Mrowak said:
Black Cat said:
...
This last sentence leads me to the second layer of the subject at hand and the next part of my rant: Aesthetics in devising a credible game-world.
:Rant continues:
Much of the criticism given by 1eyedking, lyricsuite, Alexandros and me concerning the supbar visual design especially with regard to characters is quite valid. But it still pales in comparison by the inane manner in which most of the in-game universes are delivered. Admittedly this accusation refers mostly to games which at least attempt to tell a story, but with the current industry it's safe to say that even stupid simple platformer will try to do so.
The main problem I can see here lies with, as mentioned in my previous post, the aesthetics of the world. Yet this time it doesn't mean graphical art direction only but also utilisation of all other kinds of art (audial and narrative as well) for the sake of conception of a credible setting.
And what does "credible setting" mean? In my book it means a secondary world (as opposed to primary which we live in) where in spite of differently working "mechanics" (e.g. existence of magic, ability to time travel, ubiquitous lazorblades, presence of an inhabited "planet" having a shape of a pancake that rests on the backs of four elephants, which in turn are carried through the cosmic void by a gigantic turtle) the basic principles of narrative causality (cause and effect, choice and consequence), common sense (what is the natural consequence to a given choice) as well as logic (true=2xfalse=true) operate. In order for the world to be credible the abovesaid elements must be applied consistently, without any exception to all possible facets of the devised setting (e.g. storyline, characters, their interactions etc).
Note here, none of the above excludes insanity/demonic or spiritual possession, characters' shifting perspectives or any other mindfuck devices as viable elements of the game world. After all trying to widdle out truth, logic and sense in the events that seemingly lack them IS always in one way or another the major premise of games employing these.
If used as prescribed above accompanied by interesting graphical and audial design so called "suspension of disbelief" is achieved. The phenomenon happens when the setting created is so similar to the primary world (see above) that all doubts about possibility of the events happening in front of you are disspelled. It's basically "if magic/time-travel/gigantic cosmic turtles existed this might have as well happened in my backyard." As a result I as a player/reader/viewer does not need a leathal dose of valium in order to prevent themselves from thinking: this is bullshit.
The reason I'm mentioning all this is that I have yet to play a jap anime-based game where credibility of the world wouldn't be compromised at some point by stupid ass characters / setting not displaying adequate effects to corresponding causes / logic being bent as though the script writer lived solely on grass. Of course this may be because I am ignorant of the true gems out there having played only a few most popular jap titles.
By comparison I can name a number of western - story driven games where setting's credibility was at least reasonably high: Thief, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Planescape:Torment, BG2 and Icewind Dale (2 especially), Fallout 1 (hell, even 2), Betrayal at Krondor, The Witcher, Mask of the Betrayer, The Monkey Island (an example that you may have all that in a nonsense-comic game), Discworld (hurr hurr), The Lost Express, Penumbra etc.
Mind you I'm not denying that weeaboos are perfectly capable of creating interesting settings. I've seen anime / read manga that certainly prove otherwise (amidst the sea of shit admittedly). I am saying that as far as mainstream gaming goes and even have gone they do not have much to offer (barring some few cool non-animu horror series).
In the end my point stands: among the games released in the west there used to be true gems which achieved sublime levels of aesthetic design in terms of pure art (visual, audial, narrative presentation) as well as effective employment of it in devising extraordinary imaginary worlds. They may have been corresponding titles in Japan but they got swamped by more popular shit (e.g. FF7) which came to be regarded as "art". After some years seeing that investing in sophisication for highly critical buyers when you can mass produce shit that
morons fans will buy and defend against slightest criticism till their last breath the corporations opted for the easy route. Results? Kotor, Mass Effect, StarCraft 2, WoW, Dragon Age, Oblivion.
:Rant mode off:
