No it isn't. The essential element to a story is a plot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DoubleF
It's perfectly normal for gameplay to ruin a story. I remember Dino Crisis and Parasite Eve on the PSX had a story that intrigued me. But I could not further the story because of the fricken camera angles in some of those chase sections to the game. It's like a good joke being ruined by the delivery. Or someone telling a good story that gets interrupted/goes off track a dozen times until it's too damn confusing to follow.
100% agreed! Case in point for me was the first Uncharted. When I bought my PS3 it came with Uncharted 3 as a pack-in game, and I enjoyed it a lot, so I bought the first two games afterward.
I hatedUncharted; the gameplay suuuuuuuuucked as compared to the third game in the series, but the story itself was great! The mechanics, the level design and especially the absurdly durable enemies sent in wave after wave after wave sucked all the fun out of playing. It was a slog. I got so pissed off at it I put it back on the shelf and didn't pick it up again until a couple years later, prior to me buying a PS4 with Uncharted 4 as a pack-in game. I buckled down and powered through it and I've never touched it since. And then I played Uncharted 2 and was blown away by how much bigger the step-up in all respects that game was compared to the first. Uncharted aged horribly in a scant few years, and in retrospect seems like a very fun and engaging story with a proof-of-concept technical design wrapped around it.
The Following User Says Thank You to timun For This Useful Post:
It's like being surprised by a flasher. Your first instinct isn't to point and laugh, it's to turn and run.
Good analogy. I read it hours ago and just thought "what the ####," but I couldn't get the idea of someone buying a $2 slurpee, taking it home, splitting it and cutting it with water, and then re-freezing it out of my head.
Just... what the ####.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to PepsiFree For This Useful Post:
Good analogy. I read it hours ago and just thought "what the ####," but I couldn't get the idea of someone buying a $2 slurpee, taking it home, splitting it and cutting it with water, and then re-freezing it out of my head.
Just... what the ####.
In my head, my commentary imagining that was, "What are you doing???" but somehow it threw me off so bad to the point it turned to "Water you doing??" and I just couldn't proceed from that point on.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to DoubleF For This Useful Post:
Weren't you basically hinting at TLOU2? IMO story was good, gameplay was great, but delivery of that story was so brutal that I could see why some people hated it.
It'd be akin to trying to watch a movie at a movie theatre but a few people wouldn't stop talking and/or riffing the movie. Enjoyment level would indeed plummet.
What are you trying to say here? This isn't a dichotomy where either "games can be ruined by gameplay" or "games can be ruined by story", but both cannot be true. I happened to quote DoubleF's post and cite my own example of a game with a story I liked being ruined by what I subjectively though to be bad gameplay: that doesn't mean I still don't think your posit that "games can't be ruined by story, because stories are 'inessential' to the medium" is nonsense. In fact it's a perfect counterpoint: the only reason that game was worth playing is because of the story. The story 'makes' that game; it's ridiculous to me to believe that story cannot also 'break' a game.
DoubleF brought up TLOU2 as perhaps what you're hinting at about "people complaining about a story ruining a game". A selection of my own thoughts about it are as such:
Spoiler!
Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
I have heard the first and second game's themes being contrasted as "what one man would do for love" and "what two women would do for hate (or vengeance)".
[...]
I recently completed Part II, and I won't lie: I didn't even want to finish the game's final conflict. I think that's why, at least in part, the second game was received somewhat controversially. Ellie makes regrettable decisions that I as player did not want to carry out.
The whole point of the two games is ultimately, to me, to be left wondering "is the decision this character chose 'right'?" Joel's choices in the first one to mow down the Fireflies, save Ellie, and lie to her about it are interesting ones because it begs questions like "could he have found another way to go about this and not kill all those people?" and "if he truly loves Ellie, can't he find a way to tell her the truth rather than straight-up lie about it?", and of course "what would I have done if I was in that situation?" And I liked that the second game's narrative tied directly into this and showed that even in a post-apocalyptic world these sorts of choices have consequences.
But that said, the second game consists of a series of choices that I—and I think a lot of other players—absolutely would not have made. Or at least eventually, after a certain point, I wouldn't have made them. Joel's choices were somewhat limited in that he had few options, and critically I felt like he never would have had the option to walk away. Ellie and Abby could have walked away from their respective vendettas at pretty much any time, and quite purposefully didn't. I as player didn't want to go through with the game's actions and story near the end, because I would have walked away. And I think that's really bad storytelling, when you put a controller in a player's hands and make them go through with something they are half-heartedly doing for the sake of the game's completion.
It was also quite difficult for me to sympathize with Abby in the first place, not just because of the narrative jumping back and forward in time and thus not presenting as cogent a storyline as they could have, but because of the choices she makes being... awful. With Joel I felt like he was ultimately a 'good' guy who did 'bad' things, whereas there was a lot to dislike about Abby aside from her actions against Joel/Ellie. Even within her own friend group she was a bit of a POS, especially her relationships between Mel and Owen.
All of that said I think TLOU2 is, like Uncharted, a perfect counterpoint to the idea that "story is inessential to making video games": if not for the story I wouldn't have played it in the first place. It had great gameplay, there was nothing wrong with the gameplay, but the only reason to play the game—and the first The Last of Us—was the story. The story was the overarching, central reason to even pick it up. So, logically, if one didn't like the story, then it's perfectly reasonable for that to be the reason why they didn't like the game.
