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[Salazar]

It's so overwrought and facile that it sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old girl who goes to outdoor cafes and writers in her journal.

Ernie wrote in cafes. Anecdotes suggest, though, that he had the right stuff to write for video games.

Hemingway heard intriguing stories about the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, where the giant tuna and marlin ran on the east side of the Gulf Stream. Early on Sunday morning, April 7th, he weighed anchor with Mike Strater, Dos Passos, his wife Cathy, Bread Pinder, and Sacker Adams on board for the 230 nautical mile trip to the northeast. Twenty miles from Key West they hooked two sharks. While bringing one to gaff with one hand, holding a pistol with the other, Hemingway managed to shoot himself in both legs. In an article he wrote for Esquire Magazine titled "On Being Shot Again," he said he was "Trying to shoot the `galano' with his .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, shooting a greased, hollow-point, long rifle bullet." The gaff broke striking him on the right hand, causing the bullet to ricochet and break into fragments. "There was no pain and no discomfort; only a small hole about three inches below the knee-cap, another ragged hole bigger then your thumb, and number of small lacerations on the calves of both legs." They returned to Key West where he was treated. The trip was delayed only six days.

 

[Danne-Danger]

errrr no even Jade Empire was a good game, not at the same level of their previous games but a good game by itself

The thing is though, they've been outdone by other developers (Obsidian, Troika, Black Isle etc.. After BG2 of course) time and time again but people still put them on a pedestal as the greatest W-RPG developer.

 

[Andokuky]

Your mom writes the worst dialogue in the industry.

Also, shut up bitch.

.

 

[Frenck]

"Hey Gordon it's me, Barney from Black Mesa!"

"I need a weapon!"

"This cave isn't a natural formation..."

In other words, no, there are games that have worse dialogue.

 

[SomeDude]

xenogears has terrible writing.


edit: And to honest I always found the first two monkey island games to be absolutely juvenile.

 

[Skilotonn]

You must not have played much games to say something like that about Mass Effect... I thought anybody who's a gamer would have played at least ONE House Of The Dead game (awesome game, dialogue so bad that it's good)...

 

[Prime crotch]

The thing is though, they've been outdone by other developers (Obsidian, Troika, Black Isle. After BG2 of course) time and time again but people still put them on a pedestal as the greatest W-RPG developer.

Campaign issues aside NWNs was an amazing game, later expantions had a better storyline, although I think Aribeth's character was ruined on the Underdark one.
But the game is still a great accomplishement even if it was due to the great modding community and to Bioware's tools.
KOTOR pretty much made Star Wars cool again even though Obsidian's sequel had a better storyline. And Jade Empire....well it was a nice game but not worth talking much about it.

But the main reason why Bioware is still praised as the best WRPG developer it's because, their games actually work out of the box. Unlike Troika for example. Although Vampire:Bloodlines is still one of my favorite RPGs I can't deny that it's code was a buggy mess, same for Arcanum.
As for Obsidian, I loved KOTOR II and what I played of NWN2, but neither them or Troika have delivered a well developed product as Bioware did.

"Hey Gordon it's me, Barney from Black Mesa!"

"I need a weapon!"

"This cave isn't a natural formation..."

In other words, no, there are games that have worse dialogue.

What's wrong with Barney's line? The in-game model was so diferent you couldn't recognize him so.

edit: And to honest I always found the first two monkey island games to be absolutely juvenile.

...........

 

[bigmit3737]

It's so overwrought and facile that it sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old girl who goes to outdoor cafes and writers in her journal.

Here's a sample from the last trailer:



Piercing eyes and sensitive souls? How can they not realize their writing is atrocious? Have they never read anything besides X-Men comicbooks and D&D novels?

At least "All your base are belong to us." is unintentionally funny and therefore has a saving grace.

Fire your writers, you Canadian hicks.

:lol It sounds a little cheesy, but this is a console game.
Aren't console gamers supposed to be younger than the average PC gamer who plays games like BG 2 or PST?

 

[Rolf NB]

I think you need to recall the conversation which was had by two Twi'leks on Dantooine.

Male: "Mucha shaka paka. Ah dah dee dunga dunga dunga."


