| Mirson said: Storytelling is an art form in and of itself, just like painting or music. And of all the art forms that comprise video games, story is often at the low end on the totem of importance. This is perfectly acceptable to me-games are more often than not held up by mechanical and/or aesthetic components, leaving the story as icing on the cake. However, this does not mean that any game that even attempts to have a deep and/or dynamic story can automatically be heralded as storytelling mastery. To do so belittles the craft. You could have a fantastic cake that gets topped with shit, and while the cake itself might be a perfectly fine baked good, you still need to contend with the fact that there is shit on your cake. A game's story need not be an epic tale or some groundbreaking piece of fiction, although it certainly can be. The story simply needs to compliment the game's other components and bring a sense of coherence to help keep the player immersed. A sudden jolt of "WTF is going on?" can shatter a playing experience, whereas a good one can possibly overshadow the game's other flaws. So what makes a good game story? Well, obviously there's no concrete answer to that. What I can do however, is go through some games that I think did it right, and some that I think made it seem like they did it right when they actually screwed it up hardcore. BioShock's main story concerning the ramifications of a (theoretical) objectivist utopia is thought-provoking and haunting at the same time. The motivation and fallout of Andrew Ryan's vision are all around the player, and virtually everything revolves around dealing with his influence. Even the smaller subplots all revolve around Rapture's ideals in some way, showing how Ryan's larger plans and their ultimate failure impacted all of the normally faceless citizens. BioShock takes an idea, shows how it might have come to fruition, and then slams the player with the horrifying results. Getting thrown into a dystopia is a common occurrence in games, but fully understanding why it came about is not. BioShock manages to present us with something that could have been a run-of-the-mill FPS (which it certainly is in gameplay terms) but was much more due to some fantastic writing. Half-Life 2 is one of my favorite games. It's also one of the most influential, counting BioShock among its spiritual offspring. However, I never understood why it gets accolades for storytelling or for Gordon Freeman as a character. It doesn't really do anything that's outright bad, but it just...doesn't tell much of a story at all. And then the player is expected to connect in some way with all of this while knowing virtually nothing about what is happening. I understand that leaving the player in the dark is intentional on Valve's part, but I think their plan really failed here. Metal Gear Solid 4 (MGS4) is the absolute grandaddy of narrative train wrecks. Now granted, it is hamstrung somewhat by developments in Metal Gear Solid 2, but that's an excuse for being bad, not for being an utterly ridiculous piece of shit. It's even more of a shame considering the level of storytelling in the original Metal Gear Solid. In MGS1 we see Snake as a disillusioned warrior constantly questioning if he believes in what he's fighting for. The enemies and even his friends constantly deceive and betray him to try and get him to do their bidding and hope that he never finds out. The intrigue surrounding all of this kept me interested from beginning to end. Then you take your shirt off and fistfight the guy that voiced Leonardo in the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. That, my friends, is a game story. MGS4 is a mess of holes, bad characters, and overly drawn-out cutscenes all wrapped up in a vague political message that never quite makes itself clear. I personally have no problem with cutscenes as a method to tell parts of the story that just can't be expressed by the in-game engine, but god dammit they need to be good, especially if they're this long. And to be clear, this isn't even an exposition problem-the game's final hours are a veritable exposition orgy. It's that everything being explained has been twisted and contrived around so many times that it begins to resemble the narrative equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting. The problems with MGS4's story could be (and probably have been somewhere on the internet) a 10-page essay on their own, so I'll stop here, but if someone wants to bring up the finer points of MGS4's WTFness in the comments, I'm all for it. So there you have it. Seven games, all of which I've seen receive accolades for storytelling, but only four of which deserve it. What about you? What games have taken an unrelenting crap on your cake? --------------- Read more here: http://www.gamecritics.com/richard-naik/why-does-game-storytelling-have-such-low-standards |
If you want a good story read a book,are watch a movie. lol
