Pondering a Hugo for Video Games

[alias_sqbr]

Having been thinking about the Hugos it occurred to me that video games aren't eligible. After discussing it with Cam we agreed that while the odd game might be worthy of one there isn't generally enough of them in any given year to justify a whole category.

Still, it was fun trying to list games (from all time, not just this year) we felt were worthy of at least being nominated. Cam was initially only allowing games he felt had a plot as good as a Hugo award winning novel, but I pointed out that tv, movies, and art all have their own categories, so imo a winning game should be a combination of good sff ideas, plot, art, feel etc as well as, of course, a good game. (Here's the recent long-form drama winners which I think is the closest category)

So, the ones we thought of:
The Myst games, especially Riven
Gabriel Knight 2 and 3
Bioshock
Several of the Final Fantasy games (my vote's for X but I'm a sucker for humanist fantasy)

Haven't played but seem like they might be suitable:
Half Life 2
Fallout 3
Mass Effect
Dead Space
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

What do you guys think? Any suggestions?

Some related stuff I found by poking around:
Wired: Hugo Awards Overdue For A Videogame Category
10 videogames that redefine science fiction

Comments

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

Deus Ex
Wing Commander
Fallout 1 & 2
Psychonauts

[alias_sqbr]

*googles "Psychonauts" since that's the only one I'm totally unfamiliar with*

Huh that looks pretty cool. That's the problem with games of course: you can't just go and play any old game that sounds cool without a lot of hassle.

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

Not that much hassle, really; it's available for US$10 via Steam.

[alias_sqbr]

Ooooh.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

HL2 has a pretty horrible excessively long bascially driving section. Which meant it has taken me over two years to get a decent way through the game (I kept ragequitting). So I personally think its a bit lame.

Quake needs to be on this list.

Portal had a big thing :P

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

Also reading through that second link.

Alpha Centauri, was excellent. Where the half of my life when I wasn't playing Quake 2 went. (I couldn't run Quake 2 on the computer in my room, and I wasn't allowed to play it, so I could only play it when mum wasn't at home, and I could get friends copies).

Ah the life of a computer games nerd when you have stupidly restrictive parents. And no access to a computer games store.

[alias_sqbr]

Quake had a plot? :)

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

The second one did (and was lame).

The first one had a bit of one, but it was a little disjointed (that said, I've never been able to play the actual original, just that nquake thing, so I may be wrong). Sides if Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has one a hugo, you can't for me argue that winning should be purely based on plot.

I mean computer games aren't (just) about the plot, and quake was wonderful for the genre in otherways (though the awesome lovecraftian horror in it was also fun). Not that I've read much Lovecraft. Shit. I need to get back into reading oh god.

[alias_sqbr]

Fair enough, I haven't played it so can't judge.

I need to get back into reading oh god.

No need to sound so horrified :)

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

I miss it _so_ much.

I managed 45 pages of a terrible but easy book yesterday before falling asleep.

Movies so much easier its scary.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh god I know the feeling. I have so many SRS BSNS books I keep getting out of the library and returning unread, and instead I read fanfic and romance novels, my brain is mush :(

[david adam <zanchey> (from livejournal.com)]

Half-Life 1 over 2, almost certainly.
Both Uplink and Darwinia (Multiwinia doesn't really expose much of a story)
TIE Fighter, easily the most interesting story in the Star Wars games.

[alias_sqbr]

I watched Cam play something I think was Darwinia and was confused and intrigued :)

[violetsquirrel.livejournal.com]

Almost every game in the Shin Megami Tensei series (at least the ones that I've played or read through which is most of the PS2-era ones). They're a bit like Final Fantasy only darker and with much deeper storylines and characters. In particular the two Digital Devil Saga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Devil_Saga) games.

[alias_sqbr]

They sound cool. Curse my monolinguality! Though, hmm, "Digital Devil Saga" is available in English... *reminds self I'm still working through the final fantasy games I borrowed off Penchaft*

[violetsquirrel.livejournal.com]

All of the latter ones are available in English, although some of them are only out in American region. IIRC there are fan translations for some of the earlier ones too. I wouldn't even try playing one of these in Japanese, they're way too involved.

Your problem is more likely to be that they're really, really difficult. Persona 3 is the easiest one and I'm happy to lend it to you if you want XD but Digital Devil Saga is a bit of an exercise in running madly between save points hoping that you don't die. On the other hand it's a lot shorter than the others since both games kind of count as one (by which I mean they're maybe 30-40 hours each instead of 80 or so like Persona games).

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm. Given that I TOTALLY SUCK at video games maybe not then :)

[deathwombat.livejournal.com]

I'd like to nominate Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

It had a pretty interesting and thought provoking plot, elements of SF that weren't too far-fetched, realistic gameplay (Snake could get dizzy if you roll around too much in the barrel and being practically an octogenerian, back cramps as well a psyche meter which if depleted resulted in panic attacks), a combination of modern and retro art styles, it had a lot of high tension moments as you snuck across battlefields trying to avoid both sides, epic boss fights and it even had a monkey.

[alias_sqbr]

I've heard interesting things about the Metal Gear games, since they're not the sort of thing I or Cam plays I don't know a lot but they obviously inspire intense fannishness.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Metal Gear is... very odd. I think to fully embrace them you have to be the sort of gamer who likes having your gaming experience interrupted for a 45 minute cut scene.

