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This is just a thread where you post random ass video game factoids that nobody gives a fuck about, but you post it anyway. Either, because you think it was interesting, or you did it for the hell of it. It doesn't matter what kind of trivia you post. It doesn't need to be obscure, & it doesn't matter if it's well known. You could talk about any game, new & old. It doesn't matter. Just post whatever the fuck comes on your mind. Here's an example: Did you know that the real life Baofu.net, which was inspired by the Baofu.net from Persona 2 Eternal Punishment was actually a troll site that posted a picture of a man's gaping asscrack? Otherwise known as goatse. Note: I was going to link to an example of what a goatse pic looks like, but the imagery may scar you for life. Google image that shit on your own time. ______________ This is my factoid. http://sega.jp/pc/baldurs/ Did you know that Sega worked on the Japanese localizations for most of Bioware's & Black Isle's classic late 90's Crpgs. Hell I didn't even know Planescape Torment existed in Japanese. Shit I take back what I said about Suda 51's Silver Case. If Planescape Torment can be localized in Japanese than what's stopping SC from coming over to the West? (Other than most of us don't know how to fucking read. I mean shit, us Americans didn't even get FSR.) I'm not saying that SC has writing that's as complex as Planescape Torment, but SC does have writing that's far more complex than most video games. (SC is about on par with the MGS2 DGN.) I've noticed that the majority of Japanese games that actually have decent writing are usually stranded in Japan. The trend doesn't seem to be changing any time soon. I own most of these Biowhore games. I'm missing Icewind Dale, but that's because I heard it was a Diablo clone using the Baldur's Gate battle engine. In other words ID has ass horrible combat that has no business ever trying to compete in the same genre as Diablo. The reason why the shitty ass combat worked in Planescape Torment is because you could actually talk your way out of fights. (Which was one of my favorite components of the Persona games, until Atlus stripped it away from P3 & 4.)

do you know THIS SERIOUS SHIT http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-real-life-babes-behind-gamings-voices/a-20080710114623921040 never knew VA women looks so hot, specially the portuguese ones of heavenky sword , also do you know that japanese chick on first page? she has charming looks...

Damn, when you said they were hot. I wasn't expecting them to look that damn good. Especially the first woman Alesia, the Samus chick. also do you know that japanese chick on first page? she has charming looks... I have no idea who she is at all. The only japanese voice actress I know of is megumi hayashibara. Out of the japanese in the page, the only ones I knew about were Kumi Koda, & Jade Vilalon. Jade ain't Japanese at all. I included her because I remember when she was performing a live in Japan. (A show called Music Station.) The people in the audience & the hosts running the show mistook Jade for Japanese, and were shocked that she didn't understand nor speak nihongo. I have to admit, I kinda thought she was a Japanese chick myself. She had that whole shibuya hoochie mama look going on with her hair tied up in a high pony tail & shit, Jade prolly doesn't even realize how much she resembled a Japanese (ko-galish) whore,hah. Here's another pic of Koda, who pretty much exemplifies that ko-gal shibuya hoe bag look, and to the right is Jade with a similar make up job. While on the subject of voice actresses. Did you know that Yumi Kikuchi, who was in a digital poster from MGS3, and was actually modeled in game for MGS4. (Raven,Mei Ling, & Naomi.) Was also the katana wielding shrine priestess babe from Ryuhei Kiramura's "Sky High". Shit, I always thought that priestess girl was some short ass 4'10 midget. (She looked f'ng tiny compared to the rest of the cast. Her perceived midgetness just made her look cuter though.) It turns out that girl was actually Yumi who's an ordinary sized J-girl height of 5'4. As much as I hated Kitamura for butchering sky high & turning it into some retarded Oneechanbara/ Dead or Alive honey fest. I do have to commend him for at least casting a shit load of hot women for his "reimagining" of Sky High. Thinking about it. I bet Kitamura introduced Yumi to everybodies favorite pimp, Hideo Kojima. (Kojima has been casted as extra cannon fodder in Kitamura's movies at least two times.) Edit: I wanted to post a up a pic of Hideo Kojima sporting a pimp suit, looking like a hardcore pervert, but MGS tus the place where I found that pic is down right now. So I direct y'all to the pic of a Kojima lookalike getting his wang sucked off. http://killer7.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/kojimasextape.jpg

Do you know the la-*test*-('") Shit in games Porn queens invading games ftw http://community.saintsrow.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/sr2_terawebposter_ji_01a-1.jpg http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=328656 lol some comments are fucking funny other quotes = true ________ Her and Lela Star getting implants were 2 of the biggest tragedies to befall man ________ i dont know the later chick but i agree with tera being best in porn and destorying so much cum of so many men including me. i love teras work in many pornos , her body and shit, also she has got implants now thats bad her original milky bouncy titties were serious shit. here is another funny one ____________ whored, whor·ing. –noun 1. a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money; prostitute; harlot; strumpet. I guess the dictionary is an ass hole as well. ____________ lol btw saintsrow2 other activities looks good http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tVpqF2VnkY

