Games Don’t Convey Emotion

John_Keck

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 3, 2010
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Check this out: The Director behind the Prince of Persia movie hates video games, and claims they cannot convey emotion like film. No wonder the movie wasn’t that great, what happened to getting passionate with your work?

You can't do it without the human drama. And the video game cannot do that. The video game can do all sorts of face-pulling, all sorts of: 'I am a bad man, I have a mean jagged sword,', but it can't do any more than that.
 
The movie looked like crap.

He's just bitter that it sucked too.
 
Game Politics said:
That quote alone is enough to illustrate that Newell doesn't find the medium very enjoyable, but that simply could be that he doesn't understand games in general or because he has never encountered a game with a compelling narrative that pulls the player in. Certainly the game that his son is playing, which he says "he feels nothing" from observing, is part of his perception problems.

But let’s skip the hatefest and instead suggest a few examples of games that make the emotional connection, in case Newell is reading: Half-Life or Half-Life 2, Heavy Rain, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock, Mass Effect, etc.,

I was just about to say something to that effect after reading the quote on the main page. I was also going to recommend the Uncharted games, MGS games (2 and up for facial emotions, hah), God of War games (esp GoW3) and Dead Space are a few recent games I've played that conveyed emotion really well on the characters.

Obviously, he isn't into games enough to care to try them though or he wouldn't be saying that. Way to pick a movie to direct though, eh?
 
He's obviously never played Prey. Jesus, that game was sad, I think I just about shed a tear...

(then I realized no one ever really dies...)
 
Planescape: Torment? If you don't think that game conveys emotion, you don't have any.
 
He obviously never saw the end of Half-Life 2 Episode 2,all kinds of emotion in that one - including anger at Valve making us wait so long for Episode 3! :D
 
He obviously never saw the end of Half-Life 2 Episode 2,all kinds of emotion in that one - including anger at Valve making us wait so long for Episode 3! :D

Just realized that Portal did an awesome job at this without you really ever interacting with anyone...

If Portal doesn't make you laugh, you're humorless...
 
Mass Effect made me quite emotional towards the end.

This guy needs to shut his stupid face!
 
Sadly, most games don't even try to convey emotion or provide a deep, branching story line. It's all about great graphics, huge explosions and cool effects. That's fine, but many games feel like interactive tech demos with a story line added as an afterthought.
 
Try, just try playing FFIV, que from Tellah death scene, Twin's stone scene, Yang tower scene, Cid airship scene.
 
not like I have to say it, but I guess film directors phail as hard as anyone else~
 
Planescape: Torment? If you don't think that game conveys emotion, you don't have any.

He obviously never saw the end of Half-Life 2 Episode 2,all kinds of emotion in that one - including anger at Valve making us wait so long for Episode 3! :D
You guys are right on the money. The only movie that gave me a sense of loss akin to Torment or HL2:Ep2 was Serenity.

Over and above tear-jerking emotion, though, I'm replaying Half Life 2 now and am dreading going over that bridge again. I don't need 3D for the acrophobia to kick in and make my palms sweaty. Of course, I always have trouble sleeping after Ravenholm. I don't care if those black headcrabs can't kill you. They make me jump every time.
 
No emotion?

How about Metal Gear Solid? You blur the lines between movie and game there. I still remember dropping a load in my pants when you accidentally activate Metal Gear, in the MGS for the PSX.

Then theres the whole bomb thing in the 2nd one, that makes you paranoid all to hell.

Let's not mention Snake Eater's ending cutscene.
 
Off the top of my head a couple of games that invoked EXTREMELY powerful emotions in me:

Penumbra Overture
Grandia

Games are like any other medium, they convey emotions effectively if people do a good job of embedding them in the work. Most movies don't convey emotions either, unless you're talking excitement and most games do that.

Most books don't convey emotion, even most books that are supposed to (as in novels) don't convey them worth a crap. It is a special work whatever medium you're talking about that conveys deeply felt emotions to a wide audience and continues to do so for years.

It's one reason why so few works of music have remained well-known decades or centuries after being written. Taking instrumental examples; Aria in G, Canon in D Major, Moonlight Sonata, Adagio for Strings, or Adagio in G Minor.

All of these convey extremely strong emotions, they transcend the instrument, or the genre, or the generation to a large extent and it is the rarity of this trait and how relatively recent and rare games are that makes them so disrespected compared to books, music, or cinema.
 
Whaaaaat? Call of Duty Modern Warfare when Sgt. Jackson didn't make it?....I was totally bummed out. I was seriously emotionally affected. I told a gaming buddy that I couldn't believe the hero died...first time that I experienced that.
Also, Half Life 2, when D.O.G. went & attacked that Combine gunship right in front of you? OMFG moment!
 
This man is foolish. He talks about video games, but obviously has no passion for them.

Prey had emotion. Right from the introduction, with the old man. The emotional attachment to that man and reaction to his event was done infinitely better than the soldier's in that laser grid thing in Resident Evil's first movie.

Mass Effect 2 had emotion. Albeit mostly because of incredible writing. Tali, Jack, and Thane. Even Samara's plight invoked an emotional response.

I could go on, but the point is games are getting better at using emotions and they will one day overtake movies. Games are interactive and when you're making the decisions, it's going to immerse you much more than a passive experience like watching a movie.
 
Try, just try playing FFIV, que from Tellah death scene, Twin's stone scene, Yang tower scene, Cid airship scene.

this.

its just an old medium taking a young upstart really hard...no different than manual labor being phased out in favor of machines etc etc.

if anything games put you in the world greater than movies since you are part of the world whereas in a movie you are just looking through a window at it.
 
Classic ploy from a director who failed a MAJOR project. Scape goats generally don't work and will only make it harder to present a case on why games-to-movies won't work.

Listen director, it is always a knee jerk reaction to place blame even though you didn't directly place it on your failed movie which I heard didn't make enough box office money to cover the advertising but you need to realize that if you want to get another director job (especially with Disney) you need to lay out why it didn't work not because you THINK you were set up for failure.
 
[RIP]Zeus;1036008520 said:
FIghting Jenova after that happened was quite hard.

No emotions my ass, possibly the most emotional death sceene in all of FF's

QFT.

Maybe he just sucks at video games, and rather than blame himself, where the blame lies, because obviously HE can't suck - video games must suck!!!
 
I was actually surprised by how hard Halo 3 hit me with Johnson and Keyes, but then again I actually screamed "Winona!" during the new Star Trek.

Best part about people saying crap about video games is that they usually make money off of them. Look at Green Day with rockband. In an interview Billie Joe gave promoting their musical on sirius, he went off about how games have no social value and serve only to rot kids' brains.
 
Surprised nobody has mentioned Phantasy Star IV yet.

If you've played this game, you know what I'm talking about.
 
[RIP]Zeus;1036008520 said:
FIghting Jenova after that happened was quite hard.

No emotions my ass, possibly the most emotional death sceene in all of FF's

Needs more blood and slower motion. But still funny the second time around.

Actually crisis core was pretty sad too...I had to wrestle a grizzly afterwards.
 
You want emotion?

Try FF7, Xenogears (omg xenogears!), Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid 3, FF9, and the list goes on and on and on.

RPGs are better able to convey emotion because we invest so much in the characters. The same can be said when you're reading a book and you actually get to peer into what the character is thinking.

In movies, the element of love interest is thrown in there for absolutely no reason. Some movies are excellent for conveying emotion, but even those only happen once in a blue moon.

An example of terribad "love interest", remember in AvP with that chick and the predator, and how they "shared a moment"? *shudder*
 
Silent Hill 2 had a very touching storyline, especially towards the end. It was better than some movies out there even.
 
Most movies have less emotion than Vampire tMB, Mass Effect 2, Knights of the old Republic 1/2, Half Life 2, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer.


In addition to that, there are stronger emotions for game sequels than there are for movie sequels. Raise your hand if you would rather see Avatar 2 sequel over Half Life Episode 3. (assuming you've experienced both)

*crickets*
 
This is the second 'video games have no emotion/art/value' story coming from an older, non-game playing person (first one was the thumbs up/down movie reviewer guy). Really they just need to play any damn RPG instead of watching their kids/grandkids play an action game.

I think movies have a harder time conveying emotion. Its hard to care about a character you only see for an hour or two. So we end up with a lot of crappy movies that try too hard.
 
What an imbecile. He may be correct if we're talking about games like mario where detail was so limited it simply wasn't possible... but games today have incredible graphics capable of conveying or displaying nearly any emotion. It's only a question of do developers take the time to utilize the resources fully...
 
I would argue against this until I am blue in the face.

This guy has no idea what he is talking about.

Maybe at one time games were simple, and didn't convey stories and emotions, but that is no longer the case.

Half-Life 2 (plus episodes) and Metro 2033 are just two examples of games that I've played through recently that completely suck you in to the story and convey emotions in a way no movie ever could. The experience is surprisingly similar to getting sucked into a really good book (and we all kno that the book version is always better than the movie.)
 
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