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Truths about video game stories

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Re: Truths about video game stories

#201

Post by periphrasis »

sethammons wrote: post #149
periphrasis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games have existed for over 50 years now. Video games have had as much time to mature as film had had by the early 1940s. And by the early 1940s film had produced numerous mature works of art displaying mastery of the medium that are still avidly watched and viewed as masterpieces today. The excuse that video games are a young medium may have held 20 years ago in the PS2 era, but it does not hold any longer.

How many movies does your avg movie goer know or can name movies from the 40s? Maybe, maybe half a dozen (it's a wonderful life, casablanca, citizen kane, Disney Fantasia and Pinocchio, and his girl Friday. I'm pretty sure your average person can name an order of magnitude more video games from pong to mario to sonic to modern day AAA games. And over time, some will have staying power, like I hope Breath of the Wild…

I’m not sure the recency bias of a contemporary average person is a good proxy for the artistic achievement of a time now three generations past. If we were to enumerate the list of major, artistically significant films released in the 30s and 40s, we would produce dozens of titles that even the average person has heard of, if perhaps not seen themselves. In the same vein, the average person would struggle to identify Plato or Cicero, let alone have read any of their work, but the names would at least ring a bell.

Video games are in a weird place because they arguably reached maturity of design with 1985’s Super Mario Bros. But as wonderful as SMB is, it doesn’t mean anything or have anything to say: it is just the first game to truly nail 2d platformer mechanics to a transcendent degree. Indeed, as the OP mentioned, the best video games seem to be able to do as of yet with respect to depth of meaning is the equivalent of a mid-grade zombie film (The Last of Us), and the industry is such a grind that the writers burn out before really developing their craft. Maybe video games will eventually bring a depth of meaning and insight equivalent to their refinement of play mechanics, but they’re not there yet.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#202

Post by crtasm »

watwut wrote: post #193
nkrisc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the game showing you they’re bad with gameplay instead of telling you with a cutscene or text.

Games were showing rather then telling long before half life. That was not something special. I don't know whether people here did not played games other then half life back then or half life is only thing they remember. And the difference between full cit scene and what happened in half life was really really minor.

But not in first person, you-are-present-in-a-3D-world games? At least I'm not remembering any that felt like Half Life 1 did.

The difference between a cut scene and embodying a character while things happen around you isn't a minor thing for many of us.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#203

Post by ajvs »

Tarsul wrote: post #173
bsd44 wrote: post #160

That's why I mostly play point&click adventure/rpg games and text adventures, because that genre can't really survive without a good story. I'm rarely disappointed and the games cost a fraction of what you would pay for a AAA title. Not that I don't like AAA, but every time I watch a gameplay video I get bored fairly quickly because I don't feel drawn to the game, it seems "same old, same old". Perhaps it's just me.…

I never played the Witcher but if Cyberpunk 2077 is anything to go by (same developer) I'm not surprised. At least for Cyberpunk the storytelling was not its strong part (neither were its bugs etc... but the visuals were, oh my.). I tried out Gamedec recently and that's an isometric RPG without fights. Which means reading and decisions. And of course great storytelling because without it the game would have basically…

If you like Gamedec you'd love Disco Elysium, but you've probably already heard of it.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#204

Post by BashiBazouk »

I'd be in the opposite camp. Video game stories are those things I have to quickly click through to get to the next bit of action. Ya, ya, ya, bla, bla, bla, click, click click, don't care.

My ideal is to create my own story rather than have it spoon fed to me. Let me roll a character then let me do what I want in an interactive open world. Sure, some curating and minor direction is OK, but the less the better. I don't remember much of the story of GTA 3 other than slogging through it to open the city up but surfing a car all over town causing mayhem or endlessly jumping the ski jump on the third island, those are the memories of that game I remember vividly and cherish. To enhance this I absolutely love good procedural generation. Finding that one out of a thousand planet in No Mans Sky and just exploring it, taking screen shots knowing that I'm likely the only person who will ever visit it, wonderful.

