zoraniko
92462
1385
42
Nov 19, 2023 1:34 AM
zoraniko
92462
1385
42
IrishBarBalm
Friggin' loved playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice recently. Really gets you in the head of the character.
Velv3tThunder
Videogames are just as much an art form as film, writing, and traditional art.
giraffinator
Narrative driven rpg games are my fav
itsjustplaid
Not gonna lie, JRPGs have ruined me for a lot.
CitrusyGarlic
One of the many reasons I'm about 4/5 through my third full playthrough of Skyrim.
lyonqueen
I am playing Alan wake 2 right now and I can’t get enough of the story it’s ridiculous
ReelPoop
books and video games require your participation
AutoFox
It's a different kind of storytelling, and it's perfectly alright to prefer it to other kinds. Some people prefer books or films of TV, and all are equally valid mediums.
theThousandHells
What can change the nature of a man? Planescape: Torment, that's what! Do yourself a huge favor and pick up the recently enhanced edition
Ilikestealingdadjokes
Immersion in story telling is huge, ask anyone reading the goosebumps series that let them choose their fate.
km3000
What are some of your favorites?
TheManWhoStaresAtTurtles
Video games require input, and input is going to raise investment. There are a ton of reasons why; for some, it can be projection, a feeling of accomplishment, or like you are personally in the story (which is NOT for me in the slightest), or the greater ability to control the pacing, engage with the worldbuilding, and experience the kind of slow burn characterization that films can't do, and which TV often fails at due to systemic hurdles in long-form serialized (1/2)
TheManWhoStaresAtTurtles
content (changing writers, budgetary issues, etc.), which is something that appeals to me. By that same token, some film plots they try to do in games fall apart for the same reasons. Hard to take Nathan Drake's everyman persona seriously when every game sees him racking up a kill count that makes Rambo seem tame. Ludonarrative resonance, whereby video game systems and narrative blend, is a powerful hecking tool. 2/2
komododave
Same. And I love games that give you some choice on how you play.
DrMissAnonymous
I love watching someone else play the videogame because my anxiety and empathy is so bad that I get tummy aches and racing heart when playing by myself… so I like to watch someone I love play like a brother or friend :)
klaceo
Final fantasy 7 broke me. Kingdom hearts 1 made me cry as an adult
BlueDsc
"I'll come back to you, I promise!" "I know you will!"
DracoSicarius
I imagine for those without a mind's eye, video game story telling us probably easier to follow than books at least
Eiladar
I think it's because we set our own pace. Do we want a nail biting epic? Play the main quest. Do I want to spend 20 hours picking flowers or building my ship? Well, I can do that too.
flamingflamingo
Well that depends entirely on the type of game too. Skyrim bores the crap out of me. I am not interested in the sidestories whatsoever. I do love Subnautica, where the story seems to unravel accidentally as you're just trying to stay alive.
Eiladar
Exactly. If you wanted to ignore the side stories in Skyrim, you could; the problem is more that TES game main story quests tend to be ... bad. They're just bad. The games are built more toward freedom of exploration and finding neat little side stories. (There's a Lighthouse based quest in Skyrim involving the Falmer that I absolutely loved)
WilliamInman
Final Fantasy
HereticNoNumber
Some great examples of story in a format of a game. X really is all around good story. Made a grown man cry in me. 7 also has a great story.
Rorysaurus
9 had a great story and some fantastic character arcs.
Legomaniac91
14 has a bunch of great stories in it too. I still get misty eyed whenever I hear "Dragonsong"
SLCtechie
Kushinada
I was so immersed in Red Dead Redemption 2, I felt empty after it ended
keyboardarsonist
Same. I never rushed. I played, I explored. I cared for Arthur and then the inevitable end occurred. Not like how it should but it happened. Played it twice. I be damned it made me cry more than once. You just don't know what to do for a few days when it ends. You can't ever do that again. It will never be the same.