Female: "Ohh no, shaka paka dunga wunga. Una hahna wahna."

That's all I remember being said in Neverwinter Nights.

 

[Muppet345]

.

 

[SantaC]

Not even back in SNES/N64 days?

rare nes > snes/64

 

[Sanjay]

i loved max payne 1/2 dialogue style

 

[Rolf NB]

are people really using a couple shitty lines to judge the entire game?

Promotional material can be reasonably expected to be a hand-picked high-quality selection of representative things. You don't get to say "Oh but the stuff we gave you was really poorly chosen" afterwards.

 

[Huggy]

Ugh.. that's horrible. Reading that I'm suffering like G did.

 

[dude]

The thing is though, they've been outdone by other developers (Obsidian, Troika, Black Isle. After BG2 of course) time and time again but people still put them on a pedestal as the greatest W-RPG developer.

I sort of agree, but Aracnum is the start and the end of games worth talking about from Troika (and it's worth talking a lot about), Bloodlines and Temple of Elemental Evil were both pretty mediocre.
I don't really like Obsidian, KoTOR 2 was alright, but it was just that - alright. I hate everything Neverwinter, so I won't comment on NWN2. Black Isle were so awesome, it's sad they're gone...

But Bioware today are very over-rated, I can't believe any one still has expectations from ME. They used to be up there with the best, like Black Isle, but after NWN they just went straight to meh-ville. NWN was a nice idea, but I (and many more WRPGers) don't care about online, where the game went pretty fast. Pretty soon every one started playing those boring MMO-like Persistent World modules. Sure, they released some nice modules and expansions, but they were never as good as they used to be, and they were always lacking in every department. The only time I really enjoyed playing NWN was when me and my friend created a module for about a month, and me and five friends just played it in three sessions. It was nice, and I saw where they were trying to go with NWN for the first time, but I rather just gather my friends for a P&P session than deal with a crippled experience, I wanted me some awesome single player! I hate NWN just because I saw the trailer that came with BG2 like a MILLION times, it was supposed to be the second coming of christ!
After that, with all the console games, fancy 3D and all, BioWare seemed to forget the beauty that was BG.

I still hold some naive, pathetic hope Dragon Age will be good, and I lurk their forums all the time, but I don't like a lot of what I hear, but I just ignore it and keep making myself think "WRPGs are not past their prime" :<

 

[zon]

I have to ask one thing regarding BG2, after

Spoiler

one partymember betrays you to

Jon Irenicus, who then captures you and forces you to run through a labyrinth of sorts in his castle(?), how much is left of the game? Up until that point the experience felt incredibly generic to me and it felt like I was forcefully pushed along the main story.

 

[dude]

I have to ask one thing regarding BG2, after

Spoiler

one partymember betrays you to

Jon Irenicus, who then captures you and forces you to run through a labyrinth of sorts in his castle(?), how much is left of the game? Up until that point the experience felt incredibly generic to me and it felt like I was forcefully pushed along the main story.

Hmmm... That's chapter five out of seven. You should replay the game again, and try to do as much as possible, because the experience up to that point to me was the most amazing time I had with any game. Chapter two and three are never forcing you to do anything, there are so many side quests you could spend literally weeks going through only half of them. And remembers - The real beauty of the game is the part member, one of the only series where it actually feels like you're traveling with real people, always to their side quests and stuff, 100% of the time they're awesome.

EDIT: Spoiler should be marked, I think.

 

[JayDubya]

Someone's never played Baldur's Gate II.

^
The only one game that outdoes it in writing and plot is Torment, but BG2 was a much better overall game.

 

[MaizeRage25]

Hyperbole sucks.

 

[Furret]

i loved max payne 1/2 dialogue style

For the love of God go and read a book.

And not one "from the vampire's point of view".

(And that includes all those meta-goths that can sit through Legacy of Kain's script without laughing.)

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

One series that gets overlooked all the time in the writing department is the Soul Reaver series. Some of the dialogue was incredibly well crafted. I'm expecting good things from Uncharted in that department as it's director is the same person (Amy Hennig).

 

[eve241]

(And that includes all those meta-goths that can sit through Legacy of Kain's script without laughing.)

