Monday, June 15, 2009

The Sin of Hotel Dusk










  1. Harsh critique. I like it. I understand how you arrived at that conclusion but I must admit that I enjoyed that game.

    The story might be sub-par for literary standards but quite mature and detailed for a video game. I really enjoyed the visual style as well. There is no way my Father would play Prof. Layton - it looks childish and silly. He might give Hotel Dusk a try, though.

    As for the interactivity: I agree, the interactive parts play a minor role for how the story plays out. However, I thought it was a valid approach. I would compare it to an illustrated book, but instead of illustrations, you get interactive parts. Keeping that analogy, what you have in mind is more of a graphic novel. While graphic novels can be a very exciting way to combine images and text, I wouldn't call "just" an illustrated book necessarily a sin. Worked perfectly for something like Alice in Wonderland.

    Btw, at this E3, I might have been one of the very few people who was excited about Women's Murder Club.

  2. @ Krystian

    You're right about the maturity level in comparison to Prof. Layton, but it wasn't explicitly adult of anything either.

    Forgive my "sin" hyperbole, I was being a sensationalist. I also think there is a place for illustrated books. However, Hotel Dusk purports to be a game and gives you some control (movement, order of answers, etc). Yet its utterly meaningless and serves only slow the pace. Which I interpret as insulting to the player. Had it just been an animated story, then I would leave it at that.

  3. There is nothing wrong with hyperboles. ;-)

    It's true that many of the interactive parts of Hotel Dusk serve no purpose. I was also disappointed by that. In a way I'm still am but there is also an alternative take on this. That's why I drew the comparison to an illustrated book. I mean a book in which the text alone is enough to tell the story. In such a book, having illustrations might seem like a superfluous waste of space, just like the interactive parts of Hotel Dusk is a waste of time.
    On the other hand, one can also accept the illustration/interactions as exactly what they are: a means to themselves. Tiny vignettes to underline the text. When I tested the first chapter with my Girlfriend, it was exactly the pointless suitcase opening "minigame" which made a lasting impression on her.

    On the other hand, I'm not quite sure what the difference is between Hotel Dusk and the empty dialogue choices on Mass Effect. Got to think that trough some more.

    Your review made me stumble upon some curious bit of thought. In all media but especially in games, our evaluation of a work is heavily dependent on our expectations. So the story of Hotel Dusk is high brow for Gears of War standarts but pretty shallow for serious literature. I believe you were so critical about Hotel Dusk because the visual style, the text-heavy content and the overall theme suggests a very deep, intellectual game. Which it isn't quite.

    But there is the conundrum: as a game developer, you want to keep the expectations of your audience high in order to make people buy the game in the first place. However, this very behavior will also make more likely for your audience to be disappointed with the game because it will raise the standards by which they will judge your game.

  4. I'm with you on the illustrated book idea, and how it doesn't satisfy my expectations. Which I try to temper and made sure not to call this post a review, focusing instead on choice in "interactive" fiction. My one contention is that even if I did not expect Hotel Dusk to be deep and serious (though you're right, I did), I would still have been irked by non-interactivity. Similarly to Layton, which surprised me with its depth.

  5. Interesting take, especially your view that Layton worked, and Dusk didn't. I also enjoyed both, but for identical reasons. Both were pleasant stories -- one more adult, one more fanciful -- that simply ask you to nudge them along by using your brain.

    Drawing a sharp contrast between the two seems mostly based on expectations though. One was cartoony and maybe deeper than you'd think, the other had a more artsy feel but only simple playable elements that don't live up to what you'd hope was a more sophisticated game.

    In the end though, lack of interactivity could be extended far beyond games that mimic fiction. Final Fantasy doesn't offer a lot of meaningful choice; neither do most action games. It seems like the main complaint we all should have isn't that we can't make enough choices, but that if games are making choices for us, they could at least do us the courtesy of making them part of better stories, period.

  6. @ Brian

    I admit, my expectations were high for Hotel Dusk. Certainly higher than they should have been. Your comment makes a good point about meaninful choice, which is such a tricky idea. I'm a proponent of the illusion of choice arguement over actual meaninful choice, but that is another matter. I would differentiate choice and interactivity. Where as Final Fantasy might not be full of meaningful choice, it still makes me feel involved in the choices that are made for me. It's including me in the story the way Hotel Dusk did not.

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