The Energon Pub

What do you think of it?


Personally, most designers are more about multiplayer and don't give a rats ass about story (L4D comes to mind)now there are a couple of Gems in a dark sewer of craptacular sludge. I want to know what you think.

Really? A good chunk of games have pushed towards a good story without relying on multiplayer.

Too Human(I love the story, but dear god do I hate everything else about that game)
Bioshock
Fable II
Fallout 3
Mass Effect
(Insert JRPG Here)

to just name a few.

Sure there are a lot of games with multiplayer, and a good chunk suck.

But there are an equal amount of games that focus on the story, and still suck ass.

But you know what they say, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Saberspark model H. wrote:What do you think of it?

Kind of a broad subject, don't you think?

Saberspark model H. wrote:Personally, most designers are more about multiplayer and don't give a rats ass about story (L4D comes to mind)now there are a couple of Gems in a dark sewer of craptacular sludge. I want to know what you think.

Like Resident Evil 5, God of War III, anything in the Half-Life universe, BioShock, Metal Gear Solid 4, Fallout 3, F.E.A.R. 2, Fable II, Devil May Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mercenaries 2, Prince of Persia, No More Heroes, the Halo series, the Resistance series, etc.

I'm a huge Bioware junkie, in part because I feel they have a real gift for interactive storytelling. The role play and character development also are real winners in my book. And there are plenty of other great games with story as a strong suit.

Actually, Valve is one of the best storytellers, with the Half-life series and Portal. L4D is pretty good too, since it uses so little and gets you so engrossed.

I'm less a multi-player kind of guy and more for a good story that keeps me interested. Sure I don't mind getting together with friends and such but I like to do that OFF the console and PC so I can talk to them. I'm weird that way.

Guitar Hero was the last thing I really bought that didn't have a strong story element to it. I'm a big fan of Bioware and Bethesda because they DO tend to tell stories with their games and are almost always extremely well done. You can throw Sqaure Enix and a few others in there for strong story telling. I'm kind of just rattling off what I rembmer fromt he top of my head.

The only MMO I've ever played was Guild Wars and even that has a pretty decent story element to it and you rarely have ot party with people anymore but it helps a lot. That and Guild Wars doesn't have a monthly fee which really attracted me to it.

Saberspark model H. wrote:don't give a rats ass about story (L4D comes to mind)

I think you're confusing telling a story with delivering a narrative.

There's plenty of story in L4D, its scratched into the walls, its in the characters' dialogue, its written in the safe houses and sprayed onto walls. Its in the abandoned cars on the street, the fortified positions that serve as the stage for the crescendo events.
Its all around you as you play.

There's no narrator, or anyone to point out the events that lead up to the game, but there is so much that is implied by the things that you see and do, and that the characters say while you're playing.

While the focus of the game is in the playing (vocalize playerdeath spamming, whatever you want to call it), its just plain wrong to say that Valve are not telling a story. They're just doing it in a highly naturalistic and immersive manner.

LOL I don't know what your talking about because I really don't play a whole lot of multiplayer. Most of my games have great Multiplayer modes, but Awesome single player story modes too! Games like

Uncharted (no multiplayer at all, just awesome story)
Resistance: Fall of Man (Multiplayer rocks, but Single player is better)
GTA 4 (Awesome story, awesome multiplayer)
Bioshock (see Uncharted)
Metroid Prime 3
Super Mario Galaxy

ok well I could go on forever. Only games that have crap stories are games like Unreal Tournament that are DESIGNED to be mutiplayer-only games, and in general you know this before you buy them so if you don't like them you can stay away from them.

As for the Industry as a whole, I guess I like it for the most part, but I hate a couple things:
#1. all the crap the 3rd Party companies pump out for the Wii that's just crap
#2. EA's "EXCLUSIVE" NFL License. God I hate Madden
#3. Movie Licensed game. They NEVER meet expectations, and more often then not they just suck, but usually are Mediocre at best. Every now and then theres some rare Gem that comes out (Goldeneye 64, Spiderman 2) but for the most part they all suck!

