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Other Emerging genres: "Sims" games and "Heavy Rain" games

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by boiled_elephant, 9 Feb 2012.

  1. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    There are a couple of thoughts that I've been trying to simmer down to their essentials for a while now. I wanted to see what other people think. (If it reads like a weird halfway rip-off of Joe Martin's articles and the Cracked.com format, that's because that's exactly what it is. That's what I've grown up reading, I don't know any other way to write.)


    'Sims' games


    Faux-sandbox

    Essentially this refers to sandbox games, but I didn't want to call it that because to most people "sandbox" means "GTA IV" or "Just Cause 2" and so on, and GTA IV and its ilk fail as sandbox games on numerous points.

    [​IMG]

    To most people, the ability to run anywhere and destroy anything whenever you wanted made this a sandbox game. But if it was a sandbox, nobody can deny that it quickly became a very boring sandbox, even failed as a sandbox entirely, because:

    1. The game was only destructive, not constructive.
    For the most part, your only tools were guns and explosives: you couldn't make things. The closest you got to making things in GTA IV was when you assembled a four-lane blockade of eighty cars and then tossed a grenade at the nearest one and watched the ensuing trail of explosions. (If you never did this, go and do it now. It's the best thing you never tried.) But even if you did try to really make or accumulate things, it was all for naught, because...

    2. Nothing in the sandbox gameplay was permanent.
    You'd find a gorgeous sports car, spray it the colour you wanted, walk too far away from it and come back to find it gone, despawned by the game engine. You'd save up a thousand M16 rounds, only to be arrested and lose them (and there's nowhere else in the game to store anything). You'd kill five hundred police officers in a rocket-propelled grenade rampage, only to find that once you lost your wanted level, they all permanently forgot your face and life returned to normal without a backward glance. This is a problem because it makes the sandbox gameplay essentially meaningless. Nothing sticks: no matter how whacky your exploits, you cannot shake the sense that you really are just playing with sand in a box, procrastinating...

    3. The main storyline.
    Having a storyline is fundamentally un-sandbox: not only is the sandbox clearly not the main purpose of the game, but the story often interferes with the sandbox: you're halfway through building a giant chain explosion out of lorries when Jacob calls you. He's pinned down by gangsters in an alley, and needs your help. And of course, as soon as you drive off to help him, the lorries will vanish.


    Actual sandbox, or 'Sims' games

    These problems have often left people frustrated with the sandbox element of GTA IV. "Why is it there?" they ask. "The TV and radio are just the same 20 minutes of material on a loop, the cars all despawn, the wanted level resets, and the story takes precedent over it all. So why let me do it at all?" Basically, if you're going to do a sandbox, do it properly.

    Let me state right now that I'm not implying The Sims is better than Grand Theft Auto. That would be silly (they're probably incomparable, but for my money GTA IV is a much better game). Rather, I'm saying that The Sims is a better sandbox than Grand Theft Auto, because it fixes the above.

    [​IMG]

    Games like The Sims, Minecraft and Garry's Mod don't have storylines, mainly because the devs weren't interested in telling a story but also because a story just wouldn't fit alongside sandbox gameplay. Trying to mix them is like trying to mix oil and water. The best you'll get is globules of storyline floating around in a pool of sandbox, and the player trying to splash around in the sandbox will occasionally get a facefull of storyline and it will ruin the experience.

    They also let you permanently build things. In Minecraft, one of the first things I ever did was build a giant castle out of dirt complete with parapets, bottomless pits and balconies on which to watch the sunset. It was completely hideous, and I mean to go back and destroy it once I've figured out everything else in the game - but the damned thing will always be there until I do, which is important. In Minecraft you know that if you make something, it'll stay there, which allows you to invest in the game and be wholly creative. Imagine a Garry's Mod where you couldn't save your projects, or a Sims where your house despawned if you ventured down the road (or whatever it is you do in The Sims: I don't know, I refuse to play them).

    And lastly, you can really change things. You can change the world, remake it and build things in it as you please: in GTA IV, you can evade the police, but they'll always chase you again next time, no matter what you're wearing or driving. You idiot cousin will always phone you asking to go drinking, no matter how many times you've refused. The fundamentals of the game aren't open to debate.


    [​IMG]

    The point

    My point is that Minecraft et al represent a genre in its infancy. Minecraft is - deliberately - a very ugly, very basic game. The Sims is graphically mediocre and fairly small in scope, so far as I can tell. Garry's Mod looked the part but it was very user-unfriendly and ultimately only amounted to sticking objects together in various ways - the craft of Minecraft was absent.

    Now imagine a modern, large-budgeted game in Just Cause 2's or GTA IV's game engine, where you can build and create things as in Minecraft. Minecraft HD, if you will. Imagine going into GTA IV and building your own house or office block, or being able to terraform and build a race circuit in Just Cause 2 and then drive around it in a six-wheeled car that you'd fashioned, Garry's Mod-style.

