Acclaimed/AAA video games with bad plots or storytelling (SPOILERS)

[Gyrate]

Can I throw in a Professor Layton rant here? I mean, I like the concepts, I like the puzzle-in-plot format, I even like the cut scenes, but boy howdy they can’t write a decent ending to save their lives.

Ages ago I posted a short-lived thread about the horrible ending of the Curious Village game. The salient details are here:

[spoiler]The Professor and Luke “rescue” Flora from the Tower (which she could leave at any time, mind you). The Professor becomes her guardian, and she elects to leave her fortune behind so that the “people” of the village can continue to go on as before with their (artificial) lives.

Or, to put it another way:

A young girl has been given away to a strange man as a prize for solving a bunch of puzzles. I’m fairly sure that’s illegal in most Western countries.

Bruno, the only other actual human in the village, who has been keeping up all the robots out of devotion to Flora and her late father, is now condemned to stay in the village on his own and continue to repair the robots (which appear to break down frequently, judging by the number of “disappearances” mentioned earlier in the game). If he doesn’t do this, everything will rapidly go to pieces, making the decision to leave the treasure behind utterly pointless.

And Bruno will have to do this without his workshops, which were in the Tower, which is now a pile of rubble, assuming he got out of the collapsing Tower at all (which he probably did - Luke escaped from a point much further from the exit, and the drawbridge crank turned up at the end which Bruno had). [/spoiler]

The next one, Pandora’s/Diabolical Box, was marginally better, although we get a completely anticlimactic Bobby Ewing ending whenwe discover that the entire time they’ve spent in the town has been one long (and - bizarrely - mutually shared) hallucination.Well that was time well spent!

But Lost/Stolen Future returns to horrific form when mass murder gets lightly excused:[spoiler]The Professor feels bad for Clive, who was only mean because his parents had been killed. But Clive tore a hole in the center of a densely-populated major metropolitan area; his little stunt with the robot would have killed tens of thousands and put tens of thousands more at immediate risk of death. Still feel bad for the orphan boy, Professor? What about the thousands of dead and orphaned kids that Clive just made?

And note that the Prime Minister, whose previous conduct was responsible for the death of Clive’s parents - and Flora - gets away with nothing more than the Inspector giving him a mild talking to. He killed people, you idiot! Arrest him![/spoiler]
I haven’t attempted Miracle Mask yet, but based on those three I don’t have high hopes.

[Carl_Corey]

Thanks, Ferret Herder. I always thought your armor got scrapped by the close call with Harbinger just before the beam. Hmmmm.

[dotchan]

I still can’t decide if the storytelling in Spec Ops: The Line is pretentious guiltmongering bullshit or a brilliant deconstruction of modern shooters.

“You did this horrible thing. Look at the consequences of your actions. You did this.”

Fine, okay, but then give me a more meaningful choice than “stop playing and turn the console off” if that was the only way to stop the Horrible Terrible No Good Things from happening.

[Ferret_Herder]

@Carl_Corey

Thanks, Ferret Herder. I always thought your armor got scrapped by the close call with Harbinger just before the beam. Hmmmm.

Could be, I haven’t double-checked in a while but that’s pretty… weird regardless. I mean, you lose everything except for your uniform and a pistol? And even after the official ending extension, the strange event is still present after that one type of ending.

Danja: I reloaded from an old save and it looks like you can head out elsewhere during the Citadel DLC - after the main adventure but before you complete all the possible festivities - and go do other stuff, then return and have the option to return to the DLC area to complete it. Obviously you can’t return to finish after a particular no-return plot point.

[Ferret_Herder]

@Gyrate

Can I throw in a Professor Layton rant here? I mean, I like the concepts, I like the puzzle-in-plot format, I even like the cut scenes, but boy howdy they can’t write a decent ending to save their lives.

You know, I’ve actually played Curious Village and Diabolical Box, and I barely remembered anything of those plots, even after reading your explanations, and yeah, they’re really messed-up. I mean, I know the plots are thinly-disguised excuses to string together puzzles, but still - Telltale Games’ Puzzle Agent games managed to do this and have a wacky-yet-disturbing plot underlying each.

[Airk]

@dotchan

I still can’t decide if the storytelling in Spec Ops: The Line is pretentious guiltmongering bullshit or a brilliant deconstruction of modern shooters.

“You did this horrible thing. Look at the consequences of your actions. You did this.”