Another shit we use to argue and somethings he said what we agreed on cinematic shit in games games as toys videogames isnt right term games are for teenagers games like uncharted are porn LOL i didnt know ruleofrose was that big scandal in france and euro...shit this was most funny __________________________ Then people started voting her books on Amazon as one-star, and writing these scathing comments, and she realized this was actually a huge problem. As a result of that, she had someone play up to that point, and she actually came back to speak on TV again about it and said, "I've seen more scandalous things on television," because she was worried about her career at this point, so she actively had to come back and say, "No, actually, that was wrong, and I apologize." DC: It was so ridiculous. And it's true. I don't fully understand why, but the constant things we have from rating and censorship are absolutely insane. I mean, in a game, you can't show tits. You can't show anything. It's okay to cut the head of someone and have a bucket of blood, but if you show tits, that's a scandal, and your game can be banned in the U.S. It's because nobody has those. DC: No! And you can be shocked if you...you work sometimes on games that are 18+, and you see what you can't show and say in a game that is 18+. It's like... oh my god. You turn on your television at any time of the day and you see these things. Especially in France. DC: Well, in France, and even in the U.S. It's just more hypocritical, I think, in the U.S., but I've seen some shows about the porn industry that pretended to be information about the porn industry and how they work and "We're going to tell you about the porn industry." Basically, it was a way to show naked women. There was no information in this thing. It was not a documentary. It's just a sexy show. And you see that, and it's honestly ridiculous. I don't see why, for any reason, that video games should be treated differently than any other medium, like cinema or television. ______________________________ i was ROFL i like how he supported PS3 and the guy taking interview was like totally against it. I loved how cage pointed out same problems i had with PC , installing, drivers, patches, requirements... FUCK PC Must read the whole interview as he prettymuch nails evry problem in gaming industry http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3744/dreaming_of_a_new_day_heavy_.php but i dont agree that uncharted is pron, unless heavyrain really outclasses it, even then i love and always love cutscene pattern, that is cutscene agemplay cutscene provided that cutscenes are well executed/directed

Must read the whole interview as he prettymuch nails evry problem in gaming industry http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3744/dreaming_of_a_new_day_heavy_.php As for that Uncharted/porn remark... I think it's easier to say that David Cage is pretentious, but I won't say anything about him, because I'm still laughing at the comment he made 3 years ago about Killer 7, & Shadow of the Colossus. He claimed that people like him, & Suda are paving the way of the future. A future where more games have complex story lines & put more detail to story immersion. A future where gaming can finally be recognized as art. Fahrenheit, Killer 7, & Shadow of Colossus were supposedly the beginning of that renaissance. Hah hah, how wrong he was. Three years later, games are even more retarded than I remembered them to be. Granted I don't go around making fun of games like Bad Dudes, becuase the plots for those games aren't supposed to be serious. However I have reason to laugh when games such as MGS4 are considered the apex of storytelling in gaming. It tells me that people who play videogames are dumb as fuck, because they don't understand what good writing is. Case in point one of the guys who made BIO SHOCK has actually claimed that us gamers are in fact stupid, and that games are usually dumbed down in order to cater to all audiences. Why Video Game Stories are "Stupid" http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/03/24/ken_levine_on_story/ The following are quotes from the page. "If you want people to follow your plot," Ken Levine told the audience, "it has to be really f***ing stupid." Sadly, Levine learned this lesson the hard way with BioShock and admitted that most of the award-winning title's compelling, highly original script was left on the cutting room floor. The cut material included about a dozen characters as well as major plot points. In addition, the time frame of the narrative was shortened significantly - from decades to just a single day. For a game that was almost universally praised for its story, it was surprising to hear how much of it Levine and his development team were forced to cut. Levine's presentation was ironically entitled "Storytelling In BioShock: Empowering Players to Care About Your Stupid Story." but i dont agree that uncharted is pron, unless heavyrain really outclasses it, even then i love and always love cutscene pattern, that is cutscene agemplay cutscene provided that cutscenes are well executed/directed I can't stand the cutscene, gameplay pattern, because it takes you out of the immersion of the game. Cutscenes aren't gameplay, They're movies. They belong in the media of film. The best examples of story telling in games are planescape torment, fallout, & Arcanum. In these games you feel as if you are actually living in these worlds that the games have crafted for you. They have a real sense of choice & consequence. Like real life, you can't just run around & do whatever you want. The sense of intrique & suspense that Arcanum set up for the gamer is still ringing through my mind, because that's how alive the world felt. The plot changes according to your playing style. AKA the choices you make effect the consequences that will shape your plot. The c&c, imo is what's missing from most console games, because they try too hard to be movies. When they should be striving to be something much better than film. Games such as Arcanum, & Planesacpe torment have a shit load of underlining meanings, & messages that are conveyed just from playing the game & interacting with the world around you. I wish more console games would take this approach rather than the "reward the doggie with a doggie treat" approach. (Gameplay is the doggie trick, The cutscenes are the doggie treat. Or in Mr. Cage's words, the porn.) FUCK PC Fuck consoles. I wouldn't even be gaming anymore if it were not for the pc. A lot of Pc games out there are actually mature in terms of content, & writing. Especially when compared to all the juvenile bulshit that console always spit out. Every generation, console games get prettier, but the gameplay gets easier, & the writing gets more & more pretentious. WTF have the consoles ever gave us besides prettier gfx. Consoles are only good for action games. Whenever I need my Samurai Showdown fix, or my RE4 fix. I know that consoles is where it's at for action. Sadly the writing in console games are