17th November 2004, 2:23 PM
Quote:Depends on what you mean by "watched". Like, you were in the room, or you were actively watcing and stuff... I was in the same room when my sister and her friend were playing through most of BG1 and BG2, but I wasn't paying close attention so it doesn't really count for much...
I was actively watching him be awesome in the game.
Quote:Baldur's Gate is not a video game. It is a computer game. There's one point of yours made irrelevant.
Video game does not mean console game. Console game means console game. Baldur's Gate is most certainly a video game.
Quote:And as I've said, I greatly appreciate it when games use words as well as images to describe things, and really miss it in games that I think should and do not (see Syberia, for instance). Obviously you don't agree, but that is my opinion. I guess I just put more weight on these elements than you do... like, how I keep mentioning the looking at items aspect of Eternal Darkness as something I loved about that game -- did you even notice that, or care?
When have I ever said that using words to describe things in games suck? I even love the little logs in Metroid Prime! For some reason you are bunching up everything I've said into one convenient sound byte. Written descriptions can be fine but they are no substitute for the main story-telling!
Quote:And my whole arguement has been that there IS an in between method and games use it. And that unlike you, I think it can be effective. It involves words, pictures, and your imagination (for games like BG where the main character is supposed to be someone you have created -- an alternate you --). It is not bad storytelling. It is just a slightly different method that uses the resources of the other mediums and combines them in a way that is perfect for this new medium.
If you're going to use words then you have to either have visual descriptions for them or written descriptions for them. This you do not understand.
Quote:It depends on if they were thinking of the subtitles when they made the project. If they were thinking of them as an integral part of the film, then yes, I would say that the written medium would be a definite aspect of the project. If, however, they were tacked on later to translate the original film meaning, then no, the written aspect is not central to the project in its intended state so for the case of anime it would not be written. As for your other case, the only such thing I can think of is Mel Gibson's movie The Passion, which I most certainly have not seen or read lots about so I can't say weather they made the subtitles as an integral part of the story or as an addition... but given what I do remember hearing, I think it was an addition (I seem to remember at one point hearing that Gibson was considering releasing it in Latin and Aramaic with no subtitles).
Okay, this is where your entire argument falls into pieces.
Reading subtitles--intended or not--does not make film a written medium. A visual medium is something that uses visuals as its main method of telling a story. Hearing, or reading dialogue does not determine if it's a visual medium or not. If it uses images to visually describe the people, the setting, the things, then it is by definition a visual medium. In the case of "The Passion", the only thing read in the movie is the dialogue. Everything else is "described" visually. There's no narration about the color of people's hair, what the settings look like, or the emotions expressed by the characters. That is all visually told, thus it is a visual medium! That is the definition of a visual medium! If you don't believe me go to your university tomorrow and ask any one of the film professors there.
Now, notice how that is the same exact situation as video games. There is no written description in Baldur's Gate for what the people or town look like because the description is right there in the visuals! All that is written is the dialogue between characters, and it wouldn't make a difference if all of that text was turned into voice acting. That would not change the the status of its medium!
This is also why text-based games are not technically video games, because they do not use visuals as their primary descriptor (if they use visuals at all).
Quote:Length does matter... okay, it may not be the central difference, but it does matter. A game story designer spreads their story over 15 or 20 or more hours of gameplay. A movie director fits it into about two hours. This is a very different structure and a very different way of thinking... I know I've read articles before about how different making a game story really is from a film. It's not created from the same line of thought or process.
Of course games are made differently than movies, you don't need to read an article to know that. That was never my point. My point is that you can duplicate movies into games, while you cannot duplicate books into games. Length is not a matter whatsoever, unless your goal is to make a hundred-hour RPG with footage from Star Trek II. And that was not the point either. MGS2 uses movie-like cut scenes to help tell its story, so in that case it is literally duplicating styles and methods from film into video game form. And yet it has more hours of cut scenes than your average movie. Go figure!
Quote:And you've been so helpful in defining terms!
Now you want me to give you a lecture on what it means to be "cinematic"? If you don't know anything about this then don't try to argue against it.
Quote:That "arguement" is one of the stupidest of all time because your position is so baffilingly moronic that I can't understand how any sane person could ever think such a thing... but fortunately in this case it's mostly irrelevant, for my case at least, because all of my examples have been PC games, which are computer games and not video games. As for you, MGS1 and 2 have also released on PC.
And all text based games have also been computer games. So that "arguement" is only brought up by you because you know that you might otherwise have to conceed a point to me... so to avoid it you don't respond to my point. I mean, it's quite clear that text-based games are computer games and text-based games (interactive novels, they have been called) are vastly more influenced by books than by movies, so you'd just about have to conceed the point... so instead you dodge it by saying they don't count. Which is moronic but what I'd expect from you.
Again this is an example of you not being able to make a single intelligent argument because you are completely ignorant to the definitions of the terms and examples that I am using.
I really don't care any more if you don't know what a computer game is or what a video game is, I've tried to educate you but your ego always prevents you from learning anything. And that is your problem, not mine. That is going to hurt you in life, not me. So I'm fine with it.
Quote:I love how you consistently completely ignore everything I said just to get a chance to attack me...
You keep on saying that yet you still haven't pointed out where I've been ignoring you. Yet another empty accusation.
Quote:Oh yeah, and this is still a good point.
I already invalidated that point of yours, but of course you choose to ignore it.
Quote:No, I really do not think so. We just disagree, that's all.
I'm sure you'd like to think that's the case. I actually know what I'm talking about here while you are totally ignorant to almost every part of this discussion, relying on what you think is acceptable rather than what it generally considered as so.