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[fvng]

So for your new strawman you're going to have to find people who hate these games and also love Dragon's Lair.

Good luck with that!

What? I never made a strawman in the first place. The only strawman here is your post since you're attempting to push me to make an argument I have no intention of making. This is the part where you say touché

He said the puzzle game mechanics date back to the foundations of the gaming medium, and I'm saying so do QTE mechanics like the ones seen in Dragon's Lair.

 

[p2535748]

Well that explains a lot.

Anywho, as long as we're talking about genres that are the foundation of 'our hobby'.. QTE based games like Dragon's Lair also date back to the 80s, so they are very much the foundation of gaming as well even if you don't particularly like them.

Does anyone really praise Dragon's Lair, though? It's not like people are going around saying "Dragon's Lair was awesome, but Indigo Prophecy sucks!" I think most people today acknowledge that Dragon's Lair is, at most, an interesting novelty and a technical achievement for the time, but most people also acknowledge that it's not a good game really.

Furthermore, I'm not exactly sure what your point is. Yeah, there have been QTEs in games for a long time, but that doesn't make them good.

EDIT:

I see you answered the last part above. There are numerous posts in here explaining why puzzle game mechanics are different (and better) from QTEs. I'm not going to rehash them.

 

[Amazeballs]

The best LucasArts adventures were well written, and the player benefited from being culturally aware and well read. David Cage's games probably appear really well written if you don't read books, or only watch big budget Hollywood films and anime.

But books do not have pixels therefore they cannot express reality.

What? I never made a strawman in the first place. The only strawman here is your post since you're attempting to push me to make an argument I have no intention of making. This is the part where you say touché

He said the puzzle game mechanics date back to the foundations of the gaming medium, and I'm saying so do QTE mechanics like the ones seen in Dragon's Lair.

It's a problem in and of itself that you cannot see how you made a strawman.

The foundation of game mechanics predate Dragon's Lair. The game part of videogames predated the video part, in fact. Just because Dragon's Lair did QTEs doesn't mean that QTEs constitute a game.

 

[Extra Sauce]

Puzzle solving is gameplay.

Also if David Cage was on the level of Tim Schafer as a writer the lack of gameplay would probably be acceptable to me.

 

[RE_Player]

Cage should credited for trying, but we shouldn't overlook the flaws his games has.

I describe all his games as flawed gems. I love Heavy Rain for example but I'm not going to call it perfect. The amount of vitriolic comments he gets when his named is brought up when discussing games is uncalled for though.

 

[Gully State]

Cage's games consistently get attacked for being interactive movies without any real gameplay, but I often see these same critics turn around and fawn over 90s adventure games like Grim Fandango.. The reality is classic adventure games from LucasArts were essentially interactive movies with no twitch gameplay..

(referring specifically to the classic LucasArts games I grew up with (Monkey Island, Loom, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango)

Frankly, the only difference between classic games like these and David Cage games is the AAA graphics. If Heavy Rain or Beyond came out in the 90s, they would have certainly been pixel based adventure games. I don't understand how any gamer who loved those old games can reconcile that with complaints about Cage's games "lacking gameplay"

(thread is about complaints about gameplay, not quality of story or storytelling)

I can't say anything about gameplay complaints. I'm fine with the argument that Cage games are games. I'd even argue that some of his gameplay elements do mimic what's going on screen pretty well (with the exception of some few really weird ones).

That said...most of Cage's criticisms come from the fact that his emotionally charged and deep narrative experiences are just poorly written.

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

Dragons Lair seemed awesome at the time because of the way it looked. No one looks back at it and thinks "wow that had awesome gameplay" The gameplay was the worst thing about it.

 

[Marcel]

Cage's works are extremely unappreciated... which is really sad because they offers so much soul.

Melodrama, Matrix fighting, VR glasses addiction = soul. All right.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Puzzles are gameplay. And LucasArts had a competent writing team.

This, it's not that hard to differentiate the two.

Cage's works are extremely unappreciated... which is really sad because they offers so much soul.

