Chris

I totally agree with Jamez and the people featured in the article. The storyline has to be tied into the gameplay. It has to feel as though the gamer has some sort of influence on the world or its surroundings.

But this is also important not just for FPSs, but for games typically thought to have story, even RPGs.

Interesting. I for one don't mind critiquing games that have material worth critiquing, but this is only for video games that were designed with more entertainment value than just the "fun factor". What I mean is that games up until a certain time did not tell stories. They weren't filled with large environments or life-like characters, either. All they had at that time was point and shoot gameplay, and minimal critical analysis could be made on the material.

Games these days have more material to analyze. There is a wider range of possibilities for video game to player interaction, and current material should be analyzed and critiqued so the discipline of game design can evolve.

Man, I'm too tired to write up this stuff. What a drag. But I'll mention something I think might be related: I talked with a friend of mine and he introduced me to his new girlfriend. She asked me what kind of games I was interested in, and I gave out a couple of genres and then she asked what specifically I liked. I said, "Final Fantasy, especially XII." She responded by saying that it was boring and that she didn't even get past the wild Cactuar job. Then she complained that the characters were lame and had no personality to them, and that she wanted a protagonist like Cloud or Squall or a villain like Sephiroth. The plot was boring and going nowhere, the whole world was peaceful, etc.

Either than the fact that she thought she had a fair opinion on the game despite having only played through roughly 2% of it, there's several things she did mention that did strike me. The game's plot is a lot different than previous installments in the series. It seems boring at first but only in comparison to those melodramatic "End of the world" scenarios from the earlier Final Fantasies. And despite how I enjoyed the earlier games, the plot to FFXII was plenty exciting; it just didn't reveal everything from the start (or at the end of the first half of the game). You didn't know who your real enemies were until the final scenes. There was nothing wrong with that.

As for the character development, there was plenty. It was not as obvious to the player, though, as it would be in previous games. The characters in this game developed through interaction with each other, even if they did not have a previous relationship or friendship with others, and that's actually one of the better ways to develop characters' personalities.

Great. Now we're going to see a bunch of Japanese school kids trying to act ghetto in the Akihabara district within 2 weeks. It'll be like Tokyo Breakfast but with bad clothing, too. Wonderful. Splendid.

...wonder if anyone will find Hot Coffee?

I never liked this idea of the friend code, but it gave me vague memories of ICQ, and its ID system wasn't tough to handle at all. If ICQ pulled it off properly, then why can't Nintendo? Perhaps if they used less digits in their freaking thing... and let multiple users access the same Wii, instead of multiple users for EACH GAME! ...

>sigh< this is depressing. Knowing something could've been if it weren't for one simple decision. On the other hand, Nintendo got a lot right with the Wii than made errors. All I can complain about is friend codes, slow shopping, and slow internet access. But that's it. Everything else was awesome! So it's too bad that this had to happen.

Intriguing, but it might just be no more than a coincidence they chose SotC instead of - say - World of Warcraft. Or Everquest. Or Pokemon (Adam Sandler playing Pokemon for escapism, lol)

I made a huge-ass argument in the Bioshock trash talking article about Shadow of the Colossus and don't feel like repeating myself. ;/ Essentially, it's the right path the game industry should move toward. Gameplay with additional meaning.

Kevin D., thanks for the remark about Akira Kurosawa. I was referring to the trilogy as a whole in my post, but I do know that he got the plot from Hidden Fortress. I personally think the similarities ended after returning to Yavin IV from the Death Star. Afterwards you see Luke emerge as the hero by destroying the Death Star, and he starts becoming the hero archetype.

I don't think we're looking at this the right way. Unless an aestheticism of video games is developed: what constitutes a good game, how does it contribute to society, etc.

Shadow of the Colossus, for example, was a different game by many means. If you've played it through to the end you'd agree that - regardless of your opinion of the game as a whole - it had some significance and contributed a lot to video game design. Fighting those Colossus was just a breathtaking experience. You related to the character and bonded with him by embodying him. You were the young man riding that horse, searching through those caves, killing the Colossi. It showed how good level design (Colossus design?), music, and artificial intelligence can convince the player that his/her efforts had meaning or merit. And the amount of accomplishment that came from seeking, fighting, and defeating all these Colossi was empowering! How many games give you that kind of feeling?

And then the game's ending really made you think. All that work accumulates up to that one moment at the end when everything is revealed. And at that revelation at the ending everything you thought about what you've done changes. You look at it differently, in a completely different context.

...and games like Shadow of the Colossus... not the same technical achievements or game design, but just the message it delivers. It would be difficult to express such a thing in a movie or a novel because unless you were the one putting that effort into the Colossi slaying the ending did not have as much impact. And the game's ending made you think hard about your past actions. It was an intense, deep, emotional thing.

Does anyone here who has played the game - if they want to take games seriously - feel as though Shadow of the Colossus had some sort of meaning to you?

