Current Events > Video games have terrible writing

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hockeybub89 posted...

They aren't the pinnacle of writing, but I've always disagreed when people say like "They're not even B-movie level!"

I think there are a bunch of video games that tell better stories and have better acting than A LOT of movies and TV shows.

Hot take: Marvel's Spider-Man is a better Spider-Man movie than actual Spider-Man movies.
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Kircheis posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

They aren't the pinnacle of writing, but I've always disagreed when people say like "They're not even B-movie level!"

I think there are a bunch of video games that tell better stories and have better acting than A LOT of movies and TV shows.

Hot take: Marvel's Spider-Man is a better Spider-Man movie than actual Spider-Man movies.

Into The Spider-Verse exists, so nah
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There are plenty of good stories in gaming. I can certainly understand not preferring them over other styles of storytelling, but it reeks of false elitism when people go overly hard on their criticism of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_WWkQgT3To

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MaxEffingBemis posted...

Im really enjoying Trails in the Sky SC, even though some of it is predictable. I think the writing is pretty good

Update: just beat it last night. Fantastic writing

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Chozo_Gunner posted...

Yup, even a LOT of games that gamers supposedly hold up as having "good writing", like Uncharted or MGS.

Some people like to have fun and don't take fiction so seriously.

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Good writing in gaming is something like Tales from the Borderlands.

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The problem is a games story needs to propel the gameplay, so you either end up with a visual novel or a bunch of cutscenes that only exist to say THIS IS WHY YOURE GONNA BE KILLING 150 GAIZ ON THE NEXT MAP OKGO.

Chozo_Gunner posted...

Yup, even a LOT of games that gamers supposedly hold up as having "good writing", like Uncharted or MGS.

Uncharted isn't going to win an Oscar, or bring up any deep arguments or anything, but that really isn't why you should be playing Uncharted. You play Uncharted because you want to be Indiana Jones and be a treasure hunter and do awesome action set pieces that feels like you're the main character in an adventure movie.

Its not the artsy indie film to make you think its a big summer blockbuster brought to you by Subway and it does a great job at that.

Although the bigger issue with most game writing is that it almost always takes a back seat to the gameplay, which can make effectively writing a good story much more difficult. constantly making sacrifices to make playing through the game actually somewhat enjoyable can make it really hard to really enjoy a game the same way as say, a movie.

Games have enjoyable writing but yeah, sorry, even the ones claimed to have "good writing" are about as deep as your average Marvel popcorn flick. I enjoy video game stories like I enjoyed Choose Your Adventure type books as a kid, it's not material that's gonna make you question life or your values but it's a fun story you can usually influence in some way. A video game story just needs to be good enough to make me want to keep killing things.

It's certainly possible to have a good-to-great story in a video game, but it's also constrained by being an interactive medium. A video game's first duty is to be fun to play, and thus games almost uniformly allow the player to engage in the sorts of power fantasies that make grounded stories nearly impossible to tell. Like, it's ridiculous when your JRPG party fights throw a ton of enemies, but then just gives up when confronted by a few guards, because it's inconsistent, and inconsistency kills your suspension of disbelief and pulls you right out of any story

Conversely, games where the main character is not insanely overpowered tend to be pretty tedious(IMO), because you wind up being largely unable to shape the game to your will: you just have to hope you've invested your skill points in the "right" places to pass the appropriate skill checks or die. This makes it easier to tell a consistent story, but probably a lot less players will be willing to jump through the hoops to get there.

But, most of all, game development is such a ridiculous, never-ending grind and other forms of media are seen as more prestigious ways to tell a story, so the most talented storytellers tend to gravitate away from it.

People like Chozo and the TC are butthurt

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But that wizard came from the moon?

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KFHEWUI posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_WWkQgT3To

lol

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I think its because the developers write their own stories instead of hiring an actual decent writer. But again, the gameplay comes first and the story often revolves around the gameplay.

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