July 27, 2013
— Monty This isn't a videogame review of the new Playstation 3 game The Last of Us. It's more a reflection what a game is...and what it isn't.
Naughty Dog (the game developer) has been making "movie games" for most of the PS3 generation (with the Drake's Fortune series and now this one). Which is to say, they are building scripted, dramatic stories with segments of player control but no real decision-making ability on the part of the player. The game only moves in one direction, and you are essentially on rails for the entire experience. Thus, to me, it isn't a game -- it's an interactive movie.
And this is a problem, both in terms of design and in terms of art.
A movie and a game are two completely different forms of entertainment. Movies are a "lean back" kind of entertainment: I participate as an observer, a Greek Chorus, an assessor, a judge, a jury. I do not interact or guide the action. I watch events unfold, and judge the outcome based on how well the production achieved its goals. A game, on the other hand, is a "lean forward" experience. It is interactive, and I am in the game to win or lose. That is, the whole point of a game is to allow the player to affect the outcome. Without that power, the experience is not a "game" at all.
The "interactive movie" concept is unfulfilling both as game and as movie. As a game, it fails because the player can have no real say in how the story unfolds or ends. You are an actor in the drama, in other words -- even less than an actor, really, since you can't even put your own spin on the drama. As a movie, it fails because the drama is broken up by the interactive portions; all the running and jumping about actually kills the dramatic momentum.
The Last of Us is beautifully mounted, and might have made a decent movie. It's garnering raves as a game, however, and I simply can't fathom this. It's not a game, any more than the Drake episodes were "games". You can't control the path you take, you can't make any real decisions about how the story will unfold, and you can neither "win" nor "lose". You can finish the "game", of course, and get the ending that all players will inevitably get, but there's no real skill involved. Even the clumsiest, slowest, dumbest gamer -- me -- will eventually get there. There is no way to "lose" this game other than to choose not to finish it.
It makes me wonder why Naughty Dog has decided to go this route. It costs a huge amount of money to make a video game like this -- as much as it would to just go ahead and make an actual movie, in fact. So I wonder why Naughty Dog doesn't just do that: make a movie. The kind of interactivity you get in this game actually detracts from the dramatic arc, and it adds very little. Oh, it's exciting in parts and has some interesting puzzles...but in the end it's a waste of time because you can't change anything. You can't "win" because there's only one way the video game can end. There's no real achievement involved.
The usual response from the game studio is that giving players too much choice over the outcome of the game ruins the story. This was the excuse behind Mass Effect 3's shitty ending. The writers had a vision that they were bound and determined to see to the end, and they only allowed players to influence that vision up to a point...which was actually none at all, since the end result was the same no matter what you did. To many gamers (including me), it was a giant "fuck you" from the studio. It made all those endless hours of gameplay and "moral choice" completely meaningless.
If this is the direction video game developers are going, I don't understand why they don't make movies or write books instead. If you're going to call it a "game", that implies that I have a significant amount of control over how things will come out. It's up to me to win or lose. I may violate your "artistic vision", but games are defined by rules, not plots. If I play within the rules, the outcome is perfectly acceptable, even if you don't like it.
Oh, and about that "artistic vision" thing, Naughty Dog developers: your writers aren't exactly Hemingway. As drama, the game strives to be deep but barely achieves mediocrity. Mostly, it's the equivalent of a B-grade zombie flick. The game takes itself so damned seriously, and marries itself so totally to the "harsh and gritty" world, that it's a bummer to play. That's okay in a movie, which is over in a couple of hours, but it's a drag in a game that can stretch on for 30 hours of play-time. Fallout 3 had the same gritty, depressing vibe, and it also got to be a chore to play for long periods of time. But at least Fallout 3 was an actual game, where you could actually affect the outcome.
People are throwing accolades at this game like roses at the feet of a diva, and I just don't get it. It's a great-looking game, and the voice acting is pretty good, but as a game it's a pretty abject failure.
Posted by: Monty at
07:42 AM
| Comments (205)
Post contains 921 words, total size 5 kb.
Posted by: Sunny at July 27, 2013 07:46 AM (ieU06)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 07:46 AM (ML28M)
Posted by: eman at July 27, 2013 07:49 AM (AO9UG)
Monty; I have traded in my Kindle for a Galaxy Tab 2 as a reader.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 07:50 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 07:50 AM (G8OwX)
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 07:53 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at July 27, 2013 07:53 AM (0HooB)
compare what's charged for a movie vs a game. there's your answer.
Posted by: Purp[/i][/b][/u][/s] at July 27, 2013 07:53 AM (/gHaE)
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 07:54 AM (OQpzc)
It's garnering raves as a game, however, and I simply can't fathom this. It's not a game, any more than the Drake episodes were "games". You can't control the path you take, you can't make any real decisions about how the story will unfold, and you can neither "win" nor "lose". You can finish the "game",
I must have missed the multiple paths and outcomes of Donkey Kong.
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 07:54 AM (LI48c)
Needs more "cat playing video games" pics.
Uh, I mean nice to see ya, Monty. Thank you for the post.
Posted by: Mama AJ at July 27, 2013 07:54 AM (SUKHu)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 07:55 AM (ML28M)
Posted by: Adam at July 27, 2013 07:56 AM (Aif/5)
Wow, took the words out of my mouth, I'm sick of movie games. TLOU really isn't much more than a Gears of War clone that, like you said, takes itself way too seriously.
Even Fallout 3 I felt was a bit too linear. New Vegas allowed a lot more freedom to affect the story. I'm amazed more developers don't take the Minecraft route, allowing players to actually be creative.
Posted by: shnee at July 27, 2013 07:56 AM (xNR+o)
-----------------------
I prefer the term "exotic dancers". My young charges are highly-trained professionals, and have sacrificed much to excel at their craft. My job is to guide them, tutor them, and comfort them in their time of need.
Could I have chosen some other path in life? Yes. It would be a simpler life, but it wouldn't be as full.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 07:59 AM (G8OwX)
I don't really accept the premise of this thread, though. Is Donkey Kong a game? Of course it is, but there's absolutely no "choice" to be had. You play it or you don't. There's your choice.
Similarly, the "Uncharted" games are, in fact, games. I fought every one of the battles in those games, and if I hadn't, the so-called "interactive movie" wouldn't have ever ended.
Posted by: Kensington at July 27, 2013 08:02 AM (uaEZS)
Posted by: Eton Cox at July 27, 2013 08:02 AM (QCc6B)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 08:03 AM (ML28M)
Posted by: rickl at July 27, 2013 08:04 AM (sdi6R)
You are giver, Monty, and a true humanitarian.
I try to my own small outreach locally. Usually, just around the time their rent is due, for some reason.
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 08:04 AM (OQpzc)
Posted by: eman at July 27, 2013 08:05 AM (AO9UG)
And back to Monty's premise, I really don't see how "Fallout 3" qualifies as a game when "Uncharted" doesn't. I dare suggest the choices offered by "Fallout 3" are largely illusory. The story still has an ending, and the player, if he makes it that far, is still shoe-horned into that ending, even if it no longer makes any sense based on the way the player chose to play.
Posted by: Kensington at July 27, 2013 08:06 AM (uaEZS)
I recently bought the touch-screen front-lit Kindle, and I absolutely love it.
If you don't like it, ignore it and attend to other things.
On this subject, I take the same attitude that I do with being served a bad meal in a restaurant: if I don't say anything, then the cook thinks he did a dandy job and keeps on serving up lousy food.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 08:06 AM (G8OwX)
Jurassic Park the Game is an example of an interactive movie because you don't control the characters, just hit buttons in a sequence based on prompts on the screen or you choose from a set of predefined actions.
Posted by: KG at July 27, 2013 08:06 AM (IPz9m)
Posted by: Tami - (AKA - Bernardo Furtive)[/i][/b][/u][/s] at July 27, 2013 08:08 AM (X6akg)
Posted by: eman at July 27, 2013 08:08 AM (AO9UG)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 08:09 AM (ML28M)
Posted by: Purp[/i][/b][/u][/s] at July 27, 2013 08:09 AM (/gHaE)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 08:10 AM (ML28M)
Posted by: Lincolntf at July 27, 2013 08:11 AM (ZshNr)
Posted by: grognard at July 27, 2013 08:11 AM (Qle93)
Posted by: eman at July 27, 2013 08:11 AM (AO9UG)
JEEZ.......
