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Michelle Rodriguez talks about GameCube
- Thread starter Izzy
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TheGreenGiant
Banned
this thread stinks.
TheGreenGiant
Banned
junkster said:Probably acceptable but please don't ban me if it's not, just delete it.
that is SO many shades of funny :lol :lol
FortNinety
Member
Man, I skip out on the GAF for one weekend....
Heh, I always disliked her. She's a really horrible actress and is not even that attractive, which is okay and all, but she gets roles where she's supposed to be a hottie, and she ain't.
Heh, I always disliked her. She's a really horrible actress and is not even that attractive, which is okay and all, but she gets roles where she's supposed to be a hottie, and she ain't.
Oh, this is going to be absolutely tasty!
No, that was his second qualifier answer.
This was his original statement:
So, please make sure you actually know what the fuck you're talking about. Looking at this statement, we can automatically shoot down the first - many games are factually cliche, and there's absolutely nothing you or anybody else can do to deny that. His second statement "but they're [the stories] far better than the crap we see in Hollywood" is so hilariously misguided that the only three conclusions that can be drawn is:
a.) He was not thinking when he said it.
b.) He's a dumb fuck (which he isn't)
c.) He has only watched garbage films.
If we start getting into list wars, which I hope we can avoid, it's going to be a disaster for you. Trying to compare any given moment in a videogame to, for example, any scene in The Deer Hunter would just be an excersize in futility, and I'm sure will cause many laughs. But I sure the death of Aeris or any other videogame death is more emotionally involving than this - and that's just using ONE movie as an example. There are fifty trillion films I can list that are infinitely better. Lost in Translations story of whistful plutonic love; Beyond Sunset's story of love out of reach. Perhaps if you're emotionally bankrupt a videogame might provide more of an emotional response, but well... let me get to the rest of your post because it's so good for a lol.
No, see, you misinterpreted me. My answer was that a good movie, up until this point, has always been more emotionally engaging than any game. I believe that the game medium, if handled right, can provide emotional attachment comparable to any medium. It's just such a rarity in videogames that to claim it's yet on the level of cinema is ridiculous. Granted, cinema has had more time to flourish... but even back at the dawn of the movie age, there was fantastic stories, beautiful scripts and great acting.
The majority of games haven't even got to the point where the scripts/writing are anything more than seventh grade-level fanfics as written by Dennis Leary on cocaine. Now, the following is purely anecdotal, but since your argument is largely composed of the anecdotal I thought I'd include my example: The only times I have ever been emotionally engaged with a game was in Planescape Torment (which contained the only videogame ending that moved me to tears) and ICO, which I was engaged in from a purely visceral standpoint (it was a beautiful example of art direction in a videogame, and what people can do if they wanted it).
Let me ask you something, I'll use some extreme examples. Have you ever seen Schindler's List? What about Grave of the Fireflies? What about Life is Beautiful? What about The Pianist? What about The Deer Hunter? What about Requiem for a Dream? What about One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest? What about Christiane F.? Now, what game has ever given you a comparable emotional response? If you honestly have one that has given you such an experience, then I bow my hat to you and I'll justify it by calling you certifiably insane.
Now, is it possible for a game ever to garner comparable emotional responses as cinema has? Sure. It absolutely is. Problem is, the talent behind certain aspects of videogames haven't matured enough to bring such things to our lovely consoles. Videogame writers, ... they suck. The suck big, fat, pulsating donkey dick, and there are frankly so few exceptions to this rule that they're not even worth discussing. Characters are written with all the luster of a weeks old pot of maggotey turkey. Plot points are tossed around like cheap malaysian whores, arbitrarily pushed forward by the need to gather X items together so you can SAVE THE WORLD!
Investing time in something does not equal emotional connection. Remember that. It's the golden rule.
Ok. So let me get this straight... because this is the most hilarious assertion in your post... games are intentionally cliched so that they can foster a GREATER emotional resonance in the player?
:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol
Currently, all good movie narrative is better than all current good game narrative. The problem with your example is you keep choosing to specifically compare elements with which gaming has no chance to compete. Good Movies, so far, are better written and have better [writing] talent behind it than good games.
