Videogames are interactive entertainment, not art. Heck, art doesn't always have to make sense either, it's open to interpretation. It's a videogame, it is what it is, at the end of the day it just have to give the player something entertaining to do and the story hopefully isn't too bloody ridiculous.
Just because videogames aren't art at the moment doesn't mean that they can't be, and that we shouldn't expect more of them as a medium. I'm not saying that every game should aspire to do the same thing, but that if a game does it should do that thing well.
It seems contradictory that people demand greater respect for their hobby-of-choice, and yet when issues are brought up that we don't want to deal with, they're swept under the rug under the pretense of "Who cares? It's just a videogame!".
Not to lead this to extremes (and I apologise if this has been stated before), but I think people are underestimating the psychological toll of killing hundreds of people. Some of the Nazis, of all people, found it hard to personally and individually kill their victims (which, along with the economic cost of the bullets, and the inefficiency of such a method, led to the gas chambers), so I find it hard to believe that someone could do so and maintain a charming and humourous demeanor without being entirely psychotic or being twisted into a tragic character fitting of Spiderman's darker and more emo portrayals.
They wear gun holsters, they are prepared to kill. Elena is even more into this life now. You guys know this is a fiction right? Well actually who knows how long it took Elena and what she's been through since uncharted 1 but now she seems more like drake. I think the main problem have is this "Everyman" term. I just don't think he's that at all, and I also don't think the story is happy go lucky with a dash of innocent adventure. The second one is called "Among Thieves", that ain't safe.
Uncharted (the first one) really is an odd one. I can't help but wonder why people find the writing in this game so excellent. It's your standard hollywood action comedy fare that reminds me of movies like The Mummy. Nothing wrong with it, it works for a game. I just don't classify it any better than Gears of War or Metal Gear Solid. At least those games try to immerse you in the fact that you're playing as a ruthless killer. In Uncharted's cutscenes Drake is your average innocent swashbuckling adventurer who likely sneaked past a few enemies. Yet when gameplay kicks in Drake instantly turns into a cold-blooded mass-murdering super-commando. That he somehow solely took out a trained army of mercenaries never gets mentioned, but hey. It doesn't make it a bad game or anything, but it's still... well weird.
Only read up until page 5 (great thread btw) but there are a few things to Drake that need to be mentioned. He does address this specifically. "Killing is getting easier... is that good or bad? ... it's good". From that and several story details it's pretty obvious that Drake has a background in shady circles and probably has shot a guy or two before the story begins, as he doesn't completely freak out. But he probably never stumbled across such a dangerous quest before. When he can't turn back, he's acknowledging that he has to be a killer to survive, and welcomes it.
It also seems to carry over into Uncharted 2 where he goes into much more aggressive scenarios. Still (Uncharted 2 level 2 spoiler):
he specifically requests not to use guns on a mission and only reluctantly starts using a tranquilizer
I think one important thing to remember is that Nathan or Faith don't kill their enemies. YOU do. The option is there to use melee most of the way through and except for a few scripted sequences and random rag doll falls you could make sure most of the pirates actually survive. That it's much easier to simply blaze through with a shotgun than trying to find a way to pass or at least not kill an opponent is almost some kind of social commentary in itself.
It seems contradictory that people demand greater respect for their hobby-of-choice, and yet when issues are brought up that we don't want to deal with, they're swept under the rug under the pretense of "Who cares? It's just a videogame!".
The same argument is brought up in movies though. How many action movies have you seen in which the main character is surrounded by a group of people that are ready to kick his ass but only one comes at him at a time? Now in real life that would never happen, if that person were surrounded by a group of people then someone will get them down on the ground and that person would get stomped (literally). But it's a movie so there are different laws. All forms of entertainment force you to suspend your disbelief.
The primary difference here being that games ask the player to move things forward instead of just moving on to the end automatically as a passive experience for the movie viewer. You can't make a perfect alignment with film when talking about what happens in a game...the player still needs turn the crank and have reason to as they are almost always the one to inhabit the body of the protagonist they may or may not like (which can change during the course of the game). When a film protagonist does something that I don't like during the course of a film, I don't press stop on the player or walk out of the theatre...I digest that feeling and continue to keep up with what happens next. In a game, there's a good chance that I might just stop as games lean more heavily on familiar cinematic stylings of film yet wait for me to continue things as the player. As the quality of writing becomes the showcase more and more, the need to concern themselves with the potential player's view of the character becomes more important. It's no different to considering how the challenge level ramps or how a particular section might stop players from moving on because the solution is not obvious enough or the boss fight is too difficult.
This seems very much like the "It's just a video game." line that has been trotted out repeatedly throughout the thread. The point is that if we want the industry to advance as an art form, sooner of later these issues are going to have to be addressed, and that 2D actions will seem ever more out of place in 3D worlds.
It's a question of genres. Indiana Jones keeps coming up in this thread. Indy's not 3-dimensional character. He's a very likable caricature. You're accusing Uncharted of not drawing up a 3-dimensional world when, from the inspiration, they never set out to do so. Narrative in video-games is so poor that I'd prefer if designers spend time creating likable 2-dimensional characters than hamfisting their way through attempting to create 3-dimensional characters. When good plots and characterization become standard in vdeo-games, then we can start to complain about Uncharted being 'more of the same'.
