Nintendo does dlc the best

@jumpaction: yeah it can sometimes end up feeling like the game is content light :/ one game that irritated me a bit (although I still like it) was the force unleashed. Too much story told through cut scenes. Other m had the same issue. Samus being given a voice was a mistake I feel as well

@icytroid1993: I haven't played Other M myself but I heard that it really robs Samus of all her charm. :/

But yes, as long as the cut-scenes aren't intrusive, I can dig them.

@jumpaction: well it's still worth playing if you're a metroid fan. The gameplay and combat are excellent and it has good atmosphere as usual so it's worth checking out.

The plot is intriguing in parts as well, it's just the way she reacts to Ridley bothers fans haha, plus her voice is too generic

@icytroid1993: Oh, I already own it. I just haven't played it. :P

Maybe I will if I'm in a Metroid buzz post-Samus Returns launch. Though, I'm probably more inclined to replay the Metroid Prime games instead. ;)

@jumpaction: oh come on you gotta give it a go soon! ;) I can't blame you for replaying those though, highlight of the series. As you can tell from my pic I'm kinda fond of those games, a little :p i'm always torn though, sometimes I think echoes is the best of the 3. What do you think?

@icytroid1993: That's a tough question. I definitely think 1 & 2 are better than 3 but 3 is good in its own right.

I think Metroid 1 takes the edge for me. I'll let you know when I replay these games again. ;D

@jumpaction: the 3rd is more action focused, but yeah the first two are the best and definitely slightly more 'metroidy' lol. I replayed the first one this year and it brings a lot of memory's. playing with the wiimote is good too

@icytroid1993: The Wii remote was pleasantly surprising. It was very comfortable to play it with. Admittedly, my wrist got tired after long play sessions though.

@jumpaction: it was easy to use. You didn't have to think about it, I guess that's the mark of a controller you're comfortable with :) still love my wavebird controller though, best ever ;p

@icytroid1993: I wish more games were as finely tuned to the Wii as Metroid Prime was. Shooters were a real hit and miss affair on that console... :(

@jumpaction: a missed opportunity me thinks :( there were really only a handful of games that used the controller accurately period. Even skyward sword was iffy at times

@icytroid1993: Yes. Totally agree. I even quite enjoyed the controls in Skyward Sword but were absolutely not 100% accurate.

Oh well. It is what it is. Interestingly I thought the spin in Mario Galaxy was one of the more nuanced uses of the added control. Wii Sports Resort? Also really fun!

@jumpaction: lol yeah it would just slightly lose alignment with the sword sometimes, but easy enough to use. Funny thing with galaxy and other games like twilight princess. The simpler the use of the motion control the better it usually feels. Ah wii sports resort, that's a good game. Felt great putting spin on the ball in table tennis lol, and the sword fight event. Never played it as much as the original wii sports for some reason.....

If Naughty Dog is your bar for story telling, you need to watch more movies. Their claim to fame is making National Treasure 3 and the poor man's version of Children of Men with a heavy dose of The Road thrown in.

At their absolute zenith they have conveyed fucking nothing through their gameplay beyond the surface level stuff like tone.

Imo, Naughty Dog does very well with their storytelling, but I say that in relation to other games in the AAA big budget gaming space. I agree that there are movies and books that have done a better job with story telling and character development, but although they are both mediums of entertainment, I feel like it's comparing apples to oranges.

Whoah whoa whoa there, Char.

Sega had no talent backing up their games? Wha...?? Blasphemy! Sega had some serious talent behind many of their games, and I wouldn't argue a lack of it is what led them to where they are today. It was a combination of factors. Poor business decisions, bad finances, hard competition. But they had Yu Suzuki man, arguably Miyamoto's peer if anyone could be. Ok maybe not quite, but he was damn close.

If you judge game stories by movie standards almost literally nothing holds up though. Is it better to write off pretty much the entire medium or just try to enjoy it on it's own merits?

You can't just suspend your disbelief and put up with lousy stories just because it's a videogame, how about them devs step up their game?

I'd rather do that then be completely miserable and angry at 99.99% of game stories. They're all derivative, with maybe a handful of exceptions. Am I supposed to be pissed off at all of them, all the time?

Derivative isn't necessarily "lousy" btw.

That'd be great! Some are! Me being enraged in my living room won't make that happen though.

@locopatho: Being critical of a specific aspect doesn't imply being angry or miserable, one has absolutely nothing to do with another.

And I'm not gonna settle for less and surely, not gonna give free passes

I think Char was talking about more recent Sega games and how bad Sonic games got past the Genesis days.

Do controllers need to be much better than what they currently are? Do they need to do much more?

You're god damn right, you people got too used to eating shit. Doesn't mean I'm going down that road. They are competent at best in terms of script writing, but their work is fucking derivative as hell. Both in terms of gameplay and their stories. At their best they are unremarkable, far too often they are paraded around as this special dev, because they make an above average story as far as video games concerned.