tailored made for 12 yr old retards in the bodies of middle age men. Seriously that's why all the story based games on consoles always look more like some half baked movies. (MGS) Whereas in a pc game, you actually control the story. The story changes & revolves around the actions that you make. The reason PC is dying, is because people realized that you can make easier money just making watered down/dumbass bullshit for the consoles. At least the pc has over hundreds of classic games that can be played over & over again without it ever getting boring. Games like Fallout, Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, Divine Divinity, Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines. Hell even the likes of Deus Ex, & The Longest Journey started on PC. When it comes to gaming as art. There ain't no other gaming medium out there that has proved the artistic merits of gaming as much as PC gaming has. Just look at how much more mature the writing is for planescape, & arcanum. Then compare them to their console equivalents, Final Fantasy & MGS. Arcanum & Planescape had writing that was so good, that it could've been written into a novel. Most console games usually have pretty FMVs to mask the fact that the stories for most console games is reaterded bullshit. In PC games, you actually do more then just run & kill. I can't even properly explain the beauty of Pc games. It's hard to explain how advanced the gameplay is for pc games, because console games are immensely shallow in comparison. One of my favorite console companies is Koei, mainly because I love their pc games (ROTK, NA, Uncharted Waters, etc.) that they stupidly release on consoles. (Releasing pc games on to consoles is bad business, because the gameplay in most non mainstream Pc games are way too complex for the average console gamer. There's a whole world of gaming out there, where the writing, music, & even the gameplay is top notch, and it's not found on any of the current gen systems. I'd sooner take the likes of PC gaming's "The Witcher", over overrated ass bullshit such as Console gaming's GTA series, MGS, or Halo. (I do like GTA, but I only see it as an action game. I feel that games such as the Witcher & Vampire Masquerade have much more freedom than what Gta game usually have.) All I want to know is, what's so wrong with PC gaming? Yeah y'all could clown on the patches & what not, but console gaming has been doing the same shit for years. (In the form of revisions. Ex. Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry 3, Devil May Cry 3 uncut edition, etc.) At least with patches, you usually just download them for free off of the official website. Whereas a company like Capcom or Koei will charge you extra in the form of a new game that fixes all the bugs of the original. Koei only does this with their console games such as Dynasty warriors & Samurai Warriors, but that's pretty much my point about how dumb us console gamers are. Even the gaming companies are making fun of us, by charging extra for a damn patch. You have a strong link, it seems, with the idea of games as a cinematic experience. You reference movies a lot in explaining your ideas. DC: Yeah, I think this part is generally misunderstood, because some people maybe didn't really read my interviews and think that I'm promoting cutscenes and that cinema is the absolute model. I'm not someone who's frustrated at not being a director and ended up doing video games. I'm here because I decided to be here and because I'm excited about interactivity in video games. I'm not a frustrated movie director. What I want to say is that no creative media has been created from scratch. When photography started, they didn't invent everything. They started copying painting. When cinema started, they started to copy from photography and theater. When television started, they started to copy cinema. But in this industry, I don't know why people seem to think that we are pure geniuses and we are going to invent something entirely new that no one has ever seen. But that's not true. Every single game being made is inspired by something else. That's normal. That's fair. So what I'm saying is that one of the closest media to games is cinema. We shouldn't copy it. We shouldn't imitate it. We should get inspired. We should take what is good there, because it's going to save us time, and if something is effective and works in cinema, why wouldn't you copy it? As long as we take what is good and add something new that is absolutely unique to our media... we don't want to make cinema, we want to make interactivity. Let's borrow some code from cinema, but let's not copy it. It's challenging, too. I don't want to make cinema, and I don't promote a vision of video games being only narrative-driven or whatever. I'm just saying, "Let's learn." Damn, David is furious. He even took a stab at Kojima with the director remark. I agree with this line of thought though. I used to love movie style games when I was a kid, but that's because technology was inferior back then. We've now progressed to the point where we no longer need to rely on cutscenes for our exposition. My line of thinking is that the use of cutscenes in videogames is an outdated concept. Why have cutscenes in the first place, when you could just make it part of the actual game. Once again the only examples I can think of are Planescape Torment, Arcanum, & the original Fallouts. Those games did use cutscenes sparingly, but whenever they did. It was usually only to set up the next scene or tone that the current direction the game was taking. My fave examples are from Arcanum Arcanum Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xl8kqjJ4nM arcanum - the banishment of arronax http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geXbfEOy4sk Arcanum - Final Speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMZi217RUUY I started off as a console gamer way back when I was 5. These days when I want to play a game for pure hobby/ wasting time purposes I'll usually just turn on a console, and play one of my random beat em ups/run n guns/ fighting games/action adventure games, etc. When it comes to actual story immersion, writing, & plot. Pc gaming is usually where I turn to for those qualities. Sure they sometimes exist on consoles as well. "The Tactics Ogre games, Old school GOTHIC megaten." However most of these console games don't even exist anymore. (Or in the case of megaten, have became a shallow shell of its former self.)