The internet is a villain, sex with a dead guy, the massive plot holes in Heavy Rain you could drive a tank through, Ellen Page working for the CIA and then exorcising Native American ghosts in the desert.

Gotcha...

 

[giapel]

Comparing David Cage games with Grim Fandango, one of the masterpieces of the genre... Maybe you should've picked a lesser game to make your (flawed) argument.

 

[Wiktor]

Frankly, the only difference between classic games like these and David Cage games is the AAA graphics. If Heavy Rain or Beyond came out in the 90s, they would have certainly been pixel based adventure games. I don't understand how any gamer who loved those old games can reconcile that with complaints about Cage's games "lacking gameplay"

In 90s people hated the most basic FMVs for the same reason why they hate heavy rain.

And as people have said endlessly, LucasArts adventure games had a lot of gameplay and it was good gameplay. Plenty of people love puzzle solving, it's the whole reason why casual games took off and why puzzle games are so popular these days. People love good puzzles. All those CD ROM adventure games were failing untill devs actually started to add good puzzles to interactive movies with games like 7th Guest and Myst.

Many adventure games fans love their gameplay. So are you really incapable of understanding why people who love puzzle solving don't like twitch-based QTEs? Heck, addition of any action elements was usually reviled by adventure fans. Few games managed not to crash and burn with those. So you get an element people hate (primitive action sequences), remove the gameplay people love (puzzle solving) and then you're surprised why people don't respond to Heavy Rain as well as to Grim Fandango?

 

[Marcel]

The internet is a villain, sex with a dead guy, the massive plot holes in Heavy Rain you could drive a tank through, Ellen Page working for the CIA and then exorcising Native American ghosts in the desert.

Gotcha...

Hahaha. This is a great trip down memory lane. Don't forget about this gem.

 

[Kageshinzo]

Cage's games consistently get attacked for being interactive movies without any real gameplay, but I often see these same critics turn around and fawn over 90s adventure games like Grim Fandango.. The reality is classic adventure games from LucasArts were essentially interactive movies with no twitch gameplay..

(referring specifically to the classic LucasArts games I grew up with (Monkey Island, Loom, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango)

Frankly, the only difference between classic games like these and David Cage games is the AAA graphics. If Heavy Rain or Beyond came out in the 90s, they would have certainly been pixel based adventure games. I don't understand how any gamer who loved those old games can reconcile that with complaints about Cage's games "lacking gameplay"

(thread is about complaints about gameplay, not quality of story or storytelling)

Did you even think this whole thing through? Last I checked, puzzle-solving is still a legitimate and rewarding form of game.

 

[Neuromancer]

If David Cage's games were merely point and click puzzle solving adventure games, you might have had a point OP. Unfortunately he likes to also fill them with pretty horrible gameplay scenarios which actually detract from the rest of the game. Off the top of my head:

Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit - instafail stealth mission(s)
Heavy Rain - purposeless dream sequence where you play as a woman while men in ski masks attempt to rape you (heavily implied)
Beyond: Two Souls - the entire last few hours of the game which are mercifully a blur to me now

I think if he kept the light puzzle solving, and cut out the action and QTE sequences he'd almost certainly make better games.

 

[ChipotIe]

Advemture games are actual games. I believe you can only be compare david cage games to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3XNQja0H7I circa 1980

 

[Tesseract]

ed wood versus mel brooks, fight

 

[p2535748]

Have you played a music game? At high levels, they're all about being in the zone. I'm not sure what you mean about needing to look at the buttons - do you actually look at your controller when you press buttons? I know where every button on my controller is without looking at it.

No, I'm saying you look at the buttons (I suppose I should have said "button prompts") because in a QTE the button prompts are there on screen.

And yes, of course music games are all about being in the zone. That's what I was saying. In music games, your responses become reflexive, you take in what you're seeing on screen and hearing, interpret it and hit the correct button without really thinking about it. In a QTE, you're explicitly told what button to hit. There's no interpretation step, and, for me, there's no way to get "in the zone", because the screen is constantly telling me what to do. For me, "the zone" is about knowing what to do instinctively and executing it. QTEs don't allow that because they explicitly tell you what to do at every step.

