So I’m playing Mass Effect for the first time and thoroughly enjoying it. I’m only a few hours in but I enjoy the universe, style, story and back-story.
This made me think about why it is that I don’t generally enjoy many fantasy worlds or stories in games (or in books, for that matter). Am I just a sci fi geek? Or perhaps there are qualities in sci fi that fantasy games usually fail to hit.
Whether I think back to The Dig, or currently, Mass Effect, I usually enjoy the stories of sci fi games a lot more than fantasy. Perhaps it’s because sci fi universes tend to be more varied (no repetition of the human/elves/dwarfs), or perhaps the settings are more believable, or perhaps sci fi characters escape the straightjacket that D&D seems to have placed on the fantasy genre?
Am I alone in thinking like this?
Of course, there are exceptions. Oblivion had a really interesting setting, and many Sci Fi games feature generic space marines against insectoid race o’ the week (as well as ancient races, psionics etc etc), but overall I find sci fi more satisfying. What about you?
(Part of this pondering comes to me because Dragon Age looks, on the one hand, to be a really interesting game, but on the other is treading a very, very well worn path with many of its elements, it seems).
Like you mentioned, sci-fi can vary quite a bit. In my lifetime we will never have the chance to see what space really holds, so space sci-fi in particular is interesting for me. I loved Sins of a Solar Empire soooooooooooooooo much just because I loved looking at the ships and planets… I only ever played three or so games of it. I really wish I had gotten in on a game like EVE back when it was new and when I had time. Now, I feel like it is too late, but I still wish for an immersive, persistent space-based game.
Fantasy on the other hand is more of a childhood dream sort of thing for me. I think the idea of special powers (I often play mages/wizards) really interests me, whereas heroes in sci-fi games aren’t always necessarily gifted beyond belief. I also think fantasy games tend to have more in-depth character creation (thank you D&D) which assists in the immersion and roleplaying part.
Another thought: Problem solving in science fiction often involves more than fighting. In fantasy, hitting stuff is often the universal solvent, or magic. Other than the comedy, perhaps that’s why I like Terry Pratchett’s novels, fighting is usually only a small part, the rest is often more of a who-dun-it.
The problem with fantasy games, I think, is that most of them seem compelled to follow the Lord of the Rings epic saga setting, with the medieval setup, the humans/elves/dwarves, the dark lord, and the hero who comes of age. Of course, High Fantasy also tends to dominate the sales charts in books, so it’s not hard to understand why.
That said, I enjoyed Mass Effect , but I don’t feel the game story itself ultimately lived up to the setting and background. And if anything, the solution to problems in that game usually involves shooting things, though that fits in well with my feeling of that game as being High Fantasy in Space.
Not saying that that is in generally true, but for me it’s the reason why since years I havent touched a fantasy book.
A more “realistic” fantasy setting with more than a simple black and white coloration of good and bad hasnt showed up on my radar and I stopped looking too since Earthdawn died not saying there arent any new around.
I loved Earthdawn as a Fantasy setting as it stuck several layers of different aspects on top of each other. There is no “true good” or “true bad”.
There is
the “post apocalypse” feeling from after the scource, with it’s indiana jones exploration
the Theran vs Barsaive politics
the “inter Barsaive” politics between the different factions
the dragon vs all. politics
the daemons paranoi/corruption
the greater Thera politics
and in the end somewhere the player somewhere in the middle, which our PnP player group and game master managed to weave into all our game session. And we just wanted to get rich, which gave us really the feeling “stumbling into something bigger than us” kind of game.
A mutli facet setting using old stereo types in an interesting way (orcs have been ensalved but are not anymore).
The Sci-Fi doesnt seem to follow such a strong path as fantasy with it’s Lord of the Ring stereo type as it seem to draw from multiple sources (simple shooty space ships/ AI stuff/ politica settings/ escapism/ time travel… ) creating a far wider range of settings without one dominating the whole genere. Look at how neither star wars, star trek, battle star galatica (old and new), buck rogers, babylon 5 managed to put such a strong stereo type brand on sci-fi in general.
Fantasy at its core seems to be escapism or wish fulfillment. What should the world be like (Tolkien inventing a national mythology for Britain) or what’s the most fun thing to do (Howard inventing a world where all kinds of action stories could happen in take-offs of many adventurous, historically inspired or otherwise, locales)?
Science Fiction, at its hard heart, is about asking questions about the nature of the universe or how technology and exploration may shape the human experience. When it slips over into pure adventure or uses science as magic then you have, ta da, science fantasy.
I like both when they’re done well in fiction. In games…nothing jumps out at me as being a meaningful, original, example of either. But it could just be an early morning coffee deficiency.
I tend to think that good writing is good writing, regardless of the setting. There is little difference between the quality of the storyline in Starcraft and Warcraft III (for example). And if there its a difference between the writers, the sci-fi vs fantasy setting doesn’t inherently make one better than the other.
