Thats quite a mug he's got there.

Gore looks like he's pretty excited about cheeseburgers too.

Someone never played Final Fantasy VII

For some reason that hair and that mug just don't go together. I can't put my finger on it.

"Gore looks like he's pretty excited about cheeseburgers too."

You never hear those "lunch horror stories" from the PotC sets? Once, they brought in Sonic...he didn't even say "CUT" before he ate them all...I heard like 6 people needed therapy after that.

Game would only be a mess if it was a huge, epic type game.

I think one day someone will figure out how to tell a story via cutscenes without removing the ability to control them from the player. Right now, no matter where you go, you end in 2 area, too much gameplay makes too much work and allows the player to go out of bounds of the story, not good for a narrative based game. The ability to create a true, full world is far beyond the time and effort and technology being put into games right now.

The other area is that there are too many cutscnes. Sure, you can have the player spend the whole mission tracking down some kind of AA gun, but what's the fun if as soon as you kill all the enemies around it, a cutscene begins, and your character blows everything up with you just watching. Not nearly as much fun as a well thought out gameplay segment. But then you have to figure everything out.

The first game to do this will launch a franchise like Halo. Speaking of Halo, I felt it pulled off certain moments well, better than most games, but it doesn't quite hit the spot for perfection, but it is about halfway there. Still it's headed in the right direction in the same sense that game AI is also headed in the right direction.

That's alot of wonderful talk, but I can't play talk.

@Z-Word: I ban for such comments btw so watch yourself in the future.

Same goes for anyone else who thinks they are being "witty".

---

He kinda reminds me of one of the baldwin brothers. You know the not as popular one.

Zero narrative so is GoW like Ashcraft said. Which is a bad thing. :x

Call me crazy, but I agree with him. When you watch the main character, you are told whats going on. But if you ARE the main character...

But, I also thought Gears had great story telling elements. It's about time the player takes some responsibility relating to the story.

Shadow of the Colossus evoked a big emotional response from me. If it doesn't him, perhaps he hath no heart.

that pic is like...

WHOA!

The answer is a resounding NO (wai). Also, wasn't Lost Odyssey lauded for creating emotional response?

"...but I haven't really played a game where I feel...tremendous loss..."

Weird, I remember feeling that at a certain point in FFV just as 1 example. I hate people that talk about games who have probably played like 3 games total in their life, not including solitaire.

"I'm interested in exploring an emotional response to a game, which I haven't really seen.seen. I've seen the visceral adrenaline response, but I haven't really played a game where I feel...tremendous loss... The initial response is that gaming needs good writing."

He apparently has not seen RPG's in the last 15 years. Lost Odyssey's emotional story written by Japanese novelist, Kiyoshi Shigematsu, is perhaps the best novel adapted written for a game I've seen yet.

he didn't play MGS3 ....that game has more writing ( and better ) than all his movies together.....

Id like to see him play Silent Hill 2 also.

Since that game can hit you pretty hard.

Give the man a copy of Big Rigs, that'll make him feel "tremendous loss".

I know I'm probably going to get banned for this, but I feel like it needs to be said...
@Witzbold: You just threaten to ban someone for making an off topic comment such as the one Z-Word made. That seems a little extreme, but I understand the point is to keep the boards focused and (relatively) clean. However, after saying that, you go on to make your own "witty" comment. Prey-tell, is Kotaku a refugee for people who love games, or a fascist website that excludes anyone YOU dont like?

Maybe Im the only one who has noticed, but Witzbold... ever since you've been elected to hold the ban hammer, you've seem to become a little power hungry. Please don't be that substitute teacher in grade school that feels they have over emphasize their power in order to maintain control.

Only two games have achieved an emotional response from me in the last year, Lost Odyssey and Metal Gear Solid 3. I'm not saying there isn't other games out there that can trigger an emotional response, as there is plenty. This guy needs to play more niche games.

@Pa7ronSain7: Id show you a pic where he really does look like the lesser popular Baldwin brother (hes been in a few movies but nobody really remembers him since Alec is the one that pretty much overshadows them.) I forgot what his name is though. Its who I had thought it was originally until I read his name.

@Pa7ronSain7: Um saying he looks like a Baldwin and saying he is a fatty are two completely different things.

Get in ma belly!
Whats up with these hollywood directors trying to get into gaming!

@Pa7ronSain7: Not to mention you obviously FAILED to see what the problem with his post is in the first place.

Ive banned folks before for making unecessary jokes about folks weight.

[www.bad-good.org] <-- Upper right corner is the Baldwin brother Im talking about. Not sure if thats Stephen Baldwin. Small image though. Couldnt find the same pic in a larger size.

