People ask why David Cage doesn't make movies and the reason is simple: it'd expose how derivative and unoriginal his set-pieces are. You'd be sitting there going "That's from Silence of the Lambs! That's from Raiders of the Lost Ark! That's from The Matrix!"
+JamesOhGoodie that guy is just pathetic... not only is he fixated on Hollywood that he'll never be allowed in, he is so ashamed of his own nationality that he pretends to be American (isn't that, Mr. De Gruttola?)
For some reason that never stopped Uwe Boll from ruining the BloodRayne games by turning them into stomach churning movies. Uwe and David ruining two forms of entertainment, they must be related somewhere down the line.
The real problem with David Cage is that he fails to grasp numerous fundamentals of good storytelling (i.e. chekhov's gun, an overarching theme, good structure and pacing). The reason for this is because he does not write the story by first asking himself what the story is supposed to be about. Instead, David Cage writes his games by plotting various individual scenes first (most of which are homages and/or ripoffs of famous scenes from movies), and then he writes the story afterwards in a piss-poor attempt to create some kind of overarching narrative. The end result is an incoherent mess with no actual ideas or complete premise, and which jumps all over the place without any regard for good pacing or tonal consistency.
Gotta love how when most other developers appear in ZP, their face is put over a generic ZP character body, but with David Cage he is always portrayed as a gigantic inflated disembodied head.
Games like this make me wish gamers were as hard to please as movie critics. Any movie critic would've called David Cage out on this garbage 20 times over.
Mal Nexus Telltale is for the comic book (and the franchises they make games for) consumers, Quantic Dream tries to make the "Holywood blockbuster experience", and manages to do it, the problem is the story that's crap.
Movie critics are hard? Movie critics these days will give positive reviews to any piece of shit based on a comic book. That's not hard. If what you said was true, they would have told Zack Snyder to stop making films back in 2006.
Tabula Rasa Gaming ehhh I know I'm 4 years late but I was sold on the marketing. Gaming is my life but 4 years ago I was 16 and had no idea who David cage was, his previous works or even what the game was about. I just saw you and a ghost pal fucking shit up and thought it looked cool.
The real problem with David Cage is that he fails to grasp numerous fundamentals of good storytelling (i.e. chekhov's gun, an overarching theme, good structure and pacing). The reason for this is because he does not write the story by first asking himself what the story is supposed to be about. Instead, David Cage writes his games by plotting various individual scenes first (most of which are homages and/or ripoffs of famous scenes from movies), and then he writes the story afterwards in a piss-poor attempt to create some kind of overarching narrative. The end result is an incoherent mess with no actual ideas or complete premise, and which jumps all over the place without any regard for good pacing or tonal consistency.
My favourite part of this game is when you fail a prompt and basically do nothing, say nothing, etc. and the characters you are interacting with act like they've had their question answered or object taken almost immediately instead of about 20 seconds because the player wanted to see what would happen if they waited. It sets up quite humorous scenarios in which a 13 year old Ellen Page is suddenly struck by PTSD flashbacks to that time she was in 'Nam which is triggered by someone offering a parcel to her.
I feel like Cage came up with scenes on their own first. A near rape, a demon's attack, spy parts, a take on CoD, and so on. Then he undertook the impossible task of putting all of these scenes into a single story. He then explained the story to a close friend / shareholder meeting, or whatever, and they told him: "Cage. Your story is not only tonally inconsistant and ethically dissonant, but it commits the sin of having a protagonist that isn't actually driven by any motive. Everything she does is just _Ad Hoc_ as if you were really desperate to get to that other part of the story. Some of her actions don't even make sense. You'd think that she would have done as much as look up the person she's supposed to kill on wikipedia or something. Then the knowledge that she killed one innocent makes her go on a rampage to kill hundreds of policemen? Also why is it that she suddenly cares about her mother right now, right after that? How did that helicopter go from some african country to a rural part of the USA instantly?". Then Cage, hearing what his good friend / advisor had to say fell on his knees saying: "Oh my God, how could I go so wrong... I apologise for creating such an atrocity. I promise I will fix it, I really will!" And then he proceeded to swap the order of the scenes so that easily impressed audiences that want to sound like they are intellectuals don't notice how incoherent the narrative actually is.
