Ragsnstitches said:
Frostbite3789 said:
IamSofaKingRaw said:
kman123 said:
Sure it wasn't scripted.
Doesn't stop it from being incredibly linear though.
You say that like every game isn't linear. How many games are open world RPGS like Fallout and Skyrim? Bioshock, MGS4, Halo, Gears etc.. are all linear yet heralded as some of the best of this gen.
Didn't you know? They recently changed the definition of 'linear' to evil and awful.
Yeah, when did that happen?... I didn't get the memo.
I think it's hilarious that people are bashing it because "Scripting!", considering that if they were to mention their favorite moment in gaming history, it would likely have been a scripted event.
A tightly made, hand crafted event will always trump a randomly generated event, hands down. I love me a sandbox, but they are rarely memorable beyond very rare instances. Scripting enables a more focused scenario...
SoTC, Bastion, Bioshock, System Shock, Half Life, Halo etc... All linear games, all regarded as the best of the best. What's more, they are all heavily scripted.
...what on earth are you talking about?
Part of the reason why shooter funs love Half-Life and Halo as much as they do is because they are the two shooters that exemplify non-scripted, emergent gameplay. Both those games gave you a set of tools, put you in a world, then allowed you to create your own setpieces and action sequences, rather than having to sit through what the developers explicitly designed. There's never been a scripted set-piece in Halo akin to what we see in the likes of Call Of Duty or The Last Of Us. The original Halo was renowned for its wide open levels that allowed you to tackle battles however you wanted to.
And there's a difference between a game being 'linear' and a game being rail-roaded and scripted to high hell. Back in the day, games were still linear, but they allowed the player to decide how to approach enemies, which weapons to use, etc. The player would decide on a course, and the game would respond appropriately with enemy AI, physics, etc.
What we're seeing now is different. Nowadays, players are presented with a single option of what to do. You can't hang back and pick off enemies however you want, now you
must pick them off with
this specific weapon. And once you've done that, you
have to allow this scripted set-piece to occur, and for these characters to do their scripted behaviour.
Perhaps it makes for a thrilling first play-through. But it also makes for dull, boring, predictable repeated playthroughs. Playing through the likes of Halo or Half-Life, or hell even Bioshock, the player is given enough choice to make each playthrough feel like a new challenge. Whereas the Naughty Dog philosophy of scripting everything as much as possible turns games from being interactive media into films that you occasionally press buttons to continue, and that is a huge dis-service to the medium.