Cody is wrong level: 9000+ (Gaming)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Monday, February 16, 2015, 22:47 (3567 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Somebody needs to give me 30 million dollars so I can show everybody how you should do interactive fiction.

Cody, ultimate programmer and game developer.

Life is Strange was kind of interesting, and it proclaims that your choices matter. But then it undermines that constantly.

Wrong. It provides a twist on the "multiple" choice type of game by not just allowing you to go through multiple scenarios, but encouraging you to experiment through the choices, and follow through with the one you FEEL is best (note that all actions can have a butterfly effect, even the "right" ones).

1. The game has a time rewind mechanic. This means your choices aren't permanent. If you regret your choice, you can do it again. What's the point of making your choices ostensibly matter - meaning that they have consequences - if you don't have to live with the consequences?! If you want player choices to matter, they need to be permanent, so that the player actually has to weigh what to do!

Wrong again. Sammy played through the game first, making her own decisions, and through doing what I felt was the "wrong" thing to do, she actually gained more insight during some scenes than I did by doing the "right" thing. And doing the wrong thing actually affected how I saw some characters. So yes, while I could go back and get Sammy's same scenario, the consequences of the character interaction will be different down the road (for starters, Chloe was joyful at the end with Sammy, but moody with me, even though I feel like my decisions will benefit me better down the road).

2. If you choose 'wrong', the game chastises you and suggests you rewind time to get a better outcome. How about letting the story roll with my choice? Why even bother making me choose if you are going to tell me what the "better" choice is? The game should just be designed with all those contingencies in mind.

Wrong again. Max will always suggest the alternative choice. It's up to you to decide what that is. Remember that you have to play your cards right, so just because you think you can go all in with three aces in a play, it doesn't mean that you're going to win (did you make amends with Pacifica Northwest? Surely that's the right thing to do, right?).

3. The choices are binary rather than organic. Remember in Beyond Two Souls how you can just choose to nope out of the bar to avoid being sexually assaulted? No prompt, no script, just you deciding to turn around and walk through the door. Remember how you can choose to just shoot and kill Ana Navare in Deus Ex? Just point and shoot like any enemy. This game has none of that. Every choice is clearly marked as a choice, rather than having them arise organically from the game's possible actions.

Wrong. As Rag pointed out, the in-room confrontation has four ways (at least) that it can play out, but you're only TOLD to do one. Same for the trip to the basement. Did you save the bird?
Did you leave evidence of your snooping? Probably not, right? That'd be a mistake... right?
Did you water the plant? Of course. Why wouldn't you? That won't come back to bite you later, right? Defending your friend from the security guard is the obvious choice, right? Having photographic evidence won't help you later... right?

The camera is also uncomfortably close to the main character.

I didn't like that either, but it does also help limit what you can see on the screen, so you only notice what you're paying attention to (Sammy took one photo throughout her playthrough, while I managed to get them all since I examine every nook and cranny without expecting the game to highlight everything for me).

These types of games are getting better, but I see the same mistakes over and over again.

I just see what you think are mistakes, but as this is only part 1 of 5, you're fundamentally wrong... as usual.

1. Forced actions. I realize there has to be SOME restrictions on actions in order for a story to happen at all, but in the beginning, I just wanted to leave without washing my face. A major event happens in the bathroom, which is why you have to do it. The game should be set up so that if I choose not to go to the bathroom, the story is jump started in some other way, or better yet, take a completely different direction now that a major event was hidden from me.

You want complete narrative freedom for every minute action... in a non-AAA game. I recommend you play the Mass Effect series. You're going to get everybody killed in ME2...

2. Lip sync. The lip sync was awful, and ruined immersion quite a bit. Why is this so hard to get right? Lip sync has been convincing since 2004 in HL2. Why is every game not spot on? This makes no sense at all.

Different engines and budget. Not everybody has Valve's country working on the game, prioritizing this and that. Remember that when it came down to it, Kojima opted for blinking eyes rather than moving mouths in MGS1. It's a minor problem, and I'd prefer them to focus on more important aspects of the game.

3. Voice acting. It's decent, but it needs to be better. Beyond Two Souls was great because it had actual actors, however the lines themselves were often painful. This game had the opposite problem: decently written (could be way better though), but with mediocre performances.

Again, budget. I'm sure every game would have an all-star cast if they could (although, Destiny does, and look how that worked out)...

4. Actions don't matter enough. A corollary to 1, I feel as if these games don't change enough based on your actions. It should be possible to get two COMPLETELY different stories if you make significantly different choices early enough. I know that's a lot to write and to think about, but that's why you have testers try to undermine your narrative early, figure out what they'd want to do, and write around that. A big job, but do it and you'll have an amazing experience.

Bioshock's two 1/2 endings could be determined from an action taken very early into the game. And people complained. Mass Effect 3's endings all boiled down to three separate decisions made at the very end of the game. And people complained. Half-Life had two non-endings that depended on a split-second decision at the very end... And the people rejoiced.

Maybe someone will get it totally right in the next 15 years. But oh yeah, the game is worth buying.

I enjoyed it. People should get it and show the big studios that change is accepted in the market... Small games like this are catalysts. Look at how Telltale blew up thanks to their Walking Dead games. DayZ started out as a one-man mod, and is now coming to PS4 with huge backing. Warframe started out as a small pseudo-sequel to Dark Sector, and it's now looking to overtake Destiny in ambition and scale (Eight-player Raids, 100-player Relays with trading, communities, and Clan wars, overhauled PvP with Bot-assisted Invasion games)...

Support something that deserves support, and the AAA games might see some more ambition and depth...