this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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I think this is a Carmack quote? I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if Romero felt similarly at the time, but it seems a little less their style.
I don’t think this attitude is wrong necessarily, but it really depends! I think it’s fine to just have fun gameplay and no story, and it’s also fine to focus on story too. I feel like lately, though, when I’ve been trying to think of “games with good stories” I’ve kind of had a hard time thinking of any, or maybe I’m just being too critical? It’s certainly true that stories should be different in different mediums, so maybe what it means to be a good story in a game is very different… Maybe they’re shorter and less complex than novels and part of the story is in how the gameplay makes you feel in conjunction with the plot so maybe thinking of the plot in isolation isn’t very fair to it either…
To be honest I’m real turned around on this stuff lately. I’ve always really liked video games, but a combination of getting older and having more responsibilities and having my values change is making me think a bit more critically about them lately and I’m having more meta thoughts about why I like them (which is maybe a bad thing because it can kind of spoil a thing you love a bit, haha, but I think it’s also good to think about these things on some level). Part of this is because my partner doesn’t really like video games, which is fair… They also don’t really like the violence and stuff, which makes me question this a bit too. To be clear, they’re actually super supportive and encourage me to play more games and stuff… But it still makes me think a bit and it makes me think about what they would like and why I like the games that I like (or why I have enjoyed them in the past). I’ve never been particularly scared of video game violence or anything, but I will admit that upon reflection… I kind of don’t want to shoot a bunch of people? And it kind of makes sense that it’s a popular genre because it’s really well suited to the input methods we have and it’s something that ends up being satisfying… But I don’t like war, and I don’t like violence, so it’s kind of weird to have this be a thing that I do all of the time? Not sure how I feel yet.
Dusk is fucking great, but yeah, story wise it’s kind of nothing, other than some kind of x-filesy weird mystery kind of stuff I guess. But yeah, it doesn’t need a great story.
Honestly… I don’t think Bioshock holds up very well these days. I like it and have enjoyed it, but I think it’s mostly a cool setting and idea and falls really flat if you take that away. The story has some interesting stuff but it’s pretty clunky and just feels a bit clumsy. I still like it, of course, but I’m not sure I’d show it to somebody in order to demonstrate how games have great stories, you know? Also Bioshock Infinite really doesn’t hold up in my opinion.
I thought about New Vegas too. It’s arguably more of an RPG and the open world stuff maybe puts it in a different category altogether. It’s a very interesting way to tell a story, though, especially with the links between the DLCs and stuff. I go back and forth between thinking it’s really well done and kind of overrated, haha. I think the world and factions are interesting, but any individual peace of dialogue or quest isn’t amazing, it’s more how everything fits together in aggregate that makes it interesting. It feels like it’s a somewhat innovative way to tell a story, but not fully perfected and polished yet? And Fallout gameplay is certainly far from perfect, haha. I do keep coming back to it, though… Literally started a new run a few days ago.
Anyway, I feel like I’m coming off too negatively :). These are all great games in their own ways! I’m just putting too much scrutiny on things to my own detriment, haha.
Yeah that's a fair point and I think I feel similarly, re: getting older and shifting perspectives. Much of my own perspective comes from not having played a ton of shooters in the past few years. The ones I do play, I tend to enjoy shooting at monsters more than people these days, but a lot of the ones I enjoy don't really have a compelling story or campaign to go alongside them. I have in the past reflected on the fact that the overwhelming majority of games I own, play and enjoy are games about violence. It makes you think. But I think that I grew up on a steady diet of fantasy novels of great knights slaying monsters and powerful wizards turning the tides of fate. That culture shaped my personality and as a mild mannered introvert in real life it lets me engage in that hero fantasy without harm to others or myself. I enjoy it and I've come to accept it for being that. If you stop to look at it a overwhelming amount of entertainment in general frequently features violence, and I think it's just baked into our universal human experience. Violence has been a mainstay in human history, and art reflects reality. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that. In order to maintain my sanity I choose to accept it as a fact of the human condition and, though maybe not revel in it, I will engage that instinct in a safe manner. The safe manner of my choosing is frequently by firing a big fuck-off gun at some ungodly creature that is threatening to impose its place in the food chain upon me, in some video game.
