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Writing a good story is hard. Making a good video game is hard. Trying to make a good video game that also tells a good story is damned near impossible.
Not that they don't try. Video game makers are working hard to achieve their dream of a playable movie, or at least a game that looks like a movie in a two-minute trailer. But when you're playing the games, that "I'm in the movie! Whee!" illusion disappears as soon as you hear things like... #5.
"Hey, Nico! Instead of hijacking that armored truck, let's go bowling!"
In Grand Theft Auto 4, your average GTA player's thought process generally flows something like this in-game: 1. Steal a car 2. Find old lady 3. Run over old lady 4. Sex with hooker 5. Run over hooker 6. Grab Hot Pocket from microwave 7. Kill some cops 8. Visit car wash to get old lady and hooker bits out of stolen car's grille. ...and so on. If you were to follow that thought process from start to finish, not once would you see the words "I want to watch my fat cousin eat." But guess what you had to do, frequently, over the course of the game?
And it wasn't just your cousin, oh no. Thanks to the relationship minigames they decided to include, practically every hard-bitten gangbanger you came across turned out to have abandonment issues, copious amounts of free time and a love of pool and darts that bordered on fetishistic.
The girls in the game are even more high-maintenance; bailing out on the relationship if you don't take them out often enough, or ramp your car into the river just once during a date. Though they can't hold a candle to the women you're supposed to "marry" in Fable 2. People have made detailed How-To Guides on how to stop a woman from divorcing you in that game (hint: get ready to spend lots of time gathering gifts and being romantic with her). Seems Like a Good Idea Because... It's just like the lovable characters in a good novel or, even better, real-life friends! What better way to add depth and drama to a game? Doesn't Work Because... We do favors for friends in real life because we enjoy their company. They're never going to code a video game character who'll give us anything like the feeling we get from human companionship, and it's probably unfair to expect them to. Instead it becomes a bunch of tedious minigames played with a robot who only knows 10 pre-recorded phrases, done purely out of an artificial sense of obligation. It's Sort of Like... Spending time with your in-laws during the holidays. #4.
"I can get you what you need. But first, you must do something for me."
You're the Hero of Goodness on a quest to save the world from the evil machinations of Dark Lord Fuckblade. You're walking through town on your way to his Pointy Castle of Badness when WHAM, you walk straight into a locked door being guarded by some schmuck who with only two lines of dialog:
"Sure, I'll let you through to the Pointy Castle of Badness," he says, buffing his nails on his lapel, "just after you go to the forest of Everthorn and gather me the testicles of six night slugs." Fuck that guy, and all guys like him. Bioware is a frequent offender of this kind of game-length-padding bullshit; in Mass Effect you play as Commander Shepard, a Spectre Agent. Spectres are basically space-flavored double-oh spy-types, empowered to exercise ass-kicking protocols and initiate the taking of names.
In one mission, Shepard and his/her crew touch down on an icy planet to investigate some shady goings-on. At one point you need to get into a garage, so you go find someone who can give you a pass to get in. But to get the pass and progress into the game you're forced to first participate in some corporate espionage that your average gamer couldn't give a fuck about even if you hooked them up to a fuck-giving machine. This gimmick is at its worst when you near what you think is the end of the game. You're ready and excited to finally face the evil nemesis and- "Wait! First you have to go over the entire map again and find the five broken pieces of the ultimate weapon!" This almost killed the Bioshock experience, where after the big showdown with Andrew Ryan is foreshadowed in the game's big twist, you're then forced to go on a series of "fetch quests" to get the stuff you need to take him on--a process that takes about as long as the entire game up to that point. Seems Like a Good Idea Because... More game is better, right? If the player is having fun, if you give him more stuff to do he'll have even more fun! Doesn't Work Because... Do you know why we didn't watch John McClane hunting for tape in Nakatomi Plaza for 15 minutes? Because it's not important to the plot that they spent the first 80 percent of the movie building.
Storytelling is a delicate thing, it takes pacing and well-defined objectives. When, in the name of making the game longer, you force the player to go circling back around a bunch of hallways it brings the narrative to a screeching halt. It also frustrates players by making them run around searching for macguffins like demented magpies. It's Sort of Like... Stopping a rollercoaster every 30 seconds to make everyone get out and grease up the tracks. #3.
"Got the files? Good work, now come on home. You can go out the way you came in."
