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That Fucking Sned
Oct 28, 2010

SirDrone posted:

I think Darkseed 2 is the greatest writing achievement ever.

This will explain everything.

:psyboom:

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Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
LA Noire really highlighted one of the biggest challenges with games: tying storytelling and game play together. So LA Noire has some pretty strong writing, but when it comes to the actual game play segments, it just doesn't translate. The investigation is basically going around and picking up everything and manipulating it to make sure you got every clue possible. The interrogations are entirely trial and error. One of the challenges in the game is that you can know something, and you can know how to put all the pieces together, but your knowledge is limited by what the detective should know and what dialog paths he's opened up, and even when you know that the rope was used to strangle someone, you have to find the right line of questioning to even bring that rope into play. Never mind that the open world segments were pointless and served no purpose except to provide lots of opportunities that never came, and the action sequences were typical GTA bore-fests. The game was just boring.

There are so many games that have great stories but bad game play, or great game play and bad stories. And the thing is, I find myself returning to the ones with great game play and bad stories. Like River City Ransom. The story is just the basic "this dude kidnapped my girlfriend, so I'm going to beat people up and steal their money until I can attack the people that kidnapped my girlfriend." But it's more fun than some of the more pure-story driven experiences.

I think part of the problem too is that when we talk about great story-telling in games, it's all very immature. It feels like we're trying to force ourselves to be adult by praising games that are serious, while ignoring the story-telling opportunities that exist in non-serious games. Take the Lucas Arts adventure games. Even as early as Maniac Mansion, we had pretty good story telling in games. Yes, there are technical limitations due to the fact that MM was originally a Commodore 64 game, but you still have a pretty fun story that's told in a memorable way. And the writing in games like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle still hold up today. And they still can be fun.

The biggest problem facing video game stories today though is a simple one - not enough editing (I say as I enter my fourth sizable paragraph in a post on a comedy forum). There's been so many times where I've played a game, and my response was "Shut the gently caress up and let me get back to doing what I want to do." Some games will just ramble on at you for 10 to 20 minutes as they try to tell their stories. The best example, of course, is the Metal Gear Solid series. The first one wasn't bad, the second one had 40 minute cutscenes you could skip and not miss anything that affects the plot in any meaningful way (goodbye Otacon's Oedipal complex... the gently caress is wrong with Hideo?). The third one was a little long winded, but was more like that friend you have who always stays a little too long, but always leaves before it gets too obnoxious, and you do have a lot of fun with before it's time to go. MGS4 was absolute poo poo, both from a story perspective (I stopped taking nanomachines and now I die of cancer suddenly in five minutes) and in terms of editing (like Chapter 3, which consisted of following someone and then an on-rails motorcycle section, bookend by at least 2 hours of cutscenes that made no sense).

I remember that happening with the latest Infamous game. There was a cutscene early on that just frustrated me because it just seemed to be going back in forth in circles. Here's a tip to game writers: I am playing a video game. If I want to watch a movie, I will use one of the many movie watching options a PS4 offers me.

Lil Swamp Booger Baby
Aug 1, 1981

The reason Spec Ops is likely the only game with competent game writing is because the whole "kill endless guys, die, reloaded, repeat until you reach the end" structure of videogames works perfectly with the whole idea that the plot is essentially his purgatory where he constantly relives and experiences suffering, war, and the consequences of his actions, until he stops hiding from what he did, that's pretty much the long and short of it, it may not be written as well as other games or have the most astoundingly new themes, but the very idea that the mechanics make fundamental sense when it comes to actually having something to do with the story sets it apart from the vast majority of videogames.

That being said, unless that's currently how your game's plot works, you can't really write a good story for a videogame with the way the majority of them are these days. As soon as you have something like The Last of Us where everything between the cutscenes and ingame chatter is just arbitrary filler, it'd be as if you were at a movie, and as soon as the pertinent scenes are over, the theater lights up and you're given a puzzle to complete, a puzzle that happens to have the theme and marketing of the movie slapped onto it, successfully complete the puzzle, and the actual story starts up again.

