syntheticgerbil

"Unscripted" Games Vs. the Traditional Dying Cutscene Games

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So I'm kind of sick of arguing about this topic and I'm looking for some help in understanding the unscripted game thing in mostly an unbiased way. A lot of everyone here plays a multitude of different kind of games and I love this place for that.

Full disclosure, I don't care about the FPS type games where you run around and the game's story unfolds through clues in the world and people talking at you. However, many people I seem to keep talking to here in Austin, partly because of the companies that have been big here, are in head over heels for Looking Glass, Ion Storm, or Valve games forever. Like these somehow all represent the future of video games and that everything else kills immersion.

I've never had any kind of interest to play Half Lives or Deus Ex. From watching people play them in person, to videos, to the discussions I read about them, the games just seem really boring and unengaging to me actually. However, I automatically lose credit with a lot of video game types if I have not played every Valve game ever made. I don't see the company as a god send like others. I just don't see the appeal of the company and I'm being completely honest here, not trolling one bit.

To me, cutscenes or dialogue trees have always been an integral part of a good story and that it's very difficult for a game to tell an engaging story without it. I know a lot of these unscripted event games just get around this by playing audio logs while you play or cutscenes sort of happen while you jump around and your weapon or whatever is disabled. Part of it is not having a third person view and not having a defined main character that you play. A lot of this is still actually scripted to me, you're just skipping the movie part with set camera views and and characters that take over. Sometimes these things actually seem very lazy to me.

Then there's the multiple path thing with lots of little variables which have also never really gotten me excited to be honest. Since the 80s, games with multiple paths have been touted as the future and I'm kind of annoyed by it at this point. I just prefer a defined designer/writer to take me through a game, these types have always been the most special games to me. Even though I was raised on staples of platforming, adventure games, arcades types, and puzzlers, I don't see the types of games I like as archaic movies that I just have some interactive parts to finish. I've just always felt like storylines and cutscenes are part of the reward for finishing parts of the game.

I personally feel that the director type games are ever going to go away because of some unscripted game takeover. I just think they will coexist and one or the other is not necessarily wrong or less of a game because of it.

But I guess the problem is, I have not beaten a single one of the touted games that promote this argument. Should I really just slog through one for the sake of it? I'm tired of people thinking less of me, but I have like 80+ games at home that I'm very interested in playing and feel like I'd enjoy more than playing something for the sake of argument. It's not like the usual people who are arguing against what I prefer have played the adventure games I love and are obligated to on their side.

What exactly am I not understanding by not playing these games? Where is the essential unscripted part that is at the core of these games? Is it the sandbox stuff, the variables, the differing storylines, the first person view, the customizable and blank slate characters, the audio playing over, the lack of cutscenes? What is not on that list?

If I should just pick one game to give my time to fucking know what's going on here, what should I pick? Half Life? System Shock? Bioshock? Deus Ex? Some huge Bioware thing (please god no)? Far Cry?

I hope no Valve and Looking Glass elitists lurking on the forums come in here and tear me a new one, I get that enough in real life now. I would put the disclaimer of adventure gamer elitists which I find just as annoying, but I really have never seen that here. As said, I love the differing viewpoints here and I trust you guys.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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I don't understand your argument at all. Valve games have one path and main plot points are handled through cutscenes. Deus Ex has a ton of dialogue trees and cutscenes. Neither have any of the qualities of unscripted (procedural) games.

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I'm not going to respond to everything there because holy shit, it's a whole paper you've written. Instead, let me focus on this point: I don't think you are using the term 'unscripted game' in the right way. There is nothing unscripted about Half-Life 2 or Bioshock, these games are completely scripted and linear, they just don't have cutscenes (well, not really) where you exit the first person perspective.

Make no mistake, these games are very much about an 'auteur' telling a story. The story is however being told to you by characters in the game and what you see. There's no reeeeeal difference between what they say and what a cutscene would do or say. In HL2 you see television screens with people giving exposition, but it serves the same purpose as any cutscene with dialogue in it.

That's not to say these games aren't doing incredible things with storytelling, but I would never call them unscripted, that's just wrong.

So what is it you're really talking about? Storytelling through emergent gameplay à la Elder Scrolls or Farcry 2?

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I'm not sure if I got what you mean by "unscripted" so I'm just going to post my random thoughts about Uncharted 3 and Skyrim. I sank approximately 6 hours on Drake's Deception and played 56 hours of Skyrim. I'm sick and tired of the former and still enjoying and generally not done with the latter.

