I am not sure if it really counts as "film" (in the way how its probably meant here). But I think no book will leave on someone such a heavy impression like certain ... documentations can.TwinkieStabllis said:
Fireside Chat
- Thread starter Brother None
- Start date
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I think that they're both right and, to me, are somewhat saying the same thing. If the designers want a compelling narrative then it should be a part of the process from the beginning. Devil May Cry and Capcom's D&D games are good examples of games that go another route, as are Mario games. Metal Gear Solid has been slowly lengthening their cutscenes, particularly their intro cutscenes, and slowing down the game. For example, the introduction cutscene for Metal Gear Solid 3 has a section in it that is straight out of a James Bond movie's opening credits which adds nothing of value for the player (doesn't advance plot and doesn't provide gameplay).Ausir said:
I think that Pratchett nailed the problem when she talked about wannabe movie cutscenes, Xenosaga felt very much that way to me, particularly the first few hours of it. The beginning of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time was the same way (though it was fine after it). JRPGs in general tend to walk the line (increasingly so since the PSX) and I'd say that FFVII is partially so popular because it had good pacing and didn't bog the player down too long with cutscenes (though it didn't have the best pacing). Chrono Trigger does a good job falling in between the two (linear story with a few options and a few places where you can beat the game) and has some of the best pacing for a linear story (regardless of what you think of the story itself).
I'm all for variety so I'm happy with both existing, I just want both to excel and not confuse games with other mediums.
EDIT:
Non-fiction books can and do, though you might be right about the severity of the impression (music, sound, narration, video, and images are very powerful).Crni Vuk said:
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I think that we're focusing too much on him getting gaming journalism right and not enough of the repercussions of that (which he stated). It creates a cycle between game developers and game journalists with developers which is the real problem and the important thing that he hit on, the "innovation killer".Beelzebud said:
A nice and unexpected read with plenty of reference points!
Every medium, film, books, video games, etc. come with their own balancing act of affordances and constraints. There are simply things that film can do better than video games, video games can do better than film, books can't do over film, ect. Because of this, as Brother None has already stated, these different medias cannot be directly compared as they provide different experiences.
The video game is a broad category as much as film is, a more complicated story can be told over a series on television in contrast to a 2 hour film. It all depends on the goal and format in which it's created. As you guys have already mentioned, the video game world is very young and these different branches will flesh themselves out over time. We cannot say "A game is strictly this!" as much as we can't say "Art is strictly this!" or film, or books, yadda, and yadda. Obviously we can define what game is, just that there are many different kinds of games with different goals.
You can't compare written languages to imagery as they hold equal weight in terms of conveying a message; especially in terms of accessibility (what happens if your audience cannot read?). Imagery is very powerful, it can shake a mans philosophical stance to the ground with one image, and perhaps through sequential imagery (comics, film) or interactive media (video games) you can lead a user/player to consider a different stance on whatever the topic may be. Of course, language is equally powerful and can paint a picture when there is a lack of one; this all depends on appropriateness and technique.
I believe the major conflict lies in the ability to form these messages appropriately within the constraints of a video game. It is definitely possible, it's just that the question arises: Why aren’t developers executing this well? Do they want to? That's the problem.
A game can do anything as long as it falls into the category of a game: That it has rules, requires interaction from the player, the outcome has to be uncertain, it simulates or changes properties in the real world, and the rules and representation are not independent but interact with each other. (from Understanding Games: Ep1) I think what matters is your preference, if you want to play a put-you-to-sleep interactive story or smack circles around with rectangles, then that really is great! But you cannot say a game needs to fit within a mold, if this was the case then gaming would not continue to evolve.
Until gaming gets Hollywood and dollar signs pissed out of its system, we won't be seeing too many games that tickle our intellectual fancy. I fear that if gaming journalism and game development don't change, then, well, we'll have a lot of shitty get-rich-quick games (like we do now). If journalism doesn't grow some balls and be critical themselves, then what will stop the gaming industry from milking poor saps with over rated crap? Morals maybe?
edit: added link to Understanding Games.
Every medium, film, books, video games, etc. come with their own balancing act of affordances and constraints. There are simply things that film can do better than video games, video games can do better than film, books can't do over film, ect. Because of this, as Brother None has already stated, these different medias cannot be directly compared as they provide different experiences.
