A guided tour of Bulletstorm's Gamescom demo

@Grey

TOENAIL CHEESE.

Top that, dood.

@Grey
Agreed! I prefer a game with a story, hopefully this game has one...

What's with the ability to freeze every enemy mid-air? That better be very temporary, otherwise there would be no challenge whatsoever.

I've never played a game with what I would consider a "Strong Narrative". Because of that, I've officially separated games from good stories. Once you read a few good books you start to realize how bad some stories can be. That said, Bulletstorm looks very awesome. Story is intrusive to gameplay ninety-nine percent of the time. This is why RPG's often have bland gameplay. I'd rather game developers focus on making a game fun to play. If I want a good narrative I'll read a book, which I often do.

@Deschain

I haven't read a single book that moved me like Braid, a single book that creeped the sh*t out of me like Silent Hill 2 nor a single book that was as imaginative and tantalizing as Planescape Torment. I haven't read a book that made me as claustrophobic as System Shock 2 or agoraphobic and alone as Riven. I haven't read a single book that really made me sense the end of an era, yet how nothing about the human race ever changes, as Red Dead Redemption, nor have I cried for a book character like I had for Aeris. A book cannot convey the bleak misery of Limbo, nor can it convey the sheer visceral anger of God of War, and not even Tolkien could convey the sense of epic journey and purpose that is conveyed in the Baldur's Gate series. The sheer helplessness of the hotel level in Call of Cthulhu is still revered by me as one of gaming's greatest chases, though it hasn't aged quite as gracefully as most true classics do.

A book cannot do these things because of two distinct reasons:
1) In Principles of Philosophy Descartes discusses classical monsters - monsters that are composed of a combination of known creatures. Anything from huge insects to two headed lions with eagle wings and a scorpion's tail. Since the dawn of time people in general have not been able to imagine anything "new" - only a scary and weird combination of things we do know and understand. This still applies to almost any imaginary dream-scape you'll ever see in a movie or game. It is even more limiting in written form however. Books do not contain imagery, and therefore cannot contain visual information your mind doesn't already know and understand. Books can only go so far to allegorically make you imagine something that is bits and pieces of things you understand. Visual mediums are independent of this, and can take you through minds of people with a greater imagination that yours. If Dali had made video-game art, if Dante Algheiri was a level designer, if Homerus wrote the script - what could've been achieved is eons beyond what could've been written as experience.
2) Immersion. A book can never achieve the sense of actually being there, as actually being there does. What a book can achieve in making you empathetic is just as strong as what a game can achieve by enlisting you as the protagonist.

I'm not dissing books. Books are open for interpretation on a million distinct levels, and in a sense are only ever as titillating as the imagination of the person reading them will allows, just as games are as immersive and emotion as the person playing them allows them to be. But games, despite still being a prepubescent medium, can still achieve amazing feats of narrative and story-telling if developers know how to think with their hearts, how to pilot an experience into something truly breathtaking.

@SpiderKnives ugh, sorry for the wall of text.

Also, books aren't that great in handling explosions and tits, so...

@Deschain
Yes, "strong narrative," taken to mean the writing quality of a game, is rare in games. However, what creates the story is the accompanying graphics. Oftentimes we see that the true meat of a story is depicted in the environments that we explore. Noticing a broken down subway makes people think about the backstory of said subway. "Were there people on it? If so, did they die? What happened to it?" are all questions that may arise in our minds. A good game narrative will anticipate these questions and answer them within the context of the game and not necessarily with text.

@SpiderKnives

You clearly don't like books. It's as simple as that. I could dissect your post and explain how your thinking is completely backwards, but it's no use since your opinion is so extremely bias and pretentious. Just know that you should read more than what your high school teachers or college professors prescribe to you if you want to find something you actually like.

@s1l3n70n3

The "meat" of a story is hardly ever in the environments. Description or in the case of video games, Graphics, are used primary to paint a picture that sets a mood. More so in books than games though. The "meat" of a story almost always about the characters and how they handle the situations thrown at them.

One more thing. I'm not saying games can't have good stories. I'm saying rare to have good gameplay AND and a good story. This is why I would prefer game that developers to focus on gameplay. Any non-bias opinion (with Joystiq being a game blog there are bound to be many of the bias variety) will tell you that books simply are better in regards to telling a story. I mean, did you not realize that most of what you felt in the games came from the gameplay? It hardly has anything to do with the story. It's all about gameplay and atmosphere.

@Deschain Games like BioShock, Mass Effect and Alan Wake immersed me in their stories, and their gameplay was plenty of fun too. Every time I pick up a new Halo game, or any other game, I immediately run through the story before anything; because the story interests me just as much as the gameplay. I find these stories to be pretty deep

@Awesomaniac

Despite the irony of Alan Wake being about a writer I can agree with that one. Bioshock was also decent but it had a bland theme (morals) and did not really have any characters to care about. As for Mass Effect let me first say that I loved it. However, in regards to story, it is extremely cliché. From Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 there was nearly no character development, and what little there was felt out of place. It's impressive how much story there is in the game, but it should be quality not quantity. Mass Effect 2 not only continued the pattern of cliché writing, but managed to make the entire story go sideways. Halo actually has a pretty good plot, but like most stories with good plots - regardless of medium - the characters suffer. There was not a single character I cared about in Halo, especially the chief. I don't know if you read or not, but the comparison of video games verses books in regards to pure story is not even close. Video games can and often do immerse you more than books simply because they are interactive. Games CAN have good stories, and I was wrong when I said I've never played a game with a good story. I just think that gameplay is more important since most writing in video games is on par with B movies.

@SpiderKnives

Wow, great reply SpiderKnives. I agree with you 100%. If Deschain has never experienced a "strong narrative" then he clearly hasn't played Half Life 2, Bioshock, Mass Effect, KOTOR, GTA 4 or Red Dead Redemption. Either that or he just doesn't like games as much as us. And Deschain, your view of games is just as biased as his view of books.

@FreakinPuertoRican

Read my other posts. I admitted that I was wrong in regards to that statement . I have played every single one of those games, so I don't need you to tell me what I have and have not played (great examples to further prove that statement wrong btw :P). I've played way more games than I've read books, and I've probably forgotten about more games than many people have played. My opinion is not bias at all. It's a simple near-fact that anyone who enjoys both will say. I don't mean that in a snobbish way. I'm just trying to clarify what I really mean. That books in general have better narratives. That is not to say that all books are better though.

@SpiderKnives i beg to differ on your second point. =)

@SpiderKnives

Wow. It's a sad day for society when we're weighing the legitimacy of the written fictional word against that of video games. Yikes. No matter how you justify it, it just sounds patently ridiculous.

@Indefinite Implosion

Joystiq should just remove the age restriction on all videos henceforth.

@Prinnywithascarf

Or better yet ... allow you to set your age in your Joystiq profile so you don't have to select your age for every video...

@Alikar
I for one would hate to see a post-apocolyptic world of pastels, unicorns and sunshine.

The blooming would be intolerable.

@eilegz Pretty sure there is.

@eilegz No, I'm wrong. There isn't. I could've swore there was before.

@theownerz

Tanya*

@KinseySS bingo!

@KinseySS
Reminds me more of Unreal Tournament and Project Gotham Racing's Kudos scoring system.

@liquidsoap89
Totally agree! The gameplay looks SO f*cking boring.. I`m dissappointed.

@chargen
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