But if they were actually held to a standard for their story telling n characters, they aren't anything special. Certainly not enough to place them over game devs who on their best day are significantly superior on the gameplay front. You know the shit that defines this medium in the first place. **** even the usual line of "they are consistenteru" bullshit wouldn't apply. Uncharted 1 sucks, and 3 isn't that much better. 2 skates by on good pacing, but has pitiful feeling mechanics.

And spare me the pious, I'm critical sunshine, not miserable not angry. I can turn my brain off just fine n enjoy a game for what it is (sans walking sims), but there isn't anything wrong with being critical of your own hobby of choice. And I'm not allergic to other mediums to recognize gaming still has a long way to go if Naughty Dog is considered special by this medium's standards. Especially when they can't even leverage the interactive parts for their story.

I'm not settling or giving free passes. I've already said that 99.99% of game stories are rubbish. That IS me being critical.

My only point is, we all know this, right? What's the point in going on about it? Yeah Uncharted's story would be crap in a film. Does that mean I can't enjoy it in the context of gaming? In a land of garbage stories, it's slightly shinier garbage. I can either still consider it garbage, or just try and enjoy it for what it is. If there was games with brilliant stories out there, I'd play them before Uncharted. But there aren't (again, beyond maybe one or two very rare ones)

I guess my point is that since game stories are crap in absolute terms, isn't it better to enjoy the relatively better ones, than not enjoy any game stories at all?

Lol. I'm afraid you do "eat shit" though. You play these games too.

I already agreed they are derivative, so you can chill. My only point is that so is EVERY game story, barring a couple of very rare ones.

In absolute terms, in the grand scheme of human story telling, yeah their stories are nothing special. Even lame and boring. In relative terms though, who exactly is making games with characters and/or stories that are better?

Whose story telling and characters are better in the gaming world? I'm not arguing gameplay here, only their story/characters.

And you can spare ME the "everything sucks and I'm superior because I rage at everything!" attitude ;)

All mediums start out like this. Aping previous ones, and doing so pretty poorly. So? There's been massive improvements in game stories even in the past few years, we'll get there. No point raging at the baby step improvements. Great stories aren't going to pop into existence just because you or me get angry at it.

there was more interactivity in the worlds with actual stuff to do and a purpose to serve. Unlike the giant world of BotW which just exists for traversal and for the devs to say "look! see those mountains! YOU CAN GO THERE!" bigger aint always better and BotW proved it

i forget what we were talking about.

@locopatho: For me personally, I don't really consume a story as per medium. A story is a story. I don't totally rethink how I consume or react to a story based on the medium it is being presented in. When I consume a video game story, it failing to meet my expectations will be an automatic response. I can lower my expectations going in but that doesn't mean I am going to enjoy it, it just means it's predictably bad...

Problem then is when the other parts of the game, particularly when the gameplay fail to entice. Then it's just an entirely uninteresting experience to have and I get nothing out of it. If a narrative driven game has a narrative that I have to lower my expectations to enjoy, then it's more than likely better in most cases to just do something else. If I really want to play a game for the story, the story needs to be good. It can't just be less bad than the usual game story, because other mediums that I frequently enjoy are simply better for good story.

That's reasonable. To me, every medium feels totally different. A crap book story could be an awesome video game story. "Being in" the story makes me feel totally different to passively viewing. I can't compare the experience at all. It's like being on a roller coaster vs watching a video of one. Absurdly far apart in how they feel.

The Road was a better story than the Last Of Us. But the Last Of Us affected me more on an emotional level, because it was ME in there and saving the kid and feeling literally sick to my stomach when she would get hurt or attacked.

I totally get that you can't feel that way. But do you just write off the entire concept of an enjoyable game story? None of them hold up compared to even passably good books/films surely...?

@jcrame10:

Me too. I think it might have been the upcoming Mr. EAD amiibo for F zero Switch, which unlocks 60fps mode.

my opinion on amiibos is they are gimmicky and locking content or any form of DLC behind them is anti-consumer and worse than anything EA or Activision has done, lol it is literally physical DLC

It's funny because it's true. EA's digital online passes were less shitty than actual physical keys to dlc. Of course they get defended loyally because it's Nintendo...

You cant sell, share, trade, collect, display, paint digital dlc. Thats why fanboys be so silly.

@locopatho: It's not really that direct. Personally, it's not that I can't enjoy them but it doesn't prevent me from recognizing when a character is thin or a plot is thick with holes. As I find every story-telling medium requires a level of mental input, it isn't simply as easy to say that a video game's physical interactivity gives it the trump card.

Particularly in a case like The Last of Us where the gameplay really does not criss-cross with the narrative. It's linear. There is no substance to the gameplay as a narrative vehicle there because you have no affect on the outcome. When you're playing as Joel, Ellie is invincible. It's a dissonance in agency. Most of The Last of Us' story beats are told primarily through cut-scenes. The gameplay has very little emotional substance. They are like two separate entities that are are stitches in a sequential order.

