The Big cOw -
April 11, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
That's pronounced "ko" like "coke", by the way.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Giant robots. Just think about the concept for a minute and see if you don't crack up.
No, I'm becoming increasingly certain that giant animals are the wave of the future, thanks to that wacky Peter Molyneux and his new game, Black and White. I've actually played a bit of it and have to admit I'm not completely overwhelmed, but the idea of a giant anthropomorphic cow just speaks to me on so many levels. Now if only if there was a giant guinea pig god...
Onward.
| Take this god and shove it |
| Calling Black & White one of the best games ever is likely calling your diary
one of the greatest books ever written. I don't pay $10 at the movie theatre
to create my own movie, so why should I pay $30 or more to create my own
game? There's a bigger problem, though.
Inviting creativity is a good thing, but technology will never be able to
compete with what a child dreams up in the backyard with a stick. Why sell
your product on freedom of expression if can't back it up?
And finally, there's the tedium combined with the lack of any tangible
reward. Even if I lead my SimCity to become a megalopolis, I get nothing but
a new music theme out of it, accompanied by the same grumpy SimCitizens I've
dealt with all week. I play games for challenges, but maintaining interest
shouldn't.
SonicPanda
|
I agree with this, but I will say that the actual game's a little more enjoyable than that. Still, it's enjoyable in the same way a toy is enjoyable - you mess around with it, it flashes, spins around, makes interesting noises, but it's just a distraction when all's said and done. (I'd have more interest in the game's moral dimensions if the black and white distinctions were a little more ambiguous.) And all that's entirely different than what I walked away from FFT with.
| Cooperative narrative |
| Chris:
I have to admit that I'm very glad that B&W is heading to a console near me, because I have been sorely tempted by it to invest in a decent computing machine, a money sink I've avoided to date.
Why? Well, without getting falling into the trap of assigning superiority to emergent or embedded narrative, I'm glad to see emergent narrative, every time it crops up in games, however limited its scope. I see it as a restoration of one of the most compelling features of the role-playing game that was lost in the transition from table top to console.
At its best, table top RP involves both the players and the DM/GM/narrator in crafting the narration. This is certainly not always the case, but the games I have enjoyed most are the ones where the story seemed as driven by player input and interaction as by narrator control. In the leap to the console, RPGs with emergent narrative, for the most part, weren't possible. Emergent components have shown up here and there (as recently, in Chrono Cross), but that emergence has always been somewhat inauthentic--the only real emergence is of a specific embedded option. The player is not so much involved in crafting the story as she is given an option between one or more stories.
I think you're absolutely correct, that often such freedom comes at the price of significance, but I'd like to suggest that the freedom can be significant in itself. I may not care about events once they've become relatively unimportant to the embedded narrative, but I may come to care about them precisely because I've had a hand in shaping them.
To sum up, I'd never want all games to abandon strictly embedded narratives, but I'm happy to see games with emergent narrative. Sometimes I want to be told a brilliant story, and sometimes I want to enoy shaping my own stories in new contexts. I think that there is more than enough room in the industry for both sorts of games.
--DarkLao
|
Hmm, interesting - you're saying that, say, breaking the dam to escape into the outer ocean isn't inherently interesting, but it's interesting because, you had a hand in what was done, and perhaps even how it was done. I can recognize that, but I've yet to see a game that makes the switch between the two really seamless - the same canned event happens no matter how the problem is solved, which seems to diminish the importance of whatever it is you just did. In many ways, it's like the car you've just been driving around all over the place has become stuck on rails, and even I'll admit it's not pleasant to be suddenly confined like that.
But of course, you're right that there's room for both types of games. In a nutshell, that may be the whole reason for the PC/console divide, and although there's some sniping between the two camps, it seems to work pretty well so far.
| Spoiler (blarg) |
| Blarg! I am the scary, old nitpicky guy. I know this
is out of date, but I don't get online much. Doesn't
matter since this is Unfit for Print though, eh?
Back on April 1st, GIA poked fun at RPGamer's
quickies. Weren't they invented by Allan Milligan and
formatted by Drew Cosner?
Just wondering,
=====
- Thor Antrim
http://thor.mirtna.org
|
We have no Unfit for Print here, sir: you're either printed or you aren't. And you are, so it's a moot point.
And yeah, it's completely true that my two DA predecessors were the ones who evolved the "Quickie" during their tours at RPGamer, although it's changed a bit since their day. That little piece of irony was limited to a select few of us, but now you've ruined it by telling everyone. Thanks a lot, dude.
