The Decline of Fiction In Video Games 197
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."
BS (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:BS (Score:2, Insightful)
Stories in video games suck, at least when the game tries to make me care about them. When I'm playing a video game, I don't need to know why the bad guys are the bad guys, I just need to know where they are.
How about gameplay? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:BS (Score:5, Insightful)
This is cyclical.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:How about gameplay? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real shame is the decline of the adventure genre, which derived from interactive fiction, which was all about story. The best adventure games told stories through their gameplay, with puzzles making sense within the plot, and advancing the plot through the solving of puzzles. If you want to see how to tell a story though a game, go back and look at games like Secret of Monkey Island, Loom, Quest for Glory, or Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.
Re:The myth of the story. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
BS-First Person Porn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course just like people watch porn...for the story.
Re:I probably sound like I have ADD... but (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:How about gameplay? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:BS (Score:3, Insightful)
I've played the game "Shoot the cyberdemon until it dies!" plenty of times. I'm more than just a bit tired of those games honestly. A game that makes me care about its characters gets a lot of my attention.
Re:BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Heavy Rain is a fantastic example. But then again, I also thoroughly enjoyed FEAR2 for the semi-hidden documents along the way that explained the back-story of what was going on. There was actually a lot of thought put into it. I say FEAR2 because the first and third were a lot less well flushed out I found.
In fact, if I'm going to play a good game that tells a good story and is fun and looks and sounds great, in general its a PS3 game like Heavy Rain, R&C, Uncharted ... I'll throw a bone to Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, and God of War too.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:BS (Score:4, Insightful)
What? "They should stop making games like X, they should make games like Y, but I wouldn't play it anyway."
The games you mention are not similar, apart from the fact they're all RPGs. Just because you looked over someone's shoulder and they look similar, does not make them similar (though since they are split between first and third person, they don't even look the same). I know I personally would probably hate 2 of those games, but enjoy the other 2, because of their substantially different gameplay.