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What's the Franko, Botcho?
January 19th 2003, 14:19 CET by deadlock I have been a regular at PlanetCrap for a number of years now. In that time, we have discussed many many many wonderful things. Again and again, over and over, ad nauseum. However, one of the more interesting subjects that we touch on is the capacity of modern computer games for telling a compelling, interesting tale. With, like, proper character development and shit. I think we can all agree that games up until now have been largely devoid of any real depth. Storylines tend to be simplistic, characters one-dimensional and thematic variation very thin on the ground, the latter generally revolving around some kind of future dystopia. Or Nazi monster chicks in leather. I think we can also agree that games have a capacity to be so much more. What I would like for us to do in this thread is explore videogames as a medium for story-telling. Here are a few questions to kick things off... What are designers doing right? In this category, you've got Deus Ex, Anachronox, the Metal Gear Solid games, any number of RPGs etc. None of these games are perfect examples - Deus Ex, for example is set in a pretty much cookie-cutter future dystopia, albeit a very well realised one, thanks to the huge amount of background story that was added. The Denton brothers aren't the most multi-dimensional characters either; though you could argue that, in the case of JC, that's a good thing since it lets the player impose more of their own personality on the game. What are they doing wrong? Do I really need to expand on this? Duke Nukem? Quake? Almost every game ever created? Finally, Do we even want games with deep, meaningful plots? The aforementioned Duke Nukem and Quake didn't exactly suffer, gameplay-wise, because of a lack of meaningful plot or deep characters. People remember Half-Life's plot as being a lot better than it was, thanks to the fact that it didn't give you a lot of time to actually think about it. Ico, my current obsession, is beautiful in it's simplicity, both aesthetically and plotwise. So, over to you - agree with what I've said here? Disagree? How much importance do you attribute to a game's plot? |
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Topic: What's the Franko, Botcho?
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USB ports are great, but just because I plug my Sidewinder into a different one than normal doesn't mean Windows should think it's a completely new device and reinstall drivers. |
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Says you. |
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There are games with good plot! If you had played some good adventures you would have known! Now you go and play Gabriel Knight, Grim Fandango, Syberia, The Longest Journey, Broken Sword, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes or some other great adventure game with good plots! |
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What? |
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Holy cow! Better do what he says! All those exclamation points must mean something! "People who give John Edwards money are stupid, and you're stupid for defending them, stupid." -- Your Friend |
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Plus, he makes me hungry! |
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That's the kind of guy that needs to be tied to the pipes under the sink to keep him from hurting himself and others. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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That's very compassionate Bailey, I'd have thought you'd be a propenent of hitting him repeatedly with said pipes. Or, failing that, the sink itself. |
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I saw Syberia in the store yesterday. It looked like a really crappy game set in a really cool world. |
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Proponent, even. |
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I thought it was a given that he'd be encouraged to eat what he found under the sink. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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All idiots aside, i still mise my portion of adventure games... *sigh*
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mise is the new 1337 *sigh*
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I agree with ragou. All these replies in this thread, and very, very few references to adventure games, which are nothing if not all about story, plot, and character development. Remember that many action games have borrowed from the adventure genre in terms of being story and exploration driven. Some of the best titles to 'lose yourself in': Gabriel Knight 3: Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned, Grim Fandango, and The Longest Journey. There are also some upcoming titles heavy in story and plot: Broken Sword 3, Hannibal, and Call of Cthulhu to name a few. |
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Gabriel Knight 3 rocked my cock. |
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Ragou and anon-- Gunp01nt did say "with the exception of adventure games." Pay attention. |
