What has impressed you about games and movies?
polycounter lvl 14
I was listening to a Games Industry Mentor podcast on Technical Design at work this week and it got me excited about doing something in UDK over the summer. One of my biggest take aways from the podcast, besides "build something," was to make something that would wow the employer and create excitement over how I achieved something.
This got me thinking... what has made my jaw drop in games and movies in the past? What has made me wonder how they did it or made my balls tingle because of how epic it was? I'm interested in hearing about what has knocked your socks off in either movies or games and why.
One of the first things I thought of was the Bioshock Infinite trailer. I've seen my fair share of flying cities but never before had I seen a hook rail system connecting different parts of it. When I saw that the main character jumped out onto the railing with nothing but sky underneath him I was thoroughly impressed and could feel a shot of adrenaline surge through me at the thought of falling. And then what does the character do? HE DOES A MID AIR JUMP TO THE NEXT RAILING. Ahhh! I was sold!
Portal... does this really even need an explanation? Fucking genius game. I hear the whole indie dev team got picked up, which I also hear is pretty rare. Valve really took the idea of thinking with portals to town. There is definitely a sense of technical achievement there, you know, behind all the rest of the awesomeness.
Mirrors Edge. Yes please!
Zelda games. Technical wise, there's not too much going on. The dungeons/temples are just a combination of torches that need lighting, switches that need to be pressed, etc. But the puzzles are engaging and at times, epic. I'll never forget the water temple or defeating majora. I guess on that note, the three day time system was pretty neat.
Some of the moments in COD:MW2 and BO where there are some special cinematic/game play elements. For instance, almost falling off the side of the mountain while ice climbing and your partner grabbing you. I guess this isn't much of a technical achievement compared to portals or parkour, but it's still a pretty big hook to who ever is playing it.
Honorable mention to the Half Life series.
In terms of movies, the technical achievement behind Avatar (love it or hate it) was incredible. The amount of detail was unreal and the flying scenes were epic.
Star wars. Enough said.
The third pirates movie (At Worlds End) where they are having a giant pirate ship fight in a huge ass maelstrom.
Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix. Bullet time in general.
Thoughts?
This got me thinking... what has made my jaw drop in games and movies in the past? What has made me wonder how they did it or made my balls tingle because of how epic it was? I'm interested in hearing about what has knocked your socks off in either movies or games and why.
One of the first things I thought of was the Bioshock Infinite trailer. I've seen my fair share of flying cities but never before had I seen a hook rail system connecting different parts of it. When I saw that the main character jumped out onto the railing with nothing but sky underneath him I was thoroughly impressed and could feel a shot of adrenaline surge through me at the thought of falling. And then what does the character do? HE DOES A MID AIR JUMP TO THE NEXT RAILING. Ahhh! I was sold!
Portal... does this really even need an explanation? Fucking genius game. I hear the whole indie dev team got picked up, which I also hear is pretty rare. Valve really took the idea of thinking with portals to town. There is definitely a sense of technical achievement there, you know, behind all the rest of the awesomeness.
Mirrors Edge. Yes please!
Zelda games. Technical wise, there's not too much going on. The dungeons/temples are just a combination of torches that need lighting, switches that need to be pressed, etc. But the puzzles are engaging and at times, epic. I'll never forget the water temple or defeating majora. I guess on that note, the three day time system was pretty neat.
Some of the moments in COD:MW2 and BO where there are some special cinematic/game play elements. For instance, almost falling off the side of the mountain while ice climbing and your partner grabbing you. I guess this isn't much of a technical achievement compared to portals or parkour, but it's still a pretty big hook to who ever is playing it.
Honorable mention to the Half Life series.
In terms of movies, the technical achievement behind Avatar (love it or hate it) was incredible. The amount of detail was unreal and the flying scenes were epic.
Star wars. Enough said.
The third pirates movie (At Worlds End) where they are having a giant pirate ship fight in a huge ass maelstrom.
Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix. Bullet time in general.
Thoughts?
Replies
I think I've seen that. Great stuff!
Good one! Yeah, forgot about that huge thing. Watching them transform is cool in general, but watching them create one big thing was even greater! I still wonder how they did that... so crazy.
Something not visual, but story wise was playing Planescape: Torment. The depth of story in that game blew my mind. Super creative writing. I still hold that up as the best story in a game I've played to date.
thats how you do cinema
I think Final Fantasy 8 was the first time I considered making video games. Before I played that game, I hadn't played any RPG and was blown away at how emotionally attached I got to the story and the characters.
I just looked that Planescape game up. It looks good! I'll have to try and track it down somewhere.
Final Fantasy cinematics where the reason i wanted to become a video game artist.
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I know uncharted is talking about the use of 3d. Helping the player judge how far is a jump, in cover to be able to see around cover with the camera. To me that is pretty cool. But then.. you have the cinematic experience that Uncharted 2 had, and now 3 looks even more epic. All of the demo they showed in the boat was amazing. having the boat in real simulated water where you don't know whats gonna happen or how your characters are gonna move and play is just mind blowing. Looking at the boat tilt sideways and everything falls sides and you hit the water and see him come in through the cinematic camera was awesome.
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I was mermerized by the new Bioshock trailer! the colors and the presentation were amazing! I really never cared for the bioshock franchise, but they do know how to make an awesome trailer. I remember the trailer for the first one i always thought it was one of its kind. Never had i seen a first person view trailer that made me shiver of how well it was put together.
[ame]
Metal Gear was always a big one for me. Having snake crawling through the tunnel at the last part, with all his suit exploding and tearing only to have the most epic final battle against revolver ocelot.
[ame]
God of war... so many epic moments. Just the 1st 20 mins of the 3rd one makes me have goosebumps.
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amm.. i could keep going :P
hmmm...
I think creating a game with moments like these are great, but they mean nothing if there isn't a solid foundation to go off of. Not only that, but I believe a good designer will let the player experience instead of just showing the player all of these things. Imagine if you were shown how to use a portal gun instead of just using it, or if you simply stood near the railings in Bioshock Infinity and it did all the fun stuff for you.
When Master Chief set the alien up the bomb (Zero Wing reference) in the "Return to Sender" part of Halo 2, I couldn't help but smirk.
Aeriths death in FF7 and the ballroom dance scene, space scene and the Garden vs. Galbadia scene in FF8 were pretty big moments as well. But those are more story oriented.
LOTR: YES! So many epic moments!
WAT. Project Offset is really dead? Man... I remember watching their vids in awe. That one where the sky changes and the winds pick up is really good. I wonder how they did that?
although I dont watch any anime, the effects in the latest naruto games (think it was on ps3) look downright impressive.
Bioshock gave me chills when i played it the first time and the second time i played it i knew i wanted to make game environments for a living.
5 Centimeters Per second (Movie) : I love the artstyle in this movie.
The elder Scrolls Oblivion: The feel of freedom and awesomeness in this game mindblew me at that time and also awesome mod community.
When Final Fantasy hit the PS1, I was starting to think more and more about art in games. By FFX on PS2, I KNEW I wanted nothing more than to be able to design, create, move, SOMETHING to beautiful characters in video games.
As for movies, many amazing Disney and Pixar films always have and always will inspire me.
Also, Moulin Rouge--Turth, Beauty, Freedom, and above all else, Love
oldies but goodies(family comp days)-contra(up2,down2 you know the drill
PC- Bioshock(would you kindly),Counterstrike/Halflife(got me into modding, made my first ever map using worldcraft then),Oblivion Elder scrolls-spent hours and hours playing this one, no turning off of PC for days.PORTAL!!!-the game mechanics,the story, the cake, the ending song,easily one of the greatest game ever made.
