Comments on: Gore Verbinski: Not Useless After All

By: James T

James T — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:24:46 +0000

Yes, yes, we all want a game that can make us cry and all that.

Aw, I’d hoped that link was going to be a video of Kieron blubbing while playing Audiosurf. I think I’ll be mentally associating KG with Steve Coogan now.

By: Okami

Okami — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:42:59 +0000

I guess the guy never played Shadow of the Colossus. The whole game was fundamentally about loss and it made me feel it on more than one occasion.

EDIT (note to self: finish reading interview before posting about it)

Speaking of games that break the mold, what do you think of “Beautiful Katamari”?

I liked the fact that you weren’t a character. You were an object that became a character in a way.

Uhmmm.. I hate to nitpick, but you were a character in katamari. Of course you could argue, that the katamari was the real central character of the game (and I guess, that’s what he means), but this still doesn’t change the fact, that you controlled a character with a name, background and a clear motivation.

By: Fazer

Fazer — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:39:04 +0000

Probable spoiler ahead!

****

“I haven’t really played a game where I feel . . . tremendous loss.” – Well I have and it’s called Half-Life 2: Episode Two. One of the best narratives ever.

By: FaceOmeter

FaceOmeter — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:02:27 +0000

“the graphics are very realistic, aren’t they? it’s almost like i’m watching a film”

ps. i agree with stick

By: Andrew Farrell

Andrew Farrell — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:51:26 +0000

the director of the increasingly turgid Pirates of the Caribbean movies

Starting from a very low turgidity, and still at their worst less turgid than any three other blockbusters of the last few years!

By: Stick

Stick — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:13:38 +0000

I get the idea of “anti-narrative” or “zero narrative” but… aren’t the terms misleading? True, games don’t need screenwriters. In the sense that newspapers don’t need novelists.

I suspect – or hope – the cutscene affliction is part of the growing pains of the medium. See: early days of cinema, where a lot of what happened was simply “filmed theatre”. Using the storytelling tools of earlier media because they hadn’t figured out cinema-specific ones.

Not to say there aren’t overlaps. And stuff.

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:01:46 +0000

When did Gore Verbinski earn the right for his opinions to be taken seriously?

I’m clearly out of the loop.

By: Mooey Poo

Mooey Poo — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:18:24 +0000

I think game designers seem to have far more faith in their audience, and more confidence to try different narrative strategies. I think a game like BioShock or Half-Life really understood that games are about space rather than time, and used level design to tell the story. Ain’t that neat?

That said, I have zero faith in Gore Verbinski. He couldn’t direct you to a sofa in Ikea.

By: Joe Martin

Joe Martin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:17:20 +0000

I’m not going to believe in anti-narrative until I finish designing my trait-based RPG…

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:15:20 +0000

Thanks to the internet in general, kittens are in enough trouble as it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_time_you_masturbate…_God_kills_a_kitten

By: Sander

Sander — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:54:04 +0000

An online match 3 game where every time you run out of time on the level you have to watch another kitten get killed live on webcam. Zero narrative, tremendous loss, a little bit out there – needs some spin to get sold as a completely new genre though.

Any other thoughts, smart people?