Seems the next 3 years will completely fail the "High Information" Voters................
Go Figure.......
Posted by: Richard at July 27, 2013 08:12 AM (D1IQT)
If you don't like it, ignore it and attend to other things.
On this subject, I take the same attitude that I do with being served a bad meal in a restaurant: if I don't say anything, then the cook thinks he did a dandy job and keeps on serving up lousy food.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 12:06 PM (G8OwX
I looked at those if you are talking about a Kindle Fire. There were a LOT of negative reviews based on the plug in receptacle for the charger going bad.
I called SIL in NC and asked her about it because she had one. Her response was that she had had no problems with the Fire but she had recently gone to the Samsung and she highly recommended that one over the Fire.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 08:13 AM (lZvxr)
About 40-50 years ago Western civilization decided to stop taking out the trash and become kinder and gentler.
Trash, since its trash's fundamental nature, sees this as weakness rather than compassion.
Posted by: Purp[/i][/b][/u][/s] at July 27, 2013 08:13 AM (/gHaE)
Posted by: IronDioPriest at July 27, 2013 08:14 AM (1dJQd)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 12:10 PM (ML28M)
Barbarian. Alligator clips are quite sufficient. And an old points and coil ignition system, but I digress.
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 08:14 AM (OQpzc)
---------------
I'd like to see a different direction. Serious drama (hell, even comedy) and gameplay don't go together. Interactive gameplay kills dramatic momentum; dramatic exposition breaks up gameplay. Movies and video games aren't the same thing; don't try to mash them together.
It's possible for video games to be more plot-driven; RPG's have been doing it forever. Real games must still have goals, after all -- that's how you win. One thing that the Mass Effect games did really well was character development via interaction rather than cutscenes or dialog. Games are interactive, so the character development and progression should be interactive as well. In short: get rid of the cutscenes entirely. (Unskippable cutscenes should be punishable by a term of sixty days in jail for the game developer.)
But plot should never drive the game, because games are not about plot. Games are defined by their rules, not their plots. If the plot drives the experience, then you don't have an actual "game", not really. Football doesn't have a plot, nor does baseball. If you play within the rules, there are any number of ways the game can end, and every ending is perfectly valid. More importantly, there's no way to know prior to the end of the game how it will turn out. And the ending will be different every time you play.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 08:20 AM (G8OwX)
Posted by: Purp at July 27, 2013 12:09 PM (/gHaE)
----------
What do you mean?
Posted by: Government Motors at July 27, 2013 08:20 AM (jucos)
Call me a malcontent,
I like the feel of turning pages as I read......
SHIT!
The last time I enjoyed turning thru a 5-600 page novel in a weekend off was........
that long ago.....now I am working twice has hard as pre 2008..like most of us that still HAVE jobs....
Fuck-You Barry.....and your low-info voters.
Posted by: Richard at July 27, 2013 08:21 AM (D1IQT)
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 08:23 AM (LI48c)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 08:24 AM (ML28M)
----
Nope, I'm talking about this one: http://tinyurl.us/5IS
It's the Kindle Paperwhite. It's got the e-ink screen, but it uses a really nifty front-lighting mechanism that is comfortable anywhere from a dark room to full daylight. It goes for about a week on a full charge (unlike a Kindle Fire). The dot-pitch is also finer than my old e-ink Kindle, which means that the text is smoother and easier on the eyes.
I can't recommend it highly enough for book-reading. Obviously for video or web surfing you'll have to go the tablet route, and for that stuff I still use my Gen 1 Kindle Fire.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 08:25 AM (G8OwX)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 08:28 AM (ML28M)
Anyhoo, back to hitting things with flaming swords......
Posted by: pookysgirl at July 27, 2013 08:29 AM (kMnHs)
Hum, I had not realized the paper white was touch screen. But at any rate I was looking at the Fire or comparable to be able to do other things as well.
And you are right about the battery time. With the Samsung you are pretty much tied to the charger for any lenghty use. It really sucks them down fast.
One other problem with the Samsung is the learning curve for it is gruesome. I had a lot of cursing in the two days it took me to get it setup. And after a few months I am still having some difficulty.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 08:30 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 08:31 AM (ML28M)
Posted by: eman at July 27, 2013 08:31 AM (AO9UG)
Posted by: Inspector Asshole at July 27, 2013 08:32 AM (sbSjq)
---------------
I'd like to see a different direction. Serious drama (hell, even comedy) and gameplay don't go together. Interactive gameplay kills dramatic momentum; dramatic exposition breaks up gameplay. Movies and video games aren't the same thing; don't try to mash them together.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 12:20 PM (G8OwX) Hide posts from (G8OwX)
The Last Story on the Wii did a great job of blending drama and comedy with action, mostly through the different characters bantering with each other while you were running through the levels. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed playing that game.
Posted by: Long-time Commenter, First-time Reader at July 27, 2013 08:32 AM (pl1y3)
Posted by: Charlie Gibson, as if you never expected it... at July 27, 2013 08:33 AM (9bMee)
Posted by: soothsayer went to phoenix az all the way to tacoma at July 27, 2013 12:28 PM (ML28M)
FL again, nothing on Fox web site yet. I refuse to turn on the TV though because the first 24 to 48 hours are full of incorrect info.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 08:33 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: Gandalf'sLoveStaff at July 27, 2013 08:34 AM (OqeDl)
I've been thinking of Last of Us, but there are other aspects of this game that have me waiting on it. Seems darkly written and I'm not sold on the message, so I'm waiting... esp for it to go on sale. heh.
Posted by: Yip at July 27, 2013 08:35 AM (/jHWN)
Posted by: Big T Party at July 27, 2013 08:36 AM (xi2mo)
Posted by: EC at July 27, 2013 08:37 AM (doBIb)
Posted by: and irresolute at July 27, 2013 08:38 AM (DBH1h)
Games have unfortunately been heading in this direction for some time, with just a series of set pieces full of puzzles you've got to solve, forever pushing you towards the unavoidable ending of the story.
That being said, the games of old (in most cases) only had one possible victory condition as well, though they made up for it by focusing more on the game and less on the drama. Still, that was then and this is now, and there's a huge market that these studios are trying to tap into, and it behooves them to make their games as approachable as possible to sell as many copies as possible.
So you end up with things like scalable difficulty, where it's a cakewalk on the easiest setting but quite a challenge on the hardest, or the addition of lots of extra challenges and objectives so that you don't feel like all there is is one way forward. I was comparing what you wrote to my experiences with the new Tomb Raider game that I'm currently going through, and while there's obviously only one ultimate victory condition path - Lara either succeeds or dies in the various set piece challenges before her - they've at least included lots of exploration, bonus tombs and scavenging to round things out.
Hopefully there will always be a place for sandboxy, open world games where you feel like you can really craft your own narrative, and we won't be stuck in the current game industry AAA model of interactive movie, online shooter and yearly sports franchise game forever.
Posted by: Damasca at July 27, 2013 08:39 AM (TBCX7)
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 08:40 AM (lZvxr)
I enjoyed playing Rockstars' Red Dead because at least they had mexican bandits , but oddly a western game and no indians. Hmmm See, even in a good game, the politically correct storyline is off, but that's ok... it was a great game. I think in gaming is where some screenwriters could be a little edgier and push back against the last 35 years of pc writing.
Posted by: Yip at July 27, 2013 08:41 AM (/jHWN)
I will NEVER read anything that is a book...
without the BOOK!
Electrons within the pixels can change without notice......(sly bastards they will be)
A book is ALWAYS a book......the more distant...the less corrupted.
Your flat planed electron infused "Tablets" will confuse you one day and drive you to madness when what you thought you just read is something far different less than later.......
1984
Posted by: Richard at July 27, 2013 08:42 AM (D1IQT)
http://tinyurl.com/n7qojpc
Posted by: EC at July 27, 2013 12:37 PM (doBIb)
Any bets that the shooter was one of those people who do jobs Americans just will not do?
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 08:42 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: Gandalf'sLoveStaff at July 27, 2013 08:45 AM (OqeDl)
Posted by: Frank Underwood (D-SC) at July 27, 2013 08:45 AM (OpaBw)
--------------
Manichaeism. It's what's for dinner.
I'm not a diversitarian. I'm a cladist at heart, a systemizer, an organizer. I gotta be me.
