They don't. And more importantly, it's not gonna be much of a game if it has action by the player with no meaningful reaction in the game. Otherwise it's equivalent to a flash game. I can see what you're trying to say, I believe, but it's not true, gameplay almost never tells or adds to a video game story. Gameplay is the mechanism to activate the story, I mean if gameplay is story, that means any game has a story (and good gameplay a good story, by that logic) because every game has gameplay. So Mario has a good story, or Need for Speed because they have good gameplay? Gameplay helps immerse you into the story, but it doesn't necessarily create a story nor do some games even need stories. A game is interaction. That's what fundamentally sets it apart from every other form of entertainment. Without it, it's not a game. You can get away with cut scenes and such, but the game has to be a majority of the time interactive to be considered a game. Beyond is very interactive, but again it's not interactive in a meaningful way. Heavy Rain was plenty interactive. At various points during the game any of the four main characters can die if you don't react properly to deadly events, and your actions affect your character's success and failures. The problem with Beyond is that your actions don't affect the game like that, from what I've read it's a linear experience, which, again, is not a bad thing if the story is good, but from what I've read it's not. If both sides fail for an interactive drama genre, then it's bad. Heavy Rain had the former and most-ish of the latter. The Metal Gear series has told story through cut scenes and codec talks, not through gameplay. The gameplay is usually old school and revolves around getting from A to B, blowing something up, killing a boss, etc. Generally your objective is to get to the next cut scene. From what I've seen, Metal Gear Rising only differs in that there is a lot more ambient dialogue, but rarely is the story not told in cut scenes, most ambient dialogue is used to tell weaknesses of enemies, the direction to go in, attacks to use and so on. Rising's story was minimal compared to other Metal Gear games because it was focused on the action elements of the gameplay, and not the story telling. I mean that's Platinum's modus operandi.
I think it would be fine, like you say, if the story it focused on was good. From spoilers I've read, it's massively clichéd, predictable and just not well told to make you invest into the plot or the characters, though there are of course stand out moments when it's not ****, but it's not constant which can't recover the poor quality of it. The game follows Ellen Page from child to 20-something, but not in a chronological order, it picks up during different scenes, her at different stages of her life, which to me is an almost massive mistake the way they've done it, because ahead of time you know what's going to happen. One minute your her when she's 7 and scientist are experimenting on her to learn more about her special abilities, then you jump forward to when she's 23 going on an undercover job as an FBI agent at a swanky party, then you jump to her as a teen getting invited to her first sleepover with her crush, then next she's 20-something running away from government agents trying to take her in. I think that was basically the demo given out, and apparently that way of storytelling continues throughout, which would be good if in an overarching narrative it formed a 'bigger picture' sort of reveal, but from the spoilers it just doesn't really. And the creator, David Cage, is one of those well known developer's whose creativity outweighs is practicality. Artistic people of a certain degree lack focus a lot of the time, and it's hard for them to direct themselves. I feel like his creativity and experimentation kind of jeopardised the quality of the end result, being less cohesive and not developing crucial ways to invest gamers, which is a massive shame considering games like this are rarely made these days. I'll buy it and play it at some point, but the price needs to really drop for me.
Graduated from my Uni. That's effing great! Never read his books, but they're well known. Nice.
It's the fact it's essentially a movie you trudge along with and not one you affect, making the interaction you actually do less meaningful. It could've been made into a film, because ultimately, your decisions don't affect gameplay in a way that creates satisfaction or consequence more than what the developers have made you. This isn't so bad on a game that plays more traditional linear games, because you'll have the shooting, or the slashing to fall back on to make the experience fun, but for interactive dramas where your actions aren't free or varied (or even just appear to be), it really affects enjoyment of the experience..
The game has obvious problems, but it don't suck. Really? Everyone I know thinks the opposite about Disney.
Live somewhere hot and then we'll see toes vs rashes.
Buy it if you use it, don't if you don't. No MS bogeyman coming up to punish you for it.
Wow, lot of hate for the interactive drama genre here. I loved Heavy Rain personally, not many games of that genre have such an uncompromising punishment to you and your actions, all of it a unique detective experience. But I do find Quantic Dreams to be a team who makes tech demos more than games most of their development time. The thing about interactive dramas is that you need to interact and affect the characters, plot or situation, Beyond looks to just be linear, without punishment and just fulfilling a predetermined, orchestrated objective. Walk to this side the room, open this door, without any variety or choice or consequence. Heavy Rain made you think about what you do at least.
