Stories in Games Matter, Right? 151
1up has a piece looking at what exactly David Jaffe meant when he said he was 'no longer doing story'. They examine how this ties into the Lester Bangs discussion, and hear from some other designers on where they think story falls within the realm of game design. From the article: "Warren Spector: Games are all about the player experience -- about DOING things, not about watching things or hearing about things. And that means that a narrative game has to put the player experience first and the narrative second. However, left to their own devices, most players aren't very GOOD at crafting compelling experiences -- just as most readers aren't good writers, and most moviegoers aren't great directors. And that's where story comes in."
FP? (Score:3, Informative)
-uso.
Re:FP? (Score:2)
Re:FP? (Score:2)
Solomon
Re:FP? (Score:2)
I wish there were an SDL version. xD
-uso.
Re:FP? (Score:2)
It's not that important. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gameplay first. Story second (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gameplay first. Story second (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gameplay first. Story second (Score:2)
Re:Gameplay first. Story second (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gameplay first. Story second (Score:2)
Is my preference better than yours? No. But that's why we get multiple types of games: different people want different things. The game industry shouldn't be (and I don't really think it is) trying to move to gameplay in place of story. They shou
Re:It's not that important. (Score:4, Insightful)
Counterexample: Interactive Fiction (Infocom) games. Of course I don't think their gameplay is "terrible", but it is certainly lackluster for most people when compared with graphical games.
Re:It's not that important. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's nice when a game has a good *backstory*, but the story inb a game is only interesting if you the player help create it (or at least the game does a good job of giving that illusion).
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
There's a big difference between 'Photopia' (which is what you describe) and 'Spider and Web' (which is what you say you want).
Re:It's not that important. (Score:5, Interesting)
Fable was a disappointment in that a lot of the gameplay innovations that were promised were never delivered on, but it was such a bland game that there may as well not have been a story. It would have been just as compelling if the 'story' had just been presented as 'Go here and kill this guy', which is not far off from what they provided.
When I compare that with a game like Jade Empire, where I actually felt bad for doing bad things when I was playing evil, and felt good for doing good deeds. I read every letter of the scrolls I found, because I was truly interested in the world around me and in finding out the history of the world and who the people were that I was always hearing about. The gameplay in JE wasn't that fantastic - in fact, it was astonishingly repetetive - but I enjoyed the game immensely more than I did in Fable, because it was a compelling story that I wanted to unfold, and because I had an emotional investment in the characters and their situation.
You don't need a good story to have a good game (look at Mario or Tetris), but for certain genres, it is imperative that the developer give the player a reason to progress. If the gameplay makes up for the poor story, then fine, but I'd rather have a good story.
Re:It's not that important. (Score:1)
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
It's really all interrelated, and you can't say whether pitching X thousand bucks over from "graphics" to "gameplay" is going to make a big impact.
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
I have to take issue with this, GAMEPLAY is the primary reason most people play games. In fact, the march towards watching games rather then playing them, being in control and interacting is rather disheartening. Halo's story was far from good or original, it was the gameplay, experience and immersion in that world that did it for most people. The only things I remember from halo are master cheif, some aliens who'
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
Re:It's not that important. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever played Dreamfall? Actual gameplay in that game is really almost non existant, almost no puzzles, a fight system that is plain awefull and a sneaking system that isn't exactly much fun either by any means. Even for an adventure game its really very low in terms of gameplay. If it wouldn't be for the story and art there really would be exactly nothing worth to play Dreamfall. The story howev
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
The whole Legacy of Kain series was all story with very little compelling gameplay, but I played through it anyways because I wanted to see what happened. I know it is not everyone's cup of tea, but I really loved it.
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
Re:It's not that important. (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, there are more to games than just gameplay ans story, too. I've played games just because I liked the music and art, like Jet Grind Radio, or character designs like Zelda Wind Waker and Pikmin.
JGR and Rez were interesting because they had a 'feel' or 'aura' that I liked, and I mostly played them to immerse myse
Re:It's not that important. (Score:2)
Well, it *could* suck, but it doesn't necessarily have to. The first thing that popped into my mind when reading the above post was "The Simpsons: Hit And Run" -- which essentially is a 'kid-friendly' version of Grand Theft Auto (if you don't count Homer yelling "Ow, my ass!" or "Dammit, I dr
Wtf is gameplay anyways? (Score:3, Interesting)
What the hell is gameplay, anyways? Everytime there is a slashdot article about what makes a good game or bad. Everyone immediately starts spouting out the obligatory "gameplay is more important than graphics" or "games these days don't have good gameplay like they used too." What does that mean!?!? I'm not disagreeing that gameplay is important, but I'm just stepping back and thinking for a
It's really simple. (Score:5, Interesting)
So every game needs to strike a balance depending on its goals.
