Vanquish official thread!

[George]

There is 'not focusing on a story' then there is 'having a bad story'.

[max_cady]

Well, given Platinum Game's track record for storylines in their most recent games, I'm more inclined to bad storytelling. I mean, the plot in Bayonetta makes no sense... at all.

[George]

It doesn't but I thought the characters did shine through to make them memorable. Vanquish? Not the case. Both male lead characters had the deep voice, the girl that helps Sam is a helpless blonde and the Russian bad guy seems a bit gay.

None really shined through to make an impression, especially in the end.

Thank god the game blasted brains wide open with awesome gameplay.

[max_cady]

Yeah, I get that too. Bayonetta is an awesome character and the rest of the cast if very colorful, but that's the feel of the game, it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Vanquish, on the other hand, we never get fully acquainted with any of these characters. Sam Gideon is badass, but Burns, for example, they try way too hard to make him sound tough. We barely get to know that professor and Zaitev... Well, [spoiler:31gcp3c6]Again, he just goes off into the sunset, because he essentially accomplished his mission, when he blew up the space station and apparentely reported his achievements to his superiors.

I really wanted to put a bullet between his eyes, but I just didn't get that.[/spoiler:31gcp3c6]

[Sega Uranus]

The ending is one of the worst things about the game. [spoiler:2m6mg56k]Not only does the main enemy escape, but nothing was actually completed and many of the main characters were killed off just because they wanted them to die. They also tried to force a relationship between Sam and Elana (sp?). It is as if a whole other level is completely cut from the game even![/spoiler:2m6mg56k]

It is not an "Old school" style, Vanquish has some of the best directed action cutscenes I have EVER seen in a game, probably better than almost every movie I have ever seen too. The fact that these are awesome and the story sucks just leave a bad taste in my mouth. The game should have been delayed and fixed.

[MadeManG74]

^The action scenes were very good, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they were better than most movies.

But yeah, the story was pretty bad, and I don't think that it's intentionally bad, just more that it was probably an afterthought or if not, just didn't have much care/thought put into it. Which is fine, since the gameplay was the focus here.

[George]

I don't understand this whole 'GAMEPLAY OVER STORY BRO!' mentality I see on forums. People do know that most developers have the story written/laid out by a writer... not someone that works on gameplay.

Its like saying that 'gameplay' is great, but graphics suck because they worked too much on gameplay. There is a team that does graphics and one that does gameplay. The reason one lacks compared to the other is because the team you had sucks at doing their job.

I think Platinum Games need to use a writer to flesh out games like Vanquish. Don't come give me the 'mainstream' crap. Yakuza uses a writer and no one here goes off on that game.

[MadeManG74]

^I understand that the writer wouldn't be affected by the programming team or level design guys or whatever. I meant that in cases like this, the writer may be constrained by the gameplay and have to work around that rather than the other way around. The team says they want XX level and then XX Boss, it doesn't matter if it doesn't make a lick of sense, the writer has to work to those requirements. Or maybe they didn't go back and polish/edit/re-work the story as much, because they didn't pay as much attention to it.
"Oh yeah, he has an angry voice, western gamers love angry voices. I saw a western game once, totally angry voice. Throw in some catch-phrases, and lets call it a day."

Or something.

In any event, don't paint me with the 'Story = Casual' brush, and I hope I didn't come off that way, since many of my favourite games have a strong focus on storytelling (Shenmue, Shining Force III, Mafia etc).

[George]

I didn't paint you in that light, you are more open minded than that.

I agree that each team could effect the other department, but a writer could have brought a bit more life to the characters in Vanquish.

[Centrale]

I think there are different philosophies that various game designers hold to when it comes to story.  I'm not a big Itagaki fan, but I recall him saying something to the effect that if you want a good story, read a book.  He believes there's no place for it, or point to it, in the medium of video games.  Of course, there is Yakuza, which generally has a superb story and it makes watching the cutscenes feel like a real reward for advancing in the gameplay; in turn, it invests the players into the lives of the characters and provides motivation and meaning to what otherwise would be rather repetitive gameplay.  The GTA series is certainly padded with cut-and-pasted mission content but the story aspects are generally so high quality that it makes it tolerable to continue through the game to see what happens next.  On the other hand, clearly a huge amount of effort has been invested in creating the Halo universe and its intricate storyline, but it comes across to me as rather uninteresting because the characters are so one-dimensional.  

