Games about the Extraordinary Ordinary?

[Jake Plane]

So...

In terms of the macro library of games, there are fantasy games a plenty. Ditto sci-fi. Certainly many a comic book based/inspired game.

But where are the games about the extraordinary ordinary? Games about real life situations? Other than Sims, there seems to be slim pickings.

That I can think of, there's one game - I believe for the gamecube, maybe the PS2 - about trying to escape a city after a massive earthquake has struck. Fantastic premise and apparently a decent game. Unfortunately, the name escapes me.

Any others?

[jfletch]

Willy Beamish for the Sega CD?

Bad Day LA?

Hmm.

[russellmz00]

So...

In terms of the macro library of games, there are fantasy games a plenty. Ditto sci-fi. Certainly many a comic book based/inspired game.

But where are the games about the extraordinary ordinary? Games about real life situations? Other than Sims, there seems to be slim pickings.

That I can think of, there's one game - I believe for the gamecube, maybe the PS2 - about trying to escape a city after a massive earthquake has struck. Fantastic premise and apparently a decent game. Unfortunately, the name escapes me.

Any others?

disaster report. pretty good, i'm still in the middle of it.

[Jake Plane]

That's the one!

And in terms of genres that would be a thriller. But in the bookstore of gaming, there's a huge dungeons and dragon section, a massive sci-i area, a significant war section, some magna (domestically speaking) and then just misc.

No real... "real life" games.

So far we've come up with... Disaster Report (Bad Day LA doesn't really count; it may be set in the real world but doesn't pass the 'if this happened - and it actually could - what would you do' test).

Is this really it?

[Zylon]

America's Army

[RepoMan]

Umm... Grand Theft Auto???

[Crater]

Sanitarium?

[roguefrog]

Shenmue?

[extarbags]

The Sims, Second Life, etc. The thing is, a lot of people's normal, everyday lives are pretty boring.

Edit: and you already even said The Sims, which I didn't notice.

[Kitsune]

Well, there's also the sequel to Disaster Report, which is about escaping from a flood!

Sony's My Summer Vacation series - recounts the summer vacations of a boy who spends them doing school reports, swimming, collecting bugs, making friends, getting into adventures, getting a tan, etc.

The Fish Eyes series - a fishing game with a complete little world for you to hang out in and have a vacation at, with characters and everything. Not like Legend of the River King, which a fantasy fishing RPG series.

Mosquito 1 and 2 - If you count taking it from the perspective of a bug, this is about a mosquito who lives by sucking the blood of a particular, normal Japanese family.

PachiPara - a game that chronicles the lives of either a certain male or female professional PachiSlot player. I've never played it, because I hate PachiSlot, but, well you can't get much more normal than that.

Tokimeki Memorial Series - you know the ones, they started as half high-school sim, half dating game, and then morphed into games where you tried to woo your loved ones. The first game rocked, what the genre became...not so much. Anyway, there's a billion plus 527 of these types of games, even if not Tokimeki, that take place in the real world with ordinary people and have no fantasy or science fiction elements.

Dolphin's Dream/Everblue/Everblue 2 - I can't recall if these have any fantasy elements to them, but I don't remember them being. Either way, they are diving games where you have multiple goals, but treasure hunting, seeing wildlife and escaping sharks are just a few.

The Psychological Game - A very long-lived series with who-knows-how-many releases that attempts to do all sorts of things with psychological profiles of you based on imagined every day situations.

Nintendogs - Isn't this obvious?

Cooking Mama - It may star a cartoon, but I don't think she fought any aliens, just cooked food.

Bureaucracy - A text adventure with some involvement by Douglas Adams made by Infocom, rather absurd, but as I remember it, it took place in the real world and it was all about escaping really bad reams of bureaucracy. In fact, I think you could die if your blood pressure went too high.

Machi - The Fated Crosswalk - Okay so this a sound novel, but it's one with a ton of interaction and lots of characters to choose from. Several dozen people are interlocked with each other at a crosswalk on a fateful day in Tokyo.

And on and on and on. So yeah. There's lots.

-Kitsune

[extarbags]

Maybe Harvest Moon? And to a lesser extent, Legend of the River King?