The issue is whether saying "movie narrative > game narrative" "conveniently ignores" other aspects of what makes videogames good. No it doesn't. This specifically refers to the narrative aspects of both mediums. As for OTHER aspects of videogames, such as interactivity, that's another area entirely. Gameplay is something that movies cannot offer, and that's the whole reason for playing games currently. Good gameplay equals good games.
To date, they are inherently lacking. As I said earlier, this does not mean that games will never be able to reach the level of movies. Quite the contrary.
And I don't give any storytelling medium slack. Back in the day when cinema did not have the ability to use any fancy special effects, didn't have the ability to utilize sound... didn't have the ability to do a lot of things, they still managed to create fantastic stories and other things (including emotional responses).
Just because you perceive some "constraint" on the videogame story medium does not mean one should then give it slack. As a form of storytelling, it should be able to be as emotionally engaging and as well written as other story medium - otherwise, it simply doesn't compete because it isn't as emotionally engaging or any number of other things.
This is why it's best to focus on the other aspects of what makes games great, because currently storytelling isn't one of them.
And if you disagree with that final statement, then it's not even worth fighting over because we won't ever agree.
Tellaerin said:
No, that was his second qualifier answer.
This was his original statement:
Lakitu said:
So, please make sure you actually know what the fuck you're talking about. Looking at this statement, we can automatically shoot down the first - many games are factually cliche, and there's absolutely nothing you or anybody else can do to deny that. His second statement "but they're [the stories] far better than the crap we see in Hollywood" is so hilariously misguided that the only three conclusions that can be drawn is:
a.) He was not thinking when he said it.
b.) He's a dumb fuck (which he isn't)
c.) He has only watched garbage films.
If we start getting into list wars, which I hope we can avoid, it's going to be a disaster for you. Trying to compare any given moment in a videogame to, for example, any scene in The Deer Hunter would just be an excersize in futility, and I'm sure will cause many laughs. But I sure the death of Aeris or any other videogame death is more emotionally involving than this - and that's just using ONE movie as an example. There are fifty trillion films I can list that are infinitely better. Lost in Translations story of whistful plutonic love; Beyond Sunset's story of love out of reach. Perhaps if you're emotionally bankrupt a videogame might provide more of an emotional response, but well... let me get to the rest of your post because it's so good for a lol.
Tellaerin said:
No, see, you misinterpreted me. My answer was that a good movie, up until this point, has always been more emotionally engaging than any game. I believe that the game medium, if handled right, can provide emotional attachment comparable to any medium. It's just such a rarity in videogames that to claim it's yet on the level of cinema is ridiculous. Granted, cinema has had more time to flourish... but even back at the dawn of the movie age, there was fantastic stories, beautiful scripts and great acting.
The majority of games haven't even got to the point where the scripts/writing are anything more than seventh grade-level fanfics as written by Dennis Leary on cocaine. Now, the following is purely anecdotal, but since your argument is largely composed of the anecdotal I thought I'd include my example: The only times I have ever been emotionally engaged with a game was in Planescape Torment (which contained the only videogame ending that moved me to tears) and ICO, which I was engaged in from a purely visceral standpoint (it was a beautiful example of art direction in a videogame, and what people can do if they wanted it).
Tellaerin said:
Let me ask you something, I'll use some extreme examples. Have you ever seen Schindler's List? What about Grave of the Fireflies? What about Life is Beautiful? What about The Pianist? What about The Deer Hunter? What about Requiem for a Dream? What about One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest? What about Christiane F.? Now, what game has ever given you a comparable emotional response? If you honestly have one that has given you such an experience, then I bow my hat to you and I'll justify it by calling you certifiably insane.
Now, is it possible for a game ever to garner comparable emotional responses as cinema has? Sure. It absolutely is. Problem is, the talent behind certain aspects of videogames haven't matured enough to bring such things to our lovely consoles. Videogame writers, ... they suck. The suck big, fat, pulsating donkey dick, and there are frankly so few exceptions to this rule that they're not even worth discussing. Characters are written with all the luster of a weeks old pot of maggotey turkey. Plot points are tossed around like cheap malaysian whores, arbitrarily pushed forward by the need to gather X items together so you can SAVE THE WORLD!
Investing time in something does not equal emotional connection. Remember that. It's the golden rule.
Tellaerin said:
Ok. So let me get this straight... because this is the most hilarious assertion in your post... games are intentionally cliched so that they can foster a GREATER emotional resonance in the player?
:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol
Tellaerin said:
Currently, all good movie narrative is better than all current good game narrative. The problem with your example is you keep choosing to specifically compare elements with which gaming has no chance to compete. Good Movies, so far, are better written and have better [writing] talent behind it than good games.
The issue is whether saying "movie narrative > game narrative" "conveniently ignores" other aspects of what makes videogames good. No it doesn't. This specifically refers to the narrative aspects of both mediums. As for OTHER aspects of videogames, such as interactivity, that's another area entirely. Gameplay is something that movies cannot offer, and that's the whole reason for playing games currently. Good gameplay equals good games.
Tellaerin said:
To date, they are inherently lacking. As I said earlier, this does not mean that games will never be able to reach the level of movies. Quite the contrary.
And I don't give any storytelling medium slack. Back in the day when cinema did not have the ability to use any fancy special effects, didn't have the ability to utilize sound... didn't have the ability to do a lot of things, they still managed to create fantastic stories and other things (including emotional responses).
Just because you perceive some "constraint" on the videogame story medium does not mean one should then give it slack. As a form of storytelling, it should be able to be as emotionally engaging and as well written as other story medium - otherwise, it simply doesn't compete because it isn't as emotionally engaging or any number of other things.
This is why it's best to focus on the other aspects of what makes games great, because currently storytelling isn't one of them.
And if you disagree with that final statement, then it's not even worth fighting over because we won't ever agree.
gamergirly
Member
SantaCruZer said:Michelle Rodriguez at the Platinum Nintendo party
But she did bother to enter that?
Tis shame
junkster said:
this is not true. in fact id consider the opposite. Movies have a good thing going because of their distance from the viewer. Movies are convincing, they suck you in and theres nothing really (in a good movie) that will take you out. On the other hand, games have the interactive factor. It's constantly reminding you its fake, it isnt real. Which is why games with heavy plot elements are a silly idea for the most part. Why try envoke emotions with words when youre just going to take us out again and again? Games that envoke emotion the best are games like NiGHTS or maybe the first time you played devil may cry\ninja gaiden. You probably thought "oh man this is so cool!" And it had nothing to do with storyline or camera angles or whatever. Its due to the quality of the interactivity that you feel something.
Anyway, this is my one liner you can quote. Game developers need to focus on gameplay that envokes emotion, not hollywood style cutscenes. They dont work and they take focus away from what video games are really about.
junkster said:
I don't know about people loving game stories "so much"; but clearly popularity isn't equal to quality. I hate almost every game story I have encountered, and it's simply because I cannot accept poor writing, poor plot or poor characters. This is my own personal experience, so of course it's anecdotal. Now, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy games - in action games, in sports games, in any number of genres it's a pretty negligible issue. But in RPGs...well...in RPGs story is of central importance to me. And that's where it shows most just how lacking game stories are in comparrison to other storytelling mediums.
I personally think that there will be a point when some really talented people start writing the stories behind videogame plots and characters, and I believe when this happens videogames are going to become as emotionally captivating as the best of any other medium. My problem is that it currently isn't because it doesn't have that talent or quality yet.
So, for me, it's all about the gameplay until stories improve.
sp0rsk said:
I agree! A lot! I would like to add the qualifier, though, that developers should focus on stories in RPGs, because in that particular example it is of crucial importance.
Amir0x,
I'm not challenging the fact that games have cliched/corny stories, but I'm having a hard time understanding just how you can possibly compare two polar opposites such as games and movies. You're literally comparing apples to oranges. When you manage to explain to me how to make an exciting videogame out of The Pianist, Lost in Translation, or any of your other examples, I'll have both Steven Spielberg and Shigeru Miyamoto give you a call.
I've got better things to do than pretend I'm Bill Murray hitting on Scarlett Johansson so I'm better off watching them than interacting. Shit, I liked the movie but there's no point at all in me playing either of them unless my goal is to live the life of a failed star or have sex with Scarlett.