I think the issue is two-fold... there has to be a design philosophy that values story to begin with, and secondly there have to be truly talented and skilled writers who can do an excellent job.  And then beyond that, you can have an amazing story that ultimately gets undermined by poor voice-acting or other aspects out of the writers' hands.

[MadeManG74]

^GTA having high-quality story? I gotta disagree with you on that one, I hated GTA storylines, especially GTAIV. The only one I liked was Vice City and that was only because it was just a bunch of loosely connected references to 80's crime films.

[CrazyT]

I honestly don't have a problem with Vanquish's story.The cutscenes are there to connect the environments with some eye candy in between. That's all I need in a game like this tbh. The gameplay is just too good for me to even care much about a deep story. Does vanquish even need one? I mean it would be nice of course but is it nescesary in the first place?

 I disagree as well with the notion that gameplay>Story. But in vanquish it doesn't bother me at all. I... I simply love this game, nuff ssaid

[Sega Stylista]

It's old-school niche vs modern mainstream gaming.  Guess which one Mikami belongs too?  How was the story in RE 1,2,3,4, PN03 and God Hand, huh?  If you want good story go see a movie or read a book.  Mikami himself stated he made it space marine and added the cinemas for western mainstream appeal.  Even so it bombed because it wasn't hollywood and retarded enough like Uncharted whose core game play experience is a joke and couples this with a B level hollywood movie with high quality voice acting, and spectacular "realistic graphics" to get the mass audience sales.  This is what gaming has degenerated into today.  Imagine if Mikami could give us the games he really wants to make?

MGS and Yakuza are cinematic story driven games that tell a good story, but not at the expense of the core gaming experience and remain dedicated gamer's games despite their popularity. It is the dilution of core gameplay that old school gamers take issue with. I don't hate good graphics, story, or presentation just when those are packaged along with casual, low end gameplay to draw in the mass audiences. Unfortunately, like I said, this is what gaming is today.  It's so obvious why Vanquish bombed, selling it in a month where it was up against fewer releases and adding a better advertising budget wouldn't have made a difference worth the expense. The core gaming experience is simply too high end for the average gaming consumer. That is why I advocated a return to a smaller more dedicated industry that you guys never got and I abandoned worrying about.

If you're complaining about the story in Vanquish you don't "get" the game. Might as well complain about the story in Street Fighter and Pacman..

[MadeManG74]

It's old-school niche vs modern mainstream gaming.  Guess which one Mikami belongs too?  How was the story in RE 1,2,3,4, PN03 and God Hand, huh?  If you want good story go see a movie or read a book.  Mikami himself stated he made it space marine and added the cinemas for western mainstream appeal.  Even so it bombed because it wasn't hollywood and retarded enough like Uncharted whose core game play experience is a joke and couples this with a B level hollywood movie with high quality voice acting, and spectacular "realistic graphics" to get the mass audience sales.  This is what gaming has degenerated into today.  Imagine if Mikami could give us the games he really wants to make?

I can't wait for George to read this bit.

Anyway, I think most of us agreed that the story didn't hamper our enjoyment of the game a great deal, but it was still pretty bad. You go onto say that games like Yakuza can have both good story and good gameplay, so it's fair to criticise it here as well. I think the main problem is that it was a gross mis-judgement of what "Western Audiences" like, or if not it was just handled poorly. Painting 'Western audiences' with one broad brush like that is just insulting as well. It's like if Bioware said that they were making a game for "Eastern Audiences" and just made a game about samurai sword weilding mechs tenticle raping little girls. I'm sure that would go over about as well as a lead balloon.

I (and I think others as well) would have much preferred if it was intentionally silly and made zero sense like God Hand, instead it just felt like it was trying too hard the whole time. Kinda like Binary Domain's trailer.

[fernandeath]

If Platinumgames' and Sega's contract expire, and they do not renovate it, then titles like Vanquish and Bayonetta will belong to Sega?
Or will platinumgames be able to deal them with other publishers?