Topic: Metroid Prime 3: Discussion with Series Producer

[Ceric]

I, personally, like the main character not talking.  I like it when the dailog of the characters talking to him/her let you fill in what they are saying how you think it should be said.  When done properly you really don't need to know what they say verbatim because you know from context what it is.  This allows you to give them there own voice.  One of the reasons I prefer text over voice acting.  It's never done quite right.  Like Ian said this is an interactive media.  If I took my character and grinded him/her up to uber levels before facing the next boss which then is trivial I would expect them to be a little cocky.  Good games don't shoe horn you in.  Like good DM's don't force you to stick to the letter to there story.  They know where they want you to go and have a general idea how you should get there but if you want to do it differently they can adapt there story till you end up where they wanted you to in the end anyway.  A good DM will get you there without you even knowing it.  Same with games.

[Mario]

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Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
Seriously...I especially hate it with FPSers, because you're in the eyes of the character, yet in cutscenes you are no longer part of it...It really takes away from the experience for me...

Good thing FPS games aren't about story and/or immersion.

[Galford]

About story in Metroid...

Nintendo needs to do something.  Look at Fusion, when the game starts we find out Samus isn't human anymore.  By the time the game ends, we find out that she has been left for dead and double crossed by the very people she was working for.  Nintendo now has a golden opportunity to take the series in a new direction.

Also about the map and backtracking, if you don't like doing it, go play Metroid 2.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
Gaming is probably the worst choice of medium for telling a story since user interaction affects the author's control.

I couldn't possibly disagree more.

I have never had a movie plot rope me in the same way I've been drawn in by games like Eternal Darkness, Phoenix Wright and Deus Ex where the player is pulled into the middle of the events. It's BECAUSE my actions dictate the outcome that these games are so incredibly great.

This, IMHO, is why survival horrors like Resident Evil will work in game form but tend to suck in movie form: remove interactivity and there's nothing left. RE has the effect it has over players because your actions are what determine the outcome. When your character dies, it's YOUR fault, YOU got them killed because you didn't react in time. In the movie, how can you bring yourself to care about a character when they'll likely blunder into their own demise?

I think games are a BETTER storytelling device than movies and books combined because they can bring the player to a point where the reader and the audience will never reach: the point where they are responsible.

I readily admit that 95% of games out there do not strive to reach this goal, even those that do boast story, but the ones that reach said goal give me experiences that I will NEVER forget, experiences which I will talk to my friends about afterwards and make references and jokes, even.

I'm not saying that cipher games are bad games or don't have a place in the market, it's just that I feel they absolutely pale in comparison to a game with a solid storyline which involves the player to the extent where they care about the outcome of the game.

Granted, games can do this and still be cypher games: Wind Waker and OoT both made you care because there was so much drama behind the storyline and so much "riding" on your success.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that stories in games (that try) are often better than those in movies these days and I don't think that's JUST because hollywood sucks right now (although it does). I think pulling a person into a storyline is far more likely if they are an active participant in its outcome.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Mario
Good thing FPS games aren't about story and/or immersion.

That's a sweeping generalization.

Play Deus Ex, Half-Life 2 or Geist.

All three have better stories than what passes for good movies these days.

[zakkiel]

"All three have better stories than what passes for good movies these days. "

I'm just gonna go ahead and register my disagreement with that now. And I agree with Ian; it's almost impossible to tell a good story and have a good game. The plot has to be lose and vague enough that you spend most of your time not worrying about it and getting on with the actual game. I can't think of a single video-game plot that would be even slightly palatable in any other medium.

That's not the same as saying that a video game story can't be just as compelling; the fact that you are participating adds a powerful element. But this is despite the raw mechanics of the plot, not because of them.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: zakkiel
I'm just gonna go ahead and register my disagreement with that now. And I agree with Ian; it's almost impossible to tell a good story and have a good game. The plot has to be lose and vague enough that you spend most of your time not worrying about it and getting on with the actual game. I can't think of a single video-game plot that would be even slightly palatable in any other medium.

That's not the same as saying that a video game story can't be just as compelling; the fact that you are participating adds a powerful element. But this is despite the raw mechanics of the plot, not because of them.

Care to cough up some counter-examples? What movies featured a similar plot which pulled you into it to anywhere near the same level as these games did?

MGS told an excellent story and had awesome gameplay to boot: it reminded me of the days when games weren't afraid to be challenging without fear that the mass audience would bitch the developer out for making it too hard for the lowest tier of gamer.

