Comment by ynniv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ynniv | Hacker News Reader

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Novels require descriptions, comics require painstaking drawings, films and television require either hours of expression deadening makeup or expensive CGI. In a video game, rendering an asari or a hanar requires the same amount of work as a human.

It is easier to have alien life in both a novel (descriptive) and a comic (visual) than in a video game (kinematic).

Want a cast of thousands? No problem. Need a mob of hundreds of individuals representing fifteen different species rendered inside an colossal ancient space station? No sweat.

Clearly this person has never made a video game.

I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important.

But you do need to be explained the difference between shared and tailored culture. Having a "diverse" hero of a popular television show has an affect on society. Having a "diverse" hero of the instance of the video game that you are playing has an affect on a single individual (and maybe some friends).

One can spend hours tweaking physical appearance (not mere a few options of “races”) to get a character of any ethnicity and build. Oh, and sexuality is an option too. Shepard is yours to design.

That's just windowdressing the choose your own adventure. The backstory that you change won't affect the plot any more than picking a "race" in those "unimpressive old games".

I opened this hoping for something insightful, but was presented with an adolescent boy's wonder of a story written in a shiny medium. For all of the alien diversity, every picture on the page is humanoid. For all of the glory of the malleable video game, a descent novel would have twice the depth and ten times the perceived diversity. He purports to appreciate the humility of the portrayal of humanity, but it sounds like the whole story is about a rise to power.

If you like Mass Effect this much, do yourself a favor and go read a good book.

Concerning the gender/ethnicity aspect:

I would go even further than to say it only has an effect on a single individual, since I think this "choice" has no effect.

You only play a non-male, non-white, homosexual character if you already are open-minded enough. If you aren't, you can just continue to roleplay your stereotypical strong white male. There is no challenge to the preconceptions of the player, simply because he gets to choose what he wants.

A book, a movie, a comic, they all pose a challenge by presenting you with characters as is.

I fail to see the revolutionary potential here, instead, the player gets to project his already cemented views as well as auto- and hetero-stereotypes onto his character, thus reinforcing his already prevalent world view.

I'm not saying new media is inferior per se, but the choice aspect is really the polar opposite of what you want if you want to make people reflect and think.

It has the effect of allowing the player to project herself onto the game, which doesn't force her to adopt a more diverse viewpoint, but does allow her to maintain her existing non-mainstream one. Effectively it has no effect if the player is a white male, but otherwise it has a little.

Well said. Mass Effect fails to deliver anything spectacular and fails on the promise of a non linear adventure as well. The 'reset' happening in episode 2 is laughable. Honestly it fares very low compared to previous bioware titles. For me it has been a major disapointment.

Are there any computer RPGs which have better plot and character development than even a pretty good book or movie? The only games I've played which didn't leave me feeling kind of ashamed to have finished them (rather than reading a book) were GTA3 and successors, Bioshock, Fallout 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4. Stuff like Starcraft and Battlefield 3 is fun for the action, but the story is kind of forgettable.

I have ME3 on order just because it seems like something worth doing to remain culturally aware, but I'm not that excited by it.

Baldur's Gate 2 comes to mind. And rather than Metal Gear Solid 4, I think the first one deserves a mention. Policenauts by Kojima is another game with pretty good character and story development.

Overall I agree with you, most games are not at the level of good books or good movies. The story value usually fares pretty low. That's why the whole talk of "games as art" misses the point. They are never going to be seriously considered until they reach higher standards.

I'll definitely check out Policenauts, thanks! (also I think Portal, Half-Life, and RE are reasonable, if not amazing).

Yeah, Policenauts is a pretty good game. I hope you enjoy it. There are several versions available, but I believe you can get it easily for Playstation.

I agree that Half-Life was decent, too. Re: RE, I found RE2 to be especially thrilling, with the parallel stories you could explore after finishing the game once.

Wow, you are the type of person that put down new mediums. This attitude is more dangerous as it will inhibit the new art form's potential by putting it down in favor of an old but more importantly different medium. Books and games are not exclusive to each other. Stop pulling down games when it wants to aspire to a great storytelling format. Stop imposing your cynicism when glimpses of ambition shows in games. Stop this shit.

