Post by wafflerevolution on Sept 7, 2013 22:33:20 GMT
The Whole Story: A writer's perspective on the real importance of story in a game.
by Apathetic_Prick
When we think of games with good storylines, we think of Final Fantasy. Deus Ex. Half-Life. Halo. Well...maybe I should nix the "we", and I'll tell you why.
Videogames, new, cost roughly around $50 US, $60 CDN. Before taxes. A 600 to 700 page hardcover novel is about half that, offers a lusher, more detailed world, and has better characters, events, so on and so forth. And yet some people buy games for story almost exclusively.
Final Fantasy's storyline is barely grade D fantasy writing. It couldn't hold a candle to even the pulp fantasy fiction put out by hack authors like Mercedes Lackey. Halo is nowhere near the Heinlein meets Revelations story people claim it to be. Half-Life would've been better off if Elizabeth Moon had written the story. Deus Ex relies far too much on modern technomyth, and thus was unable to create its own.
And these are just a few examples. The funny - and almost ironic - thing is that a lot of people that claim these titles have good stories and rich worlds comparable to a novel. And many of these people are reviewers, which is a problem. It tells us that writers aren't doing their jobs as readers.
Now, admittedly, I haven't finished a book since January. And it was a re-release of an old PKD novel. However, I read enough science fiction and fantasy by enough authors to realise that a lot of the "deep" stories are anything but. The stories themselves are quite shallow; it's the characters that drive them.
Final Fantasy 1 to 5 all have very similar storylines. 2 (which was the weakest) was the first to break the chain of single dimensional characters - which, for a JRPG, is pretty fantastic.
Half-Life, however, has a main character that's about as three dimentional as the Doom marine's.
The other problem is that games that focus very heavily on story rarely focus enough on gameplay. Half-Life 1 had very standard FPS gameplay, and as good as it's AI was, there were games that had better - as well as better sound and better graphics (not that these things a good game make, but it counts as a whole).
Final Fantasy took a downward spin in gameplay come FF VII, and the story concepts from VI were also carried over - except that the one person in the world that everyone was after wasn't the hero, but the villain. While the Materia system had it's merits, it kind of hobbled spellcasters; class-stunting is not acceptable in an RPG.
The combat system in Final Fantasy also remained relatively unchanged - which actually isn't a bad thing, I like Final Fantasy's active time battle. It's a nice break-up from standard turn-based fare. XII changed that.
However, XII's story went back to theWestern cliche's of the unlikely hero, which The Elder Scrolls uses and abuses with impunity (as well as Fallout, KotOR and the majority of the DnD properties). What it didn't lack for - and this is, IMO, a major shortcoming in the series, are emotionally immature characters; there's far too much melodrama going on; regardless of how mature the story and character and dialogue can get, teh anime-styled story-telling itself often denegrates the character of, well, teh characters.
Final Fantasy's level-up system, however, relies on a job-based system that's an expansion upon concepts from Final Fantasy 3, 5 and 10, and I find the job system to be pretty tired (which is why I've been having a hard time finishing 5). And, while the stories are filled with political twists and turns, it hardly compares to George R. R. Martin's A Song Ice and Fire - and this is what Square-Enix feels is an adequate vehicle to keep you attached to their game. However, that said, it isn't the story that keeps you attached, it's the cast of characters.
Another game series that allegedly has a brilliant story attached to it is Grand Theft Auto. I beg to differ. The first two aside (which practically have no storyline), GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas actually do. That isn't to say they're good.
Grand Theft Auto really doesn't even have its own storyline, which is a far contrast from Final Fantasy - at least Square came up with them - GTA pretty much adapted their material from Grand Theft Auto, Scarface, The Godfather and Menace 2 Society.
Again, what keeps the hackneyed story alive are the game's cast of characters - most of whom aren't all that great. GTA 3's main character, Claude, doesn't say or even seem to think anything; the characters in the game are, aside from Asuka, the lesbian Yakuza boss with a penchant for S&M, pretty uninteresting. You'd think that at least the main villain (who's so forgettable I can't remember her name) would be interesting, but she isn't. And it doesn't help that the game itself has crappy controls and collision detection that make playing it a chore because your vehicles sometimes hit things that aren't there.
Vice City brought along some more colourful characters; Tommy Vercetti, the sociopathic protagonist, is excellently voiced by Ray Liotta, and the characters themselves have a lot more humour about them. But the story is seemingly right out of Oliver Stone's draftbook. At least all the controls issues were fixed.
