I always want to ask a question but my mind always goes blank...

im gonna have to pick the obvious character...

Mr Manhattans Godlike Cock just dominates the screen, no matter what scene!!

Do you think its possible for games to one day present an emotional and/or political power comparable to important literature? I know Braid is a step in that direction, but will there ever be a game, that 100 years from now, kids are playing in class? Will Homer ever make a video game?

Watchmen is to Alan Moore as (blank) is to Arron Linde.

Discuss.

Does continuity and canon driven storylines hold back some series from achieving greatness?

I find it that series like Resident Evil or Street Fighter try to hard to have a story that ties the fall of shadaloo with the rise of S.I.N or the demise of the Umbrella corporation. This stories do not need a canon or continuity and they'd probably work better as stand alone games without an overarching story (like Final Fantasy)

Killzone 2 has a horrible story and worse dialogue, something that's become more prevelent in this generation of gaming. Do you think that well designed gameplay makes up for a total lack of creative development in the narrative of these games?

Examples being, Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Killzone 2, Resistance 2, Halo 3 (though they were trying), Army of Two, Battlefield: Bad Company, Aaron Linde's Bonerquest: The Infection Spreads, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, Call of Duty: World at War?

These games are selling themselves as the gaming equivalent of a Hollywood movie, the problem being that not every Hollywood movie completely lacks character development and good acting. Well..

@Brian Keljore

Are you insinuating that Anthony has a mental disorder?

Raping your childhood since...

Stardock's president wrote a good piece on how betas are becoming tools for marketing; how do you feel about this? Should betas be buggy crap that sorts out problems, or is the treat of having a free multiplayer demo worth the fact that you're being advertised to?

I secretly want Anthony's game to be bad so we can all concentrate our Bonerquest energy on him.

I found the numerous occurances of on screen penis more immature than the one occurance of on screen penis in Lost and the Damned. In the post BonerQuest era, what really is the protocol of restraint where digitally rendered wang is involved?

Also, I would say that Aaron Linde has yet to brain child his Watchmen

It seems that these days in the field of entertainment what people want to do is the copy off of what sells the most, rehash things that are popular, put "new spins" on old things, recreate the same thing over and over again, and *cough* translate things into new mediums, all the while repeating the phrase that nothing can be new, it's all been said and done before. Knowing that this is not necessarily a trend and will most likely not die out at long as there is a dollar to be had, what do you think can be done in the name of creativity? What direction would you like to see the industry go in or explore? What do you want to see less/more of?

If a BonerQuest movie was made I can imagine Aaron doing an Alan Moore an asking for his name to be taken off of the credits.

Don't let him do it guys.

Don't kick the bucket just yet, It's a mad, mad, mad, Madworld!

Do you prefer a single narrative strung along through gameplay or a choose your own adventure style narrative (a la fallout 3) driven by your gameplay choices?

Does anyone Miss actual Levels?

I mean old world 1, or Lava world...etc..etc..

It seems that the only real game that i can think of that remotely does this would be DMC with its mission system

Are we better off as gaming community without levels? Do we miss them? Or are we unable to tell a story without interruption? Game nowadays are walking the line between overblown production values(Heavenly Sword) or straight gameplay (Portal)

Would bioshock's story work well with level interruption?
would the tension of Dead space work?

IMO i think the level choice(design) heavily influences were a story would and can go...

Anthony, I know everyone's on a Watchmen rage right now, but bear with me. What game, if any, do you feel did for the video gaming medium that the Watchmen did for the Graphic Novel?

I think that Blow makes some very astute points in his lecture but he basically takes an hour and a half to say that there's conflict between player freedom and telling the story that the game creator intended. The thrust of the argument is that players are more affected story that they "write" with their gameplay than story that is heaped like book-ends to a segment of gameplay. To some degree, he's right. The end of MGS3 is all the more real because "I" had to pull the trigger. However, the logical endpoint of his example are games where the player writes the story through their actions but it is presented in the fashion of a well crafted narrative. This also presumes, when it can be done, that players are all capable of writing a story as interesting as those in games. I don't think that this is a realistic view. People pay authors because they are better at telling stories than the rest of us. While writing my own story though game interaction has its appeal, I'd rather have narrative lovingly spooned through the bars of my gameplay cage by someone who knows what they're doing.

Do you think there's a good way to reconcile the gap between gameplay and plot advancement?

The whole point of a video game is to have something to interact with, so its necessary that the player must be doing something most of the time, but how do you advance the narative while the player plays? Is the solution to use artifical plot devices like the audio recordings in BioShock or the diaries and files in RE? or is the only way to tell a story to interweave plot progression points between gameplay sections?

With all due respect to Podtoid, am I the only person that is totally not at all surprised that after that Indie Nation post, there was going to be a Podtoid episode about one of Jonathan Blow's rants? It's not as if Rev. Anthony hasn't already pretty much quoted Blow word-for-word at least once in each of the last three episodes.

