Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the Yankees winning against the Twins (again), whether Derek Jeter is washed up, or A Tribe Called Quest, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Today’s article is brought to you by RPadholic Iceman. Yesterday he pointed me to this IGN article on Greg Kasavin’s GDC Online talk on game writing. Kasavin, a former GameSpot editor btw, brought up some interesting points on storytelling flaws gaming. Some games are paced poorly, others rely too heavily on cutscenes, some bombard you with too much information at the beginning, and others leave too much for the end.
The flawless writing in SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 aside — it’s so unfair to compare that game to others — I’d love hear about your problems with and preferences on storytelling in games. Do you like the Kojima-style cutscene-heavy way? Or do you think that’s too “wannabe movie maker”? Do you want to know as much as you can up front in case something comes along and you don’t finish the game? Or does front loading ruin things for you? Let’s talk it up on behalf Iceman and all the fantastic game writers in the business.
I really enjoy a game with a good story. I'm not looking for anything Pulitzer-worthy, but I generally need more than just "point & shoot" to enjoy a game. Overall the Bioware games have the best writing and pacing. There has to be a nice balance to the cutscenes….they can't be so long that they bore you. Just give me enough information to give me purpose, and then let me get back to the game.
I do not like seeing a long front opening since I want to start playing right away. Guess that is kinda old school.
i dont smoke weed anymore, but i found that i really got into videogame's stories more when i did. Maybe i should have a relapse?
RELAPSE RELAPSE RELAPSE!!!
Jk but I agree with you, when Im stoned I GET INTO them games.
I think you can get into anythiing when you're baked.
I don't smoke weed but I really like a story heavy game like Metal Gear. I appreciate the way Kojima puts the story together. Lots of complaints about MGS4 were the length of cutscenes. Those same people I guess couldn't figure out how to skip those cutscenes nor did they realize it was a game made for FANS of the series. I've never felt short changed by a Kojima game. I always get a well made, well put together story. The pace is a bit different in Z.O.E. and I like it just the same. In the end the quality of the story will override any negative repercussions length would have.
Adverse to this though I don't like when action games that are just straight up action try to get too much into the story. God of War had a good balance but there are some titles where it just gets annoying. I'm so glad Itagaki sucks at stories or NG would have been unbearable.
I think cut scenes are the best way to tell a story. Smartguy mentioned MGS4's long cut scenes and I loved them although many didn't like them. Like Smartguy said, they weren't fans of Metal Gear. Here's the thing, I've played the very first Metal Gear on the NES and every Metal Gear after that and there are 20 years of unanswered questions in the Metal Gear franchise that MGS4 answered in those long cut scenes and I soaked up every second of them. I'm highly intrigued by the Metal Gear story and Kojima's imagination for coming up with it. If you haven't already download the Metal Gear database on PSN and take a look at it when you have time. It's intriguing.
I think open world games have the worst story telling. There is no flow in them and they pack in a bunch of side mission to prolong the game play but it only serves as a distraction form the story.
I can't stand long cut-scenes (Final Fantasy I am looking at you). In Final Fantasy X I started up the game and didnt really get to touch the controller for what seemed like 20ish minutes of cutscenes then I got to run down a bridge to more cutscenes. Same with 13.
Uncharted 2 was great, I never wanted to skip any of the cutscenes. Same with inFAMOUS, I liked the comic book style cutscenes.
For action games I need very little info. Tell me to go in a kill everyone and if you feel like it give me a reason.
The hardest part about quitting smoking weed for me was video games. That's where the habit kicked in. For every other aspect, I was just bored of it in general. But the relaxation process of getting blazed and playing games was slightly difficult to switch up.
As for storytelling, I like it in strides. I like to create my own stories in games inside my head. I used to play Street Fighter 2 back in the day and imagine the setup dialog and story that happened between each fight. I guess that habit stuck with me to a degree.
@N8R
I hear you can't be a great bass player if your not high.
For those of you with copies of Halo: Reach (and who like the boobies)-
http://www.gameseyeview.com/2010/10/07/play-halo-…
@Mr. Padilla;
Thanks for bringing attention to this topic of conversation… and weed, apparently.
@topic;
Just to be clear; A game does not need a story to be a good game. I can make a game where I drop you in the middle of a hoard of bad guys and say, "Kill anything that moves" and it can be the greatest game in the world.
That said; if you are going to take the time to actually flesh out a game by including a story, don't be an idiot about it. There are some rules that a developer should follow in order to make great exposition weave nicely into a game.
Rule 1: I agree with the person who said "Don't assume that your audience are a bunch of idiots." I disliked how Alan Wake "spoon-fed" you the story as if you were a 9-year-old.
Rule 2: Stop trying to be Hollywood! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Movies can only tell a story in two dimensions (sight & sound), while a game tells a story in a more player-controlled interactive way. That means that the exposition needs to compensate for all the possible outcomes of my actions. I heard that this was somewhat of a problem with Heavy Rain since it is not easy to do. I have to give a lot of credit to the developer for such an ambitious goal, however. I think it takes games in the right direction.
