So like why stories outside of the medium of books always shit? even the worst book is better written than the best film/game
>>24901338I enjoyed The Shining as a film much more than I enjoyed the book.
the worst movie ever filmed has better visuals than the best book ever written
detail in the story =/= quality in the storyotherwise that super smash bros fanfiction that's the longest piece of "literature" ever written (at least last I checked) would be a masterpiece.a good film can tell magnitudes through visual storytelling. even a painting can. all artistic forms have their own stories to tell, and some are better at telling certain types of stories than others.
>>24901338Having to talk to 30 people in town to find the right one to progress the plot, upgrading armor/weapons, and then killing 200 lizards in a dungeon just to repeat the cycle is not conducive to good story telling.
>>24902236This, balancing storytelling with gameplay is basically impossible
>>24902242That's why you should make the gameplay part of the overall narrative. Most video games don't even try to do this and they just have alternating sections of gameplay bits and story bits.Video games have the potential to tell the most emotionally impactful story ever, because the immersion puts you in it, but in practice most game designers talk about gameplay loops and most players are dopamine-fried manchildren who want bing bing wahoo and just skip story sections.I think Dark Souls is overrated in general but it does actually try to do this a bit with it's gameplay. Shame that Dark Souls story is all vibes and backstory and no actual plot.
>>24901338because everyone who isnt a writer has so little understanding or respect of writing that they think its piss easy and anyone can do it.movie directors, manga artists, video game creators, everyone of them thinks story telling is so easy they all can do it as an after thought. like it doesnt require effort or thought or talent or skillif i walked on to a movie set having no directing experience and said >I'll take it from herei'd get laughed out of the room. but for some fucking reason everyone and their mom thinks they can write a story.i imagine its how comedians must feel listening to normies who think themselves hilarious and trying to tell jokes
>>24902299There's that video of Jerry Seinfeld talking about how he went over working on one joke for five months and still wasn't happy with it, going word by word to try to perfect it.
The production of audio-visual-interactive-fictional works requires a totally different skillset than just writing a novel, and the conventions of both are very different. Life has worse writing than basically any novel, yet you'd rather experience a love affair than read about one. What I'm driving at is that you can evoke an equal reaction with worse writing because it's not just writing that carries the work.Video game writing is fucking trash thoughbeit.
>>24901338Film? Not reallyVidya? They are toys made for manchildren and people who cant understand art. You cant see them with the same lens and perspective like when you look at art like cinema, literatur, paintings, etc
95% of stories inside the medium of books are shit as well, there are just more peaks rising above ground level. Compare the timelines of these forms.
Why is art direction always so contrived and shit in AAA? These people must have industry connections to Fashion figures, they must know that trying to reinvent clothing just to add some retarded lapel just doesn't look sensible. It just bothers me to much how little constructed study there is to games when all it would take is opening up some Design and History books to better understand your place in time.
>>24902299You sound mad
>>24901338You've never read a book in your life.
>>24902874What's wrong with being mad?
>>24901338Video games are always at a disadvantage in terms of storytelling compared to books and movies due to the pacing. Even if it is a super linear game like 2000s call of duty's, you still somehow have to spread the story out for close to double digit hours. I believe Modern Warfare 2 is the simplest example. You have the mission description with possible character dialogue, dialogue in the mission, and events that happen during the mission including cutscenes. There is only so much you can tell. You can still have memorable moments like Shepherd's betrayal, but it takes a lot of effort.In open world games, cutscenes can become prevalent as well as general and extensive dialogue like Red Dead Redemption 2. Regardless, the player is still focusing on gameplay. Storytelling gets constantly interrupted and forcefully spread out. It is very easy for players to forget story elements especially considering real life time.
>>24901338There are definitely books that have way worse writing than some games, but generally I agree with you that game writing standards are far lower.>>24903119The demands of games generally pull the writing in too many different directions. Sometimes I wonder if this is what refutes the concept of a gesamptkunstwerk. In theory this is what games should be, the total synthesis of multiple art forms including the audience as co-creator, but they generally don't rise above decent genre fiction. And Wagner ultimately is remembered for the music not the libretto. That said, I do really love the writing of Alexis Kennedy and he exclusively does games.
>>24901338>Romantasyslop is better than Legacy of Kain and The KillerKill yourself
>>24902299Fucking up writing a story by yourself, at the behest and expense of no one else, is of no consequence.
>>24901338I thought this was a fine allegory for grief.
>>24904716Definitely some of the better writing in gaming. Doesn't fall into the trap of puerile anime-tier writing, even if it is just a video game. Almost everything gamers think is "good" reads like a light novel, which are unsalvageable sewage without exception.