My discussion on the matter will always be limited because I haven't played Uncharted, but from what I have gleamed from the thread the main conflict is not insomuch the fact that Drake kills so many people in itself, but how this undeniably simplistic portrayal is contrasted with a character who is so developed in many other ways.
It speaks to the poverty of characters in games that one of the best examples is still little more than a pulp hero or a character that could come from a 4-color comic. And we're applying it unevenly. Where's all the complaints about heroes in military shooters suffering from PTSD? Here we even have a real-world example: Audie Murphy, who is arguably the inspiration for pretty much any American depicted in WW2 MoH or CoD games was a sufferer. It's not fun, it's not interesting to depict that level of realism in those types of games, to depict characters as more than archetypes and demigods.
The conflict the player seemingly has is in empathizing with a character the developer has spent so much time to make so believable and yet has ignored actions which reduce their likability.
That's not a conflict everyone shares; my main problem with Uncharted was the number of enemies coming at you. That did strain my disbelief a bit. Drake killing nameless enemies? Not really. It's not like he did it with cruelty, there's no circle-button to trigger a torture-kill sequence, no button to press to start a vicious, context-sensitive curb-stomp animation. He doesn't scream curses at them as he mows them down.
Is there room for games with different types of conflict resolution? Sure. I just don't think that different type of conflict resolution should appear a shooter. And yes, Uncharted is a shooter from the very beginning. A shooter with pulp trappings. It's not an 'adventure game', not unless we're redefining the jargon to turn 'adventure game' from a strong, well-established meaning into something as empty and meaningless as 'action game'. It has an adventure in it, but if we're going to use the term that way, that's about as empty and stupid as 'action game'.
It's a question of genres. Indiana Jones keeps coming up in this thread. Indy's not 3-dimensional character. He's a very likable caricature. You're accusing Uncharted of not drawing up a 3-dimensional world when, from the inspiration, they never set out to do so. Narrative in video-games is so poor that I'd prefer if designers spend time creating likable 2-dimensional characters than hamfisting their way through attempting to create 3-dimensional characters. When good plots and characterization become standard in vdeo-games, then we can start to complain about Uncharted being 'more of the same'.
This is a good point. Willing disbelief is the key to all fiction, so yes, while he might seem like a 3 dimensional character, he isn't.
Also, if you watched Kill Bill 1 & 2, then you know that the Bride was more of a 3-dimensional character. You alrady mentioned your reference for this is limited, so I suggest watching more classic action films. Your complaints in the medium you're comparing it to aren't really valid. Expecting Drake to act less like a Hollywood actionhero is simply unrealistic.
my main problem with Uncharted was the number of enemies coming at you. That did strain my disbelief a bit. Drake killing nameless enemies? Not really. It's not like he did it with cruelty, there's no circle-button to trigger a torture-kill sequence, no button to press to start a vicious, context-sensitive curb-stomp animation. He doesn't scream curses at them as he mows them down.
That's something I could easily see. Particularly in Chapter 4, 6, and the last firefight before Showdown.
But he does talk shit upon kills, when tossing a grenade (something I laugh at quite frequently in Uncharted 2), melee. He's an action hero, we expect this.
Unlike others, I don't just think this is an obstacle that we need to overcome: I think it is a permanent and unsolvable problem with video-games-as-stories, and is the reason why we haven't ever seen video games taken seriously in this avenue. Or even taken as an equivalent of Indiana Jones.
That Indiana Jones parallels keep coming up is telling in itself: Indiana is pulp fiction. The most common form of it. The fact that we're struggling to compare this video game character -- considered one of the most fleshed out in our medium -- to even the cartooniest of pulp movie characters speaks for itself.
Amy Hennig hints at this: she suggests that there really may not be a solution to this problem, and I agree.
For gaming, I disagree. For traditional action gaming, this might be the case. The issue is what the character does in the provided writing and what that same character does in the provided design. It's not that we can't have deeper, more believable characters (and relationships with other characters in a deeper, more dynamic story) to play, it's that we don't have enough existing and appealing interactive game designs to concern the player with. As long as it's focused on 'kill or be killed' as the main moment to moment idea, it's always going to feel limited to these very superficial husks of characters to inhabit.
It's disappointing that this thread is retreading old ground (Indiana Jones, still!?), and attacking long since shot down strawmen (Indiana J-yeah), when Jocchan basically shut down this level of defense three pages ago with a massive post that it's obvious very few people actually read.
Jocchan said:
So many people here are completely missing the point.
Yeah, not shooting in a third person shooter would be dumb, but NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT.
Yeah, the body count being in the 100's or 1000's would make no difference, but NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT.
Yeah, movies can be as much or even more violent, but NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT.
Yeah, it's pretty much nitpicking and not ruining one of the best games on the PS3, but NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT.
What people are (or probably should be) discussing is the fact the central part of the gameplay, shooting swarms of pirates/mercenaries in the face to progress, has a serious disconnect with the much more lighthearted mood and tone of the story. It's just a matter of consistency, and - yes - people whining that "it's just a game", "it happens everywhere", "RPGs are even more weird/creepy" or "don't touch my precious PS3 exxxxclusive" are part of the problem.
Uncharted is just an example, and is often chosen because - thanks to Naughty Dog's excellent characterization, and their brave choices for setting and tone in a generation dominated by gritty bald space marines blowing up aliens - it's probably one of the most blatant ones. The issue stands out, people notice and want to discuss, but it has little to do with Uncharted by itself and much more to do with videogames in general and the maturity of this media. Yeah, I'm talking about maturity because we're talking about a media where Rated M for Mature means having the screen splattered in red, filled with decapitations and parallaxmapped polygonal boobies. AKA the very definition of 13 year old males' interests, very narrow and far from mature, which set pretty harsh limitations on game designers's freedom nowadays.
I think Tiktaalik had it right in these posts (sorry man if I'm quoting just a few selected lines, I'm trying to get to my point, so feel free to contradict me if I somehow misinterpreted yours):
It feels really weird to go to this island as an "every day man" and mow down like 700 pirates.
...
I do think it's kind of lazy game design.
...
The problem with the Indiana Jones example is that while yes he does kill people, if you really break it down there are a ton action sequences in those movies that come down to big chases or physical brawls. I fail to see why it would be impossible to replace "headshot gameplay" with grabbing a guy and throwing him into a pile of boxes, the latter idea probably being what Indiana Jones would do.
Indeed the recent Batman: Arkham Asylum I think had a very accurate and movielike portrayal of action and violence and I think proved that this sort of thing is possible.
...
Indiana Jones does not headshot a dozen Nazi's while sloughing off bullets. He gets in fist fights and frequently is on the losing end of things.
So can we stop with the Indiana Jones metaphors? They don't work.
I focused on these posts because they're more aligned with my opinion on the matter, my (small, in the grand scheme of things) issue with Uncharted lies in basically a few game design choices - probably caused by what the market wants, AKA mindlessly shooting stuff and blowing up shit - that end up feeling weird because of the way videogames in general are evolving. We're going towards Hollywood blockbuster experiences that cost millions, ultrarealistic graphixx and shaderz, but in the end we're always playing the same games as twenty years ago and we're dangerously close to a gameplay uncanny valley where the disconnect between realistic presentation and unrealistic gameplay becomes so blatant to reduce the overall immersion.
You notice something is odd, you can make excuses like "oh well, who cares, it's just a game", but this undeniably makes the overall experience worse: you shouldn't think it's just a game, you should enjoy the experience forgetting you're playing a game (AKA the exact opposite).
And this is where the problem is mostly lying at: the user who said we need a dictionary to expand our gaming vocabulary had it right, gameplay needs to evolve too and a designer must never forget consistency. If you're designing an adventure game that feels like a shooter to appeal to the shooting crowd, you still need to try and stay consistent, there's always a good way to do it. Either you do, or people will notice.
Modern tech allows a much more varied gameplay, and this can help a designer greatly: you can go on the old route of filling the game with hordes of faceless grunts, or add destructible elements (other than generic explosive barrels, for fuck's sake... if you're exploring ancient ruins you should be able to set up traps or make stuff crumble over them rendering them unconscious) to the scenery. Chasing or more fast-paced escape scenes. A bit more stealth (you could be stealthy two or three times during the whole game, and other pirates pretty much always noticed you and started shooting) or the ability to avoid enemies instead of being forced to kill them all to progress. Events and twists (like the awesome
collapsing wooden structure
). This is a smart way to take some focus out of excessive, out of place, gunplay and build a much more compelling experience, and I'm happy the Uncharted designers actually used it a bit. I'm aware hordes of goons are a faster and cheaper way to populate your game but I think they really went overboard, thus making the disconnect really noticeable, and some scenes repetitive or even predictable (every time you saw a large area full of covers you knew a shooting sequence would be coming, and you knew the horde would have ended with one or two muscled dudes wielding a shotgun trying to one-shot kill you). A different balance, maybe even limited to shorter waves of enemies and a few more tricks up your sleeve when fighting them, would have helped a lot if you ask me.
tl;dr version: yes, Uncharted suffers from this disconnect, which leads to a gameplay uncanny valley that doesn't hurt the game much, but could have been limited a bit by rebalancing some stuff here and there. But Uncharted is just an example that stands out, designers in general should always stay consistent or people will notice and feel something is off.
Unlike others, I don't just think this is an obstacle that we need to overcome: I think it is a permanent and unsolvable problem with video-games-as-stories, and is the reason why we haven't ever seen video games taken seriously in this avenue. Or even taken as an equivalent of Indiana Jones.
That Indiana Jones parallels keep coming up is telling in itself: Indiana is pulp fiction. The most common form of it. The fact that we're struggling to compare this video game character -- considered one of the most fleshed out in our medium -- to even the cartooniest of pulp movie characters speaks for itself.
Amy Hennig hints at this: she suggests that there really may not be a solution to this problem, and I agree.
Now I haven't played too much Uncharted (an hour or two, tops), but really the problem people seem to have with Uncharted seems to be the cognitive dissonance from the 'normal' main character and the actions he takes during the game and the effects it has on him.
