(Side note: this is my inaugural thread here at the Escapist, please be gentle and constructive if there are any formatting errors or anything I should know about. Other than that, I welcome discussion and thanks for having me!)
I was just watching through ZP and came upon Yahtzee's top 5 (and bottom 5) games of 2013. He listed Beyond: Two Souls as the #2 worst, because it is kind of weird (I agree with this) and that it forgets the "interactive" part of the interactive gameplay.
Something has always bugged me about that argument, basically the same one people make with QTEs. If interactivity is taken away, then what you're left with is a movie. If it's a button press during a movie, somehow that's annoying. I wasn't sure what my problem with that was until I saw the video and something just clicked in my head. I played through Beyond right at launch, and I really enjoyed it. A lot of hate gets thrown at the game, and while I can understand why people don't like it, I'd like to take issue specifically with the "interactivity" argument.
What exactly is it about these games that's dramatically different from literally any other game? For example, tell me which game I'm talking about: go into a room, push some buttons on a controller, complete a task, then move on to the next room and repeat. That could be Heavy Rain, GTAV, Papers Please, I mean, you get the point. It could be literally anything. ALL games consist of inputting commands to advance somehow, when you get down to their essence.
To use an example that'd be more familiar than most of David Cage's stuff to people, take the Telltale Walking Dead series. This game is not, by the standards people seem to use to hate on David Cage's games, "interactive." Yet instead of pushing you down a single corridor, making you memorize button presses (I'm looking at you, Mario and Call of Duty), these games allow the characters in the game to have different interactions with you each time you play. Imagine watching a movie where the characters turn to you and ask you what you think they should do next. I just watched Alien again last night, and there are a number of sequences in it that reminded me of a first-person shooter. That's actually partially what makes it so horrifying: you get the sense that you're there on the ship with them.
But you can't interact with them. No matter how many times you put the disc in, you're still watching the same story over and over again. Once you know that Ash is an android working for a nefarious bigger purpose, it takes the surprise out of the film. I tried to watch Alien as if I hadn't seen it before, but I just couldn't. I appreciate it, yes, but it doesn't hit me like it used to. It's more of a nostalgia trip at this point.
Watching Alien distinctly reminded me of playing The Walking Dead as well. It's been just long enough since I've seen the movie that I remember the big plot points but forgot the details, so I kind of found myself wondering what I would do in those situations. Trusting Ash only to have him throw me around the room. Going down to grab the cat and having it hiss at something behind me. The Walking Dead works because it takes this feeling ("what the hell would I do?") and forces you to choose. You pause; you think about your actions and their consequences more than you do in most real life situations. Realistic characters help a lot in both instances; in one of Yahtzee's other videos, he points out that the viewer needs to see characters smile before you can feel anything for them when they get hurt. For proof, the first hour or so of Alien is solely focused on the crew and establishing the world, and the Alien doesn't show up for an hour and a half. In the Walking Dead, zombie encounters are usually not so much what stuck in my mind as things like having to choose 3 out of 10 people to give food to. Even if it doesn't have much of an effect on the end result, it's still a rough decision.
So what Yahtzee and a lot of other people are saying about David Cage isn't necessarily that what he makes and games like them aren't games per se, but just that they want more stimulation (and, kind of hard not to mention this, better writing- I definitely agree there). The games ARE interactive, just not enough or not in the right ways to tickle people's fancy. But really, what they actually accomplish while you experience them is no different from being put in a CoD corridor roller-coaster or a "sandbox" in which you can only go in maybe 50 buildings total. I just saw in a mag somewhere that the new next-gen Assassin's Creed game will let you in 1 in 4 buildings. JUST LIKE REAL LIFE!
Cage and Telltale offer more than movies. You can't just sit there and let the game play itself. You still have to engage with it. Your actions have effects, they just may not be as immediate because these games are imitating life more than being escapist games (ha!). And yes, Beyond's gameplay and writing were a bit clunky, but I appreciated the effort of trying something new. Not hitting right on the mark every time was not that big of a deal to me. But in terms of actually being "interactive" "games," I think the QTE-style thingamabobs earn both of those descriptors. I'm not about to disparage the fact that CoD multiplayer is essentially, to me, Space Invaders with other players as the aliens. Let people enjoy what they want. But people act like single player-focused, not-interactive-ALL-the-time games aren't "true games" or something because they don't require button presses every half a second. That's simply not true. Criticize the writing all you want, because that's what those games stand on. But just because modern games have trained you to twitch uncontrollably and declare you're bored if you're not stimulated all the time doesn't mean games like that can't be fun, as Walking Dead showed, or that they're not games. All games force you down a corridor of sorts, but what interests me about them now is the different ways you can get there. All the QTE-style games do is accomplish in a different way, and I'm standing up and saying "They are games! And also interactive!"