The video game is a broad category as much as film is, a more complicated story can be told over a series on television in contrast to a 2 hour film. It all depends on the goal and format in which it's created. As you guys have already mentioned, the video game world is very young and these different branches will flesh themselves out over time. We cannot say "A game is strictly this!" as much as we can't say "Art is strictly this!" or film, or books, yadda, and yadda. Obviously we can define what game is, just that there are many different kinds of games with different goals.
You can't compare written languages to imagery as they hold equal weight in terms of conveying a message; especially in terms of accessibility (what happens if your audience cannot read?). Imagery is very powerful, it can shake a mans philosophical stance to the ground with one image, and perhaps through sequential imagery (comics, film) or interactive media (video games) you can lead a user/player to consider a different stance on whatever the topic may be. Of course, language is equally powerful and can paint a picture when there is a lack of one; this all depends on appropriateness and technique.
I believe the major conflict lies in the ability to form these messages appropriately within the constraints of a video game. It is definitely possible, it's just that the question arises: Why aren’t developers executing this well? Do they want to? That's the problem.
A game can do anything as long as it falls into the category of a game: That it has rules, requires interaction from the player, the outcome has to be uncertain, it simulates or changes properties in the real world, and the rules and representation are not independent but interact with each other. (from Understanding Games: Ep1) I think what matters is your preference, if you want to play a put-you-to-sleep interactive story or smack circles around with rectangles, then that really is great! But you cannot say a game needs to fit within a mold, if this was the case then gaming would not continue to evolve.
Until gaming gets Hollywood and dollar signs pissed out of its system, we won't be seeing too many games that tickle our intellectual fancy. I fear that if gaming journalism and game development don't change, then, well, we'll have a lot of shitty get-rich-quick games (like we do now). If journalism doesn't grow some balls and be critical themselves, then what will stop the gaming industry from milking poor saps with over rated crap? Morals maybe?
edit: added link to Understanding Games.
EnglishMuffin
Still Mildly Glowing
I believe that a game could be nearly as deep as a book or movie. I'm currently trying to write something along these lines. Will it ever be made, probably not, will it sell better than a mindless shooter, probably not. Will it be remembered always as great as a game as fallout, possibly.
What it comes down to is comparing the mediums and simply adapting. Movies and books are predetermined. The outcome is set in stone as is the path to get there. There is no interaction with the viewer or reader in those mediums, the person is simply there for the ride.
Now plane shooters can never be as deep since the main purpose is to shoot and kill things. Political and philosophical ideas would simply be lost in a pool of explosions and violence. The only type of game that could be on the level of a good book would be a CRPG. The balance between what the player is shown and what the player can do is very finite, but the possibilities are infinite.
I believe that need to give the player multiple choices, not just while he is playing the game, but the beginning and end as well. For example, in fallout you start in a vault, everything you do is optional and you end in the cathedral. What if you had a choice of starting in the vault or starting in the wasteland and what if you had a choice to join the master instead of kill him. Perhaps join the master early on and destroy the brotherhood. Or join the Master, kill the master and become the tyrant of the wastes, or the salvation of the wastes.
I believe that giving the player as many choices as possible is the way to reach this goal, along with giving very harsh consequences to every action. Not to mention that every action you take could have an ambiguous outcome.
However what it all comes down to in the end is how well the dialogue is written between characters. It must be believable at all times. Working in the difficult concepts of god, politics and prejudice is something that has never really been done before, but simply hinted at. You never see a peaceful protesters being slaughtered by the police who are supposed to protect them. Or a beloved congressman being assassinated by an unknown hostile group. It never arises that in order to achieve something great, you may have to side with drug dealers, murderers, or rapists. There is nothing about the concept of god, the things that would happen if we lived in a theocracy, or if only one religion ruled the world.
You never see a group of dwarves set up a concentration camp to wipe out all the elves in existence. There has never been any real brotherhood and love between characters, those that you interact with and those you see around you. Make the player truly feel love for a character or loss when a good friend is cut down by radscorpions.
The visuals are there. All you need to do is express them through hard actions. Clint eastwood already learned how to do this in his movies. The next is strong dialogue, the type that Colonel Kurtz preaches in Apocalypse now.
