Unlike other popular media where the story acts as a train for a series of events, scenes or chapters games can be detached sometimes to the point where a storyline is not even necessary to some games. Because of the repetitive nature of games, all games can be broken down into a series of tasks and activities; you shoot this, jump there etc a story is for the most part simply a brief explanation as to why you’re hurtling through space or killing mafia goons.
However as games become increasingly more complex mirroring movies not only in terms of cinematic effects and angles but in storytelling games are increasingly being judged by the quality of there storylines alone, with specialist storywriter’s stories are fast morphing from something which was shoehorned in last thing in development to briefly explain why the player was in a given situation to being fleshed out and revised at the very start of development, defining all visual and aural aspects of the game.
Unlike the film industry where telling a story has always been key games have found themselves with this burden of not only telling a competent story but tying together gameplay as well, did Space Invaders ever need a story? There were aliens coming down the screen what were you expect to do but shoot them, you didn’t need a story for that. But people now need explanations as to why there in a given situation even games clearly completely devoid of a storyline such as death match games now somehow need a shoddily constructed story purely to justify to the nit-picky reviewer there existence.
As games further diversify along there different genre paths types of storyline and the way in which there told is also changing, an fps such as Half Life 2 would be an epic albeit completely linear experience with events in the story closely mimicking and complementing the environments – you’ve gotta break someone out of a creaky converted Russian gulag? Fine then along you go! If HL2 or any other shooter was presented purely as a series of corridors, would it be such a good game? Do people even consider most games storylines when there in the thick of a game for the most part cut scenes are used to illustrate and expand upon the story, a non-interactive element of what should be a completely interactive experience ‘sit down, shut up and I’ll try and explain why you’re here’ the games seem to say.
Actually because of there interactive nature, can a games storyline differ as you progress? Rather than follow the same storyline with the same events placed in place months, sometimes years ago shouldn’t the player be able to forge and create his own story? We’ve already got sandbox gaming where events or motions can be discovered by the player that wouldn’t necessarily have been thought of by the developers surely a games overall storyline could be altered by the actions of the player rather than simply bumping along a story path much like the linear gameplay, taking a tangent at key opportunities.
Going back to stories in general a story seems useless if the characters it contains are not cared or feared for by the player, characters present a reason for the player to continue playing if people can find themselves emotionally attached somehow to a given character in a 2 hour film surely games should be able to do it in 10? So called ‘digital actors’ high polygon, naturalