WonderCon 2011: Bulletstorm Writer Rick Remender Says Games Take Themselves Too Seriously

SAN FRANCISCO – Marvel Comic writer Rick Remender is best known for bringing worlds like Venom and Dark Angel Saga to life on the page. But he’s one of many comic book creators who has taken the virtual plunge. After helping Electronic Arts bring the original survival horror franchise Dead Space to life, he partnered with Epic Games to create the pulp comic book style shooter BulletStorm to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Remender was at WonderCon 2011 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the convention. He talks about the creative overlap between the game and comic book worlds in this exclusive interview.

[Shok]

Agreed.

This is why the Left 4 Dead and No More Heroes franchises are my favorite this gen. They're the definition of a video games. They don't take themselves seriously and there's meant for straight-up fun.

There's nothing wrong with a dramatic, epic, single-player campaign, but the problem is, few developers know how to really nail that area.

Video games take themselves way too seriously when they should just be light-hearted fun.

[sinncross]

Defining videogames simply as straight-up fun sounds like a detrminet to the entertainment form itself if you ask me.

Like literature and cinema, videogames have a lot to offer the user. The problem is that videogames have nt been around as long: they have not had the time that both literature and and cinema have had to evolve and react with the time perid in which they existed.

Literature has fluctuated through different movmenets, like Realism and Romanticisim, and cinema as well to an extent. Video games have merely existed in a modern/ post-modern capacity. This is enough to, of course, but maybe its just not enough.

What developers need to work out is how th make the interactive nature of videogames the key to story telling: some devs go with no cutscenes, others with a silent protaganist etc But fi these are not founded a particular context they dont always work out for the best.

I think many developers have got the fun part of games done, its now about usign this in conjunction with other elements, liek story-telling to create a cohesive product - and some developers appear to get this right. I think the problem with the industry atm is no that games take themselves too seriously, but that we're seeing a localsiation of products to match certain parameters (like COD in FPS's) because individualisation of game mechanics does not appear to appeal to a high enough audience at times.

[SuperbVillain]

I agree with him

[CrzyFooL]

Dicktits.

[gypsygib]

I'm happy the majority of games aren't as ridiculous and juvenile as Bulletstorm. The dialogue in the game was embarrassing.

I don't get how any person old enough to buy a mature game (over 17) could think stuff like "dicktits" is that funny. It's stupid.

[TheLastGuardian2010]

I'm pretty sure it was meant to be "embarrassing" :/

Honestly it wasn't that JUVENILE if you ask me. The narrative, and the characters were actually one of the BEST aspects about Bulletstorm.

For the first time (well not the first, but in a long time) I actually WANTED to kill the antoganist. I HATED serrano as much as Greyson did. The narrative was a character and his path towards redemption, I wanted that REDEMPTION as much as grey did.

If creating, actual, GOOD narratives has to involve some sillyness than by all means, please do.

[InTheKnow]

.
I actually was surprised how fun and upbeat the dialogue was in Bulletstorm, without all the dumb, stop everything cut scenes. So many games, predominately PS3 titles have to use up all that space on the blu-ray so they bury you with long cut scenes. Here's a bit from Bulletstorm.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

I didn't like Serrano and could of lived without all his stupidity and questionable language, some of which was racial in nature.

Bioshock 1 was the best example this gen of a game that blended game play and story in a magical way. Video games are all about an interactive medium. Unfortunately, games seem to be becoming extremely casual and games like Heavy Rain that are like one long RTE are becoming more and more popular.

[TheLastGuardian2010]

THAT said though, I still think the guy is wrong. Videogames have ALL the potential in the world to be as captivating in terms of narrative as books, or movies. The reason why so few actually do create good narratives is the fact that creating video game stories is one of the hardest narratives to create. With a movie, pshh, easy. With a videogame, the player has to be involved at all times. If a videogame revolved around a ballerina becoming crazy then no one would play it. From the 1st seconds we the player have to be engaged, WANTING to progress forward. That's a damn hard thing to do.

That said, the industry as a whole is extremely young. Yet, we are progressing faster than films did, or books did (mainly due to technology). Let's not forget, society also deemed films as trite, nonsense, that causes violence. An let's not forget the type of films that were made during that time? An how long it took for films to finally garner respect from people from films like Gone with the Wind, or Citizen Kane? Nearly 70 years people....70.

Books were once paintings on a wall, congered up by naked cave men. During time though we evolved.

Just how videogames should, and WILL evolve to. Do I think in the next 50 years games will overtake movies, and books in narratives? Probably not. But I'm sure they'll be damn close. It takes time people, and this industry is just a newborn babe compared to the grandfathers of film, and books.

Remember folks; baby steps, baby steps!

[sorry for the long rant..apoligizes for anyone who might've been offended ;)]

[KingPin]

This is sooooooo true. this is why classic 8bit gaming still rocks to this day. where is the modern day balloon fight? you know those games, that was just level upon level of fun with no damn story whatsoever. heck, bobble bobble is a perfect example of this. lol the "story" was simple, save ur girlfriend. lol no cut-scenes, no lame dialog. those were games.

a better term for "games" today would be interactive entertainment. coz thats what it is, its losing the "fun" factor.

[TheLastGuardian2010]

To be honest I think the term "video game" is out of date. The industry has grown up SO much since the 8bit era, and to call them video games makes me cringe. I don't know if the term interactive entertainment is better, but to me, if I had no idea what a video game was, I would've thought it's some toy you play on your screen. But obviously it's much more than that...

How about the term, Interactive Media?