If Amy Hennig is saying the game needs shooting to be fun and this dissonance is a problem that is unsolvable, I'd disagree. There can be shooting in the game that doesn't necessitate charging in on your enemies and killing them in direct guerrilla combat. Why not have the shooting segments focus more on escaping the threat of the mercenaries, have you set traps or distractions to bypass enemy encampments, etc?
From a developer standpoint it might be more difficult to make, since enclosed direct combat shooting matches aren't a strain creatively and much cheaper to do compared to making new assets and animations for specific situations, like making a tree fall by using explosives or something... But really, the problem isn't one without a solution, perhaps if she said viable solution I'd be more inclined to agree, but even then it's just a matter of prioritizing.
This might already have been covered in the thread, I didn't read all of it. Sorry if I'm just reiterating.
edit: missed that Jocchan post. I added nothing to this thread. ;_;
Well this guy said it's flawed for being a shooting game. That's when I just thought this is what everyone meant and started imagining Uncharted as a life sim.
Tiktaalik said:
The OP is saying that the setting and characters of Uncharted and the gameplay of Uncharted don't exactly match, and are in fact so dissonant that it's really peculiar. In contrast to illustrate the point further I would point out that the gameplay and setting of Gears of War match quite well. We can easily explain away why there are so many gun fights, why baddies take so many bullets and just about everything else about the game.
Uncharted is odd because it seems like they designed the setting and characters apart from the gameplay. Possible explanations for this are:
a) The gameplay or setting/characters was changed part way through dev and the other wasn't changed to suit.
b) Naughty Dog thinks the setting/characters and gameplay don't need to line up in any way at all no matter how odd it is.
Basically I think Naughty Dog is at fault here for being lazy. If you want to make a shooting game that's fine, but come up with a scenario where that makes sense. It's like they came up with two separate ideas from two different design documents, couldn't decide between then and so they squashed them together even though they don't really fit. Don't get me wrong, the game is fun and it plays great, obviously this issue doesn't doom the game, but you do have to sort of roll your eyes at the entire premise.
Before this I came to realize this was gaf expecting too much from entertainment. Like the people that don't like movies that are fun to some people, but they spot a lot of flaws and it bothers them (Jurassic park thread I think, lot of gaf threads that deals with movies).
It's a question of genres. Indiana Jones keeps coming up in this thread. Indy's not 3-dimensional character. He's a very likable caricature. You're accusing Uncharted of not drawing up a 3-dimensional world when, from the inspiration, they never set out to do so.
This isn't what people are saying, I don't believe. The point isn't whether or not the characters and the world in Uncharted are 3-dimensional, but simply the tone and the atmosphere that it sets and whether the player's actions are congruous to it. Everything from the content in the cutscenes to the booming, adventurous soundtrack to the highly colorful visuals gives the impression that you're about to be involved in the videogame version of a 1930s serialized adventure. There's a very strange juxtaposition with that and the bodycount you end up with.
Frequently, when Indiana Jones kills someone, it's actually played for laughs (like the famous scene in Raiders where he guns down the sword-wielding guy). Or it's basically an unfortunate accident that was inevitable, like that guy getting crushed by the huge spinning wheel in Temple of Doom, or the other guy (same actor) getting fucked up by that airplane propeller - Indiana Jones looks shocked after those events. And most of the time, Indy just gets his ass kicked and sort of comes out the winner by luck. Drake just goes through and kills massive amounts of people, making the occasional wisecrack. There's a jarring contrast there.
i could really care less about the tone of uncharted because it's a video game and i'm pretty disconnected from a third-person action game in the first place, it just sucks that the shooting portions of the game weren't that great and i'd rather platform/adventure.
i could really care less about the tone of uncharted because it's a video game and i'm pretty disconnected from a third-person action game in the first place, it just sucks that the shooting portions of the game weren't that great and i'd rather platform/adventure.
It's disappointing that this thread is retreading old ground (Indiana Jones, still!?), and attacking long since shot down strawmen (Indiana J-yeah), when Jocchan basically shut down this level of defense three pages ago with a massive post that it's obvious very few people actually read.
And we're arguing that it happens everywhere and that we don't see people bitching about it in movies because they realize they're movies not reality and that all forms of storytelling usually have to sacrifice believability for entertainment. I know you guys don't like the movies argument because it exposes how dumb this thread is but, yeah, if movies can do it then games definitely can to do it too especially since the tone and storytelling part is waaaaaaay more important in a movie than in the games.
You notice something is odd, you can make excuses like "oh well, who cares, it's just a game", but this undeniably makes the overall experience worse: you shouldn't think it's just a game, you should enjoy the experience forgetting you're playing a game (AKA the exact opposite).
Because most people are not as anal as the OP and the guys defending him so they don't care it's only a game like they forget it's only a movie and just enjoy it. According to the OP's logic we should all struggle during popcorn movies not to think it's a movie.
And we're arguing that it happens everywhere and that we don't see people bitching about it in movies because they realize they're movies not reality. I know you guys don't like the movies argument because it exposes how dumb this thread is but, yeah, if movies can do it then games definitely have the right to do it especially since the tone and storytelling part is waaaaaaay more important in a movie than in the games.