Good talk, internet stranger. I just wanted more people to enjoy Titanfall, I didn't expect an impromptu therapy session, but I've thoroughly enjoyed this.
Yeah, I think I've really fallen off of the whole "modern warfare" thing. I'm sure I could enjoy a military shooter just fine still, but it's not something I seek out because it makes me think too much about scary things that happen in the real world, I guess. I don't want to be a soldier, I guess.
Absolutely, and I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that. It can be harmless fun and all, but sometimes I wonder why I enjoy this particular kind of power fantasy, and if I really should. It's a lot easier when it's all cartoonishly evil stuff, but things that go for more gritty, edgy, and "real" vibes... I dunno. I can still enjoy them, but sometimes I think too much about it and I'm like "I guess this is kind of fucked, huh?"
Yeah, I think about this a lot actually. One thing that's kind of interesting to me is that my partner is often okay with violence in films and TV shows, but is generally pretty opposed to it in video games. I guess video game violence is kind of different in some ways, in some sense you're often committing the acts of violence yourself... And it probably doesn't help if you're not engaged with the story, and don't particularly care for video games in the first place, haha. If you're more familiar with film and TV you're probably more okay with it there.
But yeah, so much media is centered around violence... And to be honest, I don't really think it's because it's so central to our lives. I mean, obviously it's still very much present and is a big deal in many ways, and is maybe something we're hard wired to find "interesting" in some sense because it has been present throughout our evolutionary history... But in our every day lives I think a lot of us go about our days without seeing much real violence or gore or anything... BUT, violence and death is kind of an excellent motivator and catalyst, which I personally think is a huge reason why it's a central part of so much media. It's a lot easier to justify why you're doing something if it's life or death, and I think it's a huge part of why it's so prevalent in video games too... It's an easy motivator and easy justification for shooting things yourself. There's definitely non-violent games, but I think it's much harder to design instant gratification machines that everybody intrinsically understands the goal of unless it's motivated by "death" in some sense. I think it's pretty difficult to design something that has the kind of cadence and feedback of a shooter without violence and without it seeming arbitrary to a lot of people. I think platformers get pretty close, but most aren't purely about jumping. Maybe rhythm games and sports games too? And there's been other valiant efforts like Pyre, which I think is super interesting. And of course there's other kinds of games like city builders and sandboxes and puzzle games and whatnot, but I feel like they have a very different pace and feel... Which is totally valid and valuable too, of course... But can you have something cathartic like a shooter that isn't one? I mean Portal is kind of interesting in this respect too, because it's arguably an FPS but very different and (mostly) non-violent.
But yeah, I'm kind of just talking out of my ass... And I feel like I'm starting to sound like a bit of a nut who's opposed to violence in video games and think it will turn people into murderers or something. I don't feel that way at all, and I definitely do enjoy my fair share of violent video games... I guess I'm just trying to think of the other facets of life that I value and enjoy, and I'm kind of wondering where the expression of that is in my video games? And I guess I've also been thinking of my partner and how I can better share this thing that I enjoy with them... But it's kind of hard because so many games are centered around violence... And I guess in some sense I've also been thinking a bit about what I want to do in this world, and I think maybe I want to do something creative at some point (maybe one day I'll try putting together a small game or something), and I've been thinking a bit about why I would even want to do that, if I want to "say" anything with that piece of work, or if I just want to try to make something that's "dumb fun"... But I guess in the back of my mind I also have these thoughts that I'd like for it to be something that my partner could also enjoy. Iunno.
And yeah, I've enjoyed this too :). Nice talking to ya!