>>24901338i feel like some classics are still better of course but it's really up there
>>24904725And even the most puerile anime shit is still better than the AAA slop the likes of Sony likes to push.I don't know how we got from Legacy of Kain to The Last of Us or Nu-God of War, but the very fact that we have is fucking depressing.
>>24902278Sure but how would you do it? It's a hard thing to wrap the mind around for us early 21stc people. We don't know how to tell stories through interactions.
Its because a book invokes the archetypes, imagery, understandings etc you have in your mind and you then form meaning at exactly the level of understanding you are capable of
>>24904763Yes. Disco Elysium also left me thinking "this was richer than many books I've read"
>>24906031That's a sign of vitamin deficiency, anon. Eat some pills, hit the weights, get a clue.
>>24901338/V/ said expedition 33 was one of the greatest stories ever told
>>24901338>Not into hours-long living and developing epic hymns about himself and his waifu as the hero and hero-esse of his own story yetThe books are a stepping stone to greatness
>>24904725>>24904904>>24906286don't be contrarian; God of War, Expedition 33, and Last of Us all have great narratives and nothing you make will ever compare.
>>24907027I (top) said "most," not all, but sure. I'm so tired of this place, and of people in general.
>>24907027Middle hear. Sorry for wanting more out of my narratives than "sad dad simulator".
>>24907064I accept your apology.
>>24907064Top again (doing this is very funny), Firewatch was one of the better ones to come out in recent years, come on! At least pick something with themes deep as a puddle with a beautiful veneer of complexity, like Signalis, which relied wholly on doing NGE-style flashing images and playing that fucking Chopin piece 24/7 along to "surreal" scenes that expound and explore nothing at all.
>>24907095Signalis is good though. I'd say it's because I'm a yurifag, but games like Life is Strange and TLoU's putrid narrative did nothing for me. Either way, I was talking about AAA/AA games and the like with my post, and Signalis is indie, which tend to have better, or at least more interesting, narratives on average.
>>24907126>Signalis is good thoughbruh
>>24904763>>24906031these are good. i'd also recommend Pathologic. cant really think of much else besides these three
>>24907130Why isn't it good?>i-i-it has lesbians!!!
>>24907095>which relied wholly on doing NGE-style flashing images and playing that fucking Chopin piece 24/7 along to "surreal" scenes that expound and explore nothing at allYou seem very well informed on Signalis. Can you tell me the deepest story element you understand?
>>24902278Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a pretty bog-standard cowboy FPS but it does something interesting with its narrative that I have never seen a game do. The narrator is explicitly a lying bullshitter telling stories at a saloon, which are the levels you play. As it goes on, there's moments where he's corrected, where he exaggerates, and similar and the game itself actively and suddenly will change to reflect this.The game and even the overall story itself are nothing special but this aspect of it always fascinated me and made me realize what games could be narratively if game developers tried to do more interesting things with the medium and the framing devices it makes possible.
>>24907384pathologic is great and an incredible anthropological examination of a fictional culture but also the amount of walking back and forth between quest points with absolutely nothing happening gets really old really fast. I understand the intent of it, but the second game is much better with the (very limited) fast travel it grants you
>>24902236You would do the same in the book. Plenty of books have characters talking to various people and doing stuff before they actually progress the story. You clearly do not understand the differences between mediums of storytelling.
>>24901351That’s unfair because Kubrick is arguably the greatest filmmaker ever while King is one of the biggest hacks ever. The idea of Kubrick having adapted King is funny though.
>>24906031The autopsy had me hyped, however the hype was misplaced. But it's a good window into the mindset of a commie sliding into political derangement whilst retaining self-awareness. A cry of pain.
>>24901338People who think in this black and white way are genuinely retarded and don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand art. Books appear to have better storytelling because it can be very descriptive and delve into a character’s psychology in a very explicit way. In film though, you have to pay more attention to the details because a lot of the story is not actually being told in words but through small character actions, montage, mise en scene, but retards like OP never pay attention to anything beyond what’s being explicitly told or shown in the film. On the other hand you have retards like >>24901366 who suffer the opposite problem, if something is not being shown as an image they can’t visualize, imagine or understand it and miss the nuances of psychological description and pov/omniscient narration.
>>24907027>Feel bad for these god like entitles who create simulation worlds so they can toy with and torment the inhabitants of.>good
>>24901338Only individuals can make art. Legion is a demon, remember.
>>24907487definitely agree that P2 is better as a game, i was just saying Pathologic broadly to include all the games. P1 just has the complete story with all the characters, though Changelings campaign is just not as good nor interesting as Bachelor and Haruspex, so whenever they decide to do her game in probably 15 years from now, hopefully it makes her more fleshed out.
>>24907749It also ignores that there's mountains upon mountains of slop that passes for "literature" that makes even the most basic game plot look like Milton and Shakespeare by comparison.
>>24907440> another bullshit about time spiral without plot
>>24909234The plot is rescuing your wife.
>>24904763>>24906031>>24907384Heavily narrative video games are the next step for literary expression. The likes of Planescape: Torment, old Baldur's Gate games, and so on (cRPGs in general) will replace literature as a medium with their combination of high interactivity, versatility (strong choice-consequence effects leading to variation in the stories), and heavy reliance on literature in general in dialogues, monologues, loads of items, texts, and so on. Just as film evolved as a new medium, so will video games become the quintessential means of telling stories, and what's more the player (at once the reader) can interfere in the narrative and change its flow, something that is almost entirely impossible books.
>>24909279We haven't had a game like those in a while though.
>>24902846Simple. Because they always want to appeal to the biggest audience. So they dumb down everything, tone down everything, never go full autism in 1 direction. That includes art
>>24907027Don't lump E33 in with that focus group slop
>>24903119Video game stories suffer from the problem of the game having to be interactive and have actually fun gameplay. The more freedom you give the player, the less freedom the writers have to write a story, but the less freedom you give the player, the less fun the game becomes. You’re not going to get Dostoevsky in a game, because Dostoevsky’s books would make for dogshit gameplay, and thus dogshit games.This is why I feel games that could be considered great works of art are games that mainly focus on gameplay, with the story just being serviceable enough to accommodate the gameplay and intended vibe.Essentially, games rank higher as works of art when judged as mood pieces rather than plot driven pieces. Doom and Skyrim are far more authentic works of art than a lot of modern wannabe movie games for this reason.
>>24910087>dispatch in you're path Games can derive fun from the fact that they are interactive alone, so long as that interactivity is meaningful and accompanied by a substantial story. Dispatch is a good recent example. The gameplay elements take the backseat and are inventive and fun even if basic, but the real fun of the game is derived from your being given control of any given situation and agency to influence the story in ways you wish to. The story itself (mainly the characters) is good enough to be enjoyable, i.e., to captivate you to try to modify it by interacting. Gameplay does not equal hack and slash and action, nor does it have to be intense or complicated to be fun. So long as it's meaningful and thoughtful and the game makes the player give a shit, it's good.
>>24907714>even the worst book is better written than the best film/game
>>24905050Through pure symbolism, like dance. It would be a necessarily abstract experience.>>24907471Prince of Persia: Sands of Time had this framing device too.
>>24902846I guess most of the errors are either getting someone who doesn't understand costume design, or trying to appeal to tasteless nerds with merchandise.The Mirrors Edge: Catalyst artbook talks all about the design principles of the fashion and architecture and I thought it was quite good desu.
>>24903119The playtime being way too long is a real thing. Something I appreciate about PS1 era games is that the main story is over in about 5 hours.
>>24907027God of War 4 has fucking terrible writing that spits all over its setting which is completely at odds with the character change they tried to make. The original God of War also destroys the Greek Mythology setting but it works because Kratos is an asshole and the destruction he wreaks is tragic spectacle.
>>24907749You're right but how many games embrace this to give every little detail of their world symbolic richness beyond the gameplay?The first that comes to mind is Spyro 1, where the architecture and colour theory of the worlds creates an ambient dreamscape that adds an entire dimension to the simple premise of young dragon in fairy tale worlds must rescue older dragons from evil wizard.
films and video games are passive media that's why
>>24902236this guy hasnt played video games for 40 years>>24901338read the medium is the massage, video games arent supposed to be well written and deep, they are supposed to be interactive, in text heavy games the text only serves to create opportunities for interaction, the shopkeeper saying people keep ambushing his delivery wagon isnt a commentary on the difficulties of owning your own business, its an invitation for the player to go do something
>>24910443Video games are explicitly not passive. I don't mean that as condoning them, they just simply aren't. Wtf even.