Fallout, Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, Divine Divinity, Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines, well all are troika games and tabletop type RPGs reinvented in isometric PC games whic can only be suited to PC for itspoint and click shit. I agree when you say fuck consoles , i remember the time of gabrielknight,omikron,kingpin,outcast, maxpayne, hitman, deusex, darkearth etc so much more that time was clssic, even arcanum and icewinddale all thos egames came backk then , now PC is doomed, when i said fuck PC i meant fuck PC now, except withcer PC has nothing, and withcer is also being released this year with enhanced edition , and all bugs out, so your argument of console being buggish is not plausible. witcher was nightmare when it comes to bugs, even to the state of unplayable, and thats what alwyas have bugged me, you need to constantly updgrade, you can play arcanum on you PC but you cant play witcher, if you will upgrade now for witcher i bet for nect powerful game you will be needing more better gfx card and so on. You say why copy cutscenes when its film? I ask same thing, why go for writing whern you can read novels? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMZi217RUUY this video can be done in graphic novel no? This speech writng and all, i would rather go for Sotc ,ico and torico for that matter when it comes to more telling with aestehtics,environment and behavior. The basic difference in storytelling is that many japanese games specially tend to give messages and themes through archtecture, edifiecs, charatcer designs, behaviour, references and what not. explore Wotc to know what its story rather than novelwriting fix, story thorugh interacivity. As far as cutscenes go, i dont undestand your hate of holywood or movies, sinc ei love movies and i love cutscenes , i love mixture of both mediums, cutscenes as break , nt longass as MGS4, only f they manage to keep player on toes, but well executed thing can be appreciated. I love siren approach or FF in horror games of interactive moments of horror and cutscenes for story. I agree it is not helping gaming medium but seriously it takes genius to tell interactive storytelling, those geniuse ppl were scarce before and now totally vanished. And your choice torika rpgs, and artonelico type rpgs, and shit , tell me what your cup of tea are, but , you are kind who dont need gfx and dont get anything thru gfx, just text can do, and the effects of those choices you make are superficial, coz its more in mind than in any gfx, same as novels, when i say Sotc environemtns they are beautifully drawn in 3d atleast , atleast some fidelity to inspire us think more, you dont need that , you can do perfectly fine with isometric views with black cloud covering the terrain, highlighting area where you are and tiny piny charatcers, and sometimes absolutly generic artowrk of those nipponichi RPG types. All in all you have more RPG soul , you exoect adventure games to be written like RPGs, that cant happen and should not, action adv dotn have so much long time to do that shit, they have to dvelope chaarcters in few hours, interacting with NPCs, solving quets, good writing should stick to RPGs and PC type adventures like momentofsilence not actionadventures like RE or anyother, they just do that its their plus point and if they use custcenes no worries.

Games like Fallout, Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, Divine Divinity, Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines. Hell even the likes of Deus Ex, & The Longest Journey started on PC. Notice how all games you mentioned are RPGs , except LJ, frankly i found LJ crap i have playe d better adventures with better writing, heck i even think LJ had only visuals and aesthetics nailed otherwise teenage female fantasy. Same for Dreamfall, but it was atleast better ride than LJ. April character was totalrubbish, i liked zoe more. But point still remains, PC is only good for its type of pointn click diablos, tabetop rpgs types, and point n click adventures. But in console gaming world is vast , more genres more categoris, PS1 and 2 has got huge variety , even adventure games like torico bsed on myst type structre blows evry PC game in artistic sense, torico is ico of adventure games its total different shit. Also i am more japanese gamer typre i love japanese games more than western gamedesign, thats why i think japanese has done thins artistically more than writing good script. Look how SH evolved, you might say its cheap writing but look how evryone inspired form it differently, symbolismsand all that shit, a total introvert type of psycho thriller for some horror. In other words who needs kick ass writing in SH, all it needs better acting and better VA,rest it will handle with visual messages through environemtns and cutscenes, i dont expect sodliers, layperson and ppl on street to talk like intellects. And finally why i dont think unchated is porn, coz unchrtyed has best polygonacting right now, even surpass acting of many of hollywood mvies, animators did perfect job so as VA, so if its more worhty than hoolywood cheap acting and so how can it not be better than porn acting? Fine patter in same some cheap story then porn action, then some rubbish talk then some porn action, but here its gameplay some great hollwood beater cuscenes, then gameplay, then more hollywood killer cutscenes and then gameplay, so content wise its much more worthy. But in some cases even custscenes are crap like gears, for those games yeah they can be porn since evrything is braindead in those games.

I'm sorry but this topic has gotten way...off topic. :P As for my take on the whole story thing. Bioshock was awesome. Whether Ken Levine says game stories are good or not is irrelevant. The stories in games like Mass Effect, Bioshock, and especially Killer 7 are top notch. I've never been a big PC gamer because I don't want so many games taking up all my resources on my PC! Plus, consoles are cheaper to upgrade to. On a console I know that when I buy the game for my system it'll work. I don't have to worry if it'll work on good visual settings or not. Before you launch into...well something about Bioshock and Mass Effect, I must say that those games had wonderful gameplay experiences as well as incredibly well told stories. Bioshock was cut almost to death...well I didn't know that. I hope the next one expands on that story. As for Mass Effect, I'd say that the story and universe for it reach a level of quality that franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek have previously occupied. Not only was the gameplay in Mass Effect fun, I actually felt like my decisions carried weight and actually affected characters in the galaxy besides just my own. I've never felt that way with a game before.

