Game News Fallout: New Vegas Details

[BLOBERT]

BRO TAKE THE LAST 20 YEARS YOU'LL GET SHIT SHIT SHIT OH WOW AWESOME GAME SHIT SHIT MORE SUCK SHIT YES AWESOME!!!??! THEBN LOTS MORE SHIT

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO TAKE THE TYPICAL CODEX FAVORITES LIST

ULTIMA 4-7
WIZARDRY 8
WASTELAND
BETRAYAL OF THE KONDOR
DARK SUN
FALLOUT 1,2
TORMENT
ARCANUM
BLOODLINES
GOTHIC 1-2
MOTB

I TREID MY BEST THE LIST MIGHT SUCK OH WELL ANYWAYS SHIT YOU GET A GOOD GAME HERE AND THERE AND MAYBE MORE IF ONE GUY OR STUDIO OR WHATEVER IS ON A ROLL

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO I AM THINKING MORE I MIGHT BE WRONG IT DOES SEEM LIKE SHIT WAS MORE LEARNING ON YOUR OWN BACK THEN WHCI H WAS FUN BUT SOMEOTIMES ANNOYING YOU COULD BNE RIGHT

 

[StrangeCase]

Feh, good writing is nearly impossible to find in video games. I'm not entirely sure why that is. I think plot-based games have it rough, too, because it's so front-and-center that errors seem magnified. The last time it really whalloped me was Mass Effect. The first part of the game is very story-driven, and the writing is just shit. Makes me flinch just remembering it.

And yeah, Fallout 3's writing could be called mediocre. If you were feeling generous, that is. Forgettable characters, laughable plot, hilarious holes in said laughable plot. That said, much as I love the original Fallout titles, the writing there wasn't particularly strong either. Better than Fallout 3's, but I think I responded to the art direction and gameplay a lot more than the dialogue.

Some games with good writing, to make my points a little less arbitrary:

-I thought MotB was pretty well-written throughout. Side quests could be iffy at times, but that's the norm.
-Parts of KotOR 2 were strong: some good characters, interesting story. Other parts were crap; the butchered ending is only the tip of the iceberg. I really liked the good parts though.
-VtM: B was a mixed bag, like KotOR2. The first half was pretty good overall. I thought the late-night radio show was superb, really effective atmosphere. Props to Smiling Jack and Arthur Kilpatrick (the bail bonds guy) too.
-Torment was original and creative. The writing was only serviceable, but considering all the weight it had to bear, that's impressive in of itself.

Some games that everyone exclaims "ZOMG GOOD STORY" but actually have shit writing:

-Metal Gear Solid
-Mass Effect (the second was a little better, though)
-Final Fantasy (any)

EDIT: Clarified a few points in light of discussion.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

-Torment was original and creative. The writing was only serviceable, but considering all the weight it had to bear, that's impressive in of itself.

Fanboi butthurt incoming

 

[StrangeCase]

Fanboi butthurt incoming

Yup. It's true, though. Torment's setting and atmosphere were awesome, but the quality of the writing itself? Good enough to support the weird and wondrous setting/plot, and that's about it.

 

[CrimHead]

The fact that you even put KOTOR 2 on the same level as PST shows you have absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about.

 

[CrimHead]

BETRAYAL OF THE KONDOR

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I trusted you guys ;(

 

[StrangeCase]

The fact that you even put KOTOR 2 on the same level as PST shows you have absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about.

:D

Does it, now? The quality of the prose is basically equal across both games. Maybe it's MCA's influence or something. PST has the advantage of a very creative setting and a good deal of originality, which makes the writing seem better than it is; conversely, KotOR2 has the aging and rigid Star Wars setting, which makes the writing seem cheesier.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that PST's (or any game's, really) setting and originality are, in part, communicated by the writing. Isolating the writing, then, robs it of some effectiveness. I thought PST's setting was very effective, more so than KotOR2, and it makes sense that some of that is because of the writing. From this point of view, PST is clearly a cut above. If you do the obedient literature major thing, as I did, and try to view it objectively, the two games stack up fairly evenly, IMO.

 

[Angthoron]

The writing in PST is more consistent throughout the game though, there are no leaps here and there, and the characters are all well fleshed out. Even the minor ones were still worth talking to. Hell, I was searching each area for every last NPC to see if they had some quirky lines to impart.

I didn't get that feeling in KotOR 2. Maybe it was the lack of time and polish, and maybe the franchise did its part as well, but the writing quality is all over the place. Sometimes you get some great lines, and some great subplot going, with logical motives and reasoning and outcomes, and sometimes it's just completely broken. That, and Torment has the "This is a game where you read what's going on" going for it, whereas in KotOR2 the presentation is often ruined by so-so cutscenes and broken animations. That's not so much a writing issue, mind you, but the scenes are still scripted, and scripting is usually done in writing (plus sketching I guess).

Edit: Ha, you said a similar thing in your edit.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The fact that you even put KOTOR 2 on the same level as PST shows you have absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TldYE2YbPXI

fagget.

 

[Sceptic]

Feh, good writing is nearly impossible to find in video games. I'm not entirely sure why that is.

