31st March 2005, 2:19 AM
Just my two cents.
The best story I ever took part of in a game was Shadowman for the N64. It drew me in like nothing else. The graphics sucked, the sound was muddy, control was a pain... it was an Acclaim produced title. But the story itself had real depth with its extremely dark story line and well crafted pacing.
But as far as video games go, I mean the interactive story. Well that's based on how you play the game. I spent 4 hours. That's four, as in more than 3 and less than 5 hours, flying around the first level in Mario 64. I was trying to find every single coin in the level but I lost track of that and found myself trying to get to new places. I walked the top of the gates around the mountain, I slid down the hills, rode around on a Koopa shell to the top of the mountain, blasted myself from cannon to cannon, I aggrivated the Chain Chomp, fell asleep on a sign post and of course Butt-Stomped from the highest altitude possible.
Now, I love stories and all. Sometimes it's my job to write them. But that four hours was the best time I ever had with a video game. There was no plot, no 3 act paradigm, no slug lines or action lines there wasn't even a point to any of it. No saving the world, no princess, no great evil or any love triangle, it was simply gameplay and my imagination to put that gameplay to use.
Now, if they can make every game like that i'd sure we'd be starving for games with a well writen story with complex undertones and subplots with memorable dialogue. But in the end, that is exactly what you can get from a book or a movie, yeah you can deicde what path to take and which direction to drive your character but that's all meaningless in the game world. Nintendo took the idea of running around a playground with super powers and created Mario 64 and then threw in a story as an afterthought. And in my opinion, that's how video games should be.
I dont want cut scenes showing me hack jobs trying to emulate famous movies in CG with their franchises, I dont want to hear another old movie quote spoken by a cartoon, video game designers and developers are not story tellers and they never will be (hopefully) because they're manufacturing genius and they dont even know it. Dont formulate A to B scenarios or path driven story chapters, let the player do what he or she wants to do within the confines of the game's universe and structure and do not let the story in any way hinder that. No cut scenes, no scripted events, and for god's sake no more 15 minute CG explanations of a story that could be found on the back of a cereal box. Just let me play!
Of course the above doesn't really apply if it's an RPG, since the entire point of an RPG is to form your character through scripted events.
But my opinion is this, there are no grand story tellers in the video game industry. There are no story tellers period. The BEST stories in video games are still nothing when compared to the best books or the best films. There's no "Gone with the Final Fantasy" or "Pikmin's List", these people simply do not have the slightest clue of what it takes to tell a story. But when they can make me feel like i can do anything and spend 4 hours having an absolute blast doing nothing then I think they need to worry more about the impact on society as people leave their jobs to play the damn things, not story telling.
The best story I ever took part of in a game was Shadowman for the N64. It drew me in like nothing else. The graphics sucked, the sound was muddy, control was a pain... it was an Acclaim produced title. But the story itself had real depth with its extremely dark story line and well crafted pacing.
But as far as video games go, I mean the interactive story. Well that's based on how you play the game. I spent 4 hours. That's four, as in more than 3 and less than 5 hours, flying around the first level in Mario 64. I was trying to find every single coin in the level but I lost track of that and found myself trying to get to new places. I walked the top of the gates around the mountain, I slid down the hills, rode around on a Koopa shell to the top of the mountain, blasted myself from cannon to cannon, I aggrivated the Chain Chomp, fell asleep on a sign post and of course Butt-Stomped from the highest altitude possible.
Now, I love stories and all. Sometimes it's my job to write them. But that four hours was the best time I ever had with a video game. There was no plot, no 3 act paradigm, no slug lines or action lines there wasn't even a point to any of it. No saving the world, no princess, no great evil or any love triangle, it was simply gameplay and my imagination to put that gameplay to use.
Now, if they can make every game like that i'd sure we'd be starving for games with a well writen story with complex undertones and subplots with memorable dialogue. But in the end, that is exactly what you can get from a book or a movie, yeah you can deicde what path to take and which direction to drive your character but that's all meaningless in the game world. Nintendo took the idea of running around a playground with super powers and created Mario 64 and then threw in a story as an afterthought. And in my opinion, that's how video games should be.
I dont want cut scenes showing me hack jobs trying to emulate famous movies in CG with their franchises, I dont want to hear another old movie quote spoken by a cartoon, video game designers and developers are not story tellers and they never will be (hopefully) because they're manufacturing genius and they dont even know it. Dont formulate A to B scenarios or path driven story chapters, let the player do what he or she wants to do within the confines of the game's universe and structure and do not let the story in any way hinder that. No cut scenes, no scripted events, and for god's sake no more 15 minute CG explanations of a story that could be found on the back of a cereal box. Just let me play!
Of course the above doesn't really apply if it's an RPG, since the entire point of an RPG is to form your character through scripted events.
But my opinion is this, there are no grand story tellers in the video game industry. There are no story tellers period. The BEST stories in video games are still nothing when compared to the best books or the best films. There's no "Gone with the Final Fantasy" or "Pikmin's List", these people simply do not have the slightest clue of what it takes to tell a story. But when they can make me feel like i can do anything and spend 4 hours having an absolute blast doing nothing then I think they need to worry more about the impact on society as people leave their jobs to play the damn things, not story telling.