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Forums - Gaming Discussion - David Cage: “I don’t like game mechanics” and “you don’t need a gun to be successful”

Kasz216 on 12 March 2012
happydolphin said:
Kasz216 said:
happydolphin said:
Kasz216 said:
Khuutra said:
Ajescent said:
I agree, too many games rely on muscle bound soldier types armed to the teeth with misogyny and machoism, once in a while I like my games to be weapons free.


That isn't what he's saying, he says game mechanics in general get in the way of storytelling, he's just using shooter gameplay as an example.


Which is essentially saying that a game is getting in the way of making his game an animated movie.

That's not at all what he was intending to say. If you read his interview too literally, you will read that he does not like game mechanics, but if you read between the lines, you'll see that he's actually trying to say that he doesn't like traditional game mechanics, in that it's a set action scheme from the get-go. He'd like to see more variety, more context-driven actions (maybe like Conker for instance?)

Conker?  Not sure what you mean.

Though I know what he means.  He wants games to be Visual novels.

Visual novels aren't really games.  They're interactive movies... because they hold far more in common with movies then games.

Also, there are a decent number of them.  They're just mostly PC only and never leave Japan.

No, that's not it! Think of it more, broaden your spectrum. He's thinking of using your environment much more to perform actions, use the surrounding objects to your purposes.

Maybe conquer was a bad example, but I am short of ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q3dmPcPEJk

Here's a scene where conquer drinks beer, and when has been loaded enough, he can piss on dancing boulders to move them. These actions are limited only to this segment of the game and are never reused. He may be referring to something like this.

Now I've never played shenmue, but something tells me he's asking for something like Shemue.

I think your just reading into what YOU want him to be saying, if you think he's thinking about a game like Conkers bad Fur Day or Shenmue.


I mean, look at the games he makes and refrences.

 

If he just means action, he's the one that needs to broden his horizens, as there are tons of games that don't focus on action.

For example, a personal favorite of mine.  Aerobiz Supersonic.  (Or just Aerobiz.)

Or the Football Manager Simulator games... etc.



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happydolphin on 12 March 2012
Kasz216 said:

I think your just reading into what YOU want him to be saying, if you think he's thinking about a game like Conkers bad Fur Day or Shenmue.


I mean, look at the games he makes and refrences.

 

If he just means action, he's the one that needs to broden his horizens, as there are tons of games that don't focus on action.

For example, a personal favorite of mine.  Aerobiz Supersonic.  (Or just Aerobiz.)

Or the Football Manager Simulator games... etc.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4465929

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4465949

What he's saying can be misunderstood, I give you that, but after reading it twice his message is pretty clear.

Aerobiz Supersonice, it's a business simulator?

^This one?

I mean, these games obviously will always have a place in the industry, but I think David Cage is looking for something much more emotion-driven, context and story driven. These kind of games need to start existing in a real fashion. In those games, I understand he's advocating for greater interaction with the world the story takes place in, and keep it new by removing any pre-coded reusable action, or reusable over multiple scenes.



Kasz216 on 12 March 2012
happydolphin said:
Kasz216 said:

I think your just reading into what YOU want him to be saying, if you think he's thinking about a game like Conkers bad Fur Day or Shenmue.


I mean, look at the games he makes and refrences.

 

If he just means action, he's the one that needs to broden his horizens, as there are tons of games that don't focus on action.

For example, a personal favorite of mine.  Aerobiz Supersonic.  (Or just Aerobiz.)

Or the Football Manager Simulator games... etc.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4465929

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4465949

What he's saying can be misunderstood, I give you that, but after reading it twice his message is pretty clear.

Aerobiz Supersonice, it's a business simulator?

^This one?

I mean, these games obviously will always have a place in the industry, but I think David Cage is looking for something much more emotion-driven, context and story driven. These kind of games need to start existing in a real fashion. In those games, I understand he's advocating for greater interaction with the world the story takes place in.

Again, I'm pretty sure your the one misreading what he's saying.  Afterall, the guy is a game designer, if that's what he's wanted... he's had plenty of games to do it.



happydolphin on 12 March 2012
RolStoppable said:

Nobody of us has played the final build of The Last of Us, so you are really jumping the gun here. The Uncharted series is also among the most praised video games when it comes to storytelling, but at its core it's really not too different to just about any other game.

