Is game story telling and music getting close to film?

Well, I could have said Alien and my point would still stand.

Also you're super wrong

There's always the animoo adaption of THIS

Source material and adaptation is whatever, Both of those films do post apocalyptic people are shit plots better, significantly.

The Last of Us is straight up generic from a plot, setting, character types standpoint. It's great in this medium because of how well executed is, but it's not an originality thing. Again if the Last of Us can only stack up favorably against Dawn of the Dead, then that speaks to how weak video game stories are. Why would we use one of gaming's best examples against middling examples in film? I don't care about on average, on average is mediocrity on both sides. The best, how do the best stack up. That's a different beast entirely.

Otherwise: To add to the stuff Aljosa wrote: Pulp Fiction, Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight, American Beauty, Terminator, 'Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring'. Point is, that list isn't exactly lacking either.

Good to know. Will acquire!

I mean cartoony stuff that simply strays from reality.

Life is Strange is about a college girl who has powers that can reverse time. It's a pretty cartoony concept, but it still all connects with me on a human level instead of just being fantasy gibberish.

Hmm no mentions of planescape torment in a thread about video game stories? *Leaves Thread*

The Road was boring.

This is exactly the point I was making with my The Remains of the Day post. If we have to compare great game stories to weak or shallow movies, that alone speaks volumes about how far ahead film stories are.

Well, I don't think that straying from reality makes something cartoony.

Alien is totally a better film than Aliens. More tense across the board, Aliens is terrific, but it took what was already a well paced thriller, and turned it into a bigger, dumber action flick. A damn good bigger, dumber action flick, but one that pales in comparison to the meticulous nature of the original film.

In terms of ridiculousness Alien keeps it at a reasonable level. Aliens takes it too far and does more to make a single Alien less of a threat because of the very nature of a group of them, and a queen. Regardless it's not like it's Alien 3 and 4, which are shit.

GTA IV reminds me of scorsese films. Really enjoyed the plot. GTA V really lacks in comparison.

Planetscape was mentioned.

Also, amazing critique on The Road.

Yeah, GTA IV actually put it some effort story-wise and made an attempt at thematic stuff/seriousness. I dig it. Plus, the "That Special Someone" scene and the deal/revenge choices=very smart stuff that creates legit emotional investment.

However, because of the way that some of the themes interacted with the gameplay, it kind of tripped all over itself, becoming a bit absurd at times, and the padding really watered the whole thing down. I almost feel that GTA IV's story would work much better as a film (though it would have the problem of suddenly becoming much more derivative) than a game; it feels like a non-game story forced into a game whereas the other GTA stories seem to have been constructed purely in service of the game.

GTA V's story is absolute nonsense. It genuinely shocks me that that's the best R* could come up with.

More in depth review, the kid was annoying. 4/10. happy?

My friends, story and storytelling are two different things.

Woof. Lots of aggression in this thread.

I think video games have come a long way in the way they tell their stories. Are they perfect? No. Are they good? A majority aren't. Maybe someday we'll get a video game story that rivals the best of film, but it would have to do some pretty innovative things in its storytelling to resonate like the best.

Music? I think music is music whether it's in video games or film. There are a lot of pieces out there that are just magnificent. Do they match up with the best of film? Some pieces might.

Meh, I won't disagree with what you've said, but I still think Aliens is better.

Probably because I think The Thing is a much better movie then Alien when it comes to sci-fi horror films. That sort of colors my perception of the first Alien film. For the Alien movies, I just want more ridiculousness.

I touched on this.

Fair enough.

/thread

To have good storytelling one must make gameplay linear and restricted enough to keep focus on telling said story.

A book storytelling in the same manner The Witcher 3 does with the main and sidequests would essentially translate to tearing out each page and reading each in no specific order. And if the "protagonist" of the story is the playable character it's going to be damn near impossible to have proper characterization with the player doing whatever the hell he feels like.

I really think simply having pre-set "lore" like Dark Souls does, incentivizing the player to roleplay in a specific way or completely segregating gameplay from story using descriptions, atmosphere and text is the only future storytelling should have in video games. Game devs are going to have to be either very creative or very conventional to make a good game with a good story.

I could rant all day about how video game music is becoming too much like film- and why that's a bad thing.