GregTom2 He should just stick to writing short stories? You put them together and you call it an anthology. That's what literary people do and that don't get in trouble for it
That's exactly what I've been thinking this whole time. After all, most of the scenes in his games are just homages and/or ripoffs of famous movie scenes, so it makes sense that he would start there and essentially write the story backwards, thus explaining why his games are so heavily disjointed and lacking in substance.
I made a point and click adventure game for a university project and now I realize that that little game I put together is more interactive than this big budget triple A game. How does that even happen?
Good game makers: Good story and gameplay Mediocre game makers: Sacrifice gameplay for a story David Cage: Sacrifice gameplay for story, but the story is still shit
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with Yahtzee. This game is far worse than anything he said, and it brought the quality of video games as a whole down by simply existing.
The fact that the chinese has a secret underwater ghost protected base is just ridiculous. The fact that they think you're supposed to like the guy who you're told to hate LITERALLY THE SCENE BEFORE is, again ridiculous. It's like he wanted to make a movie but decided that he needed the chance to nearly rape his main character twice and that wouldnt fly in the movie business.
+Sam Visser Too bad David Cah-jay doesn't. I seriously had no idea what the hell was going on because of how he attempted to rip off Nolan and Tarantino with telling the story out of order. As the Two Best Friends pointed out in their playthrough, 'emotional' scenes lost their impact when you don't know or care about the characters.
I mean, the knowledge that Quantic Dream is as unspeakably awful a work environment as we might have expected from how fucked up all of David Cage's games are. It's less of a 'oh my, everything seems different int his light!' and more of 'yeah that checks out.'
@@Im__Andy-f6x I can almost guarantee you it won’t. People like that pretend to be woke or accepting until it affects them directly. He’s still going to creep on Elliot, I guarantee
"Press X to in some way resolve this situation" A profound description of all quick time events. And perhaps gaming in general if we take it far enough.
I came back to this video today, and made the great misjudgment to look at the comment section, to see people actually defending this game. I can't believe it. After every single piece of valid criticism leveled at this game, it's like no-one cares. It's like if when told Soylent Green is people, everyone shrugged and went back to eating it. This is a game that has no pacing, no logic, nothing. For anyone interested, check out the Two Best Friends Let's Play of this game, the criticisms may be harsh, but it's all fair and valid.
''no pacing, no logic, nothing.''? Yeah for Cod players it is a slow, weird game. -_- Maybe it's because I am an Ellen Page fan, but i enjoyed the game.
As an author, reading the comments that say this has a good story makes me sad. Let's start off with something simple. Aiden, the ghost? He's too powerful for anything in this story to phase you. He roars to prevent Jodie from getting raped, he blocks bullets, he can let her fall from giant heights, take on other entities which he has no experience fighting. He literally is the most powerful force in the 'game' and nothing can stop him. Going on to the terrible story, you know how I said he roars to stop Jodie from being raped? Yeah, well, apparently bats to the back of her head mean nothing. But don't worry, we'll see how much he cares when he tries to stop her from having a date? Gee Aiden, you sure care inconsistently. Speaking of that bat scene, earlier on we see her make a call to someone. And then she hangs up after giving some "i'm in danger" shpeel. What was the point of that? She's lonely and needs someone to talk to? Yeah, ok, sure. But wasn't she aware she was going to get lonely when she, you know, ran away? Kinda weird for her to think she wouldn't miss anyone. Moving back to Jodie as a character...she's empty. She isn't a character. She cries at everything. I understand that she isn't supposed to be geared for this, but, she doesn't grow. After around five years, you think she would learn how to deal with it. Or at least have some sort of tolerance. "I don't have friends! BOOHOO" "I'm being taken away from the people I care about. BOOHOO" "I'm a freak! BOOHOO" Stop whining! We get it, you feel like you don't belong, but you know what? No one cares. At all. It would mean something if you were a character with development, but no one cares. The entire game, at least from what I could stomach, is about her and her wants. It's never really about what NEEDS to be done. Unless, you know, she's forced into it. Reluctant characters are nice, but seriously, if you have to force them into action every time, they no longer become reluctant and just become selfish. What she could have done? "Hello, news station. I come from a secret military base that experiments with the supernatural. My partner, Aiden, is a ghost attached to me since birth. Oh, yes, apparently they're experimenting with demon like entities who want to murder you." after demonstrating her abilities, live and or on camera, she has successfully stopped the military and all future experimentation on the supernatural. Now, again, I didn't finish this game because it was puke levels of bad. So maybe she does do that, it would be common sense, right? Oh wait, but she does do something similar, she reveals her powers to the homeless. Any particular reason the rest of the world shouldn't know that, not only is there an after life, but the armies of the world are experimenting on it? No? Ok, just asking.