>>24902299>movie directors, manga artists, video game creators, everyone of them thinks story telling is so easy they all can do it as an after thought. like it doesnt require effort or thought or talent or skill>if i walked on to a movie set having no directing experience and said>>I'll take it from here>i'd get laughed out of the room. but for some fucking reason everyone and their mom thinks they can write a story.here ye, hear yethisI remember an interview with *whoever* working on one of the last star wars sets"Yeah, its pretty cool. We're just going from one scene to the next. Whatever looks good, is good. Kind of writing it as we go. Hows that for secrecy? Not even the writers know where it will end up when you see the end in theatres.">I thought that was retarded. At lest the first star wars had the old faithful cookie cutter outine. Evil dark lord captures virginal pure princess. Young hero must learn (?) to save her. Bonus points for swinging her through the air.>The fuck is going on with an 800 million dollar set production like this.>"Okay, dude. Lets, like, do that cool fight thing again? But this time more water spraying on the hero girl's tits."(continuity director pipes up)"Excuse me, sir. Continuity. We're not on this *planet*, except to try to get the Whatever Crystals. Even if her wet tits fighting don;t *get* the crystals? You have to at least show them to the people. Just out of her grasp... no. No crystals, for you! It goes to continuity. You have *zero* dialog, filmed. Explaining why we're here fighting, plot hole."-----------------------------------------------------But the movie goes with what looks good. What tracks good. Test audiences raved about it? As good as the next blockbuster hit. But a BOOK, that's special. A book does it all. "The tallest, most muscular warrior among the thousands opposing each other across the dry wind-swept plain.">You *instantly* create this "goliath" warrior in your head. A snapshot or a sort of movie goes running now. You can "see" the story. I don't know if its by accident or what, but "cookie cutter" plots work fine examine all the best sellers. What do you have left? Your text, your plot. Characters and their dialog.
>>24902697study some classic George Carlin. Analyze it, he memorizes an astonishing array of those funny monologues and lists he does. He takes the ten commandments down to one commandment. I think its something like "don't ever be a dick". But its quite detailed and humorously over analyze and therefore funny. George Carlin had a handle on a very verbose high-brow sense of humor. I always felt Dennis Miller was his spiritual successor in that regard somehow.
>>24902697Jerry seems to be a fucking hack. I was 'gasted listening to him talk how much preasure he takes from crafting comedy. As if he is building tracks and setting off a train every time he goes on stage or something, when my understanding of comedy is more of builsing a relationship and chemistry with the crowd after which your jokes don't really even have to be that good, because your already halfway there
This thread bangs
>>24906286/v/ is one of the worst boards on this website, so obviously it makes sense. They have such a bad taste for good games, the same way /tv/ has horrid taste for movies. Two terrible boards.
>>24910396>Through pure symbolism, like dance. It would be a necessarily abstract experience.So just abstract art? Where's the space for an opera?
I've beaten over 650 games, played thousands more. I've never seen a video game have a good story.
>>24911661there are like 3
>>24901338>whyFiltered. Hidden.
>>24911661based
>>24907749/thread>silent hill>warcraft III>MGSWorse than the worst books? I don’t think so. There are plenty of terrible books.
>>24913129Anyone that thinks YA and Romantasyslop are better than cyborg ninjas are, quite simply, homosexual.
>>24911610An opera is performed to an audience, but in a dance the participant is also the recipient. Gaming is more like dance than theatre.
>>24913129I want to say that silent hill 2 transended into art.I consistently cry during the letter and want to say it is well writtenI don't think either is true.
>>24913129There's nothing good or original about Metal Gear's story. They're just generic spy stories. It's the cool characters that makes the games good.
>>24901338Video games has gameplay which gets in the way of story telling. Movies/tv has time constraints. An author of a book can take 10 years to write one and make it as long or short as they want. They can control everything without constraint.
>>24913268Why? Also I’d say that your emotional response is a greater sign than those things you mentioned. That’s the purpose of art after all, to elicit some kind of response or change in you.
>>24901338Films and games have graphics and sound to care about too, writing is just one step in that process. But you're also wrong Fallout new vegas is better written then War and Peace.
>>24909279They're not the next step, just a new medium. Like movies were not the next step from either novels or theatre, but their own thing. And even silent movies are a distinct medium, with its own rules and possibilities. If you watch the old ones today, some feel very modern, and today it might be animation without dialogue that follows in their footsteps. I think very few designers have as of yet figured out a way how to give gameplay itself an artistic and narrative function; but, in something like Witcher 3, just walking around and looking at things at your own pace, parsing the environmental storytelling, makes a huge part of the overall experience, and the "narrative" is constructed from that richness of little details and closed side-stories as much as from the main plot. It's just a very different approach than that which makes a novel well-written.
>>24914385there's too much filler. Go to the prison go to the sewers go to the mall go to the bowling alley.Then you have the multiple ending problem. Where you have tonal shifts.I think for a game to be art the gameplay has to be the story and the tone. Something like Papers please where being at them whim of bureaucrats makes you act shitty to citizens is closer to an art game.
Thoughts on the writing in Morrowind?
>>24901338Games immerse the player through the gameplay, whereas writing immerses you through reading. Since games and shows/movies already stimulate you visually the reader doesn't need to mentally engage with the story and that leaks to the producers.The best games were back when video games had terrible graphics.