This is not about new media. There are great games who tell awesome story (I would suggest Planescape: Torment for the old ones, KOTOR2 for new ones, and Aquaria for the indie ones). This is about Mass Effect specifically, which is not really spectacular. It's power fantasy with good pacing and structure and it borrows from movies in ways of soundtracks and atmosphere, yes. But the universe it happens in is pretty boring compared to, say Eclipse Phase or The Culture, the "diversity" is laughable, and I would suggest that characters who are gay only in some playthroughs are pretty dangerous idea.

I would on the other hand argue that Mass Effect series is bad for the video game industry -- for many people, it made voiced main character mainstream. That is bad, because it's very expensive, so not only it makes video gaming industry harder to enter for new businesses, it also makes even the rich studios trim dialogue and actual choice in game to the lowest common denominator.

However once again, this is not about new media. Check works of Paul DeMarinis if you want new media, it's full of win.

I don't understand why Planescape: Torment gets so much love. I tried it out because of the hype, and found it has an interesting world, but the story itself was pretty vanilla, and the engine was just another form of isometric D&D game. I was bored and gave up halfway though.

Sure, the story might have improved towards the end, but a good story should have you throughout, and not make you drudge through the early stages.

Isn't it obvious? Torment wasn't a game, it was an interactive novel in disguise. The most interesting stuff in the game doesn't happen in the top half of the screen, it happens in the long lines of narrative and dialog at the bottom.

I think you are missing the point here. Mass Effect is closer to "Games as a storytelling medium" than Planscape or KOTOR. Its an evolution. Its a step and the OP is slapping the author for celebrating the fact that science fiction THIS RICH is dedicated to A GAME. Not in the form of written text (Planescape / Kotor / Monkey Island) not static responses, not static characters. This fiction is highly integrated to a competent game system with high production values. Its not perfect but its an accomplishment nonetheless. I havent seen any games that have a custom universe this fleshed out and well planned.

The author isn't talking about games though, nor is he really talking about "storytelling." He's saying that the philosophical bent and diversity of the game makes it the most important sci-fi universe. Your argument has a great angle, but as for godless diversity and the insignificance of man, Vernor Vinge has definitely been there before.

Magicians have this unspoken rule that whoever popularizes a trick owns it. Maybe the author, like me, didn't have the fortune of being exposed to Vernor Vinge. But be that as it may, there must be something commendable in how Bioware has chosen to integrate these concepts that Vernor pioneered and package/tweaked and EXTENDED it into something that is palatable to the masses (the new younger demographic at that) I am quite certain they needed to tone down hardcore parts of it for the game to be somewhat entertaining as you can see in their more in-depth exploration of the universe thru novels and comics. The future movie is a result of the success of the game. Hence the concepts of godless diversity and insignificance of men will have reached and incepted more minds. That is why its very important. But 'important' is a very subjective word so disagreement and put-downs are to be expected.

I am the type of person who is capable of critical thought. I love video games, and find that they are an interesting new medium. They are immediate, interactive, visual, auditory environments that have the potential to convey ideas that books, comics, and movies could not.

Take Rohrer's Passage. Without saying a single word, you have an experience that presents a vague glimpse of the past and future while you navigate the present. There are goals that you can pursue (points, coverage, distance, tricky locations), but the limited time that you have in life only allows you to achieve some of them. You can choose to travel with a companion that makes you happier, but also logistically prevents you from going certain places.

The potential of new media is in the ways in which it is different from previous media. An epic odyssey is better told by a respected elder in a social setting than by a a short, unresponsive, bright, noisy projection in a dark room. Literal emotion and visual environment is better portrayed through the lens of a camera than through a drawing or book.

The problem is that you think that games are a great storytelling medium, and they are not. They are a complicated storytelling medium, and an attractive one, but until we see more powerful artificial intelligence, they are not a great one. The closest you currently get to great storytelling in games is the puppet box of Rohrer's Sleep is Death, where the storyteller is actually another human.

So, go read a book, go watch a great movie, go tell a story to friends and family, and go play a great game. But don't tell me that a sophisticated, visually pleasing, well voice acted choose your own adventure game is a modern classic.

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