I can only guess at the reasons. Part of the problem with Uncharted 3 is my frustration with the controls and the fight scenes. However, much bigger issue for me is that because you – or more to the point, the character you control – is experiencing something crazy, awesome and badass all the time, everything is suddenly very dull. It's a bit like eating half a kilo of strawberries in one sitting, and then wondering whether you should have sampled the cake below the berries as well. For instance, I was overjoyed when in Mafia II I was tasked to get rid of a body and nothing unexpected happened. I was actually afraid that the police would pull me over or something and drove extra carefully because of that. In Uncharted, on the other hand, if it appears that I have to backtrack even one corridor I have cleared before, I can be sure that the entire house will explode about a quarter of the way in. And when it does, I feel nothing at all.

Apart from the lack of "down" moments (which seem to more numerous in Uncharted 3 than in the previous installments), I occasionally find it hard to be amazed by amazing things when they are very heavily scripted. I don't know why exactly, perhaps partly because I know that my experience is not unique and that I'm completely powerless in front of that invisible barrier.

In my opinion, Bethesda's approach to first person narrative with Skyrim (and probably all their other games is well) is gold. The player character can be as confused with the world he has become a part of as the player him-/herself. It's the old Monkey Island/Hitman argument with wannabe-pirate replaced with unknown prisoner and master assassin replaced with know-it-all treasure hunter. To me it is a lot easier to be interested in the story and the world when I'm experiencing it in a vessel that I can relate to or, even better, mold.

Let's face it, nothing in Skyrim is as kick-ass as an average set-piece in Uncharted. However, when a dragon suddenly attacked a peaceful village and everyone began to clumsily shoot arrows at it, I actually felt a bit sad because I suspected that this was somehow my fault. In Uncharted 2, I immediately knew that that peaceful Tibetan (?) village was doomed when I saw all those walls whose sole purpose of existence was clearly just to provide cover for the epic gunfight that was to follow. Only thing I felt was mild anger at the developers for such a cheap trick.

I'm not completely happy with this post and feel that I have been a bit one-sided. I have nothing against Uncharted and Skyrim definitely has its faults. I play both unscripted and scripted games and have found lovely games in both categories.

Anyway, play Deus Ex: Human Revolution if you already haven't. It offers plenty of options to tackle different situations, isn't too overwhelming and has a strongish story. You probably shouldn't take it as an example of an "unscripted" game, though.

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Long version:

Time to pile on with some useless thing: I never quite manage to explain why I love Valve's single player games so much, but I know it isn't really the story (or maybe plot is the right word). If someone forced me at machine-gun point to tell me what the story is in the Half-Life series, I would probably say that there is or was an alien invasion and Black Mesa did some research on portals, something went wrong, something with the combine and Breen and please don't shoot me. The reason I often replay Half-Life 2, other than that it's a great FPS, is the environments and my journey through them. Most of my favourite games are like that; In all the hundreds/thousands of games I've played, I've been in so many virtual locations, but there's only a few of those places I can still remember so vividly. HL2 is a non-stop series of such places; the first dilapidated apartment building you enter in City 17 and the the playground outside, the road along the coast, with abandoned buildings and cliffside paths, the tunnel blocked off by car wrecks, jumping from rock to rock on the beach, etc. I can also remember the Barnett College coal cellar, Iceland, Tikal, the room filled with crabs, the Venice library, Phatt Island, Zeelich, Twinsen's house in LBA, every nook and cranny on Citadel Island, every last little thing in the Mysts and Riven. I have also played through Unreals, Quakes, Dooms, Metal Gears, Medals and Calls for Honors and Duties, Baldur's Gates and hundreds of other games, but I probably can't remember anything from them.

I guess it's different from person to person; I tend to remember places and settings very well, but tend to forget plots and storylines as they're being told.

Short version: You should definitely try playing Half-Life 2.

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I don't understand your argument at all. Valve games have one path and main plot points are handled through cutscenes. Deus Ex has a ton of dialogue trees and cutscenes. Neither have any of the qualities of unscripted (procedural) games.
I'm not going to respond to everything there because holy shit, it's a whole paper you've written. Instead, let me focus on this point: I don't think you are using the term 'unscripted game' in the right way. There is nothing unscripted about Half-Life 2 or Bioshock, these games are completely scripted and linear, they just don't have cutscenes (well, not really) where you exit the first person perspective.
I'm not sure if I got what you mean by "unscripted" so I'm just going to post my random thoughts about Uncharted 3 and Skyrim. I sank approximately 6 hours on Drake's Deception and played 56 hours of Skyrim. I'm sick and tired of the former and still enjoying and generally not done with the latter.

