Stories in video games

Kinkle_sl said:

So let me ask this. Looking back, what characters did you form emotional attachments to? For me, it's always been a game's love interest but never the POV main character. This makes sense to me, as the player is usually supposed to be filling the role of the main character. But I also think it limits how deep a game is allowed to be. If the character I've formed the deepest bond with is someone whose perspective I can't see, then deeper concepts aren't able to present themselves. An example of this might be Dragon Age: Origins. A lot of the dialogue that you have with your companions fringes on some deep concepts, yet instead of exploring them they've been boiled down to near-mindless cliches. I dunno, I just think games can do better.

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Pretty much any party member that appeared through all three Mass Effects, with special mention of Mordin, that guy made me tear up.
Half-life characters - Eli, Alyx, Kleiner
Deus Ex - Gunther, Anna Navarre, Paul, Tracer Tong, Morgan Everett

It's kind of hard to make lifelike NPCs in games since the player usually acts like a raving lunatic and how do you react to that ? On the other hand, companion cube serves as a shining example that people make emotional connections with a potato if you design the game around it.

Kinkle_sl said:

I agree that this is the case. But does the current lack of good stories in good games necessarily mean that video games are a bad medium for them, or that they're simply poorly implemented?

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I would say that they are often just poorly implemented, because whenever a good game gets too mixed in and defined by its story, they start developing around the story from that point instead of keeping focus on what makes the game fun.

I definitely think a good story would make a good game even better, just rarely witness it.

I initially misread the title as being "Stores in video games." I thought it was going to be a rousing discussion about shops and merchants. I don't think I have anything to contribute to a discussion about stories.

edit - Wait! I thought of something!

I've been a player of tabletop RPGs for almost 20 years now and when I look back on the campaigns that I grew to dislike they all shared something in common - I didn't really have much say in where the story was going. The DM typically had a story they wanted to tell with major set pieces mapped out. When I started running my own game I put as much emphasis on the collective storytelling aspect of D&D as my inexperience would allow. I wanted to be more facilitator than novelist. This wasn't aboutmystory. It wasourstory.

When I play video games now I want to be the guy calling the shots. And I don't mean choosing from a couple dialogue options. I want to be dictating what happens in a non-superficial non-choose your own adventure kind of way.

Sean_sl said:

Xenogears. Most amazing game ever made. Go play it a thousand times.

The rest of you are fags.

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You spelled Planescape wrong.

Vorph_sl said:

You spelled Planescape wrong.

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plancescape is actually not a good example of narrative and gameplay coexisting.
The gameplay in that was completely second string to narrative, and the game suffered from it.

It would have been better if the combat was stripped entirely, and the game was a puzzle/adventure game.

I'd say it depends entirely on the game. A game like Mass Effect absolutely needs a kickass story because without that there is only clunky/mediocre gameplay left. I generally nowadays can't get into story driven games because if I want a story I'll read a book instead of trying to endure endless amounts of terrible/boring dialogue (fuck you skyrim). Mass Effect appealed to me in such a way that I've actually started reading scifi books because of it.

Games where the gameplay is the main thing story is irrelevant. Tetris, Hearthstone, etc. In some games there is some sort of story but it's really there just to provide a framework. Like new X-COM. Sure there is some sort of story behind it but who gives a shit really? The gameplay is what matters.

Sean_sl said:

Xenogears. Most amazing game ever made. Go play it a thousand times.

The rest of you are fags.

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I knew someone would say this and came to this thread to sayyou're fucking wrong. Started playing Xenogears in May and got about 50 hours in before stopping. There is no desire to keep playing because theplotis just a series of events with minimal connection (or none).

an accordion_sl said:

I knew someone would say this and came to this thread to sayyou're fucking wrong. Started playing Xenogears in May and got about 50 hours in before stopping. There is no desire to keep playing because theplotis just a series of events with minimal connection (or none).

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Stupider than anything even Lumie says.

Sean_sl said:

Stupider than anything even Lumie says.

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I dare you to go play Xenogears all the way through when you get time, guaranteed you won't think it's as good as your rose colored glasses say right now.

There are a few spots in Xenogears that connect the story that you need to get through but i +1 best Story ever and fun gameplay i played it more times than i can count.

Im in the minority i'm a sucker for the story, that is why i played more or less the same assassins creed 4 times. Same game same mmechanics but i wanted to know what happens next. I also agree nothing brings you out of the emersian like buyin ingame property and sidequests ala joker question marks. The wors game imo for this is the Fable series, i couldnt even remember the story for 3 by the time i was done buying everything in the world. Also trying to bang party members in dragonage 2 or mass effect threw me off.

an accordion_sl said:

I dare you to go play Xenogears all the way through when you get time, guaranteed you won't think it's as good as your rose colored glasses say right now.

