Kurruptions Gaming Roundtable Discussions

On Half-Life: Gordon Freeman's character is basically the equivalent of the mute hero in a JRPG, only I think it's better suited in the FPS genre because of the shared perspective. The fact that we know little to nothing about him and the fact that there is a perpetual first-person perspective means that we can embody the character how we like. The facts that exist about him exist solely to justify and setup the game's scenario: how do we get to wind our way through a spooky research lab? By being an astrophysics researcher (one who ironically has great physical abilities - that's the joke you see). So, all in all, I have a lot of respect for the HL series for what it has contributed.

On Halo's Marines: Halo 1 marines were pretty weak. Halo 2... now that's a different story. Maybe a bit stronger, but the awesome thing about it is the ability to equip them with weapons you find lying around. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I actually could go through huge chunks of levels and have those guys help me out a lot by my drawing most of the fire and equipping them with situationally-appropriate weapons. The elite buddies were even better.

Besides, it's necessary to make them weak. They serve as that contrast between weak and strong--between them and you (Master Chief).
 
Yeah, but unlike Gordon, the silent protagonists in the Zeldas or Chrono Cross are developed in the game. All of them have defined development and relationships. Gordon is just kind of there. There's no sense that he's THE guy in the game, and there's no relationships or anything to infer his character from, outside the fact he's a scientist.

In Chrono Cross, Serge has a mother, a pet, a father, and a story behind him that gets revealed over time. Gordon Freeman's just...there.
 
Just a different approach to things, a different method. Some games will use common emotional appeals directed through the protagonist to transport you into the game's world via relationships and moral dilemmas (your Zeldas, Chrono Cross, etc). How does that work out 98% of the time? Not all that well because games' rarely rise above the level of melodrama. FPSs, by definition, have the ability to transport you through sheer, visceral presence. The fewer abstractions used along the way, the better the game is in achieving that immersion. HL's stance is to throw out most issues related to character development (especially protagonist) because it would be just another thing to distract you away from the pure, seamless, visceral experience of the game (something HL accentuates by its design).

So, by necessity, JRPGs need to do *something* to bring part of you into the game world, so they use tools and traditions inherent to RPGs to do that. HL uses tools and traditions inherent in its genre to do its thing. But still, I personally think the mute hero in JRPGs is an ineffective device due to huge abstraction gap. Might as well actually make the protagonist talk like the rest. However, the LoZ games, especially as of late, do a pretty decent job with this. Of course, it's out of obligation and tradition that Link continues to be mute. In the future of games, this device I predict will go extinct. Some games with enhanced voice technology (a bit more advanced than what we have now) will let the player speak through the protagonist to interact with the world and more importantly interact with actors in the world. First it will be simple, then who knows.
 
Besides, it's cosmically wrong to complain about Gordon Freeman's character and its development (or the lack thereof if you like) and not complain about Master Chief's. Sure, maybe there's a few more details to him, and maybe more will be revealed in Halo 3, but his relationships aren't any more involved or deep than Gordon's is with the characters he runs across in his couple of games. Their backstories are lacking, too. But I'm merely just pointing stuff out. I don't personally hold any of that against both games. They are what they are, and they are awesome nonetheless.
 
I abosolutely agree on pretty much everything you said. The main point I was trying to establish is that Half-Life fans try (baselessly) to make the case that there's a higher degree of storytelling and presentation in the game, which is simply not the case. Once again, I'm speaking from a HL1 perspective, mainly. And I'm not trying to fault it for it, either. I'm just saying that HL1 did very little that was worthy of praise.
 
Ok well Halo 3 will be out at midnight tonight, unfortanately I won't get my copy till Friday so we will see the outcome. Personally I think Gears of War stole Halo's thunder, Bioshock as well and there is no way Halo 3 will live up to those two.

Anyways most of you will be playing Halo so new topic for this week, We are pretty much one year into the next gen console wars, second for microsoft, what do you think so far and what are your predictions?