The other problem with modern video game stories I notice now that I have a kid: there are plenty of video games that action wise I have no problem letting my kid play but can't due to the story and mainly the cut scenes. Seems to be a path to some edgy cred when the base action does not really justify it.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#205

Post by crtasm »

mcphage wrote: post #164
nkrisc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the game showing you they’re bad with gameplay instead of telling you with a cutscene or text.

That sounds like it’s still a cut-scene, just one done in-engine. Does the player have any control over the encounter, like shooting the marine or the scientist, before the scene begins?

Here's the moment, unclear if you have full control but I don't think it locked you in to watching..? https://youtu.be/nHXtv11ZAH4?t=184

yes here's a clip of someone saving the scientist: https://youtu.be/e_l84_7jDoU?t=163

Re: Truths about video game stories

#206

Post by ycombinete »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #190
smoldesu wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As John Carmack once said (I'm loosely paraphrasing here) "Stories in video games are like stories in porno: they're expected to be there, but never any good."

I'm writing a book about Why We Play RuneScape, and this is especially true for the MMORPG genre. Great insight.

That sounds like an interesting book. I’ve never really played an MMO and never understood the appeal. I’d log in and not quite know what to do. I’ve just had the same experience with New World. Do you have some of your writing online somewhere?

Re: Truths about video game stories

#207

Post by ycombinete »

bsd44 wrote: post #160

That's why I mostly play point&click adventure/rpg games and text adventures, because that genre can't really survive without a good story. I'm rarely disappointed and the games cost a fraction of what you would pay for a AAA title. Not that I don't like AAA, but every time I watch a gameplay video I get bored fairly quickly because I don't feel drawn to the game, it seems "same old, same old". Perhaps it's just me.…

What point and click/text adventures do you play?

Re: Truths about video game stories

#208

Post by yunusabd »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #136
yunusabd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got some examples for good games from China? As a counterexample to the first part, check out Nier Automata. One of the most original and compelling games I've played in recent years.

I actually found nier automatas story beats so cringey that I was turned off on the playing of it, honestly. Pretty early on a pile of robots start an orgy that creates a human-looking clearly-not-a-human villain. It felt totally directionless and random at the time. I didn’t really want to continue if I was just going to get weird shit happening with an overlay of philosophical hand waving.

Yeah I get that, for me there were enough interesting things to offset the cringy bits.

Just off the top of my head, I remember being intrigued by the robots-trying-to-be-human thing, and how consistent they were with the fact that you're an android. For example, removing your OS chip actually killed you, which is one of the 26 possible endings iirk. That and the dynamic combat and the smooth mix of different genres were enough to keep me going.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#209

Post by schmorptron »

namelosw wrote: post #166

> When people say a video game has a good story, they mean that it has a story. The standard is so low is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of the games are bad, but people will try random things to improve storytelling, and we'll see games with great stories like Planescape: Torment or Disco Elysium in the future, or even better. Movies, on the other hand, where there are so many established patterns - people tend t…

I really liked the storytelling in Hypnospace Outlaw, where you're just an onlooker to a pseudo-internet and can learn details from peoples' pages and mannerisms.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#210

Post by humblepie »

BashiBazouk wrote: post #204

I'd be in the opposite camp. Video game stories are those things I have to quickly click through to get to the next bit of action. Ya, ya, ya, bla, bla, bla, click, click click, don't care. My ideal is to create my own story rather than have it spoon fed to me. Let me roll a character then let me do what I want in an interactive open world. Sure, some curating and minor direction is OK, but the less the better. I don…

This is what I do since, I don't know, King's Quest series? After the death of adventure games I don't care about stories anymore. The graphics and the gameplay carry all the weight now. The Assassin's Creed series-what is this Animus crap? Just make the character be that assassin guy instead of switching to some pandering story about a time computer. Seeing what they did to ancient settings and bringing these cities to life is cool but have no time for little stories.
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