I used to get into arguments all the time with musicians about whether fusionism or genre-mixing is inherently a good thing or not. My argument was that it can be, but it far more often leads to confused crap than it does to great art. I find this to be true in most things, actually, and the more hands you have in the project, the more likely it is to suck unless there's a single, strong, overriding vision.
It's hard to believe that the input of a team of artists could have improved on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, or that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony could have been improved by patching in long sections of Scarlatti and Palestrina's stuff.
This seems to run counter to my contention that developer's shouldn't enforce their artistic vision on the player, but it doesn't really. I'm just saying that a game isn't a "work" like a novel or a movie or a symphony; it's not a structure. There is art in a game, but the game itself is not art.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 08:47 AM (G8OwX)
1984
Posted by: Richard at July 27, 2013 12:42 PM (D1IQT)
You should read the short story Rollerball Murder. It is the story the original Rollerball movie is based on.
And libraries are going all ebook. And I really wish the distopians weren't proved right every day.
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 08:48 AM (OQpzc)
the Fuck You Customer aspect of ME3 was profound...
a shame too since the IP was a pretty wonderful creation.
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 08:49 AM (LRFds)
Posted by: Frank Underwood (D-SC) at July 27, 2013 08:50 AM (OpaBw)
LOL Monty, we had a big discussion on an Ace thread about that a few days ago. Ace even made a somewhat recommendation on a book that the movie Name of the Rose came from.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 08:53 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: rickl at July 27, 2013 08:54 AM (sdi6R)
Posted by: Comrade Arthur at July 27, 2013 08:55 AM (5YUSx)
Duh.
Because these "movie game" formats are hugely popular and make tons of money.
Its not an "artistic" decision, its a financial one.
Posted by: looking closely at July 27, 2013 08:58 AM (eO8aI)
Posted by: garrett at July 27, 2013 08:58 AM (OqFqo)
I have watched Tombstone at least 50 times. A couple of others about that much. It seems that when the brown liquor hits I always grab that movie first.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 08:59 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at July 27, 2013 09:00 AM (wR+pz)
Posted by: Ben at July 27, 2013 09:01 AM (e/V6S)
You mean, kind of like being a member of the GOP?
Posted by: Paladin at July 27, 2013 09:01 AM (QGbEp)
Posted by: Pilot141 at July 27, 2013 09:03 AM (nPwzA)
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 12:53 PM (lZvxr)
I never got the ending of Name of the Rose. That girl was super duper hot. I'd have killed Sean Connery and given his donkey to her.
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 09:04 AM (OQpzc)
I just called up the "Wundermap". I see a big "earsplittenloudenboomer" about 10 miles away heading straight for us. I may have to bail here shortly.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 09:05 AM (lZvxr)
Posted by: BCochran1981 - Credible Hulk at July 27, 2013 09:05 AM (GEICT)
I find Monty's thoughts on the "video/movie" interesting from a different perspective. I have known of Halo for at least a few years. I knew it was a shooter, and there was a character named Master Chief. I knew it was more-or-less an online experience. That's about it.
I stumbled across Red vs. Blue about two months ago or so by accident. I thought it was absolutely fucking hilarious, but I also thought the more serious story arc(s) were pretty good. I was hooked enough on it to pretty much catch up to current season 11. So it's a show ("movie") about a game, not the game itself.
But as a result of that, I also stumbled across what are apparently youtube compilations of all of the "movie" sequences from the Halo games. They were pretty good, although of course there was a lot of cutting between the "scenes", as I assume there was gaming to be done between scenes. (Am I correct on that??) So, the story didn't "flow" like a regular movie would.
I found myself wishing that they would just do a straight-up Halo movie (CGI, not live-action) for folks like me that liked the story but aren't really gamers. I thought the plot ideas woven into the games were worthy of their own treatment as "movie" entertainment. But perhaps game-makers figure there's more money in games than in movies, as Purp thinks.
(And one effect of watching RvB before the Halo movies, was that I missed quite a few jokes in RvB that relied on knowledge of the Halo games. It made me appreciate the RvB writers even more that I could thoroughly enjoy RvB without that knowledge...)
Posted by: Tex Lovera at July 27, 2013 09:06 AM (wtvvX)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at July 27, 2013 09:06 AM (wR+pz)
Posted by: Paladin at July 27, 2013 01:01 PM (QGbEp)
More like all the money, lives and blood spent defeating Soviet Communism. Only to watch it win by simple human greed and stupidity.
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 09:07 AM (OQpzc)
Agree to disagree I guess. That Mass Effect review was spot on but the Extended Cut did fix SOME of the issues but it still was disappointing in the end though most of the game was still a lot of fun and exciting. It's actually kind of awe inspiring how much damage that last 5-10 minutes did to the reputation of the legacy that game had built up.
Posted by: Daniel at July 27, 2013 09:07 AM (xTgSv)
--------------
There's truth to that. That's why I prefer RPG's to shooters, and why I prefer open-world games to on-rails games. But even in the RPG space, I hate games that force me into a narrow class. If I choose Rogue, that shouldn't keep me from using a sword and shield as well; if I choose Wizard, I'd still like to be able to snipe Orcs with a bow. Games are better about this than they used to be; the move to deeper skill-trees is a welcome one.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 09:07 AM (G8OwX)
Yes, total hawt. And "what's his name" that boffed her in the movie was only 16 when he made the movie so questionably legal.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 09:08 AM (lZvxr)
Lean back / Lean forward indeed.
Good job.
Posted by: Retired Geezer at July 27, 2013 09:08 AM (NjAxp)
Posted by: eman at July 27, 2013 09:09 AM (AO9UG)
Because video games makes a fuckton more money than movies.
If you want an actual interactive game, play Heavy Rain or Indigo Prophecy or even Alan Wake or Ni No Kuni to some extent. I've said before that Heavy Rain actually made me cry when the Big Bad is revealed because I was that vested in the game and, also, because I had been just that manipulated to care.
I am really really really looking forward to Beyond: Two Souls to see just where Quantic Dream pushes things.
I don't care what they say about Mass Effect, that was a complete and utter fuck you to the fanbase.
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Take us away. at July 27, 2013 09:12 AM (Gk3SS)
Posted by: Boone at July 27, 2013 09:14 AM (QbXSS)
A player can only do what the game has been coded to let him do. You speak of Mass Effect as permitting "Player Control." It doesn't. You go on all the same sort of pre-scripted shooting adventures as in Drake. The big choice you have is that when you interact with people, you can be a Paragon or a Rogue, dickish or nice. You get to make some choices about where you go and when.
But everywhere you go, it's scripted, and it's all essentially the same: Kill these guys in this fight and lose as few of your teammates as possible.
I don't see this big divide you're suggesting between "movie games" and just plain games. In World of Warcraft, you can do whatever you want and go wherever you like... as long as you want to go to one of its dungeons or on one of its Kill Quests and as long as you want to kill sprites and gather their organs as they drop for the Wizard Quest-Giver.
Posted by: ACE at July 27, 2013 09:16 AM (/IWYB)
And I, too, was devastated by the killer's reveal in "Heavy Rain." What a kick in the balls.
Posted by: Kensington at July 27, 2013 09:16 AM (uaEZS)
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 01:08 PM (lZvxr)
Here's the scene. It has a Spanish song background. The only thing missing is the ass shot, dammit. NSFW. Christian Slater. Probably did him good, and helped him avoid The Gay.
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 09:20 AM (OQpzc)
1, I could give fuck-all about raising my Agility stat and my skill at Stealth. I'm not committed to a game to really feel like spending the time on this sort of tedious resource-management.
2, Role-Playing Games are nothing of the sort; the "player control" they seem to offer is almost entirely illusory.
I'd rather just skip this whole charade and shoot shit. I don't like having to build up my Combat Shotgun stat. I like how Drake does it-- I'm as good with the Shotgun as Drake is with the shotgun. He's a character, but he's not *my* character; I don't get to "make up his stats."
But even in the realm of games where you "make up your own character" -- no you don't. You select from a very limited menu of options -- far fewer even than it first appears, because only some are optimal or near-optimal and many are simply poor choices.
Furthermore, the actual impact in real terms of your choice is often very, very small, a boost of 5 or 10% when you've got a lot of points invested in a skill.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 09:21 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: Ed Anger at July 27, 2013 09:22 AM (tOkJB)
And I, too, was devastated by the killer's reveal in "Heavy Rain." What a kick in the balls.
Posted by: Kensington at July 27, 2013 01:16 PM (uaEZS)
You know the one thing I appreciated about that though? They did play fair with it.