When I game, I need a goal not just a viewpoint, else I have no frame of reference to even begin. Further, when any game designer attempts to put some thought provoking stuff into its story, it has no choice but to seem contrived or cliche, because movies have done it all already, and games get second billing. Gaming gets written off as a secondary medium (even by us) so of course its going to get that kind of treatment. The very nature of gaming is that doing A results in B, so even if the dialogue is fantastic and the voicework, graphics, and music are wonderful, it's still the result of a game mechanic that you exploited... A leads to B, so if I was to pretend I was Bill Murray and I called Scarlett up after an insulting conversation with my virtual wife, it'd still feel cliche, it's too engineered to be otherwise; it's not going to have the same variability as watching real people unfold onscreen. Gaming does not have enough variables for it to suspend disbelief, so its your job to do so.
This is a dumb argument as our views are subjective. All I can say is, for its 20+ hours of poor to above average dialogue, Hideo Kojima manages to get some pretty deep multi-angled viewpoints into MGS2. Even just a few years later, a lot of the information wielding stuff and its correlation to technology is coming true.
Shifting back, you seem to be looking for The Sims or something dynamic of that sort. Give the industry at least 20 years for Human AI and good, dynamic computer voicework to fill the role of people and voice actors. Given enough time, I'm sure both can be bug-free and then you can pretend to be Adrian Brody and AI will auto-determine whether to virtually engage you further or not.
I'm not challenging the fact that games have cliched/corny stories, but I'm having a hard time understanding just how you can possibly compare two polar opposites such as games and movies. You're literally comparing apples to oranges. When you manage to explain to me how to make an exciting videogame out of The Pianist, Lost in Translation, or any of your other examples, I'll have both Steven Spielberg and Shigeru Miyamoto give you a call.
I've got better things to do than pretend I'm Bill Murray hitting on Scarlett Johansson so I'm better off watching them than interacting. Shit, I liked the movie but there's no point at all in me playing either of them unless my goal is to live the life of a failed star or have sex with Scarlett.
When I game, I need a goal not just a viewpoint, else I have no frame of reference to even begin. Further, when any game designer attempts to put some thought provoking stuff into its story, it has no choice but to seem contrived or cliche, because movies have done it all already, and games get second billing. Gaming gets written off as a secondary medium (even by us) so of course its going to get that kind of treatment. The very nature of gaming is that doing A results in B, so even if the dialogue is fantastic and the voicework, graphics, and music are wonderful, it's still the result of a game mechanic that you exploited... A leads to B, so if I was to pretend I was Bill Murray and I called Scarlett up after an insulting conversation with my virtual wife, it'd still feel cliche, it's too engineered to be otherwise; it's not going to have the same variability as watching real people unfold onscreen. Gaming does not have enough variables for it to suspend disbelief, so its your job to do so.
This is a dumb argument as our views are subjective. All I can say is, for its 20+ hours of poor to above average dialogue, Hideo Kojima manages to get some pretty deep multi-angled viewpoints into MGS2. Even just a few years later, a lot of the information wielding stuff and its correlation to technology is coming true.
Shifting back, you seem to be looking for The Sims or something dynamic of that sort. Give the industry at least 20 years for Human AI and good, dynamic computer voicework to fill the role of people and voice actors. Given enough time, I'm sure both can be bug-free and then you can pretend to be Adrian Brody and AI will auto-determine whether to virtually engage you further or not.
Let's go further with this and take Requiem For a Dream as an example.
Let's suppose you play as Jared Leto and the game goal is to loosely follow his life in above stated movie. You're in the room with a naked Jennifer Connelly, she asks you a simple question; Do you love her?
Right here you've instantly broken storyline because the game is waiting for a response, probably a canned one from a list because current interactions simply don't have the capability or storage capacity to have unlimited responses. Too much dialogue to record, too many variables, etc.
So let's say we've got this list of canned responses and you choose one. Even if the graphics and sound and body language are perfect and Jennifer Connelly is sitting there in all her glory, you're gonna know its fake because the game is waiting for you to respond. This will cause instant frustration and the story already looks subpar because it's not a normal human interaction. Plus, she's responding to Jared, not you, so no matter what her response, again it feels fake. Plus unless you're playing on a DS, that interaction is going to be made with a controller and buttons and at this point all hope is lost. By your definition, games will never hit the level of movies because of the inherent disbelief.
Feel free to use your own scenario and try to come up with something that fixes my statements, I'd be fascinated if you could prove me wrong. I've played with these ideas and the storage capacity and AI requirements are way too great. I suspend disbelief and enjoy my interaction so I always feel like I'm there with my character instead of watching a movie from the outside-in.
