[somes]

i think that strip malls are way better than cathedrals.

also: braid probably has the best story ever!

[Kilroy{ZTC}]

I used to think the MGS series represented some sort of pinnacle of storytelling, but I've sort of been turned off of it over time. So maybe I'm not the expert on stories. Just wanted to start with that.

There's a lot of talk about gameplay synchronizing with both narrative form and content, and it seems like a good enough starting place. I think the interplay here is much more dynamic than has been stressed. It should be understood that it varies based on things like genre in addition to the particular game in question. I mean, people always complained that MGS felt like an interactive movie. RPGs and point and click adventure games always felt to me like an interactive book. I mean, books have always been a less passive medium than movies. They also will always have more potential for depth, simply because of the form. Gameplay is extremely active, but has very limited room for story, so we need tools like cutscenes and RPG style dialogue if we want to infuse all too much into the game.

That doesn't mean Shining Force has a better story than MGS2, it just means the tools available for storytelling are very different between the two, and so the overall feeling of any particular genre of game will always have the bottleneck of its mechanics to deal with, and that will always factor into the overall aesthetic.

So if there's genius in storytelling in games, its in the devices games use to merge its storytelling and game attributes. MGS3 used the a simple button press prompt to impose a feeling of determinism. Half life arguably did something similar with its transition from the first games ending to the second game. Startropics broke the fourth wall to make you complete a mission disconnected from the games hardware or software, Shining Force made you get a random person to turn you into a chicken in order to progress through a town map, etc.

There's more modest stuff too. MGS and Half Life 2 both use the villain's dialogue to question the players propensity to kill and destroy in the game. Action oriented games are traditionally more restrictive and linear so it's actually easier for certain of these devices to be used. I mean, let me talk about an actual game now so that maybe this all makes sense as opposed to just being talk.

I really liked Dead Risings story and overall aesthetic, but only when I played it trying to save everyone and getting every scoop. Which is weird, because most people I know treated it like a sandbox game, failed the actual 72 hour mode immediately and thus didn't bother about the story at all. So the gameplay allowed players to run off and miss out on half the experience, which is precisely what many proceeded to do.

But it was more than half the game they missed out on, because outside of just missing the story, they also missed the parts where the story influence the feeling of the gameplay, and vice versa. In a good game story this is very present; otherwise it just feels like a story transplanted amidst some arbitrary tasks.

So in many ways I feel the more options a player has to avoid story aspects of the game, the less able a game is to express any sort of storytelling genius. Linear gameplay is an easy narrative tool. To many it feels restrictive, limits replay value, or whatever. Really, it seems like the spectrum is between the control given to the player over the story, and the control given to the story over the player. So the sort of anarchy of sandbox games, or even just the complexity of potential rule based strategies, playstyles, or whatever in any particular game, can drown out the subtlety or nuances of a story, of even just the story outright.


So I think really, there are games where the focus is just on gameplay. I mean, games have traditionally been this way, and if they are rich enough in this capacity a story isn't needed. Chess doesn't need a story. Poker doesn't need a story. DDR doesn't need a story. Conversely, there are games where the story has to be the draw, because the gameplay is limited in order to keep the narrative strictly coherent. Sure, there are choose-your-own-adventure book style branching stories. When is the last time a choose-your-own-adventure book won a Pulitzer, though?

Ah well, I'm probably wrong about a thing or ten. I won't know until you tell me though, so I look forward to responses to this. Hopefully it all made sense, at least, I kinda wrote it frantically in the few minutes I had prior to work.
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I has a blog

Older blog (Home of my Mother 3 article)

[CubaLibre]

Is this a lame narratologist vs. ludologist thing, in disguise? If so, I think that was pretty effectively dismantled in that other thread about game narrative.

Architecture as a metaphor for game design is, I think, an incredibly fruitful one. It seems to have been in vogue lately, which is a positive development.

