Games or Interactive Movies?

[Defender]

There's been a couple of games out there that I've played recently and I'd like to classify them as interactive movies rather then games.

Most noticeably Medal of Honor, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Final Fantasy 13.

Those three games looked amazing, I won't lie about that. The gameplay was... well good, not the greatest but they had some interesting ideas. But the gameplay seemed to just enhance the cinematics. Which artistically speaking, was well done. But compared to other games.. yeah they are lacking in comparison.

I've added up all the time spent playing those 3 games together and it comes out to about 40 hours played. 9 for MoH, 8 for BFBC2, and about 23 for FF13. But then I thought about something.

I think I've found out why I've been enjoying MMO's over the years. They are some of the few games offering unique and engaging gameplay, as well as replayability. Most of the single player games want to tell a good story, but with as much theatrics and focus on cutscenes they should just focus on making a movie instead of a game.

The only thing that derides your comparison here is that you're comparing the Storytelling aspect of an FPS to the Storytelling aspect of an MMO. These are two completely different beasts.

I have personally put 471 hours into Bad Company 2 and I touched the Singleplayer for maybe an hour at most. BC2 may have had a SP component, but it was a multiplayer game at heart, just like all Battlefield games. I enjoy the multiplayer. Hell, I played MW3 every day for 8 hours a day for 4 years straight and never even beat the singleplayer because I wrote my own stories in the multiplayer interactively.

MMO's are on the opposite side of the spectrum. They usually have some overarching story (That nobody reads. You read quest text?) that leads into multiplayer components which are basically just a Schrodinger Box containing a dangly carrot. Killing 30 Rabbits for 5 feet is not unique or innovative gameplay, and that formula hasn't changed in over a decade. Nor has the formula for killing 500 guys for a Golden Deagle been a very innovative addition to FPS's.

Either way, both sell, and both cater to completely different audiences.

Personally, I prefer muliplayer shooters because they require little to no time investment to be equal or competitive on the Battlefield, unlike MMORPG's, where to be competitive you have to play as much as the next guy.

The formula of Time = Skill in an MMO is pretty shitty imo. It negates the playerbase of people like myself who actually have things to do in life and just want to hop into a somewhat competitive atmosphere. That's how they're defined to me as completely incomparable entities.

Planetside was the greatest MMO ever thus-far simply due to an utter lack of NPC's, pure PvP, large-scale world with 24/7 uptime and right from the Starting zone you could kill the highest level nerd with his faggy bluetooth earpiece and ninjaturtle shell backpack, but he could come back and situationally counter you. That's neigh impossible in RPG's like WoW or Rift where someone 5 levels above you has an insurmountable advantage.

Now, in terms of your original post about games being like movies. Most FPS (and lately RPG) singleplayer components are simply that and meant to be so. An interactive movie where you play the main character and parade violently through cinematic scripted sequences till you beat the game. MMO's try and blend the two and imo, don't do a very good job due to the insane amount of irrelevant filler between acts.

Story-driven games I quite enjoyed would be akin to Max Payne, Deus Ex, FF7, Bioshock, Portal, Fallout series, Elder Scrolls and others like such where the pacing tied in seamlessly to the storytelling without either seeming too scripted, or too static.

[Taemien]

I never did state that the idea that they were interactive movies was a bad thing or detracted from their quality. Its just that many of these games may or may not have multiplayer. BF2142's single player for example, has absolutely no story to it (its you +bots vs bots). But I spent a good part of a year playing it on a nightly basis.

The point I'm making is if a game does have a single player portion thats decent (as in the game isn't specifically designed for just multiplayer like BF2142, Tribes 2, and the MWLL mod), then its singleplayer should at least equal the value.

The biggest offender of all the games I listed was Final Fantasy 13. That game was $50, I put like I said, about 26 hours into it. Terraria on the other hand has 190 hours and it cost a fraction of the price, and I plan to keep playing it still. Those two games are very fair to compare to each other as its money invested vs enjoyment. I don't know anyone who's thought FF13 was great enough to play through more then twice, much less 3-4 times through. Though Terraria I've probably maxed out 4 characters (equivelent to beating it) and did so in different ways.

I didn't get to play Max Payne, however I don't feel like I missed out. I watched a friend play through the game and got to see the story unfold. Because of that I didn't feel the need to play it myself. This isn't a horrible thing, the fix is don't watch someone play through a game like that, and play it yourself. But thats kind of the point I'm making. When does a game become more of a movie then a game?

I'm just not able to justify 60 bucks for a game thats only going to last me about 10 hours. For the same price I can watch a month's worth of movies off Red Box (assuming 2 movies a night). Now when said games come out on sale for 5 bucks on steam, I can justify the money spent and can enjoy them.