I don't want to spoil for anyone who hasn't played it, but while it is a kick in the balls, when you look back on it you can see that you were never directly lied to about what was happening. It's a pretty fantastic bit of misdirection and manipulation and I mean that as a compliment. It's using very traditional means of storytelling to lead you down a path that isn't what you think.
Not to speak for Monty, but I do see the point he's making. There's a huge push to make video games an Experience, in no small part because of the huge cost and time sink involved. A game like The Last of Us will be treated seriously as a work while something fantastically fun as Dragon's Crown looks to be will be patted on the head and ignored even if, from a purely gaming standpoint, Dragon's Crown is a better game.
It all depends on what you want. Sometimes I want to be told a story that I can play with as well. Sometimes I want my slutty sorceress to bash orcs in the face.
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Take us away. at July 27, 2013 09:25 AM (Gk3SS)
Posted by: Ed Anger at July 27, 2013 01:22 PM (tOkJB)
I'm sure that is snark
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 09:28 AM (lZvxr)
But as neat as that is, let's not jerk ourselves off: You still have the goal of killing the enemies on the map and retrieving the Silver Key. In one you just shoot people, in another you sneak up behind them and cut their throats.
I'm not really seeing a wide selection of role-playing choices here. What I'm seeing is two, and what I'm seeing is that all major objectives are mandated to the player and you can't really proceed to the next map without the Silver Key.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 09:30 AM (/IWYB)
Looks like whoever posted it censured it as well from the descriptions people gave. Otherwise youtube would have thrown it out.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 09:31 AM (lZvxr)
I've pretty much decided that I'm going all console gaming from now on. As Vic said, it is just not worth it to try to keep up on the hardware requirements for PC gaming and I just do not have that kind of spare cash.
I am hesitant about getting either of the next gen consoles right off the bat since I prefer to wait to second generation of release to let the bugs get beaten out. That said, both Destiny and The Order: 1886 look incredibly good and it is tempting.
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Take us away. at July 27, 2013 09:32 AM (Gk3SS)
Skyrim is actually a pretty good example. I played it for about 20 hours before I even bothered with the main quest, and I only did that because I couldn't find any other side quests. I spent a lot of time just spelunking in dungeons and picking up loot. Probably 80% of that game exists outside of the main quest storyline. The main "dragonborn" quest line was actually kind of a distraction.
Borderlands (and sequel) are shooters that have a (sort of) main "plot", but you can ignore it if you want and go off and do whatever you want for long periods of time. And the "plot" is advanced through action, not interminable cutscenes.
But you're right that there's no way to "lose" in a game like Skyrim unless you just quit playing. Eventually, you have to complete the main quest -- and the game will hand-hold you until you win. (Donkey Kong took no pity on you; if you got hit by a flaming barrel on level 11 with your last guy, you had to start over with and spend another quarter.)
I think what I'd like to see are more procedurally-generated games that can lead to wildly-different outcomes on each playthrough. Games are about rules, not plots, like I said. The computer generates a goal -- save the princess, kill the dragon, invade space-fortress X -- and then lets me figure out how to achieve that goal. Baseball has a goal for the players (score more runs than your opponent by the end of nine innings of play), but each game is different. That's why it's still worth playing. And there's a possibility that you'll lose -- that's what makes it a game. Most modern videogames aren't really "games" in this sense, because there's no way to lose.
Ultimately, that's my beef with The Last of Us. It's not actually a game. There's only one way to get where you're going, there's no penalty for dying, and there's no way to actually lose. Wouldn't that strike you as weird if it were some other game like checkers, chess, badminton, tennis, or baseball? ("Oops! Two on, two out, bottom of the ninth, and you just popped a dinky fly to the shortstop to end the game! Well, tell you what: let's just have a do-over because it sucks to lose!")
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 09:37 AM (G8OwX)
Shooting Shit in the Fucking Face: 17
Shooting Shit In the Head with the Sniper Rifle: 15
Taking a Fuckload of Bullet Damage: 16
Setting Shit on Fire with Your Jedi Immolation Power: 13 (needs work)
Stealth: 3 (stealth is for Fags)
Charisma: 3 ( who give a fuck)
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 09:38 AM (/IWYB)
NO YOU CAN'T, I've played it. What you can do is go to areas on the map, shoot things, collect their gold, then go to the Armament Dispenser and buy a new gun that has a slightly better Rate of Fire (3.78 bullets per second instead of your old and busted 3.46 bullets per second) and add incendiary shells (which give you 10.66 damage per shot instead of your old 10.24 damage).
In what sense do you have any choice about what to do? You can only do three things, shoot things, loot them, buy new guns with which to shoot things. Your choices are Shoot Things North of You, Shoot Things South of You, Shoot Things East of You, or just go crazy and Shoot Things West of You.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 09:42 AM (/IWYB)
That's why I'm looking forward to Beyond: Two Souls. Heavy Rain is pretty much what you described and I'll give them credit for having endings where the child you are trying to save dies if you fuck it up. Even then, though, it's still trying to get the Silver Key (in this case save the kid) and every story line ends at that.
And now I must go and reread the hilarious Every Video Game Ever post.
GODMODE
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Take us away. at July 27, 2013 09:44 AM (Gk3SS)
Posted by: zsasz at July 27, 2013 09:44 AM (MMC8r)
Bioshock Infinite was also a big letdown, story-wise. Same problem as with The Last of Us, really. I kept wanting to go exploring, only to run into invisible walls and impermeable textures. I also found the tonics to be almost useless, but maybe that's just because of the way I was playing.
Also: too many damned cutscenes and the overall plot didn't make much sense.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 09:47 AM (G8OwX)
I got bored and quit that one but I did enjoy a few aspects, the steampunk thing you mention, and I really liked one mission where my goal was to find a specific sister (one of three) at a large masquerade ball at a mansion and then isolate her or either kill or or at least make her go away. (This was one of the few missions where I chose "Make her go away" because I just could not get into murdering a 25 year old girl, even in a videogame.)
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 09:49 AM (/IWYB)
You forgot the add on user content of,
Fuck Everything that moves (we call that Clinton Mode)
Sexually Harass everything that moves (Filner Mode)
Loot everything in the game with one button click(Corzine mode)
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 09:52 AM (LRFds)
They did not grasp that you can't just use the shooting style of controls for hand-to-hand combat. It's amazing people don't realize this yet, even while games like Arkham Asylum have almost perfected really fun, really exciting, really good HTH combat.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 09:52 AM (/IWYB)
They weren't very good then, either. A game isn't a movie, one is choices for the player, the other is choices by a filmmaker.
Posted by: zsasz at July 27, 2013 01:44 PM (MMC8r)
As I said earlier, the only one I ever really liked was Fantasmagoria. After that I tried Ripper and hey it had Christopher Walken. But I got frustrated spending hours trying to bust through to even early cut scenes. I finally went out found cheat codes and "rippered through it".
Haven't bought any like that since.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 09:53 AM (lZvxr)
----------------
Those are the rules of the game, Ace. That's what the game is.
In baseball, you can run, throw the ball, or hit the ball. And you can only do those things a certain way and at certain times.
Borderlands has simple rules, but there are rules. You shoot things. You get better guns with which to shoot things. You get bigger critters to shoot your guns at. You are rewarded with money and loot for doing those things. It is up to me how and when I do those things...within certain guidelines.
But you are right that even in Borderlands you can't win except by completing the main quest. And you can't really lose. All you can do is stop playing.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 09:53 AM (G8OwX)
ShadowRun Returns just came out and has a pretty decent editor.
I suspect I may make a Moron Horde Community Campaign at some point...
I wish some crew would show "Arcanum" the same TLC with an update that Harebrained showed the SNES Shadowrun RPG...
in Arcanum you have a heady mix of Steampunk and Classical Fantasy genres...
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 09:54 AM (LRFds)
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 09:56 AM (LI48c)
I don't see the difference between Drake, then.
Except for this: Drake will have truly wild scenarios, like being on a passenger liner as its hit by a tidal wave and overturned, a la Poseidon Adventure. Then, after surviving the flooding (a mad scramble to get to the "Top" of the ship, really the hull), you have to shoot a lot of enemies on an upside down ship.
Now Borderlands doesn't have that. It has a bunch of maps with similar topography of hills and depressions and some boulders to take cover behind. It doesn't have to script your way to these things because they're all basically exactly the same.