Fine, okay, but then give me a more meaningful choice than “stop playing and turn the console off” if that was the only way to stop the Horrible Terrible No Good Things from happening.

That IS the point. “If you want to stop doing horrible things, maybe you should stop playing war-glamorizing FPS games.” That IS the choice. Deliberately. It’s not a game about agency, it’s a game about making you think about how fundamentally terrible modern FPS games are.

Like. Completely the point.

I’d argue that’s not really “storytelling” or “plot” though.

[smiling_bandit]

@Recusant

NONE of these complaints have been about storytelling; they’ve been about plots.

No, I object to both in Fable 1/2. It’s a terrible story, told horribly.

[dotchan]

@Airk

That IS the point. “If you want to stop doing horrible things, maybe you should stop playing war-glamorizing FPS games.” That IS the choice. Deliberately.

…that’s almost as bad as the Pokemon movie where the message was “using Pokemon to fight each other hurts the Pokemon”.

It’s not a game about agency, it’s a game about making you think about how fundamentally terrible modern FPS games are.

And I think Spec Ops the Line bungled that in a lot of parts. (To be fair, though, having all of the enemy chatter in English and hearing the people being gunned down freaked out in a language I can understand made me feel way way guiltier than all of the dialogue or loading screens telling me “you did this”.)

I’d argue that’s not really “storytelling” or “plot” though.

…uh, yes it is. The plot of Spec Ops is that Walker believes himself to be a modern FPS type hero, but the being a modern FPS type hero only leads to tragedy.

Fine. I can take that. But I felt that the message would have been more effective if all of my choices ended up being meaningless (without the game commenting on it) or I got the option to be a shithead (and then the game called me out on said shithead behavior).

[Odesio]

@Toffe

Why do you have to work for Cerberus? Well, beats me, since you could just nick their ship and leave, but plot-wise it’s because whoever is left on a galactic council doesn’t believe in Reapers, despite having been almost/actually killed by one in the climax of the previous game. When you find a derelict Reaper later on in the game, the galaxy still isn’t convinced, because nobody bothered to bring a camera.

In the first game they were dealing with an invasion by the Geth who were themselves a sentient robot species. I could see how people would just assume that the Reaper from the first game was just a big Geth ship.

[smiling_bandit]

@Odesio

In the first game they were dealing with an invasion by the Geth who were themselves a sentient robot species. I could see how people would just assume that the Reaper from the first game was just a big Geth ship.

Hypothetically, but there should also be video, commentaries, and a crap-ton of evidence left to suggest there was something much more dangerous. Aside from which, we have various Prothean items to strong suggest that the Geth ain’t the Big Bad unless they developed time travel.

My big irritant is that even with everyone being stupid, you still have no reason to work for Cerberus. Frankly, Cerby is insane. It’s either a hothouse of mad evil, or is handing out deep-science superpowers and ultratech to legions of obsessed terrorist factions. It accomplishes none of its stated goals (ever) and frequently harms all of humanity with its general uselessness.

A specific incident from ME2: Cerberus gets a suspicious signal which may suggest Harbinger’s minions’ ship has been crippled. Alright, it’s a blatant trap. Everybody knew it was a trap before they finished the mission briefing. Hell, it was a blatant trap before they finished the first three lines of dialogue. Of course it’s an obvious trap. And we know we’re going to trip it anyway, because it’s an extremely good opportunity. We might be able to steal data, sabotage their ship, or recover technology we can turn against them.

The problem is that (A) nobody realizes it’s a blatant trap, and (B) the Illusive Man* doesn’t just come out and say it’s an obvious trap. Literally, all they had to do here was to say, “Trap!” and then let you make some minor decisions about to how to prepare for said obvious trap. Instantly, tIM gaisn credibility and you and your squad look much brighter: instead of blindly rushing into obvious danger for unknown gain, they’re creating specific plans and preparing contingincies for likely threats. Hell, even the most steretypical bro-shooter would probably enjoy it because it puts them into the driver seat of creating military plans, and then kiling things to execute said plans. But this doesn’t happen.

Instead, tIM lies to you, the player wonders why their team full of commandos is stupid enough to fall for it, and everyone looks really stupid and possibly untrustworthy. Miranda acts like she’s super-special-awesome and I’m not allowed to smack her.

:rolleyes: Not enough in the world for it.

