The Death of The Story

Ayumi Hamasaki

Ayumi Hamasaki

It's a beautiful dream, but a dream is earned
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I've noticed something that I find really disturbing. Everytime I go out of my dark room, and buy or rent a game that came out witin the last year, I instantly regret it. Why, you ask. Because the stories are horrendus excuses to make the graphics look as pretty as possible. Why are they doing this to us?

For example, Fable 2. I was so excited that I actually, for the first time in my life, bought a game the day it came out. It was a mistake, the story lasted like 4 hours, and the gameplay was horrible. But it looked really nice. Too bad it's nothing more than a cup holder for me, now.

What do you guys think, are better graphics ruining our games?
 
Well, i own a PS3 and every game i have bought,or borrowed of a mate, has been brill, i'm gonna disagree with you. Take fallout 3 for example, great storyline,tons of fun and stuff to do,Good graphics.

Call of Duty MW2 singleplayer campaign ROCKS i won't spoil it for anyone who is planning on buying it but, the story is emense and the graphics are upto date. Along with AC2 (Assassin's Creed). All 3 of those for me, were a good buy and never made me regret buying them.
 
I agree that some games can be disspointing due to gameplay. I mean Tomb Raider for the XBox 360 was lushy to look out, but bloody buggy as hell. I actually like Fable 2 lol, but I cant see where you are coming from. It does seem some developers are more bothered about looks rather then story.
 
as with everything in this world, there exist only a few gems among the rocks. truly good games are in the minority, it has always been this way.
 
I have more complaints with the difficulty and length of games these days than the story. With a few noteable exceptions, games these days last me a maximum of ten hours, and its extremely irritating. I wouldn't put it down to graphics so much, more an expanding market for video games. Companies seem to cater for everyone except those of us who have been playing games for years and would like something of a challenge...
 
I find that nearly every game I've played that has had good looking graphics hasn't disappointed me at all.

I asked my partner what he thought and he has yet to find a game that's disappointed him as well, whether it has good or bad graphics.

No doubt that there are games out there that are kind of lifeless aside from the graphics, but we all have different tastes and for people like me and Steve who don't play a lot of games, we don't expect too much, so are rarely disappointed if at all.
 
I find it pretty hard to believe that any FPS story line is going to be great. Even Halo's entire storyline is only "ok" in game and it makes great literature. Assasin Creed 2 story line is nothing special. I havent played Fallout 3 but I certainly plan on it.

I agree with you OP to some extent. Though I think it will cycle back through relatively soon. It seems everyone is just thinking about games they founf fun without thinking about the actual quality of the storyline. Storyline in games is equally as important to me as game play, and I have to agree with you to some extent. Gameplay and graphics are taking the place of story line. I have even heard RPGer's say that innovative battle systems are more important then a good story. Which makes no sense so it seems to be the current trend that story is less important then look and game play.
 
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Actually, I thought Fable was somewhat like a 'sandbox' type of game? (Did I use that correctly?)

That is, in the sense that it was free and easy as to your next course of action. What I seem to recall is that the game allows you to make various different options which can determine your character's personality, and reputation within the game. Correct me if I'm wrong though, I never played the game, and am basing all these on reviews alone.

Most of the games I purchase have considerably good storyline, or good game play to the extent where storyline does not matter much.

With regards to graphics.. I would say I can barely care less about it. It may improve for as much as I care. So long the storyline is good, I'm with it. Having said that, I think developers know well enough how important it is to the game the plot, as opposed to the graphics. While they may polish up the game in visual terms, I'm sure they will not compromise the story.

Unless, of course, the game play is impressively addictive. An example would probably be Pac-man..
 
You should research your games before they come out! That's what a good gamehunter does. Yes I've been fooled by graphics. The truth is a perfect game does not exist. Good gameplay does. Before you buy it research it. Wikipedia it or sumthin....
 
Fable is more of a story based sanbox game though, like Star Wars KOTOR, which had an amazing story but gave you choice. It can be done, but Fable did not do it.

To the point of length, Fable was also an example of this. It took about 4 hours to beat the game, and since most of the decisons did nothing, and getting a different ending was as simple as reloading your game. It sucked.

I did research the game. It was that guy who lied about all the neat stuff was going to do. He fooled me into buying a game that wasn't even half way finished.

Neverwinter Nights 2 looks good, and it's really fun once you patch it. That's another thing about new games, now days you can never buy them complete. You either have to patch them fifty times, or buy butt loads of downloadable content. What do you people think about that stuff?
 
padmelover said:
I've noticed something that I find really disturbing. Everytime I go out of my dark room, and buy or rent a game that came out witin the last year, I instantly regret it. Why, you ask. Because the stories are horrendus excuses to make the graphics look as pretty as possible. Why are they doing this to us?