I was actually in the process of writing a cblog response to that Indie Nation post that pretty much talked about this same lecture of Blow's and seeing as the Podtoid will actually be about the lecture, I might as well throw this out here to see if I can generate any thoughts or discussion that might find its way into this cblog post if it does end up happening.

So I guess here's my question.

I would honestly like Rev. Anthony, someone whose intelligence and work on Destructoid I genuinely respect, to explain to me why he thinks that the words that come out of Blow's mouth are worth parroting and repeating ad nauseum in the way that he does. I could look past the constant "not respecting my time" remarks but I think you really jumped the shark when you, as part of your rant against the penis in "The Lost and the Damned" started going off on how Blow or Rod Humble would have found an intelligent way to use nudity in a game, preaching about the theoretical commentary on video game nudity that these two might have made, without considering that neither game designer appear to be interested in doing anything like that as opposed to making another indie game about some esoteric game about a personal event.

I guess what it is that I cannot stand the most about Blow's lectures is that he preaches about all these evils and bad things that game designers do and yet he simply does not any real solutions or ideas on how to fix them. I have tons of objections to Blow's ideas, but for now let me focus on narrative and gameplay.

I am inclined to agree that storytelling and gameplay are conflicted in the vast majority of games, such as "Bioshock," "Half-Life 2," and other games he cites. Yet I fail to see how we are going to get to a better sense of narrative/gameplay mixing until we get that supercomputer AI that can dynamically change and make up the story to better match our gameplay and choices.

Many other times Blow talks about this concept of a game whose gameplay and narrative are completely combined and integrated together. I would argue that the only examples I can think of that do that successfully are "Passage" and "The Marriage." Frankly, I cannot see how that type of combination of gameplay and narrative could work for even a simple story like the one for the original "Super Mario Bros." Hell, I am not sure Blow managed to accomplish the feat or even make a serious attempt at it in his own game "Braid."

There's a section where Blow says that if a story can't be done in a way that melds perfectly with the gameplay, the story shouldn't be done at all. I would argue that if every writer, sculpter, composer, filmmaker, etc only does the type of stories that are in their respective medium's comfort zone, which is what Blow seems to be suggesting, art in general would be knocked back a few centuries.

Again, I really hate to knock on Rev. Anthony because I do respect his work on Destructoid and really enjoyed the comments and observations that he makes, especially in the old Rev Rant on RetroforceGO! Hell, a large part of my willingness to write the music to "Bonerquest" has to do with my love of Podtoid, whose current form is pretty much all Rev. Anthony's work. I guess I just don't understand why someone like Rev. Anthony who appears to be intelligent just doesn't seem to see Jonathan Blow's rants for what they are: rants. He always makes sure to target incendiary comments on targets that he knows either won't respond (i.e. "Bioshock" and "Shadow of the Colossus" and/or are popular targets to make fun of in the gamer crowd (i.e. "World of Warcraft). I agree that his Blow's lectures are fun and interesting as a thought exercise into the future. Yet, I cannot get over the fact that his talks are essentially complaints without any intelligent solution: it's as worthless as politians complaining about lack of universal health care without being willing or prepared to discuss deeper aspects of the issue such as funding and implementation.

Sorry for the very long comment but, I just couldn't stand keep my e-mouth shut any longer as Rev. Anthony once again complains about a game "wasting his time." When I hear that term come from someone else's mouth, I know it usually is because the game either genuinely has problems or just simply doesn't hit the personal preferences of the player. It's just aggrevating hearing it from Rev. Anthony knowing that he is talking about some idealized standard of gaming that Jonathan Blow rants about, but is not close to happening, partially because of technological and human limitations, but probably moreso because no one, Blow included has any serious clue about how to get there.

It's common business sense to assume that the success of a title/franchise in one medium encourages cross-promotion and the development of that title/franchise in another medium, if not MANY other mediums. It's also fanboy sense to assume much the same thing (e.g. beloved comic book [x] and beloved video game [y] should be made into at least fourteen movies). My question is: Do you believe that the success of a thing JUSTIFIES that it be adapted to other mediums? Do you believe that all fictions or products are DESERVING or even CAPABLE of being translated, based solely on their fame or success or notoriety?

I recently realized the possibility that the game play of Sonic Unleashed reflects a deeper meaning in the game. When Sonic is himself, the game is good. When Sonic becomes a twisted version of himself, the game becomes perverse to a degree that is indicative of most modern Sonic games. Perhaps deeply housed in Sonic Unleashed is a criticism of modern Sonic games, and this concept is reinforced by the game play. My question is: if someone were to make a game that relied on deliberately atrocious game play to communicate meaning, Jim Sterling, would you finish the game before reviewing it?

What single gameplay feature, visual element, or game-related implement would impress you the most from future to-be-made games?

What is your favorite webcomic (gaming or non-gaming) and why did Nicholas Gurewitch have to kill my dreams?

I want Alan Moore to read me bed stories.