The Big Picture: Off the Charts

[Dastardly]

Off the Charts

It's movie fans versus gaming fans in the battle over the Uncharted movie.

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I think the biggest problem with "game movies" failing to please "game fans" comes down to something that cannot be rationalized in the way that we keep trying. It comes down to emotional involvement in the material.

In a story, we relate emotionally to the characters (ideally). We love them, we hate them, we go back and forth, maybe we feel a little of both. But our emotions are tied to them. This relationship can transfer to film quite easily in the hands of a capable team.

In a game with a good story, half of our emotions are tied up in the characters, but we have another half of ourselves wrapped around the tension-release cycle of the gameplay experience. Yes, part of you cares whether or not Mario rescues the princess, but part of you is also emotionally invested in whether or not you can make that next jump. That dance of frustration and victory leaves an indellible impression on you, emotionally speaking.

A movie removes your control from the experience, making you a spectator. But the title, the characters, they all bring up the expectations you've built surrounding the game. All of them. And the movie is only capable of satisfying half of those expectations. It can't quite deliver the same personal attachment to the success or failure of the character's actions. You aren't the character anymore, and that leaves those emotions unfulfilled. If you're not aware of that, it can make the experience seem hollow, even if it's doing the job quite well.

Now, in the case of something like Doom, there was really no attachment to the character to begin with. So there wasn't anything for the movie to work with, even in the most not-Uwe-Boll hands. It was, for lack of a less punny term, doomed from the start.

Uncharted could work, but only if they can make the Drake character more engaging, as well as the supporting characters. It's a matter of the company realizing their limits, and the audience recognizing their emotional biases.

 

[jonyboy13]

And stop being defensive , the western worlds gaming companies have only recently started telling good stories, (And even then only good by gaming standards). Cut him a little slack, he's a film reviewer he won't have played every game under the sun.

15 years is recently?
It's not even about that. It's the fact that he includes ALL of them without even playing most of the good ones with stories.
Again, it's just for the sake of trolling.

 

[abaeran]

I've played through both games, and they've swiftly become my number one favorites (especially uncharted 2) in terms of sheer entertainment.

Sure, I wouldn't want a movie to be a replay of the game (though, now that I think about it - it would be fantastically awesome, though please not Wahlberg) - since the game plays like a movie, but I certainly want to see the essence of characters preserved.

Plots can be changed, modified, warped - but, please, save some part of Nathan Drake to be just Drake. D:

Here goes my critical hat - eek - I have my doubts that this sense can be perceived... when you haven't /played/ the games. Maybe that just makes you all the more objective about the whole ordeal. But, things still don't seem terribly promising.

 

[malestrithe]

What are we talking about? You cannot sum up Uncharted in a spiffy one liner?

Here are a few I came up with in a few minutes:

Indiana Jones meets the DaVinci Code

It's like National Treasure, but English.

 

[wolf thing]

pretty good video with lots of points but the whole "western games" part was stupid and only showed how out of the loop bob is when it come to games not from japan, as writing and story has been done very well in western games and i have seen more western games with good writting than japans ones.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

At least games are starting to attract bigger directors and actors than previous.

Yes there's no Nathan Fillion, yes Mark Wahlberg was terrible in the Max Payne movie...
Yes I don't understand why Joe Pechie and Robert Di Nero are in the movie to give it a mafia twist...
Yes I know the subject matter is about as close to the game as the Super Mario Movie was...
Yes the movie will be a huge let down to the fans...

The only game based movie I'm worried about is the inevitable soul destroying Bioshock Movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230526/

Then you can be relieved that the Bioshock movie was cancelled a while back.

They couldn't secure an R rating for it, so the director called it quits.

 

[mireko]

its probably based on him having watched them. Now say what you will about huckabees, but both the fighter and three kings are brilliant movies. And huckabees is only ever called bad due to its spaced out subject matter (which i can understand as putting people off).

And stop being defensive , the western worlds gaming companies have only recently started telling good stories, (And even then only good by gaming standards). Cut him a little slack, he's a film reviewer he won't have played every game under the sun.

Two things.

1. Yeah, Three Kings is awesome. More people need to see that film.

2. Origin (RIP), BioWare, Black Isle (now Obsidian.. sort of), Troika (RIP), even Lucas Arts have been telling great stories for a long time in the West. It would be worth cutting him slack if he wasn't completely dismissing them for no clear reason.

Being a game critic without having played any games by any of the companies above would be as weird as being a film critic without ever having seen anything by Coppola or Scorsese.

I'm not saying he has to be a game critic, but he should at least know what he's talking about before making a video about it.

 

[Axelhander]

I'll never understand how Bob can be so insightful and intelligent about some things, and so willfully obtuse about others.

An example of the former: when he said that games are games and films are films, and it's unreasonable to expect one to be the other. Another: when he pointed out why the live action Transformers movies sucked, and that it isn't because the story's different.

An example of the latter: stating Uncharted has a pretty good story for a Western game. I get the guy likes Japanese games more, and as someone whose favorite games tend to be Japanese, I can appreciate that, but to so abrasively write off Western game storylines is to imply a) they're all shallow (which is untrue) and b) most Japanese game storytelling is stellar (which is, at best, laughable).

The REAL conflict between Bob's film reviewer and Bob's game commentator is that, eventually, one or the other is going to win the tug of war over his ability to reason. I really hope it's FilmBob, because there are huge problems with Japanese game design and storytelling that GameBob will never acknowledge.

