Why games fail at storytelling

[CAL4M1TY]

I really liked the caption under MGS4's picture in that article, I won't spoil it for anyone here, but it raises some interesting points.

Personally, I think that games that fail at story telling don't necessarily do so because they try and copy the way movies tell stories, I think it's because Game developers aren't movie directors. People don't give Camera work, Lighting, Character Positioning etc enough credit.

The only really solid aspect of video game presentation that matches movies is music, and that's probably because many music composers come from or work in movies/tv shows.

I don't believe a game has to in first person or with a mute hero in order to succeed story telling wise. What it needs though is a compelling tale to tell, strong and 3 dimensional, believable characters and a message behind it all.

It's not my favourite video game story, but I thought God Of war did a good job telling the story. It had a compelling story and excellent voice work (integral in making a believable character), but more importantly, Kratos was human, he was a flawed character, he was not 1 dimensional "I must go saved the princess" or I am "a villain with no redeeming qualities". Another great example is Niko from GTA4, he is human (not by genetics but by character).

That's the problem with Video game characters, they are one dimensional and predictable. I'll use the biggest game these holidays: Gears of War 2.

Gears: They basically admitted it themselves in one of those developer video's with the video streaming in the background in the dark room thing. They basically said one of the new character was X stereotype because they already had the hardened hero, the out there black guy etc. I know that they are adding more humanity to Dom, but the thing is, I'm guessing Cole, Baird and the new characters will still be stereotypes.

If you're able to give a character a brief summary of their entire personality, there's a problem there, because Human's aren't like that.

I still think cutscenes are a good thing to tell stories with, they give the player a break from the acton AND they show the player what's important. Having dialogue and scenes playout in front of you in-game won't help story telling if you are free to move about and act like an idiot OR you're facing the wrong way and miss all the physical gestures (CoD4 had this problem).

So basically, I don't think Games fail at telling stories because they act like movies, I think they do so because they haven't grasped how movies tell stories effectively and the fact that most don't care about story enough and just want to make the game fun OR they care too much about the story and don't focus on gameplay (Kane and Lynch).

@Oyvoyvoyv: I think there's something really wrong with your statement. Nintendo are the worst story tellers. Mario's story is save Princess Peach. Zelda's is usually, Ganondorf is threatening the world, let's gather specific items in order to beat him. The only great story nintendo has told is Metroid Prime, and even then it was Retro Studios.