New Challenger: 3 Reasons Why Gaming Will Destroy Itself Part 1
21 hours 16 mins ago
Is Heavy Rain doing video games a disservice? That's the question posed by Destructoid's Jim Sterling. With Quantic Dream's David Cage likening Heavy Rain to movies and almost distancing it from video games, is he imferring that video games aren't as good as movies? Is he sending gamers the wrong message?
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Heavy Rain arrived this week, stuffed in a fancy box with all manner of promotional material. I can't talk about the game itself right now until the embargo, but what I can talk about is the pre-release hype, and the way in which is seems to undermine the accomplishments of videogames as a creative medium.
You've doubtless heard game director David Cage talking about his "interactive drama," likening it to movies and almost distancing it from videogames, trying to make out that it's something more than a mere game. I would like to direct you to the aforementioned promo material I received, and two statements that really stuck out for me. They are as follows:
"Film Quality Narrative -- Heavy Rain brings a high-quality story filled with tension, emotion, intrigue, and dramatic sequences."
"Hollywood Production Values -- From the length of the script, to the musical core, to the number of hours of motion capture, Heavy Rain is a vast and ambitious project that delivered a true film noir feel as well as production values that rival a cinematic experience."
Spotted the problem yet? If you haven't, let me make it clear -- Quantic Dream is not in the movie business. It's in the videogame business, and it should be comparing itself to the best of its medium, not the best of other mediums. When I see a game promoting itself by saying it's "movie quality," do you know what that says to me? It says that videogames are not as good as movies. It says that the more gaming emulates film, the better videogames will be. And that's bullshit.
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Videogames have the same level of potential to have storylines that are just as good or better than movies. The difference is videogames have another element that movies don't have (in their current state), viewer interaction. So there in lies the problem. Game developers have to make a choice, do they want the viewer to have more fun interacting with the game or more fun experiencing the storyline? They would certainly aim for both but that's easier said than done, albeit certainly possible.
Some games choose one over the other, and I frankly welcome that. I don't need all my games to play the same! It's a growing problem if you ask me. It seems like everyone wants all their first person shooters to play like Modern Warfare 2 and all third person shooters should play like Resident Evil 4/5 or Gears of War. No. Screw that. I want variety. Embrace that variety or every game is going to play EXACTLY the same.
Resident Evil is a great example of that, the first time I sat down with those robot controls it was really strange and a bit awkward. Now though I can literally sit down and breeze through any game with camera angles and controls like that with no control problems what so ever. It is not that hard to control people. It simply requires a different mentality, you have to put yourself in the mind of the character, and realize on every different camera screen their orientation in the environment. You have to know which way their left and right is. After you grasp that it's so incredibly simple. I don't have to stop and think about it at each new camera angle either, it's an instant realization and really is not that complicated. If you can't grasp that simple understanding I fear for you. And it allows for developers to deliver a more cinematic experience which I for one am all for. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy playing games like Gears of War or Resident Evil 4/5 (though I would have enjoyed them more had they stuck to their roots without a doubt), there's room for both in my life. And that's just it. Embrace both! Or else variety will stagnate.
Then you have the added complexity of user interaction that actually impacts the story, which require game developers to put even more effort into making sure all the different paths a game can go down make sense for each player. I just finished Mass Effect 2, the amount of thought that went into that game and will go into Mass Effect 3 boggles the mind. So many different outcomes to that game.
There are plenty of games that I think have better storylines than movies, and I LOVE movies and watch as many as I can.
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