How could Drake put the time and effort into creating this fantastic sequence and then take the chance you completely miss it because you chose to go west to kill things and were having a fight in Randomly Generated Desert Topography 22 With Some Random Mesas in the Background 33-A?
I just don't see any "story" in the random killing games except for the basic story of "You are a character who randomly kills things. Also, you have an Agility stat."
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 09:58 AM (/IWYB)
--------------
There's a lot of that kind of thing in The Last of Us. It's not really a spoiler to say that you have to control a 14-year-old girl to do some pretty unspeakable things. It's necessary to the story, so I'm not complaining, but it's one of the problems with the lack of choice in a game like this: had I been given a chance to sneak around the bad guys, I would have taken it.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 09:59 AM (G8OwX)
Posted by: Jawknee at July 27, 2013 10:00 AM (clcLS)
The Total War games are also different every play-through, you never know which enemy nation is going to be the biggest threat to your burgeoning empire. Same with the Civilization games, with the difference there are varying ways to win, diplomatic, cultural, military, scientific, etc. Definitely not on rails.
I've been enjoying a new game Expeditions: Conquistador which is definitely not PC, it puts you in the position of Hernan Cortes: How do you want to conquer the New World? By being a ruthless exploiter, by allying with Montezuma or his enemies, or being a genocidal maniac kill them all type. I'm trying the route I suspect Cortes himself wanted until his lieutenants screwed it up , that of leaving all the native empires intact but being vassals to Spain, puppet empires drained of their assets by political means.
Posted by: JHW at July 27, 2013 10:02 AM (B38OD)
Gamer snob!
Posted by: CausticConservative at July 27, 2013 10:03 AM (gT3jF)
I don't want to spoil for anyone who hasn't played it, but while it is a kick in the balls, when you look back on it you can see that you were never directly lied to about what was happening. It's a pretty fantastic bit of misdirection and manipulation and I mean that as a compliment. It's using very traditional means of storytelling to lead you down a path that isn't what you think."
===============
Oh, yeah, absolutely. When I say the killer's reveal in "Heavy Rain" was a kick in the balls, I mean that as a compliment. I just mean that it hurt.
Posted by: Kensington at July 27, 2013 10:03 AM (uaEZS)
Zelda is an action "rpg" it is not advertised as "an RPG where YOU control the outcome and the story's morals."
The ME3 con job bothered me a lot more when I was under the impression it was relevant to my happiness in a sane world. Essentially if a story wants to be an adventure or a simple thumb buster that's fine but stop trying to pretend you can deliver any of the Pen and Paper RPG schtick to electronic gaming I guess. See I nevber got into Zelda or Castlevania b/c I preferred SSI's gold box game ports as they did a good job of grabbing more of the "PnPO" zen.
It's all good.
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 10:03 AM (LRFds)
It'd be nice if some developer tightened up the resolution of plot points and was ruthless about removing certain plot trees as you make the "moral choices" Monty was on about. If you do sub plot A doing your "Big Blue Boyscout" Superman morality kick you lose access to subplot point C the Joker School of Serial Murder and bad Stand-Up routines Schtick. Point being it would make it a compelling thing to go pay attention to the plot points on replay for a different set of trees.
I'm not a snob about gaming I just know that there's a niche that has not failed because it has never really been tried.
There's no reason you can't create an RPG that allows interaction between player and author's mind in a way that allows the player to control the story and still allows the author to tell their story.
Stunts like the resolution to ME3 are the videogaming equivalent of a bastard GM "dropping boulders on the players."
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 10:10 AM (LRFds)
---------------
You just made my point for me. It's not a story. It's a game. (And a flawed one, too, because there's no real way to lose that game.) You build stats in games, not in stories.
I realize that many games need a "story element" to give them motive force and a goal for the player to reach, and to build up a sense of investment in the player. If I feel closer to the kid whom I am shepherding past a bunch of bad guys (God, I hate escort missions), then I am going to feel more of a sense of excitement and dread during the encounter. But it bugs me when the game forces me into a corner and makes me do something I wouldn't do otherwise -- even if my way would still be within the rules of the game universe. Maybe I don't want to go up corridor A, get key B, and open door C. Maybe I want to crawl out on the ledge and creep over to the window of room C and sneak in that way. Or maybe I want to bash the door down with my Hammer of Smiting. I've smote other doors; why not this one?
One of the things I liked about the old paper-based D&D adventures (if you had a good DM, that is) is that there was never a sense of fatalism or futility about it. You always felt in charge of the process, like your choices and actions mattered in the game. And you could *lose* -- you could get popped by a Skeletal Archer or a Dragon and that was it; game over and you lost. Try again.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 10:12 AM (G8OwX)
or some of the games Sierra put out like Gabriel Knight IIRC...
yeah if in the mood I can get into the whole Voodoo erotic control thing but the mood is not a constant thing...
//Sven
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 10:12 AM (LRFds)
-----------
Fallout 3 was terrible about this whole "moral choice" thing. I nuked an entire town and killed hundreds if not thousands of innocent people, and still ended the game with near-perfect Karma.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 10:13 AM (G8OwX)
Posted by: eman at July 27, 2013 10:15 AM (AO9UG)
I like Tomb Raider. Good, but not great. A let down on the story and imagination behind it, but good gameplay and very good-looking.
Injustice has a terrible derivative plot, which is just a mash up of the awesome, classic DC Animated Universe story "A Better World" (The Justice League become the Justice Lords and rule the world with an iron fist, "for the good of the people") and the so-so cartoon movie "Crisis on Two earths."
The game borrows so heavily from these plots it's strange -- why not just USE the plots as written? Why bother making trivial changes to show "but this is different" when it's clearly not different except to the extent it's not as good?
as far as gameplay, it's fun, and I enjoy it, but these Fighting Games are now a really competitive thing, so the game makes it very complex and gives you a slew of options. Plus there's tactics; I had to go on YouTube to figure out what a "Chip In" was, and what a "Punish" was, and what a "Zoner" was, and how to beat a Zoner and etc. It's a game in a tradition of a high competitive factor so it's NOT casual, at least not if you want to feel you have any sort of decent control over things.
Without a great deal of study, practice, and even Fighting Game theory, it's just a button-masher. But I did enjoy it on those terms. I love the DC universe and I enjoy battles between Batman and Solomon Grundy or, one of my oddball favorites, Shazam versus the very very badass Aquaman.
So, a mixed rating on it. I think the game "scales up" depending on your level of commitment to being really good at competitive fighting games. But if you're a casual gamer, like me, all that detail is not only a waste, but it's a drawback. I wish the game had a simple, stripped-down mode where I didn't have to devote hours to Fighting Game Tactics and Theory to feel like I had some degree of mastery.
Still, pretty fun.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 10:15 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: Morseus at July 27, 2013 10:18 AM (BHGji)
Yup, and the price you paid for it was "Golly you get randomly attacked by some mercs and whatnot."
Look I am pretty sure the Brotherhood of Steel would have a real problem with you incinerating Megaton and as such the entire "real main plot of the game" in fulfilling your father's research would go out the window.
Hell have your dad be the one who tries to kill you at that point for being such a monstrous shithead.
It's cheap...the mentality of the type of player who does that lends itself to being able to run the more evil themed subplot points like the slaver bit, and the hitman subplot but at that point you can safely assume the player has decided that it is a sandbox shooting gallery.
It is not punishment to have the morality tree choices have real consequence in my opinion, and if anything it creates replay value.
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 10:19 AM (LRFds)
I bought Tomb Raider, don't remember it being a movie cut scene game though. But I didn't get far in it before I got bored and just gave up.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 10:20 AM (lZvxr)
No, seriously. Go watch the YouTube videos. It's like that serious where you essentially have to be a long-time student of fighting games to even understand what the hell they're talking about. And as far as applying this-- forget it, it would literally take years of devotion to get to this level.
But as far as a kind of random mash-and-bash against computer opponents, it can be fun.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 10:21 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: SamIam at July 27, 2013 10:23 AM (HMI9a)
Yup. I was quite a fighting game player once upon a time, and the game looks decent. The SS Failboat in Genre Crossing can go the other way as well.
There was a licensed pen and paper "StreetFighter RPG" out for a bit. It was decent enough in some ways but you could tell that it was fans of fighting games trying to shoehorn their vision into a PnP game rather than PnP crafters who were using a Fighting game Motiff.
