• 2013 Spike VGX winners recap
    133 replies, posted
[QUOTE=KennyAwsum;43117859] Its ending never truly ended, the end is never the end. There was always some new nook or cranny to look at or pay attention to. The game wasn't done when the story was over, it was just waiting for you to find another way of finishing it. Even after finding where Sam went in Gone Home, there was no incentive for me to come back and play the game through again, infact it ruined future playthroughs by giving such a easy way to finish the game in practically 2 minutes. [/QUOTE] But "finishing the game" isn't the point??? [QUOTE=KennyAwsum;43117859]It depends how much you want to invest in a game, at most i only see you getting about 1-3 Hours tops on Gone Home.[/QUOTE] it took me close to 6 hours to finish Gone Home. the amount of detail the game has is astounding and you get as much from the game as you put in (nevermind the fact that game length is a meaningless metric, otherwise the all the so-called "best" games would be those +150 hour long JRPGS). I guarantee you that there was some subplot you missed in your haste to get to the "end;" I know there is stuff I missed.
[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;43117702]and it's not any more of a traditional game than Gone Home is so I don't know why only one elicits cries of "walking simulator"[/QUOTE] I think it's because Stanley is a lot more interesting. Once you know one thing in Gone Home, you basically know exactly how everything is gonna pan out, and when a story is predictable it tends to be pretty boring.
[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;43117975]But "finishing the game" isn't the point??? it took me close to 6 hours to finish Gone Home. the amount of detail the game has is astounding and you get as much from the game as you put in (nevermind the fact that game length is a meaningless metric, otherwise the all the so-called "best" games would be those +150 hour long JRPGS). I guarantee you that there was some subplot you missed in your haste to get to the "end;" I know there is stuff I missed.[/QUOTE] if we're talking about story and length, yeah i'd say the 200+ hours I have in Persona 3 (and that is with hardly 50% completion) was worth more than the 20 minutes it took me to read everything in gone home
[QUOTE=Ray-The-Sun;43118002]I think it's because Stanley is a lot more interesting. Once you know one thing in Gone Home, you basically know exactly how everything is gonna pan out, and when a story is predictable it tends to be pretty boring.[/QUOTE] Again, I don't think you do because I've never heard anyone, in their complaints about how "predictable" the game is mention any of the numerous subplots of the game. [editline]8th December 2013[/editline] Like, if you go into the experience cynically, saying "I'm just going to get to the end as quickly as possible" then of course you're going to not enjoy the experience and of course you're going to miss most of the content. It's your own fault.
-snip, misread-
[QUOTE=wulfe8857;43116351]"This game is too linear! 0/10!" "This game is so non-linear that if you know how to you can beat it in 2 minutes! 0/10" Jesus fucking Christ. The game has a good number of problems but the ability to beat it very quickly (with previous knowledge, there's a tiny tiny chance you'll beat it like that with luck) is not one of them.[/QUOTE] Middleground, mate.
[QUOTE=TheJoey;43109553]what that doesnt even make any sense the shooting part was the part everyone hated about bioshock infinite my fucking brain[/QUOTE] Offtopic, but use some fucking punctuation.
Like I think the fact that that "you can beat it in 2 minutes" claim holds water with a lot of people demonstrates just how wrong-headed people are about games and storytelling. I mean something is wrong with with someone who is presented with a huge area filled with a thousand little important details but can only think "how quickly can I finish this?" I mean does that person even enjoy video games or are they just looking to check titles off of a list?
Gone Home was great, it deserved the indie game of the year in my opinion. Best PC game is arguable, unless they meant games ONLY released on PC.
[quote]Best Soundtrack: Grand Theft Auto 5[/quote] Why? The soundtrack was very lackluster.
[QUOTE=A big fat ass;43118375]Gone Home was great, it deserved the indie game of the year in my opinion. Best PC game is arguable, unless they meant games ONLY released on PC.[/QUOTE] Are you sure about that when comparing to Stanley parable, papers please and whatever the third nominee was?
[QUOTE=A big fat ass;43118375]Gone Home was great, it deserved the indie game of the year in my opinion. Best PC game is arguable, unless they meant games ONLY released on PC.[/QUOTE] Why? It could win a best story award (even if I don't like it much), sure, but there are better indie games released this year. Papers, Please most notably. That game had a strong message and strong mechanics with multiple likable characters even if they never had tons of dialogue. Stanley Parable was also a walking simulator, but with a better grasp on game design than Gone Home since it had choice and what the player did actually affected the outcome of the game. I've yet to play Kentucky Route Zero, so I got nothing there. Point is, the other games were...games to at least some extent.