Phoenix Wright was a effectively a puzzle game which tested your deductive logic and, in doing so, made going after each guilty murderer a personal ordeal: when it's your brain vs. the game, how can it not be personal?

Deus Ex was a FPS which a plot so intricate that it touched upon theology and the corruption of the power structure before it was over. It was a game in which every single person who was close to your character would die...OR you could figure out how to save their lives. Then, in the end, you were being influenced by three separate forces and could choose any of the three endings, whichever suited you, all the while developing your character's abilities how you saw fit in an RPG-style (shame Deus Ex 2 sucked so badly...).

Geist managed to make it feel like every time you figured out a way to push through an area, you had accomplished something. This was actually true to an extent because there were multiple ways to accomplish most every objective. The story was a bit cheesy but I maintain that it's better than 90% of the maggot-infested filth that hollywood regurgitates on us every year.

These games are rarities, I know, but they do a damn better job than most movies of grabbing their audience and making them care about the experience.  

[trip1eX]

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Originally posted by: zakkiel
...... it's almost impossible to tell a good story and have a good game. The plot has to be lose and vague enough that you spend most of your time not worrying about it and getting on with the actual game. ......

Definitely agree here.   My favorite vidgame stories are mostly the  vague ones with the main character who doesn't talk like  Zelda, Metroid, HL2, etc.  The things I do are the story.  The bad guys I kill.  The secrets I uncover.  The equipment I find.  The information I dig up.     The doors I open.  yada yada yada.  That's the story.  What I do in the game.  That's what immerses me.  The interactivity of it all.  I don't mind a story within that framework of doing.  

IN HL2 the npcs talk with you at various points in the game and you find out bits of info from the guy on the videoscreen, etc.  

In Metroid Prime, you find out what happened thru the use of your scanner.  You find out about the world.  About the death and destruction.  IT's all pretty vague, but it makes you feel like you're doing something and experiencing something.

IN Zelda you find out a little background info here and there from the characters at least in the last game.  (I can't say I've played many Zeldas yet.)  IT's never too much of passive experience tho where you are left hanging watching a movie.  

Cutscenes remind me of those lazy teachers in high school that would always play a video or movie instead of teaching.  INstead of getting some interaction going with the class they'd take the easy way out and join pop in a vid.  That was boring.  A time to nod off.  Well it's the same with games at least for me.  





 

[Hostile Creation]

"All three have better stories than what passes for good movies these days."

You don't watch enough good movies.
I haven't played much of MGS, but from what little I've seen and what I've heard, the story is actually rather ridiculous.  The gameplay didn't look spectacular to me, either, but that's another issue entirely.
Also, I think you're too hard on movies.  First off, it's a sweeping generalization to say that Hollywood churns out filth; I'd say more crap games come out than crap movies.  In the past year we've seen Jarhead, Brokeback Mountain, Crash, 40 Year Old Virgin, Wedding Crashers, A History of Violence, Munich, Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, and several other great movies.  All of these are Hollywood caliber movies and they're all (by either my seeing them or word of mouth) very good films.  It's easy to see Big Momma's House 2 and say all Hollywood movies suck, but the fact is that's just not true.

Now I'm not arguing that these games aren't better than some films.  But games have several advantages that movies do not.  They can be up to 50 or so hours long, if the developers so choose, rather than just two.  They have optional side stories.  That's a lot more potential content and storytelling time.

I consider all creative mediums to be equal, and the individual products of those mediums have varying quality.  It's true that a lot of story-driven games are lacking in gameplay: Eternal Darkness and Killer 7 are both exquisite stories with mediocre gameplay.


"These games are rarities, I know, but they do a damn better job than most movies of grabbing their audience and making them care about the experience."

Full Metal Jacket grabbed me more, far more, than any war game I've ever played, period.
Pulp Fiction and Snatch and Layer Cake and Resevoir Dogs and Lock Stock and Goodfellas and the Godfather far more than any crime game that I've ever played.
On the other hand, Killer 7 is the most weird, psychadelic experience I've ever had with a creative work.  And I've seen Godard and read House of Leaves and Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Donald Barthelme and all the rest.
Metroid Prime one of the most immersive faux-realities I've experienced, and one of the most interesting methods of storytelling I've encountered.
Link's Awakening is one of the most powerful endings I've ever seen, one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had overall with any sort of creative work.

One's no better than the other, it all depends.

