Yeah, his complaint is a little too fatuous for an entire article on a major website. Bitching about “the stupid story” is fine for a website such as this, where the conversation thrives on bombastic, ego-driven remarks like that, but writing a whole article on why Bruce Geryk hates stories without any sort of real argument other than listing what he does does not prefer in his games is, just, well, egotistical.
Bruce’s argument basically boils down to “Bruce Geryk hates stories in games” because “Bruce Geryk hates dialogue trees”, “Bruce Geryk hates role-playing fags” and “Bruce Geryk has grown jaded and wants his games to play themselves even though he still won’t be able to shake his growing sense of dissatisfaction with the hobby.” Fine.
It would’ve been nice if Bruce’d tried to break down WHY story in games like NWN doesn’t work, beyond some rather subjective hand-waving about how its all crap with elves and how he prefers his dose of pulpy content in the form of pie-eyed waifs in bikinis searching for crystals. I mean, COME ON: NWN is a great start if you want to criticize story in games, since it manages to be the definitive example of how NOT to add story content with its contrived dialogue trees and distinct lack of cinematic sensibility - for God’s sake, it feels generic and painful simply because that’s the only way you can make a quest with the Aurora toolset. Write tools that make it easy for amateurs to create content, and you’ll inevitably limit yourself to amateurish results. NWN’s SP problem is that it feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure even though you’re playing a video game, and that’s not only incredibly cheesy, it’s a bit insulting at times. If you wanted to take one of those “Lone Wolf” or other D&D-esque kids books like “Deathtrap Dungeon” and turn them into a game, the Aurora toolset would be an ace choice. In fact, it’s got that approach nailed down so tight in its hapless need to be completely usable by any dork with a penchant for elvenkind, I’d suggest that it’s the ONLY choice.
But I digress. I can see the parallels between Diablo 2 and NWN, but at that level of comparison, I could also make an argument for comparing NWN and Gauntlet, or NWN and Cadash. The devil’s in the details, and by limiting his “comparison” to such a level of abstraction, Geryk completely misses the place where NWN fucks up - the details. Y’know, where it’s nothing like Diablo 2 in the slightest, with the dialogue trees and 3E round-based combat and 3D camera issues.
Really, all one takes away from that article is a strong feeling that Geryk really, REALLY thinks role-players are total fruits. I’m not saying that sentiment is inappropriate after reading the VE message boards, but there’s a lot of fruits in every aspect of this hobby and scribing up an entire article just to call fans of elf-based gaming a bunch of bumpokers is stupidly self-absorbed.
If you’re going to write an article bashing NWN, at least try to muster up some real complaints that any theoretically literate game designers not writing reams of sentences describing Lady Aribeth’s love life might be able to take away as criticism. At the very least, give the reader something to think about, rather than just a disfocused complaint about how Bruce Geryk just doesn’t like games that much any more.
