With Max 2 we tried to bring in an experienced Hollywood writer to help lead writer Sam Lake with some of the plotting and dialog, but, much to our dismay, this effort was summarily quashed by Rockstar's execs.

Had we not sold the franchise to Rockstar a year earlier, thus losing ultimate control of the game's quality, we would have taken the extra time (maybe six weeks) to improve much of the writing. But, Rockstar made the final call and told us not to let an outside writer interfere with the game's script.

My only guess is that they made this decision to avoid the game coming out later than its planned Oct. release. Oftentimes with publishers, the release date is everything. Quality be damned.

Well, talk about convergence of filmed and interactive entertainment: the creative team wants to improve the art and the studio just wants it released. Scott put that well enough; the game industry is suffering from the same dearth of quality consciousness at management level that other creative mediums struggle with.

This begs the question, When do you bring in the niche experts? I say, in light of Scott's experience, early on, the minute after the specification is written, before that even. To carry non-gaming talent into the creative process, the only solution may be to make that talent part of the package at the initial pitch. Get all the players and contributors signed into the contract before the publisher can start capping efforts to expand the creative team to improve the product. Of course, in this case, that might have meant bringing in a screenwriter on Max 1, before the game was a bona fide hit, before it could attract, and afford, talent from other mediums.

I find that the general opinion in the industry is that words really don't matter. Dialogue and in-game text is written by game designers and rarely proofread or researched before being put into the game. One more than a few occasions I've heard from producers or developers that they "aren't interested" in text bugs. As long as there are few enough mistakes that the game passes standards checks, it's fine by them.

And this is just spelling and grammar, let alone quality writing. Not to get to fogeyesque, but there was a time when writing did matter in games. Some used to actually come with novellas, or, for that matter, were composed entirely of text. Though we've come so far since that time in terms of graphics, writing has really taken a turn for the worse.

However, I think one recent example of really good writing is the GTA franchise, specifically the radio stations. That is some funny shit.

Not to mention "Taxi Drivers Must Die," in GTA2 - the best video game song ever.

I really enjoyed (mostly) the dialog in Max Payne (the first). I thought it was intentionally overly gritty.

What I really would have liked to have seen changed were the constipated facial expressions of the guy (designer?) who played Payne. And the broken wrists. Always the gun-toting broken wrists. Even when not gun-toting.

"I find that the general opinion in the industry is that words really don't matter."

Sounds just like the movie industry! Perhaps the gaming industry would serve themselves better by NOT getting involved with Hollywood, after all it is Hollywood that brought us movies like Demolition Man and Die Hard with their wonderful dialogue. It seems like most of the GOOD movie dialogue is from independent screenplay writers working out of their respective homes.

Aw, come one people! I LOVED playing MP2. And a big reason was the dialogue.

I thought the over-the-top "noir on speed" approch was sweet. And it's also the reason I've been toying around with the idea of writing a game. What better compliment can I give than to say that I found myself inspired.

I play MP2 straight thru. Thne I bought the GBA title and loved the cheesy dialogue in it. I will admit though that I have since bought the original MP for xbox and it's not as good.

For me the importance of good writing isn't just dialogue it's the situations the charactes find themselves in.

I loved the story in Beyond Good & Evil. They had characters I actually cared about. Whao.

Now, I really like final Fantasy X but the writing felt hampered by translating Japanese to English.

Aw, come one people! I LOVED playing MP2. And a big reason was the dialogue.

I thought the over-the-top "noir on speed" approch was sweet. And it's also the reason I've been toying around with the idea of writing a game. What better compliment can I give than to say that I found myself inspired.

I played MP2 straight thru. Then I bought the GBA title and loved the cheesy dialogue in it. I will admit though that I have since bought the original MP for xbox and it's not as good.

For me the importance of good writing isn't just dialogue it's the situations the charactes find themselves in.

I loved the story in Beyond Good & Evil. They had characters I actually cared about. Whao.

Now, I really like final Fantasy X but the writing felt hampered by translating Japanese to English.

I appreciated the dialogue in Max Payne. But I think there is a distinction to be made: dialogue is a part of writing. It does not compose all of the writing process, such as in C++, it would be a derived class "Dialogue" of the class "Writing"... Sorry, the programmer inside of me emerges...

Anyway, part of writing involves carving out the background story, as well as (attempting) to get the player (or viewer, in the case of a movie) emotionally involved, among other things. We need to move forward in the whole context of writing, dialogue and all, which is what games suffer from at the moment. Has anyone ever read "Creating Emotion in Games" by David Freeman? I think a better question to be asked would be, "Was anyone emotionally drawn into the story for Max Payne and Max Payne 2?"