Bold, I know.
What say you, forums?
I was just watching through ZP and came upon Yahtzee's top 5 (and bottom 5) games of 2013. He listed Beyond: Two Souls as the #2 worst, because it is kind of weird (I agree with this) and that it forgets the "interactive" part of the interactive gameplay.
Something has always bugged me about that argument, basically the same one people make with QTEs. If interactivity is taken away, then what you're left with is a movie. If it's a button press during a movie, somehow that's annoying. I wasn't sure what my problem with that was until I saw the video and something just clicked in my head. I played through Beyond right at launch, and I really enjoyed it. A lot of hate gets thrown at the game, and while I can understand why people don't like it, I'd like to take issue specifically with the "interactivity" argument.
What exactly is it about these games that's dramatically different from literally any other game? For example, tell me which game I'm talking about: go into a room, push some buttons on a controller, complete a task, then move on to the next room and repeat. That could be Heavy Rain, GTAV, Papers Please, I mean, you get the point. It could be literally anything. ALL games consist of inputting commands to advance somehow, when you get down to their essence.
To use an example that'd be more familiar than most of David Cage's stuff to people, take the Telltale Walking Dead series. This game is not, by the standards people seem to use to hate on David Cage's games, "interactive." Yet instead of pushing you down a single corridor, making you memorize button presses (I'm looking at you, Mario and Call of Duty), these games allow the characters in the game to have different interactions with you each time you play. Imagine watching a movie where the characters turn to you and ask you what you think they should do next. I just watched Alien again last night, and there are a number of sequences in it that reminded me of a first-person shooter. That's actually partially what makes it so horrifying: you get the sense that you're there on the ship with them.
But you can't interact with them. No matter how many times you put the disc in, you're still watching the same story over and over again. Once you know that Ash is an android working for a nefarious bigger purpose, it takes the surprise out of the film. I tried to watch Alien as if I hadn't seen it before, but I just couldn't. I appreciate it, yes, but it doesn't hit me like it used to. It's more of a nostalgia trip at this point.
Watching Alien distinctly reminded me of playing The Walking Dead as well. It's been just long enough since I've seen the movie that I remember the big plot points but forgot the details, so I kind of found myself wondering what I would do in those situations. Trusting Ash only to have him throw me around the room. Going down to grab the cat and having it hiss at something behind me. The Walking Dead works because it takes this feeling ("what the hell would I do?") and forces you to choose. You pause; you think about your actions and their consequences more than you do in most real life situations. Realistic characters help a lot in both instances; in one of Yahtzee's other videos, he points out that the viewer needs to see characters smile before you can feel anything for them when they get hurt. For proof, the first hour or so of Alien is solely focused on the crew and establishing the world, and the Alien doesn't show up for an hour and a half. In the Walking Dead, zombie encounters are usually not so much what stuck in my mind as things like having to choose 3 out of 10 people to give food to. Even if it doesn't have much of an effect on the end result, it's still a rough decision.
So what Yahtzee and a lot of other people are saying about David Cage isn't necessarily that what he makes and games like them aren't games per se, but just that they want more stimulation (and, kind of hard not to mention this, better writing- I definitely agree there). The games ARE interactive, just not enough or not in the right ways to tickle people's fancy. But really, what they actually accomplish while you experience them is no different from being put in a CoD corridor roller-coaster or a "sandbox" in which you can only go in maybe 50 buildings total. I just saw in a mag somewhere that the new next-gen Assassin's Creed game will let you in 1 in 4 buildings. JUST LIKE REAL LIFE!
Cage and Telltale offer more than movies. You can't just sit there and let the game play itself. You still have to engage with it. Your actions have effects, they just may not be as immediate because these games are imitating life more than being escapist games (ha!). And yes, Beyond's gameplay and writing were a bit clunky, but I appreciated the effort of trying something new. Not hitting right on the mark every time was not that big of a deal to me. But in terms of actually being "interactive" "games," I think the QTE-style thingamabobs earn both of those descriptors. I'm not about to disparage the fact that CoD multiplayer is essentially, to me, Space Invaders with other players as the aliens. Let people enjoy what they want. But people act like single player-focused, not-interactive-ALL-the-time games aren't "true games" or something because they don't require button presses every half a second. That's simply not true. Criticize the writing all you want, because that's what those games stand on. But just because modern games have trained you to twitch uncontrollably and declare you're bored if you're not stimulated all the time doesn't mean games like that can't be fun, as Walking Dead showed, or that they're not games. All games force you down a corridor of sorts, but what interests me about them now is the different ways you can get there. All the QTE-style games do is accomplish in a different way, and I'm standing up and saying "They are games! And also interactive!"
Bold, I know.
What say you, forums?