Re:It's really simple. (Score:1)
Re:It's really simple. (Score:2)
So with games, a lot of it depends on the kind of game you want. I love games with good stories, that's why I ho
Re:It's really simple. (Score:2)
I beg to differ. A good story never gets boring, because a good story has so much depth that it forces the player to think to follow it. There's a reason why novels and movies are still incredibly popular despite being completely non-interactive.
There's no reason why games should have shallow stories -- except that most game makers can't write for toffee and are
If stories mattered in games (Score:4, Interesting)
And I don't count movie adaptions, because you already know how the story ends.
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me crazy, but I doubt that too many great known writers would want to write for video games. Maybe game companies could get people who churn out pulp gaming fiction or horror novels to come on board, but that would likely churn out the same derivative crap we get now, although the dialogue might be a little better.
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:2)
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:3, Interesting)
Douglas Adams comes to mind. But his sort of game is kind of anachronistic.
Perhaps this is catch-22. Maybe the game industry doesn't have any great stories because the it has not attracted any great story tellers. Maybe great storytellers aren't attracted to games becuase there aren't any examples showing that you can tell a great story through a game.
Maybe game companies could get people who churn out pulp
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention that his games were custom-written for his fanbase. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing - it made a lot of sense in the 1980s when his books were explosively popular in english-speaking nations - but at the same time, neither of his games really had any appeal to anyone who wasn't already into his work.
"Supposing some day a great writer, like a Neil Gaiman, wrote a story centric game that (a) demonstrated that th
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:2)
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:2)
The best writer I am aware of having written outside and inside the media of games is Warren Spector, who did the backplot of Hostile Waters, one of the few games that can actually make me cry. (no, really. Even though the game is a 3rd person RTS/shootemup, a cutscene composed almost entirely of a bunch of national flags burning made me cry, because the dialog was so well executed, by the writer, and by the narrator, the peerless Tom Baker).
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:1)
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:2)
If not then there's no reason that they'd write a game I'd have to play for a story.
There are a universe of competent writers who can put together a soundly crafted story. They'd have a well chosen setting, well defined characters, a clear problem, a coherent plot. The sentences and paragraphs would be properly constructed. Their stories would have all the sound craft elements that a University BA in creative writing would teach.
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a problem with that though people who write book scripts and screenplays have no idea how to write for a game. In books and screenplays the writer has complete control, the writer has complete control of the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the story, character in the story, and setting of the story. The writer has complete control over all of these things.
All of those factors can be taken away from the designer through games. Game designers do not have that luxury where and when, those aspects are completely up to the player because they have direct control over the characters actions. The what, and how is only partially in the designers control, you may know they have to do a certain action but you don't know what item or skill they are going to use to do it. The who and why can even be taken out of the designers hands at times, in the care of games where the player gets to make a custom character you can't make and references back to who the character is or why he wants anything.
Games are a unique medium where you have to try and tell a story without forcing a the player down it. Every time you define a who what where when why or how in a game the player feels like they are in less control over it. There is a balance you have to keep in games between what is defined and what is not. You have to give the player control over things at times and at other times you have to take it way. This is a balancing challenge that takes a lot of practice and understanding of the medium to work out. Just hiring a professional writer will not solve the problem telling stories in games correctly in fact it may make it harder to overcome. Games need designers who can write compelling stories. Designers have to be able to think like a programmer see like an artist and write like a professional writer while keeping in mind that they will not be in control over the final product. This is very hard to come by hence why stories in games is such a challenge.
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:3, Interesting)
An excellent, fairly recent example of this interactivity is Shadow of the Colossus, where at key points in the game you're given control over the character during a situation where you have absolutely no chance of prevailing. It dials up the dramatic tension by several notches and allows the player to experience the story rather than ha
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:2)
Re:If stories mattered in games (Score:2)
What about FFVIII (Score:1)
Re:What about FFVIII (Score:3, Insightful)
I never actually finished it, because I got stuck on one particular boss battle, and just couldn't face drudging back from the save point and sitting through the same dialogue over and over again only to be killed because I hadn't built up the character's spells or stats or whatever the 'right' way.