[alias_sqbr]

Well, I am a fan of the Final Fantasy games... :)

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Trust me - Final Fantasy has nothing on the length of the Metal Gear cut-scenes. : )

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I think that both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus would have absolutely won their respective years. The odd first-person shooter like Half-Life or Halo would been worthy of a nod - the world-building in Halo is sensational.

There's a string of Japanese RPGs with strong enough plots and characters to deserve nominations, if not wins. Thinking of stuff like Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, possibly even Shenmue or Secret of Mana. Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360 would be a worthy recent game.

Some of the Ron Gilbert or Tim Schafer stuff like The Secret of Monkey Island or Psychonauts would have been worth nominating.

The biggest problem with the idea in practical terms is that I simply wouldn't trust the voting pool of the Hugos to nominate the most appropriate or deserving games. It'd wind up being like the new graphic novel category, where a very "fannish" webcomic collection managed to trump countless exceptional works of science fiction and fantasy - most of which didn't even get nominated.

[http://users.livejournal.com/drayke_/]

Definitely agreeing here with Chrono Trigger and I guess Secret of Mana.

I think this category is going to be heavily weighted towards RPGs as they have a lot more ...reason to worldbuild/plot as opposed to most of your FPS where the plot is often "You're at A, get to B, here's a gun, these guys might try to stop you"

Maybe Starcraft?

It also depends on how you're rating the game. If you take *all* of the gameplay aspects out of it and leave just the story (ie it's a book) it's a very different way of rating games compared with what you're used to. Indy games and not-big-budget-blockbusters are going to be solid chances at winning as opposed to the-ones-with-the-shiny-graphics.

Gamespy Game of the Year 2008 has Fallout 3 in 1st, Left 4 Dead in 3rd, LittleBigPlanet, Gears of War 2, GTA4, Rockband 2, WoW, Warhammer Online, MGS4 and in a shocking turn of events, Professor Layton.
Compare the storyline, graphics and styles of all of these games.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I think a videogame Hugo would ideally be given to the game that best expresses science fiction or fantasy themes, ideas, worlds or stories through a game medium. So something like Fallout 3 would certainly be a nominee (and the awesome Prof Layton as well), but something like Little Big Planet or Rock Band wouldn't.

[http://users.livejournal.com/drayke_/]

Yeah, but (even if it was SFF) I wouldn't think about RB2 because it's... Not very in depth.

[alias_sqbr]

The biggest problem with the idea in practical terms is that I simply wouldn't trust the voting pool of the Hugos to nominate the most appropriate or deserving games. It'd wind up being like the new graphic novel category, where a very "fannish" webcomic collection managed to trump countless exceptional works of science fiction and fantasy - most of which didn't even get nominated.

Oh absolutely. Which is one reason I want to try and read/watch as many genuinely worthy films/comics etc this year so I can vote for the stuff that genuinely deserves it rather than the stuff I happen to have encountered.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I think given the results this year quite a few people will be preparing lists of worthy stuff to vote for in both those categories.

[alias_sqbr]

Cool. I've already reserved some of the ones on Paul Cornell's list at the library.

[http://users.livejournal.com/drayke_/]

Ocarina of Time

[alias_sqbr]

You would say that :) (But it does sound pretty cool. Dammit, now I want to play all these old hard to get games. This post was a bad idea)

[http://users.livejournal.com/drayke_/]

crap I used the wrong userpic for it too!

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Absolutely yes - possibly the greatest videogame of all time.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Half-Life 1 over 2, definitely. System Shock 2 over #1. Fallout 1 and 2 over 3, which is pretty, but suffers from much the same problem as Morrowind and Oblivion with a lack of a driving plot.

TIE Fighter over any of the other Star Wars games out there.

Grim Fandango over anything else that was out at the same time.

Homeworld (1) deserves a nod.

Wing Commander 3 was a great game, and still holds up surprisingly well, but for Space Sims, the only thing to even come close to TIE Fighter is Freespace 2, which also deserves a 'video game Hugo'.

Planescape: Torment, most definitely.

The original Elite, for being so amazing with the very limited technology.

The whole Diablo series, if only for being so consistently good at utterly devouring lives by the thousandsmillions. (And not just Koreans.)

[alias_sqbr]

Planescape Tormet is one of those games I would really like to play but the odds of me ever having the chance to do so decrease exponentially over time :/

Also, hey, that's where mpfl's usericon comes from! :)

[trs80.ucc.asn.au (from livejournal.com)]

Maybe Thief III, but I'm just saying that on the basis of http://gillen.cream.org/thecradle.pdf - I haven't played it myself. STALKER perhaps? Definitely Deus Ex.

[alias_sqbr]

That's a big pdf, what's in it?

[trs80.ucc.asn.au (from livejournal.com)]

http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=618 An in-depth look at the penultimate level of Thief III.

[violetsquirrel.livejournal.com]

I can't believe it's taken me until now to think of these so it's getting its own comment, but Oddworld! I've only played Abe's Oddysee and seen a playthrough of Stranger's Wrath, but the world created by them is fantastic, and they have a wonderful sense of humour. The company that made them has since decided to stop making videogames and go into film or something instead since they wanted greater creativity than games were allowing them.

[alias_sqbr]

I never got far enough into the game to see much of the plot, but I liked what I saw.

*googles* Hmm. I'd be curious to see this film if it ever comes out.