He hasn't experienced loss in a game? Games are emotionally bland? He more than likely things along those lines because he's never, you know, played games. Someone stick a copy of Shadow of the Colossus in this guy's mailbox, please.

You mean Gears of War isn't a fucking mess?

I prefer games with minimal story. RPGs are my favourite genre.
You could see how this leads to frustration, especially with games like Final Fantasy X that's just one big dialog cutscene that occasionally lets you think that it'll actually leave you alone for more than 10 seconds without breaking out into another stupid dialog cut scene where adolescent uninteresting characters babble on about totally inane boring shit. And they're unskippable for extra annoyance!

@Atheist Jew: Seriously eh? If we could get an address where we could send him packages or mail, Id so send him a copy of SH2. Asking him to please try and play through the game.

Would be cool if he actually did then wrote up a response after.

I thought he was pontificating about Zero Punctuation, and thought Yahtzee had hit the big time.

I have to agree with the man that I think the trend for the medium is slightly misunderstood. It definitely needs some work, and there have been very few examples where narrative had worked so well in gaming. My best example for narrative in gaming is still Super Metroid. I really hope I can find a game that does it as well as that one did. (at least for me anyways)

daniel baldwin? stephen baldwin? billy baldwin? adam baldwin?

No Narrative? Isn't that Tetris?

@Pa7ronSain7: I have to agree. I mean I completely understand the thinking behind a ban for something like that, but banning for a comment about cheeseburgers seems a bit much. I actually got a chuckle out of the original comment.

@Pa7ronSain7:

Witz seems to mete out banning pretty well: at the very least, I know I can read articles here without being subjected to people screaming "F1RS7!" all day or flaming random people for their opinions.

I dunno though, in this case, I laughed my ASS off at the Cheeseburgers post. Considering the title of the article begins with "Giant Gore Face", I'd say it was ENTIRELY on-topic.

As for this idea, I'm going to have to disagree. Mass Effect left a lot of the backstory up for grabs without imposing narrative, though I'd say the best example of a lack of narrative so far would be Oblivion. Everything in that game (aside from the main quest line, which was a joke anyway) was for you to discover on your own.

Gears had plenty of Narrative. It was just shitty narrative. I strongly disagree with Bash here.

He must be a casual gamer.

@Dude of the Millenium: Stephen I think.

@drewskisama: You gotta start somewhere.

Sides Id like to keep the comments section a cut above "other" places that allow shit to run rampant.

@tzaketh: The GIANT face post thing is in regards to the usual of Ash blowing up the face to massive size then using it as the post picture to scare the living bejezus out of us all.

As stated before, you gotta start somewhere to prevent further slipping down the slope if you know what I mean.

@yjaved1: Best narrative I've come across is Astro Boy: Omega Factor.

@WITZBOLD

c'mon, witz, you know you cracked a smile when you read the post, dont blame dude for thinking that when Ashcraft used a pic like that.

besides its the "witty" comments that make people come here, "witty before flaming" is the way to go!!!!

@yjaved1: That style of narrative with no narrative worked great for that game, but a game like Gears isn't trying to cater to the Super Metroid crowd, and is thusly the kind of game that Gore is speaking of. my interprtation is that he wants to make a major 'frat boy' kind of game that pulls off that emotional effect. That having been said, I haven't had a emotional response from his movies, so his affect on gaming is moot.

P.S. I understand the irony that trying to get an emotional response from a Gears type game would ruin the mainstream appeal of the game.

@Witzbold: Hey man, I think you've been doing a great job so far, I'm just saying don't make things so strict that people aren't free to express themselves anymore or actually be witty. But I agree, one of the reasons I like Kotaku so much is that you don't have to put up with the idiots who spew crap every chance they get.

Actually Half-Life 2 and its expansions are experiments about just what he's expecting about narrative. Almost no cut-scenes, a narrative form that could only belong in a videogame and of course everyone who played its expansions knows how valve is actually experimenting with emotion in games. They started that with episode one and the emphasis in Alyx to the climatic ending of episode two.

About zero narrative, it could be interesting if you willingly work it like that in mind, as the center of the concept or project, it could spawn something quite different form the zero narrative games that we know nowadays.

@remanance: My thoughts exactly... I'm a MGS and FF and Silent Hill and even Uncharted type player... I like a story in my games. Even Shadow had one, it was just minimalistic. Nothing wrong with a minimalist story, so long as it's good and it's present.

Granted, games like Tetris don't need stories, but not many games can really pull that off...

