What do we call those segments of games where you're not doing anything, but are forced to walk slowly and have a character either talk with you or at you?
You're moving forward, but arbitrarily and you can't skip it. Technically you're playing, but your options are simplified down to moving irritatingly slow.
I propose we call them walkie talkies.
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Some games do it right, mostly horror games.
telltale games
That is the dumbest fucking name ever.
I'm going to bully you until you're sorry about coming up with such a stupid name.
In film they would be called "exposition", in games it is called "shit" shit. I suggest we create a portmanteau and call them "exposhitting". Because the characters are shitting up the gaming with their shitty exposition.
I didn't come up with it, but it is a great name, it is both clever and easy to say.
exposition hallways, Slow walk sequences, hand on ear walk and talk, they have many names. Always, always, always shit.
the worst offenders are where you walk slowly with no phone call for 2 minutes then you get one then walk slowly again.
fuck that
Loading zones. It's what they are.
MGR used them for the loading times.
Mass Effect 3 had them with Shepard's PTSD nightmare shit.
It's like the modern version af autoscroller levels.
They're not as good at the actual normal levels but there is an unique value to them. In this case, expostion.
Walking cutscene.
Good games let you skip them but they are few and far between.
A walkie talkie is just a two-way radio. It is not original and there's scope for it being confused with an actual radio.
What if there's such a segment of a game involving a two-way radio, for example (quite possible)? Now we have a walkie talkie in a walkie talkie.
Like any Metal Gear game?
Like Metal Gear or Silent Hill?
And many other games yes.
Stupidity isn't videogames. Fuck off and get your eyes fixed.
a waste of time
lazy
unskippable cutscenes.
Glorified cutscenes
cutscenes are usually entertaining and don't have gameplay, they don't boil down gameplay to the most minimal possible, they take a break from it.
I miss cutscenes.
GOD-TIER:
Skippable cutscenes
WHY DO THEY STILL DO THIS TIER?:
Anything else
Glory kills.
Walkscenes.
Bad design.
At least in games like Half Life you could fuck around with the objects in the level like the small teleport in Kleiner's lab. There are no redeeming factors in Mass Effect and other action games that come to a screeching halt.
half-life also does these things very poorly. you're forced to stop progress no matter what, and that's bullshit.
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They're insulting but not as insulting as the semi-cutscene where you gotta press a button when it pops up on the screen, otherwise you have no control and it may as well just be a goddamn cutscene.
Holy shit fuck the people that keep doing any of this.
I like this a lot more than walkie talkies.
Yeah, skippable cutscenes is where it's really at.
Most of them are loading screens and that is an actual good game design.
skippable cutscenes, that if you want to take them as a break, are at least entertaining. Thief and devil may cry come to mind as entertaining but skippable.
Not if they're unskippable it isn't. It's all well and good if you've got standardised shitty console hardware where you know it'll take at least, say, 20 seconds to load. If you're on a PC or are porting the game to the next generation loading times will likely be lower.
Mass Effect did this with the elevators. I think it's okay then, because otherwise you'd just be staring at a loading bar.
As exposition, though, it's a very poor way to present it. It's literally all tell, no show. The only thing worse is files.
Literally this.
This also works. I like it.
You can make this argument for some games, but what about game like The Last of Us? There is a ton of exposition where you're just walking through ruins and occasionally picking up a ladder and putting it somewhere else. Pretty damn sure even PS3 games don't have to load that often.
"Boring Bullshit"
Or alternatively: "I wish I was making movies instead of games" sections.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution had one of these exposition scenes. All you could do was look around though. I don't remember if you could skip it or not.
the opening tracking "shot"? No, you couldn't skip it
Sauce on that without the photoshopped girl?
Also, yeah, cutscenes on rails, popularised by the train ride in the introduction of Half-life 1. Intereseting the first time you play it, a chore every subsequent time.
pixiv.net
look it up on iqdb.org next time, okay user?
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I used to play TLoU at a very low volume so I could tell that any section where you do something slow (opening rusty door, walking and talking to Ellie, catching your breath after a running sequence) had the console read the disc.
So yeah, loading screens.
Back when they were a new thing I wouldn't have called them cutscenes. But since so many devs have started using them as an alternative to cutscenes I figured you might as well call a spade a spade since that is what they are using them for.
