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"including the editor, who had the vision to put CM3 on the cover - compensating for the lack of graphics with a shiny gold background." The first issue of PC Zone I ever bought. And I always enjoyed your reviews of CM in that brilliant mag Steve. RIP PC Zone. RIP Chester. RIP Steve's love of FM. |
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I'd like to hear the Eurogamer team take a look at the storytelling in games. It seems recently there has been some criticism of how games tell stories (I would agree with some of the comments in the Why I Hate Halo article regarding the way the story is told and I've heard various complaints about the stories of Assassins Creed, GTAIV etc over the last year). Do you think that games are still to reliant on cut-scenes for story telling? Personally, I think games are at their best when the story is part of the gameplay (ICO, Portal etc). As a general rule, I can't stand cut scenes which I often tedious and jarring. I'm wondering though if the problem is the stories themselves or how they are told. Andy Serkis recently made some comments about games needing a 'unified concept' with the script, characters, art and gameplay all developed simultaneously. I don't know if thats the answer (I think too many games try to be cinematic in their approach to storytelling, whereas they should take a more immersive approach which suits the medium) but I would agree that story and characterisation is an afterthought in most games. Would be very interested to hear your thoughts about this as its an area that really holds back the medium at present. |
| Tremendous article. Brought back so many memories! |
| The 100 greatest game segment of Episode 2 is brilliant. Listening to the guy rip into FF7 cracked me up! |
EddieBear
5 years ago
I actually lived in Nannning, Guangxi (or Guangxi, Nanning as the Chinese would say) for one and half years. It's very much in the middle of China. Not geographically but economically. There is a LOT of new money there, but also an overwhelming amount of poverty. Interestingly, whilst I was there I saw a couple of local game arcades shut down. They weren't the bright neon gaming nightclubs that you might see in Tokyo but were dingy, run down hallways filled with ageing machines. They never seemed busy or popular. Perhaps the 'culture' is bigger than the hobby? People like to cosplay but don't care for the gaming?
Internet cafes on the other hand were nearly always filled with groups of teenagers playing Crossfire. Since then the MOBA scene has really taken off too. I see DOTA tshirts everywhere and plenty of people play League of Legends also. During that time too I don't think I ever met a Chinese person with a games consoles. PSPs were fairly common (DS's, less so) but the majority of gaming was done on smartphones. So whilst mobile gaming and PC gaming is huge, home console gaming isn't. I can only speculate that this is because most families have the disposable income for a PC and phones (even though the average wage there is only 200GBP a month. Seeing as you can play games on those devices, why would you splash out on a console?
Really great article. Thanks.