In that vein, I vote: Out of This World.
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[negativedge]

[Rya.Reisender]

I don't think there are certain criterias to identify a good video game story. If I continue playing a game just to know how the story continues, it has a good story. If I only play it for the gameplay or quit it altogether, it has a bad story.
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Select Button
Push Eject.

[haze]

let's talk about more things like James's excellent Sonic example

though I think comparing Sonic to MGS is apples to oranges, I'd say it's objectively a better story than Mario games. which never even try anything on a similar level. to transition between levels in Super Mario World, you got an animation of Mario blowing up a castle, then a paragraph of text. TEXT, I TELL YOU.
and they did that in SMB3 too.
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[Kipple]

I just realized that a lot of my favorite games seem to include negative self-commentary.

Somes pointed out that one of the messages of Braid seems to be that playing Braid is a tragedy in itself. I agree. And I think that's a great story. I mean, it seems to work! I like these following games, but there's a negative undercurrent in each of them that tells me "this game is bad for you."

Half-Life 2:
You're not in control. You're traveling along a pre-planned line, and when you've gone through the correct route, the G-man will scoop you up and put you in cold storage and you will wait a few years for Valve to put out the next installment. You submit willingly to your brand of slavery. Breen makes some good points about this during the endgame.

Shadow of the Colossus:
The mythological Hero's Quest is a bad idea, but you're going through with it anyway, to the bitter end. You're killing some beautiful things and turning them into piles of dirt and rocks.

Portal:
You're a lab rat in a digital maze. And when you think you've gotten out of the maze, you haven't. They've thought of everything already, and you're going where the powers-that-be want you to go. Also notice that Chell's apparent freedom is literally the end of the game. The game is a prison.

Braid:
Spoiler tagged to be extra-careful!
Obsessive quests are bad and can turn you into a villain in the eyes of those you love. And you're on an obsessive quest—you're spending some time that you'll never get back solving extremely difficult puzzles instead of building any relationships.

Hell, even Bioshock has that "you're a dupe and a slave" theme to it.

So maybe this is the primal "good videogame story" of these modern times of ours. I'm not saying that this is the central theme or story in each of these games; I'm just saying that it's a thematic undercurrent that keeps reappearing over and over again.

So... The tragedy of the gamer, man.
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[negativedge]

MGS2 is sort of the prototype for that.
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[somes]

dude cuba would you mind explaining some of those terms for people like me who don't know anything about this stuff?

edit -

im thinking:

narratologist vs ludologist and "architecture as metaphor for game design".

[loempiavreter]

What about Maken X/Maken Shao Demon Sword?

I think that's pretty effective storytelling, from the viewpoint from a just created artificial god learning about us strange humans and eventually deciding what path/side you take.
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[Dracko]

[Kilroy{ZTC}]

Man shoot, I wrote a big long thing and no one responded to it, but then someone said something about a pre-existing debate and how its stupid.
Did I make that I happen? I dunno. Could someone clarify? Apparently I walked in on something or other that was already in progress and need to be filled in.

MGS2 had negative self commentary, in the sense that it negated every narrative element in the game. I mean, the bad guys tell us that everything is just a matter of perception and that our perception is invalid, and then Snake tells us that everything is just a matter of perception and that our perception is valid. Meanwhile it becomes clear all the crazier shit in the game was just there as some sort of ridiculous device to make our perception seem unreasonable, so it ceases to have any meaning in the context of the game.

I mean, that was my perception of it anyways, and Snake said it was ok. I mean, what's the point of something when its only message tells you to ignore it? I really just don't get it.


Half Life 2, alternatively, made sense to me. When Breen asked me his stupid rhetorical question it didn't actually phase me, because I didn't see any problem with the actions I had taken in the game. The Gman, meanwhile, remained both mysterious and in the background. His motivations, whatever they may be, ultimately didn't matter to me because it felt like no matter what they were I was still doing the right thing in the game. So the circumstances that put me in my position, though beyond my control and completely unknown to me, also seemed irrelevent, and I was able to just play the damn game.

