| kowenicki said: This article is where I am at.
Opinion: Critics Should Stop Praising Bad StorytellingIn a world where Gears Of War 3 can be widely-praised for its plot and script, Mark Butler argues that game critics need to have higher standards when it comes to stories. Last week, reports emerged that Uncharted and Last Of Us developer Naughty Dog feel “disheartened” by the praise many games receive for decidedly average plot-construction and story, when they themselves work long and hard to imbue their titles with something a little more special. While these comments turned out to have been taken somewhat out of context, I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with the notion that many games receive undue acclaim for rather average plots. Even more than this, I actually believe some games receive completely undeserved praise for downright terrible storytelling – and it’s something that I believe has to stop. The example that most sticks out in my mind from recent months is Gears Of War 3. This climactic chapter in that most macho of testosterone-fuelled, beefcake trilogies serves up the kind of delicious set-pieces and adrenaline-pumping action we’ve come to expect, yet for all the attempts to make us care about the plight of its protagonists and the desperate struggle they face, it has all the narrative sophistication of a soft-core porn movie. As FMV’s own Dave McConkey pointed out in his typically frank review, the game’s plot is incoherent, nonsensical, bizarrely-structured and delivered in the form of clumsy exposition and stilted, cheesy dialogue that is merely designed to draw us from one thrilling gunfight or boss battle to the next. Even the moment that should have been Gears 3’s emotional power-house – a dramatic, tragic sequence involving a key character – is fumbled as you struggle to muster any meaningful attachment to the growling beefcakes that form its central cast. 
Not Pictured: Complex story development and emotional resonance Now, in and of themselves, the game’s storytelling shortcomings do not constitute a killer-flaw. Gears 3 is a blast to play, and Cliff Blezinski has quite reasonably pointed out that the series’ storyline and writing is not exactly meant to be Shakespeare. It’s a fun, dumb, epic action-blockbuster of a game – and does exactly what it sets out to do. But reading many of the reviews written at the time of release, you’d think the story and its delivery was actually something quite incredible. It was lauded for its “emotional payoffs”, “thoughtful storytelling”, and even Edge – not exactly known for dishing out plaudits lightly – called the script “engaging…and well-plotted”. This is something I find extremely difficult to get my head around. By all means praise Gears 3 for its terrific action and dramatic set-pieces, but its story? Now you’re just being silly… It seems to me that we have quite low standards when it comes to our expectations of video game storytelling. We seem to think that as long as the game is packaged ‘cinematically’, and possesses a certain amount of superficial polish, then that’s enough. But the sad truth is that plots which are considered good, or even great, in video game terms, would probably be laughed out of the room if they formed the narrative of a film or a novel. There are a few other notable examples of absurd, problematic or even just plain bad storytelling that I’d say have been given a free-ride – or even applauded – by critics in recent memory. 
Seeing Red: Many critics overlooked or even praised Rage's mediocre narrative Last year’s eagerly-anticipated id/Bethesda collaboration Rage had excellent FPS action, but was let down by its stale, going-through-the-motions plot-line (when you don’t even give the player an adequate reason to dislike the villains of the piece until right near the game’s very sudden end, you know something is terribly wrong). Weirdly however, many reviewers either glossed over this issue altogether, or – in some cases – actually gave the wafer-thin characterization and crucial lack of motivation a resounding thumbs-up. Likewise, the Assassin’s Creed series does a fine job of engaging when it comes to its historic period settings and story-lines, but the central thread revolving around personality-free waste-of-polygons Desmond is a tedious exercise in cumbersome exposition and bizarre, supernatural, mystical bullshit. Given that this nonsense has featured increasingly prominently in the games, and distracted ever-more from the intriguing ancestral adventures, you’d think more critics would have picked the developers up on this. But they haven’t. Fresh in my mind at the moment, with its sequel incoming, is Final Fantasy XIII, which – on top of all the other reasons I could cite for disliking it – had such an impenetrable, poorly conveyed mess of ideas at its core that I simply gave up caring about anything or anyone within it (the fact that the main characters were all so hideously annoying didn’t really help, either). It’s so woefully bad that the only way you can decipher the game’s bizarre jargon, convoluted setting and myriad onslaughts of senseless information is by ploughing your way through the menu’s dense codex of long-winded text. But hey, most critics were ok with that so long as the cut-scenes looked pretty. Even David Cage’s ‘interactive movie’ Heavy Rain, which was justly celebrated for its immersion, depth and cinematic approach to narrative, has been given a lot more praise for its storytelling than it probably deserves. In gaming terms, the way in which the story is revealed to us is original, compelling and even groundbreaking, but that story itself – as pointed out by Destructoid’s Jim Sterling in his terrific review – is littered with unresolved red herrings, gaping plot-holes and absurdly one-dimensional characters. Even more than this, the dialogue itself is sometimes clumsy, jarring or clichéd, and the voice-acting that delivers it is merely adequate rather than genuinely convincing. 