For example, Fable 2. I was so excited that I actually, for the first time in my life, bought a game the day it came out. It was a mistake, the story lasted like 4 hours, and the gameplay was horrible. But it looked really nice. Too bad it's nothing more than a cup holder for me, now.

What do you guys think, am I wrong or am I wrong?
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I would agree with you saying that you are indeed wrong, it's not graphics that kill the game its the new "sandbox make your own story because we're too unoriginal to do it ourselves" mindset gaming industries keep on portraying. There is a few exceptions such as Infamous which was worthy of a comic if you ask me, but when you look at games like "Prototype" or "Fable 2" you see how empty the story actually is because they want YOU to fill it.

Prototype for instance when you beat the game the main character survives a nuke and reforms himself when he puts himself back together he goes on an emo rant about how "The visions of a thousand dying people scar my mind" and tries to make it seem like he was the good guy.
For the entire story you could quite literally eat 12 year old girls and throw tanks at families, but somehow this character is the hero? Sandbox is a poor excuse for innovation in order to put mindless gameplay in the place of an actual story. Fable 2 is also a prime example (too many things wrong don't want to write an essay on it), the industry removes emotions from a character in order for the character to be able to do whatever he feels like without reason and this all started with GTA Liberty City way back when.

I miss linear games that force you to meet a character and get into different views, I miss a set story with a set moral, I miss characters with actual purpose and feeling. Lately video games are no longer an art in the most part, now it's all about the mindless play and the raging purposeless ego race that is known as MLG.
 
padmelover said:
Neverwinter Nights 2 looks good, and it's really fun once you patch it. That's another thing about new games, now days you can never buy them complete. You either have to patch them fifty times, or buy butt loads of downloadable content. What do you people think about that stuff?
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I've always wanted to play Neverwinter Nights, I might try it out when I have time. About the patches and DLC...It's a double-edged sword. On one hand, it allows developers to continue improving the game or add new material that they wouldn't have had time to add during main development, or throw treats to their fans (sprites, etc). OTOH, there are those who take advantage of this feature and split their games, selling the main bulk of the game as the core and releasing 'extra scenarios' at a conveniently timed release date set several months down the road.
 
Yep there are a few games I regret buying and got excited for. When I first got the game Left 4 Dead for my 360 I thought it was going to be kickass and awesome considering it was a Zombie type of a game but beat it in 2 days and was boring as well with lack of a story. That is a game right there I regretted and I will never play another Left 4 Dead game.

Another game I regretted getting was Mirror's Edge. What I didn't like about it waa the camera angles, and story not to mention the jumping was so unrealistic.

Thats all I regretted buying so far. Games like Gears of War, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Silent Hill etc. I never regretted buying.

I like graphics and all but I think some games are just too easy to beat nowadays.That my only problem with these games with good graphics. I know FFXIII will be challenging tho. Games are still challenging but just not like how they used to be in the 90's. I think game developers are aiming at casual gamers now.
 
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padmelover said:
Neverwinter Nights 2 looks good, and it's really fun once you patch it. That's another thing about new games, now days you can never buy them complete. You either have to patch them fifty times, or buy butt loads of downloadable content. What do you people think about that stuff?
Click to expand...

I never buy a game when it first comes out for this reason. Just wait to buy it a few months and you can get a complete version in one pack for the same price. It happened with Halo most recently.
 
But what about games like The Sims 3?

It came out and on the same day, there was buy able down-loadable content available. It made me so mad because the game's like sixty dollars and it's like ten dollars to download a dinning room set. What the hell? It drove me nuts.

I mean, I can understand if they wait a month or two, but on the day the game comes out? That stuff should've shipped with the game, shouldn't it have?
 
I generally check reviews nowadays though there are some games such as Uncharted 2 and Dragon Age: Origins that I simply chose to buy because of the company that made them, especially in Uncharted 2's case; Naughty Dog is a fantastic developing team across all their games.

I've tended to stray away from do-I-don't-I games simply because £40 for a game I might not like that much is a lot of money to waste though admittedly I do get dragged it by certain amounts of hype. I suppose for some games, the storyline will have definitely been sacrificed for the graphics. That probably takes in most of the PS3 and 360 games when they were first released. :wacky:
 
I'm starting to find that graphics are killing the game. For instance, go back and play FFIX. Great story, great game, lots to do, then go and pick up a copy of just about any RPG on the Xbox360 or PS3. The story to the old PS1 games trumps that of the ones we have now.

It can't all be blamed on graphics. You also have to think people generally aren't patient anymore. If you can't kill something in the first 5 minutes, you have people that will drop the controller and never play it again.

*Sigh* In my honest opinion, the PS1 had the golden age of RPG's.
 
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