Because most of the people are not as anal as the OP and the people defending him they forget it's just a game just like they forget it's just a movie and just enjoy it. According to this logic we should all struggle during popcorn movies not to think it's just a movie.
you're still barking up the movie tree? I'm getting a feeling of deja-vu.
Rez said:
fortified_concept said:
Movies that are supposed to be more realistic and follow the protagonist's character (because afterall the most important element of a movie is the storytelling) don't do that and put everymans in impossible situations that they manage to escape from and you expect from a game to do it? Especially since the game has to sacrifice gameplay -the main element of a game- to do it.
I have to repeat this. Asking to sacrifice gameplay to follow the game's tone is preposterous. You have higher standards for the storytelling of games than of multimillion dollar Hollywood movies.
comparing movies to video games in this regard is a really messy, unattractive area of this discussion that I have no desire to take part in. It leads into all sorts of headache inducing branches, including, but not limited to: "well, maybe movies are just dumb nowadays", "video games pacing and presentation vary greatly from movies, how many enemies are dealt with over time is dramatically different" and "should we be content just molding the standard movies set long ago to fit a form of entertainment that is drastically different".
It other words, it's incredibly inelegant. Keeping the discussion based around video games and video games alone, and the standards that have only recently (last ten years or so) started taking shape is much more interesting to me.
Comparing Uncharted and the way it deals with enemies to Raiders is like trying to fit a square peg into a circle hole. Sure, if you hack away at it long enough you might be able to force it through, but why bother when there's a circle peg sitting right beside you.
i could really care less about the tone of uncharted because it's a video game and i'm pretty disconnected from a third-person action game in the first place, it just sucks that the shooting portions of the game weren't that great and i'd rather platform/adventure.
And you're still barking the "OH NO, don't you dare to compare this with movies, do you know what will happen, it'll give you a headache!!111" tree. You have no valid reason as to why we shouldn't compare them with movies, you're just whining and moaning every time someone mentions it because you can't refute the argument.
And I'm not just talking about Indiana Jones but for the hundreds other movies that do that.
And we're arguing that it happens everywhere and that we don't see people bitching about it in movies because they realize they're movies not reality and all forms of storytelling usually have to sacrifice reality for entertainment. I know you guys don't like the movies argument because it exposes how dumb this thread is but, yeah, if movies can do it then games definitely can to do it too especially since the tone and storytelling part is waaaaaaay more important in a movie than in the games.
Because most people are not as anal as the OP and the guys defending him so they don't care it's only a game like they forget it's only a movie and just enjoy it. According to the OP's logic we should all struggle during popcorn movies not to think it's a movie.
And you're still barking the "OH NO, don't you dare to compare this with movies, do you know what will happen, it'll give you a headache!!111" tree. You have no valid reason as to why we shouldn't compare them with movies, you're just whining and moaning every time someone mentions it because you can't refute the argument.
And I'm not just talking about Indiana Jones but for the hundreds other movies that do that.
I can be convinced otherwise, mate. How about starting with those three main points I bring up in that post and working up from there?. It takes a bit of effort and time, but it beats just saying 'that's invalid!', you know?
The person I was replying to was bringing up a brief psychological analysis of Drake. It does seem like at least someone is expecting fully-developed characters, rather than caricatures.
but simply the tone and the atmosphere that it sets and whether the player's actions are congruous to it. Everything from the content in the cutscenes to the booming, adventurous soundtrack to the highly colorful visuals gives the impression that you're about to be involved in the videogame version of a 1930s serialized adventure. There's a very strange juxtaposition with that and the bodycount you end up with.
Those adventures are quite violent, those heroes would kill goons like it was nothing. There's no soul-searching and even the ones who avoided killing still didn't dwell on it terribly long, not when killing 'bad' guys. Uncharted plays within the confines of the genre.
Frequently, when Indiana Jones kills someone, it's actually played for laughs (like the famous scene in Raiders where he guns down the sword-wielding guy). Or it's basically an unfortunate accident that was inevitable, like that guy getting crushed by the huge spinning wheel in Temple of Doom, or the other guy (same actor) getting fucked up by that airplane propeller - Indiana Jones looks shocked after those events. And most of the time, Indy just gets his ass kicked and sort of comes out the winner by luck. Drake just goes through and kills massive amounts of people, making the occasional wisecrack. There's a jarring contrast there.
You're trying to draw up a point by point comparison, when I'm talking about genre. I disagree; you're playing down the way Drake reacts to being fired-upon while interpreting Indiana Jones in a very particular way. I could tell you how I interpret those scenes, but we'd get nowhere, fast.
Just because videogames aren't art at the moment doesn't mean that they can't be, and that we shouldn't expect more of them as a medium. I'm not saying that every game should aspire to do the same thing, but that if a game does it should do that thing well.
It seems contradictory that people demand greater respect for their hobby-of-choice, and yet when issues are brought up that we don't want to deal with, they're swept under the rug under the pretense of "Who cares? It's just a videogame!".
Uncharted 1 is a shipped product, and ND made improvements for the sequel by giving the game more variety and better context for Drake's actions, so what's your problem?
