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Alc .
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 109 Location: UK
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:11 am Post subject: |
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dark steve wrote: | Pure cinema isn't a big deal at all. It's just "show, don't tell." A pure game just has to express itself through play above all else. | Does a game have to be pure to be fun though? I mean, sometimes I like being told. I really enjoyed the dialogue cutscenes in Wind Waker, for example, and I also appreciated that they'd used text instead of voice over, as I generally really hate voice acting and much prefer my own imagination.
Wouldn't the videogame equivalent of pure cinema be Tetris? Any storyline, characters etc shown and it wouldn't be "pure". |
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DaleNixon .
Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 179
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:59 am Post subject: |
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I look forward to the cutscenes in Silent Hill games. |
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Ketch .
Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 420
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 8:04 am Post subject: |
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I still think that it is possible to tell a kind of story through well chosen imagery, but the problem with 'stories' in games is that they tend to limit the potential of the game element. Ie. Instead of having very dynamic gameplay they tend to turn into thinly veiled puzzle games where you have to work out the trick to get past each section, ie. use the rail gun and bounce it off the mirrors to kill the boss. Whereas older games had many alternative ways through the same level with differing risk /rewards(ie. Super Mario Bros), there is usually a critical path in games like Tomb Raider etc.
Back to the idea of the imagery, I'd love to see a game with an 'enemy' like the expanding nothingness in The Neverending Story. It would push you in the right direction (ie. towards the Princess). I think that story needs to be seen as a mixture of pushing the player and pulling the player, most games tend to pull the player through with Carrots. Can you imagine the visceral impact of playing a game like Shadow of Colossus with a deadly fog-of-war following you? and seeing the landscape wither as it approaches. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 8:45 am Post subject: |
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DaleNixon wrote: | I look forward to the cutscenes in Silent Hill games. |
Yeah, but those aren't the best parts of the games. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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ApM Admin Rockstar
Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1210 Location: Ottawa, ON
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:15 am Post subject: |
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dessgeega wrote: | i think cutscenes can only really work when they're actually cutscenes. like, cut-away. "meanwhile, it a totally different place where the player can exert no control."
taking away the player's autonomy over the player character rarely sits right with me. |
I actually have a moderately clever game design kicking around in my head which would use this to its advantage. |
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Tablesaw .
Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 303 Location: LACAUSA
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 10:20 am Post subject: |
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dessgeega wrote: | i think cutscenes can only really work when they're actually cutscenes. like, cut-away. "meanwhile, it a totally different place where the player can exert no control." |
The first time I ever saw the word "cutscene" it was describing just this situation, specifically in Maniac Mansion. Since then, I've often wondered if this was the original meaning, and that the usage has drifted. Does anyone know? _________________ It's the saw of the table! |
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kuzdu .
Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Washington Heights
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 10:25 am Post subject: |
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I've often thought that cut-scenes were analogous to waiting for another player to finish her turn in a board game. It's a time when control and input is taken away from you and you can pay attention or not, but it provides context and motivation for you when you resume playing. It's an imperfect analogy, but I feel like there's something to it. |
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GilloD .
Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 33
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:46 am Post subject: |
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Greatsaintlouis wrote: | All the cool kids now hate Final Fantasy VII. Come on man, everyone's doing it. |
I think we were all like 12 when FF7 came out and so it was the Cat's PJs. It had dudes with big swords and jiggly heroines and crazy special moves and an epic quest and a VAMPIRE WITH GUNS and a black man and so we were all, "Hells yeah, forget summer, man, it's time for Kool Aid and HoHos and Final Fantasy".
10 years later, having read more books and dated more women and watched more movies and, frankly, played better games, you start to realize what a strange and painful game FF7 really is. It's not about being "cool", it's about getting some expirence in narrative. |
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Swimmy .
Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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GilloD's got it. FFVII is a game for 12 year olds, just like early Weezer is rock for 12 year olds.
Mind, I still love early Weezer. Which explains a few things. _________________
"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin |
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dark steve .
Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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Alc wrote: | dark steve wrote: | Pure cinema isn't a big deal at all. It's just "show, don't tell." A pure game just has to express itself through play above all else. | Does a game have to be pure to be fun though? I mean, sometimes I like being told. I really enjoyed the dialogue cutscenes in Wind Waker, for example, and I also appreciated that they'd used text instead of voice over, as I generally really hate voice acting and much prefer my own imagination.
Wouldn't the videogame equivalent of pure cinema be Tetris? Any storyline, characters etc shown and it wouldn't be "pure". | I don't think that's true! As I said, a game CAN have text and cutscenes and all that noise and not explicitly suffer from it. HOWEVER. Within a game, the best cutscenes in the world won't have the impact of the same event expressed entirely through play. What if the first ten minutes of Half Life 2 consisted of the same sequence, but done as a cutscene? Which is better? That's what I mean by purity. |
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ryan .
Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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Greatsaintlouis wrote: | All! |
It's because I've had games I really enjoy hit me hard when I've gone back to play them. There are plenty of games that I play regularly that are old - Excite Bike, Sega Rally, Nights, Virtua Fighter 2, SFA 2, GunSmoke, etc. - but when it doesn't hit you like you're expecting, it's a bitter experience. So of course some games hold up over time, but some aspects of and titles themselves simply do not. And as someone has since put it, and you mentioned, it's also a different mindset. I was older than 12, but not much, and there's a factor that's unpredictable in that. It's not and never was one of the games I had to go back through and play - I wanted to try all the FFs then, after seeing a few collections cheap at EB - so it's not a title I'm dying to go through again, so if I can leave well enough be, keeping fond memories unscathed by experience, then I would prefer that.
Brandon has a good article relating to this at IC. Ah hell, I can't find it. I'll have to ask him the title. _________________ Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart. |
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GilloD .
Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 33
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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Swimmy wrote: | GilloD's got it. FFVII is a game for 12 year olds, just like early Weezer is rock for 12 year olds.
Mind, I still love early Weezer. Which explains a few things. |
Haha. I wouldn't quite say that, but it doesn't compete on the level it's been elevated to. It's like the anime nerds who insist that "Super Mecha Love Generations 9: Neon Growpoint" is GOOD ANIME because it's not about robots fighting against an unseen evil and the one boy who has magic powers to save the world.
Well, yeah, it's the best anime out there, but that's like being the best baseball player on your Little League team. I think when we talk about FF7, you have to approach it as the best RPG circa-199x, whenever it was that it came out.
It's not an RPG for 12 year olds, perse, but an RPG for a 12 year old mindset. How Marxist of me. |
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Alc .
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 109 Location: UK
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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dark steve wrote: | I don't think that's true! As I said, a game CAN have text and cutscenes and all that noise and not explicitly suffer from it. HOWEVER. Within a game, the best cutscenes in the world won't have the impact of the same event expressed entirely through play. What if the first ten minutes of Half Life 2 consisted of the same sequence, but done as a cutscene? Which is better? That's what I mean by purity. | I think we've got a bit tangled here. I was talking about dialogue boxes mostly, cinematics less so, and I do definitely consider them a separate issue. Half-life 2 probably would suffer from both frozen-camera dialogue boxes and cinematics. Wind Waker doesn't have many cinematics from what I remember (they were certainly non-invasive) but my main thought was that the game would not make a greater impact if all of the dialogue flowed through gameplay (ie real-time voice acting), which seemed to be what you were suggesting.
This bit still gets me slightly though:
"Within a game, the best cutscenes in the world won't have the impact of the same event expressed entirely through play."
I can't think of an instance where a cutscene would have a greater impact to play, but I don't like saying it's a given. |
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kuzdu .
Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Washington Heights
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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Alc wrote: | Any storyline, characters etc shown and it wouldn't be "pure". |
That seems about right to me. In fact you could make the argument that music in games isn't pure unless it's algorithmically generated from the player's actions. This is why I'm not really attracted to ideas of 'purity' in any art form. It seems like it has more to do with ideology than creativity.
dark steve wrote: | Within a game, the best cutscenes in the world won't have the impact of the same event expressed entirely through play. |
I don't know, oftentimes I feel like some of the most affecting parts of a game are when I don't have control for a little while.
