Shadow of the Colossus did it for me. That damned horse. There have been plenty of other times too.

I identify with every word written in this article.
Sure, there are a lot of games with bad characters and plot, but there are even more movies (And books) that the same can be told about.
And just as there are low-quality creations, so there are inspiring, captivating, memorable and intelligent ones.

And being ignorantly biased towards one medium, while basing an opinion of the other on stereotypes and prejudices, is, as the author has plainly put it - idiocy.

Oh, great movie write up by the way. I won’t bother watching this movie now. Saved me $18 and my wife constantly sighing because I took her to another time waster. However, it does make me finally want to check out the game.

Specifically on the topic of Max Payne, the end of Max Payne 2 tore me up. It was ambiguous, sad and gut-wrenching, and yet had a bittersweet sense of closure. It was more complex and rich than most of the Hollywood tripe I’ve seen in recent years.

Hooo man, that reviewer’s getting shredded to itty bitty bits.
Sweeping generalizations = fail

I think if anyone has even half a heart in them, and has played MGS3, they fucking cried at the end. I don’t give a shit if you’re the most cold-blooded murderer on the face of the earth.

I want to find this movie reviewer, lock him in a room with a PS2 and MGS3 and make him PLAY THAT MOTHERFUCKING GAME. He should be proven wrong, for the sake of humanity. Because OH, the humanity.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

Obviously you haven’t played every emotional videogame, Hannemeier.

I don’t think anyone have cried to any Half-Life game. Okay, maybe some geek getting fragged at de_dusk2 just before his bomb go off, but otherwise no.

I have high hopes that Heavy Rain will deliver a knockout when it comes to an engaging and moving story.

Wolfe’s death at the end of Outcast really did for me. I can’t remember if I cried - I don’t think so, but that’s hardly the point. It had a huge emotional impact on me, and this is what the journalist in question seems to be disputing.

The anti-games lobby seems to want it all ways - on one hand, games are too ‘disturbing’ and will turn us all into knife-wielding maniacs, but the other hand they have no emotional engagement value whatsoever. Both are highly ignorant viewpoints and, as with most things, are usually statements made by people who have had insufficient exposure to the industry.

Final Fantasy VII - when this girl dies - gamers know…
MGS4 - was an emotional rollercoaster…
Filmcritics? Pfff… What do they know? Nothing, they just tell THEIR opion - nothing more… like the old Siskel&Ebert: “Two thumps up!” - yeah, real great - not!

Another problem is, except from changing the story in idiotic ways, that the adaption from the game media to movie media is poorly done. A game relies on the interaction from the player - a videogame movie has to be transformed in many ways to fit its target audience.

To rework the script/story is necessary, but it should be done in a much better, appropriate way.

I am not sure I agree with that Adam, and I feel that what your saying there is some part of the problem itself. Sure video game stories are everything from non existant to very poorly to something magnificent. However the story itself in it’s pure form have very little to do with the interaction you have with the player, unless we are talking Creata A Character based games, which would never make it to the movies in the first place. However what you touch upon there is rather why movie licensed video game titles suffer.

Yes I do understand that you cannot just do it exactly the same way, thats a given. The movie industry claims video game stories are of too low a standard to be made into good movies. However in almost all instances of video game movies, they have very simply dumbed down the plot. To give an example. The Hitman Movie, where first off the only resemblance to the games is the look of the character 47. Where the plot is about a trained from childhood assassin who almost falls in love with a hooker. Given I can show understanding for the changes they made to the origin storyline as having Timothy Olyphant play all the assassins could be harder on the actor and the budget as well as look cheesy. However they completely miss the point of the games.

Ok sure the hitman games on a superficial level is all about playing a modern day assassin, which lends itself to some nice gameplay mechanics that were not really done in any game prior. However the plot of the series has always been about the enstranged man that has no connection to his past and is torn inside trying to understand himself while looking for redemption for his sins. Mixed together with a semi sci-fi conspiracy story involving cloning.

I remember when the trailer hit the interwebs everyone was going crazy, and you know why? cause the cinematography in that movie is actually quite good. So many scenes were filmed in an iconic way reminiscant of the game series. However the plot was cold and the characters less believable, the setting was a bit parodical and the hand to hand combat felt a lot more cheesy than 2 Timothy Olyphant on screen would have ever been.

Again back to what you were saying about interaction. Yes it is true that parts of the story is very often told while you interact with the character and make that character interact with the game in certain ways. But those are the minor things. F. ex how the character in question blows up a building, or take down a bad guy. However to simplify a game is sections of drawn out action sequences taped together with cutscenes that tell a story. Together they make a plot. However that is no good reason to change anything in the overlying storyline. At the very least not in such extremes.

Thats simple, it wouldn’t cause thats not a good enough story. Games that use the main character doesn’t talk formula is building out of a create a character standpoint. Even if you cannot actually create that character it is still made that way so you can imprint your own personality onto that character. In a movie that would not work, and I would not consider those game stories to be movie material at all.

Destroyed? Fucking doubtful. Some games can be emotional, sure. But the writer of this article is a pathetic little faggot that needs to crawl out of his mommy’s basement and grow some balls.

I am pretty sure we mostly agree. BTW a plot does not concern itself with dialouge, thats the script. The Plot is just the general story of the media in question. F. ex the plot tells a story of ABCD however what happens in transition or between A and B or C and D is part of the script where you will f. ex find dialouge.

Wolfe’s death in MGS1

@Hannemeier

Your holier-than-thou stance on there being a whole two emotional video games is an ignornat argument. There are a great lot of imaginitive and wholly involvng games that you must be overlooking because you didn’t enjoy them, you found them initially stupid or boring, or you must just want to ignore entirely. Especially in RPGs, with characters you spend so much time with that you feel as if you are best friends with them at the end. To me, Shadow of the Colossus and Ico were greatly emotional, but my feelings weren’t nearly as roused by those games as they were in say, some of the Final Fantasies, BioShock, Chrono Cross, and the list goes on. Narrow-minded individuals like who who can see no artistic merit in video games other than critically-acclaimed darlings are part of the problem, not the solution.

No movie or anything has ever made me cry more than when playing metal gear solid 4, I cried like a newborn baby during the final 90 min cutscene. now I see most people spoiled the game on this forum.. way to go guys/gals. But it’s being invested in the characters that make u cry. Movie do it more for some people because they mimick real lives, of course no one will cry over max payne, there was no emotional investment. Alot less people would have cried during the notebook had it have 90 mins of action packed shootings and stuff. This guy can say all he wants about games lacking the emotional impact, because that is bull. I grew up with solid snake since the NES days and after seeing and playing through mgs4, I can say, that is the saddest thing I have seen in my life, I still get teary thinking about it.

Hannemeier: A fan of personal attacks are we? It’s interesting that you say someone’s stupid because of how they feel about a videogame, when there’s clearly an abundance of people who also have been affected by them. Time to learn that people finds emotions in different things. Some can feel very strongly for a painting, a song, a movie, a book etc. etc. and just because you doesn’t feel anything doesn’t mean others can’t.

Addendum: If you wish to discuss this further, Hannemeier, then you can contact me via e-mail at stonkinggreat@aim.com. I’m through talking about it publicly.

I cried like a baby at the end of Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core, when Zack died. Seriously, that was friggin’ heartbreaking! Even though I already knew what was gonna happen cos he was already dead in FFVII, I got real attached to him and sometimes knowing what’s gonna happen makes it even sadder cos there’s no hope that he’ll be saved… Oh, the morbidity. ^^’