I resent that comment!May you burn in hell!
LoK has probably got the best script in all of videogaming.


(Not because I'm a goth btw which I'm not)

 

[Lostconfused]

I resent that comment!May you burn in hell!
LoK has probably got the best script in all of videogaming.


(Not because I'm a goth btw which I'm not)

Vae Victus!

 

[eve241]

One series that gets overlooked all the time in the writing department is the Soul Reaver series. Some of the dialogue was incredibly well crafted. I'm expecting good things from Uncharted in that department as it's director is the same person (Amy Hennig).

Yeah it's making me buy a PS3 further down the road (oh and Ico 3 helps too )

Vae Victus

Woe to the conquered

 

[Solo]

99.9% of videogame writing is shit, so Im not really sure what you are trying to say here.

 

[Emerson]

"Look at all that juice"

This is so dumb. Gears has excellent dialog, and this line is actually an example of it. You'll notice that not every character speaks like this. If everybody did, you'd have a better point. Just about everything Cole says comes off like this does, and that's his CHARACTER, not bad writing.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

"Hey Gordon it's me, Barney from Black Mesa!"

Umm...what do you say to someone you haven't seen in a long time who is looking at you like he doesn't know who the fuck you are? The other lines you posted sort of back up your point, but this one isn't a bad piece of written dialogue at all.

 

[Xapati]

The thing is though, they've been outdone by other developers (Obsidian, Troika, Black Isle etc.. After BG2 of course) time and time again but people still put them on a pedestal as the greatest W-RPG developer.

Obsidian? Was NWN2 that good? I thought the general consensous was that it sucked.
I'll agree with Black Isle, never played Troika's games, but both those companies are dead. So now Bioware really is (was) the best western RPG dev.

 

[Prime crotch]

Obsidian? Was NWN2 that good? I thought the general consensous was that it sucked.
I'll agree with Black Isle, never played Troika's games, but both those companies are dead. So now Bioware really is (was) the best western RPG dev.

What sucked were the bugs and performance issues otherwise the game was pretty awesome.

 

[radios shipping overview]

Everything Black Isle ever did shits all over Bioware's stuff.

Yup. No question about that.

The generic fantasy drivel is what made BG1 so awesome. What made the game rock were the fact that you felt like playing some kind of predictable Forgotten Realms book. Everything in the game just made you feel like you're the star of your own Forgotten Realms series. The writing was excellent for what it tried to be, in BG2 as well, BG2 just made it even better.

And this is why I can't stand Bioware's writing. I don't read pulpy Forgotten Realms trash. I don't read Expanded Universe Star Wars novels. I don't read Star Trek licensed books. I have expectations for writing that ostensibly takes itself seriously.

 

[theBishop]

Wow... you should not play Gears of War then.

QUIET!!!

Gary Whitta might hear you and go on a PS3-trolling spree!

 

[urk]

Metal Gear

 

[Kittonwy]

It's so overwrought and facile that it sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old girl who goes to outdoor cafes and writers in her journal.

Here's a sample from the last trailer:



Piercing eyes and sensitive souls? How can they not realize their writing is atrocious? Have they never read anything besides X-Men comicbooks and D&D novels?

At least "All your base are belong to us." is unintentionally funny and therefore has a saving grace.

Fire your writers, you Canadian hicks.

That honor would go to Capcom's DMC2 team with their "he tricked me that macho", or Tecmo's Rygar team (just about every damn line was cringe-inducing).

Not all Canadians are hicks. I'm pretty fucking sophisticated, it says so on my canoe.

 

[zon]

Hmmm... That's chapter five out of seven. You should replay the game again, and try to do as much as possible, because the experience up to that point to me was the most amazing time I had with any game. Chapter two and three are never forcing you to do anything, there are so many side quests you could spend literally weeks going through only half of them. And remembers - The real beauty of the game is the part member, one of the only series where it actually feels like you're traveling with real people, always to their side quests and stuff, 100% of the time they're awesome.

EDIT: Spoiler should be marked, I think.