Starwars- 2 words> classic, epic
Matrix and LOTR trilogy
Tron and Bladerunner
Pixar and Disney films as well.special mention UP
Spirited away
LoL, seriously though, I've been impressed with naughty dog and sony santa monica; the GoW and Uncharted franchises are only getting better in visuals. I love the approach valve is taking with handling the digital games distribution and various business models, that sort of experimentation is pretty exciting to see coming from a company that is not a publisher. And tech wise, i am loving what udk and cryengine can do with DX 11. There's so much cool stuff that can be done nowadays with MANY different mediums that it's incredible.
The era of the super franchise is upon us, but to beat dead horse, soo much cool stuff is coming along to test and try on different platforms... it so awesome, and impressive!
When the two ships dropped off the side of the cruiser, pretty sure I suffered a brain-bleed from the awesome. Pity the rest of the film was cack.
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Love Serenity
Just bought Firefly on bluray too.
I love The Thing and Alien, I still watch them far too much.
Was not hugely impressed by Avatar really... I hate 3d films, I think they are a complete pile of rubbish, story line was laughable... I liked the big bomber thing and the APU type things, but really... meh.
Vegetation was nice though
Out of This World had the most amazing animation I'd seen in a game at that point. It made the entire experience more involved and real.
Both Magic Carpet and Warhawk on the PS1 had a crazy feeling of freedom to me back then. Fly where you want, do what you want. It was an open experience like I never had before.
Prior to Final Fantasy VII I had not been a fan of RPG games. This game was downright breathtaking in terms of scale, story, gameplay and music. It's the only game I've ever played to invoke real emotion. When Aeris died, I cried. Piano melodies stir up a lot of emotion for me and the slow notes they played during that sequence just got the better of me.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time blew me away with the epic scale of it's intro, insanely fluid animations and locomotion/combat. The music created for this game really set the tone for what was a truly amazing experience.
This list can go on forever, so I'll just stop there, heh. There are way too many games that had amazing experiences for me.
As for movies, it's usually a combination of a few things. Visual+audio queues often have a big impact on me, such as the "Recognizer" sequence in Tron Legacy, where the camera pans across the grid to take Sam to the armory. The deep electric tone of the music, the crackling sound of the Recognizers coming from the rear speakers moving forward and the amazingly contrasty visuals just struck a cord of awesome in me. Gave me goosebumps.
The Matrix opened my eyes to a lot of things and gave me a big pool of inspiration to draw from back in the day. It was like no film before it and was the only movie I've ever seen where I was so spellbound that once I stepped out of the theater I walked right back in and bought another ticket.
-First time entering the Diablo dungeon, with the great theme and with my warrior standing all badass in anticipation. (Wow because it was the first real game I played)
-Mountain falling apart in the background in Crysis as you engange in a tank battle[ame="
-First time seeing critical hits in Fallout. Whaaaat!? Hell yes![ame="
-Dam collapse in Split/Second vaulting me from last to first place the first time I hit it.[ame="
-Anders blows up the Chantry. [ame="
-The entire last half of ME2, minus that termi-reaper bullshit.[ame="
EDIT: Wow, weird stuff happens with the youtube video function
Insta-goosebumbs, and needless to say, that was the direction I needed to head in next. It was the first time a game made me feel part of a bigger picture, that all the decisions I was making were perhaps in a way, meant to happen.
EPISODE 2 SPOILER WARNING
Also in Episode 2 with the first encounter with the Hunter. As you approach the hill you startle some crows and if you follow them with the camera you can see the hunter look at you and then jump away.
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The opening to portal 2 with the room being destroyed.
As far as movies go,
The Matrix with it's bullet time and philosophy
Gladiator with dat ending
Jet Li's Fearless with dat ending
The flying scene in How to Train your Dragon
Crysis 2, Bad Company 2 .... Dragon age, mixture of scale in games where you can look up at stuff and be like whoa and then the bioware type story telling games where you has choices.
Also you can't call foul, the game has been out for 4 years already. Added in a spoiler warning anyways :P