The Hot Topic Returns

[Nag]

There's no official question again this week due to the Bank Holiday weekend... so....

 

 

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Nag say... in terms of story telling have video games had their watershed moment yet or are we still waiting for that one great story to happen?

 

What are some of your favourites? And what can't you stand about gaming narratives?

 

[bellow]

'The princess is being held east of this location. Let's rescue her.'

 

The greatest moment in gaming narrative, and all you'll ever need.

[OCH]

Blank Avatars - We're going to craft a really deep and involving narrative.. that doesn't involve you directly at all. Creatively, just plain lazy. EG Silent Hill 4, Soulsborne etc

[one-armed dwarf]

I think that's a really bad disservice to Souls games, which have a pretty cool narrative technique to them where you're trying to figure out the history of the place you're in. The kinda narrative you could only really do in a game

 

That's kinda my main issue with narrative technique in video games, lots of the big budget AAA stuff still feels like it's a CG movie interspersed with bits where you play a game and never the twain shall meet. Sorry that I've mentioned this game like 5 times in these hot topic questions, but this is literally the most relevant time to mention it, check out these articles on the original Pathologic. 

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/butchering-pathologic

 

The reason this game and its psuedo-remake-sequel are interesting imo is cause of the near flawless harmony between story and game design. Its quest design uses its survival mechanics to introduce new obstacles for the player and gradually escalate the stakes for the player who is trying to survive while at the same time those stakes are being risen in the story itself (plague spreads, economy collapses, town starts to get 'liquidated', do you have a gun or did you sell that for milk etc). That doesn't even get into how it uses limited perspectives to cause paranoia in the player and get them to role play the character they chose

 

Basically, I just want more of this, this really cool interplay between game mechanics and narrative design. I don't think The last of us does this really, it has cutscenes in between brutal violence and demands that you feel bad about it on some level, but in these games it just happens anyway

 

I also really like Disco Elysium for having the fun idea of taking a substance abusers neuroses and turning them into party members for a battle system that happens in dialogue trees. Such a cool and stylish game that everyone should try, I would recommend that to people over Patho which is interesting in a purely academic sense to this question but ultimately still sort of rubbish as a video game (except for the sequel/remake, which I actually think is great)

[DANGERMAN]

I think there's been a few, enough where it shouldn't really be a notable thing now, but I think the nature of the medium is kind of an issue. Or maybe not the medium itself, just how we're used to it. Take Last of Us 2, it's really fucking long, longer than a film or series. Granted, it's run time is filled with playable sequences, but that it's 40 hours long means you can't really do the beginning, middle and end, that's too much space to fill, so games have more going on in their narratives (the games with narratives), which means they can feel flabbier or schlockier, there's more chances for missteps and mo segments that just dont lead anywhere.

 

Equally though, games have something that other mediums don't, you in control. The start of Last of Us 1, Spec Ops The Line, various JRPGs, you invest a bit more in them, often you've affected the story in some way. It can be a bit cheap sometimes (I really liked Gears 5 but I didn't think its choice landed at all, bigger fans of those games than me might disagree). Take Witcher 3, the actual plot of that is imo less interesting than Witcher 2, but some of the side quests are amazing purely because your actions have consequences

 

In terms of personal standouts, there's some fairly obvious ones I always mention like Dear Esther, Spec Ops, To The Moon, Finding Paradise, and The Cat Lady, but more recently I really liked Journey of the Broken Circle, and Shin Megami Tensei V is turning in to an interesting story (4 was pretty good too). Silent Hill 2 was good, as was Shattered Memories, apparently 4 is decent. 

 

also fwiw, for all the shit it took I really liked The Last of Us 2's story, about the consequences of hate, revenge and whether you can ever get past it. It's something you rarely see games go far enough to cover, they stop at the revenge part, and possibly that violence begets violence. 

[radiofloyd]

In terms of games I’ve played recently, Cyberpunk had a really cool story. One of the cool things in the game is how people around you speak multiple languages, which reminds me of a much older game that also told a brilliant story in a unique way, The Last Express.

 

I don’t think games have ever had a problem telling great stories. I grew up loving the stories in games like Final Fantasy, Broken Sword, GTA.

 

Probably the purest stories are those that are told without words, like Ico. If you take Ico as a whole it had a wonderful story.

 

Outer Wilds told an amazing story too, although the story itself was told via text logs.

[Nag]

47 minutes ago, DANGERMAN said:

(I really liked Gears 5 but I didn't think its choice landed at all, bigger fans of those games than me might disagree).

 

To be fair I'm in complete agreement with you there, they've made a rod for their own back now in terms of story... it'll be interesting how they handle that in Gears 6 either by calling one choice cannon or having both sides of the story covered.

[DANGERMAN]

1 hour ago, Nag said:

 

To be fair I'm in complete agreement with you there, they've made a rod for their own back now in terms of story... it'll be interesting how they handle that in Gears 6 either by calling one choice cannon or having both sides of the story covered.