This scene was absolutely amazing. I used to watch it over and over again.

I don't know why people are mentioning The Last of Us over and over again. They need to play more games. TLOU's story is not even close to being the best in games. Its storytelling is more polished than most games but plot itself isn't the best in games, let alone big budget story driven movies. GTA V's story is inferior to GTA 4's. And MGS series has some of the worst writing in video games.

I would absolutely take Rocksteady's Batman over Nolan's batman. Get the **** out, and especially the one in Dark Knight Rises. Begins and TDK are good, otherwise Dark, brooding, miserable Batman is true Batman.

Seriously, seeing that trash peddled around the forum as an example for anything good is actually upsetting to a small degree.

I also liked Aliens more. For me Alien was like 9/10 but Aliens... 10/10. And The Thing is my favorite horror movie of all time. It never gets old, no matter how many times you watch it.

Not only do I believe gaming can tell good stories, some of the most meaningful I've experienced have been from games, and not because of the quality of the writing or originality (which are admittedly amateurish in contrast to film or literature as they are almost always not the main focus), but in execution and due to the combination of utilizing both mediums' strengths into one.

It saddens me to see people so hastily and contemptuously write off games as incapable of providing and holding narrative gravitas, and I find it to be an extremely myopic and close-minded viewpoint that is doing nothing but impeding this industry from expanding past childish notions and stereotypes. Just because most games suffer awful writing and very few actually execute on telling them competently is not a testament to the failure of the entire medium in such potential, but are merely failed attempts in the evolution of it....which is a completely natural process of progression and breaking new ground.

I wish people would cease mistaking failure for inability.

Seemed to have missed that. Rises is hot garbage. To this day I fail to see what made it so compelling for some.

No.

There is more variety in music so I'd even argue that video games have BETTER music than movies. But story? No no no and no.

They should up the pay for writer positions. Seriously there are good writers out there... they just find better places to go. I'm sure video games are like for the bottom feeders of the writing industry.

I think that many video games try very hard to be like movies. Stry, sometimes it is as stupid as a movie scenario, especially war movies.

as for the music ... I'm a musician and I find the music to be quite lacking. It is great music and all that, get you in the mood but there is no memorable theme unlike music from the PS1 and older ... and I have my theory it. Prior the PSOne voice acting wasn't possible and during the PSone time, it was quite bad so the musc was the only way to convay emotion and we had brillant composer who gave strong theme and the themes came back from time to time during the game.

Everyone can remember or sing a Street fighter, Final Fantasy or Mario theme but I,m sure no one can sing a or recognize a Gear Of War theme or the music in The Last Of Us. No Wonder we have now concert by by famous orchestra for Final Fantasy, Zelda etc

My contribution to this thread is a quote from Bethesda: "videogames are the greatest form of entertainment ". My most recent example would be Witcher 3....great story arcs, writing, dialogue, character development....some scenes with the Baron hold up to scenes I've seen in Games of Thrones.

Truthfully I don't like comparing games to movies, I feel like they are apples and oranges because there is no interaction in movies, you just sit and watch something somebody else produced, it's entirely someone else 's vision you are watching. I love them both for different reasons.

Music is music, and great tunes can be found in any medium.

No. The difference is movie writers acknowledge that movies are a visual medium and have invented visual techniques to tell their stories. While game writers on the other hand forget that videogames are an interactive medium and try so hard to be an oscar bait by shamelessly imitating movies. Though there are some exceptions like Dark Souls series, Fallout series(1, 2 and New Vegas) but there are very few of them.

Agree with everything you said especially the part about MGS being terribly written but there's one exception. GTA V's story as badly written as it is, is not worse than GTA 4 cause at least GTA V's gameplay doesn't contradict it's plot.

Word

inb4 half-assed irony argument.

For all of GTA IV's messy narrative flaws, the idea that GTA V's story is better is lulzy and incomprehensible. GTA V's story was pulled straight out of Rockstar's ass whereas GTA IV's story actually had something to say.

GTA IV's story could conceivably be improved with a smarter approach. GTA V's story is not fixable.

Music, since ages ago, since it was mostly just a technological limitation. Story telling is the hard part since usually actual gaming gets in the way.

Put at it this way: You play though GTA4 in a style where the gameplay doesn't contradict the narrative, and the story and the themes actually have some weight to them.