When I am consuming a story, say in the form of a book, I'm still formulating the scene in my head, the way the characters speak and how they look. As the story unfolds, it requires my attention to react and experience this. This is the same for any art. It requires a reception from the viewer to make an emotional connection.

I would prefer if video games moved more in the direction of conveying emotions through their mechanics. Too many games wrestle with agency, the inconsistency of the linear plot and other devolutions of story-telling that TV, movies and books don't suffer from. Game designers are trying to let the player play their game while telling a story that totally ignores the player's actions. That's why things like Uncharted don't work for me. Frankly, it's not a fun story or a fun game. (Uncharted 2, that is).

The Last of Us is a fun game with characters I like but it wasn't an emotional experience for me. The most emotion I felt during that game was sweaty palms during combat encounters. I'd say the emotional highlights for me were just playing it.

you're arguing with the dude who just tried to sell off Sony-developed games only being exclusive and is about to get salty as **** when he sees all the exclusives on Wii U i just listed that weren't developed by Nintendo themselves, hahahahaha

@jcrame10: Bro, wtf are you smoking?

You eat their shit and love it.

At least the people buying EA digital passes knew they were getting fucked.

Wow I agree with you, miracles DO occur ;P

what are you talking about? im giving you real life facts. what are you trying to prove against?

That just ain't so. Ellie can absolutely be killed by enemies. In brutal, gory, screaming ways. That's why I'm so terrified and feel so sick when she gets grabbed. This ties in perfectly with the storyline of Joel protecting her. As for "primarily through cutscenes", not really. The two talk CONSTANTLY during the gameplay, both when exploring and in combat. I'll be exploring a ruin for supplies while she's telling me dumb jokes. Which I love. An enemy will be sneaking up on my position, which she'll warn me about, which saves MY life, which makes me feel relief and gratitude. Not sure how much better you could tie together a two character action story to be honest? We chat, we laugh, we save each other's lives, I waste time to find her dumb comic book collectibles, because I love her.

Do ANY video games fit this standard? What does work for you?

Well, those "better ones" are usually not good hence not enjoying.

Overall, it depends, I've enjoyed stories in games when I wasn't exposed to cinema that much, but now my expectations have changed to the point that the only game that I've enjoyed its story this gen is The Witcher 3, so yeah there are exceptions.

And honestly I think that's a shame. Between "accepting crap" and "only enjoying 1 story per gen", I think there's a happy medium where a gamer can acknowledge the myriad weaknesses of game stories while still having fun with such quality that DOES exist.

@locopatho:

1. Who is raging? Lol. You people give yourself way too much credit if you think because I swear a lot I'm getting angry at a computer screen.

2. Except I don't play their games for anything more than a basic time kill. When I say you people eat shit, I mean more so you people give them all this praise and dismiss any complaint made at them because hur durr "they are the tallest of the midgets".

3. Putting someone in a vacuum isn't an argument it is a fallacy. It be one thing if they were telling a story through a game. But they don't; naughty dog tends to rely on the language of cinema. And often aren't all that good at it. Purely from a cinematography stand point they wouldn't be up to snuff with a standard tv show.

4. No I don't have to think any story in this medium is good. Its not what I play a game for to begin with.

5. Among their contemporaries how are they that much better than CDPR, Rockstar, Or Bioware as story tellers? Or Telltale for that matter? I'm not too fond of their games; but they aren't exactly playing second fiddle to Naughty Dog when it comes to characters, script writing, or plotting. Bioware n CDPR may be too shot-reverse shot for their own good, but that certainly wouldn't apply to Rockstar or even telltale.

6. Games like Oxenfree, The Last Guardian, Papers, Please have put in more considerable effort to convey a story through their mechanics. And on some level I actually dig those games. And they aren't exactly Mario as far as sharp gameplay. So this notion that champ isn't flexible in terms of games he tries or appreciates isn't gonna fly either.

7. Above all else you people are on a forum. How you people get so surprised someone shares an opinion that is negative in nature is beyond me. Welcome to how forums work, slick.

I've never been one to "judge with different standards", or say s*** like "this is a good ______ but a bad _______." Screw that, if I like something, I'm going to think it's good, if I hate something, I'll think its bad. If I find something mediocre, it;s mediocre, etc.

stories are no different. While there are certainly many video game stories that are "whatever" tier to me, and in some cases just downright obnoxious, dumb and bad, I've enjoyed some video game stories throughout my gaming life, not because "it's good by video game standards I guess" but because they had some parts or moments to them that I genuinly liked it (perhaps between some less than good moments or flawed parts...).

@DJ-Lafleur: but he was making the point in context of nostalgia....i.e. their old games.