SolidSnake wrote:Even though most people hate it, LA Noire is my all time fav game, story wise as well.
Really? Most people hate it? I thought it was somewhat flawed in its mechanics (and insanely easy at times), but overall I loved the game and thought the story was exceptional.
Rylan wrote:Is it just me or has story in video games really gotten stale/down right terrible the last few years? Maybe I am getting tired of video games or something, but very few games have a plot worth going through anymore.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, I would tend to agree with you. I'm currently playing Medal of Honor Warfighter, which has gotten lambasted in some outlets as glorifying violence - and those who mete it out while wearing a uniform - and being pretentious in its story. I'm not that far in, but I couldn't disagree more.
The game heaps no more glory on warfighters than, oh, every single other military-based shooter. But MOHW actually tries to show the personal sacrifices these men make. One character from the first game appears only in silhouette behind the action at a desk, eventually revealing that since the events of MOH he has lost a leg. One of the two main characters you play is trying to balance a tumultuous marriage/separation, which is a toll I've not seen other games really dwell on in this level of detail.
Contrast that with the feigned morality play in "Modern Warfare 2" 'No Russian' level. For all the hullabaloo, that level fell completely flat. It was nothing more than gratuitous carnage. Why? As Bruce Lee might have said, it needed 'emotional content'. It is not sufficient to simply drop a playing character into a commercial airport and have him and his three buddies begin mowing down civilians. There is absolutely no connection between you (the player) and the character you are controlling at that stage of the game. You play, literally, two levels, get whisked off to some super secret task force, and by the time the load screen finishes, you've emerged months later and deep under cover right next to the main bad guy in the series. But you don't assassinate him (which would have made for a frightfully short game), you just walk along behind him, shooting at air travelers. There's no investment in your character's story, there's no inner conflict. It's just.... shooting. A completely useless - and ultimately frustrating - scene. And
that is why it was offensive - because it didn't present the carnage in a morally ambiguous way. It just said "Here you go".