Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

tboon wrote:

I cannot stand games with 8-bit style pixel art. Irrational of me, but there you have it.

It's mostly off-putting to me as well, especially if the game is a 2D platformer. That said, if the game has a lot more going for it, I can enjoy it. Case in point is one of my favorite games of 2012, FTL. I also played Organ Trail earlier today, and although I don't expect to play it again much (if at all), I enjoyed the 2.5 hours I played until I eventually died.

Scratched wrote:

I guess this isn't very blasphemous and restating old news, but heavily scripted singleplayer campaigns really are a blight.

Couldn't agree more. This is partly why most of the games I've played over the last couple years and why most (if not all) of the games on my Steam wishlist are not AAA games, as most of them these days seem to have a distinct lack of openness.

This is why I'm really enjoying Dishonored, which I'm just now getting around to, because it's a fantastic and immersive AAA game that gives the player so much freedom. And unlike Far Cry 3, it doesn't force you to play through utterly uninteresting and hand-holdy campaign missions.

Actually I'll restate what I said, it's not just hateful as though I hate the way the game is made, it's almost as though the designer hates the gamer. Playing a few minutes of BF3 SP just makes me feel uncomfortable, as though I'm just being begrudgingly tolerated.

MeatMan wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I guess this isn't very blasphemous and restating old news, but heavily scripted singleplayer campaigns really are a blight.

Couldn't agree more. This is partly why most of the games I've played over the last couple years and why most (if not all) of the games on my Steam wishlist are not AAA games, as most of them these days seem to have a distinct lack of openness.

This is why I'm really enjoying Dishonored, which I'm just now getting around to, because it's a fantastic and immersive AAA game that gives the player so much freedom. And unlike Far Cry 3, it doesn't force you to play through utterly uninteresting and hand-holdy campaign missions.

Huh. Considering I'm finding myself thinking along the same lines these days (mainly after realizing how few AAA titles I tend to get around to finishing), I might just make it a point to indefinitely delay getting to Bioshock: Infinite and go for Dishonored first instead. I'm more interested in my choices than someone else's.

So I can confess I never played the Neverwinter Nights, nor have I played Baldurs Gate I or II. Thankfully GOG is allowing me the oportunity to enjoy NWNII.

RooneyFan wrote:

So I can confess I never played the Neverwinter Nights, nor have I played Baldurs Gate I or II. Thankfully GOG is allowing me the oportunity to enjoy NWNII.

I enjoyed NWN2 way more than the first, so you're good. The first one doesn't allow you to run an actual party - made no sense to me. The BG series is 50% great (hint: not the first).

As far as you are from those games' releases, I think you picked the right one to start on.

I'm not keen on writing off any game based solely on whether it's a strongly directed experience or not. I've seen both ways (and every degree in between) gloriously succeed or get immensely cocked up.

Nothing wrong with having and knowing your preferences, of course. I just like to keep my options open.

ianunderhill wrote:

Huh. Considering I'm finding myself thinking along the same lines these days (mainly after realizing how few AAA titles I tend to get around to finishing), I might just make it a point to indefinitely delay getting to Bioshock: Infinite and go for Dishonored first instead. I'm more interested in my choices than someone else's.

It sounds like, for you, it makes the most sense to go into Bioshock looking for an engaging, well-executed interactive narrative and less a game in the traditional sense. I tend to have similar tastes as you when it comes to my AAA games, but B:I was an exception I'm glad I made - it may just be the best game I've played to completion... period.

Well here I am back in the middle again. Really though, I appreciate the input, particularly in light of your perspective. I'm still interested in the game from a critical perspective, so I'll probably get to it eventually, I'm just not feeling all that in a hurry to tackle something that might need to be qualified by a caveat.

I personally thought that Borderlands 2 was far more entertaining than Bioshock Infinite.

Bioshock infinite kinda boring, sorry.

/ducks and hides from the barrage of angry tomato throwers

EvilShawnAndrich wrote:

I personally thought that Borderlands 2 was far more entertaining than Bioshock Infinite.

Bioshock infinite kinda boring, sorry.

/ducks and hides from the barrage of angry tomato throwers

To be fair, both Borderlands game weren't very good(unless playing multiplayer). The number of frickin ant mobs I've killed...

