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impertinence on 18 March 2014
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MTZehvor said:
impertinence said:
Dulfite said:
bouzane said:
"Story: The most important part of a game for me. /30"

No offense but video games have terrible stories and playing games for this reason is beyond my comprehension.


Some video games have great stories. Ever played The Last Story for Wii? Or Thousand Year door for Gamecube? The story of the Halo games was my favorite part of them! If you don't like the stories that's fine, but I'm kind of tired of people in this thread belitting me (not saying you're doing that specifically) for appreciating stories in games more than anything else.

I am sorry to have to inform you that no videogame has a great story. Most likely you have come to the opposite conclusion because you mistake the immersion that is gained from interactivity for a great story. In reality however, a good story and a good videogame are mutually exclusive entities and any 'story driven' game to date is a medicore compromise between two incompatible forms of expression.

I contest this statement. The Ace Attorney titles, Okami, Spec Ops: The Line, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Fire Emblem: Awakening, to name a few, all contained incredible stories and were quite fun to play too. With the exception of Spec Ops, I'd probably consider every single one of those "great" games from a pure gameplay perspective as well. A great story is easily compatible with great gameplay, and a narrative can often take a merely good experience and make it an overall great one. Immersion is just one part of it; some of the stories in these games are ones that I've watched others play through first and found myself engrossed by on the sole merits of the narrative quality. Story is certainly not all there is to a game, but you definitely need to expand your gaming horizons if you seriously believe that there has never been a video game with a great story.

As for the review, I'll simply echo what most people have been saying, but perhaps do so a bit less harshly. If story really means that much to you in a game, then more power to you. Play story driven games, and have fun with them. But you might want to hold off reviewing games that are outside of your enjoyment spectrum, especially if you plan on docking this many points for something they don't even try to do. In the same way that it would be unfair to criticize the Halo games for not having enough 2D platforming segments, it's unfair to criticize the Donkey Kong Country series for not trying to implement a story when it's never tried to.

Contest it all you want. It still remains a fact. 100% of the time people say that there are videogames with great stories they acts as if there are no objective standards for good story telling. When they say "This story is great" they mean: "I really enjoyed this story". In the real world however, there are standards both for story telling, and for game design. Furthemore, these standards are in direct conflict on many fronts. Most easily seen in the linear structure of stories vs the interactivity of a videogame. This chasm can not be crossed, and any attempt to do so will necessarily mean that one or the other has to compromise it's structure, or as is most often the case when people try to make a story driven videogame: they are both compromised.