Videogames in the Master Plan

[DioWallachia]

not sure I can answer that question...

I will say though that I find it kind of sad even people working in the biz themselfs may even think its a "lesser" medium.....somtimes thise does show

and its also disconcerting when gamers themself show this attitude "most game stoys/writng sucks, "seriously...if you want to tell a story don't bother with videogames" <-I feel thats part of the problem

you don't try you don't get anywhere

I really dont want to have the lvls of fatalism presented in games like Legacy Of Kain (with predestination an such) but to think that people TODAY still make the same mistakes as before, learning from their mistakes to repeat them with precision, is quite depressing.
I mean, we have the fucking Internet to check that out now, are the writers really THAT lazy and self absorbed that they actually believe they are the ONLY people that exist that they have to deal with such responsibility?

In the other hand, i can understand why the medium hasn't advanced at ALL. Here is it....Pride. Pride over the player and other game developers.

*/For your reading pleasure, pretend you heard the voice of Tony Jay in the roll of the most villainous, smug bastard you could ever imagine, to properly immerse into the mind of a writer. Here is a video if you need to properly visualize the relation between player and writer/*

Spoiler

"Aaaaaaaah, the player, that insignificant creature that exist to derail my carefully crafted creation. The mere though of having this.....filthy brute, exploring my world is unbearable. Always asking questions that doesn't matter, paying attention to the shiny lights like the flies they are and not appreciating the dialog that even Shakespeare will be jealous off. If only i could make them go in a linear path where there is nothing else to look they will pay attention to my grandiose script, if only.....wait a second..........cutscenes!! yeeeees, they will do just fine."

(after the game is finished)

"OH! there you are my dear player. I must inform you that your choices in this game have been severely diminished, for you own good of course, i hope that you understand. See, we dont want to waste each other time and there are many many choices that you wouldn't be able to bear in your hearth, for them are just too complex to understand. But fear not, i shall guide you in your journey and we will work together.......as long as you.....trust ME....as your friend."

The pride over other developers can be represented by the fact that, since this is a new medium, one wants to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that YOUR GAME is the one that everyone is going to look up to, and will be accomplished by screaming LOUDER than anyone on the field.

Case in point:

Spoiler

Even the wiki mentions that Mass Effect was "inspired" by films like Aliens, Star Wars, Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan and Starship Troopers. But no games mentioned, and why would they? why say that someone may have done the same as them? don't want to let the people know that they ripped off the plot of Star Control?
Hell, lets not even mention the fact that Planescape: Torment uses the same engine as Baldur's Gate (a game by Bioware) and that you can solve most of your problem by talking, even the final boss.

So you see, there IS plenty of material to work candidates for "games as art", they are just too busy killing each other to care. And lets not forget that games are "toys" to the populace, and for that reason games don't have the privilege of being preserved properly just like the "Epic Of Gilgamesh" that is thousands years old. Games that are not even 20 years old, however, dont have that luxury.

 

[Vault101]

So you see, there IS plenty of material to work candidates for "games as art", they are just too busy killing each other to care. And lets not forget that games are "toys" to the populace, and for that reason games don't have the privilege of being preserved properly just like the "Epic Of Gilgamesh" that is thousands years old. Games that are not even 20 years old, however, dont have that luxury.

I get what your saying, but I cant say I agree 100%

mainly in that I have no problem with linearity or cutscenes, if the creator of the game wants to take me on a journey or tell me a story then I'm more than happy to comply, as Ive said before I don't like applying blanket statments to games in terms of what techniquies they use, whatever works

I wouldnt complain if things played out linerally in Mass Effect IF that was the kind of game they claimed it was...it wasnt..it was a game that put emphasis on choices, and if you put emphasis on choiced then you better be able to deliver..which unfortunatly they did not

as for cutscenes...as I said they are not inherintly bad,being a huge mass effect fan, I loved the great sense of adventure such as the first time we dock in the citadel or when talking to my crew member...again I actually like the cinematic aproach Bioware has. Cutscenes work because they show us emotion....somthing a game like Fallout:new vegas may have benefitted from IMO

my point being through the use of camera angles and focus the conversations in Mass Effect became much more engaging

that said there have been two cases that did make me want to kill somone Yakuza and Vanqusish (both japnease and from SEGA...hmmm) I mean they jsut went on...and on....and on...vanquish was worse because THIS IS NOT TELLING ME ANYTHING I NEED TO KNOW it was just explosions and fighting..and it just went on...and on...and on..and FUCK YOU GAME!! FUCK YOU WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO MEEEE!!!??? <- but I have hardly played any games that got that bad

I also I think I get what you are saying with the "draw inspriation" thing but I don't agree that "games should only draw inpiration from agmes" (which I know you might not have meant that) its great to draw inspiration from anywhere and anything...and a classic sci fi space opera was exactly what they wanted mass effect to be and was what they delivered

 

[DioWallachia]

...as for cutscenes...as I said they are not inherintly bad,being a huge mass effect fan, I loved the great sense of adventure such as the first time we dock in the citadel or when talking to my crew member...again I actually like the cinematic aproach Bioware has. Cutscenes work because they show us emotion....somthing a game like Fallout:new vegas may have benefitted from IMO

my point being through the use of camera angles and focus the conversations in Mass Effect became much more engaging

I also I think I get what you are saying with the "draw inspriation" thing but I don't agree that "games should only draw inpiration from agmes" (which I know you might not have meant that) its great to draw inspiration from anywhere and anything...and a classic sci fi space opera was exactly what they wanted mass effect to be and was what they delivered

Being inspired by anything you want is not a bad thing, the problem arises when the only thing people seems inspired is films rather than games, implies that games had nothing to offer or weren't just groundbreaking in the minds of the authors. We know that this isnt truth, but then again, if the developers start quoting other games then that would be shining the spotlight over the heads of your opponent in the "business", know what i mean?

Ditto for cutscenes. Not bad on their own if that is the artistic choice, but isn't AUDIENCE INTERACTIVITY what makes games be games in the first place?

To put that in perspective, Citizen Kane is "The Best Movie of All Time" not for his plot (is a simple plot) but for how is told. To quote the infamous "games are not art" Roger Ebert "Is not what the story is about, but HOW is about". CK managed to use not only several techniques that were previously used in several movies but ALSO some unique visuals for its time. And the critics, instead of just listing a bunch of separate movies, they just pointed out at this one since it already had everything plus some original visuals on his own. In the end that is what films are about, to tell a story rich in visuals IS the most triumphant example that Cinema can offer as an Art form.

So what would be the Most Triumphant example for games? one that not only does the visuals as Cinema but ALSO is fully interactive with its audience, shame that the second one gets ignored quite often. Now dont get me wrong, one could do a movie that is just a text wall crawling over the screen for 2 hours, and may possibly be the BEST STORY EVER WRITTEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, but just plain text is not using the medium at his full potential, to the point that one wonders why just not make a book out of it instead of a movie.

My example of wall of text would be Planescape: Torment. And well written wall of text mind you, with many choices for the players that game developers BOAST their games have, but a wall none less.