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Developers that constantly feature bad writing in their games.

Nobody's mentioned Guerrilla Games?

I love the Killzone universe, but I think the narrative is where each game really falls apart.

They repeatedly fail to capitalize on one of the better things the series has going for it.
 

Lime

Member
David cage is astoundingly consistent in disappointing me with his writing and storytelling.

Capcom's RE teams are really good at hitting the low, low bar they've set since the first one.

Bethesda in their open world games.

Crystal Dynamics and their Tomb Raider entries.

DICE

Guerrilla Games

Sucker punch

Many many more to mention.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
DICE the writing in all there games are terrible.
BF3 and 4 were so bad...ugggghhh, no more silent protagonists please, if you give our character a name and the majority of dialogue involves characters looking straight at him then make him talk.
 
DICE, good lord.
I actually thought BC1 and BC2 had fun, if not dopey, stories. But their other stuff is indeed pretty terrible. BF3 and BF4 were borderline offensive they were so bad.
BF3 and 4 were so bad...ugggghhh, no more silent protagonists please, if you give our character a name and the majority of dialogue involves characters looking straight at him then make him talk.

Preston Marlowe wasn't silent in BC1 and BC2 was he? I don't remember him being so. Why'd they switch to a silent protag?
 

Sami+

Member
Ubisoft and Sucker Punch. inFamous was a good game but the story and writing were horrendous - very, VERY disappointing after the game's director damn near burst into tears when it was unveiled. Ubisoft is just bland.
 

Dee Dee

Member
This is a good one. I realize why it's so simple (game is marketed for young children, etc.) but it is still bad.

Pokemon with a complex narrative would be so cool. And not gritty/grimdark/"mature", just more advanced, sophisticated, and intricate storytelling. Add it to the list of things that will never happen, though.

They could at least try and make the plots a bit less insanely stupid, I would appreciate that. Could not roll my eyes hard enough at the French guy trying to blow up the world for (i don't even know) reasons in Pokemon X, whatever dude, let's pitch our pokemons against each other already, I have a Steelix!

I really enjoy the flavour text in Pokemon though, I like going into houses to hear other trainers talk about their favourite items and so on. So there's that.
 
I find the people who blithely say Blizzard, Bioware or Bethesda dismiss the quality of their individual character writing too easily. Their games are so large and the sheer quantity of writing so dense that at worst you can only say that their writing is inconsistent in quality.

Bioware and Bethesda I agree, but Blizzard? I've only played the Diablo series and some WoW, but I typically found most of the characters to be nothing more than personality-lite exposition machines.
 

Lrrr

Member
Considering the pathetic level for what passes as a sensible story with well developed characters in video games, this thread might've been better served if the question had been which developers can write. Of course, it'd be a very short thread. :p
 
MGS is easily one of the best written games out there.

A complex story is not a bad one, people should learn to differentiate

Being complex doesn't mean its good. Also, people enjoying a bad story isn't a bad thing either. It doesn't stop it being a bad story though.

Snaaaaaakkkkeeeee.
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
Oh I can tell...

I would agree that Kojima could use a better editor, but the series has been around for over 25 years and has been developing and expanding its world centered around basically 2 characters since then, all supervised by Kojima. He's therefore the closest thing we have to an auteur and the franchise can't be ignored when evaluating the progress of video game narratives, even more so considering the financial success the games enjoy.

But I guess the witty one-line drive-by response you'll respond with will invalidate these points.
 
Gears of War series. every bit of dialogue is laughable and it's even more laughable when they tried to do a serious scene in gears of war 2 and expected people to care about one dimensional meathead characters.

and i would say Killzone as well except scolar visaris speeches are well written.
 

rdrr gnr

Member
MGS is easily one of the best written games out there.

A complex story is not a bad one, people should learn to differentiate.



And this should be the first post. God damn, this man.
The word you are looking for is convoluted -- not complex. Thinking MGS is well-written while having issues with David Cage is untenable.
 

Tengrave

Member
I don't understand the Bioware comments here. At it's core Mass Effect 3 and DA:O are the same plot. Big bad shows up, get folks to help kill it. Say what you will about that but those main party members and quests are well done. Id like to see the reverse topic. "Developers that constantly have great writing." I still think Uncharted 3's story was a joke.
 

ghostjoke

Banned
MGS is easily one of the best written games out there.

A complex story is not a bad one, people should learn to differentiate.

Note: I say this as someone who loves Metal Gear and all it's convolutions.

The complexity isn't what makes the writing terrible; it's the excess of pointless, well everything, which I will say is part of the charm these days, but it's still bad. When you write something, you want to convene the point as quickly and as precisely as possible. Watch nearly any Metal Gear cutscene and try and say it does that with a straight face.
 
But I guess the witty one-line drive-by response you'll respond with will invalidate these points.

Your failed sarcasm hasn't helped you put your point across, neither has the fact that only one of my responses was a one liner.