Edit: I just saw that you listed LotRK as a fantasy game, which it is, but you could kind of give it a pass because the core of the game is about fishing, which is real, and you could say that the fantasy stuff is just folklore that the characters believe, and your poor sister is actually going to die anyway :(.

[RichardC]

Don't forget Jones in the Fast Lane - a whole game of life. Or things like Sim Farm.

[McBain]

Shenmue?

Hey, do you know where sailors hang out?

[Cosmic Hippo]

Bureaucracy - A text adventure with some involvement by Douglas Adams made by Infocom, rather absurd, but as I remember it, it took place in the real world and it was all about escaping really bad reams of bureaucracy. In fact, I think you could die if your blood pressure went too high.This game is awesome and hilarious. You can find it online if you try (I stumbled upon it that way), but of course the original came with "feelies," didn't it? Before my time..

[tromik]

Deja Vu?

[The Other Guy]

Umm... Grand Theft Auto???

And if not GTA (certainly GTA:SA allowed for extensive "everyday life" behavior), then certainly Bully...

There's also a whole bunch of stuff that, unless you are (or were) a twelve year old girl, you're not tracking--Moby Games shows that there were six(!!) Mary-Kate and Ashley games for various consoles. Then there's Bratz, Barbie, Britney and ponies.

Although most of those games looked less like "extraordinary ordinary" and more like "ordinary ordinary."

[ElGuapo]

Kitsune, are you a person, or a supercomputer hooked up to a database of games and a teletype machine? They are amazing and massive, your posts.

[Jonathan Crane]

disaster report. pretty good, i'm still in the middle of it.

Speaking of Disaster Report - does anyone know if the sequel is coming to the US? Possibly renamed?

[Aeon221]

Frogger counts if a mosquito game counts.

[Kitsune]

Speaking of Disaster Report - does anyone know if the sequel is coming to the US? Possibly renamed?

Oh, I rather think somebody does. (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=31913&highlight=danger+kitsune)

-Kitsune

[Hanacker]

Sports, racing, flight sims, a large amount of traditional adventure games (Leisure suit Larry, Police Quest, etc.), "Tycoon" games, hunting games, etc. are all about "real life". Really, the only thing that's in short supply are RPGs and there are a lot of good reasons for that.

What else would you want to make a game on? There's pretty much nothing in my life that would make for a good game.

[BlueJackalope]

Sanitarium?

You spent a forth of that game as a stone statue of an aztec god and a fourth as the ghost of a little girl. Not super "real" life-like.

[EvilIdler]

You spent a forth of that game as a stone statue of an aztec god and a fourth as the ghost of a little girl. Not super "real" life-like.
You have NOT ever received the wrong prescription!

[Zylon]

Oregon Trail.

[scotthal]

There's pretty much nothing in my life that would make for a good game.

The other day I realized that my life is a rep grind. I almost cried.

[Jake Plane]

All of these are valiant suggestions, but I guess I'm asking where are the analogs to "24" "Silence of the Lambs" "Prison Break" etc. Games that are tense but based on real world situations. GTA fits the mold to some degree (certainly the later games), but others here... I mean c'mon.

There just seems to be a huge gaping market. I like sci-fi and middle-earth stuff same as the next guy (assuming the next guy is someone on these boards) but I don't just watch sci-fi or middle-earth movies. It just seems there's some serious room for more adult themed entertainment in gaming. Unfortunately, far too often, adult-themed entertainment in gaming likely means hot coffee...

[Jake Plane]

Sports, racing, flight sims, a large amount of traditional adventure games (Leisure suit Larry, Police Quest, etc.), "Tycoon" games, hunting games, etc. are all about "real life". Really, the only thing that's in short supply are RPGs and there are a lot of good reasons for that.

What else would you want to make a game on? There's pretty much nothing in my life that would make for a good game.

Granted. All of that's true. Those games are about real life.

But some of my favorite books and movies have no analogs whatsoever in gaming. Why isn't there a game where you're an embedded journalist in Baghdad and you're convoy gets hit and you need to find some way to get back to the IZ? Or a game where you have a normal life and it's suddenly interrupted when a family member is kidnapped by a serial killer who wants you to play out some sick games at the chance of getting your loved one back?

I guess I'm just saying that eventually playing the steroid action figure character gets old after awhile.

A little more grit, realism would be welcomed in gaming.