You have just tirelessly battled through hordes of foes, finally fighting your way into the heart of the enemy base/lair/dungeon to finally find and grab the macguffin. Your character grabs the secret files/treasure/magical orb and you set the controller down, ready to see a congratulatory cutscene. Nothing happens. You're just standing there. Suddenly the horror dawns on you that the game is going to make you turn around and fight your way back out of the building.
This happens in one of the last levels of Halo 3 (Cortana). You have to infiltrate a flood-infested covenant ship. It's filled with waves of enemies and it's incredibly disorienting, due to the fact that the fleshy walls make it seem like you are lost in an endless tunnel of meat. After what seems like hours, the Chief finally rescues Cortana, and the player can finally breath a sigh of relief. The ordeal is over- wait, no it's not. Cortana tells the Chief that it is time to clear out, yes, back the way you came. To add insult to injury, even more enemies are coming out at you now, further extending your nightmarish romp in the bouncy castle of flesh.
Though that is not as evil as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and the fucking Temple of the fucking Ocean fucking King. To access each new level of the game you have to go back through the same temple over and over again, solving the same puzzles, avoiding the same enemies. Over and over and over and over and over and... Seems Like a Good Idea Because... "We spent a lot of time designing this damned level! We'll be damned if you're going to just go blowing right through it!" Doesn't Work Because... Here's the thing. A movie ticket is the same price whether you're going to see Inglourious Basterds (153 minutes) or Zombieland (88 minutes) and moviegoers are OK with that. They really don't judge the movie by how much movie they got.
Games are different. Gamers partly judge value by how long the game is, and that makes storytelling really freaking difficult. As we said before, stories have to move at a certain pace, and can only have so many plot points and twists before they start to seem pointless (see the middle seasons of Lost). So how in the hell do you extend it and make the gamer feel like they got their money's worth? Honestly, pretty much anything but this. It's Sort of Like... Shooting a movie that's only 50 minutes long, but stretching it out by having every other scene be a flashback... of the previous scene. |
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I played Fable. i played evil because villagers shouting "woohoo" all the time got so damn annoying. Also, being evil yielded greater rewards (like Skorm's bow - strongest bow in the game)
I'm fairly sure Call of Duty 4 had something called a "story". It like this thing that tells you what is going on. Good ones tend to have a range of places and events. Something like attempting to assassinate a terrorist might just be in this "story". Besides, you don't have to sneak around. There is an RPD half way through.
I find two things laughable here. First is the insinuation that the sniper level in Call of Duty 4 was bad because you had to sneak around. THAT'S WHAT FUCKING COMMANDO SNIPERS HAVE TO DO - when I played that level for the first time the thought "Gee, this level would be soooooo much better if I could just run-and-gun it Halo-style," never ever entered my mind. I was (goodness forbid) actually enjoying the challenge (while quietly thinking manly thoughts when my character's virtual head was scant centimetres from Captain MacMillan's arse). Since when was making something a little bit difficult in a game suddenly a design flaw? No wonder I'm getting increasingly bored with games - the sense of accomplishment when I actually finish them is completely absent. And, of course, the second laughable thing here is the fact that so many people swallowed BiggusDiccus' blatantly obvious troll bait. I don't know what's funnier - so many people falling for it or a "38 year old" troll. Well, actually, the second one is kinda sad.
Whoops. Shameless*, not shameful...
@BiggusDiccus: If your goal is not self-justification or proving your own right to exist and feel good about it, exactly what is the purpose of your posts here? For someone who claims to have read so much, the amount of wisdom you could have acc*mulated thusly somehow still doesn't prevent you from flagrantly contradicting yourself. Nor did it teach you that self-righteousness, shameful boasting and arrogantly belittling others are not considered virtues. Or even useful social skills. (I trust I don't have to point out the irony of this, in light of your accusations.) Exactly where do you find the justification for glorifying your lifestyle, when it obviously has taught you so little about morals, ethics, or even about being a useful or likable member of society? And please explain to me how your physical exercise, tourism and presumably active sex-life are preventing the degeneration of western society, because the connection eludes me completely.
To be fair, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker takes your sword away to do some stealth thing, sure, but it does it very early on, before the player has had a chance to acquire much of an inventory. Also, Link can pick up weapons during that part...in fact he had to, in order to fight the Bokoblins that were running the searchlights.