[Ian Sane]

"I have never had a movie plot rope me in the same way I've been drawn in by games like Eternal Darkness, Phoenix Wright and Deus Ex where the player is pulled into the middle of the events. It's BECAUSE my actions dictate the outcome that these games are so incredibly great."

I find though that rarely do my actions dictate the outcome in story-heavy games.  I like MGS.  It's a lot of fun.  But it felt more like I was an actor playing Solid Snake then a spy trying to stop terrorists.  Everything was so planned and structured.  It was like Kojima was telling me "okay in this scene Snake does this" and then I did it and watched a cut scene and the next pre-planned gameplay sequence occured.  I find with gaming if the dev wants to really control the story they need to greatly limit what the player can do so you feel more like you're watching then playing.  But if you let the player have more control then you have less control over the story.  That's why I think gaming is a weak storytelling medium.  If you want a lot of control over what happens you have to make a crappy game.

[Smash_Brother]

But was MGS a crappy game? I thought the gameplay was excellent, giving you a good mix between tactics and action which made for a well-rounded game and helluva fun time.

MGS isn't even the best example. Deus Ex is THE prime example because it's a game where you will likely only ever watch half of the cutscenes because you chose your own path to take and in doing so alter the path you take through the game dramatically.

Here's where I think I'm lost on the whole situation...

The simple fact is, games are always going to end. From the beginning of the game to the end of the game is where I will either find some form of entertainment or yawn so hard that I have to put down the controller for fear of the onset of a coma. I like puzzles. I like puzzles but I like enemies that in themselves are puzzles, usually only found in bosses during your struggle to defeat them.

If the game is not engaging my mind, it is losing me. Either it's doing something interesting, making me glad I can pay attention to the game and not listen to any of the sh*t going on in my head, or it's boring me, making me wonder if I could slay the clerk/reviewer who recommended it and evade detection.

The reason why I object to games in which I have to collect piles of worthless items or walk back and forth over the same areas repeatedly is that, as a man who craves mental stimulation, they starve me of it for long periods of time, only giving the next payoff in the form of a boss fight, a room with an intricate puzzle or a cutscene which forces me to snap out of the near slumber and act.

I love games with strong storylines because, whether or not I'm interacting with the game at the time, I'm being told a good story which moves at whatever pace I want to see and even reacts to my decisions. It's engaging, even if I'm not controlling my character, what's happening in the screen is something worth paying attention to and will keep me motivated to push further into the story.

I've played just about every type of game in existence to death. There is nothing that someone could present to me which I haven't seen done in some form or another (hence why I look forward to the Rev and upcoming DS titles). I liked MP1 because it was something new when it was introduced. MP2 didn't go over as well because it was simply more of the same from MP1. In order for a game to be playable in my eyes, it has to engage me somehow, and since I'm familiar with most every form of gameplay offered in this day and again, often a strong story with frequent plot is the only way to accomplish that.

But to each their own. I'm not telling you what to enjoy or NOT to enjoy, I'm just saying why I enjoy what I do enjoy and vice versa.

[Strell]

Holy damn, we are arguing games can't tell good stories?

Did none of you play Chrono Trigger, FF4/6, Earthbound, Loom, Day of the Tentacle, Indigo Prophecy, Beyond Good and Evil....

I could do this for a while, you know.

[Hostile Creation]

I don't think anyone's saying games don't have good stories (except maybe Ian, I'm not sure).  I was just defending film (since I'm going into it) and arguing that movies can be just as involving as games.  And I believe that they tend to have better stories.

[wandering]

Games are like visiting the grand canyon. Visiting the grand canyon may be a powerful experience for you, but it probably wouldn't make for a very good story in the traditional sense.

Killing badguys and saving princesses is exciting when you're the one doing it...but, in the grand scheme of things, there are a lot of stories about a lot of killing...and your particular experience with zelda isn't, frankly, all that interesting.

Could a videogame provide a good story? Where your character had deep motivations and every human being and piece of architecture has a long history and what you are doing in the game is actually intersting? Of course. And I'd consider games like that to be good stories. Stories that change with each telling, sure...but then, most good stories do.

A game like that wouldn't be like time you visited the grand canyon. It would be like the time you divorced your wife because she had connections to the reggie mafia. Or something.

Unfortunatley, most people's ideas of 'games with good stories' are games where you have to sit through 20 minute cut scenes that, by movie standards, are downright mediocre.

But we're getting there.