I would call them Interactive Cutscenes, but that doesn't really distinguish between Telltale's shit.
And In-Game Cutscene doesn't distinguish between when a cutscene is being done in-engine as opposed to pre-rendered.
How about Free-roam Cutscene? At least for instances where you can move the character around, even if it means jack shit?
What if that's the whole game? Last of Us for example.
well its a decent joke, but it's been made about a million times already.
On a PC (particularly one with an SSD) loading times are negligible for most games. This goes doubly for multiplatform games.
There is no need to cover up a loading screen if it's going to be a few seconds at most.
A million and one, nigga.
Well, there's me corrected. That's amazing.
It's an insult to call a hallway "free-roam".
even then, there is zero shame in having a loading bar on screen. I'd rather the game be honest with me instead of make me wade through awful dialog and non-gameplay.
I think of it as "story cripple mode"
What do you call it when the game grabs control of the camera to force you to look at a thing?
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I kinda want back loading screen-minigames
Garbage. Hiding loading screens is pointless if it breaks the flow of the gameplay anyway. You might as well have a standard cutscene because you're going to break immersion regardless when the gameplay rules suddenly change.
I do prefer games that have a 'press enter to start' screen or similar also.
I might want to fuck off while it loads or I might want to actually read whatever text is on the loading screen. Many older games will load so quickly you'll be at the second word before it goes ingame and you can miss out on interesting info.
Still not as empty and immersion breaking as a loading screen.
I think namco's patent expired, which is why splatoon had them.
gives an opportunity to run off and use the toilet, get a drink, etc. Return and resume at your own leisure instead of the game ending up leaving you with space to catch up a long distance if you walk off.
Too much effort to hide something that really doesn't matter much. Loading screens are pretty inoffensive. Modern games take at worse, a half minute to load?
immersion isn't a real thing you know. walkie talkies do far more in taking away player agency by forcing you to listen to that stupid shit.
replaying games like Metal Gear Rising are dumb like this
ready to fight Monsoon? ok, well your character is emotionally distraught, so we're going to make you crawl across 5 city blocks while avoiding every enemy. finally at the boss fight area? ok, here's a few enemies you have to fight until sam walks up to you to taunt you. finally ready for the pre-boss fight cutscene? you want to skip it because you've seen it already? ok, you can skip the first part but not the part where he talks about memes
I don't think even that. The longest time a game takes for me to load is the initial startup of HoI3 and that's maybe 10 seconds. Paradox being shitty is likely the cause also.
I see where you come from and I understand your point but I stand with mine.
you have to keep in mind, some machines have 5400RPM drives, consoles and laptops in particular, so loading can take quite some time. A load screen is still inoffensive.
I've been immersed in games before, but it's a shallow thing. These days when I play stalker I'm bored in half an hour, but back then I could play for 16 hours. Fickle, not particularly valuable and not a good measurement.
What is going on in this thread holy shit
What?
No I'd say it's worse since at least a loading screen takes a complete break from the game instead of suddenly becoming bizarro-game.
its a subjective quality
Am I going to have to slap you for being underabeb&? The name for this is "exposition."
Well anyway, if you play a lot games that have these fucking "walkie talkie" segments as you have so cleverly coined them, I would suggest getting better taste in games. Some games do this sparingly, but shit like TLOU and modern movie-like games do this constantly. If used sparingly, they can enhance a game. Overuse them and it becomes a chore to play.
Just try and replay a game with these segments, you'll find that you can't skip these parts at all and you are constantly interrupted from gameplay by exposition you already know. If you really have to play this shit, either rent them or buy them cheap, since you sure as hell aren't going to replay these games for the "gameplay."
One could argue it's pointless to replay story based games like TLoU
That doesn't mean it isn't real, though.
Does the fact that I don't l like MOBA games mean the opinion of someone who does like them isn't real? Is fun not real? What on earth are you trying to say?
Wrong. I suggest you play more games and stop being so patronizing, grandpa. Exposition is just revealing information about the story and world. Walking around and talking is just one of many ways of doing this. This walking around and talking with no gameplay mechanic (if you can even call it that) is prevalent enough in games to warrant discussion of coining a term for them. We all know it's shit when overused. Just because we're talking about them, doesn't mean they're good games.