That's the thing, I did try to do all the sidequests but there weren't that many available. I remember how I, basically, thought "wtf is this it!?" quite alot when I played BG2. Especially when a chapter ended. Most of the time I think I completed, roughly, 5-10 sidequests in the chapters I finished and after that I couldn't find anymore. I finished most of them quite fast too. I must've chosen a pretty bad combo of partymembers, seeing that only Jaheira and Aerie were the ones doing any real interaction. The others rarely said anything at all.

I guess I should get a walkthrough or something if I play it again..



Oh and

Everything Black Isle ever did shits all over Bioware's stuff.

Fuck yes (what can I say, I'm a semi-rabid Fallout fan)

 

[Red Blaster]

I also don't understand why is MGS so hailed, it had bad dialogs like every other game.

Because the mythos of MGS is compelling and well-developed. It's never been for the writing. At that rate, it's a Japanese game translated into English. Not necessarily an apt comparison.

However Bioware's long been exalted for having actual writers work on their games, but the lines cited by the OP are nothing short of revolting and sound like something out of the Star Wars prequels. Troika's writing in Bloodlines handily trumps anything I've seen in a Bioware title, although I've only played KotOR and Jade Empire.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

I don't know if the problem is the writing so much as the premise. For all the hype and hot wind that surrounds this particular game, and then specifically the epic storyline, it's still pretty basic sci-fi cheese. So the dialog follows.

Still, I don't see how this is a noteworthy terrible, as it seems to be pretty standard fare. I think they expect the supposedly epic story arch and settings to carry the weight, so they allow the dialog to be somewhat meh. Not surprisingly, the few game series I know of that have managed to get writing and dialog done well feature premises and a general tone that may not be considered gravely serious.

 

[Captain Glanton]

Because the mythos of MGS is compelling and well-developed. It's never been for the writing. At that rate, it's a Japanese game translated into English. Not necessarily an apt comparison.

However Bioware's long been exalted for having actual writers work on their games, but the lines cited by the OP are nothing short of revolting and sound like something out of the Star Wars prequels. Troika's writing in Bloodlines handily trumps anything I've seen in a Bioware title, although I've only played KotOR and Jade Empire.

No, it isn't. It's highly stylized, which is not the same thing at all. If RPGs are written by 14 year old girls, then MGS is the stuff of a 14 year old boy.

I'm actually at a loss to think of a game that isn't terrible in the writing department--except maybe God of War, which gets a bit of a pass due to its subject matter.

 

[Zoramon089]

The majority of "great" videogame writing is utter shit by the standards of any other medium. Surprise, surprise.

Looking at the trailers, the voice acting is pretty terrible too.

Movies say hello

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Movies say hello

Yeah no, movies put games to shame. Hell, I'd say even blockbuster summer movies by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer would rival the best gaming has to offer.

And that's fucking pathetic.

 

[Draft]

It's so overwrought and facile that it sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old girl who goes to outdoor cafes and writers in her journal.

Here's a sample from the last trailer:



Piercing eyes and sensitive souls? How can they not realize their writing is atrocious? Have they never read anything besides X-Men comicbooks and D&D novels?

At least "All your base are belong to us." is unintentionally funny and therefore has a saving grace.

Fire your writers, you Canadian hicks.

This is one of the best OPs in a long, LONG time.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

Yeah no, movies put games to shame. Hell, I'd say even blockbuster summer movies by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer would rival the best gaming has to offer.

And that's fucking pathetic.

True, but then on the other hand I'm not sure how far behind Ratchet & Clank is your average to good "all-ages" movie, and based on my experience from watching TV with my kid it seems like it'd belong in the top tier of that market. If one was to make a direct comparison.

 

[Zoramon089]

Yeah no, movies put games to shame. Hell, I'd say even blockbuster summer movies by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer would rival the best gaming has to offer.

And that's fucking pathetic.

HELL NO, you're giving movies WAY too much credit. Have you seen the the passing summer's blockbusters? The dialog in stuff like PotC3, Spiderman 3, and Transformers was atrocious.

 

[Draft]

Metal Gear

Has maybe the worst writing of all the so-called "good story" games.

 

[Prime crotch]

Yeah no, movies put games to shame. Hell, I'd say even blockbuster summer movies by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer would rival the best gaming has to offer.