We have this strange belief that we can make all sorts of excuses and exceptions when it comes to storytelling for videogames, you wouldn't read a book where there was fifty pages of someone simply doing the most tedious repetitive things over and over, described in the same exact way over and over, you wouldn't watch a movie where the circumstances, framing, and means of the action were the same thing, over and over and was strangely and oddly separated from the movie's central drama. So why do people desperately attempt to make that excuse for videogames? It's not good storytelling, and it's also bad writing as an extension because it's an absence of anything that progresses the story or adds tension.

Even Spec Ops is primarily an emotionally negative experience, and what I mean by that, is that it only really works as I described it if you play it on the harder difficulty, in one sitting, and just repeatedly die over and over (even the loading screens support this) until you get to the end. It's not entirely fun, but it makes thematic sense and allows the player to emotionally enter the mindset of the game. It's also how the game needs to be played in order for its themes to make sense, so even in that sense, the game is still limited by typical factors in videogames.
There's also a few other points I can make, like the fact that movies with dark subject matter don't tend to make that subject matter "fun," as there's a large difference between being entertained and having fun, the issue is that games don't understand this difference, we still exclusively have that gameplay in-between plot points because it's fun, not because it necessarily adds anything, there's also the obvious and endless discussion about how violence in videogames is typically a reward, for example, The Last of Us, once again.

Essentially, you can't write a game story and then just litter it throughout and expect it to be good. So far we can say games have good characterization sometimes, can have some profound moments if you look hard enough, but cohesive, competent storytelling in games doesn't really exist and no one is really figuring out a way how to make the whole idea of interaction an integral part of storytelling.
That's why it's pretty bad, and why it's pretty difficult to see gaming actually have good storytelling unless you look at niche products like Gone Home or Papers, Please that try to introduce something more abstract using interactivity, and not necessarily as games.

But that's fine, I don't really understand why the concept of a game is what needs to be exciting about this medium, rather, the idea of interactivity is what needs to drive the storytelling in this new medium, maybe that's the argument that games should stop being classified as videogames, but honestly, it's fun, and it's not a competent or good way to tell stories and that's simply a fact, as long as we expect 12 hour experiences where we do repetitious things completely divorced from the narrative, then it won't change, and that's fine, because that's what the medium is. Let games be games, and then let there be interactive storytelling.
Maybe interactive experiences like Dear Esther, or Gone Home, where the atmosphere, and the ability of the player to look, see, and feel a certain weight and presence within the environment will get us somewhere unique, but videogames will not.

Lil Swamp Booger Baby fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Jul 7, 2014

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.
If Spec Ops: The Line were frustrating and repetitive in a way that were at all interesting, and suggested any sort of craftsmanship, or mastery of the medium, I might be able to entertain an argument that the frustrating, awful gameplay was thematically necessary. It isn't. The mechanics are bad in ways that are just absolutely uninteresting, and gives the impression that the game was made around two months after Gears of War was released. The cover controls are awkward, the shooting is uninspired, and lacks any sense of impact, the movement is floaty and dull. Suggesting that these flaws are central to the game's theme is asinine- yes, they are unpleasant, but I also find awful cinematography, acting, and film directing unpleasant, yet I rarely see people attempt to claim that bad cinematography, acting, or film directing is an attempt to communicate unpleasantness.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


Hat Thoughts posted:

Can't wait for the Homestuck game...the first real art game.

anime games have existed for a long time actually

JebanyPedal posted:

The reason Spec Ops is likely the only game with competent game writing is ~words~

no the reason is that it's a ripoff of an already existing successful work of art

Liquid Penguins
Feb 18, 2006

by Cowcaster
Grimey Drawer
Persona 4 has great writing. They call you senpai and everything. Very authentic!!

Thuryl
Mar 14, 2007

My postillion has been struck by lightning.

Fag Boy Jim posted:

Suggesting that these flaws are central to the game's theme is asinine- yes, they are unpleasant, but I also find awful cinematography, acting, and film directing unpleasant, yet I rarely see people attempt to claim that bad cinematography, acting, or film directing is an attempt to communicate unpleasantness.

You could make a case for "found-footage" horror movies (Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, etc.) doing that, but I hate those movies so I'm not going to try very hard to do it.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.