    Admittedly, I haven't played the Saint's Row games, and I gather they're something of this. But the potential is still largely untapped, because most games that go in this direction fall short. They don't have the scope to make it really interesting. Minecraft, simple as it is, has a larger scope and longevity of gameplay than Just Cause 2 or GTA IV, because the possibilities for creation and discovery it leaves open are that much vaster. We need Minecraft HD. We need real sandbox games with Just Cause 2's graphics and Minecraft's scope, games were you can assemble and create interesting things without it all boiling down to guns and cars and without a rich cinematic storyline getting in the way.

    Speaking of which...


    'Heavy Rain' games

    I should say, I still loved GTA IV. But it really was an oil-and-water experience: I was either sandboxing, or I was absorbing the storyline. The two were totally separate, and the transition between the two was usually jarring. Likewise for Bioshock, whose story I adored but whose gameplay was lacking and just got in the way. And so on for the Legacy of Kain series, the Modern Warfare series (single-player, obviously: the multiplayer is another world unto itself), Max Payne, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 2, Crysis, Aliens vs Predator 2, Unreal II...the list is huge.

    [​IMG]
    Honestly, these games were good movies with bits of bad gameplay stuck all over the screen. It's that simple.

    What all these games have in common, however much they vary in quality, is that the story and the gameplay are separate - too separate. You're either playing the game, or you're absorbing the story, and if you predominantly enjoy either one, the other will just irritate you. (It's the reason there are always Youtube uploads of all the cutscenes stuck back to back: they're the part of the game you most want to revisit, without having to grind through the gameplay again.)

    Contrast Half-Life 2, whose stroke of genius was to tell the story without stopping the gameplay (an example that most of the games industry is still stubbornly refusing to learn from). Dead Space, Fallout 3, Mafia II and the Hitman games get it right: you're not watching the story and then playing the game, you're actually playing the story. What happens in the gameplay advances the story and what happens in the story informs how you tackle the gameplay.

    The picture I'm building here is of two elements that make up a computer game: gameplay and story. Games have varying amounts of each, and depending on how the game is made the two can be blended together or they can be very separate.

    Now try to fit Heavy Rain into that system.

    [​IMG]

    What you probably decided, after muscling it one way and then the other, is that Heavy Rain just doesn't have much gameplay: it's all story, and the only gameplay you get is the minimum amount required to keep the story moving. There are other games like this: Dreamfall had a token amount of gameplay and huge amounts of story, and people tended to hate the former and love the latter.

    This section was going to be called "adventure games", but to most people "adventure game" means "difficult puzzles, point-and-click interfaces, lots of on-screen text, rudimentary or pre-rendered graphics and no gameplay". Only the last of these applies to Heavy Rain and only the first and last apply to Dreamfall.

    [​IMG]


    We keep calling them adventure games, but it's too misleading, not least because games like the above are still made. Like "sandbox", the term has too much baggage to be useful; as soon as you say it, people assume a huge number of very specific things, like when you say you're Conservative or Liberal. It might be easier to find a new term.

    The most accurate term would be "story games", but that would implicitly say rather insulting things about all other games. So, for lack of a better term, I simply call them "Heavy Rain" games.

    As with Minecraft, I think they're a genre in its infancy, one that I desperately want developers to cultivate. The argument that they're "just interactive films/TV shows" is simplistic and flawed: they offer things that films and TV shows cannot. Most important is that they're interactive, and interacting with the story as it's happening increases immersion significantly. Nobody would make a 12-hour murder mystery in which the character spends most of the first episode brushing his teeth, showering, making breakfast and playing with a frisbee. Our attention span is much larger when we're interacting with a game than when we're watching a film or TV show, and consequently the immersion can be that much greater, meaning that video games can be used to tell stories that would never get made for the big screen.

    For this reason, I really hope Heavy Rain wasn't a one-off. 'Heavy Rain' games have enormous potential: they're adventure games without the puzzles, TV shows without the executive meddling or episodic constrictions. They're much more accessible to normal adults, and they have the ability to make gaming a much more serious and emotionally involving medium.



    Thoughts?
     
    Last edited: 20 Jan 2013
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  2. Orca

    Orca What's a Dremel?

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    People can call it a QTE fest all they want, but I really enjoyed Heavy Rain. The story was engaging and playing through 4 different perspectives tied into the main plot was great. The controls were a little dodgy and I think it was still a little uncanny valley in some parts but if you look past these Heavy Rain was an enjoyable and immersive experience in my opnion.