Bioware HAS a morality system, but it's usually pretty "meh". I've played all their titles. Mass Effect's made almost no difference, Bioshock's none except the final film. KOTOR was decent and worth a replay. The best was just a Bioware Engine, "Planescape: Torment", where the actual game was changed by your choices...but the ending was not changed, which was the point - your hero was a condemned soul so it didn't matter what you did. Nice mindf**k. Anyways, I digress.................All this is good stuff, but there is not much designers can do, they aren't given a whole lot of time or budget. They know they have a lot of crap. The best hope is for MMOs, though they have a whole 'nother article-worth of problems in design..................And yeah, f**k escort missions. That should be here too.
First time I've ever complained about a Cracked article... I can't believe I'm doing this... but here goes: I'm going to guess the author hasn't played many Bioware games. #1 because the Fedex questing in Bioware games isn't nearly as bad as in others (everything done by Bethesda Softworks comes to mind) and #2 because Bioware is pretty much the only (still active) company that manages to get moral choice systems and nonlinear campaigns even remotely right (Interplay and Eidos used to do pretty well, but they're dead). It's VERY VERY hard to make a nonlinear game that isn't a s**t sandwich, but when you get it right you get something which used to be only possible on pen and paper, something beautiful: true interactive storytelling. This is why people like Peter Molyneux have been able to sucker gamers into giving him boatloads of cash by poorly aping nonlinearity. Still, just because some people haven't been doing it right doesn't mean developers should stop trying. Play Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II sometime; you'll see exactly what I mean.
Pretty funny article, but KOTOR's morality system was pretty goddamned effective.
Fucking escort missions should have been on here. Every game has at least one. *sigh*
Hey, Cracked referenced AVGN in the pic!! AVGN rocks. Like AoC!
Biggus Diccus is a retard lol. So video games are a waste of time, at least they're fun. No regrets. Hey guess what else is a waste of time? Your hilariously long response to the people dissing you. TROLL FAIL
@ BiggusDiccus: "Empires come and go...ours is on it's way out because every American thinks it's his right to be lazy and stupid, rather than his duty to better himself and his country." *stands and applauds* It's amusing to watch people actively defending their ignorance and laziness!
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@BiggusDiccus Yeah you're just stating the obvious. Humanity = Fail. @the article I don't like it, I can't tell if you enjoy these games or not. (with some exceptions) But when you started harping on Mass Effect it was really annoying cuz you obviously didn't give two s**ts and a f**k about the story so no wonder you didn't like it. I like morality situations, adds depth to the game . . . In some cases. I really don't understand why everyone wets themselves over Fable and Fable 2, those games are okay the first time around but a second play through is boring as all hell.
Fallout is probably the best example of how to use a morality system, since being a dick meant you'd be searched out by bounty hunters who were armed and armoured to the tits and able to kill you in three turns. Sometimes
I agree with 1 though. If you want to play a REAL "make your own path" game, play the game in multiplayer mode with real people on the other end. Every choice WILL have an impact, because human players will remember what you did, and AI hasn't caught up yet to real human thinking. The downside is that the plot will suck. If you want a good plot, play a game without branching. If you try to have it both ways, in the end you will end up with neither good story telling nor good "morality branching" outcomes. To be fair, technology has to start somewhere.
LOL always fun to poke the internet dweebs with a stick and listen to them whine - thanks for responding just like I figured you would. In your desperate quest to prove you are not the loser that you are, you completely missed my point. Video games, TV, alcohol, drugs...they are all HUGE wastes of time, and are the major reason this nation is getting stupider every year. Thanks for proving that point too. The sad thing is you can't even see it. Truely pathetic. We as a nation are so f**ked. India and/or China will own all our asses in the next 50-100 years anyway. And they won't be taking us over by kicking our asses on X-box, they will do it because they are educating themselves and bettering their children. Empires come and go...ours is on it's way out becuase every American thinks it's his right to be lazy and stupid, rather than his duty to better himself and his country. So please, keep on playing your little toys, getting f**ked up on the weekends and convincing yourself that its all perfectly fine. I guess ignornace really is bliss. What good is there in taking the time we are given on this earth and making something out of ourselves. Fuck it....right?
@littleDickus Whatever. If you're so goddamn high and mighty what are you doing on a Video Game thread on a Comedy website? Wow. That's like trying to convince a 5 year old that you own the moon. If even it works, you're still a douchebag for doing it. He even came back to read what we said about him. If that doesn't scream "I need attention" then I don't know what does.
Dont forget the "you have to escort the stupidest person in the world to safety missions".
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