And yeah, the gameplay of Infinite wasn't that great. The story beats weren't bad, but I didn't think it did anything story wise that other mediums haven't already, although it was enjoyable - couldn't have been any worse than the gameplay.

bombsfall wrote:

What a lot of people call "hipster gaming" is just gaming growing up and out of a culture and industry that overwhelmingly panders to straight, white, horny, angry 13 year olds.

I think attaching "hipster" to something brings baggage, the wrong kind of baggage. To me it's a holier-than-thou attitude rather than about any of the content and it's merits.

R-rated movies...."intended for adults", stories often for teenagers, but the explosions and violence give away their true audience.

Games aren't special.

I've been trying to play Age of Empire II HD lately.

It's not aged well. At all. Even small advancements made in the Stronghold series have soured me. I want to post archers on my walls, damn it!

Scratched wrote:

I guess this isn't very blasphemous and restating old news, but heavily scripted singleplayer campaigns really are a blight.

I mostly play different kind of games than this but from time to time a Call of Duty campaign or something similar really hits the spot for me (never played BF3 though). They can be a nice change of pace from the Skyrim's and Mass Effect's and similar games I usually play.

From what I've played of the recent CODs, they are directed, but they don't quite go to the extremes that BF3 does. In COD you've always got an objective and occasionally only one way to progress, but the BF3 mission I was doing (night, on the streets) it was just telling me every, little, last, action, what to do. Scripted games are what they are, but BF3 just brought out a bad reaction in me.

bombsfall wrote:

Most AAA game narratives are written at a junior-high level. They are ostensibly made for adults but are instead made for 7th graders, and the publishers must know that, right? Most games are crazy dumb and are lauded by grown adults for brilliance when they rise above the very low bar we've set for them. Broadly speaking, gamer culture has very low expectations and lead-lined comfort zones, and it freaks out at the notion of criticism that doesn't involve stars or numbers. And the industry panders to that, and gamers largely give them a pass because "it sells". And this is part of what keeps the industry pitching so low - kids eat it up, adults excuse it.

The rise of smaller / indie games and more democratic means of game production is the best possible thing that could have happened to video games. What a lot of people call "hipster gaming" is just gaming growing up and out of a culture and industry that overwhelmingly panders to straight, white, horny, angry 13 year olds. Play Cartlife and then talk about how Bioshock Infinite explores some really deep and thought-provoking issues. Hard to say that unless you grade on a pretty steep curve. And that curve helps keep AAA games dumb.

IMAGE(http://media.tumblr.com/f722aa9493a1532be5479525848e9bc1/tumblr_inline_mfh39eptGe1r20waj.gif)

I tend to think of AAA games as being equivalent to summer blockbuster movies. They're outrageously expensive to produce and so aim toward the broadest audience possible in order to recoup their costs. That means an emphasis on aesthetic spectacle and very basic storytelling to catch as many minds and hearts as it can manage. (Those games that don't go for aesthetic spectacle often go for what I think of as narrative spectacle: convoluted, Inception-like twists and turns that impress more with their cleverness than their depth.) I don't really blame anyone for liking them, although they're not always to my taste, but I'm happy that there's a growing market for more diverse titles and ideas. Not every movie needs to be or can be The Avengers, and not every game needs to be or can be Bioshock Infinite.

bombsfall wrote:

Most AAA game narratives are written at a junior-high level. They are ostensibly made for adults but are instead made for 7th graders,

Yeah this is something that's bothered me for years. I've been gaming for over 35 years and at some point crossed over into adulthood and middle age, all the while wondering why game development wasn't tracking with my age demographic. Maybe there's a huge drop off in gaming enthusiasts after X age, but I have to imagine that there is still a large population of individuals who started gaming in the late '70s who are still on board today. Broadly speaking, Nintendo caters to young gamers, while Activision/EA/et al lavish teens & young adults with angst-ridden power fantasies ala CoD, Gears, God of War, etc.

I feel like I spent a lifetime enthusiastically supporting the hobby both fiscally and mentally, only to be left behind when my tastes became more sophisticated. Thankfully...

bombsfall wrote:

The rise of smaller / indie games and more democratic means of game production is the best possible thing that could have happened to video games.

Agreed 100%.