| Which is stranger, the letter or the art it talks about? |
| So then,
I was at a certain websites.. uh.. site I guess.. when I noticed that they had a picture from Xenosaga up. Now either it's a hoax or Xenosaga is a racially offensive epic saga about religion. What the hell am I talking about? Well.. I'll tell you what the funk I'm talking about, I've got certain.. information, man. And the screenshot features a small group of natives on an island or something, all with deeply blackened skin, bug eyes, and huge red lips. I rememebr when people got mad about Barret Wallace being a stereotypical Mr. T type, but you know Mr. T was never as controversial as Al Jolson. If you ask me it's in response to everyone saying stuff like "Yeah it's easy to bash American religion, but a man with REAL picks on minorities too!" Well I doubt anyone says that really, except maybe Mr. President on occasion. But my point is, well it's more of a question than a point, and that's "What the fork were the designers thinking?" I know that there have been certain things that could slip past any game developers, like making an entire game and then suddenly remembering that you forgot to put in a villain (FFIX), and some things are deliberate, like Seaman and.. everything of or relating to Seaman, but among the dozens of people that need to look at that photo before it becomes their very first publicity shot, not one of them said "Hey maybe we shouldn't start out our marketing plot by disrespecting 500 years of struggle for freedom." Or maybe they're trying to tell us something we already know about racism, just as they told us something we already know about religion, and no matter what they do, they can't get more offensive than oversexed popples on crucifixes.
Gilbert
|
I honestly have no idea what's up with that particular piece of media at RPGamer . I'm willing to believe them when they say it's a Xenosaga piece (it's not like they posted it on the 1st or anything), but it doesn't exactly scream "prequel featuring the Wave Existence" either. Take a look for yourself... it is pretty damn odd, and looks more like an environment from Chrono Cross than anything else.
| One more sub/dub letter |
| Being in the anime scene, I guess I'm just tired of this VA discussion. Butto clear up Justin's letter from yesterday, not only did Kojima have a hand
in the MGS localization, but he also said that he preferred the English
track. And why shouldn't he? The game was, afterall, taking place in
Alaska. The import MGS Integral included an English voice track because
Kojima preferred it over the original.
Anyway, I think a lot of the quality that comes through in a VA job is due to
the director (of the voice acting). For a really quick example, look at the
Gundam Wing dub on Cartoon Network. Everyone on that show has been in the
business for many years, doing voices for a lot of cartoons. GI Joe,
Transformers, Beast Wars, XMen:Evolution; they have impressive resumes. But
in Gundam Wing, their performances were often flat, and they sounded almost
bored and like they didn't understand the roles.
This has bearing on games because often, most companies can't afford both
good actors and a good director. Even with all the same actors, MGS and
Grandia2 might have sucked without direction from Kris Zimmerman. The main
problem is that the actors (as good or horrible as they are) probably don't
understand games, and don't see that these characters are just like
anime/cartoon/movie characters--and there isn't anybody able to explain them.
It's probably fairly imposing to see a frizzy haired geek of a QA Tester
rambling on about Sue and why she's on an adventure with Justin (not that
that's some kind of excuse for Grandia), and then being expected to act.
And it sure doesn't help when the "fans" come along screaming about how a
good dub doesn't matter because it bastardizes the opus of <insert Japanese
name here> and his/her vision! (Especially in cases like Mononoke or Eva
where the original creator is pleased with the job) I wouldn't blow a budget
on good VA work if people were going to write hatemail anyway.
I think we need to realize that games are being made for the majority--not
for our own preferences. No company is going to keep a game in native
Japanese, because most gamers would sigh and return it. We also need to
realize that having dual dub/sub tracks takes extra time and money. Extra
time to push the game back, and extra money that COULD be spent on a good VA
staff. So if it happens, be glad, and if not, suck it up. You're buying it
for the game, not the Japanese voice talent (..I hope).
But then again, I wasn't bothered by the acting in Shadow of Destiny, or
ZoE...and I like Evangelion's dub. So you can all laugh and point if it
makes you feel better.
-Tomm
|
I had more than a few letters come in about the subject past the deadline, but figured it was time to drop it. This one sums up a lot of opinions pretty well, so I thought I'd just print it and leave it at that.
| That's one big freakin' tamagotchi |
| Black and White is little more a wood-grain resource simulation with a tamagotchi on the side, much less a work of art. The game could have been much more entertaining if the townspeople had decent AI, and if the controls were not so awkward, especially when trying to train your pet. Also, once you have to micromanage 5+ towns, it just gets crazy. Anyway, the game also reminds me a lot of Peter Molyneux's earlier work, Magic Carpet, which is basically Black and White w/o the pet and sub-quests. In that game, once you had to defend 5+ castles, it also got crazy. In the end, I went crazy playing these games.
-Fares
P.S. The highlights of the game were torching villages, helping those singing sailors build the boat, and teaching my pet to deface town buildings. That is all.
|
From what I've seen, a big part of the game at later stages is not micromanaging towns, but to each his own. I'd still like to see what would happen if the pet AI got implemented on a Final Fantasy-style Weapon - you wouldn't be able to kill them, but you would be able to drive them away and maybe even train them to attack specific enemy bases. Weird idea, but most of the upcoming FFs seem to be pretty experimental, so it might work.
| One word |
| Chris -
COW
- MeekayD
|
Not much to say about this, so I'll just point out that I'd pay an ungodly amount of money for a Black and White cow god t-shirt drawn by Gary Larson... is his agent reading?
Closing Comments:
Time for a Zone of Enders topic, and like The Bouncer, it's one of those games you can finish tonight if you're sufficiently motivated. Good? Bad? Did you enjoy being the robot with the gun? Heck, just compare and contrast it to the MGS2 demo if you want. See you tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, not that interested in feces
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