And we're arguing that it happens everywhere and that we don't see people bitching about it in movies because they realize they're movies not reality and all forms of storytelling usually have to sacrifice reality for entertainment. I know you guys don't like the movies argument because it exposes how dumb this thread is but, yeah, if movies can do it then games definitely can to do it too especially since the tone and storytelling part is waaaaaaay more important in a movie than in the games.
Because most people are not as anal as the OP and the guys defending him so they don't care it's only a game like they forget it's only a movie and just enjoy it. According to the OP's logic we should all struggle during popcorn movies not to think it's a movie.
The movie comparison tree isn't a very productive place, but I don't see why you feel people give films free passes for these things. They don't. If something implausible or weird happens in a movie, it affects the film, even when people know what they're watching.
When I say "implausible", I don't mean strictly relative to actual reality. I mean relative to the reality created in the film up to that point. After the premise of the film is established, events contrary to that premise seem out of place, and are distracting from the actual watching of the movie.
Die Hard films depict someone slightly greater than your average man, but not superhumanly greater. The reality of those films is slightly enhanced from your average reality. So we don't bat an eye when he blows up a plane filled with bad guys by lighting a leaking fuel line on fire, and the fuel catches up to the plane as it's taking off. Yet we can still be confused when he manages to avoid a high-tech military aircraft while driving a large truck down a deserted highway, and when said highway somehow manages to be mere blocks from the bad guy's lair. One fits with the heightened reality created by the film to that point, and the other does not.
The point I'm trying to make is that this double standard you imagine doesn't exist. Nobody expects Uncharted to conform perfectly with reality. That would be boring. We merely expect it to be consistent with the universe it has created. The reason you don't hear about this happening much in movies is because it generally doesn't. But you have to be aware of people complaining about inconsistencies and out-of-place elements in the films they see. This is in the same vein.
If you actually think anyone in this thread is talking about the reality/fiction dichotomy, you fail at reading. Every one of your posts is this thread is attacking a straw man.
You don't need to compare games to movies to see that the idea of suspension of disbelief works equally well for both. People in any kind of art aren't like the people you know, because it wouldn't be interesting otherwise. The characters in any kind of fiction, including games, are necessarily servants to the interests of making a successful work of art. In games, that often means that characters' personalities come second to gameplay, which is exactly what's happening in Uncharted.
If anything, I think one of the main problems with games designed in the West is that the designers fail to appreciate that they have to make their games playable above all else. Look at Assassin's Creed, with its ridiculous in-game explanations for why the main character is being controlled with a controller, saves his game, loads levels, etc.
The Japanese seem to understand this all a little better. Even (relatively) realistic shooters like RE4 have point systems, score attacks, time attacks, and all kinds of game modes that are great fun to play, even if they aren't things that might actually exist in the real world.
I can be convinced otherwise, mate. How about starting with those three main points I bring up in that post and working from there. It takes a bit of effort and time, but it beats just saying 'that's invalid!', you know?
comparing movies to video games in this regard is a really messy, unattractive area of this discussion that I have no desire to take part in. It leads into all sorts of headache inducing branches, including, but not limited to: "well, maybe movies are just dumb nowadays", "video games pacing and presentation vary greatly from movies, how many enemies are dealt with over time is dramatically different" and "should we be content just molding the standard movies set long ago to fit a form of entertainment that is drastically different".
You keep repeating it's really messy and that'll give you a headache but don't give have an argument there. People don't say that "well, maybe movies are just dumb nowadays" because people realize as I've already explained that all forms of storytelling have to sacrifice tone or believability for entertainment sometimes because otherwise they'd be incredibly boring.
Point two:
It other words, it's incredibly inelegant. Keeping the discussion based around video games and video games alone, and the standards that have only recently (last ten years or so) started taking shape is much more interesting to me.
It's not inelegant because as I've already explained they're too forms of storytelling and that's what we're talking about here. Even the OP mentioned a movie for god's sake!
Point three:
Comparing Uncharted and the way it deals with enemies to Raiders is like trying to fit a square peg into a circle hole. Sure, if you hack away at it long enough you might be able to force it through, but why bother when there's a circle peg sitting right beside you.
I don't think there's a point there. You don't really give an argument as to why it's like "fitting square peg into a circle hole" you just say it does like you did with the first point. The thread focuses on storytelling so we make a comparison with other forms of storytelling like movies or books. The only reason this comparison in unfair is because games have to sacrifice gameplay while movies are only about storytelling, so we're supposed to actually have higher standards for movies than lower that you guys have.
So in other words I've already replied to your post and I'm just repeating what I've already told you.
If you actually think anyone in this thread is talking about the reality/fiction dichotomy, you fail at reading. Every one of your posts is this thread is attacking a straw man.
I mean reality of the universe the movie or game creates. Eh, I chose the wrong word maybe. Replace it with believability or tone and my point still stands.
Demon's Souls, Ico, SOTC, and Portal are the future of story telling. Give you bits and shut up so people can make up their own stories while enjoying their gameplay. No gameplay sacrificed for story, win win. Sorry writers go write movie scripts. Same for you voice actors and the like.
You keep repeating it's really messy and that'll give you a headache but don't give have an argument there. People don't say that "well, maybe movies are just dumb nowadays" because people realize as I've already explained that all forms of storytelling have to sacrifice tone or believability for entertainment sometimes because otherwise they'd be incredibly boring.
