I agree that video game narratives are, on average, way worse than in other media, but… This post is like a script for a CinemaSins video on an entire medium. There’s a conversation to be had about the quality and originality of storytelling in video games and why gamers are so quick to praise mediocre narratives, but I dunno if glib one-paragraph summaries of “types” of video game stories (with no examples!) do much to advance that conversation.
There’s a conversation to be had about the quality and originality of storytelling in video games and why gamers are so quick to praise mediocre narratives,
No, there’s really not. This is just a condescending way to disreguard someone else opinion on a piece of media or writing you dislike. The simple answer is just that thehly legitimately thought it was good.
I’m so tired of people acting like they’re some keepers of “good” content because they have the nonsense notion that media/writing is obectively good/bad. Want to talk about a film you just really liked online? Nope, it’s “objectively” bad writing, therefore you have terrible taste for liking it (or get called worse). I was hoping discussions like this would be better here.
I feel like it would’ve made sense to include some real examples. Otherwise this just reads very… made up? :'D
Not sure how to explain, but the simplistic nature of the stories you use as examples make the whole text feel a bit like an angry strawman argument even though it probably makes some good points.
yeah it’s kind of a weird post with the way it’s all worded. framing it in a “why what you like is wrong” way probably hurts it more than anything. it doesn’t invite discussion and is more or less just a ranting if you’re not giving examples.
it’s not like anyone here is trying to force someone to like the same games they do and the first thought I had after reading was “okay…”
Personally I like all sorts of storytelling as long as it’s involving topics/genres I’m interested. Lovecraftian setting? inject it into my veins. stories about realistic depictions of depression and suicide - sign me up. There’s not a singular formula that all my favorite games need to adhere to - why would anyone want all their story structures to be so rigid and similar?
Anyways one of my favorite games, probably my overall favorite, is Control. It does a lot of ‘show, don’t tell’ while also having an incredible amount of world building there for you to engage with if you’re interested. The setting is like they tailor-made this for my interests. So pumped for the other games coming out in that universe
There’s two edutainment games I remember playing on school PCs back in the early 2000s (either 2000 or 2001) and I’ve found nothing about them since. Asking about them on the TOMT and TOMJ subreddits got me nowhere.
One was set in a castle and had an intro where the main character crosses a moat. I remember it for a particular minigame where you operate a catapult and have to launch cabbages at people hiding in barrels, following instructions like “90 degrees clockwise”, “125 degrees anticlockwise”, etc. If you successfully hit all 8 targets without fail, the victory message was “You cabbage head!”
The other was more like a loose collection of minigames and several different CD collections were released. I used to own one that I found in a supermarket bargain bin. The minigame I remember on this collection involved moving a pin to pop balloons. The background music was some kind of weirdly upbeat jazz song.
That’s super based of them actually. A game for everyone is a game for no one as they say. Difficulty options if it makes sense and the game is designed around it, sure. But if a game is designed to be played a certain way and you bypass it you’re ignoring a purposely designed experience the developers made for you, and I think it’s fine to force people on to a level playing field.
If you aren’t having fun with it, sure. I was expecting the comments to be people arguing with how you have fun (using the dev console), but fortunately that’s not the case.
For more engagement: a Doom reskin where you shot balloons at some (to child me) scary af toys that came alive and were ornery. Windows 3.1/DOS era, was part of a shareware collection.
Edit: You know what I don’t think this was what I’m thinking about BUT I did play this and may be mixing the memory with another shooter in the same collection.
Chex Quest? I remember the cereal had a Doom reskin and it scared me too much. I feel like if they had just changed the worldspace default color from black to white it would’ve been less scary.
I’m looking for the name of the 3D racing game my classmates used to play on the school club PC. It came out in the 2000s and ran natively on Windows. The first track in the career mode (as far as we ever got) was dirt and inside an nighttime arena. There were crowds and even some onlookers behind barricade blocks around the track. I don’t think the cars could be damaged, and there were intended jumps over lower tracks sections, that could be enjoyed by driving from below to jump really high. Several views were available including one with a rear-view mirror, and a “blimp” aerial view in replay mode. It looked a lot like the nighttime arena tracks in ATV Offroad Fury (pictured) but with closed-cab vehicles. https://www.gamegrin.com/assets/game/atv-off-road-fury-4/screenshots/atv-off-road-fury-4-screenshots-45.jpg
I have one of these! My memory is pretty hazy but he’s everything I remember about it: I played it in about 2003-04, pc rom game, point and click style where you were either trying to help find a series of items in a house or solve a mystery in a house? This was a kids game with a lot of shades of light blue if I remember correctly… Not a scary game, was in the first person, and I don’t remember being in a team of other characters. I remember renting it from my local library a hefty number of times.
Brave Fencer Musashi for me. Played that game so many times through what I remember as the first boss, then didn’t figure out how to progress when the world opened up
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