Top 10 Video Game CS/Play Movies

Honorable Mentions

One of the greatest impediments to the creation of feature pieces that rely upon the Top Ten formula as their foundation is the fact that no matter how we try, and no matter how much debate goes into the selection process, invariably we have to choose one over the other, and worthy entries end up left out.

That we ended up agonizing over the choices is one of the factors that made this such a lengthy process to write. Under the usual circumstances the writers in the SuperCheats Bullpen will simply gather together and debate the choices while consuming large quantities of Mt. Dew and Doritos.

What ended up happening in this case though, was something of a disaster. With so many choices, and so many writers who are capable of making impassioned pleas, and stating good cases, in the end we had no choice but to watch movie after movie while the debate process continued.

So with that in mind, having made the choices that we did, we also want to share with you some of the games that we all strongly felt should have gone into this list (had there been more than 10 choices available to us) - or the Honorable Mentions.

So we set an arbitrary limit of ten (10) Honorable Mention Choices, made a large list of all the games that everyone tossed into the hat, and then set an arbitrary limit of one hour to argue out which of the over 40 games that were put forward should be included as the 10 Honorable Mentions.

This was the result:

Alan Wake

Batman: Arkham Asylum

BioShock

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Dante's Inferno

God of War 2

L.A. Noire

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Mass Effect

Red Dead: Redemption

The above are presented in alphabetical order - and NOT in any order of preference.

We did that so that no argument was possible about how they were listed, as otherwise the process of finishing the piece would have taken way longer. Just saying...

The fact that selecting the Top Ten for this feature was a problem all by itself helps to underscore the fact that, with so rich a field from which to select examples, that level of variety and quality in both story and its telling ends up being a good thing, because the message is progress!

Hong Kong based writer, director, and actor Jackie Chan recently remarked on how influential Shakespeare was on both mainstream cinema and his own area of interest - martial arts focused films - and in video games.

That Shakespeare’s most influential plays are constantly retold in modern cinema even when the writers and directors don't know that's what they are doing is simply astounding. The fact that the same case can be made for video games is wonderful on its face (and a fit subject for another separate and in-depth article all on its own).

Chan points out that while not everyone has the skill or talent to write well, removing the medium and focusing strictly on the act of storytelling as an art through which ideas and emotions are expressed has the effect of quickly separating the writers from the hacks.

Which makes the challenge of assembling both this feature and the honorable mentions portion all that much more difficult, because far from being the safe haven for writers who couldn't cut it in the mainstream twenty years ago, the creative departments for video game development studios today are now home to first-rate talent!

That community of writers and creators of video games is now experiencing a renaissance that is very similar to that of the playwright of the 1930s, and screenwriters of the 1960s; demand has rapidly outpaced supply, creating opportunity for newcomers that has witnessed the establishment of entire new empires thanks to that phenomenon.

As a result the wider desires of the consuming public - the audience of gamers if you will - has resulted in a free and far more open environment in which games writers are able to express their most inner thoughts and thought process, transforming them into solid and well-supported properties and game series' such as Halo, the Elder Scrolls, the Hitman series, and Pokemon - just to name a few of the most successful.

As Chan points out, the fusion of the traditional role of the storyteller with the elements of film and its unique transformation into the video game platform as an artistic expression form has resulted in the circumstances behind the reason we created this article and the idea of there being such a thing as a Top Ten Video Game CS/Play Movies at all!

Conclusions

The developing art form that is the CS/Play Movie taken from modern Video Games is what we can only define as an emerging presence in the world of the gamer.

Whether you consider it to be just another less-cluttered adaptation of the Let's Play genre, or you (like us) are starting to view the phenomenon as a mixture of art, creativity, and perception, one thing you can rely upon utterly is that this new presence within the gamer community is here to stay.

One of the more endearing elements that we have found is the literal truth of the notion that perception is 9/10 of the story, and presentation all that remains.

The gamers who put together the movies that are embedded above are due considerable praise and perhaps thanks for their efforts, but probably not for the more obvious reasons. The reason for that has more to do with the fact that the impact that these stories have are fluid, and not necessarily the same for each player.

Which is how we can (and did) find ourselves walking away from the viewing of some of these movies with a very different - even altered - sense of the story from the game compared to the one we thought we understood from our own experience in actually playing the games!