If a game's selling itself on its story, why can't it have a 'just pretend I
Re:What about FFVIII (Score:2)
Re:What about FFVIII (Score:1)
Re:What about FFVIII (Score:1)
Re:What about FFVIII (Score:2)
When is an RPG not an RPG? When you get 4 weapons for the whole game and no armor. No output for my kleptomanic fantasies! I mean, what's the point of being the Hero of the World if you can't go into a random townperson's home and start rifling through their stuff for potions and money?
Re:What about FFVIII (Score:2)
I will maintain to the day I die that they made the CGI sequences first and then built the game around them. Final Fantasy 80210 had a plot that would make a B-movie weep.
"We're teenagers who look like thirty year olds who grew up in an orphanage together and the Sorceress was our Matr
Re:What about FFVIII (Score:2)
I can't play it because of that. I never get more than a few minutes in before it starts giving me a headache. It's not just the dialogue, either; the menus are, if anything even worse.
Ugh.
Go to the Forge (Score:5, Insightful)
Roughly defined:
Simulationism is about experiencing or exploring a setting, situation, character, etc.
Narrativism is about story.
Gamism is about defeating challenges.
Most good games contain elements of all three, but the best focus on one or two areas to deeply satisfy a kind of gamer.
All this guy is doing is what many game snobs have done time and time again before -- stating that one of these three play style is The One True Style and demanding that everyone else create games that satisfy his gaming goals. I personally enjoy the very kinds of games that he is bashing the most and find the open-ended exploration RPG to be boring and pointless. That doesn't mean that I think they shouldn't be made, though -- unlike him.
In other words, let's just leave this guy to his own elitist irrelevance, move on, and create games that satisfy different players.
Link for the lazy? (Score:2)
-Rick
Re:Go to the Forge (Score:2)
I'd say it's the other way around. Consider the GTA franchise. It had strong elements of simulation, challenges, and an excellent story. And it sold by the millions, which is not all that common.
RPGs, also an immensely popular genre with many bestselling titles, also tend to have elements of all three.
The great games that succeed without all three are actual simulation games where the g
Re:Go to the Forge (Score:2)
Allow me to cite the Halo games. The story was as good as any FF game, the gameplay was as good as any shooter -- id/Doom fun and military tactical all in one. And especially if you've read the books, the Chief is an experience.
Re:Go to the Forge (Score:2)
When's the last time (Score:4, Insightful)
Games have the disadvantage in that a poorly designed system constantly undoes any sense of immersion. If I wrote: "The heroes fought against the supreme evil, and it was a hard battle but they won", you can at least believe that this thing I wrote about is supposed to be hard. If you act it out in a movie, even with pretty bad acting it's not hard to make a reasonable pass that this is supposed to be a hard battle. But how can you possibly take something seriously if you demolish the supreme evil in 3 hits? It's a lost art to balance game remotely as difficult as what your story claims to be. In theory, the final battle in any game is supposed to be the climatic one, and the most difficult one which is why victory has meaning. But there are plenty of games where the last battle isn't remotely the hardest one, not even counting super extra hard gimmick bosses.
Re:When's the last time (Score:2)
The way I would interpret your example is that if you wanted to, you could've rushed ahead and faced an extremely difficult final boss, but you took your time to play liesurely and get all the best spells and equipment. Some people like the former, some the latter. That's not poorly designed, it's choose-your-own-adventure.
Re:When's the last time (Score:1)
Re:When's the last time (Score:2)
Re:When's the last time (Score:2)
Clive Barker's Undying [ign.com]. Hideo Kojima is also well respected for the Metal Gear series which he created and writes.
It's rare but it's not unheard of.
Stories matter (Score:1)
Stories matter in Games... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stories matter in Games... (Score:5, Funny)
And we all know how fun his games are...
Re:Stories matter in Games... (Score:2)
Background information is vital (Score:2)
And I've always wondered about the background story for games like Pong, Joust, Dig Dug (what I wouldn't give to know the backstory of THAT game!), Kangaroo, Asteroids, Tempest (TEMPEST!!!!).
The stories need to be revealed!!!
Not always... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to see Square make a game that wasn't a super environmentalist the world will end because the life blood of the planet is running out because of our single evil corporation/empire. I've been kinda of sick of that plot thread for awhile. I'd actually like to see the reverse that the evil Mana/heart of the world is flourishing creating monsters and its your group's task to stop/kill off the evil heart of the world so that humans can continue to live peacefully in a hightech civilization.
