"The great thing about a single-player game is that an entire virtual world can be made to revolve around you, the player. In a single-player game you can become the king or the galactic emperor or the metropolis's undisputed gang leader or whatever other supreme figure suits the setting because there are no other players for the designer to balance the game for."
I didn't like Bioshock. Why? Because it wasn't fun. And I was so disappointed because it has a 96% Metacritic score (lesson: don't trust Metacritic scores). Only two of my favorite critics (Yatzhee and Edge magazine) didn't like Bioshock. Eurogamer.net gave it a 10/10! I was so disappointed that I sold it to gamestop after beating it.
Someone at Irrational Games/2K Boston decided that making great gameplay wasn't important. Once I was acclimated to the underwater, dystopian, anti-objectivism, Unreal Engine 3, horror-house, "game" space, I found the story boring, the main characters uninteresting, the gameplay insipid (made worse by your XBOX 360 inability to die, making developing your skill unimportant), and the game suck. From this I remember a gamer's fear, when the "game" part of computer "games" is trumped by the other arts.
I saw this gameplay problem in GTA IV, too, but unfortunately for Bioshock, I liked GTA IV. I liked it because the radio and the city were awesome, especially the radio; even when GTA IV's NY City gets boring to future humans, the radio will still be awesome. Of the billion missions in GTA IV, I liked....lemme think....five missions (It takes a lot to get me to like an entertainment thingy; some of that $100,000,000 budget wasn't wasted).
So I am somewhat afraid. This summer, I'm going to play Fallout; so many are giving it Game of the Year. Perhaps my fear is misplaced because Fallout 3 is an RPG, and the most important gameplay of a stereotype RPG comes from we gamers trying to understand and use the RPG elements (knowledge, knowledge, using knowledge); this may be why many RPG purists hate Diablo-style RPGs. But I'm still afraid because the harshest reviews against the game came, once again, from Yatzhee (who sort of liked it) and Edge-online (who didn't). I'm afraid because I think, for many, the fantasy is what is making many people love Fallout 3. Please me be wrong!
I want this blog post to make this question: How important is a game's gameplay for the purpose of maximizing fun? As much as I want to say IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN GAMES, I can't (minus the part where I did). Gamespot's Kevin VanOrd, in explaining why MGS 4: Of Patriots The Guns garners Gamespot's Game of the Year award, posits the counter argument. He says MGS4 is one "seamless entity" of two kinds of entertainment, computer games and cinema, done "absolutely incredible" and "fantastic," "to the point where you're not even sure what kind of entertainment you're participating in." I'm not sure I will agree with his adjectives or his assumption of our schizophrenia, but his good entertainment = good entertainment is good.
Maybe this is why Eurogamer.net gave Bioshock a 10. How many games do you see have an underwater, dystopian, anti-objectivism, Unreal Engine 3, horror house?
And did the references to Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged tickle? For me, no. Having interest in something and having fun are different. And OH SHIT (I mean YAY), now we can argue about what "fun" is. (I say, "fun" puts a sincere smile on your face, unlike "interesting," which makes you constipated).
This all is a call for games journalists to take time to watch the best of cinema and read the best of literature (the best, because we don't have much spare time; I recommend game journalists do the movie part with friends.). Since games are a transmedia art, we should be able to judge the other arts well, so when we tell gamers whether or not the non-game art in a computer game is making the game more or less fun, we can use fancy words like "romanticism" or "cubism" or "anti-establishmentenvironmentalorganicfoodism."
And that's the meat of the post.
(On a related note: I just played part of Metal Gear Solid; I died in the torture scene. I was amazed by how much I liked the terrible writing. Kojima's pertinacious iterating of the shittiness of war and the preclusions of healthy, sexual relations is entertaining, and the characters are interesting in a childish way I can't help but love. The scenarios offering varying kinds of challenging gameplay are fun.)
(On a random note: I'm planning to curse myself by getting the XBOX 360 version of Left 4 Dead, spring quarter. Ah Hell, Horror, Fuck.)
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6 comments:
It seems to me like there are three elements to be balanced in games-- gameplay, story, spectacle-- and that different players enjoy these elements to different degrees (thus making a single numerical score for any given game practically useless). Metal Gear Solid 4 was such a successful game not because it excelled but because it *innovated* in all three fields. It wasn't just "interesting" when you (the hypothetical player, not you specifically) suddenly found yourself in control of a Metal Gear, it was exciting. The storyline continued to blow your mind, twisting around itself so quickly that you didn't have time to realize that it was almost nonsensical. And you never once thought "these graphics are an intriguing new approach" you thought "wow, I can tell what emotions these characters are feeling just by looking at their faces."
I did notice in Metal Gear Solid a few billion plot twists that made the redundant writing awesome. Of course, that won't save gamers who hate plot twists or can't stand assaults on good literature (assaulting Jane Austin is fun), making MGS story-telling an acquired taste.
If it's garbage, I like eating garbage.
Not garbage. Melodrama, perhaps.
I feel sorry for you. Left 4 Dead is much better on the PC. The 360 version doesn't let you constantly voice spam 'PILLZ HERE!'
But really, I recommend you get the PC version, mostly for the future updates. Look at the differences between the tf2 updates on the pc vs 360, the 360 updates are often delayed, and you have to pay for the 360 updates too! (MS makes Valve do this, Valve would release the updates for free if they could). Also, the size of updates on the 360 are limited, so don't expect many new maps if you get the 360 version. And the player base is much larger on the PC than the 360, so expect it to be harder to find a game and good servers to play them on if you go with the 360.
Once again, the PC is superior! (Still waiting for Colin to post his rebuttal to my previous post)
I found your blog! Google is awesome.
MGS4 is definitely an acquired flavor of game play, mostly due to its origin in Japan. I think the general American audience prefers first person, whereas most the Japanese prefer third person. I feel that the Kojima team did an excellent job in integrating both styles of game play. It felt like a good mix of Call of Duty 4’s game play but still retaining the MGS roots. I remember Kojima saying the game controls were optimized for Japanese and American audiences, so this was clearly a sign of difficulty in making a game that appealed to a broader audience.
The story is a mess. I know that Kojima wanted to close all the holes and finally end Snake’s story, which is why the “too much story and not enough game play” became widely said. Once again, it is due to gearing the game towards the Japanese audience, since they love stories.
L4D PC RULES!
I am sorry my dear friends and me. I will sell my soul to the devil through purchasing Left 4 Dead, XBOX 360 version.
But don't worry. I'm doing it for my roommates; I want them to see and play it on my 24-inch 1080p screen, something my PC isn't currently up to task for. I also shouldn't be playing any one game too long. Being a game journalist wannabe, I should be finishing games and moving on to the next for time management's sake.
Thanks for feeling my pain.
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