Games "must be like Hollywood" is the worst decline in gaming

[KeighnMcDeath]

Early games had tutorials? How early we talking here because I remember games with physical manuals and boxes or baggies and a lot of them sure as hell did NOT have a tutorial.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

The mistake was cinematic dialogue that started with KotOR and Bloodlines (at the end of the Renaissance era)

Stonekeep and some other CD-decline era games did that way before KotOR.

Yeah, Stonekeep is a game I remember was a huge step in the wrong direction at a time of general incline.

Stonekeep is fully within prevailing trend during era which produced likes of Wing Commander 3 or Megarace.
There wasn't a genre which didn't get touched by curse of Night Trap.

We should list all those games afflicted by the curse.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Early games had tutorials? How early we talking here because I remember games with physical manuals and boxes or baggies and a lot of them sure as hell did NOT have a tutorial.

Who's that addressed to? If you're talking about my Tomb Raider example, the early games let you mess around in Lara's mansion. No prompts or markers of any kind. I don't remember many tutorials in games prior to the mid-90s, that's true. Storage space likely had something to do with it, and the casualization of the market.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

General statement aloud to the clouds I was blathering thinking back to the 70s, 80s, 90s…. Pondering? Pondering?

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Tutorial levels/world are decline, no matter how well structured they are

 

[Vic]

Tutorial levels/world are decline, no matter how well structured they are

did you pirate all of your games? because back when space was a concern the "tutorial" was in the printed manuals

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Tutorial levels/world are decline, no matter how well structured they are

did you pirate all of your games? because back when space was a concern the "tutorial" was in the printed manuals

Because "level/world" refers to a physical/digital manual..right. participation award for you!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I was looking at some game commercials released on consoles lately and they almost look like cheap Java games you dl from some old game site or itchio. I guess not all are Hollywood productions but the commercials try to make you think they are (poorly I might add).

 

[JarlFrank]

Tutorial levels/world are decline, no matter how well structured they are

did you pirate all of your games? because back when space was a concern the "tutorial" was in the printed manuals

I pirated all my games in my teens, my English was rudimentary, didn't have manuals, still managed to figure out how to play all of them.

All the "tutorial" a game needs is an options menu that shows you the controls (and lets you customize them) so you know which button does what.
Anything else is superfluous.

 

[Bohrain]

I don't mind tutorials if they are skipable. Being forced to go through something between half an hour to several hours with training wheels on is complete torture.

 

[Cat Dude]

Of course you want CRPG to stop progress beyond blobber crap

 

[Butter]

Of course you want CRPG to stop progress beyond blobber crap

Blobbers are the pinnacle of video game design, combining the thrill of first-person exploration with the sophistication of party-based combat encounters.

 

[Frozen]

If I wanna watch a fucking movie, I'll go to the cinema.

Why would you do that, you poor sick man?

I understand your complaints but like with everything that is shit now you have to accept that, it's over. We are old and idiots have won. They always do. Time to die.

 

[911 Jumper]

Alan Wake 2 has a metacritic score of 94

Says it all really


All the gaming press chatter I've heard about this “game” has revolved around AW2's atmosphere and art direction, very little about gameplay mechanics.

I don't see the industry moving away from cinematic games. In Sony's case, I'd even say turning video games into interactive movies was always its main objective – it just needed the tech to emerge.
I think Sony wants a future where people can go from films and TV shows to interactive movie games with no loss in visual fidelity – no jarring step down to “game” graphics.

Those Insomniac leaks reveal how much Sony is willing to spend on these movie games. Xbox is just following Sony – see Hellblade 2 or even Kojima's OD, for example.
Nintendo on the other hand continues to reject the Hollywooding of video games.

 

[Bastardchops]

Tutorial levels/world are decline, no matter how well structured they are

did you pirate all of your games? because back when space was a concern the "tutorial" was in the printed manuals

I pirated all my games in my teens, my English was rudimentary, didn't have manuals, still managed to figure out how to play all of them.

All the "tutorial" a game needs is an options menu that shows you the controls (and lets you customize them) so you know which button does what.
Anything else is superfluous.

I agree. 99% of tutorials are pointless. Found the one in Hearts of Iron useful.

 

[Iucounu]

Alan Wake 2 has a metacritic score of 94

Says it all really


All the gaming press chatter I've heard about this “game” has revolved around AW2's atmosphere and art direction, very little about gameplay mechanics.

Isn't that just because journalists themselves prefer movies? Personally I'm no longer interested in what such journalists write, and I suspect the general gaming public don't care a lot either.

There's also the marketing trailers, where cutscenes seem like the best way to trick gullible gamers into buying a game (thinking they're watching actual gameplay).

Maybe cutscenes can also help making Youtube game streams more entertaining, but that may only work for streamers with pre-release access to games. After seeing the same cutscene in multiple streams I suspect viewers quickly lose interest, so streamers without pre-release access may simply have to choose sandbox games in order to create innovative videos?