So to sum up, if you ever plan on playing a game for story in the least, you have no choice but to suspend disbelief. If you can't do that, then as you've stated, gaming stories are not for you... except maybe far in the future.
Let's suppose you play as Jared Leto and the game goal is to loosely follow his life in above stated movie. You're in the room with a naked Jennifer Connelly, she asks you a simple question; Do you love her?
Right here you've instantly broken storyline because the game is waiting for a response, probably a canned one from a list because current interactions simply don't have the capability or storage capacity to have unlimited responses. Too much dialogue to record, too many variables, etc.
So let's say we've got this list of canned responses and you choose one. Even if the graphics and sound and body language are perfect and Jennifer Connelly is sitting there in all her glory, you're gonna know its fake because the game is waiting for you to respond. This will cause instant frustration and the story already looks subpar because it's not a normal human interaction. Plus, she's responding to Jared, not you, so no matter what her response, again it feels fake. Plus unless you're playing on a DS, that interaction is going to be made with a controller and buttons and at this point all hope is lost. By your definition, games will never hit the level of movies because of the inherent disbelief.
Feel free to use your own scenario and try to come up with something that fixes my statements, I'd be fascinated if you could prove me wrong. I've played with these ideas and the storage capacity and AI requirements are way too great. I suspend disbelief and enjoy my interaction so I always feel like I'm there with my character instead of watching a movie from the outside-in.
So to sum up, if you ever plan on playing a game for story in the least, you have no choice but to suspend disbelief. If you can't do that, then as you've stated, gaming stories are not for you... except maybe far in the future.
Interactivity can add to the emotional attachment, but horrible characters and plot can negate that quite as easily. By the end of Final Fantasy 7, I didn't give a crap what happened to Cloud because I was so sick of his character.
junkster alluded to suspending belief, because story telling can be intrusive and that is an issue. I do not like the intrusive way most games tell a story. Play it out, take advantage of the media. Don't break in or cut away constantly. The minute your audience puts down that controller, disconnects from the game to watch then you lose the advantage of videogames.
junkster alluded to suspending belief, because story telling can be intrusive and that is an issue. I do not like the intrusive way most games tell a story. Play it out, take advantage of the media. Don't break in or cut away constantly. The minute your audience puts down that controller, disconnects from the game to watch then you lose the advantage of videogames.
Amir0x said:
You know, for a poster I generally like, you can be pretty fucking obnoxious sometimes.
Amir0x said:
I apologize. I work weekends, and I've been functioning on about three hours of sleep for the last day and a half or so, so I missed that when I skimmed back through the thread. Nonetheless, you're right--my bad.
Amir0x said:
Perhaps if he'd said 'better than the vast majority of formulaic popcorn flicks we see from Hollywood', he'd've had firmer ground to stand on. Or do you mean to tell me that everything from Hollywood is a rich, deep, nuanced masterpiece of cinema? That's nowhere near the truth, and you know it.
Amir0x said:
As a general rule, I try to leave list wars to the list warriors here, of which there are many.
Amir0x said:
It's good to know that being able to respond emotionally to media where the characters aren't portrayed by 'real people' (which includes not only games, but literature, animation, graphic novels, and the like) are 'emotionally bankrupt'. Seeing actors on a screen is what resonates most strongly with you, apparently, but you are not everyone. Personally, I think that people who can't relate well to characters and situations unless they're portrayed by actors in a movie to be chronically deficient in imagination, but hey, we all have our limitations, right? Guess it beats being emotionally bankrupt.
Amir0x said:
You are obviously far more easily moved by the beauty of the cinema than you are games in general. There's nothing wrong with this, even if I and some others don't share your perspective. The place where all this runs aground is when you start applying your qualitative judgements as some sort of absolutes. Games have a long way to go because most of them don't make you feel anything on an emotional level, unlike movies! When people tell you that they don't share your opinion, they're watching the wrong movies or emotionally bankrupt or something, because they're wrong, wrong, wrong!
Guess what?
They're not wrong.
Perhaps for you, the interactive nature of games doesn't generally foster a deeper emotional connection to the characters you're directing. Without that added dimension, the narratives seem flat to you. You want games to be more like cinema, a medium where you do find yourself emotionally engaged. I can understand where you're coming from, but this still doesn't make your opinion some inviolable fact.
