David Cage (Heavy Rain) talks about games being nowhere close to film as a story telling medium

[Segatarious1]

[QUOTE=David]I don't understand this crusade you have against story-focused games. There's a lot of people here that do like them, oncluding myself, and I don't need to justify the way that game stories have resonated to me. The flaw in comparing interacting in a forum and a game is that the game sets the parameters in which you uncover the story. Art, not art, whatever...games like Persona, Chrono Trigger/Cross, and Final Fantasy have had me engrossed in the characters and story as much or more than any other medium.[/QUOTE]

That is not a flaw in my argument, it is Mr. Cage';s vague pipe dream -  a hypothetical art model he believes games can create -due to their player interaction - that would go above and beyond the straight ahead narrative that you are referring to in the second half of your post.

I am arguing that his hypothetical  is impoosible to produce, in any deep, meaningful way. He want interaction to be art, and it is not art. It is too open ended and random to be art.  At the same time, the straight on method of storytelling in videogames disqualifies itself as art because the game play trivializes the art, as I already posted.

I do not have a crusade against narrative, games, I simply do not enjoy them, they try my patience, and I am annoyed by the 'games are art' narrative, because it is a shield for lukewarm developers and the mediocre games they create to hide behind, and  who have nothing else to identify themselves with. If they could make it in a narrative art medium, such as film, they would be there, but the sad fact is gaming is the bottom rung in this ladder, below art, and that is why they are here.

Chrono Trigger is a fun game, and has some imaginative fantasy world elements, but as a story telling attempt it is very shallow and cliched, and does not satisfy.

[BanjoPickles1]

My real issue with this crusade is that it comes with this delusional notion that one side is right and everybody else is wrong.
There are no facts when it comes to the validity of story telling in video games; there are strong opinions, reserved opinions, and no opinions at all.

Does a game like Final Fantasy 7 have nearly the strength in story as The Godfather? No, but that's not the point. These are interactive stories that we get to be a part of. My favorite memory of a video game story involves Final Fantasy 6, which absolutely blew me away back in 1994! I think what captivated me was that I was playing as all of these characters, delving into their pasts and their respective purposes. I had never played anything quite like it....and I was EMOTIONALLY invested!

In less than a week, Mario Kart 8 is hitting the shelves. I know what to expect from it but, in typical Nintendo form, I'm absolutely positive that my expectations will be exceeded. To me, Nintendo is the Disney of gaming in that, in the case of their animated films, my expectations were almost always surpassed. Does Paramount do animation on the level of Disney? Of course not! However, has Disney developed something as powerful as Schindler's List or Life is Beautiful? Has Disney released anything as hilarious as Blazing Saddles or as brilliantly funny as Chaplin's City Lights? No industry stands tall on one company alone, and art is a community effort. For every Van Gogh there was a Norman Rockwell (my personal favorite). I can hang a painting of melting clocks above my couch, or I can cop out and buy a black-and-white picture of the Eiffel Tower from Wal-Mart.

All I'm saying is thank god that I can buy a Norman Rockwell replica for my living room, and thank god Nintendo isn't the only game in town!

[Segatarious1]

Nintendo may be the Disney of gaming, but then they are the Disney of old, the classic Disney. Walt has been dead a long, long time. Mickey Mouse has been dead for almost as long.

Name a major Mario game as generic, lazy, and awful as Mickey Mouse Club House. Nintendo has never abandoned the fundamentals of their medium, but Disney, sadly, has.

Disney is nothing more than a giant conglomerate these days, buying this studio, this licenses, making generic, by the numbers movies. Pixar is a branch they acquired, and over rated, over hyped, empty films are all they are capable of making, with false, politically correct 'morals' that amount to nothing but  sanctimonious, unrealistic, glossed over fantasies. I could give numerous examples, but I am not sure it is worth my time. Take the ridiculous Wall E movie for example, with its heavy handed environmentalism, (even as the film spawns dumpsters and dumpsters of promotional toy junk) and its idiot narrative of humans finding a Utopia in Space, having to do no work, becoming blobs, but then deciding to go back down and live life again. Ok, fine, have it your way, but it's going to get dirty again! All Utopia stories are brain dead stupid, but this one takes the cake.

It is a terrible film, one of many terrible Pixar films. Ever notice that every Toy Story has exactly the same plot? Pixar only became famous for its graphics, a great example of a video game mindset in films these days.

[Vexer1]

Gaming is not the "bottom rung" at all, and narrative is not a "shield" for developers to hide behind.

[HardcoreSadism1]

[QUOTE=Segatarious]

I do not have a crusade against narrative games, I simply do not shut up and just play games.

[/QUOTE]

Fixed that for you.

[Greisha1]

I'm guessing this "interactive Shakespeare play" will be an edutainment game. It will be published by Mindscape in Fall 1993, for IBM-compatible computers.

[HardcoreSadism1]

[QUOTE=Greisha]I'm guessing this "interactive Shakespeare play" will be an edutainment game. It will be published by Mindscape in Fall 1993, for IBM-compatible computers.[/QUOTE]

This is what he wants all games to be, pretty much. The annually released edutainment that schools flood nearby Half Priced Books with.

[BanjoPickles1]

Sega, did you ever stop to think, though, that Pixar movies aren't made specifically for adults? Personally, I loved Wall-E and so did my stepsons. I would rather the writers put a message in than simply do a "hey, kids are idiots who laugh at fart noises so we should include them" movie that insults their intelligence. The message may be simple but, as a parent, I approve of it.

I agree that the Disney of old is better, in ways, but it wasn't without its flaws. Song of the South anyone?

All I'm saying is that gaming needs more than simply Nintendo, great as they're capable of being.

[Segatarious1]

[QUOTE=HardcoreSadism][QUOTE=Segatarious]

I do not have a crusade against narrative games, I simply do not shut up and just play games.

[/QUOTE]

Fixed that for you.[/QUOTE]

So we are supposed to play games on this forum?

VGC Flash Game Gallery? Where is it?