I think the storytelling outside of cutscenes is pretty non-existence.Sure it’s nice to see people talking while you’re moving and whatnot but aside from a few pinpointed objectives the rest is pretty much irrelevant. (talking about Halo here).
That’s kind of what I mean, it’s difficult to have any deep or emotional “face to face” story telling in real time. It?s usually about the action. That’s why I thought that Bungie’s decision to add cut scenes at certain important points in the game was necessary, even if many of the main “action events” happened in real time. I’d really like to see someone attempt other kinds of storytelling besides action in real time (I still haven’t played Ico, so I can’t comment on that…), but at the moment it seems limited. Still, in the sections where you’re controlling Master Chief and Cortona is explaining important objectives, those much better told in real time than having to sit through a cut scene.
Oh, I agree. Halo’s story was much more developed than Half Life. But, you have to remember when Half Life came out (what, 7 years ago?). There was basically nothing like it. It was pretty much the first game that told a story completely reliant only on the interactive medium. It was a milestone achievement, and took a great deal of vision and hard work to achieve.
Halo took the lessons learned, and made it better 
Gehn: You have to remember, that story isn’t always spoken words. A story can be the experience itself. Much like how often times when you read a book, you remember details that weren’t actually written down, because your brain filled in the missing areas. With games, the details such as the marines speaking to you as you walk by are all there to play a role in the story that you are experiencing.
I think you know what I mean by story.The plot not “ill meet you on the other side of that building since my ship is a little too big for that courtyard Sargeant”.
It’s not the FPSs on consoles that make me like playing that genre there better, it’s just… I dunno. Something about using a controller I like better than a keyboard and mouse. I see not how the ability to aim is infringed upon with a controller (someone tried to use that argument at school, I’m not saying you said it). To name games on consoles that I like are Timesplitters 2 & 3, Unreal Championship, XIII, Halo (though I stress is definitely NOT the greatest FPS ever imo), Republic Commando (only played a multiplayer match with my friend so I know almost nothing about it but I won so I’m happy 
). I’m probably able to name more If I have to, I’d just have to think about it.
And about G.O.W., I thought it was an FPS, but I just saw some footage of it with an over the shoulder camera. I dunno, U.C.2 had the option of third person or first person so maybe this has a similar option. All Gamespot says is that it is a tactical shooter with survival horror elements or something like that. FPS or TPS, I’m still planning on trying it.
Oh and about the storytelling of Halo, I don’t see it as that good. The cinematics didn’t do it for me and neither did the ingame stuff, but it is all preference anyway so it doesn’t matter. And I am in no way saying that the other games I listed that I liked had good stories, or even stories for that matter. Timesplitters 2 seemed just like a bunch of different scenarios, with no connection besides the fact that all the places had a time crystal somewhere. Halo did a way better job of story than that one.
gamespot.com/news/2005/05/26 … 26603.html
Two excluisve Bioware games for the XBox 360…
I read their interview, even tho I admire Bioware I do think they talk too much about change.In the end the only aspect that stands out in a diferent way from game to game is the story and characters.I rekcon they need to change gameplay aspects as well.
Thanks for posting that, Gehn. I also dug up this interview with Bioware: gamespot.com/news/2005/05/26 … 26561.html
What I’d like to see is separate series’ developed with just console or PC in mind, for example Dragon Age exclusively for PC and Jade Empire 2 exclusively for Xbox 360. Pleasing both markets like that would be ideal IMO, because it wouldn’t make the other version seem inferior, as with Knights of the Old Republic II for Xbox (I know that wasn’t Bioware, I’m just using it as an example). And, more importantly, it would add more reasons to buy those different systems, at least for me. Companies like Nintendo have a good selection of games that define what a Nintendo system is, and Microsoft needs more of those defining games if it wants to gain more interest in the Xbox 360 brand from PC gamers.
Anyway, it’s great news that the Xbox 360 is getting some Bioware games - it’s certainly made me more interested in the system.
You had any doubt we would be seeing X360 Bioware games?
There’s something that’s making me itch.Bioware keeps refering to the Jade Empire world as a product of their creativity…That’s just wrong.What’s original about it??
The day Bioware makes their first game based on a completely original world created by them is the day they’ll make their best game.
Well, nothing had been announced, so it didn’t add to my mental list of reasons to be interested in the Xbox 360, if you take my meaning. Also since Bioware have only just recently released their first exclusive Xbox game (Jade Empire), there?s a good chance that we might seeing these games on other systems too.
