Mazty said:
vlad321 said:
Mazty said:
vlad321 said:
Mazty said:
So let me get this right:
The reason why HL2 is seen as the best FPS ever is because you don't have cutscenes whether pre-rendered or in game? The fact that this mixed with a mute protaginist prevents all character development for the protaginist doesn't matter? Or that it's cleary a thin-veil as you can't actually by yourself in the game, hence the invincible characters etc?
It just seems a waste of time. You may shoot for gordon, look around and walk for him, but ultimatly he makes the big decisions, not you, as you have a completely linear path to go down. Just creates for me a very annoying gaming experience as the game tries as hard to pretend you are in control, when you are anything but in control.
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Yes.
You know, they have this media called movies. There EVERYONE talks and it's basically an endless cutscene. In some movies the characters are so believeable and so amazing that they actually evoke some feeling out of you.
What youa re playing is video games, YOU PLAY, not watching. The reason MGS4 was a bad game was because it wasa 10 hours of a shitty movie and some decent gameplay intermissions.
Half-Life 2 is the way stories SHOULD be told in video games. Go watch the godfather or Indianna Jones for lovable chaaracters in cut-senes.
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So stories in game should be told with absolutly sweet **** all protaginist development?
Games should have all the characters drivel out a monolgue to you like you're the next Jesus, and no matter what you may want to do, you always have to go along with them?
If all games were like that, the gaming industy would have died a long, long time ago. All that idea serves to do is make the player feel schizophrenic - given total freedom in an utterly linear game...
Other games have done the character development better, such as Shadow of the Collosus. You act as if to say cutscenes make a game worse because you are no longer in control. This may be true for some games, but in the ones where the devs actually work on the characters, you end up bonding with a character, which is far better than being a floating gun.
Plus, who on earth is a "loveable" character in the Godfather?
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I'm pretty fond of Michael myself.....
Also yes, video games are an entiely different media than movies. I expect sotry telling to be different. Since you control the caracter from his point of view it should be left to you to expereince the story.
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But in HL2 Gordon's point of view is nothing more than walking and looking. He says nothing etc, so you are nothing more than a mute walking gun. That's pretty poor story telling.
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I don't think you're getting the approach. In Half Life Valve take the approach that story is delivered through what you see, visual clues, etc. plus dialogue, etc. but never halt the game to present this via a cut scence.
So, for example, in Half Life 2 a number of levels visually show you that water levels both of open sea and rivers, etc. are low. This is done via level design and having boats beached, etc. So you learn (if you chose to pick up on the clues) that amongst other things the Combine are affecting water levels. You hear announcements about reproduction being blocked, see abandoned playgrounds and never see a child. You see and hear all you need to to understand a great deal about what's going on. Or, if you want, you can skip it without even having to press a button, simply don't listen to the annoucement, ignore the dialogue and plow through guns blazing. Valve leave the choice up to you.
I'd note that, so far anyway, the games are not designed with Gordon as anything other than an observer/participant - he himself doesn't have a character as such, but Alex does, Dog does, Barney does, etc. HL immerses you in its world better than pretty much any other FPS, but the story is what you see, hear and participate in, nothing about Gorden in the way, say, that Nathan Drake in Uncharted has a clear character.
I'd argue that in HL2 particularly, Valve really used the visual medium of videogames in a mature and intelligent way, and most critics agree hence why the title is so praised for how well it does this.
Of course, you don't have to like this approach - but it's there and its actually pretty elegant next to the average FPS/TPS story which is often told via awkward exposition dumps in cut-scenes rather than in a constant stream as part of gameplay.