San Andreas...well, I'm not going to go there. One, I can't be bothered to finish the game. Two, Rockstar North cemented their ignorance regarding proper free aim with this title. And three, the controls on the XBox version are absolutely terrible.
Grand Theft Auto is a classic example of a game series stealing from hollywood. Not borrowing, but outright stealing. The only thing that it has to call its own are its characters, which, again, make the stories we've all heard before palatable.
Now, coming up to more recent series, Halo is another game that's hailed for it's story and characters. The problem is, Halo's basically Starship Troopers without the giant bugs (instead it's a conglomeration of alien species intent on killing all mankind - same difference) mixed with a little (a lot of) Christian mythology. Masterchief has about as much personality as a block of a wood, voice or no. The only characters with real personality are Cortana and Sergeant Johnston. And Cortana is an AI. And while the books explain it all, people are buying the game; too bad the novels are better written and for a little bit more than the price of a Halo game, the whole series would give the whole story, which would nix the point of the games. What Halo has to compensate for what actually is a wooden story with a mostly wooden cast of characters is good gameplay. As long as you're playing with each other and not against, as the weapons aren't balanced very well. Halo at least got the tactical combat down well. Too bad there's not enough of it because Halo 2 was far too short.
Games that were not hyped for their story, but have excellent stories are System Shock and System Shock 2 - which are probably the only sci-fi games to have a story that actually comes close to the quality of a Philip K. Dick story about machines trying to control man. And, unlike relying on cutscenes and vast expanses of dialogue, the story is told through journal entries (which Doom 3 also did, too). System Shock completely changed the story-telling medium for games. Unfortunately, other than SHODAN, none of the characters other than you survived.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel; while System Shock 2 was 9 years ago, Doom 3 at least attempted to tell it's story in a similar fashion; Half-Life relies on conventional means, still. If developers are going to push a game on story, they have to start going out of their way to change the medium. They have to start making their characters more mature as well and not...allowing them, if you will, to break down like a complete and total sissy (like in just about every JRPG) or snap like a maniac if it really isn't part of their character - unless the theme of the game is lighthearted. If it's mature, the characters need to be mature as well, and they need to drive the story because there is no one in the gaming industry with the storytelling ability of even Stephen King (who I put at that bottom of my personal list), and thus the stories need believable characters to pull them along.
Or, they could actually just make their games pull their own weight with great gameplay instead.
by Apathetic_Prick
When we think of games with good storylines, we think of Final Fantasy. Deus Ex. Half-Life. Halo. Well...maybe I should nix the "we", and I'll tell you why.
Videogames, new, cost roughly around $50 US, $60 CDN. Before taxes. A 600 to 700 page hardcover novel is about half that, offers a lusher, more detailed world, and has better characters, events, so on and so forth. And yet some people buy games for story almost exclusively.
Final Fantasy's storyline is barely grade D fantasy writing. It couldn't hold a candle to even the pulp fantasy fiction put out by hack authors like Mercedes Lackey. Halo is nowhere near the Heinlein meets Revelations story people claim it to be. Half-Life would've been better off if Elizabeth Moon had written the story. Deus Ex relies far too much on modern technomyth, and thus was unable to create its own.
And these are just a few examples. The funny - and almost ironic - thing is that a lot of people that claim these titles have good stories and rich worlds comparable to a novel. And many of these people are reviewers, which is a problem. It tells us that writers aren't doing their jobs as readers.
Now, admittedly, I haven't finished a book since January. And it was a re-release of an old PKD novel. However, I read enough science fiction and fantasy by enough authors to realise that a lot of the "deep" stories are anything but. The stories themselves are quite shallow; it's the characters that drive them.
Final Fantasy 1 to 5 all have very similar storylines. 2 (which was the weakest) was the first to break the chain of single dimensional characters - which, for a JRPG, is pretty fantastic.
Half-Life, however, has a main character that's about as three dimentional as the Doom marine's.
The other problem is that games that focus very heavily on story rarely focus enough on gameplay. Half-Life 1 had very standard FPS gameplay, and as good as it's AI was, there were games that had better - as well as better sound and better graphics (not that these things a good game make, but it counts as a whole).
Final Fantasy took a downward spin in gameplay come FF VII, and the story concepts from VI were also carried over - except that the one person in the world that everyone was after wasn't the hero, but the villain. While the Materia system had it's merits, it kind of hobbled spellcasters; class-stunting is not acceptable in an RPG.
The combat system in Final Fantasy also remained relatively unchanged - which actually isn't a bad thing, I like Final Fantasy's active time battle. It's a nice break-up from standard turn-based fare. XII changed that.