See I guess I've been misled, maybe people I'm talking to are phrasing it wrong and I'm just now mimicking what they are saying. My boss was calling them all specifically "unscripted" earlier. That's why I put unscripted in parenthesis in the thread title because the games still seem scripted to me but less so.

I don't even think my problem is with unscripted games now at all and I want to change the title of the thread. Fuck.

Is the difference between these games then just basically the amount of scripted events that you have no control over instead of anything being unscripted or emergent at all? Because I agree with everything you said about Uncharted 3, Nappi.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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If first-person cutscenes that unfold while you still have control over your character isn't your thing, you might like Deus Ex. Its cutscenes are mostly 3rd person and has dialogue choices too.

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Out of all of the games I listed and people cite, Deus Ex is the only game I've ever been somewhat interested in. I even owned the first one boxed for PC for a while years ago until it collected so much dust I sold it.

Maybe I'll purchase it again then.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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There's definitely a matter of terminology to consider here. In the past when I've heard the term 'scripted' to describe a game, it's typically to describe a game that has many scripted events and very little choice over how those unfold or indeed how you progress through the game at all. Or to put it another way, you could play the game 50 times and your experience would be more or less the same each time.

A game that isn't like this would be something like Red Dead Redemption or Zelda, where you have much more choice over which order you do things in. Even those games are scripted to extent, as obviously you can't really have things happen in a game without a programmer specifically programming those things to happen — but if someone uses the term 'scripted' it's typically to describe the extreme of that, ie: a very linear game full of scripted events like Half-Life, Call of Duty, or Uncharted.

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What exactly am I not understanding by not playing these games? Where is the essential unscripted part that is at the core of these games? Is it the sandbox stuff, the variables, the differing storylines, the first person view, the customizable and blank slate characters, the audio playing over, the lack of cutscenes? What is not on that list?

I think part of the appeal of "unscripted" games is that there is a sense that what games should strive to do well is not the same things that movies do well, because to do so is to not acknowledge the strengths of the medium. And the more a game is scripted, the more movie-like it is. I don't think every game needs to do its best to be unscripted, but I'm glad some try.

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Is the difference between these games then just basically the amount of scripted events that you have no control over instead of anything being unscripted or emergent at all? Because I agree with everything you said about Uncharted 3, Nappi.

I don't know what the people you have been talking to were after with their division so I'm not sure what the actual difference is. HL2 is definitely scripted, mostly linear and not full of emergent moments. One of the things that sets it apart from Uncharted, for example, as I seem to be unable to use any other examples, is that you have to piece in the story yourself a bit more. This does not mean that you have to go through a bunch of journals and audiologs, you just have to listen to discussions every now and then without wondering off and fill in the blanks. As I recall, HL2 made sure that you witness or at least hear about every major event in the (completely forgettable) plot.

And yeah, the extend of scripting and pacing is one of the major differences between Uncharted and Half-Life, although, in my opinion, it is just a reason why I might prefer one over the another, and not a good class division criteria.

Could you name some games that you (or they) think are in the other category so that we could see the differences more clearly?

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On an unrelated note: holy crap do I want to replay Red Dead Redemption. That feeling snuck up on me a couple of days ago and I was nowhere near prepared to deal with it. I thought I was done but now all I want to do is get on my horse and gallop to Mexico again.

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Could you name some games that you (or they) think are in the other category so that we could see the differences more clearly?

Kind of just what I mentioned earlier: Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Bioshock, Half Life 1 and 2, Mass Effects, Dragon Ages, and Far Cry. Not all of these are exclusively mentioned all in one breath by the same people and this is me seeing some sort of common thread between them. This could really just be my own ignorance.

We have these beer nights with the game developers in the area, most of which tends to be Bioware employees here, and get to talking, so this is kind of me just mixing the opinions of many people into one all basically talking about these games being the future vs. any game with long cutscenes, Metal Gear Solid being the trump card.

I'm also somewhat confused because my perception of what these are kind of matches up with what all of the replies have already said here. Also my perceptions have been shaped by what a lot of what you guys have said already, since I tend to read threads here about games I haven't ever played and probably never well, just out of curiousity.