This is a free form thread so it's not like it really had a point, though I am sad to see that it led to another one of those shitty "are games art" debates. I just wanted to see a thread full of ridiculous (but game related, no matter how tiny that connection may be.) bullshit. The first four posts were pretty good, as they were nonsensical with how fucking random they were. As for my take on the whole story thing. Bioshock was awesome. Whether Ken Levine says game stories are good or not is irrelevant. Did you even read the article? He's trying to teach game developers how to sell their stories, because us gamers don't give a fuck about story lines. You're completely missing the point. Kevin Levine actually co wrote Bioshock, and he still considers it dumbed down. What he's saying is that you need to dumb down the plots for the video game audience if you want your game to succeed. If you read the article I posted. It truly does sound like the original plot for Bioshock was supposed to be much morr epic then what it really was. (Like K7, Bioshock was supposed to span between generations, instead of one day. I've never been a big PC gamer because I don't want so many games taking up all my resources on my PC! Plus, consoles are cheaper to upgrade to. On a console I know that when I buy the game for my system it'll work. I don't have to worry if it'll work on good visual settings or not. That's the main reason that I'm a console gamer myself. My problem is that most console games are stupid. There all the same shit, repackaged over & over. In most console game you pretty much do nothing but kill. Even the more free form games ultimately lead up to you doing more killing. Whereas the pc has Civilization, Nobunaga's Ambition, Pirates,Sim city etc. Before you launch into...well something about Bioshock and Mass Effect, I must say that those games had wonderful gameplay experiences as well as incredibly well told stories. Bioshock was cut almost to death...well I didn't know that. I hope the next one expands on that story. As for Mass Effect, I'd say that the story and universe for it reach a level of quality that franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek have previously occupied. I hope you realize that BioShock was a spiritual succesor to a pc game called System Shock II, and Mass Effect itself was made by the same people behind the Baldur's Gate series. Seriously, most of the decent (Non arcade) console games were originally (Or had their roots) from the pc. Not only was the gameplay in Mass Effect fun, I actually felt like my decisions carried weight and actually affected characters in the galaxy besides just my own. I've never felt that way with a game before. The funny thing is that mass effect pretty much plays like a watered down crpg with shallow choice & consequences. This is what I mean when I say that most of todays (console) games are just watered down pc games. Even the prized sandbox gameplay of GTA was originated on the pc. You need to grit your teeth with the likes of Fallout, Arcanum, & Planescape Torment to see what real choice & consequences are all about. There's no right or wrong way in the three aforementioned games. You just role play the role that you want to play. Whereas games like Jade Empire, & Mass Effect are based upon crpg like conventions, but they rely on shallow easy to see through consequences. In console games, It's pretty damn easy to spot which pat h is the evil, good, or neutral path. I find that pc games have more complex writing that correctly convey the role that you're going for. Rather than the one size fits all crap that console games always try to cram down your throat.

Haha I read the article man. And I knew Levine was one of the writers of the game. :P Regardless, I think that when you look at just what the game ended up being, it ended up a very good product. As for me, you don't have to dumb it down for me, but I know that in order for people to really embrace a game you gotta make it retarded for those idiots out there. I totally keep up on what studio makes what games so I knew those two developer facts as well. :P As for the decisions in Mass Effect, I thought for a good while in some cases before I made a decision. Like where you are told to exterminate or free the Rachni. I thought for a good while before I did that because I REALLY wasn't sure what could be the consequences either way. sure some Rachni might rise up again, but the Queen says she just wants the right to life. However, if you exterminate them, you are ridding the universe of a whole species that could have some affect on me later in the series. I'd say the writing in Mass Effect was really top notch. And I haven't played but a small bit of Jade Empire. I'll have to try the PC games you mentioned before REALLY making a full rebuttal, but I'm sticking with my stance here. Mass Effect never seemed pretentious or overly preachy on ANYTHING, unlike how some other game series get *Metal Gear*. Whether a game is watered down from it's original concept, I don't care about because if I can't play it anyway, why worry about it? I just judge what the final product is. In some cases it's fun to look at "what could've been" (like K7) but other than that, I stick with final code. If it's good it's good. If the writing's gay, it's gay. :P

Fallout, Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, , Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines, well all are troika games and tabletop type RPGs reinvented in isometric PC games Troika made the best games ever. There the main reason why I keep delaying my current K7 SIN update. I keep finding a new way to play these damn games. BTW, Vampire wasn't isometric at all. It was a 3d FPS hybrid like Deux Ex & system shock. I don't see how these games would be unfeasible on consoles. We get Koei's Romance of the three kingdoms, & Nobunaga's Ambition on consoles & they still work decently. (Although the pc resolutions & mouse click interface is much better for Koei's strat games.) Seeing how unpopular ROTK is in the states. I feel that the main reason why these type of games would be unfeasible can be greatly attributed to how complex the gameplay mechanics are. Most console gamers are only used to streamlined games. Games that tell you what to do. You say why copy cutscenes when its film? I ask same thing, why go for writing whern you can read novels? It depends. If we were talking about Japanese rpgs than I'd agree with you, but there's a key difference when it comes to computer rpgs. Have you ever played a crpg from start to finish? Admittedly I've only completed Fallout & Arcanum, but that's because those games had intersting worlds,settings & characters to explore. Computer rpgs are built like simulated worlds where you happen to be a participant in. The story does not revolve around you. There is no set course in most of troika's games. Your only limit is your imagination. Name me one book that actively lets me change the narrative to any way I see fit. Then I will be able to concede to your point. The only books that come to mind are "choose your own adventure" books. What makes "choose your own adv" books different from film is that you are actually interacting with how the plot unfolds. Which is pretty similar to the way David Cage's Fahrenheit tells its story. His games use a lot of cutscenes too, but Cage has found a way to integrate cutscenes seamlessly with the gameplay. Which is what makes Cage's games different from a Kojima or a Suda 51 game. (Although Cage actually does respect Suda 51.