Ye Olde Prognostications
December 21, 2008
Let’s revisit the old times, shall we? We’ve all played Crysis now, or at least heard the PC-humbling tales of those who have played it, so let’s think about what Crysis actually accomplished in terms of moving games forward as a medium.
Did Crysis bring games to story-telling equivalence with movies? Certainly not; the story is the least promoted element of Crysis, and rightly so: there’s not a whole lot there. I’m not sure anybody was expecting a next-gen first-person shooter to break ground in the narrative department, so maybe it’s not a huge loss.
Interesting point – Patrick Redding talked about narrative in Far Cry 2 in a GamaSutra interview a while back as an area the team aimed to strengthen and even innovate on. Considering Far Cry 2′s lineage (sequel to Far Cry, the predecessor of Crysis), it’s rather surprising to me.
Did Crysis bring games to graphical parity with movies? It certainly broke new ground in terms of quality. Cutscenes were not even of the level attained by some scenes in Halo, a 1999 release, but that’s easily attributed to art direction and philosophy. Let’s answer the question this way: could you make a movie using the Crysis engine and convince people it was real? Not without stealing from a thousand disparate sources. Well, maybe. But definitely not on low settings.
Sadly, any analysis has to end there. The merits of a film can only be discussed on four axes: story, visuals, pacing, and audio. We’ve established that story is, well, irrelevant in this case. There’s no comparison. Audio is essentially the same process in both fields, which leaves us with only visuals and pacing.
I’ve talked enough about the visuals already, and pacing is a different animal with games – how long a level should be instead of how long a scene should be. There are analogies, but again, they relate to story. I would conclude, then, that games are becoming comparable to movies visually, but lack development in terms of story.
Oddly, games seem to be the only medium in which story is placed so low on the priority list. I’ve seen paintings that tell more of a story than most games. Given the huge investment being made here – millions of dollars for a triple-A title – why isn’t there more progress here? Why are there no speakers at the Game Developer’s Conference next year (2009) on storytelling in games? Hmm… I think I see a pattern here. Is anyone working on this? (That’s a serious question. I expected to see at least two listed.)
What do you think? Was Crysis lacking, or are games and movies just not destined to get together, like characters in some Greek myth? Talk back at me.