All I thought was screw the water. I used to cut my slurpee with rum
I always liked that in theory and used to do it, but man, you could never mix in the alcohol, it would go straight to the bottom and then you'd slurp straight rum. Unless I was doing something wrong.
I always liked that in theory and used to do it, but man, you could never mix in the alcohol, it would go straight to the bottom and then you'd slurp straight rum. Unless I was doing something wrong.
I'd pour it on top and not mix it at all, then have the straw off the bottom a bit. Tends to be a few less booze shocks that way.
The Following User Says Thank You to Fuzz For This Useful Post:
I'd pour it on top and not mix it at all, then have the straw off the bottom a bit. Tends to be a few less booze shocks that way.
That’s what I did as well. Rum on top, then poke the straw through a couple times to get a bit to the bottom. Kind of like soaking a rum cake. Probably been 15 years since I’ve done it, but I’m really wanting one now.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Brendone For This Useful Post:
100% agreed! Case in point for me was the first Uncharted. When I bought my PS3 it came with Uncharted 3 as a pack-in game, and I enjoyed it a lot, so I bought the first two games afterward.
I hatedUncharted; the gameplay suuuuuuuuucked as compared to the third game in the series, but the story itself was great! The mechanics, the level design and especially the absurdly durable enemies sent in wave after wave after wave sucked all the fun out of playing. It was a slog. I got so pissed off at it I put it back on the shelf and didn't pick it up again until a couple years later, prior to me buying a PS4 with Uncharted 4 as a pack-in game. I buckled down and powered through it and I've never touched it since. And then I played Uncharted 2 and was blown away by how much bigger the step-up in all respects that game was compared to the first. Uncharted aged horribly in a scant few years, and in retrospect seems like a very fun and engaging story with a proof-of-concept technical design wrapped around it.
I just finished all 4 of the UC games. 4 was my least favorite in terms of storyline - there was waaaay too much storyline. It always felt like they dragged out the yapping by 5 minutes too long. It dragged out the game play for me, and I didn't enjoy it as much.
I'm waiting for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy to arrive and I'm hoping it doesn't suck.
Maybe not a gear grinder, but going to a movie theatre is so overrated. First of all, for forum of us it was $58. Then for drinks/popcorn/candy it was $90. No wonder this industry is dying. First, they have no ideas for new movies (it seems), but who in their right mind is spending $150 to go sit in a theatre with a bunch of annoying people on a regular basis?
Maybe not a gear grinder, but going to a movie theatre is so overrated. First of all, for forum of us it was $58. Then for drinks/popcorn/candy it was $90. No wonder this industry is dying. First, they have no ideas for new movies (it seems), but who in their right mind is spending $150 to go sit in a theatre with a bunch of annoying people on a regular basis?
That’s a pretty reasonable price for taking the forum to a movie.
Also, you can just get those Cineplex or Landmark passes from Costco. It’s like $30 for 2 adults, popcorn, and drinks.
The Following User Says Thank You to Wormius For This Useful Post:
Maybe not a gear grinder, but going to a movie theatre is so overrated. First of all, for forum of us it was $58. Then for drinks/popcorn/candy it was $90. No wonder this industry is dying. First, they have no ideas for new movies (it seems), but who in their right mind is spending $150 to go sit in a theatre with a bunch of annoying people on a regular basis?
Thanks Slava, the movie was great. CP's turn to pay next time, we promise!
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to topfiverecords For This Useful Post:
Maybe not a gear grinder, but going to a movie theatre is so overrated. First of all, for forum of us it was $58. Then for drinks/popcorn/candy it was $90. No wonder this industry is dying. First, they have no ideas for new movies (it seems), but who in their right mind is spending $150 to go sit in a theatre with a bunch of annoying people on a regular basis?
And then, these days, if people aren't yapping through it, they have their damn phones out, because they can't go 5 minutes without checking it.
The Following User Says Thank You to WhiteTiger For This Useful Post:
Maybe not a gear grinder, but going to a movie theatre is so overrated. First of all, for forum of us it was $58. Then for drinks/popcorn/candy it was $90. No wonder this industry is dying. First, they have no ideas for new movies (it seems), but who in their right mind is spending $150 to go sit in a theatre with a bunch of annoying people on a regular basis?
I hate going to see a movie because I can't stand the experience but I also just don't appreciate it enjoy movies. The only time I would go was when Amex had their special premiers for some movies where it was a free experience and included free snacks but Covid killed that Amex benefit.
Research has linked a wide range of health risks to drinking diet soda. Despite it being a low or zero calorie beverage, it may still increase the risk of conditions such as diabetes and obesity.
Diet soda offers no health benefits other than functioning as a tool that people can use to wean themselves off regular soda.
The Following User Says Thank You to jayswin For This Useful Post:
And then, these days, if people aren't yapping through it, they have their damn phones out, because they can't go 5 minutes without checking it.
This is legitimately what keeps me away from the movies now: ####heads. Mostly ####head teenagers. Obviously had to go to a theatre to see Avatar because that's the only way to watch those movies, but we on multiple occasions had to tell the half-dozen high school girls sitting two rows behind us that this wasn't their living room couch and to shut the #### up.
I guess I should go see Oppenheimer in 70mm as that's probably an older crowd and hopefully wouldn't suffer from the same problem, but it was just such a bad experience and leaves such a sour taste in your mouth.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
I'm not a theatre person either. The quickest way to ruin any good time for me is to have a bunch of random people around. If you're a big movie buff I totally get it, but for the 3 movies I watch a year I'd rather do it at home
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to btimbit For This Useful Post:
