Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
The older I get the less I care about endless gameplay loops and carrot on a stick mechanics. A good story keeps me invested and caring about what happens on the screen. Games like God of War, Last of us, Witcher are gold standards when it comes to this. They are not movies on rails, they are engaging and interactive experiences like you can’t find anywhere else and for this I will always love these types of games more than any other medium.
scarabic@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I really like the characters and voice/motion acting in Baldur’s Gate 3. Magnificently rendered. Very well written. But the story is totally on rails. You can nod your head at an NPC and they will say “Anyway, let’s get on with things…” or you can tell the NOC to eat shit and die and they will say “Hey no need to be vulgar. Anyway let’s get on with things…”
There are some branches and choices in the game but overall it feels pretty prepared. I enjoy hunting for fun Astarion reactions to random things, but the game frequently offers fake choices, and the consequences of choices are usually 1. the story continues as written or 2. the story thread just ends 3. oh no combat or 4. some really weak alternative thread that you know isn’t the main one and they threw in just to pad.
Games are not superior medium for telling stories. All the good parts are the ones taken from movies, and the interactivity is still weak. When a game has GPT-level improvisation then I’ll be impressed but that will just be a sandbox anyway.