UPDATED: Dead Space Producer Slams Gears of War Script Pages 1 2 3 NEXT | |
In before obligatory mention of ME3 story! Personally, I found GoW to be painfully predictable and macho to the point of self parody, but worst? I don't know. | |
Beaver's put down would be more daming if his own franchise didn't contain "atrocious, offensive violations of horror basics. | |
heh that's quite funny, i tend to disregard games completely with little to no story (essentially most fps and rts and platformers, etc...) and i didn't mind gears of war one bit, hell i'm sure i didn't replay 1 and 2 tons of times just for the gameplay... so by all means, bring on more of this "atrocious" storytelling! | |
Man, developers of mediocre games slamming other developers seems to be a trend this week. | |
In all honesty, it's not great, but Gears of War's writing isn't the worst. I mean, I played Mr Nukem's latest game, and I counted how only one of Duke's lines made me laugh, and that was one of the only ones that was original and not a movie catch phrase. Weirdly I still kind of like that game though. Oh also, Cole. He makes things better. I don't care, I found that funny. Calumon: ...His arms are bigger than me! O.O | |
Having never played Gears of War, I can't comment. However I will say another GoW (God of War) goes stupid once the first game is over. Kratos wasn't entirely bad in the first game but once the second game came about Kratos went from sympathetic underdog to just some roid raging shithead. | |
Gears' writing is pretty bad, but it's not the worst. In the games I've played (the first 2) the story seemed more non-existent than bad. That seems to be the most common problem with game narrative right now. But I could cite various Need for Speed games as being worse. Plenty of those tried to copy a Fast and Furious style story, and managed to make something even worse. | |
I see a man in a glass house with a large sack of stones... Why do people start trouble when there didn't need to be any? I couldn't be bothered to finish Dead Space 2 personally, it felt predictable. Not like campy horror movie predictable but Lifetime Made for TV movie predictable. | |
Someone clearly hasn't played House of the Dead. | |
Dragon Age 2's writing was pretty shit. Yeah Gears is awful, but at least there were no deliberate contradictions and inconsistencies in their story. Kim died in Gears 1 and he stayed dead. Skyrim's was pretty terrible as well. | |
House of the dead is one of those, "its so bad its good" things. | |
Oh, clearly someone has never played Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Seriously, i cant think of words to describe the 'pro Umbrella' co-op mode ending, lucky for me i dont need to waste time articulating more words. Skipping to about 5:40 may save you about that much time. | |
If I had to list every game I thought had worse stories than Gears of War, I'd take up the whole page. Is it good? Not really, but it isn't horrible and most of the parody is based on the characters themselves. | |
The worst? No. Good. Not even close. I bought the Gears collection some time after it came out to see what all the fuss was about and aside from some beyond boring gameplay the story was absolutely horrible. Major plot points were brought up then ignored completely without answering what they were in the first place. Characters that hated each other suddenly became buddies in a few minutes with no reasoning whatsoever. I have no idea how any of the plot points actually connected to each other now that I got rid of it. That was all just the first game. I gave up on the second one after several hours of nothing interesting happening. | |
I was going to come in here and call him a bit of a hypocrite, but he was quite damning and critical of his own game, so props to him for being genuine and honest about it. And while there are a few examples I can think of with worse writing, Gears is pretty daft and so close to a parody of machismo it's actually quite entertaining, in an embarrassing for gaming sorta way. | |
Someone should remind Mr. Beaver of the old adage "Those in glass houses should not throw stones." Seriously, it's hard to take insults about story telling from a guy who wrote Dead Space, a game with more plot-holes than a story about swiss cheese. For example: OMG PROTECT YOUR WIFE WHILE SHE HACKS THE COMPUTER!!! | |
Thanks to the voiceover. The lines would still be atrocious in their original Japanese, except then you take away the good part of the delivery, and are just left with shit. | |
The amount of ad hominem in this thread is disappointing, especially considering how critical the man was of the game he worked on. In any event, as others have said, while Gears isn't the best story out there I would agree that it's certainly not the worst. | |
Gear's has a script? Huh, learn something new everyday. | |
I am willing to forgive gears because as much as the writing is bad its nice to be on the side of the underdogs for once which is rare in modern gaming and there are some good themes to the game if you can look past all the machismo bullshit. | |
Coming from the producers of one of the most forgettable stories in existence. | |
So the pot just called the kettle black? | |
It's like half the people in this thread didn't even read the full article! Dude already explained the shortcomings of dead space, and if he can't slam a shit story than I guess you all should stop having opinions about anything. But yeah, I was one of those people that didn't think gears even had a story, let alone one to bash. | |
Seriously, the guy who made a game that was basically "Find missing girlfrind, evil company experimenting with crap, shit jumps out at you" is moaning about someone elses story. o.O | |
heh, yall make it sound like the only people qualified to have an opinion is yourself, who as far as we know have never written a plot :P have any of you even read the entire article? they KNOW their plot sucks | |
Gears of War, the first game, had a pretty bad story. It assumed you already knew a lot of background stuff, and some of the elements just left you scratching your head (um...why was the bomb on the train to begin with?). Gears of War 2 seemed to straighten its act out a little and get the story more focused: raised some new questions and set the scene for the third game. And I, for one, enjoyed the books as they filled in several missing pieces for me. And then Gears of War 3 came out. And everything fell apart. I think what happened is that Karen was trying to tell a different story in the books, and when she was put in charge of writing for the game, she forced her story into the game's story and the result was a train smashing into another train. As for the Dead Space series, until this man explains how the main character from Extraction is suddenly missing and his (supposed) girlfriend is married and pregnant with his best friend's baby and they don't even mention him in Severed, I think he should keep his mouth shut. Dead Space's story is fun, but it has a lot of work to do. At least he's pointing out that his isn't perfect either. | |