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You expect anonymous folks to read shit? |
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Ah, Anonymous posts extolling the virtues of adventure games. If there's a more harmonious union, I don't want to see it. |
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Sorry, Ergo. (Somehow when I posted, it made me 'Anonymous') I didn't read every single post. Anyway, I listed a couple of upcoming titles that are not pure adventures, but are still heavily story, puzzle, and exploration driven (arguably three of the adventure genre's legacy). Most adventures lack any sort of action elements. Do most everyone here prefer a combination of action and adventuring? Deus Ex is in my top ten of most cherished games, and it's a perfect combination. I imagine Call of Cthulhu will be the same. Also, I highly recommend Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr, and the Silent Hill series. Very nice. |
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Adventure games are cool, except for the "cat hair moustache" component of some of them. |
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You mean the "Sierra Phenomena"? Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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Ryslin: Sounds like a nice guy, your boyfriend. And if you ever feel like hiding, I've got the perfect hiding place for you. Joker, Ph.D. Procedural Assholian Behaviour, Pedophilosopher
- All your ass are belong to my wang Jafd. Prepare to are penetration. "I fart in THX." - Sgt_Hulka PENETRATOR: Rise of the Wang Cuming March 19 (Wang Wednesday) |
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Heh, coming late to this party. #12 by Warren Marshall Finally, Do we even want games with deep, meaningful plots? I think this is more to the point. Why do people harp on about deep story lines in games? Why do they want that? Why not just have fun within the games universe and leave the story telling to movies and books? Because story and characters give you stuff that you can relate to. They provide the context for your actions. Why did you guys spend money on the UT2k3 opening cinematics? To establish that there are intrguing characters (umm... well, ok characters) and to provide the setting and context for the killing. #29 by Caryn Hugin hit it on the mark: "story" shouldn't always be "cutscenes only or reading lots of stuff". I think so far we've seen a lot of that because developers are still trying to find a way to mesh the story with the gameplay. If you have a plotted out story that you're trying to tell, you really have to tie up your gamer for a minute or two in order to tell it, otherwise he might wander off to go shoot things and miss the plot point you're trying to convey. Yeah, integrating the story with the gameplay is a hot topic at our office, and it’s darn hard. It usually boils down to the basic problem of how do you tell a story if almost any component is optional. #71 by Marsh Davies You know, I quite like the protagonist to have a specific identity, other than my own... Actually, I think that in any given game we are play-acting. Even in Doom you’re not yourself (the nerd with the glasses), but you’re play-acting the role of The Space Marine with The Shotgun. Sure, there may be a conflict if you create a character that people don’t like (Gabriel Knight 3 anyone?), so the “guy with the shotgun” is certainly an easy neutral way to avoid pissing anyone off, but then again it also misses such massive potential. Characters are memorable, they’re intriguing and they’re certainly a strong differentiating factor for any game. #92 by Hugin Give me (somehow) the game equivalent of a romantic comedy with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts/Meg Ryan/Sandra Bullock, and suddenly you're talking about a whole new world of people to sell games to. Me? Maybe not (or maybe so). This is so absolutely right. The developer who creates the first comedy game will have a good future. The developer who manages to make people cry will change the world of gaming. Games are moving forward from the basic emotions of scare or sruvival and starting to work on a wider emotional range. #103 by Warren Marshall True. However, I imagine the market for adult games is a lot smaller than the one for "kids" games. If a company has to weigh both types of games against trying to make money, adult games doesn't look like a great avenue to pursue. Smaller market, much more demanding, etc. Smaller market? Average gamer nowadays is probably somewhere in 28 age. And if you hit adult segment, these people are the ones who have jobs and buy stuff (instead of warezing). |
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Games are moving forward from the basic emotions of scare or sruvival and starting to work on a wider emotional range. Har. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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The developer who creates the first comedy game will have a good future. Uh, Lucasarts? The developer who manages to make people cry will change the world of gaming. Final Fantasy 7 and the death of Aeris is often quoted as the moment that made people cry. Other Final Fantasy games have done it too. It won't have any impact on DNF. Nothing really does.
