Hey hey HEY

See now, this is what I meant. Modern games can be great too!

Even with the absurd, bloated, clandestine shit that Kojima makes, you find moments of rare power that are only possible in the gaming medium. The pulling of the trigger in MGS3 is probably what people know best, and that's because it's the most fantastic moment in the series. It also makes me hate Kojima, though, because the power in that moment could be produced again and again and again by investing the player with the responsibility of doing things they do not want to do.

What if we could do that all the time? What if you could take a scenario and make a player do something that they think is wrong, not just in the context of the game (DARK SIDE POINTS GAINED) but in the context of the mechanics that causes one to take the action! When you give a player a controller and they see something that they must do and they say, "No, I... I do not want this thing. I do not want it."

And then they are forced to do it anyway, and on some level they feel the anguish of an action commited?

That is power.

I miss epic plots like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2evKkHi_qmo&feature=related

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaj7ZdVBOAw

Aliens or satan? It doesnt matter kill them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OjDdMXhRA

The best plot in video game is the one that dont get in the way. What I would call fast food plot. Kinda like the plot in pornos, it is there just to introduce different background and actors.

I consider some of the old RPGs so good because you had to fill in the blanks for most things. That way it felt more personal. The best of all was that I did have to deal with the scenario writer retarded philosophy. Some modern villains motives are bad enough to cause permanent brain damage: Wesker thinks the world needs judment so he will turn it into a mass of tentacles.

I didn't say all game stories after 1995 are bad. I'm just saying that I think storytelling in the medium has taken a backseat since the introduction of cutscenes, gigantic HD graphics budgets, and sandbox gaming.

I think stories in games will actually get much better, but I don't think any of today's blockbuster franchises will be responsible.

I really think gaming history is perfectly following film history. In the first few decades of the cinema, every few years there were ridiculous innovations, both technologically and pacing-wise and plot-wise. Also for the first few decades nobody took the medium seriously and there was no serious film theory and it was considered garbage by most people, even as it made more money than anything ever.

I think the closest thing to an ideal storytelling method in video games would be to set up any kind of plot or narrative that your heart desired and then set it up in such a way that every action was invested with meaning and violence and the actual need to make a decision.

We would need to find a way to get the player to abandon goal-oriented thinking, particularly the sort that makes the actions he takes into mechanical things. Everything he does needs to be intensely personal, a result of his choices and a reflection of himself. When he is forced to do a thing against his will, it should feel like that: a violation of an agreement, the throwing away of an understanding that the player is not supposed to be really involved in the decision-making, an investment of responsibility.

That's close, I think, but I'm not sure I have the language down right. Responsibility is the key to the storytelling I would like best.

"There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you."

I want the player to look back at the experience he had and how it reflects on him, on what he's willing to do to achieve his goals, even to pretend.

Kojima found greatness for one brief, shining moment when he made the player go through the experience of killing a figure who had, in a way, become like their mother. I want that greatness everywhere.

Hah, most of console games back then were just some stupid arcade games and actually thats what console games should be about. Nintendo is doing it right and thats why its winning this gen.

There are way too many PC games from 80-95 that even challange popular books in storytelling. Take ultima serie for example. That serie was alive from 80-99. Heres short version of the story in those all nine games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6SJO_Vjjg0

Oh, and heres one intro for you,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tccQXVrRRZE (ultima 6)

Actually, it started much before that, with games like Final Fantasy, Dragon's Lair and even one of my favorite games, Tie Fighter.  But cinematic influences aren't always bad.  Its when game developers make it the primary focus that it overtakes gameplay that it becomes bad.

Some friends and I have probably played through Contra III dozens of times.  I don't think we've ever skipped that intro.  It pumped us up.  We attacked aggressively.  It was heaven.

Now a game wants me to read for 10 minutes, so I can walk around a town and get to meet a bunch of static NPCs that all have one joke or clue to tell me.

I think the first Nina Gaiden on the NES did it right.  You do some platforming, fight a boss, then BLAM, really fast plot twist that doesn't waste your time, repeat.  And all it really did was explain the changes in scenery.  "Ryu, now you must go fight some evil guys in the rain in another country!"

I think I've got it down - I want two schools of game design and storytelling, which are really just refinements and definitions of things I already enjoy.

1. Games are fun. Stories are not necessary as anything except for window dressing and as a mode for making more compelling gameplay experiences in context, giving a sense of.... consistency. Games like Mario Galaxy and Gears of War would go here. The appeal of these is almost innate.

2. Games that tell stories in way that only games can. This is harder, not only because it would take enormous resources but because the creators would have to be extremely competent. What I mentioned before, about giving the player a sense of real agency, of responsibility, is at the core of it. The best example I can think of off-hand is that instead of reading a dialogue box, one should have the impression that they are having a conversation. Chris Avellone came very close to this with the first meeting with Atris on the surface of Telos in Knights of the Old Republic II, but that hint at sublimity could be carried much, much further.

Hmmmmm.

If you think games can tell cinematic stories as effectively as film them you're doing it wrong (and in for severe disappointment). Game are interactive and thus most games that disregard that simple fact will be doomed to failure 99% of the time.

I haven't played this KOTOR 2 you speak so highly of.

But so far I think the game with the best storytelling EVARRR was Portal. It was the only time I ever got scared of something in a game that wasn't just something popping out of the shadows. The story was told through the exploring. I walked into rooms to see chairs knocked over, and nobody told me why they were knocked over. I just knew something happened in there. Was there a fight? The projector was still showing slides. Did something go wrong during a meeting in there? I laughed at the jokes. I got scared when I was supposed to. I think Portal did comedy/horror better than any comedy/horror film ever made. It's very hard for films to be scary and funny at the same time, but I really felt like Portal was.

But I don't think I've ever felt agency or responsibility in a game. I've never been that immersed.