Great Game, Shame About The Story

TheGameReviews writes: "Resident Evil 5's story is simply terrible... protagonist Chris Redfield's character is poorly developed, sidekick Sheva is so devoid of personality that she lives up perfectly to the accusations of being the token African cast member Capcom tossed in to stave off the detractors - and then there's Wesker. The persistent, enigmatic foe of the Resident Evil franchise is diluted into being a supervillain cliché, complete with sinister laugh, sultry sidekick and plan for global destruction. Of course, any pretense of Resident Evil 5 entertaining a quasi-serious story goes straight out the window at the end of the game, when a mutated alien Wesker shoots down your plane with a rocket launcher. Into an active volcano. It's pretty clear that at that point the writers just stopped trying."

Author Mark Fujii selects six great games with six truly awful stories.

[Haly]

I really can't agree with FF8 being there, sure it was far fetched and a few bits were a bit 'wtf' ish, but I don't know......guess I'm a FF fanboy at heart :p

The rest though.....oh god yes! Especially RE5 and Gears 2.

[Defectiv3_Detectiv3]

Lets not fool ourselves here, Gears has never been about story. The only reason it was greenlit for a film adaptation is because Gears1+2 have sold almost 10million games.

Its the same for Halo. Can anyone actually tell me the significance of the Halo? Why not make it a giant twinkee? I just don't see how that lends itself to the overall theme of the story, which, to be honest, is non-existent. MasterCheif himself is the most generic protagonist ever, and the settings were so bland in the earlier games(they are improving this though).

Originally Halo was supposed to be an RTS. I think its pretty obvious that they dev. the game first and slapped the story on later.

[Bnet343]

Whoever wrote this doesn't know about Resident Evil. It's the other way around. Mediocre game continuing a great story but not in the best way.

[dktxx2]

The first Halo has a very good story. Unfortunately it dropped off tremendously during the second and third games, but the first one did have a good one.

[bushfan]

did he really play FVIII...every FF got a really deep story and you need to play the whole game to understand it. About WoW, i know there are noobs who doesn't care about story but blizzard made the game to appel everyone, are you casual just lvl up earn some gear and you can be happy, but if you play Warcraft1,2,3 like many people and want a deep story....hey WoW have a really deep story with so many details

[gaffyh]

WTF is wrong with these guys, this game is the opposite.

Great Story, Shame About The Game. Although I did this play this through quite a few times until I got the platinum trophy.

[Xi]

halo is designed the way it was because of many reasons.

1 - the general design of the halo artifacts lend themselves to be good places to study living organism since the shape provides for a mixture between a classic dyson sphere and a planet, gravity can be easily manipulated via centripital force and it maintains more surface area whith less resources (ie cheaper to build). The ring structure provides many more observasion points.

2 - the design of the weapon itself. In halo 2 you see the initial firing of the rings, energy moves towards the center of the ring building enough mass to cause an explosion. This is a relativley logical design for a weapon.

3 - the ring structures provide a very mystrious sense of wonder, why do they feature human like enviroments and why are humans refered to as 'reclaimers'. Who built it and where did they go?

4 - The concept is extremely sci-fi and helps paint a more vivid universe in which to set the story.

As for your remarks about MC. He's the Military equivilent of Ender wiggiam and teela brown, 2 of the most iconic Sci-fi characters ever.

[ThanatosDMC]

FF8?! WTF?!

In FF8, you go back to the past to the present and then to the future... Laguna, Ward, and Quiros (sp?). Edea, Adel, and Ultimacia.

Opening in HD: http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[MelaDarkwood]

I think it's Kiros, isn't it?

[gidzilla]

Ok I liked the story in Mirror's Edge. And the Cutscenes were pretty good.

Gears 2 does have a terrible story. Infact, does that even qualify as a story? what's all that bit about when the Sires break out of those tubes? I have no idea.

[Bnet343]

Gears 2 story wasn't terrible.

[dktxx2]

ya it is kigmal. Its pretty sh!tty. Its better then the first, but thats not saying much.

[thedukeofkna]

A GIANT WORM IS SINKING CITIES!!!!!

[A_Little_Girl]

gears 2 had a story?

[SirLarr]

Resident Evil 5 doesn't have a -bad- story, it has a campy story. It's not trying to be good, but just entertaining.

Couldn't disagree more about Gears' story either. I love the setting and how they rely on situational conversation rather than expository to reveal the backstory. I look forward to learning more about the Pendulum Wars and what happened to Marcus' father.

