Which games (if any) successfully managed to be mature?

[Achilles]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned them yet, but I found both Max Payne games to be mature. Compared to the idiotic "next-gen" games that we get today, they seem almost artistic.

 

[Longshanks]

^^Unfair? I don't think so. I'd have thought the idea that the better quality movies, novels are superior to better quality games in terms of story, characterisation and "maturity" is an uncontroversial one. In general, some games can compare with, even surpass much of the popular mainstream novels, summer blockbusters, teen, romantic comedy, well, a shit tonne of crappy movies and novels for that matter. But, compete with the best of them? Not even close. The comparison to Avatar and Dan Brown was hyperbole. Though there are many games, just as there are many movies/novels, that fail to match them.

To be more fair I'll note some mitigating factors - it's a young medium, story is not the only or even always prime focus, interactivity (could be a positive some day).

To me, games have not even come close to realising their full story-telling/creating potential. Even those that do a relatively good job are mostly pale imitations of novels or movies rather than something different. The right blend of strong interactivity and story has yet to be found. Games will not be a serious alternative in story-telling until it is. It may be that we will never get the kind of theme exploration, characteriastion or strong plotting of other media, but games will need to find some way to excel if they are to be considered alongside the older forms.


ps. Another area where game's lack mature treatment - war. How many games where it is treated as anything but a shooting gallery (goes for sims too)?

 

[Good Ol' Drog]

Another area where game's lack mature treatment - war. How many games where it is treated as anything but a shooting gallery (goes for sims too)?

War, war never changes...

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Another area where game's lack mature treatment - war. How many games where it is treated as anything but a shooting gallery (goes for sims too)?

I've heard "Brothers in arms" had good WW2 story behind it.

 

[Longshanks]

Missed on a major mitigating factor - technological limitations. Games are still arse ugly. Making it difficult to convey real human emotion.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

BiA has good story? In the same way Ace Combat series has "good story", I guess.

 

[Lesifoere]

^^Unfair? I don't think so. I'd have thought the idea that the better quality movies, novels are superior to better quality games in terms of story, characterisation and "maturity" is an uncontroversial one. In general, some games can compare with, even surpass much of the popular mainstream novels, summer blockbusters, teen, romantic comedy, well, a shit tonne of crappy movies and novels for that matter. But, compete with the best of them? Not even close. The comparison to Avatar and Dan Brown was hyperbole. Though there are many games, just as there are many movies/novels, that fail to match them.

So yeah, uhm, how about address specific examples I brought up?

 

[Gragt]

The problem with this discussion is that pretty much everyone has his own defition of what "mature" means. This thread should have started by agreeing on what the word means rather than have all say "for me, mature is ...".

 

[Secretninja]

Soul Reaver series. Not sure about the Blood Omen entries, as I could never finish them for some reason.

 

[Zomg]

There's also the player's tendency to trust tutorials implicitly because, hey, that's what you're supposed to do. Games don't lie to you about their mechanics so you take that for granted. But in The Void, the "tutorial" is wrong about almost everything. Partly because the NPC tutoring you doesn't know as much as she thinks, but also partly because she's not telling you the whole truth. Later on, as other NPCs talk to you, they'll explain things but often contradict one another. And so on.

Eh, an anti-tutorial strikes me as meta and the kind of thing I'd only find interesting one time. It plays with the idea and format of tutorials, yay.

In a larger and less impish context a game where you cannot trust any received information (or there simply is no received information) is fine; it reduces you to a sort of "scientist" mode where you have to generate your own information, which most of us do by not reading manuals and skipping tutorials anyway.

NPC lying is a different thing from what I'm thinking above, though - I was imagining something like "Press X to jump" coming up on the screen, then you press X and the PC saws their hand off. I don't remember ever having the expectation that NPCs wouldn't lie. Maybe in the specific case where an NPC is breaking the fourth wall to directly address the player I'd expect that to be more like trusting the interface, left is left and right is right, and so on, rather than trusting the NPC.

 

[Lesifoere]

NPC lying is a different thing from what I'm thinking above, though - I was imagining something like "Press X to jump" coming up on the screen, then you press X and the PC saws their hand off. I don't remember ever having the expectation that NPCs wouldn't lie.

The NPC in question is the one giving you the tutorial.

Although "press x to jump" resulting in your character sawing their hands off would be hilarious.

 

[JarlFrank]

Leisure Suit Larry.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

NPC lying is a different thing from what I'm thinking above, though - I was imagining something like "Press X to jump" coming up on the screen, then you press X and the PC saws their hand off. I don't remember ever having the expectation that NPCs wouldn't lie.

The NPC in question is the one giving you the tutorial.

Although "press x to jump" resulting in your character sawing their hands off would be hilarious.

'sbeen done in Abe's Oddysee. IIRC first time you use a lever a crate falls and kills a mudokon scrubbing the wall.

Another example is late in the game, there's a location with fireflies and a lone bat flying around. Bats are lethal, but you don't know it at that point. So you start chanting and the fireflies slowly turn into words "WATCH... OUT... FOR... THE... BAT" and at that precise moment the bat reaches the place where you're standing after you entered the location, killing you.

 

[Longshanks]

^^Unfair? I don't think so. I'd have thought the idea that the better quality movies, novels are superior to better quality games in terms of story, characterisation and "maturity" is an uncontroversial one. In general, some games can compare with, even surpass much of the popular mainstream novels, summer blockbusters, teen, romantic comedy, well, a shit tonne of crappy movies and novels for that matter. But, compete with the best of them? Not even close. The comparison to Avatar and Dan Brown was hyperbole. Though there are many games, just as there are many movies/novels, that fail to match them.

So yeah, uhm, how about address specific examples I brought up?

Um, because my point is not that all book/movie stories are better than games? I'm not going to get into a debate on which particular movies or books are good. Just think of those you consider to be of high quality and telll me with a straight face that there are any games which come close to matching them. I certainly couldn't do it.

 

[DriacKin]

bhlaab - I've no idea what their qualifications were, to be frank - the word that I got from the higher-ups was simply the phrase "Hollywood Writers"... and to be honest? It was like the closest these guys got to Taxi Driver was seeing the poster of Travis Bickle with the gun and the mirror and the phrase "You talkin' to me?" They made him alternately a savage psychopath and an emotionless killer - misread the entire character how that fucking poster does. He thinks he's a badass, but it's supposed to come off as a little kid posing in the mirror. If those guys actually made a living in Hollywood, they probably shat out stuff like Face Murderers 2 and Terrorex and other 'SyFy' channel originals. It was BAD.

Makes you wonder what Martin Scorsese or De Niro would've thought had they seen or played it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Seriously, Leisure Suit Larry.

The sixth game even has a tranny.

 

[Silellak]

Pretty much all of the later Ultima games, IV-VII, have varying levels of "mature" plot.

We have themes like:

Ultima IV: Your actions have consequences
Ultima V: Every morality system can go too far
Ultima VI: Your actions still have consequences, and "good" and "evil" are often in the eye of the beholder
Ultima VII: No real "theme" ala IV-VI, but a fairly dark and mature story.

All of these games manage to have fairly mature plots and/or themes, without bashing you over the head with it or throwing titties and blood at you.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Ultima VII

Oh yes. The enlightened ideology of universal globalist feel-good brotherhood is actually a front for pure evil in its quest for total domination. The only game that got it right.

 

[Reject_666_6]

Soul Reaver series. Not sure about the Blood Omen entries, as I could never finish them for some reason.

Blood Omen 2 was an abomination, but the rest of the LoK series delivered.

 

[Silellak]

Ultima VII

Oh yes. The enlightened ideology of universal globalist feel-good brotherhood is actually a front for pure evil in its quest for total domination. The only game that got it right.

Obama = Batlin. Don't be shocked when you wake up and find a giant red floating head in the sky - you heard it here first, folks.

 

[Good Ol' Drog]

Soul Reaver series. Not sure about the Blood Omen entries, as I could never finish them for some reason.

Blood Omen 2 was an abomination, but the rest of the LoK series delivered.

The Legacy of Kain series was a really long and terribly pretentious soap opera. OMG, Pime Taradox, the edge of a coin, the Elder God and the Wheel of Fate, an ancient race betrayed, a super sword, alien invaders, an oracle with milky eyes, it had it all. Not to mention that there were innumerous plotholes and no definite conclusion. But, yeah, I guess, it's deep when you're 15 and all emotional about the "cruel world". Then I guess you can associate with the whiny Raziel.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

ps. Another area where game's lack mature treatment - war. How many games where it is treated as anything but a shooting gallery (goes for sims too)?

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. No, not the one where you shoot up the russian airport.

I'm dead serious.

 

[MetalCraze]

Another area where game's lack mature treatment - war. How many games where it is treated as anything but a shooting gallery (goes for sims too)?

While you are at it - show me a single military sim that is a shooting gallery. The single main point of all simulations is to show how it really is. Yet even simulation games have to compromise because nobody will play the game that is mature about war.

Mainly because of "OMG it shows the terrorists shooting civilians!! BAN IT" - of course in CoD6 the context in which it was used was idiotic but do you believe a game that shows terrorists for what they are, soldiers torturing captives and also gore even if all of it is used in a proper context would survive the ESRB?

So all that what we can have is hero american soldiers saving the world from Hitler in various BiA, CoDs, MoHs with their bravery and heroism being over-the-top etc. etc.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. No, not the one where you shoot up the russian airport.

I'm dead serious.

Oh yes - COD4 is so mature. When you run inside that building and see enemies spawning right out of the thin air or encounter those man-eating dogs in Chernobyl - and your first thought must be "this is so dark and gritty!" and especially when RPG rocket blows up near you and you come out without a scratch after sitting for just 2 seconds behind the box and all of it is being covered in a very cliche story with lots and lots of summer-hollywood-action over-the-top moments.
Mature and silly don't come in pairs.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. No, not the one where you shoot up the russian airport.

I'm dead serious.

Stab yourself with a rusty knife.

I'm dead serious.

 

[Longshanks]

Another area where game's lack mature treatment - war. How many games where it is treated as anything but a shooting gallery (goes for sims too)?

While you are at it - show me a single military sim that is a shooting gallery. The single main point of all simulations is to show how it really is. Yet even simulation games have to compromise because nobody will play the game that is mature about war.

My point about sims is that they're still about the combat side of war and killing other guys; albeit in a more realistic way than FPSs. Their appeal is the enjoyment of tactical combat.