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[conman]

As others keep saying, David Cage's games aren't bad because of "no gameplay." They're bad because they're horribly written. If you choose to design a game that's heavy on narrative, character, and setting, you have to step up and meet the challenge. David Cage has shown repeatedly that he is not up to the challenge. He deserves credit for ambition and for going against mainstream trends, but that's all. He's the game industry's equivalent of M. Night Shyamalan--a chronically overambitious underachiever who gets far too much money to finance bad project after bad project.

In contrast, the classic Lucasarts adventures not only met the challenge, they set the effing bar for good games writing.

 

[Auto-Reply]

I disagree with the "gameplay good - story bad argument".

The story could be nobel-prize worthy, a game where you brush your teeth and take showers for no gameplay related reason has still terrible gameplay. Gameplay is not only how you do it, what buttons you press etc. It's also why you do it, when you go around shouting in a point and click adventure you actually have a reason to do that, it doesn't matter how you do it. You might do it because you expect it to have an effect on progression for a puzzle.
When you do shout around in Heavy Rain there is no reason to do it, it just doesn't matter for the gameplay as it is only there for enhancing the illusion of the scene.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

His point flew over your head, I'll try to help you a little bit.

Everything that happens in a game is part of the story. Just because it's not a cutscene doesn't mean what we are seeing are not part of what happens to the main character.

Do you remember that time when Mario was running on a bridge dodging jumping cheep-cheeps? Or when he was trying to figure out the right path in one of Bowser's castles? Or when he ran under a hammer at the nick of time and broke the block where that hammer bros was standing, plunging him to his death?

It's all part of the first Super Mario Bros story, only you did all that.

THANK YOU! At least someone else gets it. That right there, is the sort of storytelling games have to do more of to realize their full potential in telling a narrative, and being respected as their own legitimate art form by outside critics.

I'm surprised so many devs are running in the wrong direction on this issue, and so many people agree with that :S

But to dismiss Heavy Rain as an “interactive movie” when this very idea was the entire point of the classic adventure games is rather insulting. Don’t try to tell me Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle or The Dig didn’t aspire to be cinematic, with cut scenes, narrators etc.

It's been a while since I played HR but I've got great memory, and altho you're explaining how it appropriates classic adventure game UI and controls into a new context, you're forgetting about...the puzzles. That's the real reason we're saying it's not in the spirit of genuine adventure games, b/c it lacks any real puzzles.

I don't even think the game has an inventory system, now that I'm thinking about it...

 

[fvng]

You want 'game over' fail states in a David Cage game? Ew. I already don't take his games seriously. I wouldn't want to have to play them seriously, so to speak.

well better than the game's pushing onward even when you fail. I think progress in the story should be a reward for not failing and successfully completing an area of a game.. I think that's a fair criticism of Cage's games.

Adventure games died almost a decade ago and now exist as vanity projects funded through donations. Aside from a couple latched onto to so hot right now television shows the genre is stagnant. Those heaping praise on lucasarts are loud but not legion. Otherwise lucasarts might still exist.

That's true. They're more niche than NIS games at this point, and that's pretty bad. I guess that's partially why I'm so lenient with Cage's games because at least in some type of way the adventure game genre lives on even though there is a lack of puzzles, etc.

 

[djshauny]

The hate cage gets is fucking stupid.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Why do people seem to universally love Portal games but not David Cage games? Such hypocrisy loving games with great gameplay that are genuinely funny but hating games with bad gameplay that are awkward and stupid. I mean, both are games with a lot of audiovisual content that require button pushes at the correct time occasionally.

LOL

The hate cage gets is fucking stupid.

Thanks for the insight.

Now, let me give you a very concrete example. Let's say you get to a hotel and you need to make your way to a certain room to talk to someone there, but the clerk in the lobby won't let you pass.

In an old-school adventure game, you'd probably be able to try talking to the guy, with different dialog options to attempt to convince, cajole and/or threaten him in various ways. If that leads nowhere, you could perhaps try to use physical force, which your character may or may not be willing to do. If not, you can look around the environment for a way to succeed, maybe find a way to distract the guy somehow and go past him while he's not looking. Or ring the desk bell until he gets so annoyed he just lets you go so that you'll stop. Then you also of course have your inventory of items you're carrying. Maybe you have some sort of symbol of authority to just make him do as you please, or you might have... ah, yes, your wallet, I bet this guy would just take a bribe. In short, you have a multitude of options that you have to think of and try, and when you eventually succeed, you get a sense of accomplishment for the obstacle overcome, and you feel smart (if the puzzle is well-designed). Also, even if you couldn't solve that puzzle at that moment, many games from the classic era would offer different puzzles in multiple areas at the same time, so you always had something else to work on.