The correct answer to, "Worst game story?", would be Final Fantasy 8. | |
The storyline in first two gears of war games wasn't all that good. The books did help fill alot background and character development. You can tell Epic was trying to bring the expanded universe into gears 3 and IMO because of limited design of the campaign it kinda left a lot things out and had rush through the plot. If only the gears of war games were more like the books(well at least in the campaign mode) I think it gears could have shaken that "dude bro shooter" vibe it has. | |
Chuck Beaver is an idiot. Nothing else to really say about this. The Gears franchise, while not a master of storytelling by any means, is also not nearly the worst story ever in a game. I can think of quite a few games that were actually trying to tell a good story and failed miserably, and for that are far worse. Sonic Adventure 2, Command and Conquer 4, inFamous, and other games like that. Games that tried to sit down and tell a decent story, but fucked up so many times throughout the tale that it becomes a mess of plotholes and general nonsense. Kane is an alien who wants to get back home?! Really EA?! After all those years, all these games, that's the best you can come up with?! You know that running gag of taking things with crappy endings and captioning them with "Still a better ending than Mass Effect 3"? Command and Conquer 4 did NOT have a better ending than Mass Effect 3. Really Cole? You can't tell that a character who's been saying that he wishes he had super powers too for the ENTIRE FUCKING GAME would betray you when the bad guy offered him the chance to have super powers? You are surprised by this? In fact, you did not see this coming? This is horrible writing. Oh, and the bad guy is actually Cole from the future?! A chimpanzee could write a better story than Sucker Punch did.[/spoilers] Yeah, those games and more are all far worse offenders than Gears. Gears just had an okay story, but it wasn't really going for more than that. Trying to have a great story and failing miserably, now that's a far greater offense. Either tell a story properly or have just enough story to string the game along. But trying to be heavily story based with a shitty story, that's when you should complain about "atrocious, offensive violations of story basics". | |
Gears' story was so mediocre it hurts... I would have prefered all out loltastic failure than just plain boring basic stuff. I was more upset when Random Guy Voiced By Yuri Lowenthal died than any of the important deaths... Nobody kills Brosuke and gets away with it Though, not gonna lie, Cole's little Thrashball flashback moment did make me cry a little, y'know, Manly Tears an' all. Of course, the worst writing has to go to Soul Calibre V's story. Ha, that was so bad it was MALFESTED *ahem* funny. I meant funny. Ahhhh fuck, Max, you're up again XD Really you talk about bad writing fighting games have to be up there with the worst, simply by the way they're made. Are we talking about character writing or overall story writing as well? Cuz Bioware's overall storywriting is pretty damn basic 99% of the time. They seem to be trying new things as of late, so that's interesting. Though anyone who's even glanced at the Internet in the last few months can tell you that XP | |
Really, did none of you fully read the article? He was damned critical of his own game, the full article shows more criticisms he gave to his own game. "People in glass houses" my butt, people should read the note saying "Don't throw stones in this house" before readying the rocks. | |
I sure read it. How exactly does that change anything? He is still the pot calling the kettle black. Just because he admits it doesn't mean he is exempt to that. He is still someone who helped write a horrible story complaining about a horrible story in another game. Hence the pot calling the kettle black. | |
I think you're lost, my friend. This is the internet, a land filled with text that no one bothers to read. And besides that....
^This. :P | |
The update part sounds a tiny bit like he got a slap on the wrist from some higher ups. Though it is worth keeping in mind he was always referring to the games story. | |
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UPDATED: Dead Space Producer Slams Gears of War Script
Chuck Beaver talks about story's potential to ruin a game.
EA's Chuck Beaver, story producer for sci-fi horror shooter Dead Space, claims that Gears of War currently reigns supreme as the epitome of terrible storytelling, referring to the game as having, what he calls, "literally the worst writing in games." And what has Gears of War done to earn such an acrimonious title? According to Beaver, the series "contains atrocious, offensive violations of story basics."
The remarks stemmed from a simple question: "Can story ruin a game?" Beaver, who's worked as a story developer for over five years, replied that "Story can only ruin a game for those people who care about story, so it's a conditional answer." To him, Gears of War was the prime example of something with "atrocious" writing, still able to garner a significant fan-base. Still, his feelings about Gears aren't born of superiority. Beaver considers even his own work on the story of Dead Space to be lacking.
"The first story we had was a wreck of unrelated events and broken structure, so we cut our teeth getting that into shape, and didn't fully make it," Beaver said of the experience. "Plus, we got lost a bit in complicated lore and plot elements that didn't come through. And don't even get me started on the final boss sequence that they put in without me in the meeting! That was fun."
Though Beaver's remarks may not be the kindest, this isn't the first time Epic Games has taken criticism for Gears. During a recent interview last month, design director Cliff Bleszinksi said, "I didn't always make these dude-bro games at Epic. The intent was to make [Gears of War] a lot more Band of Brothers and take it a lot more serious."
Still ... the worst writing in game history? Surely, fellow Escapistites, we can think of at least a few titles more deserving of that honor.
Update: Chuck Beaver has asked to clarify his position on Gears of War and his previous comments with the following statement: "I just wanted to jump in and clarify some of my comments that were taken out of context about Gears of War. First, let me say that I'm a huge fan. It is an epic franchise that has trail-blazed more than a few industry-leading player experiences and mechanics. It is deservedly recognized as a top-tier title. Its success as a property is evidenced by its giant sales and rabid fan base. The industry is far better for Epic's contributions, and we all owe a great deal of inspiration to their work."
Source: EA.com via Eurogamer
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