I guess I am not a typical gamer. (rant about games)

[old account]

Dear friends of the Escapist,

When did graphics and gameplay out-weigh plot? When did pretty explosions surpass intellectual puzzles? When did breasts over-look the characters meaning of the story... (okay, I wont argue with this one)
I'm sorry, but I have woken in a depressing mood because I just realize the stupidity of recent games.
I'm twenty years old, and a frequent gamer, but I prefer actual games. You see, I think games (along with movies and literature) should have a structured plot, a story, and not some bullshit last minute story of an alien war and your mission is to save the world. Lets face it, only in Video Game Land can fanboys obsess over a character called Master Chief (who from what I have played of Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3, has no real backstory) and be the one lone soldier that saves the entire world, and universe. I'm already not a fan of Michael Bay films, I would not like to see games that portray his same ideal.
And that for one pisses me off as well. The one soldier that saves the world. How many times have you died? If you even answered once, congratulations, mission failure. I would like to think that saving the world from an alien invasion would require a team of certified experts that understand and know what they are doing, what they are risking, and what they're saving. But instead we got a masked figured who randomly will fire his gun till is ammo runs out, kill his teammate for his gun, and continue the map with the difficult obstacle of pressing the button.
I guess you guys already know what game I despise the most. Some of you reading this are probably saying "You didn't like the game because it was single player?", no, it's really not the lone soldier thing that got me with Halo. Metal Gear Solid was, and is, one of the greatest series I've ever played because it actually mattered. They was character development, backstory, A PLOT! This was Halo; Oh no, aliens are invading, shoot them. Sorry Bungie fanboys, that didn't reel me in.
But enough harping on poor Bungie, the college boys are actually going to work with real game developers (Activision), so maybe they can finally make 'good' games.
I know people my age shouldn't be complaining about the fast-paced-first-person-action games, but it just seems like every mainstream game takes as little knowledge to play. Well, that sounded wrong. What I meant to say was that I would like more the button mashing my controller and breaking my trigger.
I know this is stupid for me to bring up, but i believe we need games like ones that we had back during the SNES days. I like all games, but I still believe that RPG's hold the greatest potential to tell a story, as they have. My favorite RPG has to be Final Fantasy 6 (and shut up you annoying Yahtzee followers, I have been in love with this game far before I even knew he liked it. Anyway, what was that he said about not liking JRPG, hypocritical prick). Final Fantasy 6 had everything a fantasy setting ever needed, and even more. Action, drama, romance, and done with a very well script, musical composition, and great animation for only being 16bit. Then we got into 3d engineering... Final Fantasy 7. Shut up you Sephiroth fan girls, I'm not glorifying this game for you. All you people who jumped on the bandwagon, and starting writing horrible fanfiction; You made us true Final Fantasy fans hate 7.
This brings me to another point of why I dislike games now. I'll give this as an example; Final Fantasy 7 was such a rip off of every fantasy subplot I can think of, with the addition of the steampunk elements. If anything, SquareSoft (ha, old name) should have just added the damn crystals and call it 'New Re-Hashed Fantasy Role Playing Game'. It was pretty much Final Fantasy 6, except FF7 had horrible character, bad script, and a simple to follow connect the lines plot in which after half way through of playing it you write what you think is going to happen and you would be right. The only thing FF7 had going for it was character development.
Character development is important, but you can't have development if you're character can't talk. The game industry is getting away from this ever since voice acting became the new thing, but didn't that get you upset when everyone else had some witty dialogue and you couldn't even add your two cents? And for any Game Developers who would happen to read this; voice acting isn't always the best thing. Example, Final Fantasy 10 (with the exception of FF9, everything including and after 7 was horrible in my opinion).
And when did less clothing mean more armor? This goes for men too, but especially for women. Don't get me wrong, there are some, beautiful video game women, but some realism would be nice. I don't think that a girl running around in a metal bra and panties would survive in a battle with orcs and goblins; Fantasy setting or not. And why don't heros (better yet, hero units in many RTS games) wear helmets or less armor, when the normal standard units wear full armor including helm and a shield but still die. Flesh is flesh my friends, and blood loss is blood loss. Just because you are a general and have a scar on your face doesn't mean you should 60%-70% more health. (sorry this was just a funny rant input I had to add).
Again, I don't know what to expect in the coming years for the video game industry. I hope many of you would agree with me on this little rant, and maybe if we can join together we can get the games we want, rather then settling for the games that are released. Thanks for reading. I'm sure I could add more, but I'm to hungry to think of anymore arguments.
Take care fellow escapists.

