As games evolve, developers gradually tap into their
potential to create more engrossing experiences, inevitably leading to an
overextension of creativity. Because of technology’s constant advancements,
more developers are trying to incorporate compelling stories into gameplay.
Though I’m usually a proponent of anything to further the medium’s viability, I
feel that in trying to evolve storytelling methods, developers are gradually
focusing less on what makes a compelling experience: the gameplay.
While Super Mario Bros. was essentially the first game that
featured clear plot advancement, Final Fantasy was the first to focus on the
game’s story. By introducing relatable characters and compelling plots, these
games were the first to craft poignant narratives we truly cared for. Despite
the success of these RPGs, Final Fantasy owes much of its success to classic
tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. Yet what makes D&D so intriguing
and everlasting is its bare-boned nature. In contrast to the story-centric
Final Fantasy, D&D defined itself through game mechanics and relied heavily
on gamers’ imaginations.
I imagine that the
problems of today’s storytelling techniques lie in developers’ desires to
create the structural story that D&D lacked. For one reason or another, it
has become an industry trend to sell novels in the guise of games. While the
intellectual in me praises this new method of reading stories, the gamer in me
wants to shove this pretentious crap back at the developers. Buying a game now
is like paying for an expensive chocolate mousse only to realize that, instead
of mousse, I’ve just bought high-class poop. If I really wanted to read a
cliched fantasy or science fiction story, I could’ve easily walked to the
nearest Borders.
Last year’s blockbuster Mass Effect is a clear offender of
the recent novels-as-games trend. Gamers are forced to read all the minute junk
scattered throughout the game’s universe if they want the full experience.
Certainly we have the choice to read the stuff, but if we don’t, we’re not
really getting the game we paid for. While the multilayered depth to the Mass
Effect mythos is admittedly compelling, the process through which you need to
obtain the story is excruciatingly tedious and overall a misuse of the medium.
The recently released Lost Odyssey also has the same problem, where various
aspects of the story are told through prose, like what you read in your average
writing class. Since when did it become fun to read in games? It’s like saying I’m not good enough to
experience the game unless I have a literature degree.
Then there are games that force-feed stories through lengthy
cutscenes. While I appreciate the art of cinematic deftness in some of my
favorite games, I resent the fact that it’s become an industry standard to
continually rely on cutscenes to move narratives. Metal Gear Solid, which
arguably set the standard for cinematic storytelling, had the problem of using
too much cinema and sacrificing too much game. It’s become a well-known joke
that if you strip away the game’s cutscenes, you’re essentially left with a
little over two hours of gameplay. Too often have I found myself playing
through the game and coming across a random cutscene that presents a crucial
story element only to find that I need to use the bathroom. Too often these
cutscenes end up being absurdly long. Since there’s no other way the story can
be told, you’re always stuck with the cinematics, even in the worst situations.
Titles like Bioshock remind us of the game’s potential as an
interactive medium. Similar to Half-Life, Deus Ex and its predecessor System
Shock 2, Bioshock is a perfect example of a story that can only be told through
the interactivity of a video game. Since the game is inhabited mostly by
corpses and mindless monsters in the underwater city of
very rarely are there any physical interactions between you and other
characters. As the player you’re told to basically explore the city and fight
off any enemies. The game’s gripping nature, however, is due to a story fleshed
out through vocal interactions with one other character and the discovery of
audio logs. Though players can essentially play the entire game without hearing
a single line from these logs, doing so would defeat the game’s purpose. The
game and the world are inseperable. If we don’t search the world, we’re not
playing the game. And if we’re not playing the game, we’re never told a story.
The only way to obtain the story is to play.
As the medium advances and evolves and as the success of
games like Portal reminds us of the importance of gameplay as a method of story
advancement, more creative developers will find ways to tell a story through —
and not for — the game. And once someone else sets a standard, it won’t take
long for others to follow suit. Until then, I’m crossing my fingers for someone
adventurous to do it.