Look, I'm not making an argument for FF style cut-scenes, I think that they definitely need to be integrated with gameplay more fluidly most of the time, and I agree whole-heartedly with dessgeega's caveat (which now that I say it, should be an official game design term). Getting rid of them altogether though, or referring to them as 'impure', seems like a bit much.
Dessgeega's Caveat: A cut-scene should only be used when the events it depicts are beyond the control of the player. |
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SuperWes Updated the banners, but not his title
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 3725
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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dark steve wrote: | Within a game, the best cutscenes in the world won't have the impact of the same event expressed entirely through play. |
I get where you're going with this, but I think it's missing a key ingredient that makes it somewhat incorrect. Specifically the "same event" part is misleading. Part of the reason cutscenes exist is because the things they show simply can't be expressed through play, not that the teams aren't talented enough. Good game stories must be written specifically to work within the rules and context of the gameplay, not the other way around. That's part of the reason I say there are better places to tell stories than games.
In order to tell a good story through a game, the story must be written specifically to work within the confines of the game. Half Life and Shadow of the Colossus understand this, and it's part of the reason their stories work so well. God of War kind of understands this as well, and that's where most of the criticism of its story comes from. The story wasn't written the way it was because it's an awesome plot; it was written that way because it led to events where the most important parts of the story could directly involve the player.
Despite the fact that I beleve games aren't the best medium to tell stories, I don't really believe that games shouldn't try to. I just think that stories shouldn't be blindly shoved into games as a required element. Game creators need to consider the role a story plays when they develop their game, and make sure that the story is performing that role well instead of writing a story and then attempting to find a place wedge a game in.
-Wes _________________
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Lestrade Bug Fister
Joined: 24 Mar 2005 Posts: 1760 Location: Toronto
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry, haven't read the whole thread here; on my way to an awards show. But I wanted to throw a monkey wrench in the FFVII debate:
I didn't play FFVII back in '97 because I didn't like RPGs then. I picked it up only a couple of years ago at a used CD store (yeah) and over the next few months played it through. Despite the usual genre quirks that I've never liked (fuck you save points), I really, truly enjoyed the game.
And guess what? I started a new quest a couple of months ago, that I pick up every now and then, and I still enjoy it!
OMG I GUESS I'M NOT COOL ANYMORE
The kicker is, as anyone who's read my posts here could guess, I actually don't like RPGs very much! But for many reasons, which I won't get into here, I do honestly, earnestly even, enjoy FFVII. And as a 27-year-old man, I'm not embarassed to say that I enjoy its convoluted, meant-for-grade-eighters plot, either. Because at the end of the day the game is a weird take on a love story, and I'll play anything with a love story (it seems). Call it a guilty pleasure.
So, yeah. Try to figure that one out!
I'm off to watch my friend present an awards show in a chipmunk suit! |
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macdonaldez .
Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 16
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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I like your balanced view Wes- you're more articulate than i, so it was nice to read a concept that was in my mind now put into actual, readable words!
Speaking of cutscenes as a tool to show information that couldn't easily be expressed through play, i'm once again brought back to Warrior Within-
*minor spoiler for those late in coming to the Persian Party. i.e. me*
there was a bit where you've just finished fighting Shahdee at the sacrificial altar, and have saved Kaileena, as Shahdee disappears, she says "you cannot change your fate"
*end of spoiler, lameass miserables as it is*
and this left me intrigued as to who she was actually speaking to- Kaileena or the prince? This provoked me to keep playing further into the story.
Not sure how that could have been expressed through play, unless it was some sort of abstract minigame, reminiscent of that Greek legend where Sysiphus had to push a boulder up a hill, except in this case it would be 2D, on a single wrapping screen, with a crudely drawn 8-bit sprite representing you (or Sysiphus, if you must- are you the character, or is he/she/it merely a representation of your presence in the gameworld, or do you, David Cage- style, empathise with the character, yet remain an individual looking in?) and another, larger, chunkier collection of pixels representing the boulder. Every time you pushed the boulder up to the top of the hill, it would roll back down past you, and every time you left the screen, you'd wrap over to the other side, and the boulder would teleport to the space in front of you, ready to be pushed again. _________________ "You spoony bard!" |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: | Yeah, but how many people really enjoy the purest form of cinema? |
a lot of people seem to really like porno.
so if the rule for movies (And good feature writing!) is "show, don't tell" the rule for games should be "do, don't show" ? ? ? ? _________________
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Scratchmonkey .
Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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Half-Life 2 strikes me as one of the best games in this regard, because you remain active during the "plot" portions of the game. Breen's pronouncements are that much more effective (and chilling) because they're not force-fed to "you" the player, they're just being broadcast constantly throughout the first area of the game that you traverse.
That said, there are still cutscenes in the game where you're out of control; yet they don't beggar belief as to why control has been taken away -- the beginning and end of the game are excellent examples of this and are generally areas of games where the use of cutscenes and expository text seem reasonable.
Yeah, "do, don't show" works for me.
Last edited by Scratchmonkey on Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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helicopterp .
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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I've been considering the discussion of pure cinema and pure games and trying to think of examples of a fusion of each. If Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera is pure cinema, I'd like to think that Hitchcock's Rear Window (starting with an extended, dialogue-less first shot that introduces the entire backstory and deriving most of its power from the basically fixed camera perspective throughout the film, that and me wanting to get with Grace Kelly) works as a talkie built on pure cinema's foundations. If we all can agree that Tetris represents a fairly pure game, then which game(s) best construct a narrative on top of the purity? Half-Life 2 is being talked about a lot here, but I haven't played it, so I won't try to put in my opinion yet. _________________ Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one. |
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dark steve .
Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, I probably misspoke when I said "pure," when I really just meant "very close to pure" (Melville, Leone, etc).
dhex, Scratch: Yes!
Quote: | I get where you're going with this, but I think it's missing a key ingredient that makes it somewhat incorrect. Specifically the "same event" part is misleading. Part of the reason cutscenes exist is because the things they show simply can't be expressed through play, not that the teams aren't talented enough. Good game stories must be written specifically to work within the rules and context of the gameplay, not the other way around. That's part of the reason I say there are better places to tell stories than games. | Yeah, basically, if you absolutely can't tell your story through gameplay, maybe you've chosen the wrong vehicle for it? Although I'd maintain that there aren't that many stories that a talented, thoughtful, and creative dev team, wouldn't be able to tell through their medium.
Naturally, you can't take every already existing cutscene and turn it directly into gameplay, but that's not the point. I can think of passages in novels that would be impossible to turn into film scenes with literal adaptation, but that just means you have to do it differently. I'm having a hard time thinking of something I watched in a game that would be sacred beyond editing.
This stuff has been covered enough to make a TGQ article redundant, right? |
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DaleNixon .
Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 179
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:57 am Post subject: |
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I only brought up FFVII because it pretty much cemented the use of CG cutscenes to <strike>sell a game</strike> tell a story. |
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SuperWes Updated the banners, but not his title
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 3725
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:20 am Post subject: |
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DaleNixon wrote: | I only brought up FFVII because it pretty much cemented the use of CG cutscenes to <strike>sell a game</strike> tell a story. |
I'd assert that Final Fantasy VII may have known what it was doing with its cutscenes. All weeping aside, the cutscenes in the game serve as rewards for getting through sections of the game. They don't so much tell the story (there's no speech in the game at all) as they do provide pretty eye candy as a prize for a job well done. Looking at the game through the eyes of someone used to modern computer graphics they're nowhere near as rewarding, but at the time this was a great bonus. The problem with CG only happened when other games (even games in the same series) never really picked up on this, and just started throwing CG cutscenes and intros in because it was the thing to do.
-Wes _________________
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rf .
Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 23
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:09 am Post subject: |
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I'm willing to go with the general sentiment here, but it seems a little artificial to insist that, if any element of your idea can't be depicted without the player's control, then your entire idea shouldn't end up as a game. Is that what we're saying?