 

[Danny Ocean]

I'd say this is actually a very typical view.

Graphics is now > story. Sadface.
Stories are incredible. Sadface.

I think a lot of people share your opinion.

 

[Kair]

In a text that long, put up a few headlines explaining the core. Then you won't have a rant, but an article.

 

[4484448444844484]

Sounds like someone hasn't played the Half-Life series.

 

[Booze Zombie]

You may want to wait for Deus Ex 3 and Mafia 2, they might just offer what you're looking for.

Games are like any other form of media, lots of stupid stuff is pumped out shameless for the purpose of making money, some are works of art, but not all of them.
No big deal, you just look for what you like.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Oh dear god wall of text...

Brb reading long post...

Okay I don't read FF7 fan fiction... and if it ruins FF7 for you then don't read it.

FF7 had quite good characters IMO and it had a decent script. It was truly great because of all the stuff you could do and how expansive it seemed.

One soldier saving the world is the tried and tested formula. It's the jam that holds the slices of game together and gives them reason to be connected. Don't dwell too much on story.

Less clothes meaning more armours is in the interest of style. Yes it makes no logical sense but these are games they don't have to make sense.

And calling people who like Halo fanboys just means you haven't taken the time to understand why they like it.

The multiplayer was insane, it was well balanced with that perfect random factor in there that made me keep going back to experience more.

As much as I would like to agree and rant on the decline of gaming all day. I don't agree with you because you hold your opinion above others.

You say MGS mattered and had a backstory and plot and everything.

Halo had a backstory and plot and everything, it just didn't dwell heavily on it. They were more about gameplay. If you want backstory, buy the books, watch the anime, read the comics.

If you want to have fun you play the games.

And grapchis > gameplay is an odd argument. Because gameplay is still integral to most games. graphics are getting better and developers like their games to look shiny, but they often don't detriment the gameplay in any way.

Look at Metro 2033, it had brilliant graphics, and it's gameplay was never intended to stand out. It was all about the story. And it was amazing.

 

[The_Graff]

DE3 should help to remove these problems, if you can't wait that long then go on steam and download the original and play through that.

 

[Funkiest Monkey]

I'm just gonna stop you right there, OP. I fucking love Halo. It's a fun thing to play through, with a solid multiplayer experience.

And everyone always complains that Master Chief is just a face (well, helmet) with no characterization... Well, what is Gordon Freeman? He doesn't say a single fucking word. He's just a scientist that gets roped into this thing, he has a suit and a crowbar, and that's it. But it doesn't degrade from the game, since the "character" is just a vessel for the player.

If you paid attention you'd realise there's quite a rich backstory to the Halo universe, but god-damn does it get convoluted, ha ha. However, the upcoming Halo Reach will flesh out the story of the planet Reach (which is probably the most interesting part of the "Haloverse"), and will focus on an elite squad who all have their own personalities (and faces).

But yes, I do understand what you're saying for the most part. But every game is different, and you just described the average FPS/TPS. And the general selling point for FPS/TPS games are high action and solid gunplay. Whereas RPGs tend to focus on the story, and either way works well for both games.

I also share the sentiment on Final Fantasy 6 being one of my favourite games however, and that on Final Fantasy 7 not being very good.

/rant over

PS. Go play Deus Ex and Half-Life 2 to get over your FPS pains.

gameplay > plot > graphics.

PPS. This.

 

[Dexiro]

It's a bit wall-of-text'y but i skimmed through it.

I had a problem with the first sentence, gameplay DOES outweigh plot. You can't tell me games like Mario aren't fun as hell just because the story is about as basic as it gets.
I'd say it goes gameplay > plot > graphics.

