Has a game ever made you cry?

I agree with hooradiation to an extent. I am disappointed to say I have never cried from playing a game. While games have certainly stirred all sorts of emotional responses from me (fear and paranoia from Amnesia anyone?), I have never reached the point of tears. Very often the storyline of a game has to be fabricated to fit the gameplay so it seems unbeliavable even in the context of the game. Immersion falls apart far too easily compared to other mediums. A simple thing such as pausing the game can break this tie for me. I am generalising a huge amount here of course.

Huge strides are being made all the time with games and thats why they are the most exciting medium out there. From games like Walking Dead to Dear Esther trying out new concepts goes to show how far the industry has come and how mucher further there is to go. Can you imagine how good some games will be in 50 years? Currently I feel they are behind other mediums in the story telling department on a whole. Starcraft 2's storyline was absolutely buthered for example but it still made for a fantastic single player and multiplayer game.


(I did cry when my SNES broke when I was a child but I don't think thats what you are getting at..)


To summraise hooradiation

hooradiation wrote: »

Really, because if anything I'd say the connection is far less due, mostly, to the "characters" not being real people and the general low standard of voice work in games. Quite how you can connect with such a rough facsimile of a person is beyond me.

I can't really see any reason to be sad when the game decides to simply stop rendering a bunch of polygons.

I regret saying I ever agreed with you. You have no idea what your talking about. Did you know actors in films aren't really those people either?? I know amazing right!

Penn wrote: »

Like wnolan1992 said, the same could be said for cartoons.

True, and rightfully so.

Penn wrote: »

The same could be said for film even. Can't see any reason to be sad when an actor says things to another actor, pretends to die and then goes home to his mansion.

Everyone is falling over themselves to say variations on this, and you are all missing something in your effort to be the first to do so.

While I find it very hard to care about characters even in films, I acknowledge that it is easier (not easy) to identify with someone that is actually a real person, does not live in the uncanny valley.
A lot of work has to be done by all involved, sure, but a lot of the burden of "suspension of disbelief" if you want to call it that is alleviated by the people involved being actually human.
Nonsense about "unless you see someone die" notwithstanding, there are various things you can do to ease the suspension of disbelief, video game characters are already operating at a severe disadvantage on this front, not least because our best efforts tend to look unconvincing as people.
But also because there's a major disconnect between what happens in the "story parts" and what happens when you're in control.
GTA4 exemplifies this problem quite well, as does ME3.

Penn wrote: »

And yet films and tv have no input from the audience, and therefore less of a connect in that sense. It's about the story, and a good story is a good story regardless of what medium it's presented in, so long as the story comes across as intended. Again, very few games get it right. But some do and the player is hugely rewarded for having invested in the story.

I don't think any game has ever gotten it right, and the strengths of the medium do not lie in the realm of story telling.
The fact that after sixty or so years games are still very poorly aping films when they are at their "best" would speak to a more fundamental problem with the medium in this area.

Maybe it's because if you're going to try and tell a story (an essentially fixed series of events) and then try to have people play a part in it you either end up with something where the players ability to impact the story is non existent, but they will destroy any kind of pacing simply by being there.

Or you offer them minor impact (branching paths or what have you) but the "freedom" only serves to highlight the limitations of the impact you can have, and ultimately frustrate because "why can't I do X instead of Y".

We want to offer players a story but on the other hand we want them to have a part in it - how do we reconcile the two?
You have to ask the player to do it "right" then, surely?

And if you're doing that... well, why not just watch a film or read a book? At least there aren't two separate systems trying to gel with varying degrees of failure.





All that said, Zillah has uncovered my dastardly secret! oh noes! And I'd have gotten away with it too....

I guess amateur detective hour wasn't a total waste of everyone's time.
Except for it the way that it was and let us never speak of this unabashed stupidity ever again.

I got a bit choked up at the end of MGS3 I have to say.

That Star Sailor song at the end didn't help either!



EDIT: (Video probably has spoilers in it, clips of different cut scenes through out the game)

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

While I think there's a lack of games that tell stories well - very much a significant minority, anyway - even through game mechanics it is possible to emotionally connect with a gaming experience. While this is often relegated to simple things like excitement, plenty of games can instill a sense of wonder, awe, shock, joy, humour etc... This is very often not realised through poorly crafted cutscenes but rather the experience and atmosphere of the game itself. Even your personal response to a victory or failure in a game is an emotional reaction.

I think this is where the actual strength of games might actually lie.
Not in "telling stories", but in provoking base reactions, like awe, in a way that films and books don't really manage to.