Point two:
It's not inelegant because as I've already explained they're too forms of storytelling and that's what we're talking about here. Even the OP mentioned a movie for god's sake!
Point three:
I don't think there's a point there. You don't really give an argument as to why it's like "fitting square peg into a circle hole" you just say it does like you did with the first point. The thread focuses on storytelling so we make a comparison with other forms of storytelling like movies or books. The only reason this comparison in unfair is because games have to sacrifice gameplay while movies are only about storytelling, so we're supposed to actually have higher standards for movies than lower that you guys have.
So in other words I've already replied to your post and I'm just repeating what I've already told you.
once again, you've attacked a strawman, and at this point, I don't think you're doing it intentionally. I don't mean to be rude man, but you're completely missing the point.
"well, maybe movies are just dumb nowadays", "video games pacing and presentation vary greatly from movies, how many enemies are dealt with over time is dramatically different" and "should we be content just molding the standard movies set long ago to fit a form of entertainment that is drastically different"
these are three open ended discussion points that you could have tackled, and once again you haven't. Hell, any one of those points could lead to pages of mind-numbing analysis, which is probably why you avoided them, and that, in turn, leads back to what I'm trying to say. You're digging hole that you'll never have the time to fill again, there's no point in heading down that path. Once again: it's inelegant.
But by all means, continue the good fight. It's disappointing, though.
Demon's Souls, Ico, SOTC, and Portal are the future of story telling. Give you bits and shut up so people can make up their own stories while enjoying their gameplay. No gameplay sacrificed for story, win win. Sorry writers go write movie scripts. Same for you voice actors and the like.
In that case, the future lives in the past since that's how most old games treated things by leveraging the player's imagination to fill out a framework of little declaration and more suggestion. Unfortunately, the future is likely to be more in line with your average game today where cinematics are the chief storytelling method. Following the 'actions and game world that tells the tale' route is best, IMO, as it takes full advantage of the inherent strength of video games when it comes to stories...pure player-based experience.
At this point you're just being evasive and not bringing anything at all to this thread. In fact, you seem to want to drag the discussion to something specifically off-topic.
i've played the mp demo for uncharted 2 and i really like the improvements to the shooting. i'm not saying that i just wanted a pure platformer in unchrted, i really didn't like the shooting sections that much. in uncharted 2,the weapons feel heavier and the action just feels a lot more varied, and we're just talking about the MP. the impressions i've read from the single-player game in the reviews just make me more excited.
At this point you're just being evasive and not bringing anything at all to this thread. In fact, you seem to want to drag the discussion to something specifically off-topic.
once again, you've attacked a strawman, and at this point, I don't think you're doing it intentionally. I don't mean to be rude man, but you're completely missing the point.
"well, maybe movies are just dumb nowadays", "video games pacing and presentation vary greatly from movies, how many enemies are dealt with over time is dramatically different" and "should we be content just molding the standard movies set long ago to fit a form of entertainment that is drastically different"
these are three open ended discussion points that you could have tackled, and once again you haven't. Hell, any one of those points could lead to pages of mind-numbing analysis, which is probably why you avoided them, and that, in turn, leads back to what I'm trying to say. You're digging hole that you'll never have the time to fill again, there's no point in heading down that path. Once again: it's inelegant.
But by all means, continue the good fight. It's disappointing, though.
YES! What, are you kidding me? I wish most games could have Hollywood movies presentation and production values. I wish their storytelling was half as good. The form of entertainment is different but storytelling is still storytelling.
Is "attacking a strawman" a talking point now amongst you guys now? (even though you don't explain why)
I've already replied to these arguments but some of them are just too ridiculous. For example:
YES! What, are you kidding me? I wish most games could have Hollywood movies presentation and production values. I wish their storytelling was half as good. The form of entertainment is different but storytelling is still storytelling.
A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1] [2]
...
1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context i.e. choosing quotations which are intentionally misrepresentative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
he's guilty of more than one of the above, I don't have the energy to sift through each of his posts in this thread to find specifics. It's lazy of me, yeah, but I can only assure you that I'm not talking through my ass. Read a few of his posts, it will become clear.
No I'm getting it. When people are using a comparison that can shed light to how ridiculous this whole discussion is you guys dismiss it without giving any real arguments. You're just annoyed we do it and accuse the rest of us of strawmans and headaches without really making a point. Are you saying that the OP derailed his own thread by mentioning a movie at the OP?
Rez said:
he's guilty of more than one of the above, I don't have the energy to sift through each of his posts in this thread to find specifics. It's lazy of me, yeah, but I can only assure you that I'm not talking through my ass. Read a few of his posts, it will become clear.
no, I'm saying the discussion has moved well beyond that, and as a result of people like yourself, this discussion is going nowhere because people are having to spend time defending long since dealt with points.
you just provided another great example of
1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
he's guilty of more than one of the above, I don't have the energy to mine through each of his posts in this thread to find specifics. Read a few, it should become clear.
