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Video games and movies are both rivals, Videos are an adventure while video games is an adventure which you control. But is the idea of a video games being an interactive movie the wrong way to go?
The problem with an interactive movie is the story is already set out and there is little room for you to manipulate this adventure. Wouldn't it be great if you are put more in control of the game.
How many of you would liked to of given Zelda a little slap when she asked for your help call her crazy go back to Kokiri forest and start up a little farm, when you get to the end of Nugget bridge in Pokemon and you are asked if you would like to join Team rocket how many of you wanted to say yes or in Perfect Dark wouldn't it be interesting if you would kill DR Carol and become an Agent for Datadyne rather than start the mission again.
But is a game where the player is put more in control of the way the game heads an actual possibility? Can developers do something like this?
Well the answer is yes as Nintendo are already working on it in the form of a game called Animal Forest. The idea is that you control a character who has no set adventure and that the life you lead with this person completley depends on the choices you make. The choices you make changes the world which you live in and your world will be completley unique to you and no one will have the same world as you. You can download your character on to a memory card and get him to explore other peoples worlds.
This is a story, an adventure which you create for yourself and gets rid of these linear adventures. Nintendo has declared that one day all games will be done like this.
But are they right are these types of games the future of gaming?
What do you think?
Here's to the future
Dringo
The problem with an interactive movie is the story is already set out and there is little room for you to manipulate this adventure. Wouldn't it be great if you are put more in control of the game.
How many of you would liked to of given Zelda a little slap when she asked for your help call her crazy go back to Kokiri forest and start up a little farm, when you get to the end of Nugget bridge in Pokemon and you are asked if you would like to join Team rocket how many of you wanted to say yes or in Perfect Dark wouldn't it be interesting if you would kill DR Carol and become an Agent for Datadyne rather than start the mission again.
But is a game where the player is put more in control of the way the game heads an actual possibility? Can developers do something like this?
Well the answer is yes as Nintendo are already working on it in the form of a game called Animal Forest. The idea is that you control a character who has no set adventure and that the life you lead with this person completley depends on the choices you make. The choices you make changes the world which you live in and your world will be completley unique to you and no one will have the same world as you. You can download your character on to a memory card and get him to explore other peoples worlds.
This is a story, an adventure which you create for yourself and gets rid of these linear adventures. Nintendo has declared that one day all games will be done like this.
But are they right are these types of games the future of gaming?
What do you think?
Here's to the future
Dringo
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Video games and movies are both rivals, Videos are an adventure while video games is an adventure which you control. But is the idea of a video games being an interactive movie the wrong way to go?
The problem with an interactive movie is the story is already set out and there is little room for you to manipulate this adventure. Wouldn't it be great if you are put more in control of the game.
How many of you would liked to of given Zelda a little slap when she asked for your help call her crazy go back to Kokiri forest and start up a little farm, when you get to the end of Nugget bridge in Pokemon and you are asked if you would like to join Team rocket how many of you wanted to say yes or in Perfect Dark wouldn't it be interesting if you would kill DR Carol and become an Agent for Datadyne rather than start the mission again.
But is a game where the player is put more in control of the way the game heads an actual possibility? Can developers do something like this?
Well the answer is yes as Nintendo are already working on it in the form of a game called Animal Forest. The idea is that you control a character who has no set adventure and that the life you lead with this person completley depends on the choices you make. The choices you make changes the world which you live in and your world will be completley unique to you and no one will have the same world as you. You can download your character on to a memory card and get him to explore other peoples worlds.
This is a story, an adventure which you create for yourself and gets rid of these linear adventures. Nintendo has declared that one day all games will be done like this.
But are they right are these types of games the future of gaming?
What do you think?
Here's to the future
Dringo
The problem with an interactive movie is the story is already set out and there is little room for you to manipulate this adventure. Wouldn't it be great if you are put more in control of the game.
How many of you would liked to of given Zelda a little slap when she asked for your help call her crazy go back to Kokiri forest and start up a little farm, when you get to the end of Nugget bridge in Pokemon and you are asked if you would like to join Team rocket how many of you wanted to say yes or in Perfect Dark wouldn't it be interesting if you would kill DR Carol and become an Agent for Datadyne rather than start the mission again.