I just don't want to see artistic games forced into being A) small-scale, somewhat linear "short stories done well" or B) sandboxes that let you do whatever you want in a world of faceless robots. I'm sure there are good possibilities in mixed styles (like mixed economies), which can have plenty of or non-interactive sequences, or whatever, while still having an overall effect that couldn't have been achieved without gameplay.
I'm NOT saying that cutscenes, or anything else, are utterly necessary for telling certain kinds of stories, just that I don't see the rationale for any set of cinéma vérité-like strictures.
P.S. I think people underestimate the effects of having gameplay at all, even when it's as ineptly used as in the average jRPG. The gameplay may be boring, and it may poorly reflect the story, but it still creates a sense of being the entity that's progressing through the story, an effect that's impossible in novels or movies. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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rf wrote: | I think people underestimate the effects of having gameplay at all, even when it's as ineptly used as in the average jRPG. The gameplay may be boring, and it may poorly reflect the story, but it still creates a sense of being the entity that's progressing through the story, an effect that's impossible in novels or movies. |
People want to be a sub-par anime character?
I mean, you may as well argue the exact same thing with regards to Backyard Wrestling. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"
Last edited by Dracko on Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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kuzdu .
Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Washington Heights
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | rf wrote: | I think people underestimate the effects of having gameplay at all, even when it's as ineptly used as in the average jRPG. The gameplay may be boring, and it may poorly reflect the story, but it still creates a sense of being the entity that's progressing through the story, an effect that's impossible in novels or movies. |
People want to be a sub-par anime character? |
No, I think what he's saying, and it's something I agree with, is that there is something intrinsically different between actually taking some active role in an experience, no matter how superficial your actions are, and just passively absorbing it. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, but that's pretty much recognised by everyone. There's also the matter of how well it achieves this. My character being driven by seemingly nothing at all save level-grinding and dei ex machina does little to assist this goal. It generally helps if it feels like you, the player, are advancing the story and by extension the game.
This is obviously achieved better with small-scale tales (Freeform is far too easy to mess up, but when done right, works), or games lacking a plot entirely or only as a tenuous excuse (Like say an arcade beat 'em up or a puzzle game).
One easy pit-fall of attempting a complex tale is not allowing the player to enjoy this sense of development. You can't force him along, expecting him to arrive at such and such location to get a story going, and only as a witness. jRPGs suffer from this continuously. I've yet to see a single example against this. It's always running around the global or labyrinth map, colliding with drone-like enemies, until you figure where the plot is supposedly happening.
Laura Bow, as trite a murder story as it was, and as little you did to push it along, at least allowed you to uncover extra information and clues by exploring the mansion and its grounds. jRPGs won't leave you even that, because God forbid you dare ask for actual action and adventure in the vision of some artistically bankrupt developer who insists on telling you a preteniously overblown Saint Seya over again. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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rf .
Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 23
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, I agree. I guess what I mean is, people at this kind of site tend to spend so much effort emphasizing that stuff that they forget the effects interactivity confers on anything. This is particularly easy to do becuase those effects are, by definition, the ones that don't depend on smart design decisions, so even something as backward and paradoxical as a jRPG gets to have them. |
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dark steve .
Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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Okay. Well. When I say gameplay, I'm not referring necessarily to building a game where the story has to be dynamic and directly affected by the player's actions. So I guess in that sense, "do, don't show" might not be exactly what I'm referring to. What's most important though, and I stand by this, is that "play" isn't broken up. Don't cut away to the aliens invading, show it out a window while the game is still running. I don't think the distinction there is trivial. I'm even going to go out on a limb here and say that this is still interactivity, even if it's essentially forced.
I'm pretty sure it was Cliff Blezinski, talking about Gears of War, who said "Never underestimate the player's ability to undermine the story you're trying to tell," or something very close to that, which seems to be the prevailing attitude. Total bullshit. Again, I want to reference the opening of Half Life 2, which is actually as limiting and restrictive as a Flashback screen, but is so well put together that you don't even realize how it's funneling you. |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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I agree, Half-Life is a good example of how to prevent the player from undermining the story. The G-Man (the one story-important character) is nearly always in a spot where it's impossible to kill him- usually behind unbreakable glass. The player's only ability is to destroy things, so he (usually) only ever comes into contact with things it's ok to destroy.
Sometimes, if you're lucky you can actually hit him and the bullets ping off, which is annoying. (It's funny, but when playing eastern games we think nothing of NPC's being indestructable, like in Zelda, but when it happens in western games it's irritating.)
A bad way of stopping the player from undermining the story is by just having the screen fade to black whenever someone important dies, with a message to the effect of 'OMG GAME OVER YOU WERENT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT TAHT GUY'. This happened a lot in Half-Life:Opposing Forces, actually.
I haven't played Half-Life 2, though. Can you just shoot Alyx in the face and carry on like nothing happened?
Last edited by Harveyjames on Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:16 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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In Half-Life 2, it's sort of jarring, because whenver you encounter a character you're not supposed to shoot, you'll lower your weapon, but you can do it regardless. And it has no effect whatsoever. None at all. They don't even bleed, and continue on with whatever it wa sthey were doing. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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So it's as if they came up with a good solution but didn't fully implement it. Weird. |
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Swimmy .
Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | rf wrote: | I think people underestimate the effects of having gameplay at all, even when it's as ineptly used as in the average jRPG. The gameplay may be boring, and it may poorly reflect the story, but it still creates a sense of being the entity that's progressing through the story, an effect that's impossible in novels or movies. |
People want to be a sub-par anime character? |
Yes.
That's the American teenage dream, near as I can tell.
EDIT: See: cosplay. _________________
"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin
Last edited by Swimmy on Sat Jul 22, 2006 11:54 am; edited 1 time in total |
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SuperWes Updated the banners, but not his title
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 3725
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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dark steve wrote: | I'm pretty sure it was Cliff Blezinski, talking about Gears of War, who said "Never underestimate the player's ability to undermine the story you're trying to tell," or something very close to that, which seems to be the prevailing attitude. Total bullshit. Again, I want to reference the opening of Half Life 2, which is actually as limiting and restrictive as a Flashback screen, but is so well put together that you don't even realize how it's funneling you. |
Gears of War seems to have come up with a slick and elegant solution to telling the story within the gameplay. The game is primarily a third person game, but whenever an important part of the story happens an icon appears on the screen letting you know that there's something cool happening. At that point you can hold one of the R buttons to cause the camera to shift and focus on whatever that event is. This concept removes the barrier between the player and the cutscene, and allows the designers and storywriters to tell their story without disrupting the interaction. There are some other cool ideas in there too. I have a feeling it's going to be a pretty grand game.
-Wes _________________
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dark steve .
Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110
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Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2006 12:02 am Post subject: |
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That sounds pretty good.
Now I don't know exactly why he said that. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2006 3:16 am Post subject: |
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Harveyjames wrote: | So it's as if they came up with a good solution but didn't fully implement it. Weird. |
Yeah, it's funny. It really does take you out of the game when you realise Gordon's holding down is just for show.
dark steve wrote: | That sounds pretty good.
Now I don't know exactly why he said that. |
Mad genius? _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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Alc .
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 109 Location: UK
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Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2006 10:54 am Post subject: |
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Harveyjames wrote: | A bad way of stopping the player from undermining the story is by just having the screen fade to black whenever someone important dies, with a message to the effect of 'OMG GAME OVER YOU WERENT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT TAHT GUY'. This happened a lot in Half-Life:Opposing Forces, actually. |
Dracko wrote: | In Half-Life 2, it's sort of jarring, because whenver you encounter a character you're not supposed to shoot, you'll lower your weapon, but you can do it regardless. And it has no effect whatsoever. None at all. They don't even bleed, and continue on with whatever it wa sthey were doing. | See, out of those two options, I'd much prefer the "fade to black" method of dealing with storyline breakage. Why is it bad, Harveyjames? |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:39 am Post subject: |
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Well... it bugs me because they give you the option to do something, but if you do it you "die". You're rewarded for your curiosity by instant death. It reminds me of those old Sierra adventure games:
>eat burger
"There was a hairpin in the burger, and you choked on it and died! Better luck next time, Larry!