Metallica93
Video games > books > TV shows > movies, is what I generally find to be the case, in terms of immersion. But even that varies wildly. 'Far Cry 2'? Incredibly immersive. 'Far Cry 3'? Bland as hell. Harry Potter? Fun, lighter immersion. 'The Silmarillion'? It. Will. Consume you.
TheNLK
To this day though I've never seen something leap off the pages like that harry potter game.. It's fucking nuts how much love went into that game by the devs. The attention to detail is too good. The people that worked on that consumed every bit of harry potter media
Metallica93
I absolutely will not play that until I reread the books. Unsure what else they pull from, but I've heard nothing but excellent things and I will geek out hard.
TheNLK
Harry Potter were my comfort books for years. It was shocking to see it so well depicted in a game. The movies did a good job depicting hogwarts, but the game is something else.
ThatGuyFromJustSouthOfTheMiddleOfNowhere
The closest analogy in books was choose your path books. And really, early text based computer games were just an extension of those.
lysani
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
hyperchondriac
The Last of Us eventually got its own show. Incredibly well written story for a game.
mercyPandaRunner
Loosely based on a book. Which also got a movie.
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
ScrippyChan
I came in to mention this. An overwrought example it may be, but the first game is just MASTERFUL storytelling. The opening chapter still makes me cry like a bitch.
InfocalypseRising
It depends. Some stories lend themselves to a particular medium. But yeah, the fact that games still aren't considered a "real" form of art is kinda bullshit.
mercyPandaRunner
True that. You could never tell a Phillip K. Dick story in a videogame in a way that does it justice. We got some legendary movies out of themy but even there the translation doesn't work completely and the movies became their own thing (Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly).
On the other hand, licensed novels based on videogames or movies are proof the opposite is also true.
keillrandor
Games have a different function than art - but that doesn't make the two incompatible - they're (at best) ENABLED by art, instead. /1
keillrandor
(At worst, they're REPLACED by it, which is a problem - and often a symptom of people not understanding games/art/puzzles etc, in relation.)
ElRigs83
Books tell, movies show and videogames do. Sometimes you want to be told, shown or have done something
LadiesInboxMeYourInsecurities
The bigger thing is videogames can do all 3 of those but in a way that focuses all your attention easier than the others.
ElRigs83
I usually give up on games that have 5+ minute cutscenes every 20 minutes or I usually skip reading the ingane books in Bethesda games. My biggest concern is control. If I have to fight with the control scheme I usually quit that's why I never finished Metal Gear Solid 2 or Red Dead Redemption 1 or 2 ( I kept accidentally shooting people)
LadiesInboxMeYourInsecurities
Which is fine. Obviously not every form of the medium is for everyone. I for one cannot stand rpg-style games that use guns as a medium but refuse to put any effort into making gunplay that feels like what you would expect from a shooting game. Borderlands and fallout are big ones that are absolute failures for me for this reason. Not that they're bad games just bad games *for me*.
Wolipog
...Okay. Is this supposed to be some big reveal, confession, or controversial thing? Stories are stories.
Bondsmith10
There is still a not insignificant amount of people who believe that all video games are juvenile and adults are weird for being interested in them so
Wolipog
Well that sucks. Give me their likenesses. I'll burn them alive in The Sims.
keillrandor
A story is merely information - the difference in is how they're created and applied.
Wolipog
You're merely information.
Rorysaurus
No u
keillrandor
Information is the basic human-created abstraction used for all human content, (with identity being used for individual distinctions within), created by and existing as thought. Idea/concept/story/rules/language/data/property (of things/other concepts) are all created as information, either directly or by interpretation. Information requires further application to exist in any other way.
Wolipog
Do you...Have a point to make?
keillrandor
Story has LONG been confused for, as and by it's application (being told - narrate), and therefore has never been fully understood as pure information as it is.
keillrandor
(Information is also confused for, as and by its application, often, too...)
Djkb6718
You get to immerse yourself and control narrative in games like The Witcher. I understand the appeal completely.
UltimateLuki
Snapeworts
I'm amazed at how many people don't know this game.