Rule 3: Stop making things happen in cut scenes that are completely at odds with normal gameplay. (WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR HALO REACH AND FINAL FANTASY 7 AHEAD! Stop reading if you don't want to know about a major event in each of these games.) In FF7, I fought with Arith (Aris?) all the time and she probably died (since she was the weakest party member) about 73 times before I got to the Temple of the Ancients. I've always brought her back to life with a Revive potion (or was it Pheonix Down?… whatever). Yet, when Sephiroth stabs her in the back, that's it. Why can't I just bring her back to life like I have the other times? It makes no sense. Likewise, in Halo Reach, I fight alongside Kat for about half the game (up to that point) and I've seen her take direct hits from plasma mortars, grenades, spikes, bullets, needles and fuel rod guns and she won't go down, yet in one cut scene where she is randomly jogging from point A to point B, some sniper puts a needle-bullet through her helmet and I was like "WTF?" This half-human, half-cyborg woman has taken thousands of needler hits when she was fighting along side me and yet in one cut scene, one needle goes through her helmet and kills her like she's JFK? Where the hell was her shield that allowed her to take so much damage?
I hate these inconsistencies. They ruin what would be an otherwise good story. Nothing in a cut scene should be any more deadly than what you experience during the game.
-M
I agree with Rule 3.
@Iceman: Around here (ie, in my house), what you are describing in Rule #3 is called either Cutscene Incompetence (when normal enemies you've just defeated waves of suddenly stop you) or Cutscene Absurdity (When characters all of a sudden can do things unavailable to them in gameplay). I may have heard those terms somewhere in the past and just rolled with them, but both the wife and I roll our eyes at stuff like that whenever we encounter it.
There's two perfect examples of this in FFX that occur almost immediately after each other (Spoilers obviously): The party descends from the airship to interrupt Yuna's "Wedding" by railsliging down moving cables (Cutscene Absurdity). You are given control of the characters to take out wave after wave of regular enemies, only to have the game interrupt you after a handful of battles, when you surrender to the same regular enemies you were just defeating (Cutscene Incompetence). So, by all rights, within roughly 3 minutes my characters have gone from all powerful to pathetic.
@Nightshade;
That scenario you described sounds like something I've played before. If I were the developer, the way I would tackle that particular part in the story… or I should say, how Square Enix should have done it is this way:
As you are moving down the cables and wave after wave of enemies are attacking you, there should be an infinite amount of enemy respawns that continue to attack you. Each wave should be more difficult than the last. This way, you will eventually be defeated (no matter how powerful you are) and then after one group of enemies wipe you out, you get the cut scene where you are hurting/on the ground and badly beaten and then you are forced to surrender. That way, the exposition would be seamlessly integrated with the gameplay. It may seem cheap, but if the story is geared to have you surrender, there are only so many ways to do it.
-M
The gear has started arriving. It's scary and exciting. I now have a tripod, monopod, and camera bag (it was a free throw-in).
Woo-hoo!
RPad.tv 2.0 is comming!
This calls for a round of .40's
Cheers!
-M
Nice Rpad.
I just played the Demo for the new Castlevania its pretty good and the graphics are nice.
2 days until the 1 year anniversary of RPad.tv
That year went by pretty fast.
@N8R No kidding! What a crazy year. It's time to get contemplative as I back up my hard drive.
Wow I really lost track of time today and forgot I haven't even posted anything today yet!
@Topic
I think Valve has great storytelling abilities with their games. They give you enough information to play the games and the dialogue just works well. However, their games are not very story heavy- they are more like games with a story for a more casual player.
It is hard to know exactly what the best way to convey a story is through the medium of video games, and some of it will probably never be to everyone's satisfaction because of the different opinions that people have about it. Cut scenes vs. in game dialogue; all the story up front and then you get to play vs. playing through the game and getting the story at the end- and those debates don't even tough the issues that everyone above me mentioned, especially rule #3 on Iceman's post. I don't like those problems at all either, and I think something similar to what Iceman proposed about how to fix that solution for the Final Fantasy game would be a good solution to look into for other games as well. I actually felt something similar a couple of hours ago in my most recent play through of Halo: Reach at the very end of the game. The entire game it has been hard to kill the Elites. It takes plenty of hits and headshots to take one down, and I take a lot of damage sometimes to see the Elite fall. However, at the very end of the game my spartan takes out maybe 5 or 6 Elites no problem at all until he is finally taken down. These kinds of inconsistencies are some of the worst to experience.
One big problem that I have with storytelling in games in the view from which they are told. When we play a game, we assume a person's identity within the universe of the game we are playing. But we don't get to really experience all games from that perspective. Some devs. would probably say that they can show us cooler graphics and images in the cutscenes or gameplay this way, but this issue is one reason I like FPS's the best, and where I think everyone could take a hint from what Valve does in their games. I have not played through tons of Half-Life games, or even a full one at that. But what I notice every time I have played that game is even during the parts of dialogue I stay in the first person point of view. Everything is done from this point of view, therefore I am immersed in what goes on. Cutscenes look cool and are visually pleasing. I don't expect them to go anywhere, but I think they are overrated when it comes to storytelling. The best story, from a writing point of view, is one that keeps the reader entertained and captivated. It also does not change the tense that it is being read from. A good book will be written from a specific point of view, and it will stick with that point of view. Video games could do the same thing, but too often do games jump around with the way that you see everything take place.