Restore / Restart / Order A Hint Book"
I remember reading how the Lucasarts SCUMM system of games were designed partly as a reaction to the Sierra games- no trying to guess the words the game recognises, no unfair deaths. In a Lucasarts adventure, it would be more like
[use] [burger]
'Ow, there's a hairpin in this burger! I'll pick it out.'
Then Bernard (or whoever) will have the hairpin in his inventory. So the player's character is given a degree of intelligence. This is a bit like Gordon Freeman lowering his weapon when he sees friendly characters. It's just a much better way of dealing with it.
If a game's going to let me kill the wrong people, I want to have to deal with the consequences myself, like in Deus Ex when you have to try and shoot your way out of the base after you kill your own boss. Having the game just fade to black is like being back at school, getting told off because you got the answer wrong. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:23 am Post subject: |
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Harveyjames wrote: | I remember reading how the Lucasarts SCUMM system of games were designed partly as a reaction to the Sierra games |
There's two very obvious jabs taken at the Sierra adventure gaming philosophy in Secret of Monkey Island, even. On some occasions, I think it works, but they had a knack for overdoing it.
And to be fair, in earlier LucasArts adventure games, you could die too, but usually for doing something ludicrously stupid, though I don't think you could ever end up blocked and have to start over from the beginning. It made sense in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that you could end up captured of dead, for example. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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Alc .
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 109 Location: UK
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:11 am Post subject: |
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Harveyjames wrote: | Well... it bugs me because they give you the option to do something, but if you do it you "die". You're rewarded for your curiosity by instant death. It reminds me of those old Sierra adventure games | I know what you mean, but whenever in Half-life I attempted to kill anyone who I think might be a key player, I saved beforehand. Gives it that sandboxey feel - you know what you're doing, you're just doing it to see what happens, and if something terrible occurs you're only one keyboard press away from being ok again. The Sierra games just screwed you when they felt like it, from what little I remember from my childhood. They aren't games I feel particularly inclined to replay.
Quote: | If a game's going to let me kill the wrong people, I want to have to deal with the consequences myself, like in Deus Ex when you have to try and shoot your way out of the base after you kill your own boss. Having the game just fade to black is like being back at school, getting told off because you got the answer wrong. | Again, I can see where you're coming from, but I really like that ordered, single-file gameplay. I get annoyed when I can't undo a wrong action - I don't want to deal with the consequences, I want to go back and get it right. |
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rf .
Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 23
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:07 am Post subject: |
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Alc wrote: | Again, I can see where you're coming from, but I really like that ordered, single-file gameplay. I get annoyed when I can't undo a wrong action - I don't want to deal with the consequences, I want to go back and get it right. |
It also depends on the scenario. In some situations, if there was a real plot impetus, shooting that Important Guy might not be the "wrong" action, even if the gameplay doesn't prod you in that direction. It might, say, be the path to the "good ending," and if the storyline reasons for this were clear enough, this wouldn't feel unfair. On the other hand, any game is going to have situations where certain actions wouldn't result in anything productive. |
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dark steve .
Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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The "Good Ending" has ruined an entire generation of gamers, I figure. |
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Scratchmonkey .
Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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The Good Ending and The Completion Percentage are bogeymen of this generation of gaming. |
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kuzdu .
Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Washington Heights
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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Here here! |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | There's two very obvious jabs taken at the Sierra adventure gaming philosophy in Secret of Monkey Island, even. On some occasions, I think it works, but they had a knack for overdoing it. |
One of them's the rubber tree death. Is the other one the 'order a hint book' option after you drown?
Scratchmonkey wrote: | The Good Ending and The Completion Percentage are bogeymen of this generation of gaming. |
You just reminded me of Westwood's Blade Runner adventure game, which was the first game I ever played with multiple endings. It was so crap the way it was worked out. I figured the decisions you made during the game would all contribute to how the story worked out at the end- people you chose not to kill coming back later and affecting events in ways you didn't expect, and so on. Actually, the ending you get is decided on how you respond to one question about 10 minutes before the end. The ending I got involved the main character driving off into the sunset with one of the ancilliary characters, who was a 14-year-old girl. I was as baffled as anyone.