I also think they went out of their way to make a certain character less likeable, he ended up being a real prick. Which could have been interesting narratively, but they wrote him out for half the game, I think to make Kait the main character without sharing the spotlight, but it's less interesting as a story because of it

[mfnick]

I think games get a bad rap story wise. People -usually gamers - spout bullshit like the worst film or book still have better stories than games. That is just wrong. 
 

However a lot of my favourites are usually down to the storytelling delivery rather than the story itself. Guardians of the Galaxy is a recent example. The main story is pretty basic, but the way it’s delivered raises it to a much higher level. 
 

Mass Effect trilogy. Again, basic story isn’t much but I loved everything about it! All the characters, the lore, all the side stuff. Amazing. 

Uncharted series, just a great Hollywood style blockbuster. Lots of fun.

 

Walking Dead Season 1. Enough has been said about this.

 

Both Last of Us Games.

 

Hell, I love the story behind Kratos. Being tricked to kill his family then being covered in their ashes followed by a big revenge tale. Such a great premise IMO. 
 

Narita Boy. Just loved the weirdness of it. 
 

No More Heroes - another where the actual story is shit, but the character interactions make it so much better I end up loving it. 
 

There’s loads I’ve loved. 

 

[OCH]

4 hours ago, DANGERMAN said:

Silent Hill 2 was good, as was Shattered Memories, apparently 4 is decent. 

That was the problem. 4 was quite an interesting story. The difference between 4 and every other [good] Silent Hill, comes when you find out it has nothing to do with the protagonist, Henry. His only relevance to the story was he happened to live in the flat. That's it. He had no ties to anything within the narrative.

 

Not an issue in most games. But when you think about how the core storyline of Silent Hill works, via James or Heather. It was a weird disconnect. Even Homecoming and Downpour at least had the protagonist mean something to the story.

[Jimboxy]

On 10/04/2022 at 22:02, Nag said:

Dead Island was a great game... Edge completely lost their head up their own arse with that score.

Didn't dead island lose a lot of good will because of the misleading teaser trailer that pitched it as a totally different game?

[Nag]

Pretty certain that wasn't the reason Edge choose though @Jimbo Xiii... they painted it as an unplayable mess.

[Jimboxy]

15 hours ago, Nag said:

Pretty certain that wasn't the reason Edge choose though @Jimbo Xiii... they painted it as an unplayable mess.

Fair enough. Edge gonna edge

[Nag]

 

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Following the success of Sonic 2, readers suggest more video games that should be turned into movies, from Metroid to Metal Gear.

 

The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Snake, who asked what new adaptations you hope and expect to see in the future. Do you have any faith they’ll be better than normal for video game movies and do you have a cast or director in mind?

 

There were plenty of sensible decisions but Horizon Forbidden West was the most common recent title and one that, thanks to Sony, may actually happen.

 

Still waiting on that Gears of War movie thank you please.

[OCH]

Eternal Darkness would be my pick. Not many instances of Cosmic Horror done well on the bigscreen. Plus having a narrative that is fragmented, akin to Memento, could make it even more stylised.

[regemond]

I reckon the Condemned series could work well. F.E.A.R. would be a good, B-Movie kinda laugh, too.

[mfnick]

Forza Horizon.

Load of dude bros talking shit and driving fast cars. Love it. Maybe sprinkle some heist stuff in there to expand it a bit and give it a bit more story. Give it a simple name for none car people, call it Fast & Furious or something. Job done. 
 

Or the Yakuza series. 

[DANGERMAN]

while I've no faith either of them would be good (and the former would miss the point somewhat), I do think the regularly rumoured Bioshock and Shadow of the Colossus films could have potential. Bioshock for the aesthetic, but you couldn't tell that story in a film, fortunately they've shown there's plenty of other things you could do with Rapture.

 

Shadow of the Colossus, if it was me, would be like the game, very quiet, barely any speech, just slow and mournful. It would bomb so, so hard, but it might get a Bafta nom

[Maf]

52 minutes ago, DANGERMAN said:

Shadow of the Colossus, if it was me, would be like the game, very quiet, barely any speech, just slow and mournful. It would bomb so, so hard, but it might get a Bafta nom

SotC is actually a really good pick. I can see the type of film you’re talking about, too. I think that would be great. Running with your idea I think it would work really well as a short film. Like 20 minutes. I don’t think you would need 90+ minutes to get the idea across but a short film version that somehow didn’t cost millions of $ would be great. 
 

By that same token I think Ico would make a good movie, too. 
 

My never-gonna-happen choice would be live action Bayonetta. 1) Because I really love Bayonetta and 2) Because I hate Twitter 

[OCH]

SotC: The Movie could work along the same lines as One Million B.C. A faux-silent movie. You don't need Wander to speak to get the point across. You don't need Dormin to speak a known dialect, at all. A really stylised, arthouse film. Agreed on a shorter run time. The entire 16 Colossi aren't really needed. Just some set piece Colossi. Valus, Dirge, Cenobia, Avion/Phalanx and Malus.