The problem has to do with the rating system, but more than that is the lack of heart that gaming companies have. They see it as simple entertainment along the lines of transformers 2. All these gaming companies are so afraid of possibly offending a group of people that they don't even try to touch on real modern day issues. Other than a slight nod to racism, there is nothing.
The concepts are there for a game that will take the player on a fun ride, but are just too shallow when it comes to challenging the player's beliefs or having him question something that he has never even thought of before.
What it comes down to is comparing the mediums and simply adapting. Movies and books are predetermined. The outcome is set in stone as is the path to get there. There is no interaction with the viewer or reader in those mediums, the person is simply there for the ride.
Now plane shooters can never be as deep since the main purpose is to shoot and kill things. Political and philosophical ideas would simply be lost in a pool of explosions and violence. The only type of game that could be on the level of a good book would be a CRPG. The balance between what the player is shown and what the player can do is very finite, but the possibilities are infinite.
I believe that need to give the player multiple choices, not just while he is playing the game, but the beginning and end as well. For example, in fallout you start in a vault, everything you do is optional and you end in the cathedral. What if you had a choice of starting in the vault or starting in the wasteland and what if you had a choice to join the master instead of kill him. Perhaps join the master early on and destroy the brotherhood. Or join the Master, kill the master and become the tyrant of the wastes, or the salvation of the wastes.
I believe that giving the player as many choices as possible is the way to reach this goal, along with giving very harsh consequences to every action. Not to mention that every action you take could have an ambiguous outcome.
However what it all comes down to in the end is how well the dialogue is written between characters. It must be believable at all times. Working in the difficult concepts of god, politics and prejudice is something that has never really been done before, but simply hinted at. You never see a peaceful protesters being slaughtered by the police who are supposed to protect them. Or a beloved congressman being assassinated by an unknown hostile group. It never arises that in order to achieve something great, you may have to side with drug dealers, murderers, or rapists. There is nothing about the concept of god, the things that would happen if we lived in a theocracy, or if only one religion ruled the world.
You never see a group of dwarves set up a concentration camp to wipe out all the elves in existence. There has never been any real brotherhood and love between characters, those that you interact with and those you see around you. Make the player truly feel love for a character or loss when a good friend is cut down by radscorpions.
The visuals are there. All you need to do is express them through hard actions. Clint eastwood already learned how to do this in his movies. The next is strong dialogue, the type that Colonel Kurtz preaches in Apocalypse now.
The problem has to do with the rating system, but more than that is the lack of heart that gaming companies have. They see it as simple entertainment along the lines of transformers 2. All these gaming companies are so afraid of possibly offending a group of people that they don't even try to touch on real modern day issues. Other than a slight nod to racism, there is nothing.
The concepts are there for a game that will take the player on a fun ride, but are just too shallow when it comes to challenging the player's beliefs or having him question something that he has never even thought of before.
It's annoying how you always claim to know exactly what the discussion is about even when you don't.Brother None said:
Per's post isn't "kind of key". If it is, then you are thinking too narrowly.
And yes: a book could mimick a game like Fallout, even Arcanum, but IT IS NOT THE RIGHT MEDIUM. The whole tree dialogue thing, the different locations, even the goddamn inventory thing could theoretically be done on pages, in bookform, with drawings, BUT IT WOULDN'T WORK BECAUSE IT'S NOT THE RIGHT MEDIUM. A game like Arcanum would probably take you a million pages and drawings to mimick in bookform, the nodes alone, shit, it would be insane but it would be possible. What wouldn't be possible to mimick would be the enjoyable ggameplay, the same level of immersion, ...
Your ideas of how games could become better is flawed, it's that simple. You keep referring to Pathologic the same way literary geeks refer to obscure books no one else has ever read to prove their point that, hey, maybe the novel ain't dead after all, or hey: maybe poetry could be written without vowels 'cause this one guy, this one book does it. It's a bit sad, because you narrow it down so much that you can't see the bigger picture. Here's an image that can help:
Let's build a hotel! Let's think about what people want when they check into a hotel: a bed, a toilet, a shower and a tv, mayhaps a mini-bar and a restaurant downstairs with a reception and some staff that'll help the tourists if the need arises. 99% of all hotels are this way: it's what a hotel needs to offer to be a hotel in the first place. The rest is cosmetics: fancy hall or not, nice view or brick wall, swimming pool, bubble bath...