[Bill]

I prefered this thread when it was all just nostalgia.

[Priest]

Bill, your signature scares me.  It looks like a drunk irish butcher who just found out the only thing left at the bar is O'Douls...

As far as MMO's go... agreed some of them absorb your life... but it's the gamer base that drives this.  Most MMO's have something to offer every player at every level.  It's not the games' fault that people have no lives and feel the need to play 24/7 to get everything they need.  There has to be some sort of worth in playing; if it didn't take time to do things, what would be the sense in playing?

What is interesting about the scripted games now is how good the graphics have become, where most of the cut scenes are now actual game footage.  It does lead to a great deal of freedom for developers  who want to lead you through the story to give you some very enjoyable and sometimes near seamless experience.

I remember playing Lord of the Rings, and one thing that I always enjoyed was how the cut scenes would just roll right into game play.  The first couple of times I almost got killed because I didn't realize it switched over!  I suppose that could be a gripe, but I found it rather comical.

[CGB [CoffiNail]]

I am one of the few who cannot be bothered with MMOs, The closest one that i have liked was SWG, due to being able to level and NOT need to grind fighting crap.  I like tocraft, i tend to play a MMO until my craft skill it to high that i need to go frind for two weeks to continue crafting... no thanks.  WoW was pretty close, but once again to continue to craft i needed to level and kill shit, so it got boring. I have tried to play it a total of four times, each time lasting MAYBE two months, usually not even 1.

[~SJ~ Atlessa]

Shenmue anyone?

[Bill]

Shenmue anyone?

Female version of *Brofist*

"Word"

[-AAA-]

To me, the term interactive movie is a game more along the lines of Wing Commanders III and IV; a mix of live action storytelling with dynamic plot lines based on your conversation choices.  I think "interactive movie" was actually the phrase they used to describe the game when it was being promoted. 

As for when a game becomes more of a movie than a game, well that's highly subjective based on perspective, but it comes down to the choices you're given as the player and the weight of their impact on the story.  The story and plot have to be the focus when trying to make this determination, not necessarily the freedom of the gameplay (sandbox vs. tunnel) - often times, the gameplay doesn't effect the story in any way. 

To use your Max Payne example, I think that highlights one end of the spectrum where the game's plot doesn't really change regardless of how you play.  The same sequence of events take place.  While some will surely disagree, I think a game like Mass Effect 2 is on this same end of the spectrum.  While your crew's loyalty and assignments have an impact on who lives and who dies, the core plot doesn't change.  You still save the day and do a slow-motion jump back to the ship.  These games I would qualify as interactive movies.

In the middle of this spectrum are games with branching storylines, where the plot begins to differ after each flashpoint, such as Witcher 2.  At the end, it's still the same final boss and essentially the same ending, but the plot road you took to get there could be vastly different on multiple playthroughs.  It still has that "choose your own adventure" book feel to it, though, where you're either skipping to page 48 or to page 60.  There is no "kill everybody with a machete and go make a sandwich" option.

On the other end of this spectrum are games that either don't exist (yet) or I've never played.  This category would be sandbox games with an infinitely branching story with an infinite number of possible endings.  Some games can artificially create this sensation, but in truth, it's still a scripted sequence.  Games like Minecraft don't fit because they don't have a plot, and games like Oblivion don't fit because while your choices may impact the environment and characters, they don't impact the story.  What choices you are given in regards to the story are still very limited and don't have meaningful impact; it's just choosing between Door #1 and Door #2 to get from A to B.  While everybody in Cyrodill might revere you as the arena champion, Mehrunes Dagon doesn't give a damn and will continue on his merry way.  Oblivion's kind of a bad example since the storyline is compartmentalized against the rest of the sandbox gameplay, anyway. 

[Priest]

An excellent point regarding your actions having a significant impact on the storyline. I've played through mass effect a few times just to see how it impacted the story. The other thing I like to look for with my online experience is the ability to play the storyline game coop. I always enjoy a game more when you can share the experience with a few friends in tow.

Borderlands had a bit of that but the game I most enjoyed was gears. The next iteration with allow up to 4 players in coop mode which I think will be a blast.

[Taemien]

I am one of the few who cannot be bothered with MMOs, The closest one that i have liked was SWG, due to being able to level and NOT need to grind fighting crap.  I like tocraft, i tend to play a MMO until my craft skill it to high that i need to go frind for two weeks to continue crafting... no thanks.  WoW was pretty close, but once again to continue to craft i needed to level and kill shit, so it got boring. I have tried to play it a total of four times, each time lasting MAYBE two months, usually not even 1.

WoW wasn't always like that, used to be able to work up two crafting professions to max at level 1.