lol, i might be the only Person, who actually enjoyed this. I really liked this Game, because i could really relate to the main character, and i even liked the Story and the Concept of a more realistic take on Demos and Supernatural beings. But, i just watched a let's play of it, maybe you get a better experience when you just watch 15-30 minutes a Day.
Tardsmat TheBlackKnightGamer it was basically like a TV Show for me, maybe the Game had worked better as one. Also, Thumbs up for the sheer length of your comment.
Tardsmat Realistic? Are you serious? Is it realistic to get tricked into killing a political leader when you can easily watch a news report on the leader so that you know he's not a bad guy....which actually does happen? The military's entire plan hinges on her forgetting what the internet is or what TV is. You seriously want to tell me this game is realistic?
I am not going to complain about the story, as so many people seem to liek it for some reason. What i am going to do is ask a question which i don't think anyone can give a good answer for. if there is no interactivity, barely any gameplay, the choices of the player don't matter...Why didn't you just make a movie?
***** Because David Cage is too shit a writer to make a movie. We already know what itll involve at this point anyways -Near rape scenes -Dance party -Pointless flashbacks -unfeasibly large apartments -ancient conspiracy -creepy shower scene -lounging in underwear -noble homeless people -strong powerful woman saved by man -asshole army guys -mystical forces outta nowhere -daddy issues etc. Playing through Farenheight, watching Heavy Rain and now playing Beyond, I literally called every single moment and plot device just before it happened.
Kellond Yeah I always felt that way. There are a lot of engaging moments and scenes, the beginning is usually the most fun. But as more plot comes and more characters are introduced and developed, the larger the plot holes grow and the higher rate at which I yell "BULLSHIT" at the TV
Lol I got that list of David Cage tropes from David Cage bingo I found on SBF hahaha and its so true! Yep ancient Indian burial grounds, forced romances to hot douche bags, attempted rape scenes a plenty, and the odd stereotypical black guy - OMFG that Heavy Rain mechanic, fuck that guy! The funky basketball hoopin cop from Farenheight was kinda cool tho lol
Hearing Yahtzee talk about a half melted chocolate bunny rabbit made me smile. It is a whimsical and unexpected thing for him to say. Thank you for the smile that this gave me. Cheers :)
I personally kinda liked the game (well, I liked watching a friend play the game and yelling at him for not making decisions I wanted to make), but I gotta say, "despite Ellen Page I'm still just a rat in a cage" got me in a way I haven't been gotten by a RU-vid channel in a while.
I take pity for those that spent 60 bucks on an interactive movie, when you spend 10 to see a real movie, with most likely a better story than this one.
He is right the concept behind the game is good, the game itself was shit though. There were a few gold moments, such as the revenge scene, but other than that.
It's funny he mentions David Cage being inspired by Silence of the Lambs, because there was a scene in Indigo Prophecy where a Clarice surrogate talks to a Hannibal surrogate, after being led in by a black security guard called Barney. The Cage Machine isn't even an original hack.