>>24907722>>24907749reading a book is the same as listening to music because you can simply imagine the sound
>>24915658>The best games were back when I was an impressionable kidftfy
>>24916033A lot of good fictional works are things understandable for children but with hidden meanings for adults to digest. Video games and shows/movies nowadays exist to stunt adults into thinking they are smart by looking realistic instead of actually using the art to place things as for the audience to pick on the clues. Reading is seen as gatekeeping for a lot of people nowadays and in that way it forces people to actually know how storytelling works. Even female porn is more likely to be narratively cohesive than most video games.
>>24901351Personally disagree, even though the movie is obviously good. The book had better pacing and suspense. The movie makes Jack turn crazy too quickly and I missed the very gradual descent of his into madness. It's fun seeing his dialogue be like "yes dear" and his internal thoughts being fucking demented. The book is so much more psychological than the film. Also the subplot of the gay dudes blowing each other in costumes hits way harder in the book.
>>24901539>detail in the story =/= quality in the storyobviously correct but "lore" (AKA endless pedantic trivia) is what gamers consider good writing
>>24913268My toddler cried during an episode of some kid's show once. I guess that show is high art now.
>>24901338most sffg slop is on the same level or better
>DUDE IT'S A COMMENTARY ON ART >THEY'RE LITERALLY INSIDE A PAINTING>PAINTINGS ARE LITERALLY ARTgamers are so easy to impress. oversized toddlers playing with toy action figures and sorting cubes.
>>24917005oh no is that the gimmick? i played it on my coworkers laptop at work and it was so repetitive in that jprg "fight the same green slime 200 times" way except instead of green slimes it was some super high poly shit that came out of zbrush. still a boring experience. i guess they thought making u hit space bar to block in turn based combat would force u to pay attention and not zone out? another gimmick. i'll prob play it when it's on sale for like 10 bucks in a decade.
>>24917014Yes that's the gimmick, and it's not even the first video game to do that either
The best video games i've played have simple action movie plots of none at all and stories regarded as the best the medium has to offer are basically needlessly long tv shows (the supercut of all cutscenes from God of War 2018 is six fucking hours long), but instead of ad breaks you have to pick up the controller again and beat some enemies to death.We are probably many decades away from getting some video games that are comparable to the best offerings of literature, tv and cinema
>>24909234>doesn't understand the plotJust what I expected
>>24917861Anon, signalis is just vibes, visuals and gameplay.good vibes, visuals and gameplay, but there's not much of a plot to it
>>24917870>still doesn't understand the plotTell me the deepest lore fact you know about the game.
>>24902709I believe video games can be art, but the interactive aspect makes it a very complicated hurdle, don't think even the game in OP sticks the landing for nudging you toward a passe anti-escapist therapy session finale
>>24917914>picKiwifarmers have worse taste than anons on average, so I take their words with heavy grains of salt.
Video games are supposed to supplement and replace male-oriented pulp novels from the mid century and not replace actual /lit/erature.I don't expect games to have anything other than than. VNs are closer to actual literature because of their ability to shock (all VNs are downstream of Georges Bataille in a way or from that Passolini movie SALO), but they would be shit without the music that accompanies then for the "emotional moments".
>>24917927have you even played Disco Elysium?
>an offtopic thread on /lit/ has better discussion on vidya as a medium than the entirety of /v/
>>24918195This is every board ever.Your post is a cliche of over 15 years
>>24901366Gottem kek. A retarded childs drawing also has better visuals.
>>24907027>God of War, Expedition 33, and Last of UsIm sorry to tell you this but neither of these there are even in the top 10 great video game narratives. Shit like Final Fantasy 6 ultra mog this slop written for women.
Video games are for manchildren and will always be. There has never been a serious video game. Even the ones people claim are of a higher quality like Skyrim and Oblivion are set in fant involve you in endless fighting scenes.
>>24918272No one has ever said skyrim and oblivion are "High quality" video games in terms of story lmao.
>>24918271*nu-malesAt least in the case of GoW and TLoU
>>24918272>Even the ones people claim are of a higher quality like Skyrim and Oblivion>the ones people claim are of a higher quality like Skyrim and Oblivion>the ones people claim are of a higher quality >Skyrim and Oblivion
Has a video game ever made you pick up a specific book?
>>24918284Signalis made me read The Festival by LovecraftDevil May Cry 5 got me into William Blake and A Marriage of Heaven and HellLegacy of Kain got me to purchase a collection of Poems by TS Elliot.Xenogears got me to read Childhood's End and , along with Legacy of Kain, got me interested in Gnosticism. Still need to actually play Xenogears one of these days.