You shouldn't get so down about things anyway. Take a step back, you'll see there are tons and tons of great games coming soon. You have to dig through shovelware as always but the gems are just as shiny!

 

[TheLefty]

Sounds like someone hasn't played the Half-Life series.

I feel like Half-Life partially inspired this. He talks about how bland Master Chief is, Gordon is pretty much the same thing. Not speaking, never seen. Sure you can say he's "you" but I talk a lot, Gordon doesn't. (long story short I didn't enjoy Half-Life 2, but never played the first)

On topic, I agree with this guy for the most part. I love a good story, graphics aren't the important, but realism isn't that necessary. I don't mind characters not wearing helms, it makes them more human to me, and I never played any of the Final Fantasies.

 

[Harlemura]

I don't care about a story (to an extent). A story is only properly interesting once.
If a game has good gameplay, it can be interesting for hours upon hours.

If you intend to tell me that the Crash Bandicoot games or online games like Team Fortress are bad because they have no plot, then we have nothing to discuss.

[/probably missing the point of the thread because I only read a few parts because it's written in a solid block]

 

[Baby Tea]

Look: Games, just like movies, are made to entertain. Not everyone always wants moving plot to be entertained everytime. Sometimes I'm playing for only 20 minutes. I don't want to have this heavy, deep story weighed on my in 20 minutes. I just want to play for fun.

Take movies: Some movies I love, but wouldn't watch on a whim. Like Schindler's List.
Amazing movie. Always moves me to tears at the end.

But if I have a lazy Saturday afternoon where I feel like watching a movie, I'm not going to put that in. Why? Because it's really heavy (Is there a problem with the gravity in your time?? - Cookie for reference). I want to watch a movie to kill time, not blubber my way to the end. So what do I put in? Something fun: Kung Pow, Zoolander, Shoot 'em Up, The Transporter. None of those movies are 'good', really. They all have bad acting, terrible, if not cliched stories, and don't really 'advance' film as a medium.

And guess what? That's ok. I just want to kill a few hours.

Games are the same way.
There are absolutely games that push stories and ideas better then others. Red Dead Redemption had an excellent story, Mass Effect's characters are great, Heavy Rain push storytelling in the gaming medium, and, of course, the beloved Half-Life series!

But those games, and the others that I'm sure I missed, don't diminish games like Halo or MW2. I still play and love those games too! Because I don't always want to get into a complicated dialog tree with moving plot devices. Sometimes I just want to have fun. And those games are fun.

And, for the record, there are more then enough 'crappy' games with crappy plots from the SNES era.
That era of gaming was no better then this one is.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Agreed, the spectacle has taken over. Fun is non-existent anymore. A game is fun mostly by accident these days. Realism or over the top action is the focus of most games, but that means that games that go against the curve are quite a lot better by comparison (GTA4 vs Saints Row 2, GTA4 tries to be realistic, and fails at being fun while SR2 is very unrealistic and is very fun).
Also being 20, I grew up with a Genesis. Those games were hard and fun. Golden Axe is one of my favorite beat 'em ups, and to this day I have only managed to beat it 2 times (it is neigh impossible without being extremly cheap and having a 2nd player). Games need to be hard, but not impossible. Ghosts and Goblins for example is way too hard.

 

[Irridium]

Personally, I think if your game's not fun to play, then why should I bother.
You have no idea how hard I had to push myself to even finish Bioshock. Yes the story was good, but the gameplay was so damn boring I found the game actually tired me out.

Since when have a good story or good gameplay become optional?

Why can't we have both? Is that so hard? If its a money issue, just take some money from the "epic graphix" part and use that. Hell I liked last generation's graphics. At least then we didn't have to deal with all the uncanny valley as much.

And I like Halo. I find it fun. If you want to bash a game for its story, bash Modern Warfare 2, or whatever the big "modern war game" is these days. At least Halo tries to have a deep story.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

You might be surprised by how many people come here to write long eulogies to the lost art of stories in games but the fact is that popular games have always been about gameplay and spectacle. That is because they are the things about games that make the most immediate impression on people which just isn't a bad thing by itself.