[Wastrel5]

I have to admit to liking Gears story as well, there were some nice touches in the game that got lost amidst the wave of blood and gibs. I'm pretty sure there's some deep allegory at work with the humans vs. the underground locust but maybe that's just me.

RE5 should really be in the top 5 campest stories ever - it certainly went to the school of OVERACTING and GURNING.

[BkaY]

i own only 4 360 games 2 of em are gears 1 and 2 ... i bought 360 just to play gears.. and its worth it... and RE5.. i got plat in it .. so i dont have to tell you how much i like it...

first walkthrough was pain in the azz.. but i pulled 95% of headshots in second walkthrough..

i love the game but even i admit that i didnt enjoy it as much as re2...
and i really missed the zombies...

"oay Capcom bring back the zombies u cheeky bugga"

[reddevilyi]

I liked the characters and story in FF8. And it certainly wasn't as contrived and confusing as FF7's story.

[-Mezzo-]

BLAH,BLAH,BLAH Xbox version was superior. someone would have said this stupid thing so i thought i should.

[Nathaniel_Drake]

The story may not be good, but is the gameplay (i.e. co-op splitscreen) make it a good game?

[-Mezzo-]

Why was it an action game,thats my only question i knew and loved this franchise for only 1 reason because it was a survival horror game.

[topdawg122]

This game was way overhyped and yeah the story sucked ass. A solid 7.5

[akaFullMetal]

i didnt like resident evil 5, didnt even buy it, did play it at a friends place, wasn't really good in my opinion.

[bebojet]

Mark Fujii is right about RE5. The story is lame, gameplay is even worst and Wesker is Neo with blonde hair. RE4 is still the best.

[SlamVanderhuge]

Yeah the story in 4 wasnt much better...

[vickers500]

"gameplay is even worst"

It's spelled "worse". And there is nothing wrong with the gameplay. What did you expect it to be? A gears clone?

[Rocket Sauce]

RE 4 has a god-awful story, but it's got this self-aware cheesiness that makes it awesome. Like when Leon says, "No thanks, bro!" or "Where's everybody going? Bingo?"

There's nothing intentionally over-the-top stupid like that in RE 5, and that kinda sucks all the fun out of it.

[edme1]

great game, horrible story.

[dktxx2]

Great story, bad and underdeveloped characters. The overall plot was the good and refreshing from the usual FF plot, but the characters were just dull and bland, especially compared to other FF games.

[cain141]

A lot of the big games still have weak stories... I can't wait till that changes...

[Saaking]

"Oh maria I love you so much, but I'm gonna have to kill you 'cuase my heart belongs to Marcus now" so lame.... now wonder the bots love queers of war.

[-Mezzo-]

"Great Game, Shame About The Story" CORRECTION "Great Game, Shame On The Story"

[mr durand pierre]

RE5 had a lame story, but so did RE4. I never played the earlier ones, so I can't comment on those.

Gears 2 had an awful story, but again, so did the first. Though the giant worm makes Gears 2 all kinda of awesome.

I could not agree more about Mirror's Edge. The story in that game was a huge disappointment as the art style had me intrigued and I was hoping for something with a little more depth. Some of my friends are huge fans of that game and their defense is that the story still sucks, but it's just not in it that much. I'd like to go back and give the game another shot with that mindset.

[Midgard228]

um guys RE always had bad story especially 4, 4 was the worst in my opinion, i still find them entertaining but wtf they arent amazing.

5 was so bad tho the ending murdered the story, i was like huh? thats it? lol still beat game 4 times in row with my gf :)

[NegativeCreep427]

The story certainly isn't going to win anything or stand out in any particular way (which is what can be said of Halo or the Gears of War games, yet I see no article complaint pieces about those titles). But in terms of overall quality, Resident Evil 5 was just as good if not better than Resident Evil 4.

Who gives a f*ck if it wasn't "scary" and too "action-packed". When you come to be my age (which is 23) games don't necessarily scare you, they just startle you in certain areas. So a game not being "Scary" is only a deal-breaker to the pathetic, infantile fanboys who can't get any excitement or suspense anywhere else outside their living rooms.

The new inventory system could get a little tricky when in very high tense situations, but sh*t adding 4 hot keys to the d-pad made combat so much more fluid than in RE4, where you had to constantly press start and manually select a new weapon.

I bought RE5 and I loved it. I played through the entire campaign co-op with my brother and it was very enjoyable. All this B.S. about it not living up to the hype and the Worst RE game ever all comes from nothing but a bunch of spoiled, b*tchy fanboys (apparently the people who say that haven't played RE Outbreak or RE Survivor).