I find myself agreeing with almost everything you said (that's a first for the 'dex). As for why good game writing is so rare, I'm not sure either. My guess would be because of the blockbuster approach to gaming that (almost) everyone in the industry seems to follow, so you get writing that's at best on par with a Hollywood blockbuster (not your typical shining examples of good writing). The reason I think the writing is on average even worse than in movies is that even the most poorly-written blockbuster will still have a professional writer on it, no matter how unskilled said writer can be. In many video games the writer will just be someone randomly picked from the team who seemed to have less overall work to do (cf the famous "we don't have infinite number of monkeys on typewriters" line).

And yeah, Fallout 3's writing could be called mediocre. If you were feeling generous, that is. Forgettable characters, laughable plot, hilarious holes in said laughable plot.

The worst part of FO3 writing was the dialog. The crap the NPCs spout is only surpassed by the horrible lines you can give, especially when a stat check is called for. It's just painfully obvious the writer(s) had no clue what "charisma" or "perception" mean because the lines simply don't make sense in light of the stat they're supposed to call.

-I thought MotB was pretty well-written throughout. Side quests could be iffy at times, but that's the norm.

Part of the problem with video games is that there's almost always more than one writer on the project (up to a half-dozen I think?) and you can often tell when pieces were written by different writers. MotB writing was very good whenever main stuff was concerned, the side stuff was much more average. I guess it's understandable they'd put the best writers on the main plot and NPCs but it's a shame that the overall quality has to go down because some of the extra stuff isn't anywhere as good.

-Parts of KotOR 2 were strong: some good characters, interesting story. Other parts were crap; the butchered ending is only the tip of the iceberg. I really liked the good parts though.

This one's hard to judge due to all the butchering in the last part. I would guess that, had the game been actually finished, the quality would've stayed the same at the end. Can't say for sure since ultimately we were left with an unfinished game and a crap ending, and that's what the game will be judged for.

-Torment was original and creative. The writing was only serviceable, but considering all the weight it had to bear, that's impressive in of itself.

If we're talking in an absolute sense (not just within video games) I would say the writing was good. Not the best ever of course, and nowhere near as good as what you'd find in the really well-written books/movies, but still better than just about any other game that had been released before it, not to mention it's still better than a disturbing number of books (though I don't consider that to be an accomplishment in itself, considering so many books have crap writing). Fanboism aside and trying to take a more balanced approach, I think the reason the game's writing came as a shock to many is that it was good, and for a video game anything above "mediocre" is so rare (or, as you put it yourself, "nearly impossible to find") that we'd happily enshrine any game that manages to do this (probably part of the reason MotB and VtmB get so much praise. I'll also add Anachronox to that list). Just like MotB Torment suffers from uneven writing too - some of the not-plot-related writing is pretty meh.

-Metal Gear Solid

I don't know if this one's a result of bad translations (translation is notoriously good at ruining perfectly serviceable writing) but since people praise the English versions anyway I see no reason not to bash the games for all the pretentious shit they keep throwing.

-Mass Effect (the second was a little better, though)

In some ways, in others hell no. The overall quality of writing was surprisingly better in the second, especially in some of the side stories (Mordin's was pretty good). But the overall plot was much, much stupider. At least ME1's could be excused as standard space opera accumulating every possible cliche of the genre: "good for what it is" at its best. But ME2's is just horrible: mind-controlled bugs in hive-mind, giant space-faring terminator... fuck just writing this makes me wince. The plot barely makes any sense, completely contradicts a lot of shit from the first one for no reason whatsoever, manages to break just about every rule for a middle part of a trilogy... it's just a complete clusterfuck.

-Final Fantasy (any)

I haven't seen/played any of the older ones so I'll go by 7 and up: they're pretty bad. Again I don't know if it's a translation effect but that doesn't matter when English speakers call FF7 the best story in video games EVAR.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

As for why good game writing is so rare, I'm not sure either.

It's pretty much what I think. But I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. A game is after all a game, and it must have a serviceable story for gaming. I don't think we need preofessional writers turning games into playable books, just that games need to stop trying to be playable movies/books and have the okayish story be complemented by the gaming part of the game. The MGS games you mentioned are a good example - the story is horrible if we analyze it by itself (you could at best make a dumb hollywood action movie with it), but it goes along very nicely for a player's perspective. You keep wanting to know what's come up next, despite knowing it'll be basically something on superhero comic book level.

I don't know if this one's a result of bad translations (translation is notoriously good at ruining perfectly serviceable writing) but since people praise the English versions anyway I see no reason not to bash the games for all the pretentious shit they keep throwing.

The MGS games always had this humorous and self-ridiculing moments that makes me believe the pretentious thing is more to try and suck the player into the story than pass a "this game is DEEP" message.

Example: The Boss' death on the third game. Despite the philosoraptor speeches, the point is you're killing this awesome woman who was your mentor and the game is so hellbent on making you feel bad for it that it forces to kill her manually, instead of having a cutscene for it like Sniper Wolf's death on the first game. It's a perfect example of using the "game" part of the game for storytelling, instead of trying to ape a movie.