The greatest story ever told? I beg to differ... No one doubts the atmospheric excellence of Heavy Rain, nor the way in which it draws you into its experience so very vividly. But does it really boast a great story – one that is the pinnacle of what plotting in gaming can be? Given the vast majority of reviews, you’d think so. But let’s say for a moment that Heavy Rain’s narrative were translated directly into a novel, film or a TV series, taking the interactive element out of the equation. Now, the narrative is not exactly bad, so you imagine it would be readily received as a decent little thriller. But that’s the point: it really wouldn’t be anything special – certainly not worthy of excessive attention, acclaim or celebration.
The fact is that the game uses a wholly familiar stylized serial-killer story, complete with clichéd character archetypes, cackling OTT villains and an implausible, climactic twist. It’s a well-worn narrative that is spun, in gaming terms, in a refreshingly original manner. Ultimately however, it is really nothing out of the ordinary as far as thriller stories go. Dumb action movies, tacky crime novels and TV soap operas are often popular and entertaining in spite of average, ludicrous or even downright atrocious plots, but no one pretends these kinds of things are at the top of their respective artistic fields. The difference with video games is that many of the most high-profile, popular titles are held up to be intelligent exercises in storytelling, despite being merely on a par with their dumb but fun counterparts in the worlds of cinema, literature and television. There are games which spin exceptional stories of course, and some deliver these brilliant narratives in a way that only games are capable of. The extraordinary mystery and power of BioShock; the gripping, complex narrative arc of LA Noire; and, most recently, the powerful poignancy of indie creation To The Moon, are all shining examples of accomplished storytelling in practice. However, for the most part, many games acclaimed for their storytelling don’t really deserve such gushing praise. 
Developers, critics and gamers alike should have higher expectations when it comes to narrative and emotional impact Why does all this matter? Well, it matters because gaming as a medium will never truly reach its ultimate potential if we continue to accept and applaud average and even sub-standard storytelling. If we say that poor plots, bad dialogue and woeful exposition are fine when they are not, we let developers off the hook and lower our own expectations in the process. A fantastically entertaining game that has a rubbish story should be praised to the heavens for its gameplay, but pulled-up on its narrative failings. And we should save plaudits for plots that really deserve it, so that we can actually distinguish the truly great game stories from the merely adequate. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see more BioShocks, LA Noires and To The Moons. And if we don’t demand higher-standards from the people who write and structure gaming stories, the imperative for developers to actually attempt something above the ordinary and the clichéd becomes less and less clear. Naughty Dog have been highly vocal about their desire to really push the boundaries of storytelling and emotional impact when it comes to their forthcoming survival-thriller The Last Of Us, and if they succeed in doing so they should be widely applauded for their achievements. But if critics continue to praise wholly undeserving titles for their stories at the same time, then such praise ultimately becomes meaningless – and that really is disheartening. |
Great article, and I agree that we definitely need to raise the standards by which stories and storytelling are judged. 