    After my first playthrough I had the incentive to go back and change some of the choices I made to see all the alternate endings as well. If anything I'm disappointed they didn't follow up with the DLC Episodes, with only that one Taxidermist episode seeing the light of day. I would've happily bought more episodic content for Heavy Rain if it were available.

    I agree, let's hope we see more of these "Interactive Drama" games in the future.
     
  3. CanItRunSoldat?

    CanItRunSoldat? What's a Dremel?

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    Isn't it funny that KoTOR fits more into the category of games that have story elements seperate(to a degree) from gameplay, however it is perhaps the game that has left the strongest and longest lasting impression on me in all my years of gaming. I still remember every character and plot option in that game, as well as the combat options and crafting system. Strangely enough both fed into each other while remaining distinct enough. Dark side/light side decisions fed into the points and combat system giving your storyline decisions a tangible impact on non-dialogue events, whilst there was little traffic in the other direction.
     
  4. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    Hmph. I either need a bigger soap box or a louder megaphone...
     
  5. MrDomRocks

    MrDomRocks Modder

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    I read this at 3isham and I understood what you where saying. Minecraft/TheSims/Anno2070 are more Sandbox games than GTAIV etc.

    They allow for creativity with very little narrative. Anno2070 has several modes. One is a storymode. Even though it's not as indepth. it simply gives you tasks of which you have to complete. Each Mission has tasks given by NPC's and once complete you move on to the next Mission.

    One mode simply gives you very little direction. No plot or story just build and prosper. The NPC's there trade with you. Give you objective/reward quests. So go pick up these guys stranded at sea. And they give you items as a reward.


    Thats a small guiding narrative.

    QTE games like Heavy Rain, whilst graphicaly beautiful I have yet to play. Not owning a PS3 at the time is mostly why. The genres are divided at times and have multiple genres mashed together. Though e/retailers sometimes just put them into a catagory they think is correct.

    And to be honest haven't though about it much before. This makes you think about a lot of things. And the reason why punblishers/designers etc are still coming out with the same kind of games is because the masses and console players all want that kind of game.

    Theres very little innovation taking place within the games industry. Yes they are pushing to better and better graphics and engines. But the format for many games hasn't changed in a long time.
     
  6. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    It amazes me that FPS is still so dominant, frankly. I can't be the only person who's bored of the format as a whole. It's just incredibly constraining on the kinds of stories you can tell; ultimately, every problem is going to have to be solvable with a gun, or some combination of a gun and spy-like tools.

    I admire Heavy Rain because it is completely unlike a stereotypical video game in every way. I don't think it entirely succeeded - the very mixed reviews show as much - but that it was tryings something so new, and with so much potential, gave me hope. (Zero Punctuation said the same things about Mirror's Edge, but frankly I didn't see it; as much as I enjoyed it, most of it seemed quite conventional to me.)

    Half-Life 2 is the genesis of all this. It showed that immersive storytelling and rich characterization were possible in a video game; before then, it had been the gruff one-liners of Duke Nukem and the yelling goons of Far Cry that had qualified as characterization, and the awkward "watch this chunk of a movie before you play any more game" format of Legacy of Kain et al was what qualified as storytelling.

    But developers took entirely the wrong message from Half-Life 2's success. They overlooked the innovations and took it as an affirmation that generic copycat shooters still had a future.

    By the curse of affluent 13-year-old boys with short attention spans and wealthy parents, they were bloody right, too.
     
  7. Sloth

    Sloth #yolo #swag

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    On the subject of a "true" sandbox allowing both permanent destruction and construction I'd add that the multiplayer aspect of such games is in itself a largely untapped subset of the sandbox genre which I personally hope to see expanded on in the future. There have been attempts in the past. Ultima Online, Mortal Online, Minecraft, all offer various degrees of permanent interaction not just with a virtual world, but a virtual world shared with other players who can concurrently impact this world. UO and MO aren't exactly big name titles, but with Minecraft the public eye is finally on a multiplayer sandbox experience, it's only a relatively small step to advance from privately run servers to publisher run servers in a massively multiplayer world.
     
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  8. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    It's an enticing idea, and when I first heard of Garry's Mod I was ecstatic for this exact reason. However, it's undermined by the natural tendency of one child to immediately run over and destroy another child's sandcastle rather than focus on simply building their own, a tendency that apparently never, ever goes away at any age. Last time I tried to play Garry's Mod with a friend, we ended up basically playing God Wars - spawning bigger and more hazardous items on each other perpetually. And once we discovered the CS weapon files, it of course just became CS.

    It happens in most games with non-hostile player interactions. Even in Warcraft's home cities, supposed safe zones of mutual cooperation, people manage to troll each other: standing directly on top of a mail box or questgiving NPC with a large mount, so that nobody can click it, is a common favourite.

    So for any multiplayer game, you have to factor in human nature, which is (like everything) 90% crap.
     

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