Don't get me wrong--I still think that there's quite a bit of room for growth when it comes to the narratives in games, in terms of both content and presentation. However, I don't think that games should take all (or even most of) their cues from movies. Games, by their nature, have fundamentally different ground rules that shape the tales they tell. I'll address that point again a little further in, once I hit the point in your post where you're busy laughing mockingly and generally being a dick about things.
Amir0x said:
Forgive me for not handing you more opportunities to call me certifiably insane. If I thought you were actually interested in discussing this instead of looking for an excuse to take potshots, it'd be a different story, but I think I'll pass for the time being.
As far as the bit about how 'all videogame writers suck' is concerned, that's so far into the realm of personal opinion that I really don't see what difference debating it with you could possibly make. Apparently they're capable of writing material that connects with many people out there, at least when presented in the context of a game, so they're doing something right. The fact that you're not among the people who find this material affecting in any way doesn't change that fact.
Amir0x said:
Investing time in an activity where you are given responsibility over something and must keep it safe and help it overcome obstacles tends to foster an emotional response in most people, whether it's a small child, a pet, or a virtual character. Simple human emotional responses here.
Amir0x said:
Yes, I feel there are a great many elements in game narratives that are ignorantly dismissed by critics as cliche (preponderance of archetypal characters, 'save the world' scenarios where the player is encouraged to form an attachment to the setting, which is then threatened to generate a protective response, plots where the heroes invariably win in the end, to name a few) are actually intended to work in conjunction with the gameplay to make the game a more emotionally rewarding experience for the player. While the fact that games are interactive gives them certain advantages over other media in terms of the tales they can tell, the direction their stories take are also constrained by the need to make the game work as a game. Generally speaking, a game has to be winnable--the player is expected to overcome the challenges set for him, and to be rewarded for doing so. Life (and movies, and books) don't always work out that way, but making the player work for a negative outcome just isn't fulfilling from a gameplay standpoint, and that alone results in narratives that are often (unfairly) dismissed as 'simplistic'.
I'm more than willing to discuss this at greater length with you--I've invested quite a bit of thought in the subject--but please, either accept my offer to talk about it, or agree to disagree and let the matter drop, rather than spamming laughing smileys and acting like an ignorant ass about it. It's sure as hell not as laughable a contention as you've made it out to be.
Amir0x said:
What I've been trying to get at here is that a good movie narrative isn't necessarily going to be a good game narrative. There are different constraints imposed on their respective structures by the media in which they're meant to be presented. A game story may sacrifice elements that would make it a better tale in the context of a movie in order to make for a better gaming experience. I get the impression that to you, this would make the game in question that much worse, that much further from the ideal embodied by cinema, whereas I feel that makes the game in question that much better. Games need to find their own way, not ape film.
(snipped a bit here, as I'd just be repeating my earlier points in response, and this bloody post is big enough as it is
)Amir0x said:
Great? Not yet--there's still a lot of room for growth. But good? Without a doubt. You can dispute that, certainly, but I think the people out there who profess to be genuinely moved by their favorite games would beg to differ. Tarring them all as 'emotionally bankrupt' doesn't invalidate their experiences, either.
And perhaps we won't ever agree on this. I'll settle for understanding and respecting one anothers' opinions.
Tellaerin said:
I'm obnoxious as a rule. Haven't you noticed?
Tallaerin said:
Alrighty then!
Tallaerin said:
No, there's quite a bit of garbage in Hollywood.
Tallaerin said:It's good to know that being able to respond emotionally to media where the characters aren't portrayed by 'real people' (which includes not only games, but literature, animation, graphic novels, and the like) are 'emotionally bankrupt'. Seeing actors on a screen is what resonates most strongly with you, apparently, but you are not everyone. Personally, I think that people who can't relate well to characters and situations unless they're portrayed by actors in a movie to be chronically deficient in imagination, but hey, we all have our limitations, right? Guess it beats being emotionally bankrupt.
Except games require little imagination - the stories are clearly laid out for you, the plot usually follows a set path and the ending is clearly defined. And unlike books, you have the images in front of you telling you how your mind should look at any given game world. Imagination is a powerful tool. To say that playing videogames requires a heft of imagination is ludicrous. At best you can say some game scenarios require imagination to complete, but in the area we're talking about - story - it is of little importance in games. That's not to say games don't take imagination to create, but on our end it's far less a factor.