Now BN will build a hotel! He still sees how people would in fact need a bed and a toilet and a shower, but you know what: that's too dumb, it's too generic, dawgunnit: 99% of all hotels are like that! It's food for the masses, we can't have that! We have to add something to bring it to a new level, hmmm... Wait! Let's turn the whole shit upside down and focus on what isn't really necessary, even a little alien to the whoile concept of hotels: we're gonna change the floors into pools and the pool into a concrete floor, heck, it's brilliant, innit?
@ Twinks: I did already mention the power of pictures. Trust me: I am well aware of how much more information pictures can store than words can. That's why our world is so shockful of visual imagery nowadays, it works way better, it's less work on the part of both sender as receiver, but they both have certain qualities and capabilities that the other doesn't have.
This is very simple to explain, actually:
Let's say I have a story in my head. A sci-fi story about time-travel. A story with paradoxes and even theoretical musings about the fabric of time and space.
I could turn this material into a novel. This would let me tell you the story in all its glory, I could give you the cheesy romantic bits in nicely written chapters full of warmth and love and make your heart beat stronger and seeing it's a novel, three chapters further in the book I could give you a complete theoretical treatise about time travel, maybe as a conversation between two Oxford students or a drunk and his pet parrot.
Or I could turn it into a graphic novel. This will most likely mean that I won't have to describe as much (appearances of people, scenery, ...), I will limit people's interpretation of things (words leave this huge margin to fill in the blanks and use your imagination, pictures simply show you) and I will be using a medium that just doesn't know how to cope with huge amounts of words as seen in real novels, I'll be filling in captions and word balloons, there will be no place for an essay about time-travel in there, I'll have to dumb it down or simply fuck up my project.
Make it into a movie and you've got the same problem: I'll have more ways of manipulating my audience (that is largely unaware of this). Damn, now I don't even have to rely on descriptions of feelings or show them the feelings (expressions), I can fucking add a soundtrack and force people to feel what I want them to feel (99% of all movies do this, because the medium let's you and you'd be stupid not to). But you'll see that you'll have even less possibilities to add a scientific essay about time-travel in there without boring the crap out of your audience. And you know what movie journalists will say about that movie? That it was fucking deep, man. That it had some really intelligent conversations and a deeper meaning on more than one level. While to people who would also know the film in bookform, it would be a bleak, sad copy of a superior thing, a mdium that suited the story better.
And that's not the fault of the movie journalists.
Also: you abuse the word 'niche'. You use it constantly and I actually doubt if you fully comprehend the word. Your hotel will attract scuba divers, not regular tourists. And seeing that scuba divers are rare and most of them also prefer a bed at night, you'll go broke. But this is nobody's fault but your own: you didn't grasp the concept of what a hotel should be. What it is meant to do. Your pool hotel wasn't subversive, intelligent, creative, it wasn't even special: it was simply a dumb decision on your part: you didn't understand the medium. And your niche market doesn't understand it either.
I will end with a very nice example: do you know the Codex Seraphinianus? It's a modern work, an encyclopedia of an imaginary civilization. It's unreadable, written in a language that does not exist. It's a book and a damn fine book as well, it's subversive, intelligent, rare and imaginative. It takes the medium of the novel (more or less) and twists and turns it upside down and it wins. It's a gem. That's your Pathologic (from what I gather from you, since I didn't play it). Now try and fill a library with similar books and see how many people will visit your library.
'Nuff said.
But yeah, just to save my and your time, BN, let's just conclude that I'm seeing things too narrowly. This discussion is about bad gaming journalism and Pathology. I'll just shut up and let you bathe in your ego once more.
I respectfully disagree, in the book Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, he talks about a concept called closure, which is the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole. Basically, the magic that happens between panels that our mind fills in. "The effect is to spark the imagination, to engage every one of the five senses, rather than simply sight." To put it in literary terms: "If visual iconography is the vocabulary of comics, closure is its grammar." and this, of course, works in other media as well: "Other media make use of closure as well -- in movies, our minds effortlessly connect each frame to those preceding and following it -- but comics requires conscious (or semiconscious), high-level closure between every frame." link
Any medium can use this device, including books, it just doesn’t have to utilize audio.
