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Get the latest from Cineplex Entertainment, Canada’s largest motion picture exhibitor, and SCENE,...
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FFmoji™ 2016 is Your Fantasy Football Emoji Keyboard and Sticker Pack. FFmoji is not for...
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In “Episode 5: Terminus," the fifth and final episode of the thrilling République saga, battle...
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The cutest little doll, Anya is a little girl who loves to play and care for her puppies. --...
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Two Jersey Brothers: Stories from Our Haledon Boyhood 1939-1953
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Two Jersey Brothers recounts the boyhoods of brothers Nick and Bob Finamore in the small, quiet,...
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Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Mass Effect Trilogy in Video Games
Jul 25, 2017
An Example Of Why Dialogue Options In Video Games Are More Trouble Than They Are Worth
The first Mass Effect game was released 10 years ago this year and it pioneered many RPG mechanics that are still being used in RPG’s today. Like any pioneer, it spawned many clones that tried to emulate the cover based shooting mechanics that the game used, the romance situations that took place between the characters and the infamous dialogue options that the player could choose from during conversation cutscenes.
Mass Effect wasn’t the first game to do it, there are plenty of earlier examples of the mechanic being used before in games, such as the Fallout series. Bioware actually included the mechanic themselves in their earlier game in Knights Of The Old Republic, but its inclusion Mass Effect is what brought it to the mainstream and soon every developer was wanting a piece of the dialogue tree pie.
I never owned the original Mass Effect, the most exposure I got of it was through a few mates that owned the game at the time, but eventually the mechanic did end up creeping into games that I did own including; Alpha Protocall, Deus Ex, any Telltale game, The Amazing Spiderman 2, (for some reason,) and even in Uncharted 4.
As much as I enjoy a good ‘choose your own adventure,’ story and as much as I appreciate the trust that developers put in gamers to be able to tell their own story; whether that be through dialogue options, moral choices or customization options, I want you to tell me your story. I didn’t pay 50 quid to get given a setting and a bunch of characters to tell my own story. You guys get paid to craft amazingly immersive works of fiction, so do your job and suck me in. Whenever I’m playing a game with dialogue options and I am starting to get invested in the story and the characters, the inevitable dialogue tree pops up and takes me right out of the experience.
Sure, there are some movies that I watch and wonder why a writer or a director made a certain creative choice, but even if I don’t agree with the decision, it is the creator’s job to make those tough choices and that is what makes great art. One of my favorite movies of the last decade is Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘Drive’ and that is purely because of the creative choices that the cast and crew made on that movie. I know people that hate Drive and I’m sure if given the option they would change it to be a less daring, more cookie cutter action thriller, but that wouldn’t have earned my respect like it has. Sometimes creators need to stop handholding the audience and make a tough call, even if it could potentially be a polarizing one.
In fact, when I think about it, all of my favorite stories are adored so much because of the definitive, drastic calls that they dare to make. I already spoke about Drive, Fight Club’s twist took some balls to pull off, the ambitious non linear storytelling of Pulp Fiction makes it iconic, Breaking Bad was consistently shocking and yet brilliant, MGS is insanely unconventional and I love it for it and The Last Of Us delivers a divisive finishing blow that we have no choice but to partake in.
That is how you tell a great story and that is how you stand out as a creator, by doing something that no one else could do, especially not your audience. When I come home after a long day at work, I don’t want to do much thinking. I want to relax and be told a story by the folks that are best at doing so. Personally, I think that you should believe in the story you are telling enough to make a definitive decision and if you don’t, is it really a story that’s worth telling?
Mass Effect wasn’t the first game to do it, there are plenty of earlier examples of the mechanic being used before in games, such as the Fallout series. Bioware actually included the mechanic themselves in their earlier game in Knights Of The Old Republic, but its inclusion Mass Effect is what brought it to the mainstream and soon every developer was wanting a piece of the dialogue tree pie.