>>24918274>>24918283Lmao. Videos games are for reddit manchildren, just admit it
>>24918329dumb tourist
>>24918352If video games weren't for manchildren you wouldn't need every one to have 1 million combat scenes with flaming swords against huge goblin monsters and not every video game would be set in some escapist fantasy universe
>>249183601) Not all games are like that. A few of them have already been mentioned in this very thread.2) Cool things are cool.
>>24918366Video games will never be literature. Video games will never be art. Video games will never explore the depths of the human soul. Video games will never inspire anguished awe at their beauty. A video game will never change your mind or your life. Video games exist for one and only one purpose: to provide repetitive fixations for low-class, low-IQ teenage boys and manchildren who can't sit still and who would otherwise be a public terror. They are sedatives for the unruly mob, and they will never be anything else. They have absolutely 0 place on this board, and if you knew what was good for you, they'd have 0 place in your life, but you don't.>Cool things are cool.Go back
>>24918392Plenty of games awed me then and still awe me now. Just as films, music, and literature do.>go backNaw.Have a Frazetta.
>>24918449>Plenty of games awed me then and still awe me now.Like what? Not that anon but i'll try something different,
>>24918392I don’t get what people think art is, video games are definitely art. They bring together music, narrative, visuals, gameplay, tech and various other things for one cohesive experience. Definitely art. Whether it touches upon various subjects or does x and y is completely different discussion.
>>24918329I dont mind admiting this? This isnt /v/ games havent interested me in like 10 years its just my addiction to them that keep me playing.
>>24918457>GO KILL THIS HORDE OF MONSTERS>WALK FOR 20 MINUTES>DUUUUDE MY SWORD IS ON FIRE WOAHHHYes totally like Shakespeare
>>24918453Nta but PS1 era Tomb Raiders were the first games to invoke a sense of sublimity in me. Early 3D games are pretty inaccessible if you didn't grow up with them tho.
>>24918476Sounds like Le Morte d’Arthur to me :)
>>24918453It's mostly basic bitch picks, but Bloodborne really wowed me with its gothic world and atmosphere. Everything from the art direction to the sound design was so perfectly crafted that it really did pull me in to the setting. If I can credit any game finally getting me into proper horror outside the action-horror subgenre, it'd be BB. Sure Bloodborne itself is action-horror, but the feeling of tension and dread left me wanting more regardless. Meanwhile games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden awed me in terms of gameplay. While the stories, especially for NG, aren't anything to write home about for the most part, their hyperfocus on combat and the different ways both series flesh out the simple concept of fighting enemies in different ways feels a lot more medium pushing than whatever AAA story-focused game that critics love.For narratives I think Legacy of Kain still holds up as one of the best written, acted, and scripted stories out there, with its dark fantasy setting, morally gray outlook, and inhuman character designs combined with fantastic acting. Best of all it doesn't bog itself down with tryhard edgelord shit like swearing and sex like certain modern day writers do, nor does it try to tug on your heartstrings with tacky emotional moments. It feels prescient and refreshing in that way.
>>24918476When do you get a flaming sword in Signalis?
>>24918489>Early 3D games are pretty inaccessible if you didn't grow up with them tho.To an extent yes, but I've seen a surprising amount of people who were either too young or weren't born during that era be able to enjoy them once they deal with the ceaveats.It really does help that the PS1/N64 era had that right mix of graphical clarity and leaving things to your imagination that makes for good atmosphere. Horror games age the best in this regard precisely because the primitive graphics and archaic mechanics give off that unsettling feeling.
>>24918511Ok. I've played all of those bar Legacy of Kain so i'll try one of them. I do like DMC and NG, Bloodborne I go back and forth on.
>>24918366>not all games are like thatno only 85% of them, totally not a big deal or anything
>>24918472based honest retard
>>24901338Arcanum Fallout 1UnteralterbachBioshock 1 These games are rival or even surpassed many books that are considered classics
>>24918877no they don't, dopamine addict
>>24918877You could formulate a coherent sentence if your mind weren‘t so addled with toys and slop.
>>24918877there's already a manchild-core thread up, anon
>>24901338I disagree, there's few books worth reading and they are usually only mildly entertaining.
>>24919159t. dopamine addict
>>24918884>>24918898>>24918899Samefag
>>24901338>even the worst book is better written than the best film/gameyou must have not read some truly terrible books like I have. I've never played a game where I wanted to beat the shit out of the creators afterwards, but I Have read some books where I've wanted to do heinous things to the author for wasting my time.
>>24919383>haha dopamine go br
>>24918449>muh heckin action figure aesthetics and gesturesmanchild-core is down the hall
>>24901338How anyone defends this game's writing after the end of act 2 boggles my faculties. Gamers are truly a race of subhuman apes.