As for Final Fantasy games taking a wrong turn at FF7 you might be right in a way but the series still has it's fans who like the new style. I don't really care to respond to yet another Halo rant. Just don't play it if the shallowness of the story is so offensive.

As for there not being enough games with puzzles, have you tried Braid and Portal? We are living in a great time for puzzle games.

 

[wolf thing]

i see your point but gameplay is more important, when a game focuses to much on story it become less about the players input and more about watching dull cuteness. this happen in mgs 4 it got to the point when it was Hideo Kojimas game, not my game, it felt as if he did it for him self not me as a player or any other player who want to play the game not watch it. gameplay showed allways come first because it is a game not a book.

off topic i am sick of people bashing halo for its story, it is game game about kill aliens it has never claimed to be a game with a great story.

 

[Locko96]

Honestly, this rant doesn't exactly raise any new questions. It was just old news. You lost most of your credibility to me when you used the term "fanboys", which immediately makes anyone sound like a pompous ass. To lose the last little bits of credibility, you gave your one-sided argument about how MGS4 was "the greatest thing you ever played". Not saying it isn't a fun game by any means, but it relies on a ridiculous plot and lots of explosions. I like the comment about how Bungie's going to make good games now that they're with the apparently wholesome Activision, who I'm sure will have them make story driven games and puzzlers instead of having them pump out 20 first person shooters with good graphics (which is what they're good at).Somewhere in that long mess of an argument, you pointed out some logical fallacies in Halo. Good for you. The rest was just the boring "back in my day" speech about how gaming was better but has now turned sub par thanks to all the new, flashy gizmos and whatever.

 

[old account]

Sounds like someone hasn't played the Half-Life series.

Well, what is Gordon Freeman? He doesn't say a single fucking word. He's just a scientist that gets roped into this thing, he has a suit and a crowbar, and that's it.

I have played Half-Life GIJames, and Funkiest Monkey, I'm sad to say you are right. Gordon Freeman is just a scientist that for some out of dialogue explained reason starts arming himself with automatic weapons and starts going postal in this workplace (do note that his workplace has been invaded by extra dimensional beings).
It really bothers me when I think of that. Why the hell does a scientist start shooting at these monsters rather then... I don't know, escape. But the development there I guess is that he needed to get out alive, and that meant for him to use force (even when the army started to close in on the facility).

seemed.

And calling people who like Halo fanboys just means you haven't taken the time to understand why they like it.

But you see GamesB2 and Funkiest Monkey, I have played Halo/Halo 2/Halo 3, and the only thing that was 'enjoyable' was the multiplayer. And whenever I talk to anyone about how much I dislike, sorry, hate Halo, they say that 'Halo is about the multiplayer'. Well what the hell. When I pick up a game, I would like to have a good experience with a structured story and meaningful characters. I really didn't receive that on single player. Yes multiplayer was amazing, but this post is about a singular experience.

 

[Matt King]

i agree with most of that but you get depressed over video games? thats like getting depressed that snakes and ladders has fewer ladders and more snakes

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

And breathe, OP!

You're proposing that a game needs plot to be great? I'd say that depends. RPGs need plot, they're story driven right from the word go and I'll support you 110% on that score. But FPS games don't need plot - it's nice if they have it, CoD4 proved that - but it's by no means necessary as the original Doom proved - there's hellspawn, keep shooting 'til you die. And as far as driving games go? If I played a driving game that even attempted to have a plot I'd throw it out of the window for it's sheer arrogance - plot has no place in the world of racing (regardless of what Ferrari think).

Just like there should be a balance between graphics and gameplay, so should there be a balance between plot and pace. If the pace of a game is too fast, gamers won't want the constant interruptions of cutscenes slowing their adrenaline buzz. If the game is too slow, it'll need a really robust plot to keep gamers interested.

I agree with you that not enough games focus on storylines these days (or at least believable ones, MW2!), but bear in mind that too much story and not enough game is just as bad, if not worse.