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When Square start making films it does start to worry me about where games are heading.
The Spirits Within could easily have just been the latest Final Fantasy game rather than a film, but with a bit of walking around between the scenes and some random battles.
It worries me that games are becoming too story driven, and as a result, too linear. If you write a story with plenty of plot twists and surprises, when you play the game you may well be intrigued, but you're not going to be allowed to wander far from this story, are you?
What, in my opinion, would be better, would be if there was an eventual goal, with many, many ways of reaching it.
So rather than a typical game folling a path that involves going into a dungeon to get a certain item than will lead to you opening a further dungeon which reveals an item that.....leads to an encounter with the final boss, and you win the game. Hmmm, just a little too predefined. The problem is that we're still working with models from the 8 and 16 bit days, days in which you HAD to limit what the game could do, as there simply wasn't the power in the machines to allow you to do what you wanted.
Mind you, there's nothing wrong with being sent down a pre-defined route, it can be tremendous fun whilst you play, but it doesn't do much for replay value. It just seems to be a shame that there's only ever one way to reach your goal. We all know that there's more than one way to skin a cat, but in games that simply doesn't seem to be the case, you'll do as the developers want, so you can follow their wonderful story.
I don't know, that just doesn't seem to be making the most of these next-generation consoles. Surely if the game is set in a huge world so much of it shouldn't be out of reach until you've performed a set number of tasks.
Wouldn't a game be fun in which you started to play, not knowing what your quest was. The introduction could introduce you, with a small quest - get new shoes for your horse - something trivial. Anyway, when going to do this you might learn that a princess has been kidnapped, as so oftewn happens in Gameland. So, if you want, you can wander straight across the desert, or wherever, to the castle, and take the boss on. Yes you'd get a severe beating, but hey, at least it let you try it on with him! You'd work out that you needed to be stronger, needed to get a magical weapon, or something, and you could go in search for it.
Mind you, many would find this game frustrating, without any idea of where to look, but it would be fun. Maybe.
The Spirits Within could easily have just been the latest Final Fantasy game rather than a film, but with a bit of walking around between the scenes and some random battles.
It worries me that games are becoming too story driven, and as a result, too linear. If you write a story with plenty of plot twists and surprises, when you play the game you may well be intrigued, but you're not going to be allowed to wander far from this story, are you?
What, in my opinion, would be better, would be if there was an eventual goal, with many, many ways of reaching it.
So rather than a typical game folling a path that involves going into a dungeon to get a certain item than will lead to you opening a further dungeon which reveals an item that.....leads to an encounter with the final boss, and you win the game. Hmmm, just a little too predefined. The problem is that we're still working with models from the 8 and 16 bit days, days in which you HAD to limit what the game could do, as there simply wasn't the power in the machines to allow you to do what you wanted.
Mind you, there's nothing wrong with being sent down a pre-defined route, it can be tremendous fun whilst you play, but it doesn't do much for replay value. It just seems to be a shame that there's only ever one way to reach your goal. We all know that there's more than one way to skin a cat, but in games that simply doesn't seem to be the case, you'll do as the developers want, so you can follow their wonderful story.
I don't know, that just doesn't seem to be making the most of these next-generation consoles. Surely if the game is set in a huge world so much of it shouldn't be out of reach until you've performed a set number of tasks.
Wouldn't a game be fun in which you started to play, not knowing what your quest was. The introduction could introduce you, with a small quest - get new shoes for your horse - something trivial. Anyway, when going to do this you might learn that a princess has been kidnapped, as so oftewn happens in Gameland. So, if you want, you can wander straight across the desert, or wherever, to the castle, and take the boss on. Yes you'd get a severe beating, but hey, at least it let you try it on with him! You'd work out that you needed to be stronger, needed to get a magical weapon, or something, and you could go in search for it.
Mind you, many would find this game frustrating, without any idea of where to look, but it would be fun. Maybe.
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Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis had a point that changed the story line completely. You had to choose to either
A) Go on your own as Indy
B) Go with the women (can't remember her name)
C) Go on your own as the women.
