NovemberMike
Regular
The stories in videogames interest me because of how they differ from traditional methods found in plays, books and movies, and I am writing this primarily to get feedback on what others think of game stories. From what I see there seem to be a few methods of storytelling found in most games.
Videogames as Porn: The story is there simply to further the gameplay. Mario is a perfect example, as there is no logical reason he is jumping across floating platforms jumping on mushrooms. Fighting games are a more recent example, where a cut-scene will usually play after a character has finished the game that has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the gameplay.
Immersed: First example I can think of is Half-Life, where everything you do is seen from the first person perspective. The point here is to keep the player in the action, often at the expense of cinematic flair. A more current example would be Mass Effect, where the player can cut off dialogue at any point.
Cinematic: These games usually have the story driven by cut-scenes but retain action driven story sequences. In God of War, when you defeat the Hydra there is a cool scene where you run into its maw, and in Resident Evil 4 there is a very cinematic moment where a helicopter gives you fire support. The cut-scenes in these are used to represent things that would be hard to do in gameplay, like mounting the Titan in God of War or the fight with Krauser in RE4.
Interactive Movies: These essentially have you play for a few minutes to move to the next piece of dialogue or cut-scene. Most JRPGs fall into this category, with the gameplay often poor but interesting plots and breathtaking graphics. Cut-scenes are commonly used to allow for intricate gestures and detailed facial animations, or scenes like the Blitzball arena in FFX or the Weapons from FFVII.
On a more method agnostic level, Videogames have a few things that make them unique from other forms of storytelling.
Length: Videogames are much longer than your typical movie or book, but most of that is gameplay and not actual story. This means that most stories should probably have overarching details that are easy to remember (saving the Presidents daugher in RE4) or constant reminders to batter the details of the story into the players mind.
Searchability: With a book I can look back for a detail I missed, and movies have a rewind button. Videogames usually require a fair amount of effort and quite a bit of time to get to any particular point in a story. This again means that developers need to make sure that missing a small portion of the story won't completely mess up a players understanding of the whole (ie. missing certiain cut-scenes in a Metal Gear game).
Interactivity: Developers can put in details that people can ignore if they wish. In FEAR there were TV's, DEUS Ex had newspapers, RE had journals and Silent hill had random notes and books lying around. These were all non-necessary things that added to the atmosphere of the game. The biggest problem with them though is that they are completely ignorable by the players.
Videogames as Porn: The story is there simply to further the gameplay. Mario is a perfect example, as there is no logical reason he is jumping across floating platforms jumping on mushrooms. Fighting games are a more recent example, where a cut-scene will usually play after a character has finished the game that has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the gameplay.
Immersed: First example I can think of is Half-Life, where everything you do is seen from the first person perspective. The point here is to keep the player in the action, often at the expense of cinematic flair. A more current example would be Mass Effect, where the player can cut off dialogue at any point.
Cinematic: These games usually have the story driven by cut-scenes but retain action driven story sequences. In God of War, when you defeat the Hydra there is a cool scene where you run into its maw, and in Resident Evil 4 there is a very cinematic moment where a helicopter gives you fire support. The cut-scenes in these are used to represent things that would be hard to do in gameplay, like mounting the Titan in God of War or the fight with Krauser in RE4.
Interactive Movies: These essentially have you play for a few minutes to move to the next piece of dialogue or cut-scene. Most JRPGs fall into this category, with the gameplay often poor but interesting plots and breathtaking graphics. Cut-scenes are commonly used to allow for intricate gestures and detailed facial animations, or scenes like the Blitzball arena in FFX or the Weapons from FFVII.
On a more method agnostic level, Videogames have a few things that make them unique from other forms of storytelling.
Length: Videogames are much longer than your typical movie or book, but most of that is gameplay and not actual story. This means that most stories should probably have overarching details that are easy to remember (saving the Presidents daugher in RE4) or constant reminders to batter the details of the story into the players mind.
Searchability: With a book I can look back for a detail I missed, and movies have a rewind button. Videogames usually require a fair amount of effort and quite a bit of time to get to any particular point in a story. This again means that developers need to make sure that missing a small portion of the story won't completely mess up a players understanding of the whole (ie. missing certiain cut-scenes in a Metal Gear game).
Interactivity: Developers can put in details that people can ignore if they wish. In FEAR there were TV's, DEUS Ex had newspapers, RE had journals and Silent hill had random notes and books lying around. These were all non-necessary things that added to the atmosphere of the game. The biggest problem with them though is that they are completely ignorable by the players.