They streamlined White Wolf's period mechanics.
http://tinyurl.com/mcm7l6e
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 10:26 AM (LRFds)
Posted by: zsasz at July 27, 2013 10:31 AM (MMC8r)
well if you like fighting games it's probably a must. It looks very good and the characters are pretty well done. Adam Baldwin plays Green Lantern (former Firefly costar Nathan Fillion has played Green Lantern in other projects, interestingly enough).
as far as bringing the Fighting game idea into a PnP, it just makes no sense.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 10:32 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: zsasz at July 27, 2013 02:31 PM (MMC8r)
Ah the epic game of the past. I think I played every one of those. Still have a few of them but I doubt if they will run on XP and surely not on Win 7.
Posted by: Vic at July 27, 2013 10:32 AM (lZvxr)
as far as bringing the Fighting game idea into a PnP, it just makes no sense.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 02:32 PM (/IWYB)
Baldwin also voiced Superman in Doomsday, which unfortunately, is one of the weaker DC Animated films. And he does Superman in the DC Universe MMO as well.
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 10:44 AM (LI48c)
yeah I know, and I agree, I liked his performance as Supes but that movie was just bad.
Plus, DC Universe decides frequently to change its character models and voices. But the models established by the DCAU are very good, and most of those voices are good, too.
I remember they used some new character model and voice for Lois Lane and it just wasn't as good as the old one. Old Lois was ultra hot. New Lois wasn't hot and also wasn't Lois.
I really wish they'd stick to the models and voice talent they've established, unless they have to change it (because, say, Tim Daly doesn't feel like voicing Supes).
I think Baldwin is good as Supes and wouldn't mind if they kept him as the main actor.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 10:52 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 10:53 AM (/IWYB)
Plus, DC Universe decides frequently to change its character models and voices. But the models established by the DCAU are very good, and most of those voices are good, too.
I remember they used some new character model and voice for Lois Lane and it just wasn't as good as the old one. Old Lois was ultra hot. New Lois wasn't hot and also wasn't Lois.
I really wish they'd stick to the models and voice talent they've established, unless they have to change it (because, say, Tim Daly doesn't feel like voicing Supes).
I think Baldwin is good as Supes and wouldn't mind if they kept him as the main actor.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 02:52 PM (/IWYB)
Well I don't actually mind some variation on styles for some such as the Dark Knight Trilogy (Yes, Batman: Year One is the same character as The Dark Knight Returns two parter) or All Star Superman. Doomsday's problem was more like they kept Superman mostly the same but for a few changes in the face, and completely redid Lex Luthor.
But yeah I would like them to keep some consistency especially for the Justice League ones, which I think they are starting to do, since Nathan Fillion plays Hal Jordan in the newest one like he did for Doom, and Kevin Conroy is again Bruce Wayne/Batman, though I think he's more of a bit role.
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 11:02 AM (LI48c)
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 02:53 PM (/IWYB)
One of the best parts of Mass Effect 2 is coming across the character he plays. One of the worst things about Mass Effect 3 is not including him and giving him a death via e-mail.
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 11:03 AM (LI48c)
i agree about departing from the established house style for good reasons (like Year One and TDKR).
Oh, and you remind me of my real problem in Doomsday, the Lex Luthor makeover. Lex Luthor, on the Justice League show, was awesome. Perfect. Plus he had a bunch of physical features you weren't expecting -- a sort of olive skin and mediteranean-kinda full bow- lips, possibly suggesting mixed racial heritage. And his voice was awesome. He was perfect in every way. And he was different than you were expecting. And all those new spins were great.
He was presented, interestingly, as being very Mephistopholean. You could see this character taunting Dante.
Then they just changed him for no reason for Doomsday into Standard Rich White Guy #435.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 11:12 AM (/IWYB)
The idea was that you were trapped in some sort of experimental lab facility and you had a weird weapon that allowed you to cut holes in the fabric of space to leap out at different places. Had a voiceover done by a beautifully cruel, vicious (and funny) computer. I think it might've been made by the folks behind Half-Life.
What was its name? I finally want to download it and I can't remember.
Posted by: Jeff B. at July 27, 2013 11:14 AM (n/+FT)
I have neither, but it's important to get portal 1 first because Portal 2 is an elaboration on the first; if you play them the opposite way, you will be going from the elaborate version to the stripped down basic version, and so it will let you down, I think.
I say this because Portal 2 is widely available now while I think Portal can only be had via download, like on Steam.
which is what keeps me from getting it.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 11:17 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: Jeff B. at July 27, 2013 11:17 AM (n/+FT)
Oh, and you remind me of my real problem in Doomsday, the Lex Luthor makeover. Lex Luthor, on the Justice League show, was awesome. Perfect. Plus he had a bunch of physical features you weren't expecting -- a sort of olive skin and mediteranean-kinda full bow- lips, possibly suggesting mixed racial heritage. And his voice was awesome. He was perfect in every way. And he was different than you were expecting. And all those new spins were great.
I downloaded the Superman animated series some time back, and the torrent I got it from actually included a few commentary episode as well with Bruce Timm and some of the other guys. Along with talking about how one of the first things they tended to give new guys to the animation team is a stack of Jack Kirby's, there was one where they discussed Luthor's skin tone. I believe they said he was a white guy, and they were actually kind of surprised at the thoughts people had that he was black or mixed. If you look, his skin tone on the series is exactly the same as Superman's.
He was presented, interestingly, as being very Mephistopholean. You could see this character taunting Dante.
He kind of does that with his interactions with Braniac and Darkseid in the Justice League Unlimited series.
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 11:19 AM (LI48c)
Just went and listened to the ending credits song ("Still Alive") on YouTube. Dear god is that ever a joy.
Posted by: Jeff B. at July 27, 2013 11:23 AM (n/+FT)
then it's the fuller bow-lips and sort of Mediterranean or African features.
Not to be all racialist (too late!), but the look they gave him suggested he actually had sex. There was a voluptuous cast to his lips, hinting at an appetite for the sensual. I note this as important simply because the Pinch-Voiced Genius Obsessive White Guy you usually see as Luthor would not appear to have any interest in sex. Just robots and killing Superman. The DCAU Luthor, on the other hand, was definitely banging his bodyguard Mercy Graves. There was no doubt. He was banging her every morning and every night, as schedule exercise and release.
I thought the whole portrayal really added a layer of humanity to him. He went from being just an idiot opponent of Superman's to a plausible, interesting, attractive Bond-like supervillain that would not just be a joke, but would be a genuine threat.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 11:24 AM (/IWYB)
I have neither, but it's important to get portal 1 first because Portal 2 is an elaboration on the first; if you play them the opposite way, you will be going from the elaborate version to the stripped down basic version, and so it will let you down, I think.
Disagree. I played Portal 1 after Portal 2 and didn't really feel like it was a stripped down basic version. It was shorter though. But if I could do it over again I would do 1 then 2.
There are also some great videos where people use the Portal concept.
One is the profesionally shot short film Portal: No Escape. Its got a serious take but is really well done. And the chick is good looking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk
The other I like is Portal: Terminal Velocity which is more like the sort of crap we would do if Portal guns were real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsdEXlPsobI
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 11:25 AM (LI48c)
Tell me more about this game, sir. I happen to have some upcoming paid leave scheduled, and this sounds like the kind of thing I might be interested in.
Posted by: Bob Filner at July 27, 2013 11:26 AM (n/+FT)
then it's the fuller bow-lips and sort of Mediterranean or African features.
Not to be all racialist (too late!), but the look they gave him suggested he actually had sex.
I think it was the lips, the bald head, and that deeper voice that did lend to that view.
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 11:31 AM (LI48c)
It's just this: The test of a character's realness is whether you can imagine them living a life *offscreen* when the plot of Giant Robots and Killing Superman doesn't require their presence.
The DCAU depiction of Lex Luthor was the first time I'd ever seen him where I did in fact believe he "existed" off-screen, where he actually had some kind of life and ambition apart from Giant Robots and Killing Superman as the plot may require.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 11:31 AM (/IWYB)
Like, it was actually interesting when Grodd is in control of the Legion of Doom and recruits Luthor as a subordinate. Because both characters seem "real," you know right away, there is no way this situation will remain stable. Luthor is not knuckling under Grodd and Grodd is no way giving power to an inferior Human.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 11:34 AM (/IWYB)
168 The reason I mention his sexual drive isn't because I'm all into Lex Luthor slash fic.
No, clearly you're into the Lois Lane/Mercy Grave lesbo fiction.