Cormaster628 wrote:As for the Industry as a whole, I guess I like it for the most part, but I hate a couple things:
#1. all the crap the 3rd Party companies pump out for [all the consoles] that's just crap

Went ahead and fixed that for you. It implied that 3rd party companies only make bad games on Wii, which is impossible since the Madden games are on all three consoles and both handhelds.

Shadowman wrote:

Cormaster628 wrote:As for the Industry as a whole, I guess I like it for the most part, but I hate a couple things:
#1. all the crap the 3rd Party companies pump out for [all the consoles] that's just crap

Went ahead and fixed that for you. It implied that 3rd party companies only make bad games on Wii, which is impossible since the Madden games are on all three consoles and both handhelds.

To be fair it is much more of a problem on the Wii.
Compare the tide of shovelware and **** like cooking mama and imagine babies party something something to what, madden every six months?
You could feasibly own a 360 and triple, and never notice most of the crap that gets made for those, but god help anyone who feels like wading through the Wii's release schedule.

homelessjunkeon wrote:

Shadowman wrote:

Cormaster628 wrote:As for the Industry as a whole, I guess I like it for the most part, but I hate a couple things:
#1. all the crap the 3rd Party companies pump out for [all the consoles] that's just crap

Went ahead and fixed that for you. It implied that 3rd party companies only make bad games on Wii, which is impossible since the Madden games are on all three consoles and both handhelds.

To be fair it is much more of a problem on the Wii.
Compare the tide of shovelware and **** like cooking mama and imagine babies party something something to what, madden every six months?
You could feasibly own a 360 and triple, and never notice most of the crap that gets made for those, but god help anyone who feels like wading through the Wii's release schedule.

I agree a 100% and you know what? It really doesn't make sense on the Wii. The hardware is a lot weaker than the other 2 systems, but its still the #1 best selling system, and while the Xbox 360 is selling like crazy, its not even close to touching the Wii on sales. You'd think that fact and that fact alone would get developers on board, and make them want to make good games for it!

I mean the last system war honestly the PS2 was the weakest system yet had the best support from the 3rd parties! Whats so different this time around? Well this Mad World game did just come out for Wii and its supposively pretty freaking awesome, and a very "mature" rated game at that, so maybe theres still some hope for 3rd party development yet for the console.

You know what game franchise I miss? The NFL2k series. Far better then Madden. I was just playing NFL2K on my dreamcast yesterday and man was it fun. It was also exhilerating playing as Mark Brunell in his prime and dropping bombs to Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell

I wish the Madden exclusive garbage would end so we can have that series back...

original sin wrote:You know what game franchise I miss? The NFL2k series. Far better then Madden. I was just playing NFL2K on my dreamcast yesterday and man was it fun. It was also exhilerating playing as Mark Brunell in his prime and dropping bombs to Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell

I wish the Madden exclusive garbage would end so we can have that series back...

I used to have NFL2k5 on my Xbox it was awesome! A lot better than madden. And even though the current Madden looks better than NFL2k5 it still doesn't have the presentation and polish of the 2k series. To put it the best: Madden doesn't look like your watching a live football game even with prettier graphics. Its ashame too I'd love to see what NFL2k9 would of looked like!

Cormaster628 wrote:

original sin wrote:You know what game franchise I miss? The NFL2k series. Far better then Madden. I was just playing NFL2K on my dreamcast yesterday and man was it fun. It was also exhilerating playing as Mark Brunell in his prime and dropping bombs to Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell

I wish the Madden exclusive garbage would end so we can have that series back...

I used to have NFL2k5 on my Xbox it was awesome! A lot better than madden. And even though the current Madden looks better than NFL2k5 it still doesn't have the presentation and polish of the 2k series. To put it the best: Madden doesn't look like your watching a live football game even with prettier graphics. Its ashame too I'd love to see what NFL2k9 would of looked like!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Pro_Football_2K8

That was essentially the spiritual sequel to the NFL2k series. It was a pretty fun game.