Stories in video games

Xenogears is the one that ended with a cartoon of a naked guy with no penis right? Yeah, making sense of that convoluted mess of a story wasn't fun at all.

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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It really depends if the game even gives you a buddy or love interest to be attached to.
So Alyx > Gordon prolly for every gamer. Same goes for prolly all the FF-style rpgs.
But there are some more action-rpgs where i grew attached to my character instead. Often because you not provided with dialog optins to choose from, where you would feel otion 1-4 are oki but it really lacks option 4, cause that what "I" would do.
Examples:
Diablo series.
Batman series.
Legacy of Kain series.
also Rage
and my personal favorite Ultima 9.
I played Ultima 9 prolly a year after release when half a dozen patches fixed the most issues of the release version, while being mediocre at best from a technological pov, i found the game really succeeded at telling the story of bringing you, bringing the avatar home (fitting the title Ascension). It felt like closing the good written book you just read. Similar to Stallones effort on his Rocky & Rambo latest installments.

Kinda late to the topic and only skimmed over the post, IMO a good story can overcome bad gameplay. Take The Witcher 1 for example, the combat and gameplay was really bad but the story made the game really good. Also one of my favorite games of all time is nothing but story and bad gameplay and that is The Longest Journey and it's follow up Dreamfall. If you have not played these Kinkle, I would recommend you take a look at what a good story can do.

For the recent question, here are some games where I grew attached to the PoV character:

Dreamfall
Infamous
Uncharted
Mass Effect
Witcher
Red Dead Redemption
KOTOR 2
Assassin's Creed 2 - Ezio
God of War - Kratos

One of the common themes in my list is the PoV character is not a silent protagonist.

My first post was bitching about getting railroaded and games being on rails.

But this one is sortof going to counter it.
Mass effect 1 spoilers. Im not going to bother actually tagging it, its been long enough.

There are 2 pretty oh shit memorable moments in Mass effect 1... that you can totally miss. Now it has others that are just awesome and memorable, everyone sees. Soveriegns speech when you first meet him. the entire end run to the gate.

But the two im talking about are Ashley putting Wrex down, if you don't do his loyalty mission. And at the end, talking Saren into shooting himself in the head.

For Saren you have to be invested deep enough in either Paragon or renegade I think. I dont think it was just Paragon. and then choose the right dialogue options. Of the two, this is probably the better one. as its more about you roleplaying that last conversation. A more direct line of questions, and a shoot first attitude won't result in that action, and will play out the scene as your character might. But at the same time, such an impactful moment is now lost.

The same goes for Wrex. and frankly this is done totally wrong. For one, you have to be lazy/stupid to not have done quest. its the same problem mass effect 2 has with its deathcount. Who the hell didn't save everyone? In fact, they only way that would have happened is if you didn't care enough about the characters or story in the first place to have done their loyalty missions. and thus, when they die, you are likely not to care as much anyway.

Imagine if the Revan reveal in Kotor1 was skippable if you made some other choice, or didnt do the right mission, or in the right order? If Ashely killing Wrex was unavoidable. it would change that entire game for everyone thats ever played it.

I can't stand playable cut scenes. If I'm watching a cut scene I want to just kick back, smoke a bowl, and watch a cut scene. I don't want to have to chase a kid super slomo through a forest or walk to the next room when there is absolutely nothing else to do.

Kinkle_sl said:

I know it pisses me off when I have to sit through an un-skippable cutscene if I happen to die in the boss fight directly following it. For that matter, replaying any content at all causes a large disconnect in the story for me. At the same time though, a lot of the enjoyment I get out of most games is the sense of accomplishment at overcoming something difficult, so you can't just make it so easy the player never dies. Does anyone have examples of games that have a creative approach to this problem?

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Many games make unskippable cut-scenes skippable once you saw them once. That or put check points after cut-scenes. A more elegant approach was one found in one of the Prince of Persia (the Ubi reboots of the original, not Ubi's reboot of the reboot). Since time manipulation was a key element of both the story and the gameplay, the game allowed you to fast-forward through the cut-scenes.

Another option is to change the fundamental paradigm and not make the game about "winning". There is a number of games that have no "lose" state. It's pretty common in adventure games. Note that, in such games, the fact there is no way for the protagonist to die and no way to make an irreversible mistake is unrelated with the actual difficulty to figure out the puzzle / resolve enigmas / etc. It's a lot rarer in action games, but there are examples. Flower comes to mind, because the gratification does not come from overcoming obstacles, but from controlling the character, discovering the beauty of the game world and... going through the story.

Kinkle_sl said:

What are opinions on repeating content, in terms of the storyline? I know it pisses me off when I have to sit through an un-skippable cutscene if I happen to die in the boss fight directly following it. For that matter, replaying any content at all causes a large disconnect in the story for me. At the same time though, a lot of the enjoyment I get out of most games is the sense of accomplishment at overcoming something difficult, so you can't just make it so easy the player never dies. Does anyone have examples of games that have a creative approach to this problem? And on that note, thanks to everyone giving me game recommendations. I have a lot of playtime ahead of me.

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Ok. heres the plan.
Recaps.

Like how tv shows will repeat, abridged version of scenes you just watched before the commercial break. or, have new season recaps, or before episode recaps. When you write and make your cap, craft recap scenes that will play the second time, if you die and redo a scene. or on save loads.
So like when players stop playing a game, but come back 2 week later they can watch the recaps to get back up to speed, but not have to watch the whole game over. or on death etc.

Thank me later game industry.