| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
70 comments | showing # 1 to 50
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
2:00 PM on 08.23.2009
| 
YOU SON HOF HA BURCH, BISON.
Still, the game did come off as you described it, and I agree with you on every other point.
Nice job.
still, great insight as always.
but unfortunately i don't think that it's so much the game designer's fault as it is the story writer. designer was only responsible for "hey i want the player to be able to cut shit up."
its the writer who controls "i want the city to make him look like a hero."
Could not agree with you more about prototype
In Legacy of Kain, you play a bad guy. Your only goal seems to be toppling the Vampire oligarchy. After a while I shied away from killing humans... but that's because they frequently didn't have the fuel I required to continue with my murderous, anarchic plot.
But part of the reason why I the pleasure from Prototype became less and less the more I played it had a lot to do with the game wanting to tell the story of a savior in dark times, when the gameplay wanted me to enjoy mildless, vicious slaughter of innocent people.
It had a lot to do with the fact the story was so poorly told, but I never felt like the Alex Mercer in the cut scenes. In fact, I never felt like a guy at all. I never felt like I was fighting for good or evil. By the time I set down the controller for the last time, it was because I felt nothing.
GTA IV had a similar thing going on, where the story painted me as an immigrant who had a dark past and poor fortune to run into bad situations and become affiliated with shady, nasty people. But then the gameplay gave me the option to be reckless, violent and psychotic.
The difference though is that I didn't want to be violent. The story was conveyed so well to me, and the character of Niko was so convincing and likeable that I never had the urge to rampage through Liberty City, killed at will, leaving a trail of destruction behind. Even murder as a part of the story was difficult for me sometimes, if I felt it conflicted with Niko's character. But when it felt right, I was right in there with him, passionate and empowered. I wanted Niko to succeed and have a happy life.
Alex Mercer, as a character and the way the story presented him, might have ruined Prototype for me. Either way, he certainly didn't help. Some hero.
I miss the unnecessary green screen RevAnthony in these videos.
There's potential for story variance with these titles, but that potential does not lie in how the main character can be interpreted...it lies in the ending, the overall result of your actions.
Cracked. Me. Up.
Not the Stalin reference specifically but the picking a "oh, who's a bad person" name out of a hat. Laugh riot.
This is one of those occasions where I agree almost 100% with everything that you said, though I'd argue that Wolverine's disconnect of charaterization from gameplay has more to do with the high frequency of bad writing in comic properties than it does poor design execution, though your point's still well met.
I could get into a schpiel about the Hulk and the true spirit of the character is that the Hulk is something of an anti-hero, and Banner is something of a tragic figure, but I'll just leave it at that I think the disconnect is slightly more appropriate in Ultimate Destruction, and is relatively consistent with the theme of the mythos.
Also, thank you, thank you so much for what you said about God of War. I finally got around to playing this series just a few months ago and was having difficulty identifying why I should love the game so much beyond the variable pacing of brawler/platformer/puzzle elements and the level design (and the sheer novelty of Kratos fucking Greek mythological "canon" up the ass in a manner TOTALLY appropriate to Greek myhtology), but it never occurred to me how very appropriate the consistency between character and gameplay was, which was a quality that likely mollified my critical side without me even realizing it.
So thanks for better helping me shape my appreciation of the game.
Respect your (more than slightly) creepy fanbase.
If I want to evil, I play some sort of Star Wars game and choose the Imperial faction. Sure the characters in the game might tell me that I'm keeping the peace and protecting the galaxy from anarchy, but that is the character's in-game perspective and we all know that a person's perspective can be quite warped.
Now if the game's over-arching narrative tried to tell me I was actually being a good guy by razing planets with Star Destroyers, then I would have a problem with it.
If you're going to make a game the revels in gore and violence -- don't half ass it. Nice work, Rev.
Absolutely spot on with the rant again!
But in Prototype, how would you end the games story, and still make the overall experience at the end of it feel satisfying? I think this is the reason for it's strange miss-match. Ending a villains story is harder, so developers avoid it.
Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen! Holy crap! I was 11 or 12 when that game first came out and it blew my mind how the game basically revolved around a completely unsympathetic, bloodthirsty anarchist. The rest of the series failed to live up to this, but Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen remains one of the classic examples in gaming where you truly ARE the villain. I wish eidos would have done this game justice with it's sequels. Instead we were finally told that "actually Kain did all those bad things for a greater purpose." Blech.
I haven't even PLAYED Prototype, but I gather he's basically killing military and infected people that are suffocating the city in which he lives.
Regardless of whether or not he is enjoying or reveling in his killing, his ultimate goal COULD still be for the greater good.
Though I agree that if they are painting him as a saint (again, I don't know), then that's going too far. He should be treated as a badass loner who hates the people he's killing and also happens to be doing the city a favor by killing bad people.
*enters ryder's house*
"naw man drugs are bad yo"
Also you're going to love me in like 10 years.
Also, Prototype's story makes next to no sense if you confine it in the game. Once you do some research, it gets very deep and actually good. Kind of shitty that they made you do that, though.
And just because I love the game with all of my organs, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, humanity, morals that are something, you aren't anything, something.
If you shave, I'll feel dissapointed at how my dream beard is gone.
Also,
Nice rant. I understand where you are coming from. I always felt that the Prototype story was so poorly executed in game that it never mattered who I killed. Just a bunch of facelessness in a crowd.
Since for some reason the gaming public hasn't gotten it yet (probably because if it's made any less blatant than Dead Space's 4 (!) differently conveyed "Shoot the limbs!" it's too subtle for most people) it needs to be said that Prototype, about halfway through, makes it clear that you're not playing as Alex Mercer, who died in a subway station after basically releasing the virus, but as the Blacklight virus itself, which, much like any other disguise you can wear, just looks like Mercer, though up until that point in the game also thought to be him.
In so far you act "mainly" in self-defense, or outright heroism by going after the other virus strain. With the exception of the mass-murder bonus missions for experience Anthony mentioned.
I'm not sure why people don't get this, since it's made pretty clear when it's mentioned (and it's mentioned 2-3 times, always by the protagonist himself, instead of by the military, falsely calling him Mercer sometimes, and as such it comes from the only "reliable" source for the player). The game even provides suitable names to use other than Alex Mercer, namely ZEUS and Blacklight.
Only thing I wish I heard were your thoughts on the tendency of some games that use morality as a play mechanic or plot device is for them to rely on a single choice to determine the outcome of the game, rendering all or most other actions to that point irrelevant.
As much as I love it, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was probably the biggest contemporary offender of this. It seemed totally inconsistent that you could play the entire game seizing every opportunity to shift yourself, or in the case of KOTOR II, also your party to one moral extreme or the other, and since the game offers you one choice that determines the outcome of the game, it really doesn't seem to matter at all.
Perhaps, Rev Anthony, you feel differently. Some people do experience pivot points in life, where for better or ill, one single act or incident can change the course of a person's life. Maybe these games reflect that, but I guess I'm just cynical and think it's half-assed story telling and game design. Either way it would be great to hear your thoughts.
This.
On a more serious note:
I like most of what you said. The problem is that usually, the truly evil characters are convinced/feel that their actions, who their fighting, and the results are all for the greater good or would make things better.
To bring up Shadow of the Colossus, you spend the whole game trying to resurrect your girlfriend, only to find out you're releasing a heinous evil force, and are cast away and cursed by those who find you at the end of the game.
I mean, just because the character believes that his actions are for a greater good, doesn't mean the player has to also. In Assassins Creed, Altair thought that the people he was assassinating were key in destabilizing the region(and therefore, their deaths would help keep the region stabilized). Sure, he's a cold blooded killer, but if one death could prevent a war, wouldn't that be a better tradeoff for all?
Point is that it all has to do with perspective, both of the player and the narrative. Where I agree with you is that a lot of story writers don't seem to entirely get this point, and make the character and player commit such acts without attempting to give proper reasons other than, "it'll make things better".
Of course, the alternative is to say "he's a bad guy and wants to kill everything" and leave the story as nothing more than that.
Oh, and judging by the footage in the video, God of War 2 actually aged quite well!