But is a game where the player is put more in control of the way the game heads an actual possibility? Can developers do something like this?
Well the answer is yes as Nintendo are already working on it in the form of a game called Animal Forest. The idea is that you control a character who has no set adventure and that the life you lead with this person completley depends on the choices you make. The choices you make changes the world which you live in and your world will be completley unique to you and no one will have the same world as you. You can download your character on to a memory card and get him to explore other peoples worlds.
This is a story, an adventure which you create for yourself and gets rid of these linear adventures. Nintendo has declared that one day all games will be done like this.
But are they right are these types of games the future of gaming?
What do you think?
Here's to the future
Dringo
Essentially, I think this is a difficult issue: After all, it's still being debated whether gaming is a meaningful medium for telling a story.
Here's what seems to be the problem, though it may likely be solved at some point:
1) In a game with a great story, it tends to be linear since that's the easiest way in which to tell a well-developed story in the first place. In which case, players tend to feel it's not as interactive as it should be. After all, no matter what they do, they can't influence the story as much as they'd like.
2) In the case of a game without a story, as in the Animal Forest example, that's similar to what occurs in MMOGs. There's no defined story for it, so it becomes up to the players as to what the game is about. In the present MMOGs, the point of the game is hinted at by their severe slant towards combat-based characters. However, it's rare that you find an interesting story in any of this. It tends to just be about leveling and defeating enemies, but there's no grandiose feel to any of it.
How I see it, you can't go to either extreme. Even MMOGs try to provide stories by introducing GM-created quests for the players to get involved in. Content must be provided in most cases in order to delineate a story.
Here's what seems to be the problem, though it may likely be solved at some point:
1) In a game with a great story, it tends to be linear since that's the easiest way in which to tell a well-developed story in the first place. In which case, players tend to feel it's not as interactive as it should be. After all, no matter what they do, they can't influence the story as much as they'd like.
2) In the case of a game without a story, as in the Animal Forest example, that's similar to what occurs in MMOGs. There's no defined story for it, so it becomes up to the players as to what the game is about. In the present MMOGs, the point of the game is hinted at by their severe slant towards combat-based characters. However, it's rare that you find an interesting story in any of this. It tends to just be about leveling and defeating enemies, but there's no grandiose feel to any of it.
How I see it, you can't go to either extreme. Even MMOGs try to provide stories by introducing GM-created quests for the players to get involved in. Content must be provided in most cases in order to delineate a story.
2 wins in a week things are looking up
The problem with letting the player develop their own story, is a lack of imagination on the part of the player, combined with a lack of flexibility within the game boundaries.
There just isn't the processing power to develop a huge fantasy world, in which you can 'do whatever the fun you feel' (YMCA). In terms of a single player game there has to be boundaries to keep you heading towards your final goal, with Massively Multiplayer Online games that try to have no boundaries or set quests, they end up like interactive chat rooms, with people wandering around, talking to others, and not having to really do anything if they don't want to!
The way I can see gaming developing in terms of story, and you'll have to forgive me if you've heard this from me before, is as follows:
Lets take Zelda as an example. Link starts the game with a guest, lets say save Zelda from Gannon. To do this he must collect 8 items, each of which is held in a different dungeon. You can simply travel to each of these dungeons, collect the items then go face Gannn if you choose. This is very linear, and will please some people.
Whilst on your quest, you'll meet varios other characters that will hint at other things you can do. Maybe you'll meet a man that had something stolen from him, so you can go off to recover it for him, or meet a witch that needs some ingredients for a new spell.
As it stands there are many games that have these side quests, but it doesn't make a great deal of difference to the eventual outcome. You still have to save Zelda from Gannon.
But how about if doing various side quests would open up more possibilities in completing the game. I don't just mean different endings here, but completely different scenarios for the last stage of the game.
For instance, say the witch you supplied the ingredients for, turns out to be the ultimate evil, and she takes both Gannon and Zelda prisoner! What then?
Or what if the guy whose stolen property you recovered is so grateful, that he decides to follow you around for the rest of your adventure, so you've got the added challenge of keeping him alive too.
I think that games are more likely to develop this way in terms of storys because it will add massively to replay value, and makes the game more challenging, but it can still be rewarding to your casual gamer that doesn't have 40+ hours to devote to following the most difficult path, as he can simply take the game along it's most basic path.