On the other hand, in Heavy Rain - and yes, literally in Heavy Rain, because this is a scene from that game - you get a prompt telling you to move an analog stick a quarter-turn, and when you do, your character automatically takes out his wallet to bribe the guy and you move on. No player agency whatsoever. Sure, you press a button, but there was no other choice but to do that. Is that in any way satisfying?

Now, if you feel the two approaches are similar in their quality of gameplay, interactivity and player agency, or even in their core philosophy, uh... I don't know what to tell you. Sure, not every scene in David Cage games is that simplistic but... then again, using your wallet would also be the most basic of puzzles in any LucasArts game.

That's a good example, shame no one addressed that.

 

[Amazeballs]

QTEs are clearly gameplay. They require user responses and challenge the player, failing him/her if they don't manage to do what the game requires them to. But even if they didn't provide any challenge or fun, that wouldn't be a problem if they added something to the game. (In fact, sometimes a game should be a little "boring", it's called pacing.) The problem with QTEs is that they usually don't add to the game; rather, they distract from it.

Gameplay is a set of rules and restrictions used to build skill or test luck for the purpose of fun or entertainment. A challenge is not necessarily gameplay, but challenges can be used to test the player which is why good games use them at appropriate times. Eliciting responses is a poor critera because nearly anything that stimulates a sense is eliciting a response. QTEs in heavy rain do not fit this criteria, for a couple of reasons. For one thing they are inconsistent. X might be used one moment to call what's his face and to punch a guy in the face the next moment. The mentality that every action must have inputs makes their implementation diffuse. Inputs like tilting the control stick ever so slightly to the left to bribe or moving the controller back and forth contribute nothing in helping build the players' skill.

Lucas Arts games do qualify as games because player reasoning can be considered a skill. The puzzles and world building acclimate the player to the game's logic over time, building up the players ability to reason in specific ways. Eventually even some of the more crazy solutions will make perfect sense because the game will have trained the player to think that way.

 

[IcyEyes]

Adventure games died almost a decade ago and now exist as vanity projects funded through donations. Aside from a couple latched onto to so hot right now television shows the genre is stagnant. Those heaping praise on lucasarts are loud but not legion. Otherwise lucasarts might still exist.

I need to get the "adventures games are dead" sentence since I'm playing and enjoying a *lot* of them. Of course these game are not AAA, but they still are incredibly well done and pretty alive.

 

[HellBlazer]

I think the stumbling block he's having with failing to understand the difference is the fact that he isn't regarding that as 'valid gameplay'. Hence my walkthrough comment I described earlier: Playing through a point-and-click adventure with a walkthrough in hand *is* like a David Cage title because it's circumventing the deduction.

That's an interesting point. I believe the OP has stated somewhere in this thread that he likes point-and-clicks, but plays them with a walkthrough. That might well account for at least part of his difficulty in seeing the differences between adventure games and whatever Cage makes.

 

[PoemOfTheLastMoment]

Lucasarts games are well written. David Cage couldn't write a comic book if his life depended on it.

 

[fvng]

Thanks for the insight.
.

He's right.

Lucasarts games are well written. David Cage couldn't write a comic book if his life depended on it.

It's stunning how people don't understand this thread isn't about writing. Total strawman

Gameplay is a set of rules and restrictions used to build skill or test luck for the purpose of fun or entertainment. A challenge is not necessarily gameplay, but challenges can be used to test the player which is why good games use them at appropriate times. Eliciting responses is a poor critera because nearly anything that stimulates a sense is eliciting a response. QTEs in heavy rain do not fit this criteria, for a couple of reasons. For one thing they are inconsistent. X might be used one moment to call what's his face and to punch a guy in the face the next moment. The mentality that every action must have inputs makes their implementation diffuse. Inputs like tilting the control stick ever so slightly to the left to bribe or moving the controller back and forth contribute nothing in helping build the players' skill.