Basically I'm just reiterating the point that each medium has its own set of techniques, a lot are shared between them, but the translation cannot ever be 1:1. You have to design for that specific medium's abilities to tell it's own successful narrative.
K.C. Cool said:
I know the book. I also know that 'closure' is overrated and has more to do with montage than with conveying complex ideas. Closure is, for instance: a close up panel of a character. The reader fills in the rest of the body. Closure is, for instance: a panel of a woman lying on the floor followed by a close up panel of a bottle of pills. That's all that closure is. Scott McCloud is really good at reinventing the wheel. Americans seem to like that.
Try again.
alec said:
Wait, mimic? You think the entire point was about mimicry? Where did I ever talk about games needing to mimic anything? Hell, it's you who keeps insisting that somehow "smart" games are wrong and then keep hammering in comparisons to books. How 'bout they can be smart in their own way, as fits their medium? I never said otherwise. Forget books, books have fuck-all to do with the ways in which games can be intelligent in their own right.
Also, the hotel analogy was asinine. Hotels are a business, not an art, or even a form of entertainment.
Are you arguing against an imaginary point again? You tend to go off on these tangents when you do. Otherwise I don't get your point. Books can be more expansive than other media, while at the same time leaving gaps for the imagination? Sure, why not? Does that make them inherently more intelligent? If your bias wants to make you believe that, sure, but it's more likely they're just intelligent in a different way, as different media tend to be. Books can't do what films do, and neither can do what games do, that's what makes every medium worthwhile, and that's why the idea of one being an absolute "smartest" medium is a bit counter-intuitive.
So...uh...is your point honestly that games are dumb and should, by their nature, be that way? That'd be a hard point to take seriously, honestly. I mean, the vast majority of books and films are dumb too, for a dumb audience but done because it's economically feasible, which for some reason seems to be a key point in your argument. So what's the diff?
Please no, stop it!alec said:Don't tempt me or this will go on and on and on and on.
I seriously disagree with your opinion, that games are not books and therefore must be stupid.
Nerds and gamers are of course not mutually exclusive, that was a pretty stupid statement of yours.
duh
Uhm, try again? Try again at stating a psycological fact? I was simply informing you of how comics and film use devices that use your brain to fill in the gaps of sequential information, exactly like books do. Without it, our brains wont understand the order of any elements lacking information, including the order and understanding of written language.
Closure is really over rated, being first developed by German psychologists in the 1920's along with the entire set of gestalt design principles, which are used in the world every day! What a bunch of nutty guize! McCloud used the definition to describe our brains filling in and interacting with missing information to create a whole! You're right! He reinvented the same word with the same definition! *sigh* Americans!
It is true, you have mentioned closure in the Gestalt sense with your mind filling in the gaps of a person’s body and you also mentioned the aspect to aspect branch of closure with the pill bottle. However definitely true, these are but small examples of how closure works. Each of the six types of closure are tools that are necessary and, when used appropriately, can provoke any kind of feeling, setting, or story you wish to imagine, much like how books, film, and games work.
A book can go into some detail about a setting while taking it's time, books can do that. Comics cannot use the same technique due to various reasons, instead it may contain several aspect to aspect panels while conveying the same information, using pacing as a time elapse tool. This would convey to your brain the action of taking your time and looking around, even if you didn't want to.
Hell, even in the comic Watchmen, the several pages of the silent, horrific imagery of the destruction of NYC cannot be conveyed in the same way as in a book, or in a film, or in a video game. BUT they all have their own techniques in presenting the same information. To think one medium is superior to another is simply preference, which is okay, but to ignore and not consider other media as using different techniques and tools to achieve similar ideas is just asinine.
Now I'm not saying that video games don't need a breath of fresh air when it comes to narrative, because they do. All I'm sayin is that games are capable of their own powerful story telling techniques that aren’t borrowed from books, comics, or film, and can be powerful in their own right, regardless of the content.