Are we not allowed to discuss bad games, or something?
But it's the express purpose to replay gameplay based games like Metal Gear Rising
no, fun is obviously very real. Not a meaningful measurement however
its sort of like rewatching a movie you like, replaying a story focused game that is. You forget lots of details over time and in 5 years it feels like a 90% fresh experience again and you recall what you enjoyed about it. That or you find it isn't as good as it used to be.
Sure, that just shows that they are bad games. I don't know about you, but for a game to be good in my eyes it has to have:
If a game's gameplay only reaches serviceable levels as a means to only solely get you forward in the story, it is irredeemably a shitty game. A mediocre movie perhaps, but a poor substitue for a game.
Reread my post, "sonny." You're putting words in my mouth. I'm not discouraging you from discussion, but simply insulting OP's preference in games. Coining a term is good and all, but "walkie talkies"? Seriously? I find this coining to be unnecessary when "exposition" fits the bill just as well.
Like you said, walking and talking is one of many ways for exposition. If you are adamant on coining a term for a niche sub-category, be my guest.
I'd actually say the variability in load times is part of the reason hiding them under a cutscene is objectionable.
Exposition can take many forms in vidya.
Poorly designed walking cutscenes are but one and a poor one at that.
Fun and immersion are both real and subjective. They're not mutual qualities.
But why are you doing that? He never once said he had a preference for these games. You're insulting him for no reason. Your negative and nonconstructive involvement in the discussion implies you're trying to discourage him and everyone else from discussing this.
Why not? It sounds silly, but it's meant to be an insulting term. No one likes these sequences when they are prolonged.
But exposition DOESN'T fit the bill. I already explained this. Item description in Souls are exposition, the text crawl from Star Wars is exposition: anything that explains what's going on the world and story are exposition. Even entirely textless and speechless scenes can be expository. Posters on walls showing fictional in-universe companies are exposition. Are you learning about the world or story? Guess what? That's exposition!
When done right, for pacing reasons and the like, it's great stuff to have but otherwise, as with almost everything else, when its done wrong, placed wrong, it's a terrible mechanic.
it's a terrible means of pacing and it's the opposite of enjoyable. It's never been done well in a game, ever.
Are you arguing for or against the fact that this shit is exposition?
Where is the line drawn between exposition and not exposition? Even the gameplay can be expository, if the dev does it right (morrowind has the character start out weak as shit, magnifying the fact that they're not important in the game world yet)
Witcher 3 did it great at the Palace at Vizima, for example. You're expected to try to blend in with the guests. AC traditionally does this well, too, as it is also a great moment to introduce a bit of history (Too bad they screwed up the formula and the engine afterwards).
It is exposition, but you're saying that we should refer to this type of exposition as just "exposition". If we did that, no one would know exactly what we're talking about. In this instance, being more specific helps, because there are many ways of presenting exposition.
Does there need to be a line? I don't understand this question.
Incredibly doubtful considering how amateurish even basic things like combat are done in the witcher. Assassins Creed? Your position isn't getting any credibility.
I suppose it depends per person, then.
What alternatives would you suggest for exposition, or 'walkie talkies'? How would you telegraph information, backstory and the like to the player?
Lurk moar. You're sounding like some fucking tumblrite. If a term or an idea is good, it should withstand criticism. This is what I'm doing right now, criticizing, although a bit brashly, but I think it goes without saying that "walkie talkie" sounds absolutely dumb. If you're going to hang around here for long, get some thick skin.
So let me get this straight. You enjoy video games, but then you go on ahead and say that silly and demeaning terms for game segments are a-ok? I'll go and assume you want video game quality to improve, but how do you expect that to happen if chucklefucks like you and OP defend stupid names like "walkie talkies"? Like you said, it sounds silly. How do you expect game quality to improve if no one takes the craft seriously?
Elaborate more on how walking segments are different from what you just described, because you're doing a shit job at it.
environmental storytelling works adequately, actual, proper, skippable cutscenes. Optional dialog. Nothing important is ever delivered through walkie talkies.
