Father Ted Creator Bemoans Rockstar's Games Writing Skills

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Father Ted Creator Bemoans Rockstar's Games Writing Skills
So everyone's loving Max Payne 3 at the moment. Wait! Hold the phone! Not everyone, actually. Father Ted and I.T. Crowd creator Graham Linehan had some choice words to say about Rockstar last night on Twitter, sparking an epic debate on the quality of video games writing.

It all kicked off when Linehan made a remark about a title screen design. When asked what he was playing, he replied with "Max Payne 3. Why I'm expecting quality writing, I dunno. Thought they could afford it by now, I guess."

You could tell the comedy writer was getting into the gameplay mechanics soon after, when he commented, "Rockstar. Can't hire a decent writer, but button A slows things down so you can watch a bullet make mincemeat of an enemy's face. SIGH."

Opinions. People don't like that, it seems, so some took up lyrical arms. In response to a super-fan who exclaimed, "Rockstar ARE the best storytellers in gaming. Anyone who says otherwise are just kidding themselves," Linehan tweeted, "Ha! We're in BIG TROUBLE."

Perhaps the biggest smackdown from the celeb was when he suggested that Rockstar CEO and founder Dan Houser "should retire" for writing its games.

Before you get the impression that our man Graham has descended into some Grumpy Old Man, he does have a soft spot for some games that he feels are wonderfully written. Examples of these, he notes, are "Enslaved. Anything by Valve. Battlefield 3" as well as Psychonauts.

And, he also admitted that Max Payne 3 isn't so bad. "To sum up, Max Payne looks great, plays ok so far, is written by a million monkeys on a three-month deadline."

What do you think? Can games writing be better? Give us a shout on the comments section below. See Linehan waxing lyrical about games writing on the telly box below.

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Comments

gingineer 23 May 2012 20:44
1/1
I loved gameswipe. hope charlie brooker does another one sometime!
Regarding the writing. yes there are some games with terrible writing. but I just completed Mass effect 2 (yes I'm 1 behind) but it was a great story. terrible bits of cover based shooting though!
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