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twesterm on 07 April 2009
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Reasonable said:

 

Dude, you keep showing your own lack of knowledge and your 'games are a young medium' reveals all. No game has come close, period, to the best in literature and film. Give me one game that's the equal of a Kubrick movie or a JG Ballard novel

This goes back to what I said to why does a game have to be as good as the best to be considered good?

There are none. Bioshock is a shallow experience with a basic narrative borrowed from older games which borrowed from SF novels and film structures. It is nothing to hold up. As for characters I call BS. The closest I've felt to videogame characters is probably Ico and Yorda, but that is still nothing to the feelings the best films and books elicit.

how many great movies or books have built off of or even borrowed from other movies are books?  Are those suddenly bad too?

As for talent, as I said there's plenty of great games talent - but you name me creative writing talent on even a par with average films and books?

I'm afraid I'm bad with names and even have trouble remembering the most famous ones (on one particularly slow day I even asked who Miyamoto was >_>), but there is plenty of fantastic writing in games.  Even a thread like this shows you how many great moments and well written games there are and I'm sure if you made a thread titles "what are the best written games" you would come up with a long list of very well written games.

Also, it seems you missed my point about games still being a young media.  Find me a handful of films from the 1920's that matched any of your Kubric films.  Books, movies, and plays have been around *much* longer than games so there is a much wider selection.

As for your actions influencing the story - so far that's no better than the adventure books I sometimes read/played as a kid, where you picked one path and got a bit more story. Games are interactive, but so far this has been used only in the barest bones manner with regard to anything other than basic gameplay.

You know, perhaps if those books were well written they might have actually been good.  That's like calling all horror novels shit because R.L. Stine is a shitty writer.

Again, the best interaction I've seen is Ico, the beat of Yorda's hand as you hold it was a superb little device. But interaction doesn't equal the level of characterisation a film/book can give automatically - again this is where games are terribly immature still. Ico and Yorda work well but are limited. As for games like Bioshock, its a great game, but narratively you are a walking MaGuffin who can't influence squat in the game, it pulls terribly obvious twists and its interaction with characters is limited to a few chats with someone on the other side of a piece of glass. Hell, in many ways you could argue Bioshock is a step back from the interaction of Deus Ex and the superior influence you had on the story there.

Interaction doesn't automatically mean good, but it sure helps.  It helps you become so much more connected to a character in a way a book or movie cannot.

Sorry, but I'm afraid I find your points are the ones that fail. You have given zero feedback on my points to negate them other than losing your cool and repeating yourself louder.

Fine, see above.  And you failed to answer my question-- why can games never be as good as movies?

I guess this is a sore point for you - but if you can't see how far games have to go (if they go in that direction at all) to get near film/literature levels of characterisation and narrative them I'm afraid its you that knows nothing.

Maybe you should read a little more and take in a few more films?

Also, should a mod be 'fuck fuck fucking' away like a child when his points are disputed or, heaven forbid, shot down?

Why the fuck not?

 

Are you kidding me? Or maybe you've been listen to Peter Molyneux going on (incorrectly) about how games are going to surprass films like The Godfather by 2016 and actually believe him. Clue - he's almost certainly wrong. Well, unless we continue to lower standards for literature and art by 2016 anyway.

Again, give me a reason why he's most certainly wrong?  All you given me is games are currently not as good as the best books or films.  Like I said-- no shit Sherlock.  Games are still a young medium and constantly getting better.

Hell, look at something like Doom and Gears of War.  Doom was your typical action game of 1994 and Gears of War was your typical action game of 2006 and look at the leaps and bounds in story telling in a mere 10 years.  Are you telling me in the 10 years following Gears of War that there won't be even more leaps and bounds?

I'm not calling the Gears story brilliant by any means, but you cannot deny that games are getting better and better at everything they do with every year passes.