That being said there are a wide variety of Fantasy settings and worlds out there. But in video games 90% are Tolkien clones. Whats worse is that many of those games use their Tolkien clone status as a way to quickly familiarize the player with the world so they don’t have develop it themselves. So we end up marching through some semi-familiar dungeon much as we have in 100 other games.
Sci-fi doesn’t have a single dominating example. So sci-fi developers are forced to establish their worlds. Which is a good thing for the game. Also since there are fewer sci-fi games than fantasy games they feel fresher to us.
I enjoy a good fantasy setting, but the generic LOTR clone fantasy worlds are so boring to me now that I would prefer to avoid them at all costs. Conversely, even the most cliched sci-fi setting can get my attention-I think it’s most likely because the setting is so underused comparatively and because for the most part, I vastly prefer sci-fi to fantasy.
First of all, I have to admit that when I envisioned ‘Fantasy’ as a kid, I always thought it would be a genre where people’s imaginations would get truly unleashed and it would provide me a gateway into another person’s wild ‘world’.
Instead, what I found out as I grew up and finally went from reading exclusively Science Fiction and Mystery novels to finally reading Fantasy Novels, was that most fantasy novels are just set in Medieval Europe, with a few standard fantasy races sometimes mixed in. Instead of being a genre where anything goes, it is, for the most part, a genre that is very restricted by limitations it seems to revel in.
With that said, I can certainly see the appeal of that particular world, especially in a well told story. I’m just a little disappointed that Fantasy isn’t a genre used to really tell people about wild and unbelievably clever worlds brought to life from people’s imaginations.
I think people have pretty much nailed the issues with the fantasy story-telling genre - it’s usually not as fresh as the stories we’re getting from sci-fi, with the latter genre having less conventions.
However, I’m not sure whether it bears a fair comparison - how much would we enjoy a fantasy setting without any elves, trolls, dragons or dwarves? I’ll admit that I do like some of these very (or extremely) familiar backgrounds and settings, but I guess writers could try to reach further within the fantasy genre.
Well, I’d like to see developers think a bit like writers do rather than bring writers in after the fact to spackle over the gameplay with some narrative. Create gameplay that reflects something troubling or intriguing in our world and exaggerate that out into fantasy or sci-fi. Where does that stuff come from in the first place? What are science fiction novelists or fantasists trying to do? Instead of just borrowing go there and draw from that well yourself.
I’d like to see more sci-fi games that aren’t strategies or FPS games. I think a RPG set in the WH40K universe could be awesome (note, I am not a WH40K fan, I just think it has a great setting). You can really create some awe-inspiring vistas with space - standing in the bar of a space station, looking out at a space dock with small ships flitting about, and huge dreadnaughts slowly making there way across the star-studded blackness.
As was mentioned earlier, one of the best things of Sins of a Solar Empire was the ability to zoom in on your awesome fleets of space craft.
So yes, more sci-fi RPGs game developers. Chop chop ;).
True to that, still the amount of mediocre writing on the fantasy side, especially from a game perspective has made me skip a lot of fantasy stuff up to a point hardly looking out for anything fantasy related at all.
At least, I appreciated that they tried to do something different with it and there was a lot of rich and interesting background that seemed to avoid a lot of the standard cliches.
I disagree. I think most fantasy novels are set in a high school history version of Medieval Europe with the LOTR stuff laid on top of it. Actual games and novels set in anything that tries to approximate the real deal would be great. Ask George Martin what it’s like to be unique when you implement only a small part of that.
As someone who despised Oblivion as a game, I felt like Aeon221’s psychotically detailed recounting of its historical base made me much more interested in the game. I could never actually play it thanks to all of the fantasy shit cliches frontloaded over it and the basic mechanics of the game, but the potential is there setting-wise.
Most of all, I just wanted to say that my wife totally agrees with the sci fi angle, and is very hesitant about Dragon Age as a result despite lacking ME. We’ll see if there’s any crossover possible.
This is why I’m pretty bored of fantasy, both in games and books. Even if nobody comes of age, fantasy has become synonymous with a King Arthur/Tolkien/D&D alternate-medieval setting. It is almost always set in an age of castles and swords and armour, and then they throw in magic and elves and goblins and the occasional dragon and they’re done. Out of all of human history and myth, we get one setting over and over. It would be like if every single sci-fi game were set in the Star Wars universe.
Why can’t we have a caveman game, a czar-era Russia game, a Byzantine intrigue game or just more steampunk? Whenever someone makes a fantasy game that breaks the mold like Planescape Torment or Eternal Darkness it’s been awesome. But then along comes Dragon Age and it looks like it might as well be called Baldur’s Gate 3. Why couldn’t they set it in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern? At the very least, it would be fun to run around with a wooden stick and make people gay.
So, what was the last fantasy game with an original setting? I don’t play enough to know.
I’d love to see some games which explored alternative mythologies or tried to follow folk mythologies very closely (eg, fairies, pixies and so-on from traditional northern european myth, or middle eastern myth, etc).