Jesse Heinig
First time out of the vault
Games as a medium have the ability to respond to interaction from the player. Books and movies are not very participatory. This is part of the reason that a lot of adventure and RPG games are pretty short; often the game includes content for a multitude of variant dialogs and perhaps even story elements, but the player only sees one based on the game's progression through the player choices. Ergo the story presented is shorter in playthrough simply because there are an array of alternative outcomes unseen unless the player replays the game.
Even very simple games have this feature in one specific fashion: You can win or lose. Obviously, RPGs tend to be much more complex about it.
Taking advantage of this feature in the medium is what gives us some of the best RPGs, when you have a sense that your choices had a real impact on the game world - as seen through elements like the ending slides in Fallout, which present how your choices changed the world.
Even very simple games have this feature in one specific fashion: You can win or lose. Obviously, RPGs tend to be much more complex about it.
Taking advantage of this feature in the medium is what gives us some of the best RPGs, when you have a sense that your choices had a real impact on the game world - as seen through elements like the ending slides in Fallout, which present how your choices changed the world.
I think alec may be on to something with these "right medium" and "hold the boundaries" ideas. I shall please him by illustrating the matter using one of these artists he's always harping on, "hip" musician Thom Yoerk. Here we find the legacy of Bach clashing with that of Vergilius, none of them coming out of the mudpit much stronger for the experience, as alec would be quick to point out. Of course I cannot on an Internet Board quote the nerdily sequenced bleeps and tweets that gurgle on down the background of Mr Yerok's "pop" oeuvre, but we can analyse his attempts at inserting lyrics (the art of Petrarca, the art of Shakespeare!) into this medium. See:<blockquote>The worms come out to see what's up</blockquote>OK, first. If there's going to be a nature show we'll want that to be narrated by David Attenborough, I cannot see a credible alternative. Second, this is just brain-dead monster-of-the-week action, nothing to see here.<blockquote>No more falling down a wormhole that I have to pull you out</blockquote>Again with the worms!? Look Mr Yeork so Zola wrote Germinal in like the 17th century and even that wasn't very profound. It's a story about a damn hole in the ground! Also CRY MORE EMO BOY. Random Turgenev reference.<blockquote>The more I try to erase you the more that you appear</blockquote>This is just a textbook example of young writers clamouring for pseudo-culture cred and trying to pass off ambiguity as depth, the simplest paradox spewed onto the master tape to masquerade as profundity. Anyone who's ever read a book cannot help but smirk, talk about trying too hard.
Of course all may not be lost for the poor Mr Eyrok. If he gives up the pretense of crowbarring notes and sounds into a medium that is not suited for music, abandoning his aural crutch and focusing on sublime verse, then perhaps (AHAHA yeah not really) he could some day approach the heights of Baudelaire and Stagnelius. Or if he embraces sense and eschews words trapped in a form that is inimical to them, diverting his energies to the pursuit of composition that so far seems uncharted to him, he just might (oh but I crack me up!) eventually aspire to the terror and majesty of Beethoven.
Alas poor Yorek, you just fell entirely between the genre stools, didn't you? Maybe you should just quit this "culture" thing while you're ahead.
Of course all may not be lost for the poor Mr Eyrok. If he gives up the pretense of crowbarring notes and sounds into a medium that is not suited for music, abandoning his aural crutch and focusing on sublime verse, then perhaps (AHAHA yeah not really) he could some day approach the heights of Baudelaire and Stagnelius. Or if he embraces sense and eschews words trapped in a form that is inimical to them, diverting his energies to the pursuit of composition that so far seems uncharted to him, he just might (oh but I crack me up!) eventually aspire to the terror and majesty of Beethoven.
Alas poor Yorek, you just fell entirely between the genre stools, didn't you? Maybe you should just quit this "culture" thing while you're ahead.
Edmond Dantès
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Brother None said:
Well, I wasn't trying to explain the reason for reviewers to have low(er) standards in the first place. Your Rybicki Maneuver explains that by saying they are reluctant to be harsh as long as it impacts sales, and your OP in this topic adds the self-respect factor, where reviewers applaud overly much so things that shouldn't be applauded to that degree, so as to ennoble their own work and entertainment genre. I just wanted to mention a possible reason as to why they then criticize what they first lauded; simply because they are forced to because otherwise they'd get one big mesh of everything being brilliant and scores of 90+ becoming meaningless. With there not being any objective standard as to what is good, they can only compare to other games, which naturally makes them reflect back on previous games, and far too often only games of their own time.