Wolipog
The Witcher was bought for me in 2010 and the narrative under my control has been 'I fucked and betrayed a witch, I got some fat guy arrested, and I've been in the same tavern playing poker dice with short bounty hunts to replenish funds ever since.'
Yusunoha
that gif looks like someone got sick and tired of that whole elf on the shelf stuff.
ThisGuyPostingThings
I finally beat that for the first time a couple months ago. Before that, I mostly played multi or an already beaten version with DK mode.
SoftKleenex
*pause music starts playing*
heartlessninja6
*mouths “WTF”*
myproudburner
VibratingNipples
ShooterMcGrabbin
I honestly feel sorry for kids today being born into google, youtube, facebook etc algorithmically force-feeding them nonsense, widespread internet/cellphones, encroaching AI technologies, global warming getting worse and worse, hollowed out economy where average people can't get homes etc. etc. etc... There is no sense of wonder left, just doom. I mean, I guess they won't know anything else, but that's what makes me sad.
SoftKleenex
And games these days don't have as many banger tracks like back in the 90s
Marsupialmessiah
Whats this? "The witcher VI, The Dark Stall 3D"?
cymor
Goldeneye
zqwzzle
burninator2
Manse84
If you want some wild storytelling and bending of the 4th wall, try Spec Ops: The Line. That shit will break you
magicrhombus
Depends why they love video game storytelling. Spec Ops: The Line doesn't give you any meaningful choices, which can be immersion breaking for a lot of people. There's no doubt it is a good story (after all, it was a good story when it was heart of darkness, and it was a good story again when it was apocalypse now) but you might be more frustrated than horrified when you get railroaded into being awful.
pancreas
I loved it, but the game is controversial because some people don't know the difference between a narrative story, and a role playing game.
Metallica93
One of the all-time greats. "But the controls and gunplay are so bla-!" Hush. The story is everything. It and 'Mass Effect' I wish I could have removed from memory to play for the very first time again.
Manse84
If you haven't seen it, this is part 1 of an amazing rundown of the game https://youtu.be/kjaBsuXWJJ8?si=kk5fH1LLU-NNXCA3
Eomund521
On my wishlist. Waiting for a good sale
pancreas
it goes on sale for like $5 frequently. just pirate it if that's not enough for ya, it's like a decade old after all.
Eomund521
Oh I'll buy it. My backlog is huge so I do what I can to keep up
Eldibs
The only criticism I have of Spec Ops: The Line is that it chides you for wanting to be a hero without bothering to explain why it's a bad thing.
TheManWhoStaresAtTurtles
The game is honestly extremely unsubtle about that. It chides you for wanting to "be a hero", because it's a situation that didn't call for being a Shooter Protagonist. The problem is that Spec-Ops gives you no other way to interact with the world, so "saving your squad" means "kill the civilians with a shit ton of white phosphorous". It'd be like if Undertale didn't have a Mercy option. In any other RPG, fighting random battles is a Good Thing, but that's not what the story calls for.
pancreas
it's a jab at Call of Duty, more than anything. One game is like "you're a hero!" and Spec ops is like "are you a hero?"
TheManWhoStaresAtTurtles
It's pretty much a takedown of not just the modern shooter (and heroic power fantasy in general), but the geopolitical bullshit that those very same modern shooters were pulling from. Plus a substantial splash of Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now and the way power + good intentions leads to a huge amount of moral compromise, but yanno. It's very solid freshman lit literary analysis fodder.
Arbitrarynamehere
Been a while since I played but can you elaborate on that? Not ringing a bell
TheManWhoStaresAtTurtles
Spoilers Follow: He's inexact, which is why it doesn't ring a bell. The game has a recurring thing of damning your actions by saying "Do you feel like a hero yet?" It's damning you because the main character is stomping through a situation he doesn't understand, digging deeper even when his allies advise pulling back. He wants to do the right thing, but his actions get his allies and a LOT of innocent people killed because he is convinced he knows what "the right thing" is. A desire to be 1/2
TheManWhoStaresAtTurtles
a hero without knowing what actions to actually take. Being a Shooter Hero Man is not what that situation called for. It was a humanitarian crisis. 2/2
Arbitrarynamehere
That was my reading of the game lol. Idk guess it didn't land for everyone
Eldibs
The whole game is set up to make you feel bad for wanting to be a hero, the ending monologue is all about it. But not once do they explain what's wrong with wanting to be a hero, they just presuppose that it's a bad thing.