 

[jay]

writing/story is still irrelevant to the topic which is gameplay

When writing/story are bad, people look to gameplay to carry things. When that also doesn't exit, people complain.

 

[kiaaa]

I didn't really read the thread, but if you're going to have minimal gameplay, you need to tell a good story. David Cage isn't a good writer and probably doesn't have an editor willing to keep him in check.

The decision to present Beyond Two Souls in disjointed chronology still blows my fucking mind.

 

[Percy]

David Cage games suck though.

 

[wildfire]

This is a nonsense retort.

In a game with simplified mechanics, the story is generally used to propel the propel the player through the experience in place of adding mechanical complexity. To discount it would reduce this argument down to "are QTE's more enjoyable than clicking on hotspots?" which would be nonsense. This doesn't even include that solving the puzzles in the LucasArts games usually comes from learning about the rules of the world through interaction with characters and locales and then applying that logic to solve a puzzle.

To say writing/story is irrelevant to this topic would be like saying "graphical fidelity is irrelevant to a topic on immersion". Sure, there's an argument to be made for raw gameplay analysis but you can't really get away with discounting something so core to an experience.

Well said, especially with the graphics analogy.

 

[-tetsuo-]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNB-SpRJmys

This would have been fine if the acting wasn't so bad.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I'm not even a fan of point-and-click adventure games, but to compare them to Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy, etc. is nothing short of asinine. Even if you completely disregard the quality of the writing (which you shouldn't because those games rely heavily on them and Cage can't write for shit), the classic Sierra/LucasArt games have puzzles, some of them genuinely challenging, they have exploration and NPC interaction, they have inventory management, etc. All of which is gameplay.

Wiggling the sixaxis to brush your teeth? No, fuck off, Cage, that's not fucking gameplay.

1. So you're not including solving puzzles and item management under the definition of "gameplay". This is off to a bad start. It reveals the seams of your poorly stitched together argument.

2. So arbitrarily doing anything that requires input immediately is gameplay? What the fuck are turn based RPGs then?

3. Your last bit there is just childish. Seriously, that is like something a kid would say. Does it not even occur to you that QTEs could be disliked by even the most ardent supporters of that franchise? No, you want to make a point, because the evil GAF are a bunch of hypocrites. Let's ignore the world simulation, deep fighting system, interesting setting, etc. I have another shocking fact for you: most Shenmue fans think the game has poor voice acting! Crazy, right? How could you love something that has elements you dislike?

Good post.

 

[RooMHM]

right right, QTEs are only acceptable when it's coming from GAF cult favorite Shenmue.

Tell me this is sarcasm... Shenmue invented QTE abd it was less than 5% of the game. New is more acceptable of course.

 

[AkuMifune]

I didn't really read the thread, but if you're going to have minimal gameplay, you need to tell a good story. David Cage isn't a good writer and probably doesn't have an editor willing to keep him in check.

The decision to present Beyond Two Souls in disjointed chronology still blows my fucking mind.

Because if you played through her life in linear fashion it would have been front-loaded with the kid sections and you wouldn't have context for their emotional weight.

Cage may write poor dialogue, but his stories are some of the best in gaming and get attacked for a variety of dumb reasons by people with shallow, hypocritical criticisms.

 

[Betty]

Cage may write poor dialogue, but his stories are some of the best in gaming and get attacked for a variety of dumb reasons by people with shallow, hypocritical criticisms.

No, the stories are also terrible, with some of the blandest, most forgettable characters ever. Heavy Rain is his most competent effort so far, and it's still only average when it comes to story, but Indigo Prophecy and especially Beyond are such dire schlock.

 

[Shion]

Because if you played through her life in linear fashion it would have been front-loaded with the kid sections and you wouldn't have context for their emotional weight.

Cage may write poor dialogue, but his stories are some of the best in gaming and get attacked for a variety of dumb reasons by people with shallow, hypocritical criticisms.

The story in IP was laughable.