Lucas Arts games do qualify as games because player reasoning can be considered a skill. The puzzles and world building acclimate the player to the game's logic over time, building up the players ability to reason in specific ways. Eventually even some of the more crazy solutions will make perfect sense because the game will have trained the player to think that way.

You wrote a great description of what gameplay is then distorted it so that LucasArts games would fit that definition of gameplay. Besides, as someone else in this thread noted, there were definitely a share of puzzles in Sierra and LucasArts game that had such obtuse solutions that it was unfair to anyone who attempted it, those puzzles weren't a test of player reasoning and skill because the solutions were sometimes unreasonable.

A great example of this was in Game of the Year winner, Gabriel Knight 2, in which one of the puzzles required you to splice audio tape segments to create a new audio tape.. in order to do this you would have to know the precise wording that the game designers want you to say in order to progress to the next area.

QTEs, while I'm not a big fan of them, do test your finger dexterity and your ability to quickly think on your feet. QTE is not the BEST gameplay mechanic, but it does require a reasonable level of skill even if it's just being quick and fast enough to press the right buttons (but really aren't all games about pressing the right button combination to do what you want with precision?)

Beyond: Two Souls didn't even give you button prompts during fight sequences, you had to figure out what movements to perform in order to successfully win a fight with someone.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

You guys claiming that the writing IS the difference are really doing a huge disservice to point-and-click adventure games. Of course, the writing in LucasArts games was infinitely better than Quantic Dream's, but that's besides the point. The gameplay is also fundamentally different.

And yes, puzzle-solving is gameplay. You can argue that watching a cutscene and pressing random buttons as they appear is also gameplay (and sure, you interact with the game to a certain extent), that requires almost no thought at all and, to most people, sequences like that are pretty uninteresting.

Now, let me give you a very concrete example. Let's say you get to a hotel and you need to make your way to a certain room to talk to someone there, but the clerk in the lobby won't let you pass.

In an old-school adventure game, you'd probably be able to try talking to the guy, with different dialog options to attempt to convince, cajole and/or threaten him in various ways. If that leads nowhere, you could perhaps try to use physical force, which your character may or may not be willing to do. If not, you can look around the environment for a way to succeed, maybe find a way to distract the guy somehow and go past him while he's not looking. Or ring the desk bell until he gets so annoyed he just lets you go so that you'll stop. Then you also of course have your inventory of items you're carrying. Maybe you have some sort of symbol of authority to just make him do as you please, or you might have... ah, yes, your wallet, I bet this guy would just take a bribe. In short, you have a multitude of options that you have to think of and try, and when you eventually succeed, you get a sense of accomplishment for the obstacle overcome, and you feel smart (if the puzzle is well-designed). Also, even if you couldn't solve that puzzle at that moment, many games from the classic era would offer different puzzles in multiple areas at the same time, so you always had something else to work on.

On the other hand, in Heavy Rain - and yes, literally in Heavy Rain, because this is a scene from that game - you get a prompt telling you to move an analog stick a quarter-turn, and when you do, your character automatically takes out his wallet to bribe the guy and you move on. No player agency whatsoever. Sure, you press a button, but there was no other choice but to do that. Is that in any way satisfying?

Now, if you feel the two approaches are similar in their quality of gameplay, interactivity and player agency, or even in their core philosophy, uh... I don't know what to tell you. Sure, not every scene in David Cage games is that simplistic but... then again, using your wallet would also be the most basic of puzzles in any LucasArts game.

Gameplay is a set of rules and restrictions used to build skill or test luck for the purpose of fun or entertainment. A challenge is not necessarily gameplay, but challenges can be used to test the player which is why good games use them at appropriate times. Eliciting responses is a poor critera because nearly anything that stimulates a sense is eliciting a response. QTEs in heavy rain do not fit this criteria, for a couple of reasons. For one thing they are inconsistent. X might be used one moment to call what's his face and to punch a guy in the face the next moment. The mentality that every action must have inputs makes their implementation diffuse. Inputs like tilting the control stick ever so slightly to the left to bribe or moving the controller back and forth contribute nothing in helping build the players' skill.