Nintendo came outta nowhere and pretty much snatched the crown, I truthfully wish Sony would come back and rule all like they usually do but I don't think it's going to happen. So far I have to admit I'm pretty impressed with the 360, everybody has been hooked to achievements not to mention the badass exclusives it has mustered thus far. If Microsoft keeps it up they will undoubtedly keep kicking sonys ass this generation. Sony has to come in with the exclusives, so many great one's already lost, and maybe more. They need the price drop and to keep those exclusives coming to be able to catch up. Nintendo, the wild card, needs to balance there casual games with their more hardcore shall we call them. So far it seems to be happening with titles such as Metroid, Super Mario Galaxy, and SSB:Melee. Now if 3rd parties can stop adding wiimote function to ps2 and xbx games, and make true exclusives for the wii we shall be good to go, oh and a new Fire Emblem game please.
 
The Wii is just a fashion statement right now. The Wii is selling well because it's selling well. The sales will die down all at once, immediately, and not pick back up. When will it happen? Summer of 08 is my bet.

Sony actually has a fair number of exclusives lined up. Their first party studios are working overtime and putting out some really nice-looking games in Killzone, White Knight Story, Lair, and many more. The question isn't if Sony can get good games for the PS3 and keep them. They actually have a deceptively strong first-party lineup. The question is if they can get people to buy it in America. They're actually rooted pretty well in Japan and Europe. But the price drops have undeniably helped Sony. They need to make a cheaper PS3. Period. Lots of your typical gamers who play the Maddens and the Max Paynes still don't have any of the current-gen consoles, still living off the PS2. So yeah, they're going to need to have a price drop by then just for them. Really, the only thing holding Sony back is just how well the PS2 is still doing.
 
Last edited:
You have to remember that the PS3 is painfully hard to code for, and every developer comments on that, as long as they aren't owned by Sony. Every one of their systems has been like this since the Playstation 1.

I am really looking forward to the first party games that are coming out for the PS3, as well as the second party (god of war etc) that are coming out. It just kind of feels like they are slowly becoming another sega, they make really good games, they just don't know what gamers want in the hardware. Which is interesting, because all gamers really want is games. When Sony starts having games on a system that people will be happy to play, then it will be interesting.

Also, the story telling in Half-Life is better in Halo. Halo has a giant plant thing that wants to destroy all life, Half-Life has a story that hasn't been fully shown yet.
 
(God of War is a first-party game, a second-party game is one where the console-owning company hires a developer for a certain period of time to make the games. Nintendo did this with Namco and Konami, as they hired them to make individual games, Mario Baseball and DDR Mario Mix respectively. But God of War is made by Sony Computer Entertainment. Current-gen second-party games would be Mistwalker's Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey)

But yeah...

Half-Life is so much better with its people doing things for no apparent reason.
 
Might have been thinking of Naughty Dog, Ratchet and such games.

I will agree that Half-Life does feel like a bunch of things happening for no reason, but almost every single one of them does have a point. Although that point isn't normally very clear when you first start playing the game.

Halo, on the other hand, has a hero that is based entirely off of trying to be the most over the top character ever. If a 2 kilometer fall doesn't kill master chief, then why does three hits from brute shot?
 
Ratchet is first-party as well. And Crash was always third party.

And they may have a point...but no purpose. Half-Life is the sea urchin of video games. It's got lotsa points...but so what? It tastes bad and doesn't even make a good stew.
 
So you measure the value of living things by how tastey they are, eh Spudz? :p Just as there are many aspects to be valued in the existence of living creatures, such is the same for video games. HL just happens to excel in a few areas that can't be overlooked or underestimated. Sure, there are things about it that people have blown out of proportion, but when it comes down to it, there's some solid stuff going on with the series. HL was responsible as far as I know for inventing the current notion of atmospheric world-immersion and storytelling (though it's storytelling capacity has always taken a back seat to the former).
 
As for the current question... my quick impressions on the current gen:

PS3: I can't even name you a single game for the PS3 right now. I honestly think I'm going to wait until Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) makes a game for the PS3 before I get it. I might have to even skip MGS4!
360: FPS heaven. Halo 3, Bioshock, and Brothers in Arms 3 soon. Plus, the online component is solid from what I know. But the hardware failures = awful.
Wii: Doing good appealing to more casual gamers - way better than I think I anticipated or anyone anticipated. We'll see how well things are going in a year from now for Nintendo. I think Wii Fitness will catapult the system's status even higher. But you can pretty much mark it down as the Wii being (or eventually being) way more of a success than the Gamecube. The online stuff needs to get stronger definitely.
 
