Hacker News Reader

Comment by Toutouxc | Hacker News Reader

How exactly are Raiders of the Lost Ark or Breaking Bad storylines better than those of the first Mafia, The Witcher 3, Uncharted 4, Metro Exodus, Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Half-Life 2 + episodes? And I'm not even mentioning artistic pieces like What Remains of Edith Finch or Life is Strange. There are quests in The Witcher 3 you could make a movie from (Bloody Baron).

View on HN

Human actors - Breaking Bad is about the process of a man changing into a monster. It takes great acting to make that story work

Video games will never do drama as well as theatre or film, because we can't see into the actors souls - video game stories are puppet theatre

Edit: thinking about this some more, I think I might be wrong - there are many animated films that I've found emotionally moving and involving that don't have human actors (Ratatouille for example!)

Games may do even better by forcing you to change your character into monster. Can't argue if you're the killer.

Are you really suggesting Uncharted 4 has as good a story as Breaking Bad?

I'd say better personally, but that's just me.

Edit: to explain a touch more - I liked the story and its characters more, and even though I played it over 2 years ago I still remember the story pretty well. Breaking bad had a couple interesting points but I couldn't tell you what happened between seasons or really much outside of the main points.

Well Breaking Bad is a series and Uncharted 4 is a pretty short, intense ride, so it's a little apples to oranges comparison, but if I compare the first season of Breaking Bad (the only one I've seen) to Uncharted 4, which are both a few hours worth of entertainment, I don't remember the storyline of Breaking Bad being any more intricate or innovative, I mean, terminal patient does questionable things with an unlikely sidekick with expected results.

Of course I may be entirely wrong, it's been some time, but I remember both leaving a similar impression on me.

>the first season of Breaking Bad (the only one I've seen)

Breaking Bad is one of those shows that gets better with every season (the Metacritic score goes 73 → 84 → 89 → 96 → 99 from season 1 to season 5). The first season wasn't really anything special but it's gangbusters by the end.

There was a story to Kingdom Come: Deliverance that went beyond "my parents were killed by baddies, and luckily I was recognised as a badass because of the plot, now I'm going to become more of a badass, and kill all the Cumans?"

With the caveat that I very much enjoyed Kingdom Come, it’s bog-standard story didn’t even _end_ in the game.

Yes. My parents (and almost everyone in our village) were killed by baddies hired by someone for some political reason, I was recognized as a lame illiterate nobody and was only reluctantly accepted to serve under a master of regional importance, who is pursuing his own political goals (and has a special connection to me through something) and making the most of the difficult situation of the kingdom. I was sent on several wildly different missions to investigate, bribe or fight my way through several interesting events and situations, all totally believable and anchored in the context of the story and actual history, meeting dozens of different characters, some of them real historical figures, each with their own carefully written backstory.

Is it just me or it really sound completely standard plus backstories for side characters? I mean, the story can be well executed without it being super original. But what you described here is one of super standard fantasy plots.

Pacing and editing. In video games the director can't control the pace and (to a degree) sequence of events to achieve maximum emotional impact, as it is possible in movies.

To me the witcher 3 had the feature of collectible women cards from sex as a game mechanic, which really takes away from the notion of a deep or compelling story.

That was only in The Witcher 1. They didn't have them in 2 or 3.

And it wasn't really well received at the time either, but it was a way of handling romance without the awkward cut-scenes that existed at the time. They only briefly showed on screen and IIRC weren't accessible later. It wasn't really collectable in the sense of collect-a-thon games like Mario Odyssey, either. Out of context it sounds horrible, in context it's a bit of a nonsensical addition.

They were going after a "french postcard" feel and it just didn't work that way. Possibly because people aren't as familiar with what they were referencing.

If it's the Gwent mini game you are talking about afaik you have to defeat certain NPCs in a card game to get the cards that you are talking about. Also there are a lot of charecter cards not just women. Not to mention the fact that playing Gwent is completely optional in the game

Out of curiosity, would you be willing to expand a bit on what specifically what you liked (and maybe didn't) about The Witcher 3?

In almost every way?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com