Just my two cents.

Eli,

To get totaly off of the subject of things, you mention the movie Die Hard as being a terrible "Hollywood" movie. Fact of the matter is, the script for the original Die Hard movie is quite possibly one of the tightest movie scripts ever written. There is not a single piece of misplaced dialogue or exposition, every character is pitch perfect and the structure is nearly flawless.

That is, unless of course you were referring to Die Hard 2... In which case, yeah... That's some pretty bad writing.

Interesting point. Even the Metal Gear series, which is lauded for its storytelling, is filled with cliche-ridden and over-melodramatic dialogue, and the story pacing is kind of off too.

Dialogue is obviously not an easy thing to master. Even professionals stumble, and often. Think of any genre fiction you've watched/read recently. I'm willing to bet that there was at least one line that made you wince. The balance between exposition and character development is tricky, and aparently subjective (see Die Hard debate above).

Professionals are a step in the righ direction, but I don't expect it to fix the dialogue problem as a whole. It will only scrape those bottom-level games (like Resident Evil *shudder*) up off the floor.

Dialogue is obviously not an easy thing to master. Even professionals stumble, and often. Think of any genre fiction you've watched/read recently. I'm willing to bet that there was at least one line that made you wince. The balance between exposition and character development is tricky, and aparently subjective (see Die Hard debate above).

Professionals are a step in the righ direction, but I don't expect it to fix the dialogue problem as a whole. It will only scrape those bottom-level games (like Resident Evil *shudder*) up off the floor.

I enjoyed Max Payne's little narrated interludes because of their cheesiness. I mean, I thought that's what they were going for was a really, really, really cheesy 70s film quality. I mean, c'mon, the scene in the game where the guy's chanting the names of gods and he mentions Cthulu? That had to be intentionally bad.

Writing in games is not always bad, though. Or is it always so obvious.

Look at a game like Eternal Darkness. Okay, maybe the concept of the game was completely lifted from Lovecraft, but the game was genuinely interesting with well written dialouge and characters that weren't just stereotypes of their eras. They popped, if you will.

Other games like StarCraft and WarCraft have witty writing both inside the story and just for the characters' speech.

Heck, Beyond Good & Evil is also pretty well written, if not a tad heavy-handed. And it was written by the main game designer.

I think the issue is realizing that a game script and a movie script should be different. My main problem with Metal Gear Solid 2 was that I played the game for fifteen minutes and then watched fifteen minutes of talking. A game should have a good story, I'll grant that. But at the same time, the story should be used to make the game, not the other way around.

Ah, well. Just thought I'd add a little somethin'.

I thought the running monologue in Max Payne 1 was a great send-up of film noir and hardboiled detective tales... until I realized it wasn't a joke.

Then it hit me, hit me (as Max would say) like a truck full of memories speeding down streets of my mind. No escape, except the grave. The grave was where I'd left my last partner, a happy-go-lucky kid who didn't know the price this cruel and hungry city takes from those who dare to smile in the rain. I can still hear the gunshots, and the screams. And that song playing on the radio - the extended dance mix, actually. Pretty funky, now that I think about it. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, the grave. I pulled my coat tighter against the cold, invading hands of the night air and walked back to the toystore. All alone, of course. Maybe this time, I would be lucky and they'd have that Admiral Ackbar figure. Maybe.

But it didn't look good.

Surprisingly for me, Fire Emblem for the GBA kept me going for the twists in the story pretty well. In game cutscenes were nicely done, and spun a good (if slightly hackneyed) tale of political intrigue, while the ability to go through subplots based on what characters you chose to keep near each other for support opportunities added an extra little element to the general strategizing during combat.

Has anyone played Duex Ex: Invisible War yet?

I just started played it on my xbox. I got it specifically for the story and characters which I heard was pretty engaging.

I'm only about 2 hours into it but I gotta say that it's a little hard to get into BECAUSE unlike Max Payne 2 the player isn't being sent down a clear path. I can agree with folks who don't get into the humor of Max Payne's "inner monologues" and hence feel the game is basically stoppping every few minutes to let the player shoot some baddies but since I AM lovin' the cheesy dialogue I look forward to 'em. It's akin to the old intermissions on Pac-Man.

But back to Invisible War...
It's structurally a lot like Knights of the Old Republic. Sad to say, I never finished that game. THe world was great and I'm a big star wars fan but I hated all the side quests that had to be done. And I'm kinda feeling the same way with IW.

Anyone else feel like this?

No? Then I'll get back to Invisible War...

Personally I enjoyed MP2, and especially enjoyed what was for me an awkward tension between what appeared to be genuine pushes towards more adult (as distinct from just more explicit) content and a clumsy style of adolescent noir dialogue. In my time I have been known to enjoy self-aware clumsy adolescent noir dialogue, but it seemed this was without intention. Coming from the developers of Duke Nukem, I think my assumption was that irony was going to be served liberally with the title.

For me, this issue of dialogue is best highlighted by the emergence of machinima, and in particular work like RedvsBlue. The fact that this simple conceit works so well and can be so funny illustrates just how deeply ingrained the conventions that developers such as 3dRealms are having to work against actually are. I wonder if the development of this kind of work is going to influence developers, or more importantly the studios?

The MP franchise hints at some really interesting potentials for me, it's both heartening and encouraging to play something like it - but excrutiating to see not developed to its best realisation.

"Fact of the matter is, the script for the original Die Hard movie is quite possibly one of the tightest movie scripts ever written."

You're right, Die Hard was pretty awesome, and yes I was thinking of Die Hard 2 (the one at the airport). I picked those examples because they keep playing them over and over again on TBS... But now they've moved on to the film about super-smart sharks.

At the risk of sounding cranky...

...there is a tremendous tendency within the gaming community to confuse lots of writing or visible writing with good writing. The writing in Max Payne is up front and in you face, in big comic book letters on the screen. Whether that's good writing or not is irrelevant; it's there, it's noticeable, and as such it gets talked about. Ditto for dialogue. There are plenty of well-written games that are written subtly, and as such don't get the attention that showier ones do.

There are a lot of reasons writing in games isn't always up to snuff. Part of it is the general disregard in which developers hold the craft of writing. Let's face it, everyone thinks they can write, and they don't need to hire a writer because the designer/the artist with some free time/the producer's boyfriend who ran a kickass Rolemaster campaign back in college can do it. At this point, games are professional products and demand professional game writers. I cringe when people look to Hollywood for our writing saviors, and do so for several reasons. First of all, there is plenty of writing talent in the industry. It's just not being recognized or appreciated, and frankly it's ridiculous to pay more for a Hollywood pedigree when you're not willing to pay for the good stuff that's in your backyard. Second, anyone who's been to the movies knows that Hollywood writing isn't automatically equal to good writing. And finally, games are a different medium, period. The tricks that work for movies might work in some cases, but in games we're trying for something very different. Harlan Ellison made ominous reference to what happened when he tried to bring "real" science fiction writers in to do Star Trek scripts - the results were generally dire. Why? Because TV was a different medium than fiction, and what works in one doesn't automatically work in the other. We've already seen some of this in collaborations between Hollywood and games; I'm sure we'll see more.

If they did make a game where all the dialogue was supposed to be an ironic piss take on gaming dialogue, how would we be able to tell?

I think most the narrative in games is horrible, and it's unfortunately most noticeable in RPGs because they tend to make a showcase of the story every bit as much as the battle mechanics or inventory system. As an adult, I can't remember the last Japanese rpg I played that didn't make me cringe or hope someone didn't walk into the room as a "scene" was being played out. And that's not to rescue Western developers. When they are creating a RPG, the fantasy fiction cliches come at a fast and furious pace, though it's interesting that something like KOTOR could manage to be more entertaining narratively than the recent movies the license is based on.

I think the primary problem is that gamers haven't created any demand for more serious or interesting plot devices no matter how their age increases. Their more than happy to make the latest FF outing a huge seller as long as the graphics improve, and Zelda WW can win countless GOTY awards by not even using voice acting and staying with a children's cartoon motif as long as the gameplay is good. Look at how Beyond Good & Evil has sold, all it's kudos for story aside.

The ugly truth about gaming, even with so-called "hardcore" gamers, is that we crave the familiar and hence the franchise or remake. Since grand narratives have never been part of the genres history, we generally don't require one to feel an emotional reaction to a favorite game played out in tired tropes again.

And also, many older gamers I know still don't read that much. Many like film, but simply read the same sort of predictable plots in fantasy novels they've always enjoyed. There's even an older audience constantly growing for a lot of video-game like anime.

It's too bad though, I know there's a lot of talented writers out there looking for work or outlets for their vision and a venue with the gaming industry might someday be more feasible.

...and not to pile on, but I thought MP2 was horrible. The first I took not too seriously, and felt like a B movie with the dialogue, slow-motion action and constant shoot-em up scenes. The second added a better physics engine and nothing else. Hence it was really, really boring.

I thought R* made put out some good games this year (midnight club 2, manhunt, GTA DP) but that wasn't one of them.

glad to see someone addressing the issue of horrible dialog in games. metal gear struck me as particularly egregious given that i read so many reviews where people *praised* the writing. were they on crack?! this is why it's hard for me to take the stories in most rpgs/adventure games seriously (especially those, like final fantasy, where the dialog is translated from the japanese).

One of us (either me, or Sanford) didn't "get" Max Payne.

I loved the dialogue in Max Payne because it captured the idioms of noir pulp. Sure you can make great art out of noir but much of it is pulp - meaning cheap work printed on cheap paper to satisfy the reading habits of a well-established repeat audience.

No, Max Payne wasn't The Maltese Falcon - it wasn't trying to be. Good is good enough, and I think Remedy got it just right.

I loved it so much, I wrote my entire review for Mindless Games in the same pulp noir style. If anyone had criticised my writing in that review as terrible (nobody did), I'd laugh and suggest to them that they should take a Valkyr chill pill and try to "get it". I hope the writer on Max Payne does the same, in this case.

"there is a tremendous tendency within the gaming community to confuse lots of writing or visible writing with good writing."

Truer words were ne'er spake. I think "good" writing is asking to much. The drive of this discussion seems to be towards passable or unnoticeable writing that entertains and gets the job done. Let the game be "good."

While the writing in both Max games could have been better, I think that they were good enough, and in fact represent some of the best writing in the industry currently.

Also, while many critics have hammered the game's writing, I've noted that the majority on gamers like the writing for what it is, and do not grade it so harshly.

Again, this doesn't mean there's not plenty of room for improvement, but Max is more than just writing, it's also a showcase of how well writing can be integrated into a pure action game -- this was much more difficult that most critics realize.

"there is a tremendous tendency within the gaming community to confuse lots of writing or visible writing with good writing."

also, somebody mentioned the problem (using the example of FFX) of translating Japanese games to English.

Yeah, I like a lot of games suffer drab/bland translations. Working Designs are one company whose games/translations I look out for - they're stellar stuff!

Has anyone actually listened to the Noir radioplays that you come across sometimes in Max Payne? According to a friend those are actual radio plays, not hackneyed fiction.

Here's a question: What games have good writing?

"Here's a question: What games have good writing?"

Pac Man. And Galaga.

Ratchet and Clank (the first moreso, but the second is up there) and Prince of Persia, for starters.

I don't think that writing is a lost cause, and I don't think that Max Payne 2 could have been any different than the first, since that cheesy film noir style was part of its charm.

Yay for Trixie! Ratchet & Clank, both games are hilarious. Fantastic writing. It reminds of of Pixar. :)

"Here's a question: What games have good writing?"

Hmmm... many of the old Lucas Arts adventure games had wonderful dialogue: Day of the Tenticle, Grim Fandango etc.

Going way, way back, I think the old infocom text adventure A Mind Forever Voyaging was both a highpoint in plot and subject matter, it dealt with the dire long term effects of popular political decisions.

Graham Nelson who helped revitalize the text adventure garage game scene, has great writing in his games Jigsaw and Curses.

A highpoint for me on the translated games front would have to be Squaresoft’s overlooked gem Vagrant Story.

It is sad that with all the games I’ve played I have to go back as much as 20 years to find some pretty good writing in games. While I think games have been getting better at using cinematic storytelling conventions (which I think is what people are really praising when they talk about Metal Gear’s story), the actual writing, plot and characterisation haven’t been improving and if anything have taken some steps backwards.

As far as good writing in games, I think most of the black isle games have good writing. Torment was one of the best fantasy novels I ever played, or one of the best fantasy games I ever read.

As for Max Payne, I don't know, something about the writing just worked for me. Maybe it was the narrators voice, he could make the phone book sound like Raymond Chandler novel. Maybe it was the pacing. You get to play a pretty cool game, then take a short break. I know I wouldn't want to just listen to the narration straight through.

But over all I liked the writing, it was something different. Maybe because I thought the story in both games were good. Everything the characters did in the narration made sense. There were no moments of "why doesn't he just..." Nothing derails a story, be it in a game, movie, or book, for me, more than when I can see an obvious solution to the characters problem. And again there's Max's voice. A likeable actor can make a bad film bearable and an unlikable one can make a good film disappointing. It's the same with voice actors.

P.S. I liked your review Chris.

Wow, I adored the dialogue in MP2 and thought the tongue-in-cheek noir feel really got me emotionally involved in the game. Adding a story to a shooter has proved to be one of my favorite trends in years past, and I thought MP2 continued that tradition admirably. Games like the Thief series (despite Thief 2's sadly anticlimactic ending), the original Deux Ex (haven't finished the second), and the stellar first installment of No One Lives Forever give me hope for the future. Being able to emotionally connect with a game character (or, in the case of MP2, with two game characters) is the hallmark of good writing and it's been plentiful lately. Even less linear games like the rightly-praised KOTOR and Morrowind and its expansions have amazing writing that doesn't force you into a particular action.

Final Fantasy: as I recall this film had one of the worst, most turgidly cliched scripts I've ever seen. A quick read of the reviews over at Rottentomatoes.com confirms this: with a rating of 45% it's not doing well, and even most of the positive reviews were a variation on (to quote one of the reviews they list as "positive") ""Great animation, third-rate plot".

FF is *not* proof that games studios can write good, or even passable, scripts.

There are some outstanding exceptions to the "bad writing in games" rule (yes, Planescape: Torment and GTA), but things like Vampire: Redemption (warning - swearing) more than reset the scale.

And yet, this game, too, was somehow praised for its writing. As Deadguy says, the only possible conclusion is that reviewers mistake lots of writing for good writing.

I don't know why this is, but I'd like everyone involved to stop it, please.

If you want to read good writing in a game (and yes, you'll be reading it), go back to Marathon and Marathon 2 for the Mac. (Marathon Infinity got a little too postmodern for its own good.) The narrative voice in those games helped them overcome their technical limitations (which were glaringly obvious even then).

"FF is *not* proof that games studios can write good, or even passable, scripts."

Roger Ebert gave "Final Fantasy" good marks for animation and script -- for the film as a whole. Rottentomatoes.com is an unproven quantity, in my opinion. I'll have to acknowledge Ebert's assessment on this one and credit Square's film for an at least passable script. Personal tastes aside, the film adaption of FF did receive acceptable and often good notices in the legitimate press. This doesn't by rule imply that Rottentomatoes.com is illegitimate, but it is a far less venerated outlet.

What people are missing is that games have it harder. In a movie a bad line of dialogue comes and goes in a few seconds. In a game you might re-hear hundreds of lines of dialgue over and over as you try to pass some point in the game. It is the very nature of MP games that you might not move without stopping, therefore you hear those over the top lines a few times.

I'm playing through Planescape: Torment for the first time, and as someone who usually hates RPGs, I'm loving this. No elves and dwarves, thank god, and a whole lot of terrific writing (save for some glaring spelling mistakes that keep getting reused: "Slating lust"?).

So that's a game that's impressed me with its writing.

Okay, after, sortta, reading alot of these comments I noticed a not so surprising and rather blatant consistency. The games where people seemed to enjoy the writing, plot and characters were games like Grim Fandango and Starcraft and various other more 'slow paced' games, if you will.

Now, I only played the original MP as a demo and that was way back when, so I can't claim to know anything about that particular game. What I do know is that MP and GTA and most of the other badly written games are all in the, loosely defined, action genre.

So what the problem seems to be is that games with more action, tension, and drama are not as well written as somtimes longer, slower games.

I'm not implying this is always true in either case, but just going on what I know it's true enough. I mean, christ, remember Resident Evil 1? (which I am tossing into the action genre)

And as was pointed out there is the same problem with movies. XXX is not going to win any awards for intelligent dialoge, but, say, eh...oh, Window to Paris might. (sorry, only thing I could think of...)

Ouch, too much thinking for this time of day.

I really enjoyed the first Max Payne game in the same way I enjoyed Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill - they're obvious tips of the hat towards a particular genre, with some creative interpretation thrown in. This is at a base level - I'm not that much of a fan of Tarrantino and I think MP1 was a bit heavy-handed...but still they work as innovative jump-off points for future works to refer to.
After really enjoying MP1, I eventually rented MP2 and was slightly disapointed. The same hackneyed dialogue and gritty urbanation style throughout, but it just seemed to be a tack-on to MP1. Just like GTA:VC was the exact same game as GTA:3 except for new textures and new locations, MP2 seemed to be the exact same as MP1.
Does this make it a bad game?.....well, no, not really. It's not an amazing game, but definately an extended rental.

Gaming is constantly being compared to cinema, and while some parallels are worth noting, we should also realize that film has 80+ years older than the art of gaming. Cinema has 100 years to draw from, and if we look at the early film works, we'd see the constructions of genre and cliche in their infancy. Storytelling in gaming is still in its infancy and it's insanely easier to draw on previously established genres to practice the art of storytelling in gaming than to produce a landmark paramount work.

So all in all, I saw the 1st Max Payne as a solid practice excercise, and we should now expect more from a sequel...and unfortunately, it remained on the same plateau as the 1st.

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Posted by: outsider on April 11, 2006 08:24 AM

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Posted by: Allan on August 17, 2006 03:39 PM