Ratchet is made by another company, it is distrubuted through Sony though. Sony gives them a good deal of money to have the game remain only on a Sony console, making it the new and emerging "Second party".

Also the way that games are played has a lot to do with how the story is presented, Halo drags you out of the first person even for major story points, where Half-Life tells you, as Gordan Freeman, about what is happening.

And although it is pretty much a side point, it should be pointed out that the best story that happens in Halo doesn't happen in the games, it happens in books that you are expected to read before you play the games.
 
What is this preponderance of story or plotting in FPSs? To me that's like focusing your attention to the story presented by the lyrics of a song rather than listening to the music. :p A good song will tell its story in the music. A good FPS will provide its story in experiencing the game's world.
 
gillman said:
Ratchet is made by another company, it is distrubuted through Sony though. Sony gives them a good deal of money to have the game remain only on a Sony console, making it the new and emerging "Second party".
You're absolutely correct. Oops.

Also the way that games are played has a lot to do with how the story is presented, Halo drags you out of the first person even for major story points, where Half-Life tells you, as Gordan Freeman, about what is happening.

And although it is pretty much a side point, it should be pointed out that the best story that happens in Halo doesn't happen in the games, it happens in books that you are expected to read before you play the games.
Regrettably, nobody really tells you what's happening. You're just in a facility for something, then there's a buncha aliens or something. Hell if I know. Nobody tells you anything!

But, IMO, the best aspect to Halo's story was the little Covenant civil war. I was really disappointed that this was completely disregarded in Halo 3. And really, its effects are completely unaddressed in the games. In fact, the only group of Covenant to leave are the elites, apparently. I definitely would've liked to see more Grunt, Elite and Hunters vs. the Jackals, Brutes and Drones at full blown guerilla warfare like in Halo 2. I was seriously disappointed by that.

But you can't really be surprised about a book having a better story than a FPS. I mean...it's a book.

But I don't think that the game's environment can really tell much of a story entirely on their own.
 
Why can't a FPS have a good story? Better yet whats the deal with FPS having crappy stories? Not all of them of course, Bioshock kept me motivated as hell, the story wasn't that deep but all those little plottwists were incredible, especially towards the end, hell Bioshock is as close as an interactive movie can get. Breakdown had a nice little story, so did Project Snowblind. Lets not forget the cult classic System Shock 2. The point being you can only shoot aways at random enemies for so long before it becomes stail, a good story is a hell of an incentive to get you from point A to a checkpoint, to point B.
 
There's no particular reason a FPS can't have a good story. It's just that none of them do. Until a good story becomes one of the key aspects of the genre, there's no actual reason to hate on a game for not having one.
 
Over the years, I've grown less and less impressed by videogames whose story is presented primarily via cutscenes, and the like. Why? Because I've seen movies that are way better in presenting their narrative in the same way. The reason why I say a good FPS presents its story by experiencing the game world is that it takes advantage of the inherent and unique interactive property of videogames, and specifically that of the first-person perspective. The reason I think there aren't any great narrative FPSs just yet is because no one has come along that wants to or has the cognitive capacity to marry narrative, perspective and interacitivity in a particularly intelligent manner. OR.. maybe they have and we just don't know it yet. :p

But yeah, I want to play Bioshock. I've heard good things from it.
 
As for Halo, I don't care too awful much about the story because, well, it's just so much fun playing it as is. In the future, when games have taken the various things Halo's contributed to the genre and improved upon it a little bit, it may be more important for a FPS to focus more on story.

And the magic of environmental storytelling that Half-Life established a decade or so ago is that it places the narrative reigns in your hands. It's up to you to discover the story, with the natural result being the ability to kind of daydream and create your own story/narrative in your mind about the whole world and how things came to be what/how they are. That's not unlike a good book--the ability to fill in the details on your own.