@Witzbold: Yeah SH2 would be a brilliant game to drop on him. Man I love that game.

@eggfou: I thought the same thing! Puzzles don't need new narratives. However... they also don't really need a new genre. Since they... ARE an old genre. Very old. We're talking... like... caveman old.

I don't think Witz was being overly harsh. Then again, I've been to Facepunch (probably the strictest forum on the 'net), so I may just be desensitized to heavy swings of the Hammer. :P

@drewskisama&schizorogue:

Yeah I mean... He wasn't making fun of gay people, black people, Latinos, or hicks.

Besides, overweight people are pretty much the last group we can discriminate against. Don't take that away from us Witzy.

PS: I'm honestly not even sure if I'm serious or being sarcastic. I'll get back to you on that.

PPS: Also... I may have sorta laughed at the cheeseburger comment, so... I can't really talk.

@drewskisama: Theres witty and theres making fun of folks due to their weight. Like I said before I HAVE BANNED folks over such things. Hes just lucky it his comment was written in a way that issued only a warning and not a ban.

@schizorogue: If I thought it was amusing I wouldnt have warned him now would I?

@ggodo:

Well, I think the mainstream appeal of Gears is that it's good escapism and highly competetive. No one watches Football for the stories of drama and lust-- that's why they watch Football movies.

Same with Halo or Counter-strike: It's all about the competition and beating the crap out of your friends. With the emergence of Live/PSN, Games seem to fall into two major categories: Single-Player Interactive Movies and Online Competition. And I think that's the direct result of the nature of games. That's what truly sets games apart from movies. The level of interactivity and connections between players leaves experiences as broadly different as Shadow of the Colossus, Counter-Strike, WoW, flOw, and Passage. CoD4 is really two games in one: the cinematic single player experience, and the heated, unrealistic multiplayer.

I think the term "Game" is misleading nowadays, but at the same time, to change it to something more applicable, like "interactive experience" is just absurdly presumptuous. The key, I think, lies in redefining the term "Video Game". It has been, at least for the hardcore gamers. But educating the masses on Gaming's maturation will be more difficult and will take some time.

@witz

okay

come on guys , this thread is about a guy that never played videogames , well, maybe the sims.... not about the banhammer ....

@tzaketh:

"No one watches Football for the stories of drama"

That's all I watch it for. :)

@tzaketh: Yeah I think your last line "But educating the masses on Gaming's maturation will be more difficult and will take some time." has a lot of truth to it.

Id say also that even before we can "redefine" gaming, the general public needs to know exactly what gaming is.

The proof that they still dont know is all the alarmist gaming related stories going around spreading fear and hate as usual. :/

Wouldn't the Half-Life series count as pretty darn close to zero-narrative? You're always in control of your character. Heck, I can't really think of a single cut-scene in any of the games. Even when you're trapped you can still look around and be in control of what you see.

That guy looks like John Goodman crossed with Jeff Daniels.

@Quilt: Yea I was thinking the same thing. I was playing HL1 until my soundcard crapped out on me and I remember one of my favorite scenes is where this scientist is giving me all this info and (rather bored by it) I was just randomly shooting things as the scene rolled on.

@ggodo: You know looking at this guy's past history, I think you might be right that he does mean it in that way. By the way, I agree his movies never carried that emotional aspect for me either, but I can say he can direct some interesting adrenaline action filled sequences in his movies.
@tzaketh: We can sort of see it in the masses taking in games such as Endless Ocean and Wii Fit that are sort of redefining of what passes off as a game these days (Well at least in Japan).

@Quilt: Thats an interesting example. Plus it was always amusing how Gordan Freeman is a total mute. But yet nobody seems to care.

I do like it when games allow for that, it really makes it far more immersive than standard cutscenes.

@yjaved1: Actually the concept of Wii Fit has been around way before the Wii. There was that weird pressure pad controller on the NES that allowed for similar type of "minigames" to be played. Forgot what it was called though. If you are an oldschooler you should know what Im talking about though. Granted its still Nintendo who made it and all.

The Endless Ocean I do believe on the PS in Japan cant remember who made it but there also was a similar type of game done, in regards to underwater exploration.

Can someone define "zero narrative?" Are we talking "absence of narrative?" Like... Geometry Wars?

'Cause Gears of War had some narrative. Quite a bit of narrative. If anybody missed it, that's why Marcus ocassionally had to take a breather and walk very slowly... the narrative held him down.

@Witzbold: Do you mean the Power pad with Track and Field? I remember that. I use to play that alot when I was a kid. You know I think they also had a yoga game that could use the power pad, but I'm not too sure on that one.