Lucas Arts games do qualify as games because player reasoning can be considered a skill. The puzzles and world building acclimate the player to the game's logic over time, building up the players ability to reason in specific ways. Eventually even some of the more crazy solutions will make perfect sense because the game will have trained the player to think that way.

I have to quote these b/c these two posts right here probably best explain why games like Heavy Rain don't qualify as a real adventure game. One gives you an explicit scenario and the other shows the fallacy in QTEs (their rules are random and inconsistent, pretty much), which Heavy Rain uses for 80% of its challenge.

And I wanted to say this earlier, but the game even sort of fails on a narrative point b/c (among other reasons) the plot requires little thought to figure things out. There are no big mysteries or complex relationships and theologies in its story; since it's filled with cliches and tropes everyone already knows the plot twists and how things will play out within the first 5 minutes.

You can argue the ride along the way is fun--I won't lie, it was fun (otherwise I wouldn't of finished the game)--, but given it has to rely on its story and it's still a video game, the least they could've done is give you a story with some puzzles in of itself (that aren't plot holes) to figure out. Heavy Rain doesn't do that.

 

[Roubjon]

Could you fail in any Lucas Arts point-n-click games? I know that Monkey Island 1 had a failing joke, that if you walked off a cliff, you got a fake death scene that was on the expence of the Sierra point-n-click games (where you often could die). And if you stay under water for more than 10 minutes in Monkey Island 1, i think you can die as well, but if i remember correctly, it just set you back to that exact same place without any loss of progress. I know that you just said "adventure games" and not Lucas Arts in specific, but i wonder if its possible to die in any of the Lucas Arts point-n-click games.

You can die in plenty of spots in Fate of Atlantis.

 

[Amazeballs]

You wrote a great description of what gameplay is then distorted it so that LucasArts games would fit that definition of gameplay. Besides, as someone else in this thread noted, there were definitely a share of puzzles in Sierra and LucasArts game that had such obtuse solutions that it was unfair to anyone who attempted it, those puzzles weren't a test of player reasoning and skill because the solutions were sometimes unreasonable.

A great example of this was in Game of the Year winner, Gabriel Knight 2, in which one of the puzzles required you to splice audio tape segments to create a new audio tape.. in order to do this you would have to know the precise wording that the game designers want you to say in order to progress to the next area.

QTEs, while I'm not a big fan of them, do test your finger dexterity and your ability to quickly think on your feet. QTE is not the BEST gameplay mechanic, but it does require a reasonable level of skill even if it's just being quick and fast enough to press the right buttons (but really aren't all games about pressing the right button combination to do what you want with precision?)

Beyond: Two Souls didn't even give you button prompts during fight sequences, you had to figure out what movements to perform in order to successfully win a fight with someone.

How is it being distorted? My conclusions with LA games fit my established premise, not the other way around. That is to say, I did not change the premise when evaluating LA games.

You mentioned a Sierra game in a discssion about a Lucas Art game. How does Gabriel Knight's purportedly poor design detract from an entirely separate series of of games. Furthermore, how is the design unreasonable? Did the game not give any clues? Does that one puzzle make the core of the design any worse?

On the topic of inputs, other games have consistent outputs with their inputs and the goal of the consistency in many games is conducive not to building the players ability to press buttons but to test the player with consistent parameters. For example, Mario always jumps when you press A while on the ground in Mario 64 (with the exception of speaking of the occasional NPC which isnot gameplay), but the skill being tested is not pressing the button to jump but the awareness to know when to jump and how to control your movement during jumps to complete challenges. Having the jump button work reliably means the game can focus on training that awareness to higher levels. This is simply not present in Heavy Rain, as the parameters are often changed whenever the designer saw fit.

That said, I haven't played the game but do button prompts in Beyond work consistently or are they consistently changed? Is it helping to build any skills?

I can't say any skill be being built upon either in Cage's games. Pressing prompts in Heavy Rain is akin to pressing the start button on a game's opening menu. Pressing a button which take no more than a base amount of mechanical input and following prompts requires a base amount of awareness, in this case looking at the prompt and pressing the corresponding button. You can hardly become even better at pressing a button or looking at a prompt. You could improve the speed at which you react to a prompt with a button press, but the David Cage games I played are not designed to help build on those skills due to the aforementioned issues with inconsistency and diffuse design.