[QUOTE=LegndNikko;43118199]Middleground, mate.[/QUOTE] That's still fairly irrelevant. The 2 minutes run requires you to sequence break; a known tactic within the speedrunning community. Technically, the 2 minute gameplay aspect of Gone Home is a speedrun. It's not how the game is [B]supposed [/B]to be played. You can beat[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC47O6mKHJY"] Portal in less than 9 minutes[/URL], but it requires you to know the game well in order to do so. That's can't be used as an argument to say Portal is a shit game. So why is it fair to say Gone Home is a shit game because you can beat it really quickly if you know the game?
[QUOTE=Fish_poke;43118678]I've yet to play Kentucky Route Zero, so I got nothing there. Point is, the other games were...games to at least some extent.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure exploration and interacting with an environment are gameplay OP. You have to interact with the environment to progress, that is a ruleset and interacting with a ruleset is play. Like your differentiation between it and The Stanley Parable is arbitrary. Neither game has a failstate, neither game has technical challenges, both games are games you make decisions in. The way you interact with the environment and pursue the story in Gone Home [I]does[/I] involve decisions; the choices to pursue a subplot thread or to just rush through the game as quickly as possible or the choice to pay attention to a certain detail and pursue it or to ignore it are just as meaningful as the decision to walk through one door or the other in The Stanley Parable. They're both play, it's just that the "play" of Gone Home is more [i]mental[/i] instead of mechanical. Like the "outcome of the game" (the literal ending) isn't really what's important in a video game. What's actually important is the experience you have as a player; the "ending" of a game is just one of the countless different things a game uses to produce an experience. You make plenty of meaningful decisions that affect your [I]experience[/I] in Gone Home, they just aren't decisions which affect the pre-existing narrative. (Contrast with the "Bioshock Infinite 'Press F to Intervene'" school of game design, where decisions only exist as clearly identified scripted story choices). I mean what's the point of playing a game if you only care about the ending? You could use Youtube to experience the ending of any game ever.
[QUOTE=Cmx;43118636]Why? The soundtrack was very lackluster.[/QUOTE] Actually, GTA5's OST was pretty great. Though I imagine it won that because it had a buttload of licensed tracks, so they just said fuck it that wins.
Papers Please should have won some award. Because if you can make a game about bureaucracy and make it engaging to me, then that deserves some award.
I honestly think Gone Home deserves the awards, and it's because it's the first game to have a resounding effect that revolves around an entirely unabstracted human story within the context of real history. No other game of its nature has had a setting that represents the context of actual reality and focuses on believable, relatable humans.
And really, those that say that it's "just about a lesbian couple" probably didn't explore at all, or somehow managed to miss the rest. [editline]9th December 2013[/editline] There's really nothing to disagree with here. There [I]is[/I] more to the story than what is obvious, that's the point of the exploration aspect it has to it.
[QUOTE=G-Strogg;43118664]Are you sure about that when comparing to Stanley parable, papers please and whatever the third nominee was?[/QUOTE] Only that small game.. Battlefield 4. [editline]9th December 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;43117975]it took me close to 6 hours to finish Gone Home.[/QUOTE] It took me about 2 Hours to beat Gone Home, Reading all of the notes, Journals and Ectra. I have to say, and no offense to your argument but what were you doing in all that time? Im serious, i looked all over the damn place, read the bookcases checked out a few of the dad's books, since i was playing to a audience (Livesteaming essentially), i even fucked around a little. I did not rush through Gone Home. I dunno if that was a bit of a exaggeration or whatever. To be honest, i would play Gone Home again if there was more to it then exploration, because even then the game is short by comparison. What exactly is the point after you've seen all that the game has had to offer? Go through it again about a Year down the line for nostalgia? I don't think it deserved what it did because Dear Esther tried the exact same thing, and although its story engaged me and i enjoyed it.. I did not feel like it did anything different or developed anything. In a way i think even that Gone Home might be a step backwards, because at least in Dear Esther there was more to come back to, you'd always get a different piece of dialogue or something creepy and new to see and it took about a solid 6 playthroughs to see every piece of dialogue and event that it had. I only needed to play Gone Home, literally Once. I just feel like it could have just as easily been a story told in a book, it didn't really grasp what it could do with the medium, where as The Stanley Parable grabs it by the horns and viciously beats it into submission and plays with you as the Player and "Stanley", i felt involved ultimately as a whole and enjoyed it a hellalot more because of it.
