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Post by Xeogred on Feb 17, 2019 22:28:27 GMT -5
Yeah, no need to convince me haha. Carmack clearly cared more about the programming and architecture of his games first above everything else. Certainly appreciate everything he did for the medium though, he just needs a John Romero and others to balance him out. I wonder if he'll return to gaming someday.
Your example of Virtua Cop 2 made me think of Die Hard and other 80's action movies lol... all of which I love. Simple and to the point, but there's still a fun journey and story to experience.
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Post by toei on Feb 17, 2019 22:34:23 GMT -5
Coincidentally, I was also thinking of Die Hard Arcade when I wrote that post, which is a very good distillation of the Die Hard formula in beat-'em-up form, even if it wasn't directly based on it. The fact that you're running through this building all along in one cohesive journey really does make it better than if it were a series of disconnected levels.
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Post by Ex on Feb 17, 2019 22:40:07 GMT -5
I will keep my eyes peeled for: Hotel Dusk The Lost Crown Mass Effect Another Code: R Rise of the Dragon Hotel Dusk and Mass Effect shouldn't be too hard to find. Finding physical copies of Rise of the Dragon or The Lost Crown in the wild would be extraordinarily difficult. They both received physical releases true, but RotD is super old, and TLC had a very limited physical release. However you can buy both online: www.gog.com/game/rise_of_the_dragonstore.steampowered.com/app/291710/The_Lost_Crown/Another Code: R only received English release in Europe. I imported my physical copy, and then used TinyLoad to bypass the region protection to play it on my USA Wii. XeogredAs already mentioned prior, that Carmack quote is short sighted and ignorant. However from John's perspective on the medium, I can understand why he personally said it.
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Post by chibby on Feb 19, 2019 10:27:33 GMT -5
Obsidian > Bioware > Bethesda
Yes, Yes, 100 times yes. I had to force myself to actually read through the whole thread before just quoting this. Given Ex's title for me, I think my appreciation for Kotor precedes me here. I suppose I'd like to question and/or complicate what we consider "legitimately good" writing to be in the context of a video game. For example, the "Plot" to Shadow of the Colossus isn't really very thick, it's your standard fair "deal with the devil" or "decent into hell/madness" plot at the core, and the overwhelming majority of the game is absent any exposition. That being said, exactly what is needed is there, and I can't see the game having been improved by a lot more listening to someone speak in demon voice. In fact, I think the choice to have the protagonist be silent make more sense in this game that it does in almost any other. Furthermore, and I can't speak for Shadow of the Colossus specifically on this but bear with me, a lot of truly great screenwriting takes place outside of dialogue anyway. If game writing and film writing are anything similar (and I think in a lot of cases, especially cut-scenes, they are) someone also "wrote" a lot of the moments that happen visually as well. Seriously, find the screenplay to one of our favorite movies and, depending on the screenwriter, often times they're writing out very specific camera angles and everything. If that's not writing, I don't know what is. I also would like to think that great writing can be contextualized. A game like Freedom Force, isn't likely to be lauded for it's writing, but one could argue that it does what it sets out to do very well. Is it as compelling as a Cormac McCarthy Novel? Probably not. Is it a delightful pastiche of comic book tropes that delivers on multiple levels? Definitely. Similarly, I mentioned in our discussion of writing in RPGs that I think Earthbound is extremely well written, it just has a very specific writing agenda. This gets tricky too though, I guess. Like, I would say MGS 2 has legitimately good writing if you view it as a comedy, but that's... Is it not a comedy? Hard to say. Even as a comedy, there's waaaay too much dead air between laughs so I don't know. I guess the action comedy is a genre? Meh. Also, remind me to bump this thread in about six years so I can talk about a game that gets compared often to Earthbound. Y'all know the one.