It's stunning how people don't understand this thread isn't about writing. Total strawman

People are responding to the implication that gamers dislike Cage's games because of their lack of gameplay elements. It's not a strawman, it's a counterpoint to your threads premises.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

He's right.

Not really. He's just shitposting.

You wrote a great description of what gameplay is then distorted it so that LucasArts games would fit that definition of gameplay. Besides, as someone else in this thread noted, there were definitely a share of puzzles in Sierra and LucasArts game that had such obtuse solutions that it was unfair to anyone who attempted it, those puzzles weren't a test of player reasoning and skill because the solutions were sometimes unreasonable.

That might be true, and a valid criticism of flawed puzzles, but it doesn't address the argument that puzzles from classic point-and-click games is nothing like Cage's QTEs and therefore the comparison is patently absurd. One can certainly enjoy p-a-c puzzles/exploration and dislike Cage's scripted QTE-fests. A better comparison would be the Telltale games vs Cage, since their gameplay is far more similar.

QTEs, while I'm not a big fan of them, do test your finger dexterity and your ability to quickly think on your feet.

benderlaughing.gif

Beyond: Two Souls didn't even give you button prompts during fight sequences, you had to figure out what movements to perform in order to successfully win a fight with someone.

That's a funny example, since it has no fail state. You could literally drop the controller during those "fight scenes" and the game would play itself. That's the anti-thesis of gameplay.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

I think the OP's issue is possibly that he doesn't either regard or comprehend deduction - which may take place wholly or partly outside of the game - as valid gameplay in and of itself; whether the process of comprehending the world mechanics is enjoyable gameplay. Does gameplay, in short, have to actually take place directly within the confines of the game itself?

I think the stumbling block he's having with failing to understand the difference is the fact that he isn't regarding that as 'valid gameplay'. Hence my walkthrough comment I described earlier: Playing through a point-and-click adventure with a walkthrough in hand *is* like a David Cage title because it's circumventing the deduction.

There's a text adventure I've often cited, because it has a puzzle I adore in it. The heart of the puzzle is very very simple: Solve an anagram, and you'll get a significant clue to how to proceed. It's not even a difficult anagram - with themes you've picked up from elsewhere in the game, it's trivial to get one of the major words in it.

But the bit about the puzzle that I loved? The bit where it's challenging? The bit which doesn't actually take place within the game at all?

The puzzle isn't solving the anagram. The puzzle is recognising that it's an anagram. I remember vividly that I had that flash of inspiration at school, clear of the game itself at the time!

So, yes. That was good, deductive gameplay - but the game itself didn't directly test it. All *it* was concerned with was me arbitrarily looking the right entry up in an encyclopedia in-game, and *that* action, that action isn't good gameplay. It was the *process* of getting to the action that was wonderful.

Visual novels and David Cage games, though? They don't actually ask the player *to* carry out the process of getting to the action: The action is presented to you, and you select it. While I enjoy such games on their own merits, that's the key difference.

(And, for that matter, while the *presentation* of Phoenix Wright may be more akin to a VN, I'd argue that in gameplay terms it's much more like a pure adventure for similar reasons: you need to deduce the correct action and act on it. The interface is more limited to do so than a text adventure or a point-and-click one, but there's still that crucial deductive step)

I'm not taking a stand on this issue, as I don't have much experience with David Cage's games (though I will say I tried a bit of Indigo Prophecy back in the day and didn't like it very much, for whatever that's worth). Just wanted to quote this post because I think it's wonderful and perfectly articulates why puzzles make for compelling gameplay, a point which I feel has relevance to the topic at hand.

Fake edit: actually I will chime in on the OP. I don't get what the point is of leaving story out of the discussion. Well, other than to force a certain conclusion, of course. People seem to be running into this problem:

1. OP asks why Cage's games get attacked for having "no gameplay" but LucasArts games are worshipped.

2. The answer: people like the writing in those games and disagree with OP's gameplay assessment; they find the puzzles compelling and the gameplay in Cage's games not so much.

3. OP restricts the topic so as to preclude mention of story despite it being a huge part of the answer of why LucasArts games are worshipped and David Cage games are panned.

4. OP simply does not accept that others could find the LucasArts games to be better than Cage's games from a gameplay perspective.

5. Much frustration ensues.

I think OP got his/her answer, he/she just doesn't want to hear it.