I haven’t actually played it yet, but Jade Empire is supposed to combine the world of Ancient China with various science fiction elements such as flying vehicles, and other advanced technology.
Dragon Age, which is coming out at some point on the PC, is set in a completely original world created by Bioware - it’s not based on the Dungeons and Dragons license like Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights were. Unless you mean something really unique which isn’t set in a medieval/fantasy setting…
Exactky waht I mean.It adds SOOO much to a game.Original conworlding I mean.
That’s why I love both Panzer Dragoon and the Myst series.I’m kind of sick of the same medieval/fantasy or sci-fi/hitech scenarios.Give me something original already.I used to do that all the time when I was a kid .Surely Bioware can do the same.
At this point, there’s already been so much that’s done that it’s nearly impossible to create any world that is truly original without being completely gratuitous.
I think Jade Empire’s originality came from the fact that it was an RPG based around the kung fu world. Never been done before… at least, not to my knowledge. Which sucks, actually, because I had been working on a design for about a year before Bioware announced Jade Empire… =\
Gave up on it for a while, but now that Jade Empire is out and I realized that it’s nowhere nearly the same game, I’ve picked up working on it again 
What do you mean by gratuitous?
I’d infer that Abadd’s referring to something patently absurdly and wildly illogical and incoherent, which is the only way for a setting to be completely ‘original’ now. Something like “Mr. Potato Head 0: Prelude to the War with Flatland and Other Literary Favourites”
One thing we have to remember, though, when discussing originality, is that even Shakespeare derived his magnificent plays from observing and emulating what had gone before - there’s an entire chapter in my Arden Edition of Hamlet dedicated to determining the origins of the ‘Ur-Hamlet’ predecessor play! It’s impossible to be truly, absolutely, indefatigably original - even if you write about a world populated by gaseos cloud that change colour to communicate, their actions would be bound to and informed by what you have experienced in your own life, whether consciously through what lectures you’ve listened to or unconsciously through the ‘received knowledge’ that permeates the national psyche.
Of course, that doesn’t give you an excuse to shamelessly churn out carbon copies of previous concepts - you can still be distinctive, like one human is individual from others, even though psychologists can still box-tick his consciousness - but as far as an academic perspective is concerned, there isn’t such thing as exclusive originality. You can’t even create some wild, illogical, incoherent and unstructured work - Aldous Huxley already beat you to it when he wrote a story whilst drug-addled, and even he was driven to write it by arguments he had in the wider world, not spontaeneously.
I’m not talking about morality or anything.I’m mainly talking about aesthetics.
I mean I take a look at a warrior from a game like Neverwinter Nights and to me that same warrior could be found in Warcraft.
Well, for one thing, NWN and Warcraft have very different art styles, so I don’t really know what you’re talking about there.
Second, they’re both based on roughly the same world concept: something very distinctly Tolkein.
Third, they character types you are mentioning are based on similar archetypes that we know existed in history, and they are of the same species (assuming we’re talking about humans or whatever here).
How far can you go in differentiating two human warriors, for example, both set in standard fantasy settings, without gettin “gratuitous,” like I mentioned before?
By not setting them in standard fantasy settings.That’s what I mean.Everything is based in this tolkienish/magic thingy.It’s boring.
NWN and WC3 remind me of why I adore paladins so much.
You know, I absolutely loved Starcraft and Warcraft 3. Awesome, awesome games. I’m waiting for EA to buy Blizzard so that we can see a sequel each and every year for a whole decade until all the developers leave in frustration or are worked to death.
Then set them in what kind of setting? Try and think of something completely original, but actually makes sense. We’ve already seen almost every combination possible from sci-fantasy to gothic modern day horror. The only way to be truly original, like I said, is simply to get gratuitous. For example, how many people would relate to a world made completely of cheese, inhabited by amorphous wisps and garden gnomes?
They might not relate to it, but they could enjoy it. A cheese world inhabited by garden gnomes sounds like a Katamacy Damacy vacation spot.
[quote=“Abadd”]
Then set them in what kind of setting? Try and think of something completely original, but actually makes sense. We’ve already seen almost every combination possible from sci-fantasy to gothic modern day horror. The only way to be truly original, like I said, is simply to get gratuitous. For example, how many people would relate to a world made completely of cheese, inhabited by amorphous wisps and garden gnomes?[/quote]
The only way to be truly original??PD is original enough.The world of the D’ni in the Myst universe is original enough.Surely you can’t call them gratuitous and they surely completely different from anything else on the market.