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMZi217RUUY this video can be done in graphic novel no? This speech writng and all, i would rather go for Sotc ,ico and torico for that matter when it comes to more telling with aestehtics,environment and behavior. LOL, man. Crpgs aren't novels. The only reason these games are text based, is because it would cost too much to record all the dialogue. The dialogue itself is only there to simulate a real world where you actually talk & interact with people. Have you ever played Ultima VII? That's the first & practically the only game I've ever played where the npc actually felt like living breathing people with their own lives, & work schedules. The basic difference in storytelling is that many japanese games specially tend to give messages and themes through archtecture, edifiecs, charatcer designs, behaviour, references and what not. Shadow of the colossus is one of the only Japanese games that uses the minimalist style of story telling. SMT Nocturne, & Killer 7 also come to mind. Other than that I can't think of too many Japanese games that aren't emo angst. Do you care to name any of these games, because suffice to say they don't exist. (Unless you're referring to old school Japanese adventure games from the 90's that remain untranslated to this day.) I don't know what games you've been looking at, but from what I've seen it usually Western games that tell its plots through the gameplay. Even the likes of Halo & Unreal have somewhat deeper plots then what we originally perceive once you start paying attention to the little details, references, & the like. From what I recall, Japanese games are usually the ones that bombard you with a shit load of dialogue, & cutscenes. (Especially Kojima games.) The only western game I can think that tells it's plot the Japanese way is Planescape torment. In some circles Planescape torment actually is considered Jrpg'ish. The only reason people don't hate on torment, is because that game happened to be one of the rare occasions where the overly self indulgent plot actually had some substance to it. explore Wotc to know what its story rather than novelwriting fix, story thorugh interacivity. Um, isn't that what you do in Planescape torment, Arcanum, & Fallout. Those games are built for exploration. (With the exception of Planescape torment. That's the only crpg that's wordy like a novel.) You don't strike me as having much experience with crpg's, because you keep talking about them as if they were books. Adventure games/digital comics are like books. Crpgs are far more gameplay oriented. It's gameplay just happens to be based on the story of its setting. I often find that these games are too freeform/open ended to ave ever been written as a book. What kind of novels have you read? The only games out there that read like novels are adventure games/digital comics. (Kojima's snatcher/policenauts, Silver Case.) Most of these Crpgs are written more like tabletop rpg scenarios. The writing is only there to accentuate the narration that you would hear in real life if you were playing a tablegtop rpg. When I was trying to find out who those random assassins were who kept trying to kill me in Arcanum, I don't recall reading any novel length text. What I do remember was I constantly checking my surrounding, I even went & sold my stories to the local newspapers, I joined a university, I delved into the criminal underworld, I fucked a couple of prostitutes, hell I even recruited some a new prostitue to work at madam lils, I also worked part time as an ambassador, yet during the night time I'm nothing more than a gambler, I even borrowed some fucking books from the library just to find some clues as to who it was who wanted me dead in Arcanum. Now tell me, what console game (that wasn't a spiritual successor of a pc game.) out there has that same amount of detail? The only ones that come to my mind are Nobunaga's Ambition, Taikou Risshiden, & Romance of the three kingdoms, but they don't count, because they're released as PC games in Japan. If there's one thing I've noticed every time you see a game with a shit load of detail on console. They almost always seem to have an origin as a pc game. Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre, the original Persona being the the only two exceptions that I can think of. The original Persona had a battle system that was complex enough to be used in a pc a game. Tactics Ogre basically plays like a tabletop rpg without the exploration. (In other words the entire game is all battles.) Actually there are a couple more that stayed in Japan such as Zill o'll, Sword World, Dark Law,Wozz, etc. I'm not counting them, because they were never released outside of Japan. As far as cutscenes go, i dont undestand your hate of holywood or movies, sinc ei love movies and i love cutscenes , i love mixture of both mediums, cutscenes as break , nt longass as MGS4, only f they manage to keep player on toes, but well executed thing can be appreciated. Hollywood movies suck. I can't get interested in anything that's too formalic unless it was meant to be a joke. Which is why I love grindhouse/sexploitation films, because they don't take their selves too seriously. I love siren approach or FF in horror games of interactive moments of horror and cutscenes for story. I agree it is not helping gaming medium but seriously it takes genius to tell interactive storytelling, those geniuse ppl were scarce before and now totally vanished. Actually Siren is one of the best examples of cutscenes used in videogames. The thing I love about Siren is that the cutscenes are part of the actual gameplay. They're used as a means to fill in the jigsaw puzzled known as siren's story, because the game is told out of chronological order. Cutscenes in siren are good, because of how well integrated they are in the game. In a sense siren feels interactive, because the immersion stays cohesive throughout the entirety of the game. Contrast that to something like a Suda 51 or Kojima game. Where it's easy to tell the difference between gameplay & movie, because the movies scenes hardly even resemble the game that you're playing. And your choice torika rpgs, and artonelico type rpgs, and shit , tell me what your cup of tea are, but , you are kind who dont need gfx and dont get anything thru gfx, just text can do, and the effects of those choices you make are superficial, coz its more in mind than in any gfx, How is it superficial? It's a combined vibe of music, writing, gfx, & setting. They're representative of the core (game). If anything relying solely on gfx sounds even more superficial, because that's only one component of the game. Personally I think the gfx for troika games are good. They're well designed & animated. When people die in a troika game, they look they fucking died a bloody mess. Whereas the gore in Beth's Fallout 3 looks like god damn crash dummies. I can appreciate good gfx, but I don't need them. Often times I find most games with good state of the art gfx to be lacking in complexity. (In both from a gameplay & writing perspective.) I'd love to see Persona 2 remade with SMT Nocturnes gfx, especially since Atlus actually did model some Persona 2 characters using the gothic nocturne style. GFX don't