And another thing: there aren't a lot of games out there - successful ones, the ones that get played, not the ones that sit on store shelves - that encourage players to be serious and critical about the content. I think there are a few reasons for this:

(1) It doesn't make good business sense. Their games need to sell in order to make a profit so they can make their next project, and they don't want to take any risks when pushing out their software. I wish to God that there was a game developer or publisher out there who cared less about the bottom line and more about the creation. But in a world where it takes more than three people at over $60,000 annual salary each just to create, shade, and animate characters for real-time graphics... game developers can't take any risks because the fallout of a 2-3 year long project that failed... it's just tremendous.

If we wanted to change this situation, we'd have to be able to make games cheaper. THEN we'd be able to take risks on a game or two and provide something unique. If it doesn't work out, that's fine. Just pump out a killer app to gain back your losses and try again.

(2) Who gives a crap? And here it is, going back to the original topic at hand. Sorry, it's been a long post, but this had to be the finishing point instead of the beginning point.

I totally agree with what he's said. Realize, ladies and gentleman, that Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of modern video games, did not know anything about computers or programming when he made Donkey Kong. He drew stuff and they put it onto the screen. Before that point, video games were being made by the computer programmers who lived in their own bubble thinking this was all they needed to make good games: sprites, sounds, and lasers, no stories, no narratives, none of that artsy fartsy stuff. And then Shigeru Miyamoto - who still doesn't know how to program code - comes up with Super Mario Bros. It was great! It was fantastic! It was unbelievable! How did it revolutionize video games?

For starters, Miyamoto-san had ideas. His ideas came from his extracurricular activities like gardening and playing with his dog, or perhaps the exploration he did when he was a kid. The Legend of Zelda was based upon his hiking adventures he did when he was a kid! He walked up a mountain and found a shrine! Watch this video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=996818693476191071&q=shigeru+miyamoto

How many game developers can say they have hobbies outside of video games? Oh wait, that's right!

WILL WRIGHT!

Didn't he talk a lot about researching Anthropology, Sociology, and other sciences to make this game? He got the idea from somewhere, right? Guess where? Outside of video games! All his stuff came from outside video games!

The best movies and novels ALSO require lots of research and other knowledge. A writer doesn't just start typing words without knowing where he's going with them! Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, spent a lot of his time before writing his novel researching vampires, Russian-esque countries, and had been a liaison with Buffalo Bill (if you don't get that, then read the fscking book).

And George Lucas didn't just start writing Star Wars until he did his research, too. Literary research! How many Star Wars fans realize that Luke Skywalker is a modern manifestation of the hero archetype which originated back in the Greek Epics? They all want to tell him how much episodes I and II sucked, and tell him how they should've been done. They don't care about Anakin's tragic arc starting at Episode I, and that it had to be lighthearted to set up the darker tones of Episode III.

Conclusion:

If you want to make good video games, you have to know more than just PROGRAMMING, or how to use Maya and/or Photoshop, and you must know more than how to DRAW! You also need activities that inspire you and things you relish in. ANYTHING provides you a resource or insight into how to make a game. Because without these things, we'd be looking at Madden releases aaallll yeeaaar loooong.

I, for one, am going to be one of the best damn game designers on the planet (no, seriously, I will), and I am graduating from a liberal arts university as well.

Also, want to know what it takes to make video games? visit this website

http://www.sloperama.com/advice/designprep.htm

whether or not you want to make games for a living, at least appreciate what has to go into it.

If there was another clerk that was supposed to work with her that morning, that person just became suspect #1.

I'm really sorry that happened. It's such a shame. But no injuries were mentioned in the article. Lots of us probably think foul play, but what if this was an accident? Either way, I wonder if any of the EBGames' policies will change after this? ...it's still depressing.

Yeah, the guy was a dumbass who didn't understand what really matters in life, but I'm surprised that Tyra doesn't go further into a study on video game addiction, especially MMOs. First it was Evercrack now it's World of Warcrack, and then it'll be another MMORPG. Ultimately what's so inviting is this idea about interacting with real people in an alternate world. That does not sound appealing at first, but...

We all played make believe when we were kids, right? Wanted to explore another world? This is the way to do it. And the genre speaks for itself: it's MASSIVE! It's the closest thing to an alternate reality, something one tries to do in make-believe. It's a little difficult to explain what I mean-

(but perfect for a master's thesis...)

But what I'm saying... is that it's perfectly understandable that a person would want to escape modern society and the responsibilities attatched to it for the camaraderie and excitement of an MMORPG. Granted, even though I acknowledge that life in the real-world stinks, it doesn't mean you can't make it liveable.

And when I saw those two stupid clips, I thought to myself "Nope. You're not doing enough to provide closure for the situation, Ms. Banks." It's as though she's fanning the flames of the next video game witchhunt.

wtf? I'm sorry, but if gamers were given any respect by mainstream culture, video game award shows wouldn't be hosted by well-endowed women telling their audiences how they'll never get "any of that" (see the most recent culprit from SpikeTV), Uwe Boll would be blacklisted from the world film industry and community, and G4 wouldn't suck.

Y'see, once we're seen as an audience by big business, they'll try and market things to us. And then mainstream thinks it's ok to do gaming stuff because the marketeers are making it look good. I'm sorry, but I'm very prejudiced against these kinds of articles or studies or statements. Especially after seeing this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

"Merchants of Cool" is a very intriguing article. It absolutely confirmed a lot of what I thought about pop culture and mainstream media, and then some.