I never owned the original Mass Effect, the most exposure I got of it was through a few mates that owned the game at the time, but eventually the mechanic did end up creeping into games that I did own including; Alpha Protocall, Deus Ex, any Telltale game, The Amazing Spiderman 2, (for some reason,) and even in Uncharted 4.
As much as I enjoy a good ‘choose your own adventure,’ story and as much as I appreciate the trust that developers put in gamers to be able to tell their own story; whether that be through dialogue options, moral choices or customization options, I want you to tell me your story. I didn’t pay 50 quid to get given a setting and a bunch of characters to tell my own story. You guys get paid to craft amazingly immersive works of fiction, so do your job and suck me in. Whenever I’m playing a game with dialogue options and I am starting to get invested in the story and the characters, the inevitable dialogue tree pops up and takes me right out of the experience.
Sure, there are some movies that I watch and wonder why a writer or a director made a certain creative choice, but even if I don’t agree with the decision, it is the creator’s job to make those tough choices and that is what makes great art. One of my favorite movies of the last decade is Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘Drive’ and that is purely because of the creative choices that the cast and crew made on that movie. I know people that hate Drive and I’m sure if given the option they would change it to be a less daring, more cookie cutter action thriller, but that wouldn’t have earned my respect like it has. Sometimes creators need to stop handholding the audience and make a tough call, even if it could potentially be a polarizing one.
In fact, when I think about it, all of my favorite stories are adored so much because of the definitive, drastic calls that they dare to make. I already spoke about Drive, Fight Club’s twist took some balls to pull off, the ambitious non linear storytelling of Pulp Fiction makes it iconic, Breaking Bad was consistently shocking and yet brilliant, MGS is insanely unconventional and I love it for it and The Last Of Us delivers a divisive finishing blow that we have no choice but to partake in.
That is how you tell a great story and that is how you stand out as a creator, by doing something that no one else could do, especially not your audience. When I come home after a long day at work, I don’t want to do much thinking. I want to relax and be told a story by the folks that are best at doing so. Personally, I think that you should believe in the story you are telling enough to make a definitive decision and if you don’t, is it really a story that’s worth telling?
Kyera (8 KP) rated Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3) in Books
Jan 31, 2018
As I mentioned in the past review as this is not the first book in the series there will be major spoilers, even though I'm not spoiling anything from this book.
Whether I agree or not, many people find that Scarlet is their least favorite book in the series. As a result, I worry that they may not continue with the series at that point which would be a major mistake. Cress is an absolutely fantastic book and will hit you in the feels more times than I can count.
While they may not be my OTP, Cresswell is probably in my top five or 10 favorite ships. I've never really sat down and tried to figure it out. It's like trying to figure out which puppies in an entire room full of puppies are the cutest. Impossible. As much as I love Wolflet and Kaider, there is just that extra something that Cress and Thorne have.
For those familiar with the Disney movie, Tangled, their relationship is very similar (in my opinion). I absolutely adore the two of them together. While Thorne is a bit of a player, confident, a wanted criminal... he goes on this major character arc over the course of the series. Cress has this romanticized, hero view of him and he realizes that he wants to live up to that image.
I laughed so hard when Thorne barreled into the hallway yelling Cress and then ran right past the room. It both tugged at my heartstrings so much and made me roll my eyes. One of my favourite lines was "You came for me" because it just shows the new, unsure feelings between them while simultaneously showing that they're much deeper than either truly realizes yet. My heart melted.
It is fantastic to see how the characters grow and evolve over the course of the series. Kai starts out as a prince and completely unprepared for his responsibilities. He is thrust into his role much sooner than anticipated and he has to grow up really quickly. He has the weight of an entire people on his shoulders.
All Cinder ever wanted was to be a normal person and she finds out that her life is even more abnormal than she realized. Not only is she a cyborg, but she's Lunar. Not only is she a Lunar, but she's royalty. She has just as much if not more on her shoulders than Kai does. She is the one that people have been putting all of their hopes and dreams on for over a decade.
