You're In Control

[terra]

It's been a while since I've been really pretentious about videogames, so let's change that!!

I. I state the obviousSo, I really like videogames. I mean, really like them. I like them enough that I've actually written more than three paragraphs of analysis about Locke Cole's hair. I love reading people's crazy opinions about Harmonian politics

Comments

[gamera]

Vincent and Yuffie couldn't have much of an impact on the plot because all of the major scenes were rendered in full-stop FMV, in which they could never appear. So twenty different endings was kind of out of the question.

Though ironically, I think technology is finally to the point where we don't have to do that because the game engines are as good (or very nearly as good) as pre-rendered video. It's like we're looping back to when they could stick another sprite in there because they were still using the game's graphical engine instead of a video, except that it's because we don't need to do anything else rather than not being able to do anything else.

Lost Odyssey on the 360 is a good example of that, actually-- my friends and I had a pretty great time laughing at the ridiculous looking accessories the characters happened to have equipped during story scenes. Forget Grand Cross; Kaim has pretty purple earrings thanks to using the game engine instead of FMV! So I think we're going to see less of the Vincent-and-Yuffie syndrome in games that have diverse casts.

Obviously, pretentious cinematic games-- I'm looking at you, Hideo Kojima and Tatsuya Takahashi-- aren't necessarily going to reflect this. But it takes a deft hand to pull movies disguised as games off well-- Xenosaga was boring and got canned three games into the planned six-game series, whereas Metal Gear Solid is a critical and commercial success. Though I suppose the fact we no longer need to pre-render our movie scenes means that the two aren't mutually exclusive-- add in Blu-Ray discs and huge budgets and you can even add multiple vocal tracks for voiced scenes for multiple character choices.

OK that was probably totally incoherent, I am sorry.

[terra]

Oh definitely-- I mostly wanted to make a historical point. With technology comes a lot more freedom, which is part of why it's always a great time to be a gamer? We've also got it so there's enough space on a game for there to be more than one prerendered ending. So it's not as much of a big deal though.

MGS also actively breaks the fourth wall! I think it'd be interesting to look at how different games address the player in-game, how that effects the illusion of control.

RAMBLE RAMBLE.