Well that's David Cage's modus operandi, I really liked this scene from X movie I'll put it in my game. Beyond two souls is a mish mash of scenes from good movies that come together in a bad game. The thing that gets me is when he said recently "game overs are a failure of the game designer" you literally can't lose in Beyond anytime you get in a action sequence you can put the controller down and you will always win even if you "lose" it's really bad because you always have to end up at point B or C or D so he "writes" himself into a corner where the character couldn't possibly escape from, she was literally in a exploding truck that was flying though the air being followed by like 40 soldiers in trucks and then the next scene is WOAH lucky they didn't see us! The thing is that scene would have happened no matter what, you could have snuck past the soldiers who chased her and it would have done the exact same scene because you always had to end up there. The illusion of freedom is there but it's so thinly veiled you see right through it.
"Actually everyone in this game cries like altar boys after lights-out, you could use their faces to irrigate the Sahara." That is probably the greatest line I've ever heard.
5:11 "Maybe he's just trying not to alienate himself to the people he might have to go and live with if he keeps making games like this fucking shambles." Damn! Sick burn! Holy shit, ZP did not like this game.
I wanna see a game written by David Cage, designed by Peter Molyneux, and produced by Hideo Kojima. I think Yahtzee would roast it for an hour, or hang himself after playing it.
Nothing much has changed though, Page is still as irrelevant and bad an actor as ever. The whole coming out story was the biggest amount of publicity Page has received in all of his career. Can't wait for this to die down so I won't have to hear about this nobody anymore.
I watched a playthough from The Sw1tcher (the guys behind the Two Best Friends Play series) and I was genuinely baffled by how entertainingly bad the story was. I would by no means play it alone, but it could be fun to get some friends together and roast it.
And don't forget that fact that no matter what you do you always win so when they say to press a prompt in a quick time event it doesn't really matter because the game plays for you. (Although no game overs sound great it totally defeats the perpose of a QTE
Damn I forgot how some of these older videos smack man. Just the line alone about everyone crying like an altar boy after lights out... I couldn't breath with that one.
They surely did, at least according to the "Ellen Page David Cage Rage Gauge". Marvelous sentence by Yahtzee; I could have died of old age without ever hearing that!
I just realized that this game is just about Ellen Page being a really uninteresting Stand user, so apparently David Cage was ripping off Hirohiko Araki too.
I just discovered the Zero Punctuation series and I love them. I would greatly like to see you review Battlefield 4. Not because it is good, bad, or ugly, but because every (and I do mean EVERY) one of your videos I have watched this morning begins and ends with a Battlefield 4 commercial and I have an uninterrupted flow of constant despise for it at this point. There is such a thing as over-saturation EA Marketing department.
i feel the same with CoD man (not accusing you of being a fan) but every video i click on a commercial of CoD comes up, mostly that one where 4 dudes drive a car (that you cant really do in a game) and do other stuff (you cant do in the game) and its like shoving it in my face saying "HEY LOOK HOW FUCKING AMAZING WE ARE"
You just discovered him? Well let me tell you. Didn't he review that game already? I could have sworn he did. It's on the escapist website where you can see his reviews as they are released by the way. Also I totally know what his comment on it would be. He hates it. He's really tired of shooters.
JumbieManJay Well how long has it been out? Yahtzee really only reviews recent games and even then when they've come out it's a couple of weeks before his home area Australia gets it. I dunno. I hear more apathy than anything amusing I mean has battlefield done anything interesting to mock? He hasn't reviewed Battlefield your right he did Ghosts recently which had it's baffling campaign to make fun of.
David Cage I support exploring storytelling in games, but that's not what this is. This (unambitiosly) explores (minimal) interactivity in a (bland, unsequenced) story. It's like he wants to make a movie that intimately connects you to the protagonist. Better writing and a medium choice would help. This is neither a game or a movie. But it is bad.
