Sopranos' Creator Doubtful of Game Meaning 48
Stephen Totilo, over at MTV Games, has up an article talking with David Chase, the creator of hit HBO show The Sopranos. Mr. Chase believes firmly in the creative and dramatic potential of television, but isn't so sure that videogames can mean all that much. Despite the new 'Sopranos' game, you'll never see the TV show bleed into gaming, or vice versa. In his mind, games have very specific goals. From the article: "'Games have a function,' he said. 'It's a physical function. The character has to go from here to there, has to shoot that, has to drive this, has to knock that down, has to jump up here. ... That's how a game works. So cooking dinner, going to Lamaze class, there's no way to figure that into a game at this point. Maybe somebody else can do it and maybe somebody will, but that wasn't really what this game was about. It was supposed to be a story about a kid who wants to be a gangster -- a punk who wants to be a gangster -- and so that's what we did.'"
Oh no? (Score:3, Insightful)
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-Rick
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And the typical viewer would be pissed off if the typical Sopranos episode was 50 minutes of cooking or Lamaze. That's what cut-scenes are for anyway. Skippable cut scenes.
Three words: (Score:2)
Don't dispair (Score:1)
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Not sure if you're serious, but in case anyone got the wrong impression: Cooking Mama doesn't teach you how to cook. It's a game along the lines of Wario Ware with cooking-themed microgames.
You don't actually learn how to cook.
But yeah, Cooking Mama is a game where you cook stuff, so David Chase is kind of wrong.
wow--what a lack of clue (Score:2)
Re:wow--what a lack of clue (Score:5, Funny)
Is it a cooking utensil?
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Btw. check some Wii screens from the game here: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=6950/ [gamesarefun.com]
Crappy games aren't as good as good TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Each new media changes society through it's innate characteristics. Books, by putting you in your
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan [wikipedia.org]
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There are games that have dramatic dinner-table scenes in them, actually, check out any game in the Grandia series, where over half of the interesting character interaction takes place during dinner table conversations. Granted, these are only mildly interactive, so some may rightly point out that they're simply an extension of cinema/television stuck into a game. However, videogames ARE exactly that, a melting pot of media, just as cinema and television combine theatre with music as well as some new elemen
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Yeah, you could bake bread in Ultima VII! That's an epic role-playing game. Released in 1992. And that's an American game! Bet the Japanese figured how to integrate cooking even earlier...
go figure (Score:2)
Oh wow (Score:2)
Oh wow, old guy X doesn't believe new technology Y is as good as the good old days!
That's so shocking! What a great coincidence that we age and die, so new generations with more open thinking replace us.
Honestly: the guy may be talented, it doesn't mean
"...at this point." (Score:2, Insightful)
He deliberately left open the possibility that maybe in the future someone will make a game with the kind of depth and narrative he's talking about. That seems pretty open-minded to me. (OK, so he ignored the possibility that there might be a game like that already that he just didn't know about, but that's a minor oversight.)
I think he did a good
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Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
Waiting around a game for something to happen, aimlessly collecting money, fighting endless boring monsters to gain experience, none of these things really feels like "fun" to me.
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There, I fixed it for you!
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Cooking can't be a game? (Score:1)
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Not using his imagination (Score:3, Insightful)
The human drama, which is what the story is, can play itself out in the context of a game, just as it can play out in the game-like atmosphere of a business or a relationship.
In a nutshell, the story theory is that the protagonist faces a challenge that shatters his world -- he can't go back to his world they way he used to live it. Think Luke after his parents were killed by stormtroopers. He can either hook up with some crazy old man or wander around Tatooine, but he just won't be helping Uncle Owen farm moisture tomorrow.
Same thing when the star quarterback steps out onto the field for the championship game or the chess player sits down in front the the computer. They are either going to become a champion, or blow the biggest chance of their life. Either way, they can't go back to the anonymity they used to live everyday. What a better set up for the human drama?
Us here on slashdot have seen this played out a million times in almost every game. The crisis might be a little hoakey or even flat out weird -- resucing Dr. Light from Dr. Wiley, or eating all of the pellets without getting caught by a ghost. It is a challenge, and there is no rest for the protagonist. They must make their way into a brave new world.
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Try aunt & uncle - though they were parent figures.
Sorry to nitpick!
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"TV show bleed into gaming, or vice versa." HUH? (Score:2)
Simpson's hit and run and "crazy taxi" take were both fun consolers.
Band of brothers was a very successful Made for TV movie port to game.
That's off the top of my head. What is this guy talking about?
Doesn't every soprano's episode have a plot and something the characters need to do for the episode to progress?
Sounds like another person downplaying the importance of the gaming market because they just don'
yah ok (Score:2)
He's totally right.
Do Lamaze classes and cooking have a place in TV? (Score:2, Insightful)
If they show up in a piece of fiction, I would realy hope that the focus was on the characters AS they are involved in these activities, not on the activity itself.
For a nice quick example, take GTA:SA. You have your characters, and you have the character advancment they go through, most of it is take up by cut sceans between missions, and the random commentary durring missions. I would not be that hard of a streach to have CJ walk into his brothers house and get a mission from him when he is
Re:Do Lamaze classes and cooking have a place in a (Score:2)
I'm surprised they didn't look at Liberty City Stories and derive some inspiration.
Oh well. Sorry, I'm not trying to dry-hump your 'Insightful' post. I'm just surprised. If it weren't for the cut-scenes in this game, I doubt I'd have the interest to keep playing it.
How would he know? (Score:2)
Pot meet kettle. Everybody knows that Television is a low-class form of entertainment for the masses, and doesn't have the same cultural significance as books or stage plays.
Pretty much what he says was also said of television 60 years ago.
Short Version (Score:1)
void History()
{
History();
return;
}
Judging a book by its cover... (Score:2)
Well, he's not a gamer, he admits."
So someone who doesn't know much about games can judge them? Fine. I've never seen the Sopranos but I can tell you I think it is boring, lame and cliched. Oh Italian-Americans, they must be in the mafia, right? How original. And I bet there is lots of killing people when they make each other mad. Wow, how ground breakin
Cooking and raising children... (Score:2)
In Japan just about ANY aspect of life has been explored in a game. From graduating high school to bathroom functions to driving a train.
It really makes me wonder why there's so little creativity in the U.S. gaming market. The Sims touches broadly on lots of things, but it doesn't give you an in-depth simulation of anything.
I wish I could somehow zap the world's population with instant Japanese language skills, so everyone would be