bother me at all, what bothers me is that gfx come at the price of gameplay. The reason I still play old games, is because they tend to have more solid play mechanics. I also find that most of the older games had better written, but simpler plots. Mainly because they didn't try too hard like most of todays games do. (Assassin's Creed, anyone?) EDIT: I just noticed that you mentioned Ar Tonelico & Arcanum in the same sentence. Now I'm sure that you never really played a Crpg before. Ar Tonelico is a japanese rpg that plays like a japanese rpg. (Japanese rpgs such as Zill o'll, & Sword World are more open ended like a western rpg.) I agree Ar Tonelico is like a book, because that game tells a straight forward story. The only choice & consequences you get are dependant on who you go out on a date with or some shit. In other words Ar Tonelico is more of a Dating sim/rpg hybrid like Persona 3. RPG's like Arcanum & Fallout play more like Grand Theft Auto, or what GTA would play like had those games let you do more than just killing random mo'fos. The plot lines for Arcanum & Fallout are open ended as is the gameplay. All in all you have more RPG soul , you exoect adventure games to be written like RPGs, that cant happen and should not, action adv dotn have so much long time to do that shit, they have to dvelope chaarcters in few hours, interacting with NPCs, solving quets, good writing should stick to RPGs and PC type adventures like momentofsilence not actionadventures like RE or anyother, they just do that its their plus point and if they use custcenes no worries. If a game claims to have an epic serious plot, then I expect the plot to at least sound like it was written by a college graduate. Most games have plots that wouldn't even fly in a "direct to tv" movie. I don't expect games to be written like rpgs. I feel that most rpgs have shitty ass plots. Hell Arcanum's main plot could be summed up in two paragraphs. What makes that game so engaging is how alive the world feels. There's even an X-files style conspiracy in game that you can't even solve, because it's simulating the way conspiracies unfold in real life. IMO adventure games (Normal adventure games, not that action adventure crap.) tend to have the best plots, because adventure games have no gameplay. So they pretty much live & die through their plots. You seriously don't sound like you've played many computer style rpgs, because you keep describing them as books. Crpgs are just virtual worlds that you interact in. You make it sound as if all crpgs are as verbose as planescape torment. (I wasn't playing around when I said that I never beat that game, because of all the goddamn reading you do in it.) When I say that these games have "good writing" I'm referring to how believable/realistic a lot of the dialgoue is. I guess a better word would be "competent writing". Most game plots lack "competence", but that's because plots are uneeded in most games. What computer rpgs have an advantage of over most. Is that they found an original way to relay a story line without actually showing it to the player. The story line is just a guideline, but you don't have to follow it. The plots unfold & change according to how the player plays the game. In Romance of the three kingdoms XI I had one game where I played as an Empress. One of my best men was killed by an enemy catapult. I sent my best officer to take the catapult down. My officer was in for a surprise of his life when he realized that the killer was actually his niece. My officer was supposed to chop her head off, but I decided to let her go, because she was related to me. He was later killed in a calvary charge, but ah well. That's the life of a soldier. The above wasn't scripted at all. This was the story that happened based off of random occurrences through the gameplay. This is what I feel video games should be. Story based games should strive to create interesting background settings, & rulesets, & then let the player run around in that interactive digital world. Where their many choices affects the world around them. Not hold them them by the hand in a straight oline, and shower the player with cutscene after cutscene. Cutscenes should only be used sparingly. To accentuate the direction of the plot. Gaming is interactive entertainment, & I'd rather it stay that way. I can't even sit down & watch most movies, because I feel that most movies are over budgeted crap. It wasn't until I sat down & watched some of Kurosawa's films that I finally realized how artistic films used to be. Prior to Kurosawa the only other movies I liked were by Miike, Besson & Lynch At least games can satiate my interest longer than most films due to their advantage of being interactive.

But in console gaming world is vast , more genres more categoris, PS1 and 2 has got huge variety , Care to name any genres? From what I see most console games are the same shit, repackaged over & over. (DMC clones, Splinter Cell clones, Street fighter clones, etc.) In the end all you're doing is killing shit. Where is this variety that you are speaking of? Lisker said it best when he said that if games were to be made as movies, that every single one of them would just be action films. The only genre of gaming that isn't about killing are puzzle, & sports games. Where are the normal games where I just control some random loser adventuring in some random ass world? I never played the game, but "Beyond good & Evil" seemed to be one of the only games that seemed to fit that description. When I look at the pc gaming library. I see games where you can play as tycoons, emperors, models, everymans, hitmen, managers, amusement park owners, film directors, etc. We sometimes get games like that in Japan, but its mostly for the pc. The only console games that fit this description are the ones that were made by Suda's old company Human/Spike. Fireman, Raw Danger, Twilight Syndrome, SOS & the like. even adventure games like torico bsed on myst type structre blows evry PC game in artistic sense, torico is ico of adventure games its total different shit. Now believe me I played many Japanese adventure games. A lot of the Japanese adv games from the late 90's have interesting plots. The problem is that most of them aren't translated. I think you're sorely overestimating the greatness of Japanese games though. Most of them are actually inspired by the West. (In terms of game design, story.) Two of the coolest games from Japan with decent gameplay & plot that come to mind are Hungry Ghosts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BWuXHZ_Y9s & Shadow Tower Abyss http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9013005305066739690 I wish more games like this would get translated over seas, but they normally don't, because games like the above aren't japanese enough for the weabos. Also i am more japanese gamer typre i love japanese games more than western gamedesign, thats why i think japanese has done thins artistically more than writing good script. I'm more of a japanese gamer myself. Japanese make the best arcade style action games, but damn have you've even seen the crap that comes out of there lately? The Japanese gaming scene of the 90's no longer exists. All we have are dating sims, Dynasty warriors & shitty ass Jrpgs now. The old school hardcore arcade gamer scene is still alive in Japan, but most of their story based games are all emofied now. Look at what