Comments on: Hooray For The Writer’s Strike?

By: Today’s Play: Modern Overlord Warfare « Ben Plays Games

Today’s Play: Modern Overlord Warfare « Ben Plays Games — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:57:02 +0000

[...] CoD4 Captain Price – Rock, Paper, Shotgun [...]

By: Jocho

Jocho — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:56:44 +0000

Alexander, there was something actually called “Interactive Movies” (or “Interactive Film”, I’m not sure of the English term), that basicly was FMV movies with choised put at some parts to alter the way the story was taken. The term has been somewhat infected since then. But it’s still a very fitting term for what games are becomming, with the strive to create a “cinematic feel”.

As long as the player is in control most of the time, a few non-cutting scenes wouldn’t hurt, as long as they don’t cut the game (in control and perspective). That was something HL² did well, the cut-scenes didn’t change the perspective or took the control away. Now, if you’d only be able to choose what to say and the characters react to it, cut-scenes wouldn’t even cut you away from the dialog. The choise doesn’t even have to change the story, but could lead in a linear path, where the characters first react, and then goes on along the set path.

By: SwiftRanger

SwiftRanger — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:41:41 +0000

Good writing is necessary so sure, let them come. But mind you, totally non-interactive in-game cutscenes à la HL² shouldn’t be (such a big) part of real game, period. If devs and writers really get serious about games then they should offer interactivity on ALL levels most of the time, not only on the shooting/puzzlesolving part. Nothing breaks immersion more than a speechless main character or a solo emo-intermezzo by one of the non-playable characters. I am not asking for an extensive dialogue tree or a story which can end in a thousand ways but at least “something” interesting to do or to say during those “immersive” in-game cutscenes would be nice. Players should be active most of the time, not passive.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:06:28 +0000

Wide spread use of MMOs brought us forward a little in terms of narrative innovation – if nothing else it pushed writers to create stories in slightly different ways, perhaps more freeform, even if that led most to rely ever more heavily on the standard fantasy cliches for characters and events – as someone else on the board said, even innovators like City of Heroes innovated by the wholesale adoption of genre coventions from a different adolescent pass time.

I’m slightly sceptical of percieving the games industry’s narrative progression in terms of films, if nothing else something as narratively cliched and childish as the new Zelda, with the narrative complexity of 1980′s cartoon, can still draw you in and provoke a range of emotions and satisfactions the comparable films never would.

That said, it is frustrating there’s not really a contemporary Planescape or even the pleasingly domestic Shenmue (who didn’t enjoy feeding the kitten?) – Bioshock, for all the Rand based musing and twists, was still shooting zombie like monsters in dark most of the time. An influx of talented, professional writers could at least go part way to remedying this – if only by having the professional weight to carry though something innovative.

By: Alexander

Alexander — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:03:24 +0000

There’s but one thing worrying me; why are we not referring to games as interactive movies. Because it seems most people interpret them as such. I happen to be of the thought that we’re still in the ‘black and white mute movie’ era of game-making. So right now, as back then the movies started as a copy of photography, we are experiencing the birth, and we are certainly going to face some real ‘games’ or ‘interactives’ in the future.

It’s beautiful to stare at this example of technological evolution and the way creativity reponds accordingly. On a massive scale the rules and restrictions of other media are translated or even plainly copied onto this medium. So we can expect ourselves to be experiencing almost a similar timelapse as our elders have.

Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to be alive to see another Elvis come ’round, and the Beatles and maybe we’ll run into a Roger Waters (Kojima?) of gaming.

By: Jens Arnesen

Jens Arnesen — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:45:26 +0000

Die Hard 4.0’s “send all the gas!” lunacy kept me chuckling for months

Well then, mission accomplished! I don’t think anyone watching Die Hard 4.0 went into the movie expecting a great story or even semi-intelligent characters, it’s just mindless Hollywood action, and that, it performs to perfection.

By: EMPty=IRL=

EMPty=IRL= — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:54:23 +0000

24 is a cited influence for COD4

That explains quite a lot.

I was actually plesently suprised to see Cpt. Price execute that guy, it was a real shock to see a game actually protray full on voilence in a real and unexpected way…
Another thing that I think helped the COD4 story was the sheer amount of excellent dialogue ingame in ever mission.
(remember some of the dialogue in the C130 spector gunship mission. Brilliant!)
I really did enjoy all of COD4′s story, cutscenes and so on and I think it was a good length as well.
Also it’s quite replayable!
And the mission after the credits ROCKS!

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:51:15 +0000

Not to mention that in most of the cases where a named writer or celeb is involved, their actual involvement often turns out to have been minimal. Not always, but…

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:49:26 +0000

Dhex: There’s a few, but I was going to bring up the idea non-games-writers somehow magically improve games is generally erroneous.

By: dhex

dhex — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:47:03 +0000

are there any examples of games written by established outside authors from other mediums that weren’t blah or worse?

By: Acosta

Acosta — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:21:11 +0000

Dragon: Agree, but Marc Laidlaw had a solid knowledge of videogames. That is the point, professional writers can add a lot to videogames (let me stress “a lot”) but they must have a solid base and passion for the medium.

And it works the same for the opposite side, without a compromise forward the writer and a effort to adapt the game to the narrative (without sacrificing gameplay), that work goes to trash very easily.

By: Dragon

Dragon — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:33:36 +0000

Interesting article considering what’s going on. Some points:

Significantly, the Writers Guild of America is allowing its strikers to work on games.

There is no way the WGA can stop it’s members working on video games. None of the video game companies are WGA signatories so it would not be crossing a picket line to write for any of these companies. Similarly, WGA members can also write novels, newspaper articles or even TV/Films for other non-WGA signatory companies. (Neil Gaiman is a good example for someone who is still working but just can’t work on any films in the US.)

would game publishers see the merit in getting expensive pros to do this dirty work?

Expensive pros? Joss Whedon, Ron Moore, Josh Friedmann and Tim Kring would be expensive. But there are thousands of writers who have not become a household name and have not managed to work on a successful series and are trying to make their break into the Hollywood/TV land who would no doubt be willing to take whatever (non-guild) rates the game companies offered them.

I gather, but I can’t find a reference source at this moment in time, that the WGA are trying to take on video game writers into their membership. I know for certain that the Writers Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) do accomodate video game writers in their membership but at the moment the WGA don’t. I have a feeling that it might have even been part of the current contract negotiations with the AMPTP.

As for involvement in the games and how it would translater, you’ve already mentioned Valve who took on Marc Laidlaw who was a writer before being hired to work on Half-Life. What the writers would be able to bring to the table is characterisation, storylines and dialogue. I doubt that they’d feel restricted by the way video games handle narrative but even the marvellous Deus Ex could have done with improvements to the dialogue.