 

[samus17]

Moviebob, are you really downing a game's story you haven't even played? You're saying it comes off as a second rate national treasure and whatnot, but you haven't even played either all the way to completion? You don't own a ps3? You just (implying here) youtube'd the cutscenes? Yet you know enough to put down the story in your video? I'm not saying it is or is not worth downing, all I'm pointing out is that you're REALLY not giving yourself any credibility here. Not very professional there Moviebob...

 

[Dana22]

But Metal Gear's basically a movie already.

It is, I watched the whole thing on YT.

 

[Genixma]

For Legend of Zelda for some reason I see Peter Jackson filming it. Because it seems Peter Jackson is the only person who gets medieval era based films or "Fantasy" films not in general just the medieval aspect. Lord of the Rings was well done the extended is even better because he pulls Alfred Hitchcock which is kinda fun watching the movie because you can have fun looking for him in all three without really missing anything in the movie.

Now I know his King Kong wasn't all that amazing I mean Jack Black as the kinda Antagonist did seem kinda strange and all. But that was King Kong...CG Giant Ape and Dinosaurs. Jackson seems to get Swords, Shields, Bows, Arrows, Wizards, Elves, and Dark Creatures of the Abyss. Now all Jackson needs to find is the right cast. And he himself can be in it as a cameo of the guy in Orcarina of Time who sells stuff at the Bizarre. Totally imo I'm sure many disagree with me upon reading this but...just throwing my 2 cents out there.

OT: It's Hollyweird. And every week you have MOVIES ARE WEIRD! section on Fridays.

 

[googleback]

I couldn't agree more. the fact that they wanted Nathan Fillion in the role made me lose all faith in the nerds trying to bash this out of existence. shut up.

 

[googleback]

Whoo boy.

You just had to throw in that "for a western developed video game" line didn't you?

I'm not even gonna touch that. Because if I did it would just consist of me yelling, "Bioshock!" over and over.

And now I've started touching that.

...

I'm outa here.

I was going to yell that too. Then I thought about it a bit. The average western video game story isn't that great.

Bioshock is just one tremendous exception.

It was written by a Hollywood writer though, that's something to keep in mind I think.

 

[hem dazon 90]

For a western developed game

Because emo longhairs easily trounce Niko Bellic in terms of complexity!

 

[Marik Bentusi]

The more I watch Bob the more I realize he probably just doesn't know much about gaming and should stick to the movies. Like another certain movie critic that doesn't know jack about games which stirred a lot of controversy...
Anyway, I agree with Twilight_guy and I've always thought we had this mutual understanding that films and games are too different/the directors of each medium have methods too differently.

Games based on movies suck and movies based on games suck.

Even for an adaptation that almost always loses something of the original without creating something new and intriguing. In the majority of cases. In my opinion. *Puts on silly hat*
I also agree the bit about "Western developers" was completely stupid for reasons already stated.

 

[Shjade]

Funny thing is, Bioshock and Mass Effect are both games he's praised in the past.

He's said they should make a Mass Effect movie. And if memory serves he once declared, quote, "...and I fucking loved Bioshock!"

So yeah. I dunno. Maybe he's just trolling for traffic. Given the previous topic, that wouldn't surprise me.

It's not trolling to point out that western-developed games, on the whole, have incredibly simplistic and generally shallow stories.

Bioshock has an interesting story, mainly laudable for the vast space it puts out there for the player to actually think about the story and the circumstances beyond the action taking place right in front of your face. I remember long after I'd finished the game having a discussion with someone about the existence on the Little Sisters and various details around them (why they decided to go with all girls instead of boys or a mix, why they all looked the same, where were the rest of their families, etc. - all unnecessary to gameplay but fascinating for story details). The existence of Bioshock does not make all the very-not-Bioshock games suddenly have improved stories. It, like Uncharted (presumably, given I haven't played Uncharted), is better than the majority.

Mass Effect - much more simplistic story than the above, but with more player interaction options than Bioshock's (not that this necessarily adds depth, only options, and those options are limited to "be a good guy," "be a dick," and "let me get back to shooting things"). Again, an example of a game above the average in terms of story, though in this case it's not exactly a remarkable story. It's good by comparison to most games, not so much on its own merits.

Red Dead Redemption - no idea, haven't played it. Same for Dragon Age.

Halo...wait, what? Who suggested Halo for an example of great storytelling in games and what was he smoking at the time? Halo's story was Marathon-light, at best, with self-satirizing lampoon moments thrown in pointing out how one-note and predictable it was. It's fun, but the story's fairly token.

Half-life is carried by its characters, which is okay since they're pretty nicely developed, especially by game standards, and the atmosphere throughout is right on key to keep things tight and rolling. The story is largely gameplay, which is how story works best in a game. This one I'd put up close to Bioshock.

I could go on, but it'd get even spammier. Point being, the games we remember for having better-than-expected stories? That's why we remember them: they're better than expected. The fact that we can cherry-pick a list like this is basically the point of the statement that's got everyone so up in arms.

I'm not going to try arguing non-Western games have better stories on average because, who'd have guessed it, I live out west. I'm not intimately familiar with the alternatives. That said, I do know there's a whole genre with the word "novel" in it that probably relies pretty heavily on story...

tl;dr - Most games have a pretty weak story. Western games in particular often focus on action over any story at all.


Edit: not that it matters, but given my position I'm sure someone's going to point it out/ask about it/whatever. The avatar is someone's fanart of Yoruichi; I use it because I like the picture, not because I think Bleach is an example of a great story (lololswords).