Sure, that doesn't, and can't, explain why they rate FO3 high in voice acting, especially not when a year earlier Mass Effect did a much more agreeable job, but I wasn't trying to explain that peculiarity, you've already made an effort with your article and OP for that, I just wanted to point out that if they review with such skewed standards in the first place, backtracking and retroactively criticizing becomes almost a must. It is hard to profile a game without previous points of perceived quality, but when you've previously rated a game gold, you don't want to say 'this is also gold because its the same', but you rather say that it improved, which means that there has to be something which could have been improved. Also, some flaws (not voice acting though) only become apparent when a new game does something better; but that was hardly the case here to be honest.
Yeah I kinda got stuck on wanting to prove the 'an' part whereas you didn't really claim a 'the' anyway, I just got that (false) impression and wanted to bring in some other factors. You probably know how that can become a nasty habit developed as a side-effect from academic history courses.
Graphical improvements really aren't sustainable I think, and you'll probably agree. Improving that which is already adequate to good can only awe so much right now, and will even awe less and less in the future. I don't think we can talk about an 'end of history' scenario with regard to games though. Innovation, as I see it, is still quite well there, it just isn't a main part of the big companies' profile. Perhaps it is possible to argue that innovation moved away from big companies to small, often indie developers, but I don't know how well that argument would work out. Perhaps there is a connection between the growing costs of developing a game and keeping it conservative, save and profitable. I still see quite a lot of innovation, but rather from the hands of indie developers, smaller companies, or companies based somewhere in east Europe, who often develop a game very much based on their personal preference. Such innovation might trickle over towards the mainstream games, thus fueling some long-term developments.
What I personally would love to see would be games that focus far more on the human aspect. Instead of a black and white dichotomy, it would be interesting to see some kind of morality AI, based on the personal preferences of each character regarding values such as greed/selflessness, utilitarian/deontologist, authority/anarchy, etcetara, all on sliding scales. Anything that goes away from simply judging the player's action good/bad really, because I'm getting quite bored with games that have an artificial deity telling me when I'm bad or good. It pretty much forces people to play fully bad or fully good, getting rid of any complexity. And because such judgement is a main gameplay mechanic, you are almost forced to make it clear what the outcome of an action is. Ah god, I'm going off topic here I think. Game morality is one of my pet projects of annoyance nowadays, so excuse me.
I tried to write a long post, but I'm late to the discussion so it turned into unorganized ramblings as I tried to respond to everyone at once, so I won't try. I'll just mention a few things - like that, imo, movies, games and books aren't as unrelated as BN seems to think, or as mutually exclusive in possibility of intelligence as alec claims. They tend to be adapted into each other a lot (with both good and bad results, of course). A Tarkovskiy classic Stalker is a book adaptation, too, and is no less, although a bit differently, intelligent and great. So is his Solaris. etc
"Games as art" - Sublustrum, The Path; try them if you haven't. Great in their own way, but different from the mass. Greatness in being different? etc
Regardless, a great read and discussion, which will, of course and unfortunately, be ignored by those it points a finger at, because that's what they are best at - ignoring things, at least according to the "chat".
"Games as art" - Sublustrum, The Path; try them if you haven't. Great in their own way, but different from the mass. Greatness in being different? etc
Regardless, a great read and discussion, which will, of course and unfortunately, be ignored by those it points a finger at, because that's what they are best at - ignoring things, at least according to the "chat".
Ah. I guess there really is little point in trying to explain something when no one gives a damn.
It's a shame really, this not being able to hold interesting discussions on these boards. I kind of felt like going into the fact that you fail to see the subtleties at work here, because you do fail to see them although I thought they were so evident and clear I didn't need to mention them at all - but again: when thirteen assholes jump your back, you just kinda start walking away or even running, I guess.