As I said in my previous post, it's not a problem of being unable to be emotionally affected by "non-movie" mediums (I've been emotionally affected by many, many books) or even the game medium. In two examples, I did have a noteworthy emotional reaction in a videogame. The problem is videogame narratives currently aren't of high enough quality to evoke such a response. The very best they do is evoke excitement. Which is an emotion, no doubt, but it's quite a different direction then what we were originally discussing, obviously.
Tallaerin said:
I'm more moved by cinema at the moment. It has nothing to do with games not being able to evoke such a response. It has everything to do with current videogame sucking donkey dick in doing so, because they are written by hacks.
As I said, the problem is people are trying to claim that videogame stories are better than movie stories. This just isn't true. Regardless of the emotional response you specifically get from videogames, movies are better written and generally are more capable of having a viable grasp on what makes people tick. Again, this is not because games are unable to do this. It's because games haven't done it yet.
Again, I'm not going to pussyfoot around what I perceive as the truth. This is a gaming forum, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there are people who actually think games can garner a more radical emotional response. But it simply isn't true. And as I said, if you've watched any great film and said "wow, I was completely unattached to that let me go play Tales of Symphonia where I can interact with the cookie cutter bastard with the big sword and his juvenile relationship with some whore angel", then that's your thing. All I can say is I feel genuinely sorry for you. Games are about gameplay. They can't compete on the level of storytelling. Not yet. Sorry.
Tallaerin said:
I don't want games to be more like cinema. I want games which focus on storytelling, like RPGs, to actually put have a dicks worth of work into the stories they provide. I want them to be written by people with actual talent, and I want characters that aren't so predictable and unimaginatively conceived that they actually break through the time space barrier and become negative dimensionsional.
Interactivity is key to having fun. Fun is an emotional response. But that's clearly quite a different subset of emotions than I am discussing.
Tallaerin said:Don't get me wrong--I still think that there's quite a bit of room for growth when it comes to the narratives in games, in terms of both content and presentation. However, I don't think that games should take all (or even most of) their cues from movies. Games, by their nature, have fundamentally different ground rules that shape the tales they tell. I'll address that point again a little further in, once I hit the point in your post where you're busy laughing mockingly and generally being a dick about things.
I will wait to hear your point later on then!
Tallaerin said:
I did not take a potshot at you; I said if you did actually think games envoke a better emotional response than those examples you are certifiably insane. Do you? Well, what can I say.
I have strong opinions on this, and I personally think that people who believe that are certifiably insane. I guess that's the nature of opinions, right jack?
Tallaerin said:
Popularity != quality. To use the generic example, N*Sync must have written some of the best songs known to man because a lot of people connected with the lyrics and the voices they had. To use the more high brow example, it's simply because games have had such a poor trackrecord of storytelling that people have lowered their standards in this medium. Obviously, I cannot back this statement up with polls or scientific studies, but I genuinely believe this is the case. I love to poke fun at people who sit at home playing the next Japanese suck-a-fuck RPG that comes to American shores, fellating themselves over that anime cliche with big tits who constantly whines about how hot it is in the middle of the desert or how the quest is too perilous to complete without the eighteen shards of powerful orgasmic energy that keeps the world afloat.
If this is something that moves "a lot of people", then that's good for "a lot of people." But my standards are quite a bit higher, and yes I am quite comfortable with saying that it's an issue of standards.
I want to make this very clear, so that you're not dancing around it like some warlock in an ancient pagan ritual:
This is only speaking to the narrative element in games; specifically the script/writing that carries the characters and the plot along to its arbitrary end. This is not even discussing presentation or gameplay, which I have seperate views on entirely.
Tallaerin said:
By your standard, Tamagotchi pets should envoke strong emotional responses. Similarly, comparing a virtual character to a small child or pet is fucking ridiculous. When a character in a videogame dies, you load up a save state and continue. This isn't so much a matter of "keeping him/her safe" because you always recognize that they will always be safe as long as you have that little segment of data on your memory card.
Now, I would like to add a very strong qualifier to this statement.
