|
Post by Ex on Feb 17, 2019 0:42:49 GMT -5
I know it's 2010, but weren't you playing ME2 recently for awhile? Yes, I beat ME2 last year. I put about 46 hours into it; 100%-ed everything including the DLC. BUT ME2's still not old enough for HRG-compliancy. I'll just say the writing grew more simplified but the pacing improved considerably.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Feb 17, 2019 9:56:43 GMT -5
Oh, and Silent Hill 2, obviously.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Feb 17, 2019 11:23:06 GMT -5
Oh, and Silent Hill 2, obviously. Ohhh, now we're talking. There is one newer horror game that I think reaches this level as well, but not much else comes to mind. SH2 is in a realm of its own.
I think the original Resident Evil has some great writing. Yes, the voice acting and cutscenes are explosive cheese, but the context of the written documents is pretty awesome throughout with some great body horror. The sequels kind of lost that element.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Feb 17, 2019 14:01:41 GMT -5
Although I did not enjoy its gameplay/game design much at all, I totally agree that Silent Hill 2 was very well written insofar as plot/dialogue.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2019 15:18:55 GMT -5
The story and writing in Rule of Rose can compare to SH2, but the puzzles are much easier.
|
|
|
Post by anayo on Feb 17, 2019 18:14:25 GMT -5
Ex's Top 10 "HRG-compliant video games with actually great writing" from great to greatest:
I own: Thief Gold Vagrant Story Fallout Monkey Island I will keep my eyes peeled for: Hotel Dusk The Lost Crown Mass Effect Another Code: R Rise of the Dragon Games that can't have good writing: Quake, Robotron 2084, Virtua Cop II - These don't pretend to be anything other than games. You kill stuff and get points. That's all. Games that have bad writing:Crysis, Gears of War, Turok (the 2008 one) - These all have cinematic pretensions, as though there's a cast of characters and a story with a goal over the horizon and something at stake. But the sense of humor is nonexistent. The only tone is "look at this spectacle" or "listen to these muscular guys yell about what they're going to do next". I can't tell the characters apart except when it's telegraphed via something like their haircuts. I wish were more like the first category listed above and didn't try to have stories in the first place. Games that should have bad writing but don't:Resident Evil 4 - This should be campy and dumb, but the pacing is good, starting off subdued and slowly growing more twisted and insane as your journey progresses. Tonally it doesn't take itself all that seriously. So I can forgive it for being ridiculous. House of the Dead II - When the writing is this bad it goes full orbit and comes back into being good. So I'm OK with it. Games Anayo considers to have good writing:Portal - I love the sardonic tone in this game. The deadpan humor kinda reminds me of Douglas Adams. The 3D Zelda games - I doubt these have stories good enough to work in non-interactive media. But as far as games go they all evoked fond feelings from me by the time I completed them. Windwaker and Twilight Princess in particular ended with really bittersweet scenes that stuck with me years afterward. Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door - This is really goofy and endearing. In the main Mario games, the enemies' characterization is just a sentence or two in the instruction manual. But in this, they're fleshed out to a full cast with their own quirks and traits. One sub-plot I remember is a sentient computer that becomes enamored with Princess Peach and tries to woo her. In another part, Mario enters his world's version of the WWE and competes in a wrestling tournament. The whole thing reads like a bonkers Mario fan fiction that somehow got Nintendo's seal of approval.
|
|
|
Post by Sarge on Feb 17, 2019 19:30:34 GMT -5
You'll have to import Another Code: R. The English version is PAL-only. (I did snag it some time ago, and I think Ex did around that time, too.)
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Feb 17, 2019 20:22:02 GMT -5
Games that can't have good writing: Quake, Robotron 2084, Virtua Cop II - These don't pretend to be anything other than games. You kill stuff and get points. That's all. This made me think of this haha:
Obviously, he's completely wrong! But yeah, some games don't always need it.
Nice call on RE4. It's explosive cheese but certainly endearing, oozing with charm. Always nice when things hit the "fun" note just right.
Portal is definitely strong in the writing department. Makes me want to give Half-Life 2 some props as well!
|
|
|
Post by Sarge on Feb 17, 2019 20:59:39 GMT -5
I mean, if it's DOOM, then yeah. I feel that way about a lot of classic games. I don't need a lot of minutiae about Castlevania's lore to enjoy cracking Dracula's skull again. Or some deep, philosophical story in a Mega Man game.
That being said, as mentioned before, really good writing can definitely elevate an experience, especially games that rely on narrative like RPGs. Which, by the way, just reminded me of another game that I really enjoyed: Shadow Madness. Honestly, as a game, it's pretty terrible. When your first boss is the hardest of the game, and becomes a cake walk from there, you've done something wrong. But I really enjoyed the writing, particularly for Harv-5, a harvester robot that looks like a scarecrow. His lines are hilarious and awesome.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Feb 17, 2019 21:42:54 GMT -5
Xeogred For me that quote is mostly true for old-school arcade games, but completely false for entire genres (RPGs, adventure games, survival horror, etc.) But actually, even in games like Virtua Cop 2, there's a sort of narrative even just in the progression through the action setpieces. You're not just standing still and shooting at bad guys like some old-fashioned shooting gallery game; you're running through buildings and chasing vehicles and so on. So that, in a very basic way, is a story. Typical porn in the Internet era is just people in a room having sex; the videogame equivalent would be just what I described earlier; just standing still in a room, shooting at endless waves of enemies, or maybe even just the same enemy again and again. And that would be mad boring.
|
|