happened to Persona. Look how SH evolved, you might say its cheap writing but look how evryone inspired form it differently, symbolismsand all that shit, a total introvert type of psycho thriller for some horror. Silent Hill is classic Western style horror emulated by Japanese. I mean come on, half of SH's influences are from the west. You should know by now that I love symbolism, metaphors & shit. Why do you think I used to love Megaten, back in the days when the games were purely metaphorical, sub cultural, etc. I like Lynch, & Miike, I run a site to Suda 51's games. All three of those guys are known to delve into symbolism, & metaphors. In other words who needs kick ass writing in SH, all it needs better acting and better VA,rest it will handle with visual messages through environemtns and cutscenes, i dont expect sodliers, layperson and ppl on street to talk like intellects. I don't either. I can scarcely think of any film, book, or game that I like where people actually spoke like intellects. However the dialogue in SH games are beyond horrible, because they sound like they were translated by some second year japanese language student. When I think of good dialogue, I think of Pulp Fiction, I think of Rome,I think of Persona (Even Persona 3 had good dialogue.), I think of Suda 51's KTP games. (Take your pick. Every single one of them has good dialogue. Including NMH.) Notice how every single one of those titles is vulgar as hell. You know why the writing is good for these films, tv series, games? It because they had believable dialogue where they spoke like real people. And finally why i dont think unchated is porn, coz unchrtyed has best polygonacting right now, even surpass acting of many of hollywood mvies, animators did perfect job so as VA, so if its more worhty than hoolywood cheap acting and so how can it not be better than porn acting? I never said it was porn. That's what David Cage said. In the end I think you're misinterpreting his argument. He's not literally saying that Uncharted is porn. What are you doing when you watch a cutscene from Uncharted? Are you actually playing the game? Or are you just watching it? Cutscenes in Farenheit are handled differently because of all the annoying QTE's they put you through in the game, but it's still considered interactivity, because those qte's directly affect what happens on screen. Fine patter in same some cheap story then porn action, then some rubbish talk then some porn action, but here its gameplay some great hollwood beater cuscenes, then gameplay, then more hollywood killer cutscenes and then gameplay, so content wise its much more worthy. When he refers to porn, What he's referring to is the "enjoyment" part. The actual gameplay would be the part that you speed through, because you just want to see more of the story. Which in a way does sound similar to porn. Personally I prefer more story cohesion in games. Think of movies like Seven Samurai where the first two hours are just character development & the third hour transitions the film from period drama piece to action small scale war movie. Notice how the two parts of the movies flow well together like water. Game narratives typically aren't as cohesive. They don't flow like water, because games usually follow fragmented patterns not unlike the one you just described above. When you read a comic book. It feels like your reading a comic book the entire way through. When you watch a movie you feel like you're watching a movie, as well as books feeling like books. You'll often find yourself lost inside the experience when the writing, & film direction are good enough. You almost forget that you're just watching a movie, or reading a book. You feel like you are living their world. I don't get that feeling from most video games. The story cohesion is lost imo whenever a game changes its format from interactive to movie. Why, it automatically lets me know that I'm playing a game, because I'm being rewarded for my playing time. Once the cohesion is broke, my immersion goes away with it. Killer 7 is one of the only games I can think of where the constant reminder that you're playing a videogame worked to its advantage. The self referential nature of K7 added another layer to the reality of K7 which made it even harder to determine wtf was going on in the game. MGS 2 also deserves a nod, because the AG part of the game also used its breaking 4rth wall moments to it's advantage as well.

Regardless, I think that when you look at just what the game ended up being, it ended up a very good product. As for me, you don't have to dumb it down for me, but I know that in order for people to really embrace a game you gotta make it retarded for those idiots out there. Exactly, which is what he meant when he claimed that game stories are stupid. Games are in a peculiar place, because they don't have an indie scene that they could thrive in like movies do. All big budget games have to conform to the same set of checks & balances in order to remain afloat. Troika's bankruptcy is a prime example of what happens when you don't follow the social norms of gaming. They made Vampire, and they still went bankrupt, lol. Mass Effect never seemed pretentious or overly preachy on ANYTHING, unlike how some other game series get *Metal Gear*. Mass Effect falls under the category of remaking the same fucking story that Bio always tells, but this time in a space setting. That's okay though, I prefer the space setting over that oriental bullshit they came up with in Jade Empire. There wasn't a single mothafucka in that game who looked like me. They were all sterotypes, lol. I can't even name what part of asia that game even resembled. I'll have to try the PC games you mentioned before REALLY making a full rebuttal, but I'm sticking with my stance here. Wait until you find out that Biowhore actually recycles their character archetypes, & plotlines from Baldur's gate over & over. It's always the same tired out "save the world" plot from some evil conspiracy or crazy loon or some shit. Oh yeah there's also the obligatory romance. There's always some half assed social political commentary between the different races & shit. Why can't bioware just make a simple plot for once, because their political crap sucks. Which is why I'm fairly unimpressed with most of bioware's games. Hell, I didn't even like Baldur's gate, lol. Actually I did dig BG II at first until I played Fallout, and saw how open ended worlds are really done. If you do try to track any of the real crpgs down. I suggest you look into troika games & start with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines http://www.direct2drive.com/803/product/Buy-Vampire:-The-Masquerade---Bloodlines-Download http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/ Then work your way down to Arcanum & the original Fallouts. (You'll might want to skip out on Temple of Elemental evil though. That game plays more like what Tactics Ogre would play like if Tactic's ogre were an rpg.) Masquerade alone will show you how shallow games like Jade Empire, Oblivion are. That game really does feel like L.A. Well the L.A. night club goth scene at least. Vampire The Masquerade is one of the best rpgs that nobody fucking played. I fail to see how troika rpgs resemble books. This is story based gaming as it should be. ________________________________ Alright then. Now back to posting random ass facts. Did you know that