There’s an almost infinite number of “things” to like about a video game. One of my favourite things in Killzone was running into a grenade supply, waiting behind cover as Hahka loaded up the M82 Assault Rifle’s grenade launcher with my new-found grenades, and while I catch a glimpse of his fingerless gloves, Rico shouts “Hey, these Helghast Elites look like yo’ moma!” (or something to that effect), before I pop out of cover, aim for the sky and shoot a grenade perfectly onto my enemies’ feet. There are a lot of elements coming together to create this beautiful moment, but it’s simply the “pting!” sound of firing a grenade (it’s up there with the sound of opening a can of Relentless – it makes me smile and say “Ahhh” out loud) that I truly adore.
It’s usually the little things. However, it’s almost certainly never the dialogue. And if it is, it’s always for the wrong reasons. Nier allowed me to achieve stomach pain with its delivery of “I am just a man, and a hard one, at that!”, at the scene of a man who is supposedly innocently enquiring after his daughter.
Now check out Vanquish, a third-person sci-fi shooter that will hopefully grace our shelves this year.
It looks incredible. Big robots. Cool suits. Missiles flying everywhere. But the one thing that really struck me about this game was, in fact, the dialogue. It’s not quite Nier, but it’s close.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOkr4YqZAME[/youtube]
“We’ve got approximately 8 hours to stop that from happening” says cyborg-esque Santa. “We will… stop that from happening.” Inspiring stuff! As I’ve hopefully already established, my sense of humour is incredibly simple, and this dialogue seriously tickled my simpleton senses, to the point where I no longer care for the robots, cool suits or missiles. I want more stunning speech from this bearded fellow, who looks a little like General Knoxx, yet with two lines of dialogue has already surpassed the face of Borderland’s latest DLC (I’m sorry, I still feel sour about downloadable slice of lag).
Another current game that’s up there with a choice of wording that I can only describe as exquisite, is Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Luckily the trailer is executed in a fashion that gives us KEY TEXT in CAPITAL LETTERS, so if, like me, you are easily distracted by melons (that was a reference to Metal Gear Rising, by the way), here’s the IMPORTANT STUFF.
A whole new adventure? Good god! I can barely contain myself! Tell me more!
Oh god… oh jesus… what could it possibly be?!
Oh.
Okay.
Does that mean we’re all going to stick our fingers in our eyes and forget about this previous lovely fellow from Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness?
This guy (I can’t even remember his name, probably because he was pointless, so I’m just going to call him Pointless Fellow) was presumably swallowed up by a crack in space and time that conveniently removed him from all existence. Because that’s totally fine with me. Come to think of it, I remember Lara falling down an endless black hole in Angel of Darkness, and I had to reset the console and start again. Pointless Fellow obviously had no such luxury.
Never mind though, there are bigger things to worry about, say, if you’re a Metal Gear fan and you’ve just seen footage of Metal Gear Solid: Rising, and you’re wondering, where is Snake? Cigarettes? Cardboard boxes? Nay, where’s the stealth, for that matter? Oh wait, it’s OK, Raiden can slice melons, and I love melons, so everything is fine. Just fine. Maybe they’ll fill those huge gaps between ‘Snake’ and ‘Stealth’ with some excellent dialogue, so, if you’ll excuse me…
“For the love of all that is holy, stop pounding me!”
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