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The Decline of Fiction In Video Games
Speaking to Eurogamer, art maestro (and visual design director of upcoming stealth/action game Dishonored) Victor Antonov put into words what many gamers have been feeling about the gaming industry of late:
"It's been a poor, poor five years for fiction in the video game industry. There have been too many sequels, and too many established IPs that have been ruling the market. And a lot of them are war games. And they're great projects and great entertainment, but there's a lack of variety today. So, when you step out of this established genre, people cannot grasp it, or the press tries to find a match. ... We were always waiting for the next generation of great worlds or great graphics. Well, great graphics came; the worlds that came with these graphics are not up to the level of the graphics. ... Games should sort of split up and specialize and assume that there's such a thing as genre, and they shouldn't try to please everybody at the same time and try to make easy, diluted projects. Let's go for intensity and quality."
there have been many great stories. And there is no reason a sequel can't also be a great story.
Skyrim, Uncharted, Max Payne, Portal, Portal 2, Half-life EP 2, Dragon Age. ON and on.
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One of the bad aspects of modern gaming is games becoming interactive DVDs. Press X, beat the bad guy and earn the privilege of watching a half-hour cutscene that tells you to press O to defeat the next boss to watch the next cutscene.
Create games that are engrossing with gameplay and don't require much of an investment on the behalf of the player.
Where was the rise of fiction in video games? We look at the previous generation with rose-tinted glasses by ignoring all the crap games and just looking at the gems.
Every generation complains about the same thing: too many sequels, not enough original properties. I mean, 5 years later we will be looking back and looking at this generation with longing.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Happens to every platform of gaming. Arcade Games, Consoles, PC's, etc...
In the early days of Arcade Games, every game was unique (Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Robotron). As games stood out as top money makers, they started emulating them. Why risk a new idea, when an existing one is close to a sure thing? The longer the platform is around the less unique the games will become. Go into any modern Arcade (that is still open), and you're going to find that 90% of the games fall into Drivers, Fighters, Shooters. With maybe a couple games outside of that.
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
While I *do* get the joke, (no whooshes please, it's lame.) This is a false comparison.
You are compairing "superfiscial plot with sparkly graphics: then" with "superfiscial plot and sparkly graphics:now".
You should compare "text mode story adventure game" against "pac man", and "massively open ended plot games, like daggerfall (mid 90s, has different, but related endings)" against "doom and duke nukem".
As the article points out, there aren't many of the "story focused" games out there. He pines for "text adventure" narrative depth, but with "wow, the boobies jiggle when she walks!" Hyper-realistic art assets of the gutless shooters and flat fantasy titles.
He is lamenting that you don't see both together.
Of course just like people watch porn...for the story.
Because a good story can make the game a lot better, it can't make a crap game good, but it can turn a solid game into a legendary game.
Look at Final Fantasy VII, the storyline is what really made it all fit together.
Some games need no storyline to make it fun, for example, no one really questions why blocks are falling from the Soviet skies in Tetris, they just are. Same with Team Fortress 2. On the other hand, take away the story from most RPGs and adventure games and you are just some guy running around the world. Its a lot better to feel like you've just saved the world than it is that you just mowed down a bunch of enemies.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Man, wasn't that nice, to have bad guys that weren't tarded without having to deal with online cursing little shits? While Fear 1&2 were more buttoned up you should try the expansions for Fear 1, they had some nice levels where they could really get behind your ass if you weren't careful. the rooftop was a good example, where the Arma troops had 4 different ways they could go and would lay down fire while one snuck around to cap you in the back, just damned good.
Here is a little title by a little company you've probably never heard of but if you like a challenge, and I don't mean that lame "all grunts take more bullets than the terminator while having perfect aim" crap look up a little game called "Nosferatu: The Wrath Of Malachi" or something like that, I always just called it Nosferatu. Its 1901 and you have to go into a castle to rescue your family from a hoard of vampires.
The cool things about this game is 1.-Forget memorizing jack shit as EVERYTHING is randomized. A room that may have been a ballroom with a servant might be a bedroom with a hellhound the next time, it even randomizes between saves so you might have to reload a time or two if you respawn knee deep in the shit! 2.- How do you think that YOU, a normal human, would do against a real vampire? Welcome to Nosferatu where you are NOT a 6 foot 300 pound linebacker but an ordinary man. with the holy water and the cross or 6 shot you can fight off a minion, it'll be a decent fight but it can be done relatively easy, but you walk into a room and there is some Masters in their coffins? Your ass had better be able to sneak in there, get them lids open, and drive those stakes before they wake up because if not? Its your ass Mr Postman as they are wicked strong and if you drop one awake it'll probably be due to luck and will make you feel like you just won the game because it is HARD to do.
But I know what you mean, without decent AI so many of the games are just terrible, I mean who cares how it looks if the guys all stand in a straight line to be shot? don't buy Fear 3 BTW, the AI is fucking TERRIBLE, I don't know how many times all I had to do was fire a round or two and they would duck behind cover and just sit there while I walked up and knifed them, fricking knifed them, or worse they'd just go back and forth between two different covers while i just stood there right out in the open, they didn't even shoot. After 1&2 it was enough to make me want to fricking scream, just terrible.
Oh and did you read what the guy below you posted as a list of "good shooters" for me? Its online, online, online, online aaaaaannnndddd online. If I wanted to deal with "LOL I play this 16 hours a day noob bitch ass mofo" I'd be playing fricking Halo. ONLINE SUCKS ASS and is NOTHING like having a decent AI, its campers or guys that have no fricking lives so they just learn every trick and memorize every map so that you'll spend all your time respawning...wow, what fun. Big difference between having AI that will try to suppress and flank and some guy that has figured out there is a tiny section of wall that will let him scope a large area of the map without being seen so he can just pick off players and rack up his kills. And I can't believe he suggested TF2, for someone that likes a traditional FPS that thing is TERRIBLE! Its the classic case of spending weeks learning a single character because you can NOT just hop in and play that game and expect to get anywhere at all,and more than half the maps are fricking sniper heavens.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.