Posted by: buzzion at July 27, 2013 11:34 AM (LI48c)
well the Harley Quinn/Mercy Graves fight got kind of sexual.
At least for me it did.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 11:36 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: Kensington at July 27, 2013 11:50 AM (uaEZS)
I was just looking at that on Amazon. A new copy of the orange box is $28!!!
very expensive for such an old, OLD game.
The sequel is only $21.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 11:52 AM (/IWYB)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s][/u] at July 27, 2013 11:58 AM (qyfb5)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s][/u] at July 27, 2013 11:59 AM (qyfb5)
Posted by: Adam B at July 27, 2013 12:27 PM (I0kdx)
Don't mind me. I just finished Bioshock Infinite and I'm still picking broken glass out of my brain.
Posted by: S. Weasel at July 27, 2013 12:53 PM (Hk4U+)
-------------
I don't get what was so mind-bending about the end of Bioshock Infinite. I saw that ending (or something very like it, anyway) coming from a hundred miles off.
Posted by: Monty at July 27, 2013 12:59 PM (G8OwX)
I dunno, Monty. Maybe you aren't very visually motivated? Most of these games, I spend half my time walking around going, "coo, gosh!" And, yes, that's often enough for me.
Posted by: S. Weasel at July 27, 2013 01:07 PM (Hk4U+)
Or let's have another chess-piece, the Spy, who can go negotiate a separate peace with the Queen to checkmate the King
Sorry, Monty, but this post is stupid.
Posted by: boulder toilet hobo at July 27, 2013 01:16 PM (d7tB2)
but in a pen and paper game, you actually can do more things in a Sandbox game because a human gamemaster can flow with an improvisation. this sort of thing can't happen in a computer game, where the only things you can do are the ones specifically programmed into the game.
Plus, even in a pen and paper game, a "sandbox" game is still an illusion, because most of your choices are still both forced and selected from a small menu (kill and take their stuff, pickpocket and take their stuff, charm and take their stuff, avoid in order to maintain strength to kill other creatures to take their stuff).
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 01:35 PM (/IWYB)
He wondered why dungeons and dragons had persisted for long despite being, by most people's estimations, a rather sloppy and bad game, and why other, seemingly better designed and coherent games, failed.
Why did DnD remain huge while Traveler only got semi-big and then faded completely out?
here's his answer.
It's not about the game, it's about players knowing what to do in the game. DnD has a very simple idea behind it. Way too simple, some would object, but its simplicity is its virtue: What you do in Dungeons and Dragons is go into Dungeons and fight Dragons.
A guy one time designed a parody game called "Orc and Pie," in which the goal is to simply go into a ten foot by ten foot room, kill the orc, and take his pie. A joke, yes, but it demonstrates something important: In Orc and Pie, you know what you're supposed to do. You don't just walk around wondering "What do I do in this world?" It's right there on the tin.
DnD is like that.
Traveler isn't. Traveler has a much richer and more plausible back story and all that. However, someone playing traveler for the first time might wonder just what it is they're supposed to do in the Third Imperium. The rules seem to discuss trader spacecraft a lot, so perhaps the goal is to buy a trader and move goods from planet to planet; but that doesn't seem like an RPG. That seems like some sort of boardgame.
Are you supposed to fight? Well there are combat rules, and combat is somewhat more realistically dangerous; too dangerous to do very often. So you're not supposed to do that.
So what do you do? You can't dungeon crawl; that makes no sense in a sci-fi game. (In fact, it also doesn't make sense in DnD, but we'll ignore that.)
You're in a somewhat plausbile and rational far-future environment with lots of cool little details and echos of 1960s-1970s empire-spanning science fiction and it's pretty awesome except... you don't know what you're actually supposed to do.
You could do ANYTHING-- which is sort of the problem. A game can't be structured around doing "anything." Anything is too big and will lead to paralysis due to too many choices.
You have to sort of know what your objective is. Without an objective, you really don't have a game, you just have a character sheet.
Anyway, this goes to videogame design. Monty faults Drake for being too linear. Well, if Drake didn't have specific objectives, what would he do? It's not obvious, is it? Perhaps he'd just drink and get laid. Maybe he'd go after the Lost Ark or the Holy Grail. Maybe he'd look for a sunken treasure ship.
Maybe he'd find a 'dungeon" to crawl.
In any kind of semi-plausible world there's really too much to do to say "Just do ANYTHING." You have to restrict what can be done to have any game at all.
Now he brings up Borderlands as non-linear, non-railroady game. But it only seems that way because, as in Dungeons and Dragons, the idea of what you're supposed to do is so strictly limited to shooting things and then collecting money and then upgrading your guns and then shooting more things.
World of Warcraft is like that, too. yes, you could, in theory, go anywhere in the world; but the game cheats, because wherever you go in the world, you're in the same place doing the same things. Monsters get reskinned, stats get jiggled slightly, and there are different environmental decals. But it's all the same thing-- it's a dungeon and you're dungeon-crawling.
If you're of a mind to dungeon-crawl, a dungeon-crawl is fine, but if you don't find the assumptions behind such a thing plausible (why are so many combatants gathered in one place, at short distances from one another, allowing small-scale fights, rather than all the baddies grouping together as an unbeatable army?) then the supposedly "Open World Sandbox/Disguised Dungeon" thing doesn't quite work.
The alternative of a truly open world where you can do ANYTHING is technically impossible in a computer game (imagine the coding -- it would be literally infinite) and furthermore would lead to boredom, because no one knows what they're supposed to do in a world where they can do ANYTHING.
The scripted, linear adventure is just a different sort of compromise. Each mission has an objective and to proceed in the game you have to achieve all objectives. It's a different compromise than the ones built into the supposed "Sandbox" world, but both still are making some basic compromises for the purpose of having a game at all. The Sandbox lets you do "anything," so long as "anything" is killing the same reskinned opponents. The Railroad also subjects you to a series of fights against reskinned opponents in somewhat different environments, but you have no choice over which environments or which opponents you'll face. In a sandbox, you have choice here, but it's illusory: They're really all the same opponent with different skins and slightly different stats and the different environments are just different decals.
To me, ultimately, the difference is just that the Railroad game has a story and the Sandbox one simply doesn't, except for the very basic story, "I killed lots of things and upgraded the shit out of my weapons and armor."
Games are a type of fantasy and it's important for me to know why I'm killing things. I don't like killing things just to take their shit. I like a game like Drake where, even though, actually, I kill like 500 people in the span of three days (the villain comments on this at one point and questions how much of a hero you are), I'm killing those people for a pretty good reason, and that reason, of course, is that I want to take the Big Treasure that's been promised from the beginning.
Okay so maybe that's not a very good reason but it's a very cool Big Treasure.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 01:57 PM (/IWYB)
Though it was an ancient dungeon crawl of the most primitive kind, I played Nethack happily for twenty years before I won it. Because there were enough different elements, and they were randomly generated for each new play, it was actually possible to have new things happen to you, even after many years. Sometimes Easter eggs, but sometimes things that the programmers didn't foresee. And, in fact, they often regarded those things as bugs and fixed them in subsequent revisions (things like a teleportation trap appearing in a store, allowing you to rob shopkeepers blind).
I've thought a lot about how such a rules-based game could be made with sophisticated modern graphics, but it would still be a huge task. Skyrim comes closer, if you decide to disappear into the mountains to hunt trolls and trade them for food in the town. But it's still finite and you run out of places eventually.
Posted by: S. Weasel at July 27, 2013 02:17 PM (Hk4U+)
You're getting bossed either way. A game has rules and objectives either way. Perhaps some people like the bossing a little more disguised (as in the Open World where the rules still dictate you do the same sorts of things wherever you go). I don't really credit that illusion as bringing much to the table so I'm meh on it.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 02:19 PM (/IWYB)
well they've had randomly generated dungeons since the first pnps came out. But, you know:
1) Even if random, it still can only generate the things it was programmed to generate
a) although I'll allow that there is an Emergent property here where randomly-generated elements can randomly combine to form an unexpected an interesting whole, but
2) you're still doing the same basic moves. Terrain may be randomly generated but in the end the game is still Bossing You by its basic action/reward protocols (explore terrain/kill things/take stuff/sell stuff/buy better stuff).
I'm not really knocking games as I do like them (like, not love). I'm really just saying I do not see this great cleave between the "Open World" games he says he likes and Drake-style games.