[drewtwo99]

As far as storytelling goes, it’s hard to beat a AAA series that does it worse than Metal Gear Solid (and I’m a huge fan of the franchise, but I have the patience for it). MGS is the poster boy for “bad storytelling” as far as the pacing and endless CODEC conversations that go on and on and on and constantly interrupt the action and pace of the game. And that’s pretty bad considering that while the gameplay in MGS is generally pretty fun, the main popularity of the series is because of the story and characters. I love the plots generally too, and I think emotionally they are about as close to art as video games ever come. But storytelling-wise, they are pretty terrible. Plot-wise and character-wise, they are unforgettable and I love 'em. MGS2 is one of my favorite video games of all time.

For a AAA series that does storytelling perfectly, I nominate Halo. The plots themselves are probably just passable (although I think the plot of the first Halo game alone was pretty outstanding and the Flood was an interesting concept). But as far as the pace of the storytelling, the emotion of the cutscenes, etc, Halo tells its story very well, believably, and works in a lot of it while you’re actually playing.

[Mr_Shine]

[QUOTE= Gyrate]
But Lost/Stolen Future returns to horrific form when mass murder gets lightly excused:

[spoiler]The Professor feels bad for Clive, who was only mean because his parents had been killed. But Clive tore a hole in the center of a densely-populated major metropolitan area; his little stunt with the robot would have killed tens of thousands and put tens of thousands more at immediate risk of death. Still feel bad for the orphan boy, Professor? What about the thousands of dead and orphaned kids that Clive just made?

And note that the Prime Minister, whose previous conduct was responsible for the death of Clive’s parents - and Flora - gets away with nothing more than the Inspector giving him a mild talking to. He killed people, you idiot! Arrest him![spoiler]

[/QUOTE]

Could you expand on this? As I recall it all took place in a fake London. Ridiculous, but as far as I remember it was not supposed to be unstable and didn’t affect the real London. And what was that about Flora, she didn’t die… did she?Probably forgetting something though, only played it once, when it first came out.

[Toffe]

[QUOTE=hogarth]
Also a duke gets poisoned (in a world where magical healing and resurrection is readily available) and the PC gets framed for murder (rather than just being flat-out killed).

At any rate, considering that he has an army of doppelgangers at his disposal, it seemed to me like a very convoluted way to kill a bunch of people. Not to mention that Elminster and the Harpers seem to know what’s going on and yet they don’t particularly seem to do very much about it!
[/QUOTE]

Goodness, I’d completely forgotten about those bits. Yeah, it undermines the plot a fair bit. Oops!

@Airk

I’m going to head this thread off at the pass and just say:

Damn near all of them.

Seriously. Game storytelling is really bad as a whole, and big AAA games are frequently the WORST offenders - probably because the story is ALWAYS a slave to pretty much every other aspect of game design in that space, and because all too often in that space, every other aspect of game design is a slave to marketing, focus groups, feature checklists, or just subject general executive meddling.

Better to make a thread that asks for AAA games that DON’T have bad storytelling.

Challenge accepted!

[hiebram]

@Leaper

Well, “suimasen” does mean both those things…

Yeah, even not speaking Japanese, I could see how the two terms are close enough that they could be confused by someone who’s English isn’t that strong. That was just one example that stuck with me (of weak translation, even, and not plot or storytelling as per the OP).

And I’m with you on the timeline, YogSosoth. I just didn’t want to complain about the game too much, because I spent quite a bit of time enjoying it, despite its shortcomings.

[BrianJ]

@Ferret_Herder

I’ll add a little defense for Dragon Age Origins’ storytelling/plot. Yes, much of it is very, very standard stuff. Great evil upon the land, you and your ragtag band of misfits are the only ones who can stop it, some people are trying to stop you at the worst possible time, blah blah whatever. But exactly how it’s carried out isn’t the usual way.

[spoiler]OK, so you find out that only one of the Special Chosen Secretive Good Guys called Gray Wardens can kill the Huge Evil Baddie - and it has to be via sacrificing your life. Well fine, you have 3 Wardens - you, another guy in your group, and an older man that you rescue. The latter volunteers. Awesome.

Except he’s rather ignominiously killed off in the third act, before you get to the Final Confrontation. Oops.

So it’s down to you or your buddy. Who might just be, depending on the plot and how it played out, the newly-crowned king of the land. Oops. Are you going to let the king sacrifice himself, or are you taking one for the team? Remember that the nation is on pretty shaky footing right now, what with a war and you maybe having usurped the previous ruler just recently.