It may very well be that by removing our own sense of involvement and the responsibility for having to make the story progress through play is an important element in altering our perceptions of the game and its story. Clearly when a gamer can take on the role purely of the observer it has to manifest changes to their perceptions of what is happening on the screen.

More times than we can say, we found ourselves sitting on the edge of our seat and watching the events unfold thinking we knew what was going to happen next, and what the director was going to show us, only to find ourselves shocked and surprised when they chose to take a different action, and follow a different path, and in so doing changed the very nature of the story we were viewing.

That oddity quite often lead to our experiencing an effect that is called cognitive dissonance -- when we found ourselves knowing that one set of events and values was true because we ourselves had experienced it, and yet at the same time knowing with equal sincerity that the events and values in the story unfolding on our screen was also true. Even when that altered state conflicted with what we thought we knew.

No, especially when that altered state conflicts with the story we emerged from the game believing.

One of the most surprising elements that we discovered in many of the stories that make up this list and feature piece is the presence of MacGuffins quite literally sewn throughout the game stories - many of which we did not at the time we actually played through and discovered the stories for ourselves were aware of or even detected!

In the tenuous process of creating good fiction one tool that is often used in books, film, and TV is the “MacGuffin” which is a well-established tool for those creative forms. And now we must admit it is equally as well-established a tool for video game story telling.

Most often it is defined as a plot device that offers some goal, desire, object, or event encountered in an unexpected place or manner, so as to alter the story itself - or seem to.

The skillful use of this device often confuses the player to the point that they can be made to accept the relative importance of the MacGuffin enough to actually alter the path they take either temporarily or permanently.

What we learned in watching - as opposed to playing - the stories above is that there were far more MacGuffins present in the stories we so enjoyed - many of them so skillfully crafted so as to permit us to not only complete the adventure, but do so without ever recognizing that the MacGuffin was in fact a MacGuffin!

We have to admit that this is something of an embarrassing admission. After all when you are playing a game to review it - and especially when you are playing it to write a guide - you should not be caught by some clever trick like that. Right?

It is also a mark of the measure and level of success that the modern video game has achieved in terms of its entertainment value, and so is worthy of note and comment.

At some point - and we are not quite sure just when this happened - the modern video game became the equal to the modern motion picture as a form of immersive entertainment. It is now an accepted fact that the vast majority of gamers believe that video games have supplanted movies as the de facto leaders in entertainment.

Recent surveys reveal that, given a choice, the average consumer and gamer would prefer to spend their $60 on a new video game rather than spend that same $60 on tickets and snacks to see a new movie release in the movie theater.

Now we are not going to point out that the average cost of a movie date for two - snacks included - easily runs to the same price of a new AAA game title. We are not going to cringe at that fact or react by gasping just how obscene that is... Screw it! Yes we are!

The fact that the cost of taking your special girl (or guy, hey we're open-minded) to the cinema amounts to the same price of a new game is bloody awful! But it certainly helps to explain how video games have supplanted movies in terms of perceived entertainment value.

Think about it for a moment - the typical movie runs 92 minutes. The typical modern video game? A reasonable amount of play-time ranges from 60 to 80 hours or more! You do that math and the choice is not a choice at all - a game is clearly a better value.

That said, isn't it cool that you can spend your $60 on a great game, immerse yourself in playing it, get 60 hours out of it or more, and then jump on YouTube and get another 3+ hours of free entertainment in the form of a CS/Game Play Movie of the game? Yes, we consider that a total win.

So tell us gamer, how did we do? Did we pick the best of the best? Did we drop the ball? Have we left a game - or games - off the list that should be there? Did we include one (or more) that you think should never have been on the list in the first place?

The best way to let us know is to share YOUR list of the Top 10 Video Game CS/Play Movies.

Don't just tell us we suck - or that game X should have been on the list mind you - SHARE your Top Ten! Tell us what makes them special! Because that sort of sharing can have all sorts of positive and special results for the SuperCheats Community - starting with letting your fellow gamers in on a game and story that they may otherwise never experience.

Thanks for watching, thanks for reading - and thanks for sharing your Top 10!

Posted: 20th Nov 2014 by CMBF
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