To be fair, Cage is right with the critics comment.
Game critics really do need to stop listing the features of a game, saying "this is good" or "this is bad" and slapping a score at the bottom. The sooner critics understand that game writing is not press release writing (when they give it a good score) and it's not a buyer's guide (when they give it a low score), the better for the games industry.
Games a being different from movies doesn't mean there can't be input between the two mediums. For examples look at how Lucasfilm, Skywalker sound, and Ondiustrial light and magic are working on Star Wars 1313 as if it were the next movie or show.
Yeah. Games don't need to be movies, but the can certainly be cinematic. There's a lot of crossover between the visual direction of a game and the construction of a scene in a film.
To be fair, Cage is right with the critics comment.
Game critics really do need to stop listing the features of a game, saying "this is good" or "this is bad" and slapping a score at the bottom. The sooner critics understand that game writing is not press release writing (when they give it a good score) and it's not a buyer's guide (when they give it a low score), the better for the games industry.
I do agree with the sentiment, but it came from a man who is trying extremely hard to be so "Innovative" that he restricts player interaction, arguably THE advantage of video games, to the equivalents of quick-time events. And from what I can tell, David Cage tends to try to enforce emotions onto his audience rather than throw his audience into a situation in which that audience may react to events with their own emotions.
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Xenoblade is surface level. Everything in that game is spelled out for players in flashing neon lighting. There's no puzzling through deeper themes, there's no being engaged on an intellectual level.
That's not to say Xenoblade is a bad game (certainly I prefer it to modern Zelda games), but it's an emotional, surface-level engagement. The themes of Zelda games certainly take more work to really get to the bottom of them.
If you'd really studied philosophy you would understand the difference there, surely.
Doesn't change the fact that the questions the book was asking could be used for a ton of games. Also, just because the philosophical element isn't as direct doesn't make the concepts any deeper. That's like when some philosophers are super indirect about the concepts they talk about. Yeah, you can get down to the point of the matter but was all that metaphor or having the idea come in some sort of dialogue really necessary?
Gameplay has very little to do with the themes behind the story...
...Ok. And...
I don't know get what you are saying. Nobody said they were. I said games are often about gameplay and games can be good because of a good story but it is not necessary. The Last Story gameplay wise isn't all that great, but the story made the game memorable. Super Mario World has the most basic story ever, but the gameplay and level design of that game make it a masterpiece in my opinion.
You seem to be getting confused between me saying a game has virtually no meaning and me saying a game is bad.
I wasn't commenting on Xenoblade's quality as a game. I was pointing out that it's about as philosophically deep as a baby's pool.
In fact, I know there are plenty of gamers out there that quite specifically don't like thinking while they play games and would get upset if the meaning of Xenoblade was more ambiguous or less easy to digest.
But that doesn't change the fact it's not Dark Souls, or Nier, or Ni No Kuni, or Pandora's Tower.
Fully understand that opinion, but it doesn't change my criticism of your Xenoblade-Zelda comparison based on YOUR standards. I guess I also am against your idea of deep and shallow. I like to critically analyze everything so I know something about looking deep into something. Can't get to far in this argument because all the games you listed I've never played, and I'm not about to make a judgement or comparison on a game I've never touched. I am only looking at my own gaming experiences and watched playthroughs.
To be fair, Cage is right with the critics comment.
Game critics really do need to stop listing the features of a game, saying "this is good" or "this is bad" and slapping a score at the bottom. The sooner critics understand that game writing is not press release writing (when they give it a good score) and it's not a buyer's guide (when they give it a low score), the better for the games industry.
I do agree with the sentiment, but it came from a man who is trying extremely hard to be so "Innovative" that he restricts player interaction, arguably THE advantage of video games, to the equivalents of quick-time events. And from what I can tell, David Cage tends to try to enforce emotions onto his audience rather than throw his audience into a situation in which that audience may react to events with their own emotions.
Oh absolutely. There's plenty of perfectly reasonable criticism that can be sent Cage's way for his better understanding of cinema than interactivity. No disagreements with you there.
I've heard a couple of fans talk about the deep though-provoking themes of Xenoblade and I laughed. It's not, it's almost certainly not even trying to be. It's just trying to be a really good JRPG.
Pointing out Nintendo isn't a deep story driven game company isn't an insult as much as stating the obvious. It's like stating that Platinum is over-the-top. "What, no, how dare yooooou!"
Fully understand that opinion, but it doesn't change my criticism of your Xenoblade-Zelda comparison based on YOUR standards. I guess I also am against your idea of deep and shallow. I like to critically analyze everything so I know something about looking deep into something. Can't get to far in this argument because all the games you listed I've never played, and I'm not about to make a judgement or comparison on a game I've never touched. I am only looking at my own gaming experiences and watched playthroughs.
You know what? This one is really, really easy to resolve.
If I'm wrong about Xenoblade, please provide me with an analysis of the game's deeper themes.
And if I'm wrong and you can do it, I'll happily admit I'm wrong. I spent about 120 hours in that game and I didn't notice much depth at all, but perhaps I just played it wrong.
the closest example I can think of is the end-game Gods thing and even than I'll admit it's only somewhat less obvious than staring at the camera to tell the audience. Not that I believe they would do that and force a point onto the audience since again, just interested in making a good JRPG.
the closest example I can think of is the end-game Gods thing and even than I'll admit it's only somewhat less obvious than staring at the camera to tell the audience. Not that I believe they would do that and force a point onto the audience since again, just interested in making a good JRPG.
Yeah, exactly. Xenoblade was clearly (the way I experienced it anyway) just a case of throw a really good combat system and interesting level design together with some great enemies and give player an excuse with the plot to move from one location to another.
And it did just fine doing that. Just like Chocobo Dungeon - my favourite Wii JRPG, was not exactly a deep plot.
Games like Baroque and Pandora's Tower have far deeper narratives, and most would argue are far inferior games to the two I've mentioned above. Being "deep" doesn't make a game good by default.
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