Re:Not always... (Score:1)
Re:Not always... (Score:2)
I'm the reverse. I really only played it for the story. The gameplay wasn't bad, but it wasn't special. Even FFVIII, though I hated the gamepley, I went through most of it because I wanted to see the story.
Re:Not always... (Score:2)
Um, I like fiction with the Gaia living earth concept every now and then. I don't believe that our Earth is an intellient sentient entity. What I want isn't to kill off the entire freaking ecosystem. I want to kill of the sentient spirital Gaia element that creates monsters. Call creating monsters, the planet's method of antibodies. Oh, I've got an idea. An FF game where the humans are the 3-4 generation of colonists from space and the Gaia plane
Re:Not always... (Score:2)
Re:Not always... (Score:2)
Sin you can take both ways. Sin is Nature, and most of the creatures in the game world are Fiends, which as I understand it can come from animals dying as much as people. After Sin dies, we get FFX-2, which is a modern world. But Sin is also a human creation, and has an effect much like nukes -- and we also have the ban of Machina, and all of the cities are small.
So FFX manages to have both a "humans are
Stories matter to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Story based ones are like a good book or a movie, games like Fallout, Homeworld, The Dig, Half Life 2 to a lesser extent.
I don't really mind that the gameplay is pretty linear.
Skill based ones are games like HL2DM or Warcraft 3 on battlenet.
The fun i get out of those is that i learn how to beat other people.
Now if you look at a game like Oblivion, which i think was rather boring, you have a huge world with lots of side quests, lots of eyecandy, but when you get down to every element it's rather simple and uninspired.
I think that game makers shouldn't try too hard to make games seem nonlinear because they eventually will be anyway, only crappier.
Re:Stories matter to me. (Score:2)
This is exactly why Max Payne was linear. They even had it up on their FAQ page -- they'd much rather do one story and get it done right than do many stories and have them all suck.
I wonder if this was a reaction to GTA -- the game did have a kind of a GTA feel to it, being a third-person shooter...
narrative in games is overdone (Score:2)
Re:narrative in games is overdone (Score:2)
Re:narrative in games is overdone (Score:2)
Re:narrative in games is overdone (Score:2)
You haven't played all the classics then: how about Monkey Island, Myst, and the old Sierra games?
Just a game? (Score:1)
One of the reasons, in my opinion, that video game movies have done relatively poorly at the box office is because the characters and plots of the games are underdeveloped causing an almost unrecognizable movie script.
The movie goer isn't happy b
Here's a truth bomb (Score:2)
Does story matter? Sometimes.
That's it. It's all personal taste. Persoanlly, I like games both with and without stories.
People need to stop trying to find a Universal Law Of Everything for terminally subjective issues.
Stories DO Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
And what do they all have in commin? They have a story.
Everything these days - down to the deep-engrossing plot of Farenheit/Indigo Prophecy to the spiritual journey of Prey - has a story. Sports games have a story; see the "career mode" that most have. Open-ended games like GTA3 and Oblivion have a story, though it's skippable. Heck, even the "gameplay-based" games released for major consoles these days have one; they may be forgettable - who really remembers the premise for Katamari Damacy? - but they're at least there to give the character, and by extension the player, some motivation. They keep us playing, to an extent, because we have a reason for playing beyond beating our high score or getting the next uber weapon.
And while some may consider them an artificial or contrived way of doing so, they aren't any more than the plot to your favorite concept album is a contrived way of keeping you listening. Sure, "Operation: Mindcrime" is good music, but would people love it as much if the music wasn't framed around a story of the dangers of fanatical devotion to an ideology? Just so, would Half-Life, Warcraft 3, or Diablo II be the same if you removed the story behind them? Sure, they'd still be fun, but there would just be something missing.
So, yes, stories are important in modern games. (Note that I added the qualifier "modern" to pre-empt the usual reply of, "but games from 1982 didn't need stories!" Yeah, and they also didn't need more than four bits per scanline.)
Re:Stories DO Matter (Score:2)
Wait, D2 had a story?
I think most dedicated D2 players would agree that all the dialogue and movies just cause a few seconds to be wasted on useless skipping of things.
Re:Stories DO Matter (Score:2)
Now and Then (Score:2)
This doesn't always have to be so. In certain gendres the storyline is more important.
Re:Now and Then (Score:2)
marathon (Score:1)
I don't care what anyone says, the Marathon Trilogy is still one of the best games I've ever played. The intriguing plot is one of the main reasons why. It also had great gameplay.
