v1rus
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2008
- Messages
- 2,256
Setting is far more important to me than story. Example: Gothic 1. There really isn't much of a story and the one that is there is pretty derpy (t3h SLEEPAH!). The setting of the Colony with the opposing camps is the more interesting aspect.
I couldn't get through that entire article. Story is such a vague term when it comes to video games. I would say that excessive reading is detrimental to a video game, even roleplaying games many of which are guilty of this , but I'm tolerable of reading spread out in short bursts across the entire game. This applies to older games moreso than newer games.
Telling story through the environment and setting, with things being inferred instead of flat out told to you is what I usually prefer. Lots of roleplaying games have drawn out monologues from various NPCs that aren't realistic in even a real world scenario, like telling you very small details and hand holding that no reasonable person would know or recite without pauses and "ummms" spread throughout. Maybe I'm too drunk to fully articulate this point, idk, but it breaks immersion for me when one npc has 2 paragraphs worth of information that is told to you without breaks.
Some genres (platformers or puzzle games) can get away with very minimal story, but I think most games need context to be enjoyable and context could very easily be considered story elements. Dig Dug or something being a good example of this. Nothing is really told to you but you infer lots of shit about the PC and enemies.
Ignoring problems sounds like gaming journalism 101.On this measure, alas, the best interactive stories are still worse than even middling books and films. That’s a problem to be ignored rather than solved. Games’ obsession with story obscures more ambitious goals anyway.
Does this actually mean anything? Can anyone interpret this drivel?Games are not a new, interactive medium for stories. Instead, games are the aesthetic form of everyday objects. Of ordinary life. Take a ball and a field: you get soccer. Take property-based wealth and the Depression: you get Monopoly.
Lemme guess, meandering stream-of-consciousness bullshit, lots of disclaimers, not many points, but overall proves how very smart the author is.Whole article is incredibly vague, and I actually have no idea what the writers points are.
Lemme guess, meandering stream-of-consciousness bullshit, lots of disclaimers, not many points, but overall proves how very smart the author is.Whole article is incredibly vague, and I actually have no idea what the writers points are.
Favorite format of lefty articles really.
Ian Bogust.
You posted an article without having read it first?
Whole article is incredibly vague, and I actually have no idea what the writers points are. Gonna try and read the article again tomorrow, after getting some much needed sleep.
Didnt realize he wrote the piece.
Didnt realize he wrote the piece.
Yes, ok, you read it, but only vaguely, but then thought you'd post it anyway. etc etc. I'm probably being over-nitpicky, ignore me.
Funny you link Frictional Games... the creator of fine 'not-games.'Boring.
Games aren't movies and can tell different kinds of stories. And they can tell them not only through cutscenes and dialogue but also setting, environment, gameplay, or all of the above.
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.de/2017/05/story-what-is-it-good-for.html
To these people and probably most forum users and Youtube commenters you see, video games are become lifestyle. Identity. Central to their universe. I mean come on, 'Mass Effect Confessions'? Worse is that they don't understand their little "gaming community" is a fishbowl. They are a minority. Most people who own something to play games on don't care about 99% of shit they do or agree with their opinions. For example, most people didn't even play The Witcher 3 (compare sales to total hardware sales), and I would venture to say haven't even heard of it. Game is only a huge deal/GOAT in the so called community. That's just one example.For a normal human being, games are something you do to unwind. You might be extremely passionate about your hobby, but that is what it is. A hobby.
To be fair, we attribute meaning to anything we like, find pleasurable or find it important, this is how human beings work and not only on the gaming industry. This very site was founded on the idea that games are more than just relax toys otherwise why care at all about old games most of the world forgotten? Games vary wide in scope, I wouldn't place a party game like Monopoly on the same category as Fallout for example. Same as movies, there are the Transformers of life and there are movies that carry real meaning on them.The problem with these manchildren is they cannot accept things for what they are. Sometimes you just want to play a game of Monopoly with your family/friends. It is purely a dice rolling and negotiation game. Even the people that made that game didn't see it as some simulation of wealth or something.
Sometimes you want to play Might & Magic II and map a world. It's a game. These manchildren cannot understand this because their entire lives have revolved around games, in a totally disfunctional way. Instead of realizing this (and yeah, playing games has been an important part of life for humans FOREVER), they attribute some weird ass meaning to games, which games are not meant to have.
For a normal human being, games are something you do to unwind. You might be extremely passionate about your hobby, but that is what it is. A hobby.
It is extremely weird to me that these game reviewers are so bizarre. You don't see movie critics acting like this. I mean, Roger Ebert fucking loved movies and spent as much time as he could watching them. But he never acted like some weird autistic shut in, incapable of interacting with other people, which is how I imagine 99% of all video game reviewers.