But, I don't think one or the other is necessarily better myself in terms of how events play out, but I prefer more scripted games obviously. But it seems I'm required to play some of these by the standards of some.

I also felt like Zelda has been extremely scripted, Thrik, even though I love those series. I suppose you are right though and it seems to be more of a matter of freedom with a lot of the examples.

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Sorry, I meant model examples in the other category. :) Although, I guess those are a bit easier to come up with.

I think Half-Life 2 was confusing me the most, seeing that is quite linear and scripted (as mentioned many times already).

And now Zelda.

And you obviously shouldn't feel obliged to play a game (or read a book, or watch a movie) you are not interested in just because someone thinks you should. I hate that kind of shit. It may or may not be worth your time in the end, but that's besides the point.

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Yeah, I think you have a somewhat distorted perception on these games.

I think what these developers are talking about is the abolishing of cutscenes, id est completely non-interactive pieces of cinema, whether actual cinematics or done with the in-game engine. The games mentioned all do a stellar job of not having too many cutscenes, while still taking place in dense, narrative worlds. The end result, however, isn't that much different from games having cutscenes. It's just a more elegant, 'gamey' way of accomplishing the same thing. These are still (mostly) very scripted games. One could argue that these games pull this off so well because their core gameplay is in itself very cinematic, and you could easily argue that -say- a bit of dialogue in Mass Effect plays very much like a cutscene would, just with you in control of it (which is of course the point).

In short, I think you have a hang-up about these games that isn't wholly justified, created by colleagues extolling their virtues and maybe pretending it's a bigger step than it actually is. For the record, I do think these are exciting 'developments', even though I utterly enjoy a good cutscene as a reward for challenges overcome.

Edited by Rodi

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Oh, I guess opposed to any game Tim Schafer has been involved with, most Lucasarts adventures, Little Big adventures, just about any Telltale game, the Prince of Persia series, Another World, Limbo, Beyond Good and Evil, and Oddworlds. I'm mostly just citing a lot of my favorites that tend to be either cutscene or dialogue heavy. The cutscenes tend to take your control away in either real time 3D or playing a video file. There would also be little to no deviation from the path other than having the order in which to do things.

I do really appreciate large adventure game settings like Rubacava or Melee Island where there is a lot to do at once with many things to chisel at. That is my favorite style of adventure design, although I do prefer platformers to be the more cinematic type with point A to B. Zelda overworlds tend to be similar to Rubacava and Melee Island to me as well.

In short, I think you have a hang-up about these games that isn't wholly justified, created by colleagues extolling their virtues and maybe pretending it's a bigger step than it actually is. For the record, I do think these are exciting 'development', even though I utterly enjoy a good cutscene as a reward for challenges overcome, but let's not overreact.

Really my reasoning for playing in the first place was just lack of interest in art direction (which is always important to me, for better or worse), the world in which they take place in, the characters, and the FPS gameplay with different weapons. The become a must play by many just because of the importance of them in the game world. I know for sure none of the games I listed or people are citing are bad games. Not bad at all, I'm sure.

They just have all never appealed to me for those reasons, except save Deus Ex, and I only feel obligated to play them just so people will take me seriously when I talk about game design, pretty much.

I don't think I'm overreacting, I think I'm just trying to get a grasp one whatever is going on here with the differences between these games. I don't mean to insult anyone even though I tend to use harsh words.

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hmmm... I think the major difference between the games in the two camps you mentioned is that you haven't played the ones in the former group, and you have played the ones in the latter group. (in terms of how these games handle narrative and cutscenes, there's just so much overlap)

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Warning, this might get long.

TL;DR: Players don't like to get information passively handed to them, because the game is not supposed to function without their agency.

I've been thinking about this subject a bit lately too, primarily because I've been learning about cognitive film theory in school.

Crash course, in psychology, film/literature theory, sosiology, and other related fields, the theories of "message" usually start out with the thought of "a message is sent out and delivered directly to the brain of the recipient".

This makes sense as a basic assumption, but it treats the sender as all-powerful and the reciever as a blank slate that takes the information as a blank slate that doesn't filter at all.

The cognitive turn within humanities is that of focusing on the reciever. Let's use film as an example. Whenever you watch a movie, you bring your own emotion, knowledge, experience, and sensory capabilities into your watching of the film. Someone who say, knows the twist of The Sixth Sense, will watch the exact same movie as someone who doesn't, yet will read completely different information from what is being presented. Each experience is unique to you, and the movie doesn't get formed by M. Night Shyamalan, but rather in the moment you register the sound and images and process them with your mind.