 

[jay]

Cage may write poor dialogue, but his stories are some of the best in gaming and get attacked for a variety of dumb reasons by people with shallow, hypocritical criticisms.

Indigo Prophecy goes completely off the rails and becomes a bunch of poorly thought out bullshit. That you think people who see this are hypercritical or that these issues are shallow is odd.

 

[noquarter]

Probably already been posted, but Cages games tend to be more "Choose your own adventure" movies, where the game play actually seems to be a way to attempt to slow down a poorly written movie. And the choices usually don't end up having much meaning in the end.

LucasArts games had puzzles that required solving, forcing you to think about the tools available to you, paying attention to the dialog was also crucial to trying to figure out the puzzles.

Cages games rely solely in presentation and story, with little else. LucasArts games relied on the puzzles to help keep you interested in the story. Honestly, if Cages games came out around the same,time with the same graphics, people would have torn them up. It would have been walk, talk, make it to some marker, read three pages if text, repeat with new background.

 

[Firebrand]

I haven't played more of Cage's games than a demo of Heavy Rain (which I kinda liked), but I have to say this is the first time I've seen LucasArts adventure games accused of not having gameplay.

 

[CecilRousso]

I describe all his games as flawed gems. I love Heavy Rain for example but I'm not going to call it perfect. The amount of vitriolic comments he gets when his named is brought up when discussing games is uncalled for though.

I agree, it's too much. But he has himself to blame for a lot of it, for being so arrogant towards other games.

And I think a lot of his attempts are misguided. He tries to raise the bar for storytelling in games by sacrificing pretty much everything that is games. His only solution for reaching his goal is put gameplay in animated movies instead of evolving gameplay in storytelling games. It feels so backwards.

 

[Canis lupus]

David Cage games are better than any Lucasart game.

 

[Boney]

The puzzles in Lucas Arts games require lateral thinking while in cage games you're just spoon fed his bullshit

 

[CecilRousso]

David Cage games are better than any Lucasart game.

At least put in some effort in the trolling.

 

[Maintenance]

Haven't played it but watching it on YouTube.

There is no 'gameplay'. You click some stuff and the players fight for you.

What the fuck am I reading. Seriously, smh.


On topic, as many others have said: puzzle solving > QTE.

 

[Squire]

Solving puzzles is gameplay though.

Like, OP, your whole argument is fundamentally broken.

Cages games have QTEs.

LAs games have actual puzzles.

 

[AkuMifune]

People just can't wait to jump on someone who likes his games. I could literally apply these criticisms to EVERY game you like. Poor VO, plot holes, crappy backstories, limited gameplay = basically every adventure game. Some get some parts right, others get more. Wolf Among Us is great, last episode had like 3 choices. Walking Dead? Ended the same way for all of us. Even taking it to Uncharted: hammy dialogue, derivative, super linear, overrated. Cage is just an easier target. Admittedly. But only because his games approach something similar to a traditional narrative it's easier to see the holes.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Someone brought up The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is a better comparison than Grim Fandango, but still not a good one. The problem is that The Walking Dead's choices - even if they turned out to be less important than initially anticipated - got me engaged into the game and its gameplay and care about the character I'm controlling more than Heavy Rain did.

 

[Timeaisis]

writing/story is still irrelevant to the topic which is gameplay

I'll grant you that in most games, story is completely immaterial to me. However, David Cage games have such limited mechanics and gameplay elements that the story is the game. It's essential, it propels you to play further and keep on it, whereas other games promise more challenges and more mechanics to keep the player occupied, David Cage games rely soley on the narrative to keep us playing. Because of this, story and narrative are essentially relevant to the topic we're discussing.

Besides, it's been pointed out the LucasArts games have more limited gameplay elements, as do David Cage games (without getting into an argument on which is better and what "counts" as gameplay). If we are to take that as face value, as you have in your original post, and assume that with the "lacking gameplay" aspect being equal (see: your thread title), what is left as a rubric for criticism, if not gameplay? It's the story.