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Dude I have played Xenogears all the way through like 20 times. It is the best game ever and you are ridiculously wrong.

There's a caveat to Xenogears. And that is the intro to the second disc. The rest of the game is f'n fantastic, but rocking chair story-time was terrible then and is terrible now. It does detract from the overall game, but Xenogears still has the best story (and some of the best jrpg gameplay) of any RPG out there. It really is that good, but if at 50 hours you hit the rocking chair, I can completely understand why you would go "wtf?"

Great stories can make an otherwise mediocre, even poor game stand out.

Extra points for games that have an excellent story but allow the player to freely travel and interact with the world.

Double bonus points for having excellent story, freely travel and interact with the world while having excellent / deep combat options

Triple bonus points for all of the above with great choices that offer diverse endings.

The critical part is understanding that both the story you tell and the way you tell this story have to be good. A major problem with video game is that many of its stories are not worth being told and most of its stories are not told in a way that make good use of the medium.


In this day and age, as a gamer who is interested in several other narrative media, what a game has to say and how it says it is critical and I still feel there is a wealth of video game specific narrative techniques that have yet to be devised or are sadly underused.


You will note that several games that have an interesting take on video game narration featured in many year end list: Gone Home (narration through exploration), Kentucky Road Zero (most odd narrative pseudo-freedom), Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (gameplay as a core element of the storytelling), Papers, Please (gameplay and story that conspire together for maximum impact), The Stanley Parable (Narration vs Interaction: The Musical). The good news for you is that all of these amount to a little week-end of gaming. Before that, you can checkretro sabotageand spend 20 min on Tetris: 20 Lines and Xevious: Autopsy of a Battlefield!

Rezz_sl said:

There's a caveat to Xenogears. And that is the intro to the second disc. The rest of the game is f'n fantastic, but rocking chair story-time was terrible then and is terrible now. It does detract from the overall game, but Xenogears still has the best story (and some of the best jrpg gameplay) of any RPG out there. It really is that good, but if at 50 hours you hit the rocking chair, I can completely understand why you would go "wtf?"

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Was not on disc 2, all of the big reveals so far were incredibly minuscule to the grand story. The game spends a lot of time hiding information from the player while hinting at a it nonstop. When a secret is finally revealed, it is incredibly underwhelming and then you move on to the next part of story.

Xenogears does not hold up, there are a lot of irrelevant "chapters" to the overall story of the game. This leaves you not really knowing what the fuck the goal of the game is 50 hours in.

Szlia_sl said:

The critical part is understanding that both the story you tell and the way you tell this story have to be good. A major problem with video game is that many of its stories are not worth being told and most of its stories are not told in a way that make good use of the medium.


In this day and age, as a gamer who is interested in several other narrative media, what a game has to say and how it says it is critical and I still feel there is a wealth of video game specific narrative techniques that have yet to be devised or are sadly underused.


You will note that several games that have an interesting take on video game narration featured in many year end list: Gone Home (narration through exploration), Kentucky Road Zero (most odd narrative pseudo-freedom), Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (gameplay as a core element of the storytelling), Papers, Please (gameplay and story that conspire together for maximum impact), The Stanley Parable (Narration vs Interaction: The Musical). The good news for you is that all of these amount to a little week-end of gaming. Before that, you can checkretro sabotageand spend 20 min on Tetris: 20 Lines and Xevious: Autopsy of a Battlefield!

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I think cut content has a massive impact on game story and narrative as we know it. especially for bigger games. its probably not surprise that most of the super effective narratives are by indie devs who are writing and programing the game themselves. Bastions, cave story, those you mentioned.
Meanwhile with bigger games.. we have Kotor2 with half the games story cut. Bioshock inf, which pretty clearly had major story rewrites. Mass effect which clearly had massive story arch changes over the series. The story ends up very divergent from the gameplay as there are more hands on it. and if some gameplay stage, element or whatever has to be cut, they can't as easily adapt the story to fit the changes either.

Video Game character that I fell in love with, was Jaheira in the baulder's game 1/2 games to the end.

That said I think that there is a lot more give and take here. People can enjoy movies or video games or books for the story. They can also enjoy them for the action, or the gameplay, or the setting. Movies like Pacific Rim or transformers are excuses to put sci-fi notions on the big screen and they are awesome for that - I want to see giant robot on robot violence. Likewise, a heavy drama needs a big time story, with good pacing, and memorable characters. You can read a serious story novel, or you can read Max Bolan, Man with many guns kill many henchmen because the world has a crisis and he always kills bad guys to save the day.