There just isn't the processing power to develop a huge fantasy world, in which you can 'do whatever the fun you feel' (YMCA). In terms of a single player game there has to be boundaries to keep you heading towards your final goal, with Massively Multiplayer Online games that try to have no boundaries or set quests, they end up like interactive chat rooms, with people wandering around, talking to others, and not having to really do anything if they don't want to!
The way I can see gaming developing in terms of story, and you'll have to forgive me if you've heard this from me before, is as follows:
Lets take Zelda as an example. Link starts the game with a guest, lets say save Zelda from Gannon. To do this he must collect 8 items, each of which is held in a different dungeon. You can simply travel to each of these dungeons, collect the items then go face Gannn if you choose. This is very linear, and will please some people.
Whilst on your quest, you'll meet varios other characters that will hint at other things you can do. Maybe you'll meet a man that had something stolen from him, so you can go off to recover it for him, or meet a witch that needs some ingredients for a new spell.
As it stands there are many games that have these side quests, but it doesn't make a great deal of difference to the eventual outcome. You still have to save Zelda from Gannon.
But how about if doing various side quests would open up more possibilities in completing the game. I don't just mean different endings here, but completely different scenarios for the last stage of the game.
For instance, say the witch you supplied the ingredients for, turns out to be the ultimate evil, and she takes both Gannon and Zelda prisoner! What then?
Or what if the guy whose stolen property you recovered is so grateful, that he decides to follow you around for the rest of your adventure, so you've got the added challenge of keeping him alive too.
I think that games are more likely to develop this way in terms of storys because it will add massively to replay value, and makes the game more challenging, but it can still be rewarding to your casual gamer that doesn't have 40+ hours to devote to following the most difficult path, as he can simply take the game along it's most basic path.
Taking that last paragraph, the casual gamer could only follow the basic path if he was sure what the basic path is in the first place. The danger here is that you can get side tracked and lose your way too easily.
Some games are renowned for this kind of thing. Many people playing Metal Gear Solid for the first time completely gave up after Beryl got shot, because they could not work out that 'all they had to do' was back track to near the beginning of the game to collect the PSG-1 Sniper rifle and then come back to the area where Beryl was shot to continue the game.
Resident Evil games make you back track all the time, but any casual gamer playing this genre would run out of bullets in the first couple of areas and then wonder what to do next. (What key? What green plant? What bullets?).
These are two good examples of linear games with no real subquests, but they are hard enough, especially the latter of the genre where the subquests you get mainly depend on which order you visit certain locations, and the game gives you no real clues in the gameplay as to which order you should be doing this, it's mainly hit and miss.
Solution: Have a 'help screen on' function in the options menu, a kind of 'hint mode', that points you in the right direction from time to time if you stray from the basic quest. Then, if you do get lost on your travels and are feeling so despondent that you want to trade it in for another game without buying a walkthough, you can simply select 'Help' from the options screen to get you back on track. Then you can at least complete the game, learn from your mistakes, then start it again another time and investigate those subquests more fully at a later date.
Some games are renowned for this kind of thing. Many people playing Metal Gear Solid for the first time completely gave up after Beryl got shot, because they could not work out that 'all they had to do' was back track to near the beginning of the game to collect the PSG-1 Sniper rifle and then come back to the area where Beryl was shot to continue the game.
Resident Evil games make you back track all the time, but any casual gamer playing this genre would run out of bullets in the first couple of areas and then wonder what to do next. (What key? What green plant? What bullets?).
These are two good examples of linear games with no real subquests, but they are hard enough, especially the latter of the genre where the subquests you get mainly depend on which order you visit certain locations, and the game gives you no real clues in the gameplay as to which order you should be doing this, it's mainly hit and miss.
Solution: Have a 'help screen on' function in the options menu, a kind of 'hint mode', that points you in the right direction from time to time if you stray from the basic quest. Then, if you do get lost on your travels and are feeling so despondent that you want to trade it in for another game without buying a walkthough, you can simply select 'Help' from the options screen to get you back on track. Then you can at least complete the game, learn from your mistakes, then start it again another time and investigate those subquests more fully at a later date.
Here it is
mr potato has more adventure, but this is excellent!
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