It would have pissed me off if the Gman had constantly said "hey, you wouldn't be acting this way if you knew my secret" and then at the end of the game had said "nah, just kidding".
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I has a blog

Older blog (Home of my Mother 3 article)

[Kipple]

[Dracko]

Durandal is a good place to start as Bungie were a lot more confident about what they were doing. Follow through with Infinity.

You may be missing out on a few little tidbits of backstory by dodging the first one, but you can always revisit it once the universe feels grounded enough to you.

You can get all of them here: http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/
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[CubaLibre]

[tacotaskforce]

Don't give Kojima too much credit. Gungrave did the same ending as MGS3, and two years earlier. In fact it might have even done it better since the only purpose the button you press ever had was to fire your gun.
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[Dracko]

Yes.
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[negativedge]

[extrabastardformula]

The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?

You've got a defined theme for enemy design, a decent enough macguffin to take you through a variety of levels and a direct challenge of the player's skill. It's pretty much golden.
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select button.
can't get answers that will mean anything when the questions you ask serve to strongly reinforce the notions that you entered the debate with

[Lurky]

Bad Dudes has a helicopter at the end. :)

[SuperWes]

[tacotaskforce]

[LandRoverAttack]

If you wait to long, Snake does it for you. I kinda wish the game would have just stayed there until you did. And maybe if you took to long, you'd get blown up and game over.
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[Toptube]

Oh hey, Uncharted has a helicopter in the end :)
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[Toptube]

I tend to like games that build a pretty tangible world around you. Mostly by this I mean the mythology and history for the game world actually matters: Its effect and shaping of this world can be seen all around you, echoed in the words of its people, and probably used for some minor plot devices.

A couple of easy examples: Morrowind, Xenogears

Mythology can be replaced or intertwined with politics for similar effect:

Examples: Front Mission 3, FFXII, Xenogears



I'd argue that a game can still be ultimately good if these things are in place, even if what you are literally doing isn't necessarily always so interesting.
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[SuperWes]

[bloody heartland]

I'm reading internet reaction to Braid's plot at the moment, and god, it sounds terrible.

SPOILERS FOR BRAID

Deeply fraught male-sided tales of perspective obsession are usually painful enough, but shoehorned into what looked like an agreeable little platformer? I no longer understand the the appeal of romanticisng skeevy behaviour like stalking, or clinging on to unrequited love (and man, I did a lot of the latter before proper socialisation etc). "Big themes" are not really a necessary part of a good videogame, and braid seems to have a strong enough hook to support a game (whereas something like the first two Metal Gear Solids would be like a budget Simple Series release without the exposition, and a poor one at that).

Interesting that what I've seen so far from the internet is the perception of the protagonist as a really obsessive dude, which was denied on the author's blog. I'm anxious to play the game now because I have a suspicion that authorial intent must bow before a wider social perception of this sort of thing: it sounds like the author may have issues he's not fully aware of. I'll need to look see.


WHICH IS ALSO TO SAY

Stories and allegories are vital to cinema in its mainstream form because otherwise you've got not much beyond wallpaper. A game with good systems and design will never have this need because as an ungarnished object it engages. I think what's needed is for a good old backlash against "arty" plots in games - not a counterintellectual bludgeonfest, but a needed refocusing on what can be done with the gears on next gen platforms.
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[negativedge]

will you email him his diagnosis
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[Dracko]

James, play Marathon.

Also: Some films or books have basic plots, but they can told in excellent fashion.
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[Kilroy{ZTC}]

[Dracko]

[Cycle]

Really, you all need to play Marathon. It did many things you praise other games for doing, but like, TEN YEARS EARLIER. Oh, also BETTER.
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Man’s maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play.

[Dracko]

It's a solid game with the elegance and depth of the best works of IF out there, in essence.

We don't nearly talk enough about those in these debates either.
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[SuperWes]

[Kipple]

[somes]

[zombieman000]

[somes]

[parkbench]

[negativedge]

everything is actually about loving or hating the Jews, parkbench.
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[spinach]