That’s part of what makes it so incredible
Ten years after declaring Grim Fandango its Game of the Year for 1998, GameSpot has bestowed that same honor for 2008 upon Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
I don’t really want to get deep into MGS4 here, because there were some things about it I liked, but I was struck by some of the comments given by GameSpot editors in the video posted alongside the choice, at least for the minute or two of it I watched. Most of them had to do with the game’s storytelling aspects.
“It finds a perfect harmony between gameplay and storytelling,” said one editor. “Some people said, ‘I watched it as much as I played it,’ but that’s part of what makes it so incredible,” added another.
To me, MGS4 had less of a harmony between gameplay and storytelling, and more of a yo-yo. I find it somewhat sobering that in a decade of astonishing progress in rendering, physics, interface, scale, and complexity, the high watermark for video game storytelling (at least, according to one particular site, notable for being both highly ubiquitous and read, and extremely long-running in internet time) has gone from being exemplified by elegance, breathtaking creativity, and amazingly sharp dialogue to being exemplified by overblown melodrama, ludicrously cumbersome plotting, and cheap tragedy.
It’s probably also worth noting, since this is ostensibly about games, that measured either in terms of pure hours or more charitably as a proportion of overall game time, Metal Gear Solid’s non-interactive cutscene content (including bits where you just move a camera around) probably outweigh Grim Fandango’s by several times—and Grim Fandango is a graphic adventure game.
Just sayin’.
Tags: console gaming, game fiction, goty, grim fandango, metal gear solid 4, pc gaming
December 26th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Game of the Year 2008?
December 27th, 2008 at 4:12 am
Ha. I wholly agree with your general point about the standard of good storytelling being either bizarrely low or just plain bizarre lately.
But in the year of Starcraft, Half-Life, Fallout 2 and Thief, I might have balked at a GOTY choice with this as one of its puzzle solutions:
“Give the bottle of gelatine to Glottis. When he comes back he will feel really sick. Say something to him and he will throw up. Use the liquid Nitrogen on the vomit to freeze it. Go across the frozen vomit to disarm the Bone Wagon.”
I love Grim Fandango, but it was a triumph of art and writing. Game storytelling is how you integrate your story into the game mechanics, and like most adventure games Grim Fandango just stopped its story dead until you found the obutse solution to its rarely related and sometimes terrible puzzles.
December 27th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Great point by Pentadact above.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Pentadact: That’s absolutely a fair point. Somewhat illuminatingly, GameSpot’s published justification for choosing Grim Fandango over other games of 1998 is amazingly similar for its reasoning for choosing Metal Gear Solid 4 in 2008. So whether you agree with either choice or not, I think the comparison is a fairly direct one, and that’s basically what my post was about.
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:37 am
Even ignoring MGS4’s laughable writing, it’s horribly backwards to elevate the game for its storytelling, of all things.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I knew Gamespot have been sucking for a while but…Of all games. Of all games of this series. Of all games of this year. This decade. A ten? A freaking ten. MGS4 was an emotional whirlwirl, but…[i]man was it not a perfect freaking harmony[/i]. That’s a good kick in the balls.
But Game of the Year is good ol’ castration.
January 20th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Don’t know why websites didn’t just call Dead Space game of the year. It has no game-breaking flaws, is executed well in all areas, has many memorable moments that you won’t see in other games, and has some of the most naturally flowing storytelling since Half Life. But of course, some sequels have to get nominated because of their insurmountable hype throughout the year.
I think Dead Space is a game everyone can agree on, on its excellence. It gives other games of its genres of shooter and survival horror a run for their money.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:16 pm
[...] Chris Remo’s blog Procedural Dialogue: I find it somewhat sobering that in a decade of astonishing progress in rendering, physics, [...]
February 15th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Well… To follow on your point Pentadact, I’d say integration is always and has always been a problem. In point and clicks games, probably the most hilarious thing is when the game does not make a timer tick but tries to urge you to do something…
And when you’re a kid you’re like “oh my god I so gotta hurry the fuck to get this sword otherwise the old man”s gonna be mad at me” and then you reach an age when you go “ok, no timer, I can do whatever, won’t change shit…” Have you ever experienced that disbelief breaker when you hurry and the suddenly you like wander around to check something and you discover that it does not affect the story in any way because the game is waiting for you to complete the action?
I felt so betrayed that day… Well it’s like one of you thumbers was saying in one of your ever so awesome podcasts: the story is often like in Half life holding the player backwards. Alyx fuck can’t you talk and walk at the same time? Stop standing there and talking to me when the world is going to turn into a supernova, bitch!
Ok I’d never call her bitch because I’m in love with her but whatever…
But you know, in the case of Gamespot you could make Doom all over again and if it had:
killer graphics check
killer scenario check
killer sounds check
ok game of the year… Which year 93? No no 2k9 that’s ok, we don’t put a mark for originality so fuck it.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:51 am
hi chrisremo! i followed a link from valve website to here, i am experiencing the same problem as u were or are… plez tell me u figured it out as it is driving me crazy! the whole all the brushes are completey black while the props are still lit up. if i remove all the lights its fine(but it aint really fine),even if i load an old level and add a light it makes the place dark… plez tell me u can help me!!! plez email me back. and yes grim was an awesome game!
July 19th, 2009 at 4:45 am
I heard on the tubes that if accompanied by sawg, Metal Gear Solid reviews itself.
July 19th, 2009 at 4:46 am
um, that’s meant to be ’swag’