I am not trying to tear down cutscenes, because I think plenty of them look cool too- and it is sometimes a good way to show a lot of action taking place at one time. But overall I am more in favor of a game that keeps me immersed in one point of view and takes me, the character in the game's universe, on a great adventure. Also, I like games that give you parts of the story along the way. You don't need cutscenes to tell a story for you and to give you all the details. Bioshock, Alan Wake, Prey…these games specifically have done a good job of putting bits and pieces of the whole story in the game play where I can experience the story from the first person point of view. Bioshock has the audio diaries, Alan Wake has all of the manuscript and radio show collectibles, Prey has a lot of radio broadcasts scattered at different points throughout the game. This is one way to tell a story in the game that I really enjoy the most. To me, this is the best way because it accomplishes so much when done properly and there is, IMO, less effort that needs to be made by the dev. to implement this in to a game.
//2 cents//
@Ray
Can't wait to see what you have in store for the site next!!
@N8R
I agree, I can hardly believe it has been almost a whole year!! I think my gamerscore has jumped about 20,000ish (at least) from this time last year.
Camera and XLR cable are here. Gah!!!
@ The dreaded rule # 3
If you have XBL download the demo for the new Castlevania game, its a perfect example of topic (Icemans rule #3). I think that demo has the perfect ratio of cut scenes, in game dialog, action, and story.
Cutscenes are important, but plz don't let them ruin the gameplay for me! Everyone's approach to cutscenes are different. I enjoyed MGS cutscenes to a point, then they just get in the way at other times. Quite a few RPGs have it down pat with equally good amounts of story and play time. ButI still dig the Elder Scrolls way also, where you have to read the backstory. But that's just me lol.
Aside from that, I tried the Castlevania demo finally too. It's pretty cool to hear Patricky Stuart's voice in it lol. And as a huge fan, OMG. I'll be owning this sucker by my birthday :D
My only 2 issues with Castlevania tho were 1. I played it on Sandrock's Xbox, and since I'm totally not used to AXBY RT crap I felt like a tool (and the buttons felt all completely wrong) lol and 2. I didn't like the trigger button and left stick to dodge they could have just used the right stick.
NBA 2k11 is amazing. If anyone has it and wants a free win let me know. I'm not good yet. I love this game though.
@smartguy
did you get it for 360 or Ps3?
@tokz
360
Ohs i have it for ps3. i was going to get it for 360 since i've already shelled out a year for xbl but i had some other friends buy it who only have ps3s.
Same situation but reversed.
Haha.
if anyone is interested in Killzone 3 MP beta, here you go.
http://www.providingnews.com/killzone-3-beta-get-…
Man was Sandrock right about Halo: Reach being a grind…only 334,000ish credits left to get before I can get both of the remaining achievements. I just looked up all the ranks by credits and was amazed that the highest one is 20,000,000 credits…my 116,000 has a long ways to go then.
@BSU
Yeah there was a glitch in the game where you could get unlimited credits for a while. Bungie has since fixed it and started deleting credits from "cheaters" and even stopping them from being able to gain anymore for a period of time. I doubt the 20 mill is real.
@Tokz
KZ3 beta is a no go for me. I have never had much luck being able to play Betas (MAG). Also I still have until March of next year before my Qore subscription runs out and I won't even consider PS+ until then. Even with is I see you aren't guaranteed a beta code. 5,000 in the US isn't very many i would assume.
I can't stand Reach multiplayer. Coop is cool but deathwatch is just bad.
@Slicky;
Now I'm curious; what was this "cheat" in Halo Reach? I figued it would be OK to talk about it now if Bungie did, indeed patch it.
-M
@Slicky
I have heard the one up to lt. colonel is at least correct, but this is where I got the list of rankings. http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Rank_(Halo:_Reach)
I heard something about that. As long as they didn't take away my achievements or mess with my gamerscore or something I would totally have been down for getting 450,000 credits quickly just to get my last two achievements.
@slicky
oh i agreed. if i was off on the 19th i would try it. i'd shell out 7.99 for the month. i've wasted more money on other things that i don't have a chance at. i'm looking at you lottery tickets.
@Halo Reach "Exploit"
Which may not be fixed, just being monitored now
Step 1: Choose ONI:Sword Base in Campaign on Normal with free for all score.
Step 2: Run through the level till you can pick up the Target Locator.
Step 3: Walk to the door and wait for a “Checkpoint”
Step 4: Fire at the enemies!
Step 5: Press start, choose “Revert to last save” and let the credits roll!
Some info needed to be known, it’s good to achieve atmost 2 commendations during one run, after commendations are acuired the credits seem to decrease so it’s good to “Save&Quit” and start again for another 10 minutes.
That came from
http://www.platformnation.com/2010/10/01/update-h…
(need to give credit where due)