general gaming topic

Toozin

2015-06-05 07:17:12 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Or YOU WILL GIVE ME AN EGG.

God I love RE5 Wesker.

Opium

Edit history:

Opium: 2015-06-05 07:22:24 pm

2015-06-05 07:21:17 pm

I'm distracted by unnatural word choices. Like if the line is "Hey did you have fun at the 101st annual Wells Springs town Pumpkin Festival with your three kids today?" It just sounds so silly. Why not film a scene of someone leaving the festival with their three kids with a big sign next to them showing the name of the event, then have another character ask them "Hey did you guys have fun today?". Both methods communicate the same info, but only one of them has someone sounding like they're retarded.

Toozin

2015-06-05 07:22:52 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

That's bad exposition. It pops up a lot in games because creating those festival assets is a lot of time and money for a brief scene.

Opium

2015-06-05 07:23:29 pm

Seems like the scene would be cheaper in a game than a film production, but what do I know.

Toozin

2015-06-05 07:23:41 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Is hard to justify unless you go to the festival later in gameplay and that can't always happen.

Toozin

2015-06-05 07:25:27 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Well for a film you could just find a festival going on and shoot a minute of footage. For a game you need a couple dozen texture and model builders creating a bunch of individual assets, which could take days.

Opium

2015-06-05 07:27:12 pm

Even if you found a festival, you have to get permits, organize, waivers for extras, it's a huge pain in the ass but they do it and it seems like it would be easier to animate the whole 5 second scene in a video game cutscene than to film it, no?

arkarian

2015-06-05 07:31:24 pm

red chamber dream

Quote from Opium:

Maybe if they directed the game the same way a movie was directed then it would work. The script in games is so awkward sounding. It's like they know it's totally unnatural and they don't care because it's a game. The writing would never fly in a movie, so why is it good enough for a game? It's like the writing is forced because the game puts so little effort in communicating the story visually, so they have to rely on words, no matter how awkward the words sound when spoken. That stink imo.

yeah none of this is true at all in loads of modern games. go play uncharted ;)

Opium

2015-06-05 07:31:44 pm

I have played Uncharted. Maybe I need to again.

Toozin

2015-06-05 07:32:02 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Well yeah, true, films do have to deal with all that, but it's not about ease, it's about expense. That live action footage is going to be a great deal cheaper than doing the exact same thing using computer rendering. And that's a cost that the developer has to justify to the publisher, who wants to keep a tight grip on their investment and is going to say "well can't you just say there was a festival? Is it absolutely critical we show that?"

Poision Envy

2015-06-05 07:32:48 pm

Club 27 Goals

also Opium it depends on the setting of the game as well.

If it's a fantasy type of game like say, Witcher, then it makes sense if their speaking... mannerisms? are different, but I can see how they would turn you off from thinking it's good VA

Opium

2015-06-05 07:33:01 pm

I guess I didn't realize it was that expensive to make the cutscene

Toozin

2015-06-05 07:33:19 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

I'm not trying to excuse bad exposition, because it's the worst. There just a reason it pops up a lot in games. Good writers should be able to work around it.

arkarian

2015-06-05 07:33:33 pm

red chamber dream

the fact that video game actors often do full performance capture along with voice has been a huge improvement

Opium

2015-06-05 07:33:44 pm

It's probably more just me than the games, because like I said it distracts me when I watch TV/Movies, too.

arkarian

2015-06-05 07:34:14 pm

red chamber dream

well sure, bad writing is bad writing

arkarian

2015-06-05 07:34:37 pm

red chamber dream

no doubt that lots of games have bad writing, but that's changing

Poision Envy

2015-06-05 07:37:45 pm

Club 27 Goals

it seems like it's especially apparent if you're playing an imported game, since it's being translated. It's like double expensive for translate and then re-write the game if it was originally, say, japanese.

Toozin

2015-06-05 07:47:17 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

Yeah, that can be really bad since some things just don't translate. Especially puns. You can ALWAYS tell when they try to translate Japanese wordplay into English. It's better to just not even try and make up something completely different.

BioSpark

2015-06-05 08:07:44 pm

reminds me of how they directly translated the original pokemon games, so we ended up with characters laughing like "fufufufufu"

arkarian

2015-06-05 08:08:21 pm

red chamber dream

<33

Poision Envy

2015-06-05 11:47:07 pm

Club 27 Goals

oh yeah, wasn't the entire primise of Princess Peach being the ruler of the toadstool kingdom just a big pun in the japanese language?

Poision Envy

2015-06-05 11:49:18 pm

Club 27 Goals

I'm trying to google the shit out of that but I can't find it anywhere, I definitely read it in an old game informer mag years ago when they interviewed a japanese dev about game translation, and how a lot of the emotion and jokes are lost on the western audience without the word play, and he cited mario as a prime example

Toozin

2015-06-06 01:28:18 am

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

There's also Waluigi, which is clever in Japanese but fucking dumb in English. They really lucked out with Wario, whose pun works in both English and Japanese.

Opium

2015-06-06 02:48:36 am

I remember when SMB was new and I played it in the arcade. I was like - OK wtf? a weird moustached fat dude in overalls (construction worker?) in some weird land who eat mushrooms that make him grow (alice in wonderland?) while avoiding getting attacked by turtles? Who cares, this is so fun! It seems normal now, but when it was new it was totally weird. I never thought about a game being japanese back then, actually I don't think hardly anyone thought about anything being japanese back then. I had played Mario Bros. a million times, so I thought it was weird that Super Mario Bros. was nothing like it at all. And I don't think it even clicked that it was the same mario from donkey kong. Anyways, I was addicted to SMB not only because it was fun but because you could get unlimited lives in world 3-1 and then you could play all afternoon on one quarter. Then when NES came out I got the bundle that came with SMB and it was the first time I could play a game at home that had the same quality as the arcade. My whole world changed that day.

I remember when SMB was new and I played it in the arcade.  I was like - OK wtf?  a weird moustached fat dude in overalls (construction worker?) in some weird land who eat mushrooms that make him grow (alice in wonderland?) while avoiding getting attacked by turtles?  Who cares, this is so fun!  It seems normal now, but when it was new it was totally weird.  I never thought about a game being japanese back then, actually I don't think hardly anyone thought about anything being japanese back then.  I had played Mario Bros. a million times, so I thought it was weird that Super Mario Bros. was nothing like it at all.  And I don't think it even clicked that it was the same mario from donkey kong.  Anyways, I was addicted to SMB not only because it was fun but because you could get unlimited lives in world 3-1 and then you could play all afternoon on one quarter.  Then when NES came out I got the bundle that came with SMB and it was the first time I could play a game at home that had the same quality as the arcade.  My whole world changed that day.