Sounds like you'd get a kick out of EQ2. Their crafting system is exp based. Craft something and you gain exp (bonus for making something you haven't made before), rather then hoping for a skill up. A level 1 character can be a max level crafter and is actually a better contributer to guilds then a 90 character with no crafting is.

Gathering mats can be tough but isn't impossible, but if you've got buddies, let them gather it all for ya.

Personally I'm not a crafter at heart, and I hate grinding. Give me a mission (a meaningful one, not collect/kill/pickup x number of things) or dungeon to do that requires me to use my knowledge and kill of my class (or build) to complete.

I much rather play a game then spend time moving things around to just spend time to get levels/gear/ect.

[[IPA] Thalamus]

Shenmue anyone?

I really loved Shenmue, but I hesitate to call it an interactive movie. It was cinematic at times, but the much more thrilling aspect about it was (imo) that you could roam around the town freely, talk to people, buy gadgets, play games in the arcade (and at your character's home!) and even take a job. When you had enough, you could go investigate and beat the crap out of people. An open world RPG / Adventure Hybrid. A great game, though, and I'd love to play it again once, and it's sequel. Unfortunately, my Dreamcast died years ago, and its replacement only months later
     Speaking of Dreamcast, did you ever happen to play Skies of Arcadia? The first RPG I enjoyed and played through the end; I loved the steampunk, the lovely characters and places, the ship-battles and although I hated the random encounters, I eventually liked the round-based battles. I image the Fable series might feel like a modern version of Skies of Arcadia, but I haven't tried yet.


    Personally, I like to distinguish between two sorts of games: those, that are dominated by their narrative, and those that are dominated by gameplay. The first category (narrative) consists of games like Mass Effect 1/2, Dragon Age 1/2, The Witcher 1/2, Fahrenheit etc. Beating them is basically a no-brainer, but beating them right is the tricky part: you can determine how your character handles difficult situation, you have an impact on NPCs and the overarching story. You can walk through these games as a diplomatic, sensible guy or you can go on a rampage and those games will feel fundamentally different ---> you are in fact not playing the game itself, but rather playing around with its narrative, the way it's story is told (and of course, how the story goes).
   The second category (gameplay is dominant) is more traditional imo. MWLL is a part of it, the old Sonic and Mario games I love, and games like Mirror's Edge or even Master of Orion. Or Jet Set Radio (Dreamcast again). You're not thrilled by how you can shape the story but by blowing things up and upgrading (MWLL), by the sheer beauty of movement (Mirror's Edge, Sonic) or by performing increasingly difficult missions (Jet Set Radio), or colonizing the tastiest planets (Master of Orion II). You are not really thinking about the outcome of your actions, but about performing the action itself: performing difficult action sequences to move swifter, crunching numbers to produce more efficiently, and so on. Beating a highscore is much more relevant than getting a 'right' quest outcome.


   I think that the question wether games are driven by its narrative or by its gameplay is not restricted to particular genres. For example, many shooters have moved from gameplay-driven ones (Quake, Doom) to narrative-driven ones (CoD, Bioshock). Some RPG's are driven by their story (Dragon Age), others by racking up XP and items (Torchlight, Diablo?). But I cannot think of any game that both excelled by its gameplay and its narrative at the same time, so I'm wondering if "narrative" and "gameplay" might in fact be mutually exclusive categories. Luckily, there are plenty games of both categories to choose from and I'm eagerly waiting for Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite, Mirror's Edge 2 and Mechwarrior 3015


 
TL;DR: Some games are story-driven, others gameplay-driven, but there are enough games to choose from to satisfy anyone's taste I think.

[[IPA] Thalamus]

To me, the term interactive movie is a game more along the lines of Wing Commanders III and IV; a mix of live action storytelling with dynamic plot lines based on your conversation choices.  I think "interactive movie" was actually the phrase they used to describe the game when it was being promoted. 

As for when a game becomes more of a movie than a game, well that's highly subjective based on perspective, but it comes down to the choices you're given as the player and the weight of their impact on the story.  The story and plot have to be the focus when trying to make this determination, not necessarily the freedom of the gameplay (sandbox vs. tunnel) - often times, the gameplay doesn't effect the story in any way. 

To use your Max Payne example, I think that highlights one end of the spectrum where the game's plot doesn't really change regardless of how you play.  The same sequence of events take place.  While some will surely disagree, I think a game like Mass Effect 2 is on this same end of the spectrum.  While your crew's loyalty and assignments have an impact on who lives and who dies, the core plot doesn't change.  You still save the day and do a slow-motion jump back to the ship.  These games I would qualify as interactive movies.