Final Fantasy (Score:2)
Sounds like he's never played any of the Final Fantasies. A battle is 5 seconds of pressing buttons, and 5 minutes of watching FMV.
Re:Final Fantasy (Score:2)
it's about the character (Score:2, Insightful)
More important than the overall story is the main character. When you play a game you take control of the character and if that character has no purpose, no meaning and no motivation, what do you have? Do you have a plane that simply shoots down other fighters with mega weapons or are you a rogue fighter on a philosophical task (with mega weapons)? Are you driven to play because you want to see what this character can do, or what the plane can do?
If you're going to develop a character you're already on
For me, yes. See "Marathon" vs. "Doom" and Bungie (Score:5, Insightful)
Then a small company called Bungie Software [bungie.com](now Bungie Studios, owned by Microsoft) came out with Marathon [bungie.org]. It didn't look all that different (at a glance) to Doom (well, IMHO it looked better, and you actually had to aim your weapons with no reticle). You could still shoot anything that moved, even civilians with no consequences (it wasn't until Marathon 2 that the NPCs started shooting back if you killed too many of them). However, suddenly you were immersed in this incredibly awesome, intricate story [bungie.org]. IMnsHO, it had one of the best balances of gameplay and story and actually made the game really worth playing and replaying(the Doom games were great for stress relief, but not much more).
I wasn't much of a gamer then, and still am not one (being a Mac user has its drawbacks), but that set the standard for gaming for me. Give me a good story AND good gameplay and I will buy your game. I have and still do follow Bungie, even after Microsoft bought them, becuase they have always focused on excellent gameplay combined with an interesting story, and usually excellent replayability. The Marathon series had both, the Myth [bungie.org] series had both, Oni [bungie.org] (though it was finished by...RockStar?) had it, Halo had it, Halo 2 had it (though not quite the replayability of Halo [virgin.net]).
Anyway, like I said I am not much of a gamer, but, with the exception of the Dead or Alive series, story does matter (DoA is strictly for stress relief). And Bungie has done admirably in these respects.
Re:For me, yes. See "Marathon" vs. "Doom" and Bung (Score:3, Insightful)
Marathon set the standard for me, too, and that is one of the reasons for which I'm not playing much, these days. Yes, I played a few interesing story-driven games after that, Half-Life probably being the best. But none would have me struggling in order to reach a terminal an actually read the rest of the story, which was in my opinion of SF litterature-grade.
(OK I was a teenager when I was playing Marathon, maybe I just didn't know much about SF litterature at that age; but then again, the Mar
Stories have their place. (Score:2)
If a game is to have a story, it should be built around it, not shoehorned in around a tech demo. A game with story solely in mind should use gameplay to help tell it, not the other way around. Obviously, this doesn't always happen, and there are examples of gameplay getting in the way of story and vice versa.
I don't mind cutscenes in games that help tell the story, because they give me motivation to continue. The Soul Reaver series is one such case that I actually
Battletech/Mechwarrior (Score:4, Insightful)
In the Mechwarrior4: Mercenaries game, the player actually interacts with the story, in that choosing different mercenary "contracts" affects future contract/mission availability, as well as factional relationships with "employers".
Overall, I suppose the importance of the story in a game depends on the game, and what a particular player wants from a game. Someone that wants 20 minutes of FPS or arcade-type non-stop action isn't too worried about a backstory. Others that want a more involved experience will place more importance on the backstory.
Cheers!
Strat
Metroid (Score:2)
Re:Metroid (Score:2)
For a really, really good game... (Score:2)
Case in point: Deus Ex. Still just about my favourite game ever, and it had a great story. It was like being part of a good cyberpunk novel.
Conversely: Far Cry. The gameplay was good, but the story sucked. It was like taking part in a B movie.
In the end, the games that I'll remember (and go back to play again) are the ones where I can really get into the game world. And that means good characters, a decent plot, and new and interesting things all the way through.
A good story can make a game memorable. (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone remember "The 7th Guest" or "The 11th Hour"? These were clue based games where each clue you found or each puzzle you solved revealed a little more of the story and helped to refresh the player's desire to continue. And for me, made them unforgettable, clasic games.
Then there was "Grim Fandango". A major departure from the rest of the gaming industry at t
Re:I beg to differ - Xenogears (Score:2)
Stories with games tacked onto them don't really cut it anymore, though. Especially as most gamers get older and don't want to spend 60 hours on what should've been a 40 hour game for a couple hours of plot slowly scrawling itself across the screen.
Of course, Xenosaga failed it mostly because its storyline is