I knew who was going to win what and I still got disapointed that anyone trully had those opinions.
[QUOTE=KennyAwsum;43121777]It took me about 2 Hours to beat Gone Home, Reading all of the notes, Journals and Ectra. I have to say, and no offense to your argument but what were you doing in all that time? Im serious, i looked all over the damn place, read the bookcases checked out a few of the dad's books, since i was playing to a audience (Livesteaming essentially), i even fucked around a little. I did not rush through Gone Home. I dunno if that was a bit of a exaggeration or whatever. To be honest, i would play Gone Home again if there was more to it then exploration, because even then the game is short by comparison. What exactly is the point after you've seen all that the game has had to offer? Go through it again about a Year down the line for nostalgia? I don't think it deserved what it did because Dear Esther tried the exact same thing, and although its story engaged me and i enjoyed it.. I did not feel like it did anything different or developed anything. In a way i think even that Gone Home might be a step backwards, because at least in Dear Esther there was more to come back to, you'd always get a different piece of dialogue or something creepy and new to see and it took about a solid 6 playthroughs to see every piece of dialogue and event that it had. I only needed to play Gone Home, literally Once. I just feel like it could have just as easily been a story told in a book, it didn't really grasp what it could do with the medium, where as The Stanley Parable grabs it by the horns and viciously beats it into submission and plays with you as the Player and "Stanley", i felt involved ultimately as a whole and enjoyed it a hellalot more because of it.[/QUOTE] If you literally found everything, including all 24 audio journals, in one playthorough of two hours, you must be [I]extremely[/I] attentive. Gone Home is better than Dear Esther, at least in my mind, because what you get out of it is dependent on how you play it and who you are, while the latter only offered you the experience that the computer decided to give you. And saying that it doesn't "grasp what it could do with the medium" is simply not true, seeing as no other medium could offer explorative and interactive elements to uncover more of the story. In fact, Gone Home did what no other game has done with the medium in terms of narrative, so it clearly understands it well. I think this video explains what GH does well in a good enough way, if what I'm saying makes little sense: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNDk7D0yG0[/media]
[QUOTE=Fhux;43121980]In fact, Gone Home did what no other game has done with the medium in terms of narrative, so it clearly understands it well.[/QUOTE] I hope you're not serious.
[QUOTE=A big fat ass;43118375]Gone Home was great, it deserved the indie game of the year in my opinion. Best PC game is arguable, unless they meant games ONLY released on PC.[/QUOTE] I gotta ask, is Dean Darko you in the credits of The Stanley Parable?
[QUOTE=Fhux;43121980]If you literally found everything, including all 24 audio journals, in one playthorough of two hours, you must be [I]extremely[/I] attentive. Gone Home is better than Dear Esther, at least in my mind, because what you get out of it is dependent on how you play it and who you are, while the latter only offered you the experience that the computer decided to give you. And saying that it doesn't "grasp what it could do with the medium" is simply not true, seeing as no other medium could offer explorative and interactive elements to uncover more of the story. In fact, [B]Gone Home did what no other game has done with the medium in terms of narrative, so it clearly understands it well.[/B] I think this video explains what GH does well in a good enough way, if what I'm saying makes little sense: [/QUOTE] Are you for real right now. [editline]9th December 2013[/editline] In fact you could explain to me what it did because no-one really knows.
[QUOTE=G-Strogg;43122208]Are you for real right now. [editline]9th December 2013[/editline] In fact you could explain to me what it did because no-one really knows.[/QUOTE] I think I've done just that multiple times: it told human stories, that at least someone can relate to at any given time, through relying on the player's curiosity and attention. I think many here misunderstand me. I'm not saying that it's the greatest game ever, not even that it should have won this award above something like Papers, Please. The only thing I'm saying is that you should give credit where credit is due, and Gone Home had an excellent narrative design and some stories that stand out in this medium as they've never been done before. It deserves credit for that. Does it deserve as much credit as the other two noteworthy games in the list? No, but that doesn't mean [i]everything[/i] about it is horrible, as most here seem to be preaching. Does that not sound reasonable?