You play through GTA5's story in any style and it's remarkably weak no matter what.

Music is better imo.

Although I think there's always going to be some contradiction in any playthrough of GTA IV, you make a great point.

That's true. Even if you're not killing any innocents, you're more or less wiping out half of Liberty City's population through the story missions themselves. But you're able to take it more seriously since it at least portrays Niko's struggle to turn his life around. It's a lot harder to take it seriously if Niko laments his life one minute, then beats some random guy to death the next.

GTA IV was just a mix of Scar Face with once upon a time in america with bowling.

Cousin!

V wasn't any better definitely. but made more sense thematically. Nico was a psychopath in denial.

V doesn't have any themes (saying it's about the almighty dollar doesn't work). It has absolutely nothing to say. GTA IV, for all of its problems, does.

As a whole, storytelling in video games is not there yet in terms of quality compared to the best movies.

But, there are still quite a few hidden gem game stories that I've found more thought provoking then the best movies I've seen. In my opinion, writing quality means almost nothing without well developed themes and characters. And so far, video games have offered me more themes to think about

NIER- The theme that there is no good or evil side; both sides of a conflict are really just fighting for the same thing of what they consider to be right.

The Swapper- What is consciousness, what is thought. Is death just a mere transfer of self awareness?

Hotel Dusk- The complexities of balancing family with financial success in modern society.

Sure, there is still a lot of great movies I've yet to see, so maybe Im just saving the best for last, but I believe where the games above lack in storytelling quality, they make up for in sheer imaginative insight on human behavior and nature.

What? The only similarity it shares with America is the location, and it doesn't even remotely resemble Scarface aside from both of them being crime stories. Tony Montana is a drug dealer who rises as a kingpin. Niko is a constantly struggling gun for hire.

Point taken. The killing in the missions at least has some kind of contextualization. But I think the issue is that it's not always contextualized well. It works when Niko is doing jobs to find his special someone but other times it seems like Niko could just say no to the work people are having him do. Still, the idea of a criminal struggling to escape their past is interesting. Niko just doesn't make enough of an effort IMO. That being said, Niko constantly engaging in dark criminal activity is definitely essential to the game's more interesting themes.

Maybe I should of thrown in a history of violence.

Yes to both, thanks largely in part to one franchise - Metal Gear. Both the music scores and story telling are on par with the best movies IMO. Well maybe not, top 10 best, but top 20-50 for sure.

Other than that games like Bioshock, The Last of Us, Mass Effect (even Heavy Rain) have great stories.

I certainly think Heavy Rain's story / OST was criminally underrated, even though the game itself was quite broken.

"How far are you willing to go to save the ones you love?"

Ethan Mars was the man

Pretty vague bro.

But GTA IV does have some pretty interesting themes.

The most interesting one is the futility of moral codes/moral righteousness in a world of crime. In the special someone scene, when Niko is livid at Darko Brevic for selling out his comrades for some drug money, Darko asks Niko how much he charges to kill someone, showing just how hollow Niko's seemingly righteous anger is. That question from Darko also makes the contradictions between Niko's actions and morals make more thematic sense.

Also illustrating this theme is the brilliant deal and revenge choice, which was leagues beyond GTA V's garbage "Kill Michael or Trevor or neither" nonsense (the disparity in quality and thoughtfulness between these two sets of choices perfectly illustrates why GTA IV's narrative is so superior). The revenge choice seems morally righteous, but because it occurs within the context of a criminal underworld, it leads to just as bad an outcome as the "deal" ending because staying true to one's morals is meaningless when such morals are tied to immoral acts in the first place.

The question of whether or not moral codes are sustainable or coherent in a criminal underworld is no doubt an interesting one. The immigrant experience, regardless of how overdone it might be, also is far more worthwhile than GTA V's nothing of a story.

I think it's unfair to compare the video game industry to the film industry. The video game industry is very young. It was born like what 35 years ago? And film? A lot older. Compare the output of the film industry when it was still 35 years old and you'll see the video game industry has evolved really fast.

Game music stomps movie ost's into the dirt.

Storytelling, in realistic games, obviously not, but then again I don't play games for realism.

Anyone that says yes to games has incredibly limited exposure to film or has absolute shit taste.

Or both.

Like what?