DDL on 26/3/2012 at 16:30

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It's not quite that clear cut, either: while portal 2 tells you just the one story, the depth to that story can be increased via additional interaction above and beyond the bare minimum (vai exploration/hidden areas and so on). And it's not like watching a film closely enough to spot hidden meanings, since you can do that TOO..it's analagous, perhaps, to a book that reveals whole extra pages if you turn the pages really thoroughly.

On the flipside, it's really not like HR had a non-linear story either. You were always going to visit hengsha twice, you were always going to end up in panchea. If portal 2 had a boss battle at the end that culminated in two buttons (press A to leave, press B to stay with GladOS) they'd be pretty closely comparable.

How different, really, is choosing one particular conversation option from choosing one particular way of solving a portal puzzle? Assuming the devs anticipated both of these eventualities (a given for the former, and..for the latter, well: it's valve, they're pretty good at that) you'll get some unique dialogue as a result of either, but it still won't change the track of the story you're on.

DDL on 26/3/2012 at 21:18

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True, but those were the only things that determined the actual ending of the story: everything else was (effectively) irrelevant, since no matter what you said or did, you'd end up at the four buttons.

So in terms of story arc, there's no real difference between the two.

Not that it's that clear cut either way, obviously, but reductio ad absurdum etc etc.

Yakoob on 27/3/2012 at 00:28

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Isn't that a very narrow and simplistic view, though? I mean just because the ending is the same does not invalidate the diversity in everything that happens before it. "It's about the journey, not the destination" as they say.

Sure, both me and Bob might have ended up giving power to the companies in the end, but his aggressive, no-bullshit and unsympathetic Jensen was a very different experience than my non-violent, compassionate, humanitarian Jensen.

DDL on 27/3/2012 at 08:02

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Hmm, I'd forgotten about the slight changes to the ending voiceover (not sure whether this indicates that I'm forgetful, or that the changes are..unmemorable, mind), so yeah, that's a good point, and does dilute the four button ending..slightly.
Also note that really having 'choose your ending' right at the end isn't all that uncommon: lots of games do it...hell: Deus Ex did it, but very few games have pared it down to such literal terms.
In DX for instance, you had to at least go and find the reactors and manually shut them down, or unlock the circuit breakers and hoof it over to helios, or shut down page's magic blue forcefield tubes. You felt like you were actually having to make a significant choice (even if you could do all three right up until the last minute) because it took effort to get from one place to another, and you had to actually do 'stuff' to prime the choice. In contrast, 'choose a button' feels less significant.

Still (before I get written off as an HR-hater or whatever) I loved both portal 2 and HR -I'm ludicrously easily entertained. I'm just trying to illustrate that there's no real clear-cut line between the two stories in terms of player-based plot determination. Both have fixed beginning, fixed middles and fixed ends, and I don't think Pyrian's partitioning them into 'interactive' and 'non-interactive' storytelling is entirely valid. Both have stories they are telling, and those stories don't really change no matter what you do (choose your own ending nothwithstanding). And hell, if Pyrian's criticising portal 2 for having what are essentially cutscenes in the first person, you'd also have to cast a look over HR's liberal smattering of -hugely frustrating- cutscenes.

Now having said all that, I'm realising that I nevertheless agree that one does tend to view the two differently. If I were to try and specify, I'd say that its more that portal 2 doesn't really attempt to hide the fact that it's a story being told to you from start to finish, and because of that, its free to tell a more cohesive, punchy story. HR does its best to give you the illusion of interactivity (and does quite well at parts, before dragging you kicking and screaming back to reality via one of Adam's idiot cutscenes), and thus is more constrained in what it can and cannot do. Judging via story alone (which is what this award seems to do), portal wins because 'tell a story' is closer to what portal was trying to achieve. It does nevertheless seem unfair to compare it directly to HR, since 'tell a story' was more tangential to what HR was trying to achieve.

So..um, basically I disagree that portal 2 is a film and HR isn't, I disagree that portal 2 had cutscenes and HR didn't, and I disagree with the notion that interactivity is "fundamentally more important, more interesting, and more relevant to the gaming medium", or that gaming can't "realise its potential" without using this interactivity...

....but overall I agree with Pyrian in that judging the two based purely on story does not really do justice to HR.

Well. I'm certainly glad I took the time to argue myself into a corner. Yes indeed. :p

DDL on 27/3/2012 at 09:33

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Which is why when it comes to reward ceremonies, one tends to get favoured more than the other.

Like here.