[QUOTE=Fhux;43122521]I think I've done just that multiple times: it told human stories, that at least someone can relate to at any given time, through relying on the player's curiosity and attention. I think many here misunderstand me. I'm not saying that it's the greatest game ever, not even that it should have won this award above something like Papers, Please. The only thing I'm saying is that you should give credit where credit is due, and Gone Home had an excellent narrative design and some stories that stand out in this medium as they've never been done before. It deserves credit for that. Does it deserve as much credit as the other two noteworthy games in the list? No, but that doesn't mean [i]everything[/i] about it is horrible, as most here seem to be preaching. Does that not sound reasonable?[/QUOTE] I have never really stated that it is horrible, I enjoyed the hour or so I got out of it before finidng everything. But the whole "great narrative" thing is seriously debatable. This is not the first game to have conveyed a narrative in this way. And when people praise the "relatable" characters I really want to know what differs it from other games with relatable characters. This game treats the themes of exile, escape, frustration and isolation of the protagonists sister in the setting of their abode. That's well done. In comparison, "Papers, Please" covers the narrative of a conflict between several nation, including the protagonists internal conflict of corruption ie if he should give in to it or resist it. It deals with nationalistic propaganda, corruption, conscience, human pity and self-fulfillment all in the space of a 640x480 toll booth. On top of that, the creator managed to make a game about [I]the most boring form of bureacracy [/I]engaging and fun. If we're speaking strictly for this contest, if that is not GOTY material then I do not know what is.
[QUOTE=Fhux;43122521]I think I've done just that multiple times: it told human stories, that at least someone can relate to at any given time, through relying on the player's curiosity and attention. I think many here misunderstand me. I'm not saying that it's the greatest game ever, not even that it should have won this award above something like Papers, Please. The only thing I'm saying is that you should give credit where credit is due, and Gone Home had an excellent narrative design and some stories that stand out in this medium as they've never been done before. It deserves credit for that. Does it deserve as much credit as the other two noteworthy games in the list? No, but that doesn't mean [i]everything[/i] about it is horrible, as most here seem to be preaching. Does that not sound reasonable?[/QUOTE] I'm sorry but I found everything about it horrible. The way they told the stories was boring, the stories were uninspired and the gameplay was nowhere to be found. Besides, it has so little content that people should feel robbed if they got this on a HumbleBundle.
[QUOTE=G-Strogg;43122694]I have never really stated that it is horrible, I enjoyed the hour or so I got out of it before finidng everything. But the whole "great narrative" thing is seriously debatable. This is not the first game to have conveyed a narrative in this way. And when people praise the "relatable" characters I really want to know what differs it from other games with relatable characters. This game treats the themes of exile, escape, frustration and isolation of the protagonists sister in the setting of their abode. That's well done. In comparison, "Papers, Please" covers the narrative of a conflict between several nation, including the protagonists internal conflict of corruption ie if he should give in to it or resist it. It deals with nationalistic propaganda, corruption, conscience, human pity and self-fulfillment all in the space of a 640x480 toll booth. On top of that, the creator managed to make a game about [I]the most boring form of bureacracy [/I]engaging and fun. If we're speaking strictly for this contest, if that is not GOTY material then I do not know what is.[/QUOTE] It's not really the relatable characters that make it, because as you say a ton of games already have those, but very few games put those characters in a relatable setting. In Gone Home you are not presented with murderers, apocalypses, revolutions, ghosts, deep jungles or open skies, but just a house and a family like we all know. That's what differs it from other games, and makes it more relatable. And about the themes, you forget entire characters, like the dad, there. Could you point out what other games have conveyed their story like this by the way? It's not that I don't believe you, but I'd like to try them out in that case.
[QUOTE=Fhux;43122936]It's not really the relatable characters that make it, because as you say a ton of games already have those, but very few games put those characters in a relatable setting. In Gone Home you are not presented with murderers, apocalypses, revolutions, ghosts, deep jungles or open skies, but just a house and a family like we all know. That's what differs it from other games, and makes it more relatable. And about the themes, you forget entire characters, like the dad, there. Could you point out what other games have conveyed their story like this by the way? It's not that I don't believe you, but I'd like to try them out in that case.[/QUOTE] Are you seriously implying that just because a setting can't be real I can't relate to it?
[QUOTE=Ragekipz;43123069]Are you seriously implying that just because a setting can't be real I can't relate to it?[/QUOTE] No? Where in my post do I say anything like that? I said that a ton of games are relatable due to their characters, but what makes Gone Home more so is its relatable setting, along with the rest. [editline]9th December 2013[/editline] If you misunderstood the first sentence, the "make it" meant "make Gone Home especially relatable".
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