Maybe if you just pondered a little about trivial stuff like:
novel (words) -> graphic novel (pictures + words) -> movies (pictures + words + sounds) -> 99% of today's games (pictures + words + sounds + interaction)
and simultaneously compared the humble beginnings of gaming (Tennis For Two, Pong, PacMan, ...) that were full of innovation yet very simple game-grammar to where we are at today in the wonderful world of gaming, you might start to understand that media are less flexible than you seem to think. You add the grammar of other disciplines, you destroy your form/medium: you can illustrate a novel, but when you don't add simple illustrations but rather drawings that convey new meanings, you start to leave the realm of the novel, and at the same time you narrow your field of interpretation. Shit, guys, this really is just basic math, it's got nothing to do with being conservative, or some holy respect for boundaries. It just doesn't work the way you guys think, that's all. Your hope for "better" (I'll just call them better, hokay?) games is in vain if you want all the catchy stuff as well as deepness or whatever the fuck it is you want. It's that fucking simple. Stick to game-grammar and wonders will happen, though.
Also: the notion that the music of Radiohead is so innovative is, well, to say the least, kind of an overstatement. They do crazy shit musically, but there are folk songs out there, in certain Balkan countries IIRC, that are a hundred times more complex and innovative than anything Radiohead ever came up with. Just saying.
It's a shame really, this not being able to hold interesting discussions on these boards. I kind of felt like going into the fact that you fail to see the subtleties at work here, because you do fail to see them although I thought they were so evident and clear I didn't need to mention them at all - but again: when thirteen assholes jump your back, you just kinda start walking away or even running, I guess.
Maybe if you just pondered a little about trivial stuff like:
novel (words) -> graphic novel (pictures + words) -> movies (pictures + words + sounds) -> 99% of today's games (pictures + words + sounds + interaction)
and simultaneously compared the humble beginnings of gaming (Tennis For Two, Pong, PacMan, ...) that were full of innovation yet very simple game-grammar to where we are at today in the wonderful world of gaming, you might start to understand that media are less flexible than you seem to think. You add the grammar of other disciplines, you destroy your form/medium: you can illustrate a novel, but when you don't add simple illustrations but rather drawings that convey new meanings, you start to leave the realm of the novel, and at the same time you narrow your field of interpretation. Shit, guys, this really is just basic math, it's got nothing to do with being conservative, or some holy respect for boundaries. It just doesn't work the way you guys think, that's all. Your hope for "better" (I'll just call them better, hokay?) games is in vain if you want all the catchy stuff as well as deepness or whatever the fuck it is you want. It's that fucking simple. Stick to game-grammar and wonders will happen, though.
Also: the notion that the music of Radiohead is so innovative is, well, to say the least, kind of an overstatement. They do crazy shit musically, but there are folk songs out there, in certain Balkan countries IIRC, that are a hundred times more complex and innovative than anything Radiohead ever came up with. Just saying.
TwinkieGorilla
This ghoul has seen it all
Per said:
you have a real knack for it, y'know? how is judging a "pop/rock" group in relation to anything other than "pop/rock" even slightly relevant? i'll help you: it's not. but i see what you're trying to do and i'm sure it made sense to you to post it as an argument.
but it's a fallacy. i don't think Tom Yorke or Radiohead would ever be claiming to have the kind of intellectual depth as George Crumb or Igor Stravinski. in fact i'm kind of sure they're happy making innovative and influental pop music. even if we did use your model and continue on with the argument, it is debatable that what Radiohead has done musically is equally as innovative, artistic, and culturally influential as the examples you pit it against. citing lyrics isn't fair when it isn't Radiohead's lyrics which have gained them one of the largest fanbases across the globe. musically, they have. and arguably in a very positive way as they have set a very high standard for the quality of pop music (re: if aspiring pop bands want to have the same respect as Radiohead, they're going to have to try pretty hard to get there). not to mention Radiohead have always done what they've done without any regard to the industry standards around them AND without worry of selling albums. they reached a place and know that people will meet them there.
this is what we're talking about, Per. if videogames can become commercially successful while maintaining artistic integrity and thus making an artistic cultural impact on a large scale.
can they? is the medium conducive? alec thinks not. i'm not convinced. Ausir seems to think that given a few more years they will. i'm extremely doubtful because what i've seen is a devolution instead of a gradual climb in gaming at large. it's not like i wouldn't be happy to see such things happen...but i'm still waiting for the day where more than The RPG Codex knows what MCA stands for.