 

[fvng]

To say writing/story is irrelevant to this topic would be like saying "graphical fidelity is irrelevant to a topic on immersion". Sure, there's an argument to be made for raw gameplay analysis but you can't really get away with discounting something so core to an experience.

Except this is still intrinsically a topic about gameplay mechanics, not about storyline or writing. I made that pretty clear in the original post... trying to crobar storyline and writing into this topic is missing the point or attempting a strawman.

In 90s people hated the most basic FMVs for the same reason why they hate heavy rain.

Gabriel Knight 2 begs to differ. The problem is many 90s FMV based games were garbage, but there were good ones, GK2 being a notable example

Does anyone really praise Dragon's Lair, though? It's not like people are going around saying "Dragon's Lair was awesome, but Indigo Prophecy sucks!" I think most people today acknowledge that Dragon's Lair is, at most, an interesting novelty and a technical achievement for the time, but most people also acknowledge that it's not a good game really.

I was just refuting his point that the age of a game genre or mechanic automatically makes it invulnerable to criticism. "Adventure games have been around forever, therefore it is traditional gameplay" by that logic Dragon's Lair styled QTE also qualify as traditional gameplay, and QD games are often viewed as modern day Dragon's Lair games.

 

[Ushojax]

The LucasArts classics have amazing writing and beautiful art plus puzzles that require some thought.

David Cage's hideous works are the videogame equivalent of The Room.

 

[kiaaa]

Because if you played through her life in linear fashion it would have been front-loaded with the kid sections and you wouldn't have context for their emotional weight.

What emotional weight? How does presenting the past actions before the future actions remove any of the context for their emotional weight? If that was the case, no story would ever be written in chronological order. This is like the most nonsensical defense I've ever seen for Cage's writing.

The only relevant young Jody scene I remember is the almost rape and it's pretty stupid when it actually comes up. The worst part about this shit was the fact that every transition occurred just in time to remove all the tension from the current segment.

Cage may write poor dialogue, but his stories are some of the best in gaming and get attacked for a variety of dumb reasons by people with shallow, hypocritical criticisms.

"If you criticize David Cage's writing, you're wrong."

 

[onQ123]

People fail to realize that all games don't have to be about controlling a avatar & people can have just as much fun without ever controlling the avatar's movements.

 

[Marcel]

David Cage's hideous works are the videogame equivalent of The Room.

Tommy Wiseau is probably a better actor than whoever played Ethan. At least he's likable in his role as a pet-friendly, football-tossing banker. I empathize with him as he throws his TV out the window.

 

[BeatResetsTheWorld]

Except this is still intrinsically a topic about gameplay mechanics, not about storyline or writing. I made that pretty clear in the original post... trying to crobar storyline and writing into this topic is missing the point or attempting a strawman.

You posed a question, you got answers, you reject those answers because they don't fit into the super narrow framing of your question...what are you expecting to hear people say? What types of answers do you want? Yes the gameplay isn't that much different. You got us! We're hypocrites!

 

[fvng]

David Cage's hideous works are the videogame equivalent of The Room.

A new standard in hyperbole

 

[Fantastapotamus]

What? Solving puzzles isn't gameplay? What? What?
What is this nonsense? Is this a joke thread?

 

[Marcel]

A new standard in hyperbole

I don't think so. David Cage games are great for unintentional laughs. The part with the baby in Heavy Rain had me in stitches.

 

[TheKastorian]

I thought Heavy Rain was pretty damn good (haven't played Beyond yet)

 

[dragonbane]

A huge part of the Lucasarts adventure games were the exploration, puzzle solving and character interactions. You felt like you were exploring a new world. That was it's gameplay and it had lots of it.

Heavy Rains objective was not to be a taditional game but a interactive movie, it's basically just one long quicktime event in comparison.

Heavy Rain has loads of exploration, which is gameplay.

Tommy Wiseau is probably a better actor than whoever played Ethan. At least he's likable in his role as a pet-friendly, football-tossing banker. I empathize with him as he throws his TV out the window.

Ethan's actor was amazing when it came to the trials, so no.