Cress has been stuck in a satellite by herself with no human interaction for a large portion of her life. Her whole life she had to escape into fictional stories in her own head because of her real life. She never learned to stand up for herself and she's not used to the real world. It was nice to see little elements of her bravery throughout the story despite the fact that that is not her nature.
Sadly, we don't really get to see any development from Scarlet or Wolf. Their stories in Cress are relatively non-existent. Despite the fact that they were the focus of the second book, I do think that it was a negative for me that one of the main pairs was essentially completely overlooked in this book. At the same time, I also have that feeling for Winter and Jacin in regards to the first two books and most of the third. We get little glimpses of them and spend a small amount of time with Jacin, but overall I don't feel like I know their characters whatsoever.
The author does continue the world building but the writing is predominantly focused on the characters and the plot. There are some really nice glimpses into small villages or communities in other places than we're used to. I think it is a nice blend between story and world so that these books are very accessible. It's not heavy world building that might make readers hesitant to dive into such rich, dense worlds (like high fantasy might be).
Overall, I think this is a fabulous novel and I would highly recommend the entire series to people even if science-fiction is not normally what you gravitate towards.
Whether I agree or not, many people find that Scarlet is their least favorite book in the series. As a result, I worry that they may not continue with the series at that point which would be a major mistake. Cress is an absolutely fantastic book and will hit you in the feels more times than I can count.
While they may not be my OTP, Cresswell is probably in my top five or 10 favorite ships. I've never really sat down and tried to figure it out. It's like trying to figure out which puppies in an entire room full of puppies are the cutest. Impossible. As much as I love Wolflet and Kaider, there is just that extra something that Cress and Thorne have.
For those familiar with the Disney movie, Tangled, their relationship is very similar (in my opinion). I absolutely adore the two of them together. While Thorne is a bit of a player, confident, a wanted criminal... he goes on this major character arc over the course of the series. Cress has this romanticized, hero view of him and he realizes that he wants to live up to that image.
I laughed so hard when Thorne barreled into the hallway yelling Cress and then ran right past the room. It both tugged at my heartstrings so much and made me roll my eyes. One of my favourite lines was "You came for me" because it just shows the new, unsure feelings between them while simultaneously showing that they're much deeper than either truly realizes yet. My heart melted.
It is fantastic to see how the characters grow and evolve over the course of the series. Kai starts out as a prince and completely unprepared for his responsibilities. He is thrust into his role much sooner than anticipated and he has to grow up really quickly. He has the weight of an entire people on his shoulders.
All Cinder ever wanted was to be a normal person and she finds out that her life is even more abnormal than she realized. Not only is she a cyborg, but she's Lunar. Not only is she a Lunar, but she's royalty. She has just as much if not more on her shoulders than Kai does. She is the one that people have been putting all of their hopes and dreams on for over a decade.
Cress has been stuck in a satellite by herself with no human interaction for a large portion of her life. Her whole life she had to escape into fictional stories in her own head because of her real life. She never learned to stand up for herself and she's not used to the real world. It was nice to see little elements of her bravery throughout the story despite the fact that that is not her nature.
Sadly, we don't really get to see any development from Scarlet or Wolf. Their stories in Cress are relatively non-existent. Despite the fact that they were the focus of the second book, I do think that it was a negative for me that one of the main pairs was essentially completely overlooked in this book. At the same time, I also have that feeling for Winter and Jacin in regards to the first two books and most of the third. We get little glimpses of them and spend a small amount of time with Jacin, but overall I don't feel like I know their characters whatsoever.
The author does continue the world building but the writing is predominantly focused on the characters and the plot. There are some really nice glimpses into small villages or communities in other places than we're used to. I think it is a nice blend between story and world so that these books are very accessible. It's not heavy world building that might make readers hesitant to dive into such rich, dense worlds (like high fantasy might be).
Overall, I think this is a fabulous novel and I would highly recommend the entire series to people even if science-fiction is not normally what you gravitate towards.