What if people choose to watch a movie when they want to be emotionally moved? After all, movies are much better suited for that kind of thing and the nature of video games is that failed button presses lead to interruptions of the experience. The solution would be to remove basically all gameplay at which point you would end up with a movie, not a video game.

Oh, and Conker's Bad Fur Day is literally a piss-poor game. All the context-sensitive stuff means that Conker can barely do anything outside of the for it designed segments. All the cutscenes and crazy stuff you do may be enjoyable the first time you do them, but on a repeat it becomes glaringly obvious just how bad of a game it is. Do this three times, do that three times. You can't do anything but exactly what the designers had for you in mind. You aren't the player, you are a puppet. And in that case, being the viewer is preferable. So watching a movie is a better option.

I understand what you mean, and of course there would be things to tweak in the suggested formula so as to actually make it challenging and feel more free rather than restrictive. In fact, as much as pre-programming can be argued for context-driven actions, as much it can be argued for pre-programmed actions: X to kick, Y to puch, R to shoot, etc.

The quality of Conker is your own opinion, I personally thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. Okay, mechanics may have been on the botched side due to the sheer number of different possible actions tied to context. It's understandable, but I wouldn't consider it a good excuse for poor quality. Of course with such a direction, evolution is assumed, in that whatever the first few attempts at it offer, these can be refined.

As for restricting depth of emotion/captivating storyline and all to movies, well the same could have been argued when stories were moved from books to movies. We would have had lots of crappy movies on our hands. Thankfully, some innovative minds are trying to break the incrusted mold.

As for the Last of Us, I may be jumping the gun, but it seems pretty clear this far the direction the game is taking, and it looks to please. Apart from that, the interview text explains a little bit about the characters in the game, and the screenshots tell of a very open world. I think my intution will serve me properly on this one.



happydolphin on 12 March 2012
Kasz216 said:

Again, I'm pretty sure your the one misreading what he's saying.  Afterall, the guy is a game designer, if that's what he's wanted... he's had plenty of games to do it.

Here, I'm pasting it for you, it's word for word:

" I love to do different things and like to see the story moving on and I like to do different things and different scenes, not do the same thing over and over again. If it involves violence at some point fine, if it makes sense in the context."

The underline denote action.



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TruckOSaurus on 12 March 2012
BasilZero said:
TruckOSaurus said:
I sometimes have the impression that some video games developers secretly wish they were movie directors instead.


Getting that feeling too, soon we'll have games which are just pure movies.

 

Anyone remember the cd-i game where you just look at a image of a flower....ugh.

I remember this awful Sega CD "game" where there was evil beings (I wanna say aliens but I don't remember clearly) trying to infiltrate a house. You acted like a security system and activated traps in order to disable the intruders. In essence the game was 8 or so cameras and live action videos being played for each cameras with a different video being showed whether you caught the intruders in time or not.



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happydolphin on 12 March 2012

Now I think if games do move in this direction and lose replay value, they should be priced significantly lower.



Kasz216 on 12 March 2012
happydolphin said:
Kasz216 said:

Again, I'm pretty sure your the one misreading what he's saying.  Afterall, the guy is a game designer, if that's what he's wanted... he's had plenty of games to do it.

Here, I'm pasting it for you, it's word for word:

" I love to do different things and like to see the story moving on and I like to do different things and different scenes, not do the same thing over and over again. If it involves violence at some point fine, if it makes sense in the context."

The underline denote action.

I don't see how that sentence is any different then heavy rain.  Which again, was really basically a visual novel.



happydolphin on 12 March 2012
Kasz216 said:
happydolphin said:
Kasz216 said:

Again, I'm pretty sure your the one misreading what he's saying.  Afterall, the guy is a game designer, if that's what he's wanted... he's had plenty of games to do it.

Here, I'm pasting it for you, it's word for word:

" I love to do different things and like to see the story moving on and I like to do different things and different scenes, not do the same thing over and over again. If it involves violence at some point fine, if it makes sense in the context."

The underline denote action.

I don't see how that sentence is any different then heavy rain.  Which again, was really basically a visual novel.

That's why I asked you to broaden your thinking. It can also apply to context-driven action games like Conker.



happydolphin on 12 March 2012
RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:
Now I think if games do move in this direction and lose replay value, they should be priced significantly lower.

Not going to happen. Given the graphics needed, as well as professional voice actors or rather actors on the whole, these games will be among the most expensive ones to make.

If it's possible for movies, I don't see why it isn't possible for games. Unless there is something intrinsic to games that would limit the vision.