Arbitrarynamehere
It's probably the war crimes that's the bad part
Eldibs
You can be a hero without committing war crimes. Hell, during the white phosphorus bit, I did everything in my power to avoid using it. It turned out that if you don't the enemies just spawn indefinitely. It kinda breaks the message if the only way to enforce it is by violating the laws of time and space by having a literal infinite army.
IHaveAGuyForEverything
As an example, if someone made a word for word video game that allowed you to play as the main character (while still hearing the thoughts/narratives) in the Wheel of Time universe, I would never play another game. There could be some nuances/choices, but stay true to the story. I’m not saying it would be cheap to make, but could be released one at a time. I could read the books whilst playing it as the character speaking. Like in Ready Player One how they have worlds you can play through.
lysani
Just don't let Amazon anywhere near it.
IHaveAGuyForEverything
This. I am mortified at what they have put out.
JoeMAMAaa
...after 20 years of reading that series, constantly waiting for the next book to be released, then the Author dying and waiting longer for the completion of the tale, to see the travesty that has become likely the only funded live action version of the story to come to life has killed any expectations I will ever have again regarding my choices in literature.
JoeMAMAaa
..not that this was "literature" ... but I like it ... And the Amazon series is ... The worst possible representation of those books I could have ever expected.
FlyYouFLCL
They'd be amazing videogames. Robert Jordan was world building. The books have a lot of faults but conceptually the world was fantastic and would translate into a videogame very well.
TheNLK
I dunno if anyone agrees, but I think Brandon Sanderson is carrying that torch now.. His Cosmere stuff is some of the most unique worlds I've ever read about, and he writes pretty damn fast.
FlyYouFLCL
Brandon is also a world (universe) builder. Love his stuff.
BernieSandersMittens
Press square to tug braid
Bondsmith10
press x to goose
IHaveAGuyForEverything
Playing as Nynaeve: Square Square Square Square Square Square Square Square Square. Once she gets dicked down by Lan, it clears up.
BernieSandersMittens
Just started tugging something else.
IHaveAGuyForEverything
BEST. REPLY. EVER. I am following you now.
eventide215
I never read the books, but the series on Prime Video has been amazing. I love how the magic is done and have since been telling my friends how badly I want magic like that in games. Especially things like linking together for more power. Or being very vulnerable while doing it and needing a bodyguard/warder.
TheNLK
If you like expansive world building, read the books. They are pretty great.
Arracor
Unpopular opinion time: As a book reader who's read the whole thing through multiple times, but also (critically) someone who is willing to account for how Covid fucked the first season's everything by forcing Barney Harris out mid-season and causing unavoidable ripple damage that they're only now clearing up the aftershocks of..... I think the show's doing a pretty great job.
Arracor
All the main characters feel like themselves, Lan is the coolest guy on the show, the two Forsaken so far have been an outright *improvement* on the books, and lesser villains like Liandrin are a bit more sympathetic without neutering them. Subplots that can afford to be condensed for the sake of not forcing a 14 season runtime have been. Uno, Loial, and Padan Fain are all more enjoyable so far than their book counterparts. Roughly 85% of the complaints I've seen so far feel like fanboy whining.
eventide215
That's usually what happens. People read the books then say how the show/movie/game didn't do this, that, etc and so it sucks. Meanwhile you can't possibly expect them to fit in every little thing.. obviously, like you said, things will be condensed so it's not on for a ridiculous amount of time. It was definitely unfortunate timing with COVID but they managed and it's been #1 on Prime so it's not really an unpopular opinion.
eventide215
Also, supposedly Barney Harris left because of mental health issues. Honestly him being recast didn't change anything.. personally I didn't care for him. I liked the new guy better.