Everything can be exposition. Even if it's shit exposition like stopping up the whole pace of the game/movie/etc and talking directly to the audience, it's still exposition. A good director will avoid bad exposition, and make it coherent with the pace, tone, and style of the art.
Since the player has agency, the story should unfold by the action of the player himself. Books for backstory of the world, people to talk to about lore, stuff like that should all be optional and depend on the player's willingness to learn. Quests should have an option to say, "just tell me where to shoot" instead of listening to the rhyme or reason. If you encounter some anomaly, you should be able to talk to people to figure out what the hell you just saw, or just ignore it and not think twice about it.
Games let the player choose how they play, so they should be able to choose how they see the story. Any exposition would be prompted by the player, which is otherwise skipped by default
it's not nearly demeaning enough
It makes the whole scene out to be a joke with a clever little name
the name is fucking retarded and misleading
walking
talking
walkie talkie, like the outdated device, a play on words
not hard to understand, is it?
You were the one who entered the thread by saying that the OP had shit taste in games (a taste he never claimed to have!), while everyone else was discussing game mechanics. How was that constructive? "It's shit" is not criticism, it's a shallow opinion.
Why are you so offended? We shit talk games all the time for fun. Is the term Walking Simulator offensive to you, too?
Walking segments are exposition. I never said they weren't. This whole topic is about criticizing why prolonged walking segments are bad. No one ever said they are inherently bad or not exposition. The only reason they are notable is because some recent games have being abusing their usage and that's not good.
The examples I gave are not inherently bad or good, either. If they are overused they are bad, the same way a long and arduous walking segment is bad.
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I call them annoying.
He was implying a person with good taste in games wouldn't play games that stop you for exposition
Maybe if you had lurked more you would have been able to extrapolate that from the post
Good suggestions for sure, thanks. I'll be noting those down for myself.
I think one of the main reasons this isn't done, and its more forced into the faces of players is that else a lot of players may find themselves not understanding the story, reason for action, and probably would abuse the ability to skip. Another reason of course is that this would require more effort in game development.
I cal em "the Telltale" but whatevs homie
story in games doesn't matter. if your story comes first, your game might as well be thrown out.
Someone needs to rewrite "The Telltale Heart" to be about a guy who hates Telltale's video games
I dont know where im going with this but you might be on to something
Alright OP, I'll play along. Ok, let's say walking and talking segments are now reffered to as 'walkie talkies.' What about item descriptions? What about the segments where there's exposition with neither? What about the exposition where you read it from a book?
You see what I'm getting at? There are so many ways to expose stuff, it would be downright impractical to start labelling everything. Discussion would be bogged down and you could only discuss this shit with only the autists at TVtropes, because they're the only ones who give a shit.
"Keep it simple, stupid." If the word "exposition" is good enough, why fix it?
Alright, I'll elaborate on why 'walkie talkie' is a bullshit term that should not be used, since you can't figure out why it sounds utterly ridiculous.
1) If these segments should be named, every other segment should be categorized as well, making things highly impractical.
2) The term sounds childish and is silly (like you said), unbefitting any medium that should be taken seriously.
I don't understand how you would see my post as "being offended." Irritated, sure, but far from offended. I was addressing the fact that you found the term 'walkie talkie' to be fitting because it is silly to be bullshit, and then you go off on a tangent saying I'm mad?
Alright, now we're getting somewhere. Let me ask you this; if you want video games to be taken seriously and these issues to be addressed (prolonged walking segments), why come up with childish, bullshit terms for a sub-category of exposition? Isn't the term 'walking simulator' enough? Like I said eralier, if you complicate things too much, it just confuses people. Imagine trying to talk to a person about your favorite video game, but every segment is now categorized into some bullshit term. It would sound something like this:
"Hey Mike, I really enjoyed TLOUs walkie talkie segments, but the run and shooty parts werent nearly as fun as the stab'n'rape sequences. I happened to dislike the findy-keepsies part as it was too un-schway."
If you want your discussions to be straight out of TVtropes, I guess I can't stop your autistic ass.
No, this entire "mechanic" is utter fucking trash.
its called critiquing a common design choice that damages a game more than it helps
Alright, I'll humor you. Tell me, in your words, how you think changing a label for walking and talking segments from "exposition" to "walkie talkie" will somehow stop "damage" happening to a game's quality? I'll wait.
What the fuck are you smoking? Your posts read like the ramblings of a schizo.
I'll adimit that sentence was a bit long-winded. OP's words, not mine. I'll clarify a bit more. How is it going to help if we refer to walking segments as 'walkie talkies'? How is it going to stop damage happening to a game's quality?
you do know exposition describes a million other things designers can do besides walking and talking, right?
Of course, more than you, because I know when something needs defining and something doesn't. Read my previous posts.
Walking and talking segments ar about exposition. Item descriptiosn can be exposition. Anything can be exposition. Why do we need to define walking and talking segments as it's own separate thing? What does it bring to the table that sets it apart from the rest of the ways that exposition can be done? What is it's defining nature that sets it apart? If you say walking and talking, I'll just leave you to it. It needs to be more than that.
Because unlike some other forms of exposition this one is NEVER good. I love item descriptions but when a game forces me to slowly walk forward while some random person rambles on about something I just want to quit.
interactive quicktime.
Fair enough. But wouldn't you say games that overly emphasize these segments are bad, and not the walking segments themselves? Applied right it can work. Just because movie-like games are overusing it doesn't mean the segments are inherently bad. What you're disliking are the games themselves that overuse walking segments. And there is a word for them, which is walking simulators.
I havent seen or played a single game where this mechanic added anything postive. It unfortunately is sometimes used in decent/good games and it doesnt work in there either.
These both sound right
alternatively
I heard the term Controlled Helplessness used sometimes.
we have IDs on this board, fella.
I can think up of ONE exapmle. God of War 2, when Kratos simply gets fed up with everything and starts pacing around, yelling at the gods in the middle of a boss fight. But you're right, it rarely brings anything to the table. But on the flipside, walking and talking segments happen very rarely in games worth a damn. If I could get to choose between a game consisting of 90% of walk'n'talk and a game which only has 10% of walk'n'talk, I'd choose the one with less of the boring segments.
I got to say OP, the more I'm discussing this with you and the more you elaborate, this is starting to sound more and more reasonable. I don't give a damn about modern games any more, but I remember even Bulletstorm having an assload of segments where the characters do nothing but talk. If it's this prevalent in modern games, maybe it SHOULD be categorized.
I don't know if there are any games out there that allow you to skip these walk'n'talk segments, but if there was, I'm pretty damned sure the game would go from 10 hours to complete to 1 hour MAX.
oh shit we have a game design expert here ahahahaha
okay mister expert, why can't we keep on track and critique this specific example of exposition by giving it a name that describes what it is humorously and with contempt
heard it elsewhere faggot :^)
Because it means you don't like video games and don't take them seriously.
I'm not saying WHY it can't be defined, I'm saying there is already a suitable definition, which is 'walking simulator.' Chances are that if a game has a lot of those segments, the game is DESIGNED around walk'n'talk segments. Therefore, the GAME should instead be called 'walking simulator'. It serves no purpose trying to define walk'n'talk as a sub-category, because it happens rarely in other games, to the extent that it's barely noticeable.
What you're irritated with is the GAME overusing walk'n'talk, not the actual segment itself.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on anything, but I've elaborated myself time and again. Take your fucking Ritalin and read through my replies to you.
How come there is no legitimate walking simulators? Something like octodad, where the entirety of the game is based on your ability to control the character's legs.
Someone never played QWOP
Also don't give the youtube bait devs more ideas
Forced exposition.
It's called an "unskippable cutscene"
why consoleshits hate games so much
Suddenly I don't want to anymore
It's called publishers being too cheap to pay for CG cutscenes. Don't fall for the in-engine meme.
They are a step worse than unskippable cutscenes, at least you can walk away during those and go piss or something. With this shit you have to constantly hold the move forward button and occasionaly press something else.
walkie talkie is a section of a game, walking simulator is a genre. I'm not irritated with a game overusing it, I'm irritated with games using it period, it's bad design.
Apparently, I'm the only person besides OP who likes this name. The definition is in the term, it rolls off the tongue, and undermines the seriousness of the scene by shitting on it with a silly name. I love it!
Now this I can get behind
Just as good, with the benefit of being easily conveyable to normalfags.
interlewds?