It gets better. The witch (with all the burning-at-the-stake connotations of that word, and even worse) who’s been traveling with your group wants to screw one of you Wardens. This will make it so that the Big Bad’s spirit power instead of killing you gets sucked out into her newly-created uber-fetus, and she will have one amazing baby with the purified soul of an Old God - but you won’t know for sure because she says she’ll run off afterwards and never see you again. Even if you were romancing her.

Wait, were you playing a woman? Because you can’t screw the witch, then. Only your buddy can. He’s your default romance option, too. So you can take a chance on letting a witch have a baby with a demon/Old God’s soul in it but she has to screw your maybe-boyfriend, then you and your BF get to live but who knows what that means for your world - and won’t the hierarchy of the Wardens be a little suspicious when they learn the Baddie is dead but none of you Wardens died in that battle?

Oh, and if you tell the witch no and take your boyfriend along to the final battle - he runs in and takes the final hit. You can’t stop him.

Actually, you can get another person “converted” to being a Warden too, but he was the main traitor to the king, so your buddy will really, really take offense to this guy being let into this group, to the point where he tells you to pound sand and abandons your group and the quest, not to mention breaking off any kind of friendship or relationship, permanently.

The game has an expansion pack sequel, too, and if you sacrificed yourself in the main game, you play on with a newly-created character. So dying at the end isn’t a game over error; it’s a legitimate and expected outcome.[/spoiler]

I can’t believe someone mentioned Dragon Age Origins but not Dragon Age 2 with its weak story tewlling and railroaded plot

[Jophiel]

That’s because this is for “acclaimed” games

[Kobal2]

@Toffe

Good call on Borderlands, wolfman. The game was entertaining, but a total mess plot-wise.

Jophiel, isn’t that being a little hard on Dragon Age? The overarching story is bland and totally unoriginal, but it’s both coherent and gets the job done. It even really works as a justification for the individual missions (gathering allies) - I have to give them credit for actually doing a great final battle that feels suitably epic and where your allies actually appear to make a difference. (as opposed to, for one example, the elven city in the end of Baldur’s Gate 2, where the player is essentially taking care of everything alone).

I still wonder why that one human nobleman was the only possible human ally against the Big Bad Usurpator.
I mean, there’s obviously grumbling against his rule in the court cutscenes, the threat of the darkspawn is evidently not enough to curb backroom scheming… come on, do I really need to find the Holy Grail, stop an undead invasion and [del]bargain with[/del]kill a goddamn demon [del]to gain UNTOLD MAGICAL POWEEEER HAHAHAHAHA ![/del] before someone, anyone, will give me a bloody hand against Loghain ? You’re high medieval noblemen fer chrissakes ! Squabbling and throwing ill-conceived power grabs at each other is what you *do *!

[QUOTE=dotchan]
I still can’t decide if the storytelling in Spec Ops: The Line is pretentious guiltmongering bullshit or a brilliant deconstruction of modern shooters.

[/QUOTE]

Both, sir !
When I first played the game, I played through the whole thing in one sitting, I hadn’t been spoiled at all and I most certainly *was *affected by all the strings they pull. When I put down the game, I had quite a long Serious Thinking Time, which isn’t exactly common when playing video games. For a while, I simply couldn’t play any other rah-rah-blamblamblam game without feeling stupid.
Then I stumbled onto a Let’s play of it, watched it play out in that more detached fashion, and yeh gods, what pretentious manipulative tripe. But it works I suppose, so, kudos to the devs. It certainly is different.

[Chronos]

Second page, and I’m the first one to mention Tetris?

[Airk]

@Chronos

Second page, and I’m the first one to mention Tetris?

A game has to HAVE a plot or storytelling before it can be bad, sorry. Chess doesn’t count either.

While there are probably a bunch of 80’s arcade games that you could have picked on, Tetris doesn’t even have a PREMISE. It’s just something that you do. Complaining about “plot/storytelling” in Tetris is like complaining about it in Solitaire.

So yeah, you were probably joking, but it wasn’t a very good joke.

[hogarth]

@Toffe

My first nomination: Mass Effect 2. Excellent characters. Excellent gameplay. Story makes no damn sense.

My main complaint about Mass Effect 2 is the pacing. The main story of fighting the Collectors has no sense of urgency because it keeps getting abruptly halted by the unrelated side stories of your crew members.