In the middle of this spectrum are games with branching storylines, where the plot begins to differ after each flashpoint, such as Witcher 2.  At the end, it's still the same final boss and essentially the same ending, but the plot road you took to get there could be vastly different on multiple playthroughs.  It still has that "choose your own adventure" book feel to it, though, where you're either skipping to page 48 or to page 60.  There is no "kill everybody with a machete and go make a sandwich" option.

On the other end of this spectrum are games that either don't exist (yet) or I've never played.  This category would be sandbox games with an infinitely branching story with an infinite number of possible endings.  Some games can artificially create this sensation, but in truth, it's still a scripted sequence.  Games like Minecraft don't fit because they don't have a plot, and games like Oblivion don't fit because while your choices may impact the environment and characters, they don't impact the story.  What choices you are given in regards to the story are still very limited and don't have meaningful impact; it's just choosing between Door #1 and Door #2 to get from A to B.  While everybody in Cyrodill might revere you as the arena champion, Mehrunes Dagon doesn't give a damn and will continue on his merry way.  Oblivion's kind of a bad example since the storyline is compartmentalized against the rest of the sandbox gameplay, anyway.

Hey AAA, I overlooked your posting on my first way through this topic. You are making an interesting point there. I think your argument goes well with mine, it is a second continuum to describe games, although on another level as the one I described. What do you think of the following?



.................................................../ Open story   --> genre (RPG, shooter...)
.....................Driven by narrative 
.................../.............................. \ Closed story  --> genre (RPG, shooter...)
................../
.........game
................. \
................... \.............................../ Open story   --> genre (RPG, shooter...)
......................Driven by gameplay
....................................................\ Closed story  --> genre (RPG, shooter...)


Of course, the distinction wouldn't be as clear-cut as in this schematic; there'd be a gradient transition from narrative to gameplay and from open to closed, but basically those categories are mutually exclusive.

For example, Mass Effect would be driven by story and semi-open, while Diablo would be driven by gameplay and closed. Fallout 3 might fall between gameplay and story, but pretty open. Bioshock would be in between gameplay and narrative and closed. Would that model capture our conceptual space?

[~SJ~ Atlessa]

[...]I cannot think of any game that both excelled by its gameplay and its narrative at the same time, so I'm wondering if "narrative" and "gameplay" might in fact be mutually exclusive categories.

Final Fantasy 6
Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem
Freelancer
Homeworld
Resident Evil (1 - 3)
Starcraft
Warcraft 3 (didn't play the first 2 myself)
Earthsiege


Of course... Your Mileage May Vary...

[xInVicTuSx]

[...]I cannot think of any game that both excelled by its gameplay and its narrative at the same time, so I'm wondering if "narrative" and "gameplay" might in fact be mutually exclusive categories.

Final Fantasy 6
Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem
Freelancer
Homeworld
Resident Evil (1 - 3)
Starcraft
Warcraft 3 (didn't play the first 2 myself)
Earthsiege


Of course... Your Mileage May Vary...

Epic truth in this.

I really enjoy the story for Mass effect. Sure its sort of generic space opera, but its not starwars or startrek or battlestar for once!
I really love the fact that the decisions go from game to game and I'm excited to see what happens in 3 with what I've done with 1 and 2.

Then there are games like bioshock, gameplay was easy and meh, but story was awesome.

Then there are games like BF2 and league of legends, endless hours of for the lulz online play.

I would love to see an "interactive movie" FPS like game in WWII. Like an RPG WWII game with shooting, to explore how it actually was to be in a war like that. It would be really really spooky and interesting to play as a German soldier or officer and do things like make decisions what to do with prisoners, whether to follow orders and thus commit little atrocities, and to be on the receiving end of a battle like D-day. Just the mentality of a fighting a truly losing war is so underexplored, the object is always to "win" in the end. 
No company on earth has the balls to do it though. If you got some random frenchmen or russian woman screaming at you in a language you don't know with your captain barking out some order or other that may or may not be a warcrime... that shit would be intense and do what traditional narratives couldn't.  But maybe video games aren't mature enough for that yet.

Also as a writer, it would be a goddamn pain to write a branching story that is consistent, emotionally impactful, and full of possibilities to what you can do. You would have to have enough characters to where they can just die and their stories get untold because you let them die or killed them; even from the first hour of gameplay. I understand why companies are hesitant because it would be an extraordinary amount of work just to write the damn thing on paper much less as a fully interactive and directed game.

[Ressk [CSF]]

maturity? in videogames? some mother would let her son buy that game and then she would see him playing it and instantly switch to safety nazi mode and it would get shot down and illegalized so fast...

good old call of duty with two year olds, or Grand theft auto two year olds...

I do like the idea of more mature videogames, its just there is no way to get them save indie game dev's.