Video game genre's weigh story value differently. Dota and League both have biography blogs for its heroes and notions of their world - like arch enemies or siblings. With just ingame voice files that play when these relationships interact randomly in game (ally or enemy) there are unique dialogs that are themed and fun. These kind of story touches massively enhance a game such as Dota in a way that makes it memorable because it gives the game a flavor and a tone. Everyone knows that Tidehunter and Kunkka have a tumultuous relationship, That Crystal Maiden and Lina are are sisters - They have cooperative dialog when on the same team and unique dialog when they kill eachother on opposing teams. The key here is a game like Dota or League lives and dies by its gameplay and no amount of pretty dialog bonuses will make these games better as pure games but a great coating of art direction, and story telling really enhance both titles.

Mario is judged by its platforming, the crispness of its controls, the variety and challenge of its levels. Mario games are just an excuse for great platforming, but the story does an incredible job packaging the entire concept together in a way that people enjoy due to the humor, art direction, and interaction with the world. Fire flowers, Mushrooms, coins - these all narrate the game just because of the way they are presented.

Personally, I will play a game with a great story and passable gameplay because I don't mind progressing a story that is compelling to me even if it is linear because I enjoy that, I definitely enjoy when games take relationships beyond the notion of just being a useful companion. Learning about a characters past, why they tick the way they tick, why they hate love or fight can be a defining characteristic of what a game does better than its peers. I don't need every game to have infinite choice. I don't expect that out of my movies. But when a game sells itself based on the fact it has many choices and those choices turn out to be hollow its definitely a case for being disappointed because the game itself set the expectation it was aiming for. What constitutes a video game is diverse from simple gem matching on a board, to chose your own adventure movie games like heavy rain and beyond two souls. Some people would never play either of those games, and others crave the experience they give even if they are still flawed compared to the notion of what a "perfect" game is.

TLDR; Game genre matters immensely, certain genres need good stories - because that's what they are selling. Other genres need just crisp clean gameplay first and foremost. But either type benefits heavily from a clever, consistent presentation of the world. If any aspect of a game is shit, it becomes harder to look past the flaws and see the aspects done right.

Szlia_sl said:

The critical part is understanding that both the story you tell and the way you tell this story have to be good. A major problem with video game is that many of its stories are not worth being told and most of its stories are not told in a way that make good use of the medium.


In this day and age, as a gamer who is interested in several other narrative media, what a game has to say and how it says it is critical and I still feel there is a wealth of video game specific narrative techniques that have yet to be devised or are sadly underused.

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I agree.

Zaphid, I think your adviser has a very utilitarian and narrow understanding of what defines a "story." I think you need to back up and first think about what a story even is. Right now I think you are approaching it as a very specific thing, like a script, that is written and then turned into a lego piece that is then used as some sort of glue for the game.

I have never played a game that did not have a story. All games have a story. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think even a game like Tetris has a story. Video games seem different from other story mediums because the player/reader can have a much more active, participatory role on how the story is told, and in a sense the player's experience itself functions as a character in the story. I think defining a story as literal discourse narrative spoken between characters is a mistake. Instead of separating the "story" from the "gameplay", my question is, how do you know that gameplay itself does not function as story? Can they really be separated? If the story and gameplay seem at odds, how is that any different than when a book has plot holes and other problems that piss a reader off and ruin the immersion experience?

Dota 2 has a story. It's gameplay IS the story. You are plopped right in the middle of a war, and the game lets you know this because half the map is hostile and will try to kill you (this is a narrative device). By playing the game you learn to read it, and the unique thing about video games is that each game teaches you how to read. Getting better at a game is basically becoming literate in its mechanics--its gameplay, its story. I often think that one of the reasons why "stories" in video games are so bad is because developers approach it as its own separate compartment, removed from other aspects of the game. If that is your world view, then of course your game is going to reflect a disjointed mess. Look at a Zelda game. It has no story while at the exact same time having a story. Same with Mario. Nintendo really has done quite a good job with finding one workable model, and games like Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls are a different approach that try to get at a similar experience (interactive fun).

If you want to talk about good stories vs. bad stories, well, it's not any different than what they discuss in English/Lit/Creative Writing programs. I find the majority of books that are published have terrible stories, so if most video game stories are bad I am not convinced it is unique to the medium, but rather indicative of the weakness of the author/authors (and imo even graphic artists and programmers deserve author status).