They're all railroady. They have to be. Games are by nature railroady. You can't figure out who "won" unless there's a clear set of victory conditions and some kind of way to work towards those conditions.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 02:26 PM (/IWYB)
Games, to be games, do require constraints.
Posted by: S. Weasel at July 27, 2013 02:29 PM (Hk4U+)
Posted by: Buzzion at July 27, 2013 02:33 PM (lfNMO)
Posted by: CaveJohnson at July 27, 2013 02:36 PM (p9PL2)
Posted by: Cameron at July 27, 2013 02:39 PM (g63Ex)
Posted by: Buzzion at July 27, 2013 02:41 PM (lfNMO)
I know this sounds stupid, but seriously, just point me in the direction of people who need killin' and let me kill them. I don't even need a good reason for why they need killin'; I'll take your word for it. You seem trustworthy. I'll leave all that "thinkin'" stuff to the braniacs at NASA.
I just want to kill some guys, and then get the Big Treasure.
My friend is always trying to get me to play role-playing games and my frustration level goes through the roof the minute he says "well you can choose to be an armor specialist, or a shotgun specialist, or a rifle specialist, or a stealth specialist," and I'm already bored, and I get even more bored when I ask "Where do I go?" and he says "You can go ANYWHERE!" because I don't want to go ANYWHERE, I want to go somewhere very close by where I can kill some fuckers.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 02:42 PM (/IWYB)
Warcraft is like that, actually. You've got a limited scope for actual decision making, and you don't really need to worry about the stats and other build-related stuff unless you're a progression raider, especially now that WOW has faceroll versions of the end game for people who would rather chew tinfoil than become a min/max'ing raider.
Never been interested in raiding, myself. I know too many raiders.
Posted by: Cameron at July 27, 2013 02:50 PM (g63Ex)
That's another thing I don't like about RPGs, borrowing from PnP with the whole Leveling Up thing. It's fine in a game like Arkham Asylum where there are a limited number of Level Ups and you can have almost everything by the end-- I approve of that -- but I don't like the idea of a game where ever year they're going to lift the level caps and put me through the Eternal Treadmill again.
Posted by: ace at July 27, 2013 02:54 PM (/IWYB)
Posted by: Dustin at July 27, 2013 02:58 PM (Y/+iw)
Life is sorta a hamster wheel...of course I tend to get paid for being on it or at a minimum excepting college am not paying for it.
Posted by: Miguel Ambivalence at July 27, 2013 02:58 PM (LRFds)
I guess that's already a thing, but it's news to me.
Posted by: S. Weasel at July 27, 2013 03:05 PM (Hk4U+)
Posted by: CMS2004 at July 27, 2013 05:22 PM (Y2NgW)
I mean, in addition to Portal, you're getting the full Half-Life 2 experience, which includes the original Half-Life 2 *and* both of it's lengthy expansions, Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
Plus you also get Team Fortress, which I understand lots of people love, but I'm a loser with no one to multiplay with, so it's pretty much lost on me.
But my real purpose was just to point out that one need not resort to the PC to play Portal. There are still viable console routes to it. And now that I think about it, I'd be surprised if you couldn't download Portal via either the PlayStation Store or Xbox Live.
Posted by: Kensington at July 27, 2013 05:56 PM (uaEZS)
If you re-read the blog post and pretend it's about Super Mario Brothers, does it seem more or less apt? The Last of Us gave me more ability to affect the plot than Super Mario Bros or Sonic the Hedgehog. Choosing stealth over combat had more than just an effect on personal satisfaction...avoid killing people in one area, and guards in the next area would discuss how you probably hadn't come that far, and they would be less likely to notice you. Drop a quarter into your average side-scroller, not so much. You either make it to the end while dodging what gets thrown at you, or not.
I don't think I'm willing to limit the definition of "game" to chess, racing simulators, and RTS/4X. Donkey Kong should count. and if Donkey Kong should count, then a beautifully rendered Burger Time should count. And if a beautifully rendered Burger Time counts, then so should the Last of Us, where dodging around the booths trying to remain silent in that burning restaurant while being hunted by the man with the machete had my pulse pounding.
Honestly, I think a lot of people are missing some of the forest. I guarantee you the people who are designing the next games in many other genres are going to take note of what worked very well here. For instance, I personally love open-world RPGs. Fallout 3 would sometimes have a dozen identical objects with the exact same cracks and scratches piled in the same room. The Last of Us has just proved you don't have to do that. Enemies sometimes varied patrol routes and timing, and would fill in coverage gaps if they noticed a comrade was missing/dead. There's a lot to be excited about on the technical front even if you don't like that the game had a plot.
Posted by: Talkalypse at July 27, 2013 06:09 PM (C/t7c)
Posted by: scar3crow at July 27, 2013 06:17 PM (r945S)
While I share your distaste for Mass Effect 3's ending - to the point the entire trilogy was ruined for me and I returned all three games to GameStop - Mass Effect was described from the beginning as a sandbox game. It was sold to us as a game where we had ultimate control, and it was revealed to be a lie.
Naughty Dog has described their stories from the beginning as just that, interactive stories. While they lack the interactivity of other games like Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted and The Last of Us are far more similar to Spec Ops: The Line. By forcing the player to take the actions necessary to move the story along, the developer helps to create a deeper emotional connection - in theory at least - with the characters. An emotional intimacy which is far more difficult to achieve in either novels or movies/television. While it doesn't always work, the idea is a good one, with the potential to open up a new world of story telling. The developers just need to be more honest in describing what they are doing in these situations.
Posted by: KC_EDM at July 27, 2013 08:37 PM (tDnMR)
Posted by: SplatticusFinch at July 27, 2013 11:57 PM (jKTel)
The problem with the Mass Effect 3 ending (in a vacuum, the overall games themselves were all pretty excellent in both game play and story--the genophage remains one of the best plot points I've ever come across in a game, perhaps in any medium) was that the developers hyped up how much the choices made throughout the three games would impact the ending of the series itself. When that turned out not to be the case, it was a breach of trust. If BioWare had never made those claims, people wouldn't have been nearly as outraged. I don't really care if I'm given the option to affect the ending or not, as long as the ending is satisfying.
Judging the ending on its own merits, it's not the best I've ever seen or anywhere close to it. But I thought it was perfectly serviceable (especially the extended cut), *if* BioWare hadn't gone on and on about how the decision made with the Rachni Queen in the first game would have a "huge" impact on the ending of the trilogy. It turned out that basically no choices mattered at all, except that there might be a few more dead people here or there. Further, the best ending (in my view) was impossible to achieve without playing the stupid online stuff I don't care about. Oh well. That's what save game editors are for. I merely changed Wrex' war point value from 30 to 3000. Problem solved. Still, I shouldn't *have* to do that.
There are other games (the good Final Fantasies come to mind--it's sad that the series has basically become the A Song of Ice and Fire of video games) that don't let you affect the outcome of the ending, but that doesn't prevent them from being both great stories and great games. Honestly, I prefer it that way because I've found that open-world games tend to have terrible stories. And the more open it is, the more the story suffers (this is true even of games that are fairly well-written by open-world standards). That's not *necessarily* a problem if the game play makes up for it.
I really like the Borderlands games, but it's not because of the story. The first game's story is frankly terrible, but it's a lot of fun. The second game's story is significantly better, but it's still nothing to write home about. The dialogue is pretty good (though, now that I think of it, a lot of the stuff I enjoyed the most was meta commentary on gaming itself and blatant ripoffs of other pop culture--this constitutes basically 100 percent of the Tiny Tina DLC, and I loved it). The overall plot ("Um, there's a bad guy who's trying to open a vault--go stop him!") is pretty mediocre. I keep playing it because it's really fun, but if I want a good story, I'll look elsewhere.
I don't like horror movies, so I avoid watching them, but I also don't try to tell other people that they shouldn't watch them. I certainly don't tell them that they aren't "real" movies. I feel the same way about country music and some other things. To each his own. I *do* like story-driven games (as long as the story is good), however. Monty apparently doesn't, which is fine. If nothing else, I know that I can ignore future commentary on such games.
Posted by: John at July 28, 2013 01:06 AM (KQ9rH)
Posted by: John at July 28, 2013 01:09 AM (KQ9rH)
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No Doom?
Who are you, and what did you do with Monty?
Posted by: Invictus at July 27, 2013 07:46 AM (OQpzc)