Below, ha! I see what you did there.
I ditched school early once. I wrote the car off later that evening. Learn from me children, DON'T DITCH SCHOOL! Hey we still wear sandals, they've been around just as long.
It's an interesting method, and actually pulls more ideas of body language reading into the mix than anything else. When I played, after getting lost in the snow, we found a little alcove to recover in and then my partner set off, I was a bit delayed but saw him just about through the snow. As I was looking around for another alcove or something, I realised we'd walked this way before and were going the wrong way. But my partner was too far away for me to call to him, and once we'd gone far enough to be out of the snow, I couldn't find him anymore, he'd gone. After playing with him since the beginning, it felt like I lost someone really close. So head hanging I marched on up the mountain again. It's a unique experience each time, and strangely emotional for some cloth characters with eyes. Very good, very recommend a play.
Ooo, well I'll see what I can do, it should be less busy this week, maybe I'll have it in Tuesday or Friday depending on business. Thanks!
Last properly read through 'The Picture of Dorian Grey' which was a disappointment considering it seemed to consist of a lot of banter but nothing actually happening till closer to the end. The best bit was how it ended, but it wasn't worth that length of time. The characters all felt a bit hollow and never really progressing, though Dorian at least changed a bit. Currently read 'The Last of the Mohicans'. The narrative is pretty good, but the style is very dated, which is wearing thin, but I've connected with the diverse group of main characters, which is exactly what characters should do.
I really found this to be the weakest of all West's albums purely because the only song I can only really remember, after listening to it for ages, has been I am a God, Black Skinhead and Bound 2. All the tracks feel really samey, unlike My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, 808, which all had tons of variety and styles, samples and lyrics that had a lot of flow to them and an almost evolutionary quality about them. Yeezus felt, to me, disjointed, and a bit 'club-like' with the beats and repeating the same sort of the same self importance, anger and ego that rappers I dislike do. There felt no evolution or progression throughout the album, almost like they were all written and mixed whilst in one mind set. I mean, MDBTF had this sense of indulgence, conflict, hedonism, fame, the desire of a normal life and presented it all in an almost heaven and hell contrast of it all. This just seemed one guy having an angry ego trip. The samples are good and unusual, but seem a bit overused in each track, by that I mean they kind of grind at times. I like West trying to experiment, but I don't think all his alternative style always works. It's a shame I haven't got more good to say.
Gah, starting at Uni again and getting into the rhythm of things has halted much of everything else. Good luck to all guys taking part.
Well as far as we know that shouldn't 'glitch' when we upgrade to the next version of Xenforo, as it has been tested. Obviously any problems from then on will be something we can work on then.
I find it funny that a couple of Scotsman can write an epic tale of American culture and capitalist society better than any American has. But you're right, I seem to be the sort of individaul who likes to look deeper into gaming narratives than most, shame I never have anyone to discuss them with.
As I said, if you wish to post again hoping for a more serious group of people to answer, the best thing to do is take my previous posts advice and post again without improvements. Your post lacked more detail than a simple choice of this or that and then showed gifs that promoted a sort of fun and casual manner. It didn't seem very serious or important, something that the spam zone is more familiar with. Look to other Help With Life threads if you want an example of the sort of thread you should make for that section. And to the rest of you guys, stop backseat modding and telling him what to do, that's my job! : p
The choices were only good in helping you explore different parts of Niko's character, which really shouldn't be part of a linear plot game. It was an experiment by Rockstar, to see if it could work, and in some ways it did, in many ways it didn't. The colour filter was primarily to set the tone of GTAIV a more 'realistic' and sombre tone. Still if you think about it, the colourful Brucie and Roman are suppose to counter the grey environment. At least they took it out for Gay Tony DLC. Gameplay was basically cover shooter, and one which I thought was done pretty well actually. But I think we just like to see different things.
I know you won't, but if you ever hear, for example, the track Monster by Kanye West, it features four different rappers. Each uses different rhythmic rapping to the same beat, each having a unique style in their lyrics and portraying different voices. Nicki Minaj doesn't sound like Rick Ross, nor does Jay-Z sound like Kanye West. They share similar patterns of rapping and a rhythm similarities at times, but there is no standard rap voice. Maybe it comes down to not listening to much of that genre. I think all indie rock band music sound the same, and I couldn't tell the difference between the singers, but I don't listen to indie rock for that reason.