 

[Bohrain]

Imagine a world where Romancing Saga 3 had the sales numbers of FF7 and was the game that was copied in structure.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Who's that addressed to? If you're talking about my Tomb Raider example, the early games let you mess around in Lara's mansion. No prompts or markers of any kind. I don't remember many tutorials in games prior to the mid-90s, that's true. Storage space likely had something to do with it, and the casualization of the market.

TR1's mansion is a linear tutorial level with Lara telling you what to do as you go through it.

I don't mind tutorials if they are skipable. Being forced to go through something between half an hour to several hours with training wheels on is complete torture.

JRPGs slow rolling mechanics over 10 hours can fuck off. FF13 has a really interesting world but I cannot get into that game. FFX is already bad enough and 13 is X pushed one step further. Hallways and constant interruptions for dialog.

All the gaming press chatter I've heard about this “game” has revolved around AW2's atmosphere and art direction, very little about gameplay mechanics.

Isn't it's gameplay generic as fuck 3rd person shooter? There's almost nothing unique about it. I will defend playing a game based on atmosphere and art direction. Doom 3 isn't a good FPS, but it's a good horror game based on it's visual elements.

Isn't that just because journalists themselves prefer movies? Personally I'm no longer interested in what such journalists write, and I suspect the general gaming public don't care a lot either.

They like games they can finish in 3-5 hours and don't care much beyond that. They see playing games as a chore and have neither the skill nor the time to properly play a game. Remember the DMC5 review that complained about the battle music? The music ramps up as you do better. If you suck it's background noise, if you do well it's the full song.

 

[Viata]

They like games they can finish in 3-5 hours

Short games are amazing, we lack a lot of them in modern gaming, though. However, it's not short games they like, what they like is to be able to finish the next big AAA game without suffering through it. If there is a "press key to skip gameplay" option, they would do that every time they can.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

They like games they can finish in 3-5 hours

Short games are amazing, we lack a lot of them in modern gaming, though. However, it's not short games they like, what they like is to be able to finish the next big AAA game without suffering through it. If there is a "press key to skip gameplay" option, they would do that every time they can.

We do need more shorter games. I tried to make a thread on them but no one really bit.

What was the game with journo mode that did that? I remember Hamburger helper was controversial being a mass effect writer when she wanted that option too.

 

[luj1]

Never read a manual in my life and generally I skip tutorials

 

[NecroLord]

Never read a manual in my life and generally I skip tutorials

Arcanum manual.

 

[911 Jumper]

Isn't that just because journalists themselves prefer movies? Personally I'm no longer interested in what such journalists write, and I suspect the general gaming public don't care a lot either.

There's also the marketing trailers, where cutscenes seem like the best way to trick gullible gamers into buying a game (thinking they're watching actual gameplay).

Maybe cutscenes can also help making Youtube game streams more entertaining, but that may only work for streamers with pre-release access to games. After seeing the same cutscene in multiple streams I suspect viewers quickly lose interest, so streamers without pre-release access may simply have to choose sandbox games in order to create innovative videos?

Plenty of modern gamers also really like these movie games. It's another consequence of gaming going mainstream. A lot of people are happy to play games where the actual gameplay is so bland it just kind of fades into the background. I've heard more about David Lynch and Twin Peaks in regard to AW2 than I have about the nuances of AW2's game mechanics, even on other gaming forums.

All the gaming press chatter I've heard about this “game” has revolved around AW2's atmosphere and art direction, very little about gameplay mechanics.

Isn't it's gameplay generic as fuck 3rd person shooter? There's almost nothing unique about it. I will defend playing a game based on atmosphere and art direction. Doom 3 isn't a good FPS, but it's a good horror game based on it's visual elements.

Yep, haven't played it myself, but have heard gameplay-wise, it's your standard over-the-shoulder third-person shooter (I could tell it was gonna be like that from the preview videos), yet it's enough to earn AW2 a 94 on Metacritic.
The thing with Doom 3 is that I don't get the impression that it is ashamed to be a video game. It revels in its video game-ness. With movie games such as AW2 and TLOU, I get the impression that the developers begrudgingly tolerate the video game elements in their games.

That's why these modern movie games tend to have forgettable gameplay that fades into background. The bland minimalist in-game UIs that are now common in movie games are another symptom of the desire to downplay or hide elements that will remind the player that he is playing a video game. Themed UIs, quirky gameplay mechanics, novel sound effects and jingles, etc. all remind the player that he is playing a video game, which is why movie games tend to do away with these elements completely or make them so run of the mill that the player naturally forgets about it. Ideally all this stuff has to fade into the background to make way for the “immersive cinematic experience”.

Nintendo continues to reject this desire to turn games into interactive movies. Yes, Tears of the Kingdom has cinematic cutscenes and voice acting, but one look at that game is enough to tell you that it is proud to be a video game, the same can't be said for games such as AW2 or TLOU 1 & 2.

 

[luj1]

Never read a manual in my life and generally I skip tutorials

why are you butthurt? Vic

 

[luj1]

Never read a manual in my life and generally I skip tutorials

Arcanum manual.

I read the Heroes 3 manual but way later