So I had an X-files marathon and I noticed that one of the episodes of season 1 has a girl with a ghost of unborn/killed brother wandering around her and killing people and although the overall story of beyond isn't related to that episode, the main idea is suspiciously similar.
This is not a game by any means, it is a interactive story and for 60 dollars (can.) It is not worth it. Any tension in this interactive story is quickly removed by jumping back and forth in the time line it would have been better if the story was linear. I didn't finish the game to be honest I got to homeless Ellen page segment and said fuck this. The leaps in logic and the stupidity of people in this is astounding and I have the feeling none of your decisions actually matter, while there is no "game overs" there are plenty of infinite loops.
It would be more cohesive it was linear, but it may actually be worse to do so. A lot of the scenes early seem to have a similar arc to them and ultimately lead nowhere. If the game was linear, the first half would just be watching Ellen Page being abused and exploited, while the second half would suddenly turn into some hackneyed CIA-Ghost plot that has nothing to do with the first half. With the scenes inter-cut, it at least gives some illusion that all of these scenes are from the same game.
The problem is is that i actually really like this sort of game, but david cage is the only person who seems to make them. ( and telltale, but still.) and i just wished there would be more games like this.
Can't you just hold a controller while watching any movie, pretending the characters are controlled by you? Also, buy the Yakuza series, it's story-focused as all hell
Semyon Galtsev I do love books. I have tons of books and I am always trying to find new books to read, in fact i love books so much I have gone through about a quarter of the fiction section of the library ( although it's not a really big library) and have hundreds of books myself. I just like these games because its different and interesting as well as being a really cool storytelling device.
I remember when this game came out and my roommate at the time was swooning over the interactive story hype and the motion capture of two big name hollywood actors and I watched him play it for the first few hours before I turned to him and told him frankly it was the worst game I had ever seen, to which he tried to defend it so as to make it seem like it wasn't a waste of money but he never played it again because he knew I was right
***** "in every job that's to be done, there's an element of FUN."- i feel like some video game creators are doing a Mary Poppins and saying that fun can be part of everything, it can but it shouldn't be a part of everything. In fact most video games are everything but fun
I like the game, But maybe that's just because I didn't put too much thought into the storyline. I do wish that Aiden was used more. I think that the devs made him too OP and didn't want to use him too much, since that would make the game shorter. Really, all he would really have to do would be do the 'Shield' thing and then let Jodie run around and try to figure out what to do. In spite of him being lazy, I still cried when the game made you think that Jodie and Aiden were separated, and made in-human noises when "Still here" appeared in the sand, but that's just me.
I find it odd that one would play this type of game for reasons other than the plot. I mean, if not for the (atrocious) storyline, what else is there? Quick time events and awkward rape scenes.
Ya know Yahtzee, I have watched your shows for a long time and I have never wanted to suggest a game for you to look over until now. I truly do want to hear your opinion on Kerbal Space Program. I already have mine of which I will keep to myself but I want to watch your opinion.
GAH I agree SO HARD with the bit about watching a movie and just pressing pause. QD games, while interesting, are just not at all for me. I've always likened their interactivity to watching a movie that randomly stops and prompts you to press the correct sequence of buttons on the remote to get it playing again. It's like trying to watch a movie that keeps getting interrupted. Sure, some choices have consequences, but there's no chance I could ever go back through the tedium to try again. I'd rather just watch, so thank you Pewds! I totally get what they're doing: trying to make video games legit 'art' and extremely immersive, but they remove the most important aspect: the 'game' part. I don't find it fun or enjoyable to walk around an apartment picking up trash and putting away laundry in a game, but that's what they offer to make you feel like you are the character. I don't need to make the character go pee to relate to her, just like not washing her dishes doesn't detract from that relationship. QD haven't yet found the right balance between playing a game and watching a movie, so unfortunately the majority of the bits you do control are very tedious tasks - exactly the kind of thing you play video games to escape - while any real action is just quicktime prompts where you don't actually decide which actions to take, you're just pressing buttons to prevent it from stopping. Maybe, instead of the sparse token button presses, they should just make movies where, occasionally, it could ask the viewer to make a major story-related choice, then continue with that story so you can put the controller down and watch. Like choose your own adventure movies without the disruptive "gameplay" aspects of walking, jumping over a log, and washing your face... I'd probably really enjoy that.
