25th March 2005, 6:00 PM
Ico looks like a great game for sure, but does it have story like they're talking about in this article?
Stories... as they say in the article, usually story is added later. The game is designed first, story is dropped in later. Only rarely is the STORY done first and the game designed around the story (Torment and The Longest Journey were mentioned as examples of that rarity)... that leads to definitely better stories, but it's not how things are done and it might make things harder in some ways (not having the gameplay really down), so it doesn't happen much...
And yes, most people don't appreciate it when that is done. They want instant (or at least quicker) gratification, not depth and complexity... if a deep and complex game is popular it's either an accident or there are mitigating factors like prior success (like for MGS2).
But when it's done well... it shows how not only is story far, far from "trivial", when a game is built based around the story, and not a story dropped into the gameplay, it can make the whole game a lot better. The game can be much more cohesive and beleivable... Baldur's Gate is a fantastic series, but when you compare that work to Torment the difference is obvious. BG's story gets better as the series progresses, but it starts out simple and stays that way for quite some time. It looks to me like the game -- where they would go next, etc -- in the first two games probably were decided for the most part before the particulars of the story were -- like BGII, it takes you to a little bit of the undersea, a little bit of the underdark, an Elven city, etc. as you get farther in... like a 'greatest hits of the Realms' thing... While Torment? You do visit other planes, true. You've got to in that setting. But it's obvious from the start that the story came first. Otherwise the game just wouldn't be laid out the way it is.
Stories... as they say in the article, usually story is added later. The game is designed first, story is dropped in later. Only rarely is the STORY done first and the game designed around the story (Torment and The Longest Journey were mentioned as examples of that rarity)... that leads to definitely better stories, but it's not how things are done and it might make things harder in some ways (not having the gameplay really down), so it doesn't happen much...
And yes, most people don't appreciate it when that is done. They want instant (or at least quicker) gratification, not depth and complexity... if a deep and complex game is popular it's either an accident or there are mitigating factors like prior success (like for MGS2).
But when it's done well... it shows how not only is story far, far from "trivial", when a game is built based around the story, and not a story dropped into the gameplay, it can make the whole game a lot better. The game can be much more cohesive and beleivable... Baldur's Gate is a fantastic series, but when you compare that work to Torment the difference is obvious. BG's story gets better as the series progresses, but it starts out simple and stays that way for quite some time. It looks to me like the game -- where they would go next, etc -- in the first two games probably were decided for the most part before the particulars of the story were -- like BGII, it takes you to a little bit of the undersea, a little bit of the underdark, an Elven city, etc. as you get farther in... like a 'greatest hits of the Realms' thing... While Torment? You do visit other planes, true. You've got to in that setting. But it's obvious from the start that the story came first. Otherwise the game just wouldn't be laid out the way it is.