I know what a strawman is. Both you and beelzebozo seem to think there's a fallacy in that post he quoted you in. I can't see it there. Has he been engaging in strawmen earlier in this thread? Sure, because before he was mocking the OP and posting ridiculous stuff.
no, I'm saying the discussion has moved well beyond that, and as a result of people like yourself, this discussion is going nowhere because people are having to spend time defending long since dealt with points.
Sometimes a game's gameplay can be at odds with it's narrative. This is an interesting aspect of game design, one of the reasons I like Suda51's games is he often brings attention to this and attempts to deconstruct it, especially in Flower, Sun and Rain for the DS.
Video games have a long history of endless killing sprees as gameplay, just look back to something like Space Invaders. These games were mostly abstract with almost no story to speak of.
Now that games are focusing more on narrative, we see elements of the gameplay start to butt heads with the story. I'm curious to see where it goes from here, and I hope game developers give it a lot of thought and experiment with the whole concept.
EDIT: One of the reasons I enjoyed the recent Batman: Arkham Asylum game is because of the emphasis on the fact that Batman doesn't kill people. The narrative in this case helped dictate the nature of the gameplay. Just compare that to the more abstract, less story-focused older Batman games where enemies would just explode after you hit them enough.
I didn't read the whole thread, so I'm not going to take place in any of the quote-based arguments occurring right now. I would like to say:
Rainbow Six and Metal Gear Solid do a great job of remaining steady in their context of the game.
The Matrix series and Die Hard series do a great job of taking a scenario that could have been presented in a format that emphasized stealth but chose not to do this for the most part. They were successful.
Draw your analogies for each one of those. The latter, IMO, is analogous to Uncharted, even though its an imperfect analogy.
It's disappointing that this thread is retreading old ground (Indiana Jones, still!?), and attacking long since shot down strawmen (Indiana J-yeah), when Jocchan basically shut down this level of defense three pages ago with a massive post that it's obvious very few people actually read.
Well I'm sorry but I don't see what's great in there exactly.
I mean the "NO ONE ARGUES" part for a start, doesn't even reflect what most people who are in the "I don't see any inconsistency" camp are saying.
All I see personally is "but, there is inconsistency!". So yeah, please explain because so far, what he had is:
- But Indy kills way less people! And he's classy!
Well not really, watch the movies again or some videos. And stop complaining about the comparison, because it has been brought up by the OP and by people who have the same point of view many, many times. Drake is pretty much the closest VG version of IJ (except in IJ games obviously).
- But Drake was presented as an average joe, how come he can kick that much ass?
No he's not. He was presented as someone very different from the lambda shooter hero. Not your neighbour who has 2 cats and helps grannies to cross the road.
- There is a discrepancy between realistic graphics and gameplay
So I guess that movies are fucked, since they have super realistic graphics, and I'm pretty sure that shooting someone at point blank with a magnum doesn't make him fly over 10m.
- The light-hearted tone doesn't match the genocide!
Really? So please explain this. I mean, you have TONS of pulp action movies were characters and the general tone are light-hearted, yet they kills tons of bad dudes.
At absolutely no point in the game Drake hunts anyone down (like it has been suggested several times) just for the sake of killing people. If you have a problem with headshots and grenade launchers, since it's a game and it's up to you to play it how you want to, well use melee combat whenever you can (and you can do so many times) and use only a crappy revolver to shoot people's legs. You can pretend they didn't die and are just KO, you'll feel better!
Now I understand that people might think that there is too much shooting and not enough "adventure" in Uncharted. I can understand that from a gameplay perspective, people would have liked it the other way around. But justifying the downplaying of this aspect of the game with silly arguments like this? Meh.
I've never seen this kind of arguments for TR btw.
What people are (or probably should be) discussing is the fact the central part of the gameplay, shooting swarms of pirates/mercenaries in the face to progress, has a serious disconnect with the much more lighthearted mood and tone of the story.
One of my favourite all time TV shows (Firefly) also mixes that charming/wisecracking protagonist with acts of (often extreme) violence. That may sound contradictory but in practice it works, both in Firefly and Uncharted. Here's an example from Firefly of humour being blended with extreme violence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgM3dsLM9yI
I don't think it's any secret that Drake's character has a lot in common with (possibly even takes inspiration from) the character of Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly. Amy Hennig has even stated that her 'dream' actor for Drake in the Uncharted movie would be Nathan Fillion.
Like Han Solo gunning down Greedo in cold blood (screw you Lucas!) or Indy gunning down that swordsman with a smirk, there's a long tradition of rogue-ish characters who can be funny/charming yet also killers when required. Such character archetypes might not be rooted in real life experience but they are well loved and widely accepted in fiction, especially pulp fiction. Personally I'm glad of that because I love those characters
Now I understand that people might think that there is too much shooting and not enough "adventure" in Uncharted. I can understand that from a gameplay perspective, people would have liked it the other way around. But justifying the downplaying of this aspect of the game with silly arguments like this? Meh.
I've never seen this kind of arguments for TR btw.
TR became more and more shooty, but it has never been a straight up TPS. Uncharted is barely anything else.
My question would be why can you understand that people might think that there's too much shooting and not enough adventure? Would you understand if that complaint were made about Gears? Are you talking generally, or specifically? You understand that people could want any one game to be any other type of game, or that people might think that Uncharted specifically focused too much on shooting things?