schradeya Let me clarify first. You mostly read a visual novel rather than play or watch it. It's mainly just text accompanied by some voice acting, and background picture. So you'll be disappointed if you expect movie quality like this game lol. And another thing is it's mostly a love story and contain *cough* adult content *cough*. So know what you're getting yourself into. I've only played 2 VNs. Snow Sakura, and (a rather mind fucked one) Song of Saya. If you never watch Clannad the anime maybe you could try the VNs. I can't say if they are good or not since it depends on individual's taste so try them and decide for yourself.
Seyha Leonhartz Oh hey okay! So something like Dangan Ronpa and a lot of those JRPGs might be considered visual novels? And thank you! You're awesome and extremely helpful!
Never heard of Dangan Ronpa but a quick google says that yes it is a visual novel. I don't know what you mean by those JRPGs though. JRPG is a genre of its own. Something like Final Fantasy series, Legend of Zelda, or Suikoden are JRPGs and they are very different from visual novels. You're welcome :D
I hope Detroit has more "voice actor repeats 3 lines and we use those same 3 lines over and over in a tone that makes the character sound 2 miles away from the screen" moments, like Ethan yelling 'SHAAAUUUN!' in Heavy Rain.
josan14basket Yep they have good writing and sympathetic characters that travel along a story LINE. Not pogo back and forth between events because Cage couldn't be bothered to make it coherent connected story.
Indigo Prophecy aka Fahrenheit pretty much does the same thing with the minor exception as to try and alter the books pages for example if you got a choice on page 3 that said"clean up the blood skip to page 12" or "run out of the kitchen diner there is no time skip to page 34" and each decision leads to different outcomes. in a slight way.
I like the idea of a game that focuses more on the story than the gameplay, in fact, there are lots of games like that, but what makes those games good, is that what you do actually matters.
Well if you do like that and you have pretty sharp reflexes, play this game. Beyond Two Souls despite what he says is really really easy to get very invested in. The story is great, and the game looks really good. Go play this game if you like a good story
Just go play Life is Strange. Story based game that's engaging, has meaningful character arcs and stories, and the choices matter. Way better than this crap
I would recommend Bioshock if you are intrested in narative driven games and it does sound like you would enjoy it based on how you want games to make the things you do meaningful. Bioshock is also quite gameplay focused, but the story and gameplay merges rather competently and it all comes together not just as a excellent singleplayer experience, but also as a great deconstruction of singleplayer games. I highly recommend it if you own a console or a PC that can play it.
BlitzBurn Thanks for the recommendation. Also, i think i used the wrong wording: I don't want games were what you do is meaningful, i think that if you do a story driven game (With minimal gameplay), you should at least be able to affect the story in someway. Through, if the story is good, and the gameplay is enjoyable, i don't really care (And in Beyond the story is mediocre, there's barely any gameplay and you can't change the story. Hurray).
The CIA and assassination mission was torture. That's not how covert black operations work...just throw some inexperienced "operative" into hostile volatile territory and say "go find him". CIA/military missions are thought out and planned to the exact detail. Not to mention, her camo paint is the exact way we teach Soldiers NOT to do their face paint. I know this is secondary to the larger narrative and lack of gameplay but damn, at least get something right.
It was beyond retarded. I mean the whole point I assume was to do anonymous assassination, and yet she has to go take a picture right in his face so obviously half of somalia see her and US army has to go extract her (who also get seen) because of the whole cockup. They might have as well planted us flag on the targets corpse and made public announcement that they did the killing. I can't for the life of me understand how her doing the job is more subtle or efficient compared to a high powered sniper rifle.