Story and Games

[A Black Falcon]

"Theoretically"? You said that it was done before.

You said I said that, but I didn't say that quite that way. You misunderstood me, as I've explained.

We've been through this before. I think that game stories need to have emotion and visual expression, while you think that lines of lifeless text more than suffice. You are wrong of course, but I will not debate this again.

You won't find many game designers who agree with what you say, OB1. Four of the five people in this article (Kojima is the exception, I think) wouldn't agree with what you have to say on this issue. Graphics HELP (to make the story good). They do not DECIDE (if the story is good). Text-based games can be fantastic and have brilliantly told stories. Games with lots of text, like Torment, can do the same. This is not up for debate, as numerous games have proven this.

What you CAN say is "I do not like text-based story presentation", "I find such story presentations boring and it doesn't involve me in the story", etc. Those could well possibly be true for you. You cannot say "the stories are bad". That is a lie for a game like Torment. Just because you disagree with the presentation style does not mean the story is bad or that it is badly presented -- it just means you'd rather they used a different kind of presentation.

I haven't played much of Planetscape: Torment yet, though I do have it on my computer and have started a game on it, but I do know from my experience with MGS2 that it has an excellent story. Yeah, it's not interactive, but neither is 2001: A Space Odyssey and it still has a amazing story, among other things, but anyway. Just as a game doesn't not to be completely non-linear to tell a good story, it doesn't have to be completely linear to be a great experience.

MGS2 combines of multitude of people all of whom have their own stories, which you will learn throughout the course of the game, you have all of this coming at while you're fighting against terrorists in a world that become increasingly bizarre the longer you play, until the end which is possibly the craziest thing in a game ever. That's great storytelling right there, no question.

As for Torment, like I said I can't really comment on it since I haven't played it much, but I will say that I believe that it isn't possible for Torment to have the emotion that MGS2 has in its story, something which I think helped in some degree to make it more "real" or whatever, it's just not possible with text only. Maybe that's just me, though, I am more of a visual person I think.

Anyway, if I have time I'll put some more time into Torment and see what it has to offer.

I like to read. I like books. Movies? Movies are fine too, but for a good story I'd say books do better, most of the time... as I said to OB1, visual vs. text isn't something with an objective 'best', it seems. It's something that depends on the person. Would you rather read a book or watch a film? If you like reading, Torment is just about the ideal game story...

(And OB1, as for your 'it doesn't have the added explanations you'd get in books (the parts between conversation paragraphs)', that's not true. Torment, like an adventure game, has many parts in the world where you can click to get a text description of the thing. This really helps add detail and complexity to the game, and I always love it when games have stuff like this (like Eternal Darkness!)... not to mention how long and complex the conversations are and how much detail they pack into them. :)

Books vs. films... we did this before. Let's not again. Both are good, some people like one more than the other... MGS is a film, Torment more like a book (though, obviously, not quite like a book, given that unlike a book the whole story is not just told to you...)... here's one thing you can't deny: Torment has more interactivity than MGS. Its story is not just presented to you, you have to make some effort. And you've got choices of how to act as you progress, and can shape your character as you play. But which has the better story? I'm sure it partially comes down to if you prefer visual or written story presentations... I'd probably tend towards the latter (though I do like film as well). Torment got me enveloped into the world. It has fantastic characters. It raises interesting questions, and has interesting situations. As good as MGS2 was, I just did not feel about it like I did about Torment... it's got a good story, and I wanted to see more of it, but it didn't impress and intrigue me nearly as much as Torment. Also, I probably prefer the fantasy setting of Torment to the real-world-ish setting of MGS... and the philosophical question Torment raises is perhaps more interesting than the one MGS raises (though of course that's a matter of opinion). I don't know.

Of course, I could make a more informed opinion if I owned MGS2 and could finish it... anyone have a copy of the PC version I could have? :)