Grid 2 sets world record for most expensive Special Edition
ITC rules Xbox did not infringe on Motorola patent
How an 'immature smartass' helps Shadow Warrior reboot
Call of Duty: Ghosts using voice commands for Xbox One Kinect
Star Wars Battlefront opportunity 'very exciting,' says EA
Weekend Confirmed 109 - Prey 2, Trials Evolution, Fez, God of War: Ascension
by Garnett Lee, Apr 20, 2012 11:00am PDTThere's no two ways around it, the run to E3 has started. Big news leads off this episode of Weekend Confirmed with Sony announcing a new God of War game in the works for PlayStation 3. One of last year's E3 surprises, Prey 2, also finds its way into the news with word of a delay as rumors swirl around its development. Screen Tear host Carlos Rodela joins the two Jeff's and Garnett as they tackles these stories along with more love for Fez and plenty of enthusiasm for the finger-melting action of Trials Evolution. There's even some board game love worked in there before Finishing Moves brings it all home.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 109: 04/20/2012
Subscription Links:
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed in iTunes
- Weekend Confirmed is also available in the Zune Marketplace
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed via RSS
If you're viewing this in the GameFly application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 109 directly.
We're testing out this pop-up player so you can listen from right here on the page. Let us know how it works for you.
Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
Show Breakdown:
Round 1 00:00:36 – 00:27:42
Whatcha Been Playing Part 1 00:28:07 – 00:55:48
Whatcha Been Playing Part 2 00:56:49 – 01:24:50
Listener Feedback/Front Page News 01:25:45 – 01:56:53
Jeff Cannata can also be seen on The Totally Rad Show. They've gone daily so there's a new segment to watch every day of the week!
Follow the Weekend Confirmed crew on Twitter, too!
Weekend Confirmed @WeekendConfirmd
Garnett Lee @GarnettLee
Jeff Cannata @jeffcannata
Jeff Mattas @JeffMattas
Carlos Rodela @onawa
Remember to join the Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page and add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest Album, The Wait is Over on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page, and follow him on twitter delriomusic.
Comments
I'm instantly skeptical any time I hear people make sweeping generalizations about the lack of high-quality storytelling in videogames. I personally think that 95% of people who play games are only paying minimal attention to the story to begin with (Jeff, I'm not including you in that 95%, I get the feeling you pay far closer attention to story in games than most do). I think many videogame "stories" are fairly well put together.... just as well as the average movie. The problem is that the experience of PLAYING the game often gets in the way of storytelling. Our attention (and therefore our ability to absorb the story) is constantly divided.
Another issue is that the primary focus of most videogames is not storytelling. The primary focus is gamplay, with the story acting as a metaphor or "excuse" for the gameplay that is taking place.
Of course, the ideal situation is to have a game with great storytelling AND great gameplay, but the truth is that for most people, a game doesn't need to have a great story to be enjoyable. On the flip side, a game with great story but bad gameplay just won't be enjoyable for most. Its an issue of priorities, and I feel that storytelling is often not the priority of the developer, or the player.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 18 replies.
Thus, games do not have separate narratives. There is no narrative other than the one presented by the game as a whole.
A game can use a first person voice---however the "I" "me" or "us" in the game's voice never refers to you as the player, it refers to the game protagonist.
You will use a first person voice when describing your playing experiences, but that doesn't make what happened in the game something that happened to you as a person.
The real jarring disconnect happens when a game asks you to act as though you are the protagonist, when you are evidently a dude sitting on a couch. Trying to answer a game that asks that question requires fundamental psychological and experiential distortions that are anathema to a video game experience.
Games that try to employ this meta approach to story telling always end up with variations on the same scenario:
1. The protagonist is totally psychologically malleable as the result of being a guinea pig of some organisation.
2. The end game is based on you, "the protog" breaking the shackles of your video game linearity. Whether it be via killing Andrew Ryan, defying the cake in Portal, or at the end of Syndicate where the female side character says "I wonder what you'll do now that you don't have any orders" chooka chooka baiw waiw *que baad awsss rawknroll music*
I think a lot of these plot structures appeal to gamers because there's always this patriarchal figure that they have to kill, and then there's some female at the end who they save, or presumably becomes their love interest. In the case of Portal its about gettin rid of yo' passive aggressive biatch of a girlfriend! Its like the perfect plot structure for latent adolescent males with daddy issues.
You must be logged in to post.