[Hostile Creation]

I have to say, the game that I think accomplishes the game/story equilibrium the best (though it definitely is focused on gameplay) is the Zelda series.  That's a big part personal preference, because I like the way the story is told in Zelda, but I think the opinion definitely has some general merit.

[KDR_11k]

I think it's funny to see SB complain about "ciphers" while praising Half-Life 2 which has the ultimate cipher. Gordon Freeman has a name, nothing else. Originally they didn't even want to show you what he looks like but unfortunately there were elements in HL1 MP that did.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
I think it's funny to see SB complain about "ciphers" while praising Half-Life 2 which has the ultimate cipher. Gordon Freeman has a name, nothing else. Originally they didn't even want to show you what he looks like but unfortunately there were elements in HL1 MP that did.

You caught me: I never played the game.

I've had a reliable friend praise it and he's not the type to dig a game without a decent story.

Also, I do praise Zelda as a game with an excellent story. OoT was my first Zelda game and it was all in all just incredible, despite the fact that Link is a cipher. I also loved the cutscenes in WW, the most memorable being when the giant bird was holding Link up for "you know who" to see, and he makes a gesture to the horizon and the bird flings you halfway across the world.

[KDR_11k]

The basic idea of Half-Life was that everything happened around you but you remained yourself. During cutscenes (called scripted sequences) you could move around and the game would always show your own perspective instead of some cinematic view. Unfortunately that meant you had to position yourself right if you wanted to understand what anyone says. I didn't understand a single word in the ending of HL1 because the gman's voice was drowned out by environmental noise.

[thejeek]

Even though HL2 is very scripted in parts and stuff like the water section and the coast are almost on rails, it still *feels* open ended and not like you're having a storyline forced on you - you feel like you have free-will but that you *want* to do the stuff that advances the plot. It's a very good example of story telling in a game IMO.

[Jonnyboy117]

Nice discussion here.  :-)

I do want to clarify that I was not implying that Samus has been greedy in past games or that she should act greedily in future games.  But going the Han Solo route is the only way I can think to push the bounty hunter role (which, as has been noted many times, Nintendo has never pursued whatsoever until MP:Hunters) without destroying her characterization from past games.  Retro could, alternatively, continue to ignore the bounty hunter thing, or write it out in favor of something else (soldier in the GF).  A year ago, they were actively discussing these issues and were very concerned about how fans would deal with changes to her character.  My response was designed to provide the most potential for expansion of her character while preserving the most consistency with her previous actions.  Although Samus has never been directly shown to be greedy, or pretending to be greedy, she is ostensibly a BOUNTY HUNTER.  In the Star Wars context, which was the producer's choice and not mine, the obvious comparison is Boba Fett, which would be a terrible template for expanding/rewriting Samus's character.  Han Solo is a smuggler who engages in some of the same activities as Fett (sometimes as self-defense, as in the cantina), but his true motives are completely different.

[trip1eX]

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
In order for a game to be playable in my eyes, it has to engage me somehow, and since I'm familiar with most every form of gameplay offered in this day and again, often a strong story with frequent plot is the only way to accomplish that.

IF you're bored of gameplay mechanics and need a good story & plot then why play videogames?   You're going to find better stories elsewhere.  

One gets tired of stories too when you've read a ton of books and watched a ton of movies.  AFter that stooping to cheesy videogame stories for 15 yr olds get old man.  

Also 20hours to watch a couple hours of cutscenes doesn't seem worth it.  Rent a movie instead.    I mean you're tired of gameplay mechanics anyway.

Anyway yeah to each their own.  Personally, when it comes down to it, I like the ability of videogames to make me the star.  I'm the one who has to solve the puzzle.  Kill the bad guy.  Find the key.  yada yada yada.  

I like the active experience.  That doesn't mean there's not a story.  I mean Metroid Prime has a story.  But the way you find it and experience is up to you for the most part.  Same with HL2.  And Zelda.  Their method of design keeps me locked in.

GAmes are like visiting the Grand Canyon.  They're an experience.  They're also like solving a math problem in school.  You know the satisfaction and stimulation you get from figuring out the answer.  That's the stuff that grabs me.  Passive stories?  Other mediums do that better and take up less of your time in doing so.

[Ian Sane]

"I don't think anyone's saying games don't have good stories (except maybe Ian, I'm not sure)."