Great game FOA, wish I still had it...
A) Go on your own as Indy
B) Go with the women (can't remember her name)
C) Go on your own as the women.
Great game FOA, wish I still had it...
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis had a point that changed the story line completely. You had to choose to either
A) Go on your own as Indy
B) Go with the women (can't remember her name)
C) Go on your own as the women.
Great game FOA, wish I still had it...
A) Go on your own as Indy
B) Go with the women (can't remember her name)
C) Go on your own as the women.
Great game FOA, wish I still had it...
Gronti_v wrote:
> Jonathan doesn't die, he appears outside Carrington's office when it
> is attacked. I can't remember when he appears but he goes away
> again when you do a certain objective. Still, it's a good
> opportunity to finish the sod once and for all.
Only if you save him.
If you go in the flying saucer with Elvis then next time you play Carrington Defense, he won't be there.
> Jonathan doesn't die, he appears outside Carrington's office when it
> is attacked. I can't remember when he appears but he goes away
> again when you do a certain objective. Still, it's a good
> opportunity to finish the sod once and for all.
Only if you save him.
If you go in the flying saucer with Elvis then next time you play Carrington Defense, he won't be there.
What do you mean like multiple paths? Jedi Knight had a good multiple possibility story, if you were a dark jedi you killed Jan and tried to take all the power for yourself, or you can be a light jedi and turn one of the evil jedi to the light side, save Jan and preserve the sanctity of the jedi monument thing. Lot's of RPGs allow multiple paths to complete things but they tend to have one thing that everyone has to do, even if there are several ways to do it it still has to be done.
drivel...
lol
That gave that sentance a whole new meaning. :-D
Now I'm going to get it from both sides of the console war...
Before you execute me as a gaming blasphemer, I did MEAN to write driven...
lol
That gave that sentance a whole new meaning. :-D
Now I'm going to get it from both sides of the console war...
Before you execute me as a gaming blasphemer, I did MEAN to write driven...
Strafex wrote:
> I think that some games being story drivel
LOL!
> I think that some games being story drivel
LOL!
I think that some games being story drivel eg Zelda or Final Fantasy is fine.
It doesn't offer replay value but the game is so big, you get plenty out of it the first time.
And you can always come back to play the odd mini game.
If all games were becaoming story driven then it would be a problem but I think that games are starting to devellop more freedom.
Some missions on Perfect Dark let you finish in different ways. You could normally do the objectives in whatever order you wanted.
One mission even let you choose whether you escaped with the Alien and leave a fellow agent to die, or let the agent escape with the alien and fight your way out of the base.
Since then it's got even better looking at the examples, you have flashpoint and Red Faction both allowing more freedom.
Soon we're going to get to a point where games give you an objective and it's up to you how you accomplish it.
Walkthroughs will no longer ruin games as there will also be other ways through.
Depending on how you did your objective, you might make friends/enemies, set of an alarm, or something like that.
Don't expect anything like this until the final generation of games on the Xbox and Gamecube (and possibly PS2 :-p)
It doesn't offer replay value but the game is so big, you get plenty out of it the first time.
And you can always come back to play the odd mini game.
If all games were becaoming story driven then it would be a problem but I think that games are starting to devellop more freedom.
Some missions on Perfect Dark let you finish in different ways. You could normally do the objectives in whatever order you wanted.
One mission even let you choose whether you escaped with the Alien and leave a fellow agent to die, or let the agent escape with the alien and fight your way out of the base.
Since then it's got even better looking at the examples, you have flashpoint and Red Faction both allowing more freedom.
Soon we're going to get to a point where games give you an objective and it's up to you how you accomplish it.
Walkthroughs will no longer ruin games as there will also be other ways through.
Depending on how you did your objective, you might make friends/enemies, set of an alarm, or something like that.
Don't expect anything like this until the final generation of games on the Xbox and Gamecube (and possibly PS2 :-p)
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