>>24919405CoolNow go back >>lgbt
>>24919520Your favorite "artform" is the logical continuation of Hollywood movie posters and the descriptions on the back of action figure cases. How does that make you feel?
>>24919524Pretty damn good
Kojima is the pynchon of vidya
>>24919558>more snickers, more coke!
>>24919589Yes anon. I too eat.
>>24919596https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY
>>24918329You would know
IDK this game genuinely touched me at least a little bitis it the best told story? no, and it's pretty shallow and doesn't explore its themes that in-depth. most of the story is basically told through literature snippets anyway. nevertheless, I think it's clear that video games at least have some artistic merit and that gamers just have shitty standards.
>>24919447Didn't play the game, don't care about spoilers, what so bad about it?
>>24902709>>24917914Focusing on narrative as a gameplay element should have way more relevance in production and be propounded more to players. It means one of two things in the modern day:>multiple narrative routes for the devs to emphasize player interactivity>eschewing player interactivity in favor of the devs' singular narrative visionInterestingly, the foundational concept of a boss fight provides good basis for the potential of video game writing because it asks the devs which of these two storytelling methods they want to prioritize, and thus challenges them to intertwine gameplay with any narrative development they'd like to include in their writing. However, something as simple as a boss fight is still perceived dichotomous with regards to story and gameplay, when the two must be combined for good vidya writing. The issue lies with laziness, that's really just it. There might not be a single premise in your story to demand the player wield a pipe and start killing ghost mobs, but the technical premise of a video game demands the player take control and bypass these obstacles even when it might not be conducive to the story you're trying to tell. People say this is why something like the SH games had shit combat and argue in favor of these conflicting interests, but what the fuck is the point of writing a vidya story in the first place if you aren't committing wholly to reflecting it elsewhere in the gameplay? They keep treating story as separate from gameplay only because they're unable to trap players the same way the best literary characters have been trapped by narrative circumstances: doing otherwise would mean they wouldn't be playing it through, but simply watching their game and treating the medium like it was a movie. It's just a never ending battle between dev and audience. In E33, why the fuck should I pick between Verso and Alicia when I give more a fuck about Lumiere?>Eugh, but monsieur playeur, we want you to feel le Dessendre familial trauma and the weight of guiltIt's an RPG within which you exhorted our engagement in developing relationships with other characters, and now I can't prioritize them of my own accord? The devs win in this case. My narrative role as a player means nothing and what's more is I'm now stuck watching a fucking 5 min long cutscene for my ending instead of gaming.
>>24920870The famous Half Life approach to this problem doesn't work, either, all its narrative setpieces function exactly the same as the contemptible cutscene. The simplest solution would be to make multiple endings to a game, but I can't imagine the future of the industry's writing to be limited by such an ambiguous requirement, however ironic it might seem. I've actually thought about other methods modern devs should start actively pursuing:>singular narrative that can only be appreciated in full if the player had previously paid attention to the story and interacts with the game's setpieces, characters, events, etc. in pursuit of a richer gaming experience. Of all the games I've played, I've experience this only in Rule of Rose, but I've heard word from /v/ that Killer 7 (stage 6), Return of the Obra Dinn, Outer Wilds and Pathologic 2 do this as well>singular narrative that branches out the journey instead of the destination, either rewarding or punishing unique playstyles based on how well players comprehended the story. Companies like Telltale used to get a lot of criticism for this, but I think it can be pulled off if devs explicitly mention the lack of multiple endings, instead pitching the replayability of writing they might have missed in a single playthrough>singular or multi-route narrative where the player acts as a second-person narrator to characters who might not even follow through on narrative choices he makes. The gameplay objectives here would be to understand the writing well enough to know how characters might react to given inputs, and from thenceforth, play through the storyTo that kiwi farms post, I've actually grappled with the notion of turning a novel into a game, but I can't figure out any reason why you'd play a book over reading it. What function does player interactivity have in justifying the adaptation of explicit prose? How should you employ player agency in a conversation between two figures when no player ought to interfere with their characterization, beliefs, or development? The third method I listed above could work, but in the aftermath would you risk the same problems movie adaptations of novels have always faced. There's just no point making novels into games, at least not without the input of the associated author.