I believe that when games actually have the writing talent to back it up, the fact that they are interactive will add an extra layer of emotional "depth" which will be on par - or perhaps even surpassing - that of movies or books. You're right on only one thing, and that's that responsibilty can garner emotional responses.
However, as a rule, time invested or interactivity does NOT equal emotional investment. And this is important to acknowledge.
Tallaerin said:
Except there's nothing at all rewarding about guiding another cliche character to save the world. At all.
Tallaerin said:
I think this viewpoint is so dangerous it has the possibility of crippling progressive storytelling in videogames altogether.
In a videogame story, the end absolutely does not need to be winnable. I don't mean that in the way that you can't get past bosses and complete the story a developer intended. That's also not to say there isn't a plot to follow and a clear "ending". But there are numerous ways to end a game, and not all of them have to be with main characters who stay alive or with the cast happily gathering together to hump like rabbits unto the end of the universe.
I don't know what rainbow colored worldview you house, but if I played a videogame where the outcome was negative I'd fucking rejoice that someone had the iron clad balls to do so. If you've played Planescape Torment [RPG], which is the best story ever told in a videogame, the ending is all but positive. And yet it evoked such a powerful emotional response that I actually cried. And guess what? The rest of the game was actually - *gasp* - written by people with some grasp of college english 101! It did not pussy out to common videogame conventions, perilously teetering on the edge of "Tallaerin's three step program to emotional involvement in videogames!" Its creators had real vision, and its narrative was written as if it wasn't going to be played by first graders on ritalin. Naturally, this is my personal opinion. But I'm confident in my views.
Tallaerin said:
I'm sorry, your assertion that videogames are intentionally cliche to evoke a higher level of emotional investment in the characters was so funny I literally laughed out loud. I mean that I sat in my chair in real life, stuffing my fat face with yams and laughed so hard I nearly choked. I thought it was so funny that I felt I should relate my disbelief on the forum because that's about all the response that particular line of reasoning deserved from me. And it's as funny now as it was then, so I think it's something you should probably drop. I'm obnoxious, you acknowledged that. But to me, it was that funny.
Tallaerin said:
Ok, let's consider this for a moment. It's certainly the most rational statement you've made in this post. "Games need to find their own way." I completely agree.
My point throughout this "debate" has been that they have yet to find it.
Tallaerin said:
Good stories in videogames? Nope.
Good games? Sure.
Tallaerin said:
I understand and respect your view. I disagree so strongly, however, that I just invested another ten minutes in arguing your point. But as I told someone else, I harbor no ill will toward anyone I debate with and what I say in a debate is pretty much dropped as soon as I leave the thread.
Amir0x said:
And posts like this, sir, are why I like you after all is said and done.
I may believe you're as just insane as you think I am, but that's alright, as long as neither of us takes it personally. We're both just spinning our wheels at this point, though, so we should probably stop derailing the thread and let everyone get back to defending/bashing Michelle Rodriguez/the Gamecube and posting funny ownage pics.GG.
Tellaerin said:And posts like this, sir, are why I like you after all is said and done.
GG.
Kissy kissy.
<3
TekunoRobby
Tag of Excellence
I hear Amir0x is built like a horse, you're a lucky man Tallaerin.
As far as the games being art arguement...
I remember hearing that one of Infocom's text adventures received a Science Fiction writing award -- although the organization changed the rules to ensure that no game could ever win such an award again. I think the game in question is either Starcross or A Mind Forever Voyaging, but I'm not sure.
Can anyone confirm this? I can't seem to find a reference to it anywhere, although I'm sure I've read about this.
I remember hearing that one of Infocom's text adventures received a Science Fiction writing award -- although the organization changed the rules to ensure that no game could ever win such an award again. I think the game in question is either Starcross or A Mind Forever Voyaging, but I'm not sure.
Can anyone confirm this? I can't seem to find a reference to it anywhere, although I'm sure I've read about this.
ManDudeChild
Member
Considering the platform that she's done the most work on is the Xbox (even did a game with fame), with PS2 following in second, her opinion isn't valid imo. I saw this short bit with her talking about gaming on Electric Playground, and she mentioned how she played the "Sega's". I think it's just an image she's portraying for more voice work. Hell, in that same segment, she mentioned how she liked Driv3r (big surprise). The comments in the 1up interview are generic "game 'nerd'" comments, but almost to a patronizing level. Makes me believe it's fake.