Last edited by Harveyjames on Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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Harveyjames wrote: | Dracko wrote: | There's two very obvious jabs taken at the Sierra adventure gaming philosophy in Secret of Monkey Island, even. On some occasions, I think it works, but they had a knack for overdoing it. |
One of them's the rubber tree 'death'. Is the other one the 'order a hint book' option after you drown? |
Yeah, those were the ones I was referring to.
I agree with the Good Ending, Completion Percentage and other such perfectionist syndrome impressions. it's nice to have bonuses, but not if it artificially expands the game to the point of ridicule. It's an easy pitfall of freeform games, I find, and it removes from the impression of liberty more than it should.
Incidentally, give Last Crusade a go if you can. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best examples of the adventure genre, along with the first Gabriel Knight, because, as directed as it is, it leaves enough grounds for you to solve a puzzle, logically, as you see fit, that in a sense, you get the impression that whatever plan you concoct, you could pull off.
One example of this is in fact recent for me: I attemepted freeing Henry Jones by, in a bourish and pugilistic manner, taking out the guards and escorting him all the way out of the castle, and as it turns out, it's entirely possible and you even get Indy Points for doing it. In the past, I'd typically let myself get caught and escape later. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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Six .
Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 313 Location: montreal
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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Harveyjames wrote: | I figured the decisions you made during the game would all contribute to how the story worked out at the end- people you chose not to kill coming back later and affecting events in ways you didn't expect, and so on. Actually, the ending you get is decided on how you respond to one question about 10 minutes before the end. |
Deus Ex pulls the same thing. It's so misleading, too, because there are a lot of seemingly significant choices you can make over the entire course of the game. It would've been satisfying to even just see a quick shot of JC's brother in the epilogue, but no such luck. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:58 am Post subject: |
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Too many games advertising multiple endings do that, actually. I don't really know why it is, but the developers probably figure it's too difficult to code in.
But on the other hand, well, it's not really the endings that I look forward to in games. I'd prefer a lot more variety in how to achieve one central, specific goal, last minute decision multiple ending or not, than have to go down a set path with a few variables here and there that affect the conclusion.
I think one of the things these sort of games should set up to do is give the player the illusion of freedom, of potentially different manners of getting what you need to get. I say this because, of course, you can't give limitless freedom in a game, but if you build the world well enough, you can create an inner coherence, from which the player can then devise his own plans which you ensured could be pulled off. It's part of the immersion factor to me. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:13 am Post subject: |
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you know what else gets lost sometimes? the play it where it lands scenario. especially with rpgs (i.e. reloading to get better stats upon leveling up, etc). _________________
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rf .
Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 23
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:42 am Post subject: |
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Re: good ending.
The only reason I used the phrase was to emphasize when a choice that seems to go against the game's general, uh, paradigm can be the "right" choice, using Alc's word. I'm not sure any choice should be "right," rather than more or less desirable, but I wanted to clearly note that a "trangressive" choice can sometimes be a "right" one.
Re: The simplest effects of gameplay.
When I said you feel like the entity moving through the game, I didn't mean the characters. I'm talking about these kind of effects:
-In a movie or novel, any specific place is just the setting for some number of scenes, in which specific events happen. In a game, even if there's nothing to do in an area, if you can walk around it, then you're familiar with it in a much more real-world sense. It is a place with definite boundaries and features, not just a set that purports to extend beyond whatever the camera sees.
-When a blockbuster-like RPG plot sends the characters into the villain's stronghold or the depths of some uncharted zone, this also presents challenges to the player, however abstractly they are related to the characters' challenges. There's a sense of going into a hostile environment that isn't evoked by other media.
-New-school convoluted jRPG stories are based around keeping mysteries around, and the feeling of friction that gameplay provides enhances the player's experience of these. In a novel, you can always flip to the final pages, but gameplay creates at least the illusion that to you, the route to understanding everything is as uncertain and intimidating as it is to the characters.
Now, these are all enhancements to simplistic pulp aspects of stories, but that's just fine, because jRPG stories aren't reliably good on any level higher than that.
Last edited by rf on Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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