>>24902278>That's why you should make the gameplay part of the overall narrative. Most video games don't even try to do this and they just have alternating sections of gameplay bits and story bits.Oh fuck how did I miss this post, I agree completely, man. That's the ONLY way games will ever be considered to have good writing, but no, everyone in the industry still holds "being cinematic" as the end goal, as far as a game's narrative is involved
>>24902846All the best minds in each individual department of game development aren't working in the industry at all, not anymore. They're making much more money in their respective specializations instead of dedicating themselves to something as financially tenuous as game dev
>>24920870>>24920876shut up in there and go buy a copy of east of eden
>>24920891I'm the BEAST of Eden brah FUARK
>>24901338Sopranos > Flaubert
>>24906031Disco Elysium convinced me forever that video games are not art and that gamers don't know shit about writing
>>24919951That guy's prob got different gripes with it, but for me, it shoves away the importance of the first two acts (~20 hours) to highlight a small set of NPCs you've barely spoken with, instead of the ones you've been playing as for the entire game prior. Every single story beat is then forcibly corralled by these new developments to the point where 3/5 player chars are strung along by the 3rd act and the 3rd act alone. You could skip out on playing any of these 3 people throughout the game and still come away understanding the main story, that's how much they fail to matter in the end.
>>24921072Care to elaborate? I’ve been recommended Disco Elysium a lot.
>>24921104NTA, it's a competently written game but it's not special to anyone who actually reads. Had it been a novel, it would have been on some Top 25 best novels of the year I suppose, but because it was a video game, a medium where decent writing is so rare, the reaction was "OMG GREATST NARRATIVE OF ALL TIME, WHAT A UNIQUE PIECE OF HIGH ART, INDISPUTABLE GAME OF THE YEAR" because gamers are disproportionately retarded hacks that are extremely easy to impress. It just helped solidify the idea that video games are centuries behind actual artforms, and so are its audiences.
>>24921130>the reaction was "OMG GREATST NARRATIVE OF ALL TIME, WHAT A UNIQUE PIECE OF HIGH ART, INDISPUTABLE GAME OF THE YEAR"This didn't happen
>>24921104It's written well enough for a game but it's a good example of why video games as a medium are weak for story telling. It does a lot of shit that wouldn't fly in another medium.It's presented as a detective mystery to start, and there's a case that being a detective mystery isn't the point, but it completely fails as one in any case. The actual mystery aspect is garbage compared to just primary school library filler, you can't realistically solve it until the game answers it for you at all because it plainly isn't structured for you to do so. It's paced that you don't actually receive any usable information until the closing act.When it comes to the rest the plot, they don't interact with the game well. The mechanical aspect of the game is that you roll dice to determine success or failures, and to the games credit you get some value out of failing since scenes play out differently but it means the narrative and characterization bounces all over the place to accommodate the gameplay aspects. It's very fatty, which is necessary to give you play time.It makes an effort to have themes going on to its credit but again you have to spend such a large amount of the game playing which means most of the playtime doesn't feed into them at all. People debate a lot over what the game is trying to say because whatever the right answer is, the message is garbled up since everyone going through it has a different play experience.Like it doesn't have to compete with high literature. I've read some serious bargain bit slop that I thought was better even though Disco Elysium is better written than most games.
>>24921141It won several goty awards you lying maggot
>>24921144> It's very fatty, which is necessary to give you play time.Good critique and agreed, it took me 35 hours to beat when a story like this should have been 15-20.
>>24921153Leftist fags praised it because it was made by literal communists so it won some awards and got some high review scores which has nothing to do with gamers having high or low standards, You can look at which books win awards and review well to come to the same conclusion about readers if you want you weirdly angry faggot.
>>24921141Yes it did, sweets
They should tie the story to the achievement system.The only time i've ever done no kill runs is if its a side goal to the game. So the story would change to one of forgivness and do no harm, that way the story is tied to my actions.same with being a butcher or if you pick "funny options" evey one thinks you're crazy.
>>24907027WE MUST BE BETTER MEN
>>24901338Video gaming is less than 50 years old. Do you know what we were doing on Year 50 of the invention of literacy? Tallying corn.
>>24901338Games that were better than the books they were based on:>Witcher 3>Metro exodus>uhhh... picrel
>>24922757Video games are handed everything on a platter in comparison to literature, post-1970s humans have way more leeway to fuck around with media than those who had to contend with daily survival in the era of ancient city-states. Compare games to film, instead, a medium that took even less time to establish and propagate a unique form of storytelling after directors realized that simply copying theater was too limiting. Meanwhile, you still have plenty of devs and publishers out there who believe making a story "cinematic" is the only way video game writing can thrive.
>>24922757We have been using speech and mind to think up stories and tell them for thousands of years
>>24922902>picrelHell fucking no. The game was even cringier than the self-insert fic it was based on.Movie was pretty good though.
>>24901338I liked Fear and HungerI felt like it's a pretty good example of story through gameplay with how bullshit punishing it is and resource management.