[Shuya]

Resi has always had campy B movie acting and rubbish stories (seriously who didn't laugh at the live action opening to resi 1 and the infamous Jill sandwich), that doesn't stop it from being one of the greatest series in gaming though.

[thedukeofkna]

I remember how bad the voice acting was in the first resi, lol. But even that didn't stop me from crapping my pants multiple times throughout the game.

[DiffusionE]

Agreed with Gears 2 but WoW? You don't have to know much of the backstory to enjoy the game. Most of the players don't care, of course, as a fan of the Warcraft RTS series, I do tend to care but that's only me. I don't see why it has to make the list...

[Xi]

nanomachines, nanomachines, nanomachines. Worse plot device ever.

[Rocket Sauce]

God I hated mgs4.

"They were beauties...but war made them beasts!" Yeah, that's real deep maaan.

[LightofDarkness]

NANOMASHEENS!!!

Yeah, I was hoping this would get a mention. The hypnotism part was the most stupid thing I'd heard in ages. Way to kill the character guys, and to show a clear lack of understanding about hypnotism.

Plus the whole "sit down now with a big bag of popcorn. I must now explain the plot to you, every minute detail, as if you were a child."

Here's an example of a story that starts off great with MGS1, becomes unnecessarily convoluted and, well, boring in 2, takes a step in the right (if not a little overly melodramatic) direction in 3, then tries to merge the two in 4 with an air of pretense never before seen in videogames. The game was great, though. And some elements of the story were good. But a good 60% of it was inconsequential drivel and mindless self-indulgence.

Phew, what a rant. Where did that come from...

[Xi]

Where does a young romanian child get nanomachines before pubescense? If I remember correctly doesn't he get trapped under a cross in a burning church and lives purely off the blood of his parents? When did he get nanomachines before that which kept him alive.

Oh, and what about the whole arm-grafting thing from liquid to Oncelot? How does it go from the arm causing him to be possessed to self hypnosis and 'nanomachines'. Why even bother having him graft on the arm to begin with?

Let me guess, -spoiler- at the end of mgs2 when fortune deflects the missiles without any equipment it was actually nanomachines?

not to mention cobra unit.

[rhood022]

sigh..

did any of you actually bother to follow the story?

1. nanomachines played a part from the beginning of the "Solid" series. Their importance for military applications (which is what 4 was about), is explained by Otacon when first rescued by Snake. By Naomi in the same game. And then again my Emma in number 2.

2. Vamp's childhood trauma, i.e being impaled by the cross, and him being infused with nanomachines are two different events. The first happened as a child (which he survived without nano's) and the second happened sometime later BEFORE MGS 1 when Vamp was already an adult and a part of Dead Cell--the unit created by Solidus 4 years before MGS 1.

3. Fortune's ability to deflect things w/o her equipment WAS NOT nano's. It was her own supernatural ability. Which, if you know anything about the series, isn't even remotely far fetched--the Fear in MGS 3 and Psycho Mantis in MGS 1.

4. As for Ocelot, the guy's a freakin triple agent--able to play numerous roles to suit his purpose (as seen in EVERY one of the MGS games). So, him "pretending" to be Liquid or training himself to carry on the persona is nothing more than him continuing to do what he's always done. And assuming it was implanted into him, again the basis for that is found in the GENOME soldiers from the first game and hey, he had the woman who helped create the whole program in the first place (Naomi) as HIS agent.

[LightofDarkness]

I think we all understood the story... it's somewhat hard not to when it's explained to you in such patronizing fashion.

No one's going to go "Oh, gee whizz, it all makes sense now!! Now it's the best story evarr!" The problem isn't that we don't understand it, it's that it's utterly ridiculous and a bit stupid at times. I know, it holds a lot of sentimental value for gamers who likely played it in their teenage years and became very connected with the story (somehow?), but I was honestly expecting something with a little more depth and intrigue, some grounding in the realms of reality and perhaps a touch more modesty.

[ZOMBIEMAN1]

i'm a big RE fan but RE5 was disappointing but the story wasn't bad it wasn't RE Code Veronica but RE5 was great with good story only problem was the disappointing final confrontation with Wesker and he was prematurely killed off there is still unanswered questions and Wesker was a perfect series final enemy in terms of a villain the next RE villain for RE6 won't be as great as Wesker

[fossilfern]

Shame about the Game & Shame About The Story

[player-1]

enjoy your cheap hits..