The Wild West indie game movement has proven that demographics that are not traditional cash cows can still be courted with quality content. Cartlife, Papers Please, heck, even little iOS titles like Year Walk, etc. help remind me that developers are thinking bigger than the next explosion (now with bump-mapping!) or evisceration.

I’m still tuned into the AAA development scene and will gladly sign up for the next Dead Space, Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption-caliber production. I’m just really soured on the teen power fantasy variety. I’d be devastated if the AAA market imploded, as I just have to have the next Forza title and such. But on the flip side, I’m over the moon that places like Steam and the iOS marketplace are providing an entryway for garage developers with something fresh and interesting to say. People who were once shut out of the production loop now have a low cost and barrier to entry. This means more creativity and risks, and a win for old-fart gamers like me. It's a future I welcome with open arms.

Aaron D. wrote:
bombsfall wrote:

Most AAA game narratives are written at a junior-high level. They are ostensibly made for adults but are instead made for 7th graders,

Yeah this is something that's bothered me for years. I've been gaming for over 35 years and at some point crossed over into adulthood and middle age, all the while wondering why game development wasn't tracking with my age demographic. Maybe there's a huge drop off in gaming enthusiasts after X age, but I have to imagine that there is still a large population of individuals who started gaming in the late '70s who are still on board today.

This is perhaps relevant to your interests.

The thing about AAA video game developers: I keep getting older, but they stay the same age.

Confession time...I think both Dark Souls and FTL are pretty poor games.

I only played Dark Souls on the PC, but found that it was a tedious, punishing game with absurdly stupid boss fights and little fun. I understand the challenge of Dark Souls but I failed to experience much "fun" in DS. I usually like gaming challenges, but the ones presented in DS just don't click with me. FTL is a pretty decent game until the final boss fight where you need to have a very precise build of your ship to have a good chance to succeed. Once that is understood and experienced, the "choice" in the game is hereby removed and it becomes nothing more than a game of guessing the optimal path. It entirely ruined the game for me.

Bombsfall, I pretty much agreed with everything you said... until you got to not liking Genesis-era Sonic games. Blasphemy!

But yeah, I loved Bioshock Infinite, but it's seriously just scratching the surface of where we ought to be in terms of video game writing. It has some good ideas, maybe even some great ideas, but is hampered by the AAA-shooting conventions and some (IMO) poor writing choices.

Even if games get deeper though I think my favorite type of game will still be the sort where you get to feel like a real hero, not just a murderer with an excuse. I like bright, sunny worlds where you rescue people and do good. Maybe I'm just a goody two shoes that way

Haven't played Infinite, but I agree that part of the issue is the continued targeting of limited audiences. When Dragon Age II came out, it was controversial for a lot of reasons, but one of the surprising ones (to me) was that it was a rare AA+ game that targeted a female audience.

Well, let me be the "blasphemous" one here and say that I don't understand any of these complaints at all. The narratives in AAA games these days are not only fine, they are drastically better than they used to be, and they are far more well-written than anyone should ever expect them to be. As I stated in the beginning of the thread, I feel like all the complaints about storytelling not being mature enough should actually be complaining about a lack of new or unorthodox gameplay mechanics making it in the AAA space, which is something entirely different. In terms of the limits of the kinds of stories you can tell in the ones that are there, I honestly can't comprehend how people can play something like Devil May Cry, Bioshock Infinite or Gears of War: Judgement and say "this story should be better".

kuddles wrote:

Well, let me be the "blasphemous" one here and say that I don't understand any of these complaints at all. The narratives in AAA games these days are not only fine, they are drastically better than they used to be, and they are far more well-written than anyone should ever expect them to be. As I stated in the beginning of the thread, I feel like all the complaints about storytelling not being mature enough should actually be complaining about a lack of new or unorthodox gameplay mechanics making it in the AAA space, which is something entirely different. In terms of the limits of the kinds of stories you can tell in the ones that are there, I honestly can't comprehend how people can play something like Devil May Cry, Bioshock Infinite or Gears of War: Judgement and say "this story should be better".

So basically, what you are saying is that the modern gameplay restricts how good the storytelling can be? I can agree with that: if we didn't have games primarily about mass murdering hundreds of people, then maybe stories would get better because they wouldn't have to deal with that context all the time.

