
Good games really think and manipulate the choice you have. Uncharted 2 was getting very good at it and One Chance the flash game (if you haven't played it, go now!) is a fantastic example of how well the medium works at telling stories. Everyone whose played Heavy Rain knows the shear mechanics of the thing managed to elevate quite an awful story (even Yahtzee recognised that in his awards thing)
The best bits of MGS' story all come from clever little combinations of story and game. I think we need to be freer with genre and what players can do. Recognise there are different levels of interaction that can all be appropriate in the same game and really work with them. The nuke scene in CoD4 is another great example. As is the bit in Heavy Rain where you can shoot someone, but you can just never pull the trigger if that's not a choice you want to make
That said the way dialogue trees are currently done is even worse. I think the problem comes from the shopping list. Otherwise they could have the dialogue trees whilst something visually even a tiny bit interesting happened. At least during important moments.
And I think you were all missing some big places stories could go. Atmosphere stories, like Silent Hill, Bioshock and Half-Life are all good and amazing but that's not the only thing that can happen either. Just because you have stories that focus on setting doesn't mean that's the only way.
Good games really think and manipulate the choice you have. Uncharted 2 was getting very good at it and One Chance the flash game (if you haven't played it, go now!) is a fantastic example of how well the medium works at telling stories. Everyone whose played Heavy Rain knows the shear mechanics of the thing managed to elevate quite an awful story (even Yahtzee recognised that in his awards thing)
The best bits of MGS' story all come from clever little combinations of story and game. I think we need to be freer with genre and what players can do. Recognise there are different levels of interaction that can all be appropriate in the same game and really work with them. The nuke scene in CoD4 is another great example. As is the bit in Heavy Rain where you can shoot someone, but you can just never pull the trigger if that's not a choice you want to make
You know, probably my favorite in game story was that of Red Dead Redemption, but it was BECAUSE it was open world that it worked. John Marston's out-of-cutscene attitude was strong enough that just dicking around in the sandbox still furthered characterization.
Yahtzee, you may just get that kind of dialogue in Skyrim.
And I had to laugh at Graham's caricature.
"I don't play GTA for the pathos, I play it for the stealing cars and the running down elderly pedestrians." LOL.
But anyway, on topic. I totally agree (who doesn't?) with how cutscenes are misused by game developers. Though I admit I quite liked how in Assassins Creed II you could often opt in to an (entirely optional) quicktime event during dialogue, where if you pressed the right button at the right time you'd get a few extra lines of dialogue, often humorous. It gives you interactivity without compromising flow, unlike all those games which let you sit for hours mulling over what dialogue option you'll say.
And story - almost always what I play a game for. Except for games that are just pure epic like the Assassins Creed series, Crysis, and perhaps Prototype.
So it's very important to me that the story is done right; that it's not mind-bogglingly confusing, or unbelievable or unengaging. So few games fit the criteria for a good story - and the cutscenes rarely help this.
Still, I believe there's hope yet; game development teams are getting ever larger, and just maybe they'll get some sane writers onboard sooner or later.
And I had to laugh at Graham's caricature.
"I don't play GTA for the pathos, I play it for the stealing cars and the running down elderly pedestrians." LOL.
But anyway, on topic. I totally agree (who doesn't?) with how cutscenes are misused by game developers. Though I admit I quite liked how in Assassins Creed II you could often opt in to an (entirely optional) quicktime event during dialogue, where if you pressed the right button at the right time you'd get a few extra lines of dialogue, often humorous. It gives you interactivity without compromising flow, unlike all those games which let you sit for hours mulling over what dialogue option you'll say.
And story - almost always what I play a game for. Except for games that are just pure epic like the Assassins Creed series, Crysis, and perhaps Prototype.
So it's very important to me that the story is done right; that it's not mind-bogglingly confusing, or unbelievable or unengaging. So few games fit the criteria for a good story - and the cutscenes rarely help this.
Still, I believe there's hope yet; game development teams are getting ever larger, and just maybe they'll get some sane writers onboard sooner or later.
