Story and Games

[OB1]

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.

They're good for games, I've always said that. But the bar has been raised by games like MGS, and most of the people in that article agreed that visuals are very important in game storytelling. It was basically just Chris Avellone who said that good stories could be told in text games and the like. And, no offence to Mr. Avellone, but his KOTOR II paled in comparison to even KOTOR I in terms of storytelling. And they list him as "designer". What did he do, exactly?


You haven't even begun to see the brilliance of MGS2's story if you've only played "a couple of hours" worth. The story gets INSANE. Insane and awesome. And it's the kind that could only be told through a game, which blows apart your "it's just a movie" argument.

If you would read that article more closely, you'll see that it's Kojima who talks the most about game stories having to be uniquely game-like:

If you want to simply tell a story, you can create a film or write a novel. In a game, you can move around in the provided world freely and experience what goes on, within the limits set in that game. It is active involvement as opposed to bystanding.


The cinemas did not change that fact in MGS2. Or 3. Or the first one. Calling MGS2 "a film" shows complete and utter ignorance about that particular game as well as the entire subject of videogame storytelling.