Of course videogames don't tell great linear stories. Give me your best examples, and then think where they would fit within the cinema. MGS4, that's a shallow summer blockbuster waiting to happen. Gameplay is always going to limit the kind of story that can be told so we'll never get a boxing game with the narrative of Raging Bull, or a boring walkathon with the narrative of Sideways. In fact, odds are we'll never get even remotely close to the range and scope cinema has had for decades. Gameplay will always limit it, and because of the action oriented nature of most games, the stories will have to reflect something akin to a Michael Bay flick every time...at best. It doesn't help either that we haven't come to the point where games have been able to turn the character models into legit actors that can put on anything but a hollow performance.

MGS' story is crap too.

Well, that's kinda expected from a Western developer. Western games usually don't have the best stories.

That's the big difference between Japanese and American developers. Japanese devs are great story tellers and American devs are not.

What about the bolded doesn't apply to MGS games?

Also, it doesn't even tell a story as a videogame.

MGS is the equivelent of a Movie, that has text scrolls every 10 minutes to let you know what's happening.

It more tells a story as a cartoon then anything else.

I'm only posting to say how enraged I am by many, many different posts in this topic.

My eyebrows have actually caught fire.

Agree for the most part. Most games do have crap stories or don't even really try to have one (which is a better route if you ask me). Biggest offender to me seems to be shooters. Have your Gears of War or Killzone or Call of Duty that are all games being made just to play it yet they throw in these storylines almost like an afterthought. All trying to have something that is close to the level of a Half Life storyline but they can't even get close. I'd rather them take the L4D approach which is pretty much "here's guns, a horde of zombies, and co-op... have fun". But instead they throw in these bells and whistles that are broken to begin with and it ends up hurting the experience.

I really do wish that developers would start giving a little more thought to there stories along with the game and atmosphere they are creating. Because if you don't it shows blatantly. Gears of War I think is one of the most obvious examples this generation of a game simply having a story for the sake of having one.

Now not all of them are crap (some RPGs, MGS, RE til RE5, etc)... but for the most part it is something developers need to work on. Need more of the likes of Batman: Arkham Asylum from this generation and less like Gears of War.

Doesn't surprise me he would say that. Almost all western games have a crappy story except point and click adventures. Games like The Longest Journey have amazing storyline. Also most japanese games have really good story. I find stories in a game more interesting than a movie could ever put out. This is due to a movie being too short so it never gets too detailed. Oh and trust me...I saw over 1000 different movies.

You realize that you aren't forced to play through those story modes right? So they really don't hurt. Sometimes it's even fun to laugh at how bad they are. IMO, it's better to have  bad one than to have none in such shooters.

I have to agree that most games have crap stories though. However, JRPGs are my favorite when it comes to good storylines (yes I know, certainly not the ones about teenagers saving the world). They certainly aren't as good as movies or some animes I've watched but they actually make a decent effort in some cases

This doesn't mean much unless you give a hint as to which side of the fence you lean on.