However, XII's story went back to theWestern cliche's of the unlikely hero, which The Elder Scrolls uses and abuses with impunity (as well as Fallout, KotOR and the majority of the DnD properties). What it didn't lack for - and this is, IMO, a major shortcoming in the series, are emotionally immature characters; there's far too much melodrama going on; regardless of how mature the story and character and dialogue can get, teh anime-styled story-telling itself often denegrates the character of, well, teh characters.
Final Fantasy's level-up system, however, relies on a job-based system that's an expansion upon concepts from Final Fantasy 3, 5 and 10, and I find the job system to be pretty tired (which is why I've been having a hard time finishing 5). And, while the stories are filled with political twists and turns, it hardly compares to George R. R. Martin's A Song Ice and Fire - and this is what Square-Enix feels is an adequate vehicle to keep you attached to their game. However, that said, it isn't the story that keeps you attached, it's the cast of characters.
Another game series that allegedly has a brilliant story attached to it is Grand Theft Auto. I beg to differ. The first two aside (which practically have no storyline), GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas actually do. That isn't to say they're good.
Grand Theft Auto really doesn't even have its own storyline, which is a far contrast from Final Fantasy - at least Square came up with them - GTA pretty much adapted their material from Grand Theft Auto, Scarface, The Godfather and Menace 2 Society.
Again, what keeps the hackneyed story alive are the game's cast of characters - most of whom aren't all that great. GTA 3's main character, Claude, doesn't say or even seem to think anything; the characters in the game are, aside from Asuka, the lesbian Yakuza boss with a penchant for S&M, pretty uninteresting. You'd think that at least the main villain (who's so forgettable I can't remember her name) would be interesting, but she isn't. And it doesn't help that the game itself has crappy controls and collision detection that make playing it a chore because your vehicles sometimes hit things that aren't there.
Vice City brought along some more colourful characters; Tommy Vercetti, the sociopathic protagonist, is excellently voiced by Ray Liotta, and the characters themselves have a lot more humour about them. But the story is seemingly right out of Oliver Stone's draftbook. At least all the controls issues were fixed.
San Andreas...well, I'm not going to go there. One, I can't be bothered to finish the game. Two, Rockstar North cemented their ignorance regarding proper free aim with this title. And three, the controls on the XBox version are absolutely terrible.
Grand Theft Auto is a classic example of a game series stealing from hollywood. Not borrowing, but outright stealing. The only thing that it has to call its own are its characters, which, again, make the stories we've all heard before palatable.
Now, coming up to more recent series, Halo is another game that's hailed for it's story and characters. The problem is, Halo's basically Starship Troopers without the giant bugs (instead it's a conglomeration of alien species intent on killing all mankind - same difference) mixed with a little (a lot of) Christian mythology. Masterchief has about as much personality as a block of a wood, voice or no. The only characters with real personality are Cortana and Sergeant Johnston. And Cortana is an AI. And while the books explain it all, people are buying the game; too bad the novels are better written and for a little bit more than the price of a Halo game, the whole series would give the whole story, which would nix the point of the games. What Halo has to compensate for what actually is a wooden story with a mostly wooden cast of characters is good gameplay. As long as you're playing with each other and not against, as the weapons aren't balanced very well. Halo at least got the tactical combat down well. Too bad there's not enough of it because Halo 2 was far too short.
Games that were not hyped for their story, but have excellent stories are System Shock and System Shock 2 - which are probably the only sci-fi games to have a story that actually comes close to the quality of a Philip K. Dick story about machines trying to control man. And, unlike relying on cutscenes and vast expanses of dialogue, the story is told through journal entries (which Doom 3 also did, too). System Shock completely changed the story-telling medium for games. Unfortunately, other than SHODAN, none of the characters other than you survived.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel; while System Shock 2 was 9 years ago, Doom 3 at least attempted to tell it's story in a similar fashion; Half-Life relies on conventional means, still. If developers are going to push a game on story, they have to start going out of their way to change the medium. They have to start making their characters more mature as well and not...allowing them, if you will, to break down like a complete and total sissy (like in just about every JRPG) or snap like a maniac if it really isn't part of their character - unless the theme of the game is lighthearted. If it's mature, the characters need to be mature as well, and they need to drive the story because there is no one in the gaming industry with the storytelling ability of even Stephen King (who I put at that bottom of my personal list), and thus the stories need believable characters to pull them along.
Or, they could actually just make their games pull their own weight with great gameplay instead.