Thuryl posted:

You could make a case for "found-footage" horror movies (Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, etc.) doing that, but I hate those movies so I'm not going to try very hard to do it.

Even found footage films require craftsmanship- one of the best ways to find this out is to watch a bad found footage film.

Captain Baal
Oct 23, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022
I've been meaning to tell you, icantfindaname, that I like your av a lot.

Lumpy the Cook
Feb 4, 2011

Drippy-goo-yay, mother-gunker!

JebanyPedal posted:

The reason Spec Ops is likely the only game with competent game writing is because the whole "kill endless guys, die, reloaded, repeat until you reach the end" structure of videogames works perfectly with the whole idea that the plot is essentially his purgatory where he constantly relives and experiences suffering, war, and the consequences of his actions, until he stops hiding from what he did, that's pretty much the long and short of it, it may not be written as well as other games or have the most astoundingly new themes, but the very idea that the mechanics make fundamental sense when it comes to actually having something to do with the story sets it apart from the vast majority of videogames.

That being said, unless that's currently how your game's plot works, you can't really write a good story for a videogame with the way the majority of them are these days. As soon as you have something like The Last of Us where everything between the cutscenes and ingame chatter is just arbitrary filler, it'd be as if you were at a movie, and as soon as the pertinent scenes are over, the theater lights up and you're given a puzzle to complete, a puzzle that happens to have the theme and marketing of the movie slapped onto it, successfully complete the puzzle, and the actual story starts up again.

We have this strange belief that we can make all sorts of excuses and exceptions when it comes to storytelling for videogames, you wouldn't read a book where there was fifty pages of someone simply doing the most tedious repetitive things over and over, described in the same exact way over and over, you wouldn't watch a movie where the circumstances, framing, and means of the action were the same thing, over and over and was strangely and oddly separated from the movie's central drama. So why do people desperately attempt to make that excuse for videogames? It's not good storytelling, and it's also bad writing as an extension because it's an absence of anything that progresses the story or adds tension.

Even Spec Ops is primarily an emotionally negative experience, and what I mean by that, is that it only really works as I described it if you play it on the harder difficulty, in one sitting, and just repeatedly die over and over (even the loading screens support this) until you get to the end. It's not entirely fun, but it makes thematic sense and allows the player to emotionally enter the mindset of the game. It's also how the game needs to be played in order for its themes to make sense, so even in that sense, the game is still limited by typical factors in videogames.
There's also a few other points I can make, like the fact that movies with dark subject matter don't tend to make that subject matter "fun," as there's a large difference between being entertained and having fun, the issue is that games don't understand this difference, we still exclusively have that gameplay in-between plot points because it's fun, not because it necessarily adds anything, there's also the obvious and endless discussion about how violence in videogames is typically a reward, for example, The Last of Us, once again.

Essentially, you can't write a game story and then just litter it throughout and expect it to be good. So far we can say games have good characterization sometimes, can have some profound moments if you look hard enough, but cohesive, competent storytelling in games doesn't really exist and no one is really figuring out a way how to make the whole idea of interaction an integral part of storytelling.
That's why it's pretty bad, and why it's pretty difficult to see gaming actually have good storytelling unless you look at niche products like Gone Home or Papers, Please that try to introduce something more abstract using interactivity, and not necessarily as games.

But that's fine, I don't really understand why the concept of a game is what needs to be exciting about this medium, rather, the idea of interactivity is what needs to drive the storytelling in this new medium, maybe that's the argument that games should stop being classified as videogames, but honestly, it's fun, and it's not a competent or good way to tell stories and that's simply a fact, as long as we expect 12 hour experiences where we do repetitious things completely divorced from the narrative, then it won't change, and that's fine, because that's what the medium is. Let games be games, and then let there be interactive storytelling.
Maybe interactive experiences like Dear Esther, or Gone Home, where the atmosphere, and the ability of the player to look, see, and feel a certain weight and presence within the environment will get us somewhere unique, but videogames will not.

Shirkelton
Apr 6, 2009

I'm not loyal to anything, General... except the dream.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

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quakster
Jul 21, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

icantfindaname posted:

anime games have existed for a long time actually
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/First_Japanese_video_game

41 years of video games as art

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