However if you think people have been playing the MGS line of games for all these years for the plot, I have some bad news for you. Its the great gameplay that keeps people coming back.
 
Exactly my thoughts. MGS2 had an excellent plot with some very relevant themes throughout.

MGS2 was an amazing story. Alot of people just dont understand it and wanted to play as snake so they said it sucked when in reality it's easily the best story of MGS series and one of theb est stories out there. The themes like propoganda and half truths were even seen in the advertising for the game when kojima tricked people into thinking they were playing as snake in the game by using only the tanker mission. He showed first hand how someone can use a half truth to construct something that you feed to the general public. personally I found the marketing and final game amazing and very thought provoking.
 

rdrr gnr

Member
Platinum is the worst offender.
Guerrilla and Kojima are up there.
Bungie and DICE also deserve a lot of credit for producing such awful writing on such a frequent basis.
 

Almighty

Member
Bethesda and Bioware. They might manage to do a good character once in a while, but that doesn't outweigh the rest being mediocre at best.
 
Nice. Saw threat title with the word "bad" in it, did a Ctrl+F on "Ubi", not leaving disappointed. The Ubi hate train continues onward, full steam...

I can only speak for the Assassin's Creed games, as I haven't gotten involved with other Ubisoft story-oriented IPs. I also haven't played Unity, but up until, say, Assassin's Creed IV, their stories were engaging at best, serviceable on the average, and bland (as opposed to just straight up bad) at worst. In my mind, there's a big difference between bland and bad. Actually, as much as people complain about the modern day sections, I thought they were a decent narrative framework, up until AC III, where it just lost some of its mojo, and then AC IV, where it can largely be ignored.

I thought that up to Assassin's Creed III, they did a decent job of mixing a fictional character's story, with that of historical figures.
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
However if you think people have been playing the MGS line of games for all these years for the plot, I have some bad news for you. Its the great gameplay that keeps people coming back.

So you would expect a game that was just VR missions to be equally successful as a regular entry into the Metal Gear Saga? Why is Kojima constantly pressured into continuing the story by the very fans that enjoy it? They even sent him death threats for stopping at MGS2.

By no means am I saying the gameplay is irrelevant in Metal Gear games and the focus is on the story, but saying the story is irrelevant is simply not true.
 

Lime

Member
Seriously, I don't even know why all of the developers mentioned even bother spending time, resources, money, and effort on putting their shitty plot and storytelling into their games. It's a complete waste for everyone involved, both players and developers.

If you're going to hire voice actors, get expensive motion capture, have advanced graphical technology present it, and use a lot of marketing on it, at the very fucking least get someone on board from the get-go and someone who isn't the 21-year old temporary unpaid intern to pen your script.
 

Corpsepyre

Banned
So you would expect a game that was just VR missions to be equally successful as a regular entry into the Metal Gear Saga? Why is Kojima constantly pressured into continuing the story by the very fans that enjoy it? They even sent him death threats for stopping at MGS2.

By no means am I saying the gameplay is irrelevant in Metal Gear games and the focus is on the story, but saying the story is irrelevant is simply not true.

Yes, I don't see how one can just ignore the plot in MGS games. The game wouldn't be where it is if they left the plot to the side, in my opinion. I give a shit about Snake and that's because Kojima's done a fine job with the character all these years.
 

BiGBoSSMk23

A company being excited for their new game is a huge slap in the face to all the fans that liked their old games.
Crytek hurts most to me because at some point they brought on author Richard K. Morgan (of the tremendous Altered Carbon) onto the Crysis series and somehow the story ended up worst in the sequels compared to the original.

Guerrilla Games and the Killzone series manages to squander some pretty rich backstory with the meager stories told in the games themselves.

Cane to post this.

You wouldn't think you could make space Nazis boring and dull, but you can, apparently. And the back story is surprisingly well conceived and fleshed out. Like, sci fi epic levels of potential squandared there.
 

Fbh

Member
Quantic Dream, which is a shame as I like the idea of their games but it doesn't really work without good writing.

Square Enix: Specially if Nomura is involved (I'm talking about their internal Japan made games. Some of their western titles like Deus Ex good writing)

Ubisoft: Most of their games have bad writing, including assassins creed

Platinum Games: Probably my favorite developer, but yeah they are not great at writing. It only sort of worked with the Wonderful 101 because it felt like it was ment to be overly cheesy and corny.

Bungie: The trailer is like "this is so serious and deep"... then you get the game and it's like "G.I. Joe in space"

Blizzard: Thankfully they are aware about it and their games focus more on gameplay

DICE: Though it's as if they tried


To be honest. It would be easier to list the few developers that have good writers
 
I knew a lot of people would say Bioware. They get a lot of undeserved hate.

Bioware games have great writing, actually. The Mass Effect trilogy has incredible writing. They is so much detail in the universe of that game. The story of the Protheans in especially well written. Bioware does party members really well, too. Hell, the Mass Effect games make you have real feelings for aliens and robots.
 
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