Going through and really disagree.
Nearly every story at this point is derived or inspired by elsewhere by now. This isn't just strictly games but nearly every medium out there. There's complete over saturation that at some point, the plot will hit the same story beats found elsewhere but at a slight different concept. What makes the stories now is purely execution. Predicting the outcome does not make it a poor story, It's whether the game is able to sell the moments in which it was earned and it's a huge reason why I think spoiler culture is terrible in that people put way too much emphasis on not being spoiled on the large plot points rather than focus on the smaller moments in general and how well everything is put together.
So now the article goes on to this particular part with whether moments are earned or not with
But it doesn't even explain how it fails to do this in anyway just being a surface level comment which happens frequently throughout. What parts did the story copy from another medium and why did it work in the previously in which the developers failed this time around and how it could have been done instead. Article does none of this with just cheap shots at the particular games without explaining further.
The whole Jock/Nerd talk that follows straight after seriously reads like a persecution complex and hypocrisy. In making one huge assumption that people haven't explored every other game, film or TV show enough for that matter.
Playstation itself was a system that lent itself huge amount of audiences of both varieties that labeling a few stylized games does not mean it was centered around kids. It's one of the reasons why it was such a popular system at the time. The best selling games on PS1 included Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, Tekken, MGS. PS1 also had other games like Syphon Filter, Twisted Metal, Silent Hill, Resident Evil etc. PS2 went even more heavy in this regard. It's the point that Playstation themselves didn't suddenly out of nowhere wanted to attract an audience that was interested in realistic games when they already had a system that already did that and was expanding in this part for a long while. I mean, really, Best PS2 selling games include GTA, MGS, Tekken God of War etc. That's what defined the system so PS3 was a natural progression of PS2 focusing on more realistic games when that is what was drawing people to their system.
I'm just quoting this particular segment but it's a discussion of Uncharted series in which UC2 is described as a mistake. Very telling that UC1 is clearly the weakest of the series as a whole in which that the encounter designs are generally way to repetitive, there's not enough good pacing and unique local and settings to keep player interest going. In that regard, UC2 wasn't a mistake when it heavily radically improved on the original in huge way. Encounters drastically improved, set pieces were much more interesting to react. Camera Control or even slight restriction does not mean total control is taken away from a game. It's a massive fallacy people have when it comes to video games. Plenty of games out there ranging from different genres have different fixed perspectives and fixed perspectives have their own uses whether it's for gameplay or story. UC get's criticized for this a lot but there are plenty of these moments which at least gives players control particular during setpieces which a lot of games do as a quick time event or cutscene. There's a noticeable progression with each game where Naughty Dog themselves have strive towards in giving players more control during any form of action sequences. I watched a GDC talk from ND about 1-2 months ago which was talking specifically about Lost Legacy in regards to the Elephant ride which happens. They go to great lengths to designing such a level and explore various different levels of controls to give to the player and it's a balancing act between believability, design and story. You may wish to the game to feel "gamey and retain control over everything at all time which is something developers clearly explore but not everyone feels the same way and appreciates carefully thought out moments and would take slight restriction over a particular moment if it meant overall better experience. Like, even if you weren't particularly restricted, how would those moments be enhanced with the control except take the players views away from the particular moment of what is happening? It just doesn't make sense in the same reason why even the best games described still have cut-scenes which take complete control away because it requires players to be fixated on a particular moment and point in time.
I'm not even going to discuss further about the story except it's clearly a pulpy action adventure type game that clearly doesn't take itself seriously in the same way that Indiana Jones has the most ridiculous premises which was clearly the inspiration and that's even more grounded and takes itself even more seriously in a lot of ways and that goes for a massive amounts of action films which have insane scenarios and people have to use the suspension of disbelief otherwise you would never get through any of them. Not sure that's a dock against it being a good action game.
Most of the developers who initially made these games likely never knew they would eventually went on to make critically acclaimed games because there's no set definition of what a prestige game is and the article itself can't even explain this either. Author forcing their own subjective views of the quality of the games and then trying to assume that that's the kind of view the company has at large is the worst kind of premise or take one can have.
And then there's this kind of garbage comment.
I mean really?
Studio accusations of sexual harassment and assault and crunch are terrible, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the premise of the article itself more than it is about making cheap negative points to add on to and it's disgusting the way actual working condition problems are framed in this particular way.
Just reading through the rest of the article itself is just so damn stupid. In fact, the praise in Gears 5 in the article is fucking weird in relation to the story given how predictable the plot beats are that it beats the players over the head for 8 hours that it criticizes other games for.
Just other quotes I'm picking out on
Gears has one of the most satisfying TPS mechanics but it's not the only game with subtle mechanics and details and neither is it perfect either (I'd say melee could use more work). There's a huge amount of details that goes into the the gameplay mechanics that players likely aren't even aware of until it's mentioned that makes up the experience people take for granted example, Particular games where you use melee hit after certain health fluidly transitions using animation if hitting the right button after which sets up execution head shot kills which makes for satisfying game-play which does two things, gives players close shot of the enemy face and the feedback while also knowing 100% kill happens. There's plenty of others which make up for the experience.
I'm not even sure how this could even be claimed.
However, this quote is probably my most despised word I've come across plenty of times.
About the most worthless kind of critique one can make of a game. I'm not even sure how anyone can even agree with much of the points of what was said in it.
Yeah. Goes to great lengths to accuse others of doing this and then goes around and doing the exact same thing spending so much time trying to convince why one set of games is awful while the other is great.