I'm not.  My arguement is just that games aren't really a good medium for telling a story.  Some games have good stories and manage to have good gameplay but it's a rarity.  I'm of the idea that if you're a gamer or a developer and story is your main focus then you probably have the wrong interest.  Literature or film would probably be more up your alley.

Check out today's Penny Arcade comic for a good example of the problems with story focused games.  Funny stuff and reason number one why I'm bored of RPGs.

[KDR_11k]

Games are a good medium for telling a story but it has to be done right. Games are a separate medium that should be treated as such, using the conventions from any other medium will not work well. All other media are linear and non-interactive (except for P&P RPGs, videogames based on P&P RPGs often follow the rules set by those and they work much better in the interactive context than other rules). What writers are doing is writing one story for a game but a game is an infinite set of stories that can develop out of the player's actions. Dragging the player along a predefined storyline can fail miserably, especially when the story enforces actions the player would never do (Final Fantasy main characters have a tendency to do that. And I still want to kill Squall). The trick is to define a ruleset that allows the player to form his own story to some degree. If an event is supposed to be unavoidable, make it truly unavoidable instead of just starting a cutscene and having the character behave in any stupid way you want.

I think that's the strength of Half-Life, the script never demands that your character does something you don't want to do, it still makes you do things but it does so by having e.g. a character come up to you and tell you that you have to get into the teleporter. If an enemy gets away he does so because it's impossible to stop him, not because a cutscene made you stand and stare while he kidnaps your girlfriend and runs off laughing (sorry, Final Fantasy comparisons coming up again).

[zakkiel]

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What movies featured a similar plot which pulled you into it to anywhere near the same level as these games did?

You're talking past me, not to me. I explicitly said these game stories can be just as immersive, if not more, than any other medium, but that's because of one unique advantage in video games: you're the one doing the action. When you really try to use a book- or movie-level plot in a video game, it constrains your action so much that it loses that critical advantage. Further, a video game is built around a few select types of action that constitute the real game - shooting, slashing, opening, moving, what have you. Thus a game has to be pretty repetitive. This level of repetition would be boring beyond belief in a movie or book. When you talk about a game's story, you're really just extracting certain tidbits while ignoring the bulk of the game. Even a plot-intensive game like ED (which is basically just a collection of Lovecraftian tropes and underdeveloped side characters suffering one gruesome fate or another) is still 90%+ fighting monsters and solving puzzles.

I didn't offer any counterexamples because all three of the games you mentioned would make terrible movies and worse books. MGS is like a parody as far as I'm concerned, HL2 has almost no story elements, and Deus Ex as a movie would be worse than the second Matrix, particularly in terms of prentiousness. Besides which, insofar as you are making the decisions, the game is not telling a story. Having the characters under the authors control is practically the defining element of stories.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: trip1eX
You're going to find better stories elsewhere.  

No, I'm not. I know that because I've spent time looking.

Furthermore, in case this fact somehow slipped by everyone, I'm stating that a game can pull you into its plot to a greater extent than any movie or book if the game can personally involve the player, making them feel like a part of the story.

Single player games lacking story are like running on a treadmill: if the puzzles, monsters and challenges are just there for the sole sake of the player overcoming them with no pretense of motivation, then why bother?

I look forward to TP because I know it WILL be a game rich with story, and I often question whether or not Link will die at the end of the game because, from what I hear, this is supposed to be a prequel to WW, and as we know from the intro of WW, the hero disappeared and did not return when Ganon came back to claim Hyrule.

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I didn't offer any counterexamples because all three of the games you mentioned would make terrible movies and worse books. MGS is like a parody as far as I'm concerned, HL2 has almost no story elements, and Deus Ex as a movie would be worse than the second Matrix, particularly in terms of prentiousness. Besides which, insofar as you are making the decisions, the game is not telling a story. Having the characters under the authors control is practically the defining element of stories.

You confuse my meaning. I didn't ask you to imagine these games as movies or books: that NEVER works.

I asked if you could name some movies which rope you in the same way. I can name a few, but I've still yet to have anything top some of the games I've played. LOTR, the FIRST Matrix movie, Syriana... these are all movies that do their best to put the audience IN the movie so they feel involved, but even these cannot come close to a scenario where the audience has interactive control over the events.

But again, I'm not here to tell people what to enjoy or not. I'm looking forward to the Rev because it's at least hope that gaming will be changing for the better.

And I agree with Ian that RPGs are wearing thin. They all seem to have the same basic plot with a few variables here and there and most of those plots aren't even very good or engaging.