But in their defense, I still think its a valid point to say that stories should be getting better. To me, I don't care what mechanics or gameplay would have to change in order to achieve that, I just care that stories get better. That probably will require video games to become something entirely different than what they are now, but maybe in a hundred years or so people and society will change enough to make that possible.

kuddles wrote:

Well, let me be the "blasphemous" one here and say that I don't understand any of these complaints at all. The narratives in AAA games these days are not only fine, they are drastically better than they used to be, and they are far more well-written than anyone should ever expect them to be.

First of all, LOVE your avatar. ^^

Secondly, for me, it's not that the story underperforms in games. It's the disconnect/breaking of fluidity of story when you are required to some degree grind gameplay mechanics.

I'm going to generalize as not to bring any spoilers to Bioshock inf. You get a nice little hook of story, wish it to continue...but wait...you have stop, go do drudgery A,B, and C to get back to your hook.

It's like good love making. Your partner is doing something you really like, then abruptly changes up. You have to stop the flow and tell them to go back to what they were doing, which in itself is distracting as hell.

Hmm, not sure if that statement is PG-13 enough for this site.

Well, no matter, I said and meant it. Go back and censor me if need be.

Now I find this kind of unique to games and not in movies and books/other forms of entertainment. I have no idea how to "fix" this perception problem either. But it's the nagging thing in all games with me that have "good" storylines/plots.

Here's a few:

I hated Dragon Age: Origins and do not understand why people like it. So being a big fan of the Balder's Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, and the like and hearing that this was supposed to be a spiritual successor to Balders Gate I was so excited for the return to that type of game. Not to mention the fact that it was developed by Bioware, which is a very legit developer in my opinion (or was at the time). So imagine my frustration when I was only able to force myself to play for around 4 or 5 hours and I just couldn't take it anymore. The art style is just horrible. For a game released in 2009 it has already horribly aged. It is so washed out and bland. Also, the world/setting is just so boring. I will say the story seemed kind of cool and I liked the choices you could make with dialogue. Also, didn't like how the game was more tailored to 3rd person view. I think this game was a definite case of the developers choice to release this as a multi-platform resulting in the absolute gimping of the PC version. I have not tried DA2, and probably never will.

I cannot get into any game even remotely related to historical/present day settings. For example, any present/past day Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. I think in my mind it is just too close to reality and I don't want real life barging it's way into my games. The only game that has really overcome this is Jeanne d' Arc on the PSP, (great game), but to say this game is in any way historical is a bit of a stretch. One other example, I love almost all RTSs, especially the Dawn of War series by Relic. I have put countless hours into those games. I have probably reinstalled Company of Heroes like 10 times on my PC, because I have heard it to be the "best RTS ever", but whenever I do I get about 10 minutes in and I'm done, I uninstall it.

Q3 Arena is still the best competitive shooter evar! There I said it. Coming in close second would be UT2004. We still choose Q3 to play at our LAN parties to this day. The gameplay is so straightforward and fun, and really nothing gets in the way of skillful play. I don't think it will ever be equaled or surpassed. Not sure if that is good or bad.

DA:O was 6 years in the making. History shows that most games with extended development times don't benefit from it. For what it's worth DA2 is, ummm, different.

I've probably just sparked off another 8 pages of forum civil war by mentioning DA2.

Agreed about Q3A/UT2k4, there's something pure about them I love.

I don't care if a game has voice acting. If the text is interesting to read, I don't particularly care if I have to click through it to read it. I don't need it read to me.

Scratched wrote:

Agreed about Q3A/UT2k4, there's something pure about them I love.

Yeah, there's a certain timelessness in that purity you mention.

I've watched the rise of the FPS genre from its inception. I've played virtually all the standouts (along with the crap stuff too).

But for me, it always comes back to Doom 1 & 2. I've owned them on more platforms that I care to admit and will continue to buy them on any new piece of hardware I own.

I'll never forget being blown away by HL/HL2, NOLF, BioShock, CoD4, FC2 and more. But at the end of the day the Doom games will continue to be eminently playable comfort food for me. The ultimate go-to shooter.

Change "UT2k4" to "UT2k3" and I agree with the shooter sentiments. I didn't enjoy anything 2k4 brought to the series, but 2k3 was an amazing level of polish added to an already amazing base game. I played far, far too much UT.