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Post by Ex on Feb 19, 2019 11:32:05 GMT -5
That being said, exactly what is needed is there, and I can't see the game having been improved by a lot more listening to someone speak in demon voice. Yes you're correct. When I talk about "good writing" in games, that doesn't specifically correlate purely to dialogue. Absolutely the entire premise of a game's atmosphere and base concept are part of its writing. I am sure that Fumito Ueda specifically wrote SotC's setting and narrative flow long before it was put into pixels. There are quite a few games that barely have dialogue at all, and yet manage to tell a great story despite their lack of literal verbosity. A few examples besides Shadow of the Colossus would be; Ico, Out of this World (AKA Another World), Super Metroid, Demon's Souls, and LOOM (to an extent). I can think of more but they are too new for HRG. Absolutely though; if a game manages to tell a good story, regardless of dialogue's inclusion, then I'd say it's still a well written experience.
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Post by chibby on Feb 19, 2019 12:40:10 GMT -5
That being said, exactly what is needed is there, and I can't see the game having been improved by a lot more listening to someone speak in demon voice. Absolutely though; if a game manages to tell a good story, regardless of dialogue's inclusion, then I'd say it's still a well written experience. Even beyond dialogue, I think the same is true of Plot. Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Magnificent Seven (2016) have the almost the exact same plot, but the first has overwhelming critical acclaim, the second has a measure of critical appreciation, and the third one was fine I guess. SotC's plot, boiled down to it's barest essentials, isn't really anything new or spectacular, but the game is nevertheless a masterpiece. I'm not trying to split hairs though. What I'm asking is as what point do we start to consider the aesthetics of a game part of it's writing? I'm sure people could found countless examples of games with similar bare bones plot and dialogue free deliveries like Super Metroid, but that's the one the rest compare to. Is that because of good writing or because of good gameplay/art design/sound design and so on? And I guess the larger point I'm trying to make is that, if writing=drumming, sometimes the writing is more Ringo Starr than Buddy Rich, and that's A-okay with me
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Post by toei on Feb 19, 2019 13:32:11 GMT -5
Well, sure, writing is more about how the story is told than what the story is. And when you boil a plot down too far, you lose the flavor, anyway. Food metaphors: they're hard. My point is really that even "what the story is" hinges on its details rather than its barest essentials, which often serve to give a story a minimum of structure; a starting point, and ending point, sometimes a middle point. But it's everything else that happens in between that constitutes the true substance of the story.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 19, 2019 18:41:09 GMT -5
A few examples besides Shadow of the Colossus would be; Ico, Out of this World (AKA Another World), Super Metroid, Demon's Souls... Beat me to it with some of these examples. Art direction, sound design, actions, pure images and visual context only, etc all these subtle little things can add up a lot in the end to me. I've always been more of a pure gameplay kind of guy in the long run, I can slog through some bad stories if the gameplay is awesome, but it's harder the other way around for me. "Atmosphere" is what I value the most after gameplay probably, then writing/dialogue after that which can catapult a game even further if it's strong in that department. But "atmosphere" is always one of the hardest things to convey on forums from what I've experienced over the years and almost purely subjective, case by case per game.
I bet there would be contention if I threw in Secret of Mana to that list of examples Ex posted there, but that's kind of what I mean about the subjectivity here. It's always my favorite example of what I value in games the most though. You'd never find me defending Secret of Mana's plot or characters, I don't know if you can even get more bare bones and simplistic... but the awesome gameplay and dungeon crawling, gorgeous graphics/art direction + one of the most unique OST's on the SNES = legendary atmosphere, these elements all come together forming one of my favorite games.
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Post by toei on Feb 19, 2019 20:08:54 GMT -5
Those elements you highlighted are not writing, though. They're valuable, they're important, but they're not writing. And writing, as you know, is not Secret of Mana's strong point (I don't like the battle system, either, but hey).
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 19, 2019 20:20:38 GMT -5
Proving my point that I can't even explain what I really mean above. Stories can be told without words. Oh well, I'm basically just agreeing with what chibby was getting at.
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