And that's fucking pathetic.

Most of the good writing in video-games do seem to have come out of the same school as the summer blockbusters ones.

 

[djtiesto]

I think people put way too much emphasis on dialogue in these games... I am so used to playing games translated from Japanese with very stilted dialogue that I don't even pay attention anymore. But you can still tell a great story even with stilted dialogue (Phantasy Star 2), or even hardly any dialogue at all (Ico).

The biggest worries for me about ME don't involve the dialogue, its how fun the combat will be, and if EA has gotten their slimy little paws on the game, messing things up.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

True, but then on the other hand I'm not sure how far behind Ratchet & Clank is your average to good "all-ages" movie, and based on my experience from watching TV with my kid it seems like it'd belong in the top tier of that market. If one was to make a direct comparison.

I agree with you. The R&C stuff is comparable to at least the middle-to-above-average range of those movies, and it's among the best of the trashy Saturday morning affairs (WB animation excluded). I'm not sure that's really something we should be trumpeting though.

 

[karasu]

Yeah no, movies put games to shame. Hell, I'd say even blockbuster summer movies by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer would rival the best gaming has to offer.

And that's fucking pathetic.

No they don't. There are various levels of quality in both mediums. But Michael Bay' shit is not far and above the best gaming has to offer. I'd listen to Jolle Bindo over any one of Michael Bay's insipid characters. Just look.

Every night I watch the sunset and soak up every last ray of its warmth, and send it from my heart to yours.

The rise and fall of our empire is at stake

Wait.

The rise and fall of our empire is at stake

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

No they don't. There are various levels of quality in both mediums. But Michael Bay' shit is not far and above the best gaming has to offer. I'd listen to Jolle Bindo over any one of Michael Bay's insipid characters. Just look.





Wait.

I didn't say it was far and above. I said it "rivaled" it. And I stand by it. Gaming has a really fucking long way to go in this regard, and it starts by hiring actual writers to write the stories instead of just getting 'Bob the Senior Programmer Who Watches Lots of Criterion Collection Movies' to do it.

It's almost an insult to professional writers to cast off the work this way. John Carmack was right, I sometimes think, in comparing video games to porno in this way. When you have people squealing in delight at how rich and complex the batshittery in Metal Gear Solid 2 is, you know people aren't really caring much about story.

 

[AltogetherAndrews]

I agree with you. The R&C stuff is comparable to at least the middle-to-above-average range of those movies, and it's among the best of the trashy Saturday morning affairs (WB animation excluded). I'm not sure that's really something we should be trumpeting though.

Not so much trumpeting as maybe a hint towards developers performing in a league that they simply can't do well in. I also think they use technology as a crutch; rather than investing in dialog depth by way of properly implementing emotion and actually craft the dialog and story to give weight to the characters, they simply stuff more lines in there, aided by tech. I guess that's an acceptable trade-off though; didn't the dialog branching system bring Bioware a number of awards at recent trade shows? Not my favorite approach, but I will say that it beats implementing convolution in order to simulate depth, which is the other common crutch.

 

[karasu]

I didn't say it was far and above. I said it "rivaled" it. And I stand by it. Gaming has a really fucking long way to go in this regard, and it starts by hiring actual writers to write the stories instead of just getting 'Bob the Senior Programmer Who Watches Lots of Criterion Collection Movies' to do it.

It's almost an insult to professional writers to cast off the work this way. John Carmack was right, I sometimes think, in comparing video games to porno in this way. When you have people squealing in delight at how rich and complex the batshittery in Metal Gear Solid 2 is, you know people aren't really caring much about story.

MGS2 is rich and complex. There's no denying that. It came out six years ago and it's dialogue is bad, but it isn't as bad as the Star Wars prequels or a Michael Bay movie. Most of these guys were probably writing stories before they were making games. "Actual" writers aren't a breed of people who are expert at storytelling. They're just as likely to write bad dialogue as anyone else. The world's top grossing movie was written by what I guess could be called an 'actual writer' and it's full of some the worst dialogue ever! EVER! I don't get why you're painting this as a gaming problem.