So, video games. If a film is formed when audio-visual information meets your mind, I would posit that most video games are not only formed by the same way, but also from when the game environment meets player input. (Note: by "environment" I don't just mean game world, but also system, passive stuff such as cut-scenes and voice-overs, and other things that are presented to you)

This is an obvious, but still important thing to consider, because without player input, the game will probably stop telling its story sooner or later, and just stand still.

By thinking of storytelling this way, you can also include non-written games such as Minecraft, where the narrative ends up being "he built a cave, but then a creeper blew it up", etc, because it's a result of the intersection between player and environment.

Here comes the part that actually ties in to the discussion: I believe that the frustration some people get from cutscene-heavy games, is the fact that they remove your chance to input, and instead feels more like they are treating you like the "blank slate" where they can just deliver information towards.

I also think this is why games like Bioshock and Half-Life are heralded more for having a slightly different approach to basically the same thing. They often leave information in the literal environment, for the player to discover (or not) by themselves. They still write and consider it carefully, but instead of acting as all-mighty narrators that inflict the information upon you, they allow you to play a part in discovering it.

I could go on, but I think I've hit my main point, at least.

Disclaimer: I have read no video game academia, so my points may be A) obvious, and B) completely wrong. This is purely born out of reading film stuff, then considering how it applies to games.

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TL;DR: Players don't like to get information passively handed to them, because the game is not supposed to function without their agency.

Not in the least bit do I think you're on the wrong track, Hermie, but I must protest this statement. I don't like the idea of something being done in any medium is 'wrong' per se.

If you take a hardline 'games must be interactive at all times' approach, this statement would be correct. But you'd be cutting out a world of possibilities that bringing together interactive bits and non-interactive segments bring. Why are cutscenes wrong? Why would they necessarily be repugnant to players? I don't buy that at all. It offers new ways to tell stories. Obviously, a developer has to fuse the two ways of storytelling smartly, but isn't that always the case?

The main reason cutscenes have such a bad rep in gaming isn't because they exist, it's because they're done poorly. Either the writing or direction is fucked up, or they're self-indulgently longwinded and tedious (Metal Gear springs to mind). But look at any of the succinct, funny cutscenes in Grim Fandango and tell me the game would've been better without.

In short, I feel and fear we're taking the wrong approach and throwing babies out with the bathwater. Cutscenes -and non-interactive storytelling in games- aren't bad in essence, they're just a different way of doing things. They have to be done right. And gaming would be poorer for it if it became a taboo.

Edited by Rodi

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Good point. I definitely didn't mean to generalize that much, but rather trying to think of why games such as the examples mentioned are heralded more as opposed to cut-scene heavy games.

But you are very correct in that quality has a lot to do with it, and it's definitely not "wrong" to have a lot of non-interactive storytelling, just "a choice".

(I never liked the concept of "tl;dr" anways, and this is why <.<)

Question: is a loading screen a "cut-scene"? They cut away from the game, are usually non-interactive, and more often than not, they convey information. They're not part of the written narrative, but they are definitely part of the experience of playing a game.

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If you take a hardline 'games must be interactive at all times' approach, this statement would be correct. But you'd be cutting out a world of possibilities that bringing together interactive bits and non-interactive segments bring. Why are cutscenes wrong? Why would they necessarily be repugnant to players? I don't buy that at all. It offers new ways to tells stories. Obviously, a developer has to fuse the two ways of storytelling smartly, but isn't that always the case?

The main reason cutscenes have such a bad rep in gaming isn't because they exist, it's because they're done poorly. Either the writing or direction is fucked up, or they're self-indulgently longwinded and tedious (Metal Gear springs to mind). But look at any of the succinct, funny cutscenes in Grim Fandango and tell me the game would've been better without.

I guess this was my argument with everyone against them and the reason I started this thread, and I also don't think one is inherently better than the other. I think Metal Gear Solid 3 did not make a lot of cutscene mistakes like the others, and I always directly think of Grim Fandango with any time someone goes against either adventure games or games with heavier cutscenes/dialogue.

Also thanks for the write up Hermie. I guess I didn't take away that minimal to no cutscenes was necessarily more a part of the medium but that you seemed to compare more the difference in player expectations. There's also the game playing types that would just rather play a game without any story whatsoever or do multiplayer solely in all this mess.

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