[Khelavaster]

Or a game where you have a normal life and it's suddenly interrupted when a family member is kidnapped by a serial killer who wants you to play out some sick games at the chance of getting your loved one back?
But can you avoid falling back into the conventional action game? This example sounds like a cross between Max Payne and Condemned. I know what you're getting at, however, though maybe an adventure format is more suitable. I've heard good things of that game Fahrenheit, maybe it fits the bill.

--Khel

[nijimeijer]

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) gets very loony, very fast.

Missing and its sequel Evidence seem to be closer to what you're describing, although their setup is likely a bit different than what you're expecting.

Actually, on second thought, they both sound exactly like your example of "interrupt your life and solve puzzles". That's essentially their setup.

[Khelavaster]

Oh, wait - Still Life. That one had a serial killer and little fantasy (except for the little robot). Pretty gritty, too.

-- Khel

[Hanacker]

Granted. All of that's true. Those games are about real life.

But some of my favorite books and movies have no analogs whatsoever in gaming. Why isn't there a game where you're an embedded journalist in Baghdad and you're convoy gets hit and you need to find some way to get back to the IZ? Or a game where you have a normal life and it's suddenly interrupted when a family member is kidnapped by a serial killer who wants you to play out some sick games at the chance of getting your loved one back?

I guess I'm just saying that eventually playing the steroid action figure character gets old after awhile.

A little more grit, realism would be welcomed in gaming.

I've don't realy follow the genre anymore, but do they not make many adventure games set in the present anymore? I thought there used to be quite a few (Gabriel Knight, etc.). If you aren't talking about a typical action or adventure game, they don't make many games that sound like what you want that fall outside those gaming genres, regardless of setting. What would your embedded reporter game be like? GTA Bagdhad? Point-and-click adventure? Deus-Ex type FPS? Fallout or Oblivion-like RPG? Thief-like game where you run around and just try not to get shot?

[KaoFloppy]

Kitsune, are you a person, or a supercomputer hooked up to a database of games and a teletype machine? They are amazing and massive, your posts.
Cyber-enhanced. It all makes sense once you realized that Ghost in the Shell is a documentary.

[Drastic]

Why isn't this thread a poll?

[Nelson]

Why isn't there a game where you're an embedded journalist in Baghdad and you're convoy gets hit and you need to find some way to get back to the IZ?

I played that game once. It needed a save game feature.

I don't think a game like that would be enjoyable. It's like an FPS where you don't have any weapons and the most likely outcome is you'll be shot or kidnapped and beheaded.

There was a great game about journalism: Beyond Good and Evil. The photography minigame was a blast, too. But BGE is now best known as a game that got critical raves and yet sold poorly. The market is disposed to punish innovation except for the rare times something does gain popular traction, in which case it dies the death of a thousand sequels.

Nelson

[Zylon]

Games that are tense but based on real world situations.
Burden of 80 Proof (http://www.planetdeusex.com/burdenof80proof/).

[wisefool]

These are oldish gems(DOS!)

Conflict in the Middle East
Yes, Prime Minister
Floor 13 - You bug people. You ransack apartments for information. You have em tailed. You can even order a hit. If it was a high-profile with no useful information (an innocent), you run damage control.

[The Other Guy]

Floor 13 - You bug people. You ransack apartments for information. You have em tailed. You can even order a hit. If it was a high-profile with no useful information (an innocent), you run damage control.

Oh my GOD. I want to play this--NOW.

[russellmz00]

a dog's life?
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/adventure/dogslife/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary

[BobJustBob]

Killed Until Dead. Mystery writers gather in a mansion and one of them will be dead before the weekend is out, unless you can stop it. Time marched relentlessly on as you had to search people's rooms and have face-to-face meetings, relying on video surveillance for those times when you couldn't be everywhere at once.

[Kitsune]

That reminds me. Has anyone here ever seen Murder By Death? Awesome title, that one!

-Kitsune

[JamesL]

That reminds me. Has anyone here ever seen Murder By Death? Awesome title, that one!

-Kitsune

The band?

[Thrag]

I'm watching some comic on the TV and made a joke that seems appropriate for this thread:

"I'd like to make a game where you have to take care of all the people who get shot in all the other games. I'll call it Super Busy Hospital".