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I think he meant romantic comedy, Foody. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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Aeris dies? OH MY GOD YOU JUST SPOILED THE GAME FOR ME! (just kidding) You can't derail this train of idiocy, Shadarr. Not even with a big fat cow of logic on the tracks. - Bailey
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Yeah, integrating the story with the gameplay is a hot topic at our office, and it’s darn hard. It usually boils down to the basic problem of how do you tell a story if almost any component is optional. There's always the Golden Sun method: ask the player a yes/no question and then ignore the answer. |
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hm. interesting topic. do i want games with deep, meaningful stories? depends. if i play the deep, meaningful story (deus ex is the poster child here), yes. if i watch it, with just enough clicking required to keep me awake (final fantasy, most "adventure" games), no. i want to play a game, not experience an interactive novel. key word here is "play." By this time tomorrow we can be doing BODY SHOTS off HOOKERS in some MEXICAN HELLHOLE
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I'm curious as to whether those who felt emotionally moved by Aeris' death fall into a creepy sub-sector of gamers, like those who collect FF hentai, or those who write Cloud/Barret slash fiction. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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We are veering dangerously close to Max Diablos territory here. Won't you please think of the children? |
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Can we define the meaning of "think" first? Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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AAAAH! |
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I didn't get much impact out of aeris's death, but the parts where Cloud went nuts really gave me the shivers. I still think the FF2 intro to the final boss fight was one of the most moving game moments for me. Here you have everyone that's been basically wiped out in one blow by Zemus, and then everyone on the planet gives them strength, and they come back, and fight Zeromus. That rocked. "People who give John Edwards money are stupid, and you're stupid for defending them, stupid." -- Your Friend |
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It's ok to feel pain and sorrow when for no god damn reason, Aeris dies. I don't even want to talk about it...bastards. I believe I can fly......urk.
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Bailey I think most of the people who cried at Aeris' death were just incredibly detached, emotionally, from the rest of the world. They can't form effective, meaningful bonds with other humans, so they invest themselves so heavily into a poorly written videogame character that upon her untimely demise, they are brought to tears and bouts of denial. Of course, I cried at the end of Monsters, Inc. I think I'm losing it. "The internet has gone all fiddle faddle foo."
-lwf |
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I used to feel the same way everytime Hannibal and Face would drug B.A. to get him on an airplane. |
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Case closed. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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The main reason I cried over Aeris' death was that I'd just spent about a hundred hours of game time (figuratively speaking, but come on, that game was *too* *fucking* *long*) training chocobos, winning endless fights against creatures that pop up every 10 seconds, watching hour-long cutscenes that I couldn't skip, all to keep her safe, and the bitch dies anyway. It'd crack up any man, I tell ya. *sob* "Since most elephants don't comply with the AGP 2.0 specification, we recommend that God does a product recall on all elephants"
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I haven't played that specific game, but it really bothers me when I go to the trouble of leveling my character to the point that they can kick anyone's ass, even the überboss at the end, and then there's some stupid scripted sequence that I could totally avoid if I had any control over my character at that point. Like in Golden Sun, where I'd beat the main guys in a fight and then they'd inexplicably not be dead, and they'd hop up unharmed and I'd have to either chase or fight them some more. That's just stupid. If it were really me, I would've killed them when they were down, and then chopped their bodies into tiny pieces, burned the pieces and spread the ashes. |
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in the middle of Phantasy Star 4, one of the people dies. But you can actually heal her real quick and have her fight in the mid game boss battle. She'll still be dead afterwards though, but it was kinda funny. Ah, Nei. I believe I can fly......urk.
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Oops, I mean PS 2. I believe I can fly......urk.
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It always bugs me, and by bugs I mean destroys the immersiveness utterly, when in RPGs where you have healing spells/potions and resurrection spells/potions all over the place, suddenly they toss in a scripted segment where someone dies. It's like "Wait, a dragon can engulf him in fire, swords can be driven through his body, he can be encased in ice, and bounce back from all of that no problem, but he's gonna die now in the arms of another character that I know good and well has 40 healing potions and 15 Phoenix Down's? Bah. |
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LPM It is explained that Neifirst and Nei share such strong mental bonds, that the death of the former leads to the inevitable death of the latter. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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It is explained that Neifirst and Nei share such strong mental bonds, that the death of the former leads to the inevitable death of the latter. Your nerd aura is overpowering. Put on your two step shoes, lose the blues and dance like it's year zero.
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I can smell it from here. No, wait, that's me. |
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You've mistaken my google aura for a nerd aura. It's a common mistake. And in any case, you sir, are not one to be throwing stones. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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Google Nerd! |
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I can live with that. Cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
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Foodbunny: Final Fantasy 7 and the death of Aeris is often quoted as the moment that made people cry. Other Final Fantasy games have done it too. I was saddened by her death but actually that was the turning point where I started to hate the game. Where's the role-playing in that "RPG" if I, as the player, have no control over the character I'm playing/controlling? I mean in the cinematic Cloud just stood there while Aeris was skewered. Sure, it made for a better story but at the cost of gameplay (linear story with some scripted and random fights thrown in). |
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