Sulphur on 21/5/2019 at 06:24
Well, I don't know if there's anything on PC exclusively, but Ninja Theory's work on Hellblade is the benchmark for facial motion capture on basically any platform, I think; even Enslaved before it managed pretty well without the exact same tech. ND has the advantage in that their budget let every scene be fully motion/performance captured instead of completely hand-animated (which was what Telltale's smaller budget meant for their production pipeline), right from Uncharted 1.
Anyway, I think my issue with Metro Exodus's story treatment is one of how they approached it: beneath all the chatter and earnest line readings bolted onto NPCs locked into routines like very pretty Westworld automatons, it's designed to boil down to disposable flavour. Even if the acting was good, I doubt it'd make the throwaway lines less throwaway. (*ahem* 'I hate sand, I must say. It's rough and coarse and it gets everywhere.') It's also a point of difference that I don't mind bad animation if it's shackled to poor writing; it's easier to ignore both if they're equally bad.
This is speculation since IANAGD, but for linear experiences there's a difference between constructing a game to hit certain points which dictate where the plot goes (we need a sewer stealth section, then a snow level, and a desert level...), and constructing a game where the story outlines and informs the experience (The Last of Us, The Witcher 2). It's similar to the difference between, say, the character-driven plot of The Sopranos and a standard procedural that forces its characters to conform to a standard episodic plotline every week.
Or I might be talking out of my ass. I do know that Crytek went with the former method for Crysis 2, and hired Richard Morgan to (
https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/04/26/richard-morgan-interview/) bolt a story onto a preliminary list of cinematic moments/locations, and that didn't turn out particularly well.
Thirith on 21/5/2019 at 08:20
I agree that the budget makes a huge difference, but with Telltale you could tell all too well where they cut corners. Animation doesn't have to be lifelike, but it has to have personality and flair. I remember too many scenes where it seemed that they had about three of four stock expressions: Kenny - angry face, Kenny - sad face, Kenny - confused face. As I remember, their scripts were pretty good, but they might as well have communicated the emotional nuances by means of a tiny selection of emojis.
Metro Exodus has the opposite problem. The script requires the characters to express credible emotions, but the character animations are so robotic. Your Westworld comparison is good, but this is an alpha version of Westworld, and it is all the more apparent because the character art is actually pretty good, especially in combination with the environments and lighting, so there's more of a harsh contrast.
Then again, right now I'm pissed off with the game anyway. I really enjoyed much of the Taiga location, but in the end it boils down to an extremely reductive moral reckoning. I spent much of my time sneaking and knocking people out, but when I got attacked I fought back with deadly force. In the end, though, I was treated like a monster for doing so. If the game wants its ethic-o-meter to be plausible and interesting, it needs to have more robust systems allowing for sneaking and non-lethal attacks, and it needs to communicate better how it's assessing your ethical 'performance'. The previous location was worse in that respect, in that I consistently freed slaves and knocked those out that were about to give me away, yet obviously I'd crossed some internal line and got the 'bad' ending - but there it was framed in a way that made sense character-wise, so it didn't feel as egregious. I'm honestly not sure if my problem is primarily one of bad systems or bad writing, so it's probably a bit of both: the systems lack granularity and clarity and the way the characters react to my actions doesn't feel particularly credible. Which also explains why I actually liked most of the Taiga location: much of the time I could just focus on traversal, stealth and combat and not worry about conversations intruding on my enjoyment.
Malf on 21/5/2019 at 09:41
Regarding Ninja Theory and animation, they've been great at that stuff since their inception with Heavenly Sword thanks to close collaboration with Andy Serkis.
While Heavenly Sword was incredibly derivative of God of War, I still deeply loved it and the characters / performances, and the animation and character art is a massive part of that.
Load times sucked ass though.
Interesting aside:
Anna Torv, who played Nariko in Heavenly Sword, plays Dr. Wendy Carr in Netflix's Mindhunter, which is really good, and I highly recommend if you're looking for a new series to watch.
Thirith on 21/5/2019 at 10:03
True, they put a lot of emphasis on their character animations, and it shows. They're a relatively small studio, aren't they? And their games would probably not be seen as AAA, yet they have far better animations and character work than most AAA studios.
Starker on 21/5/2019 at 13:05
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Even if the acting was good, I doubt it'd make the throwaway lines less throwaway. (*ahem* 'I hate sand, I must say. It's rough and coarse and it gets everywhere.')
Don't underestimate what a good actor can do, especially with the help of a good director and cinematography. I think that even that sand line could be made to work. For example, imagine if it was delivered in a more of a film noir style and instead of trying to be sappy, it would have much darker implications and instead of a romantic soundtrack, you'd have something more sinister playing in the background and if it was a character who was more fundamentally flawed from the very start and the scene was used to foreshadow their downfall by showing they can't be happy even in paradise.
And I think that the reverse is also true. Many famous lines would fall flat if it wasn't the right actor saying it in just the right voice.
Sulphur on 21/5/2019 at 13:14
Well, the reverse is absolutely true, because that's what good direction is about. The point is the sand line is filler, with no subtext; good direction and editing either chops it out if it's unimportant or uses the scene's tone for context, foreshadowing, or subtext. That there is none is telling.
Starker on 21/5/2019 at 16:38
And that's what a good actor is capable of doing. They can give the most throwaway line more meaning than it ever had on paper. Kind of like a good comedian can make even a phone book funny.
Sulphur on 21/5/2019 at 19:19
I think that's overselling dramatic chops when reality demands a very careful balance to be maintained between the tone of what the screenplay intended and what's acted before the camera. An actor's interpretation may not jive with the ethos of a production, and it's the director's job to ensure their talent is leveraged in support of the overall vision instead of letting them go off-piste without justification.
The sand line was clearly intended as a jokey throwaway, and giving it undue importance through dramatic reframing via the soundtrack, cinematography, and line delivery sounds like a critical misreading of its purpose, a bit like hiring Tommy Wiseau to play Willy Wonka and then soundtracking the entirety of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Jerry Goldsmith's score for Alien.
Pyrian on 21/5/2019 at 19:25
So, you're saying that George Lucas, the Director, got the writing of George Lucas, the writer, completely wrong?
Sulphur on 21/5/2019 at 20:10
I'm saying that bad directing and bad writing make a bad movie regardless of whatever valiant efforts an individual actor might make. I guess you can appreciate a good performance even if the rest of the movie's a complete shitshow, but I've rarely (if ever) seen that save a movie in toto; it just makes the experience slightly less (or slightly more) of a schlockfest.
Here's something that Ebert loved to quote from a review of a movie called 'Q' (or 'The Winged Serpent') produced by Samuel Arkoff, which apparently featured a Quetzalcoatl terrorising New Yorkers after making its nest in the Chrysler building:
'Reed: Sam! I just saw “The Winged Serpent”! What a surprise! All that dreck--and right in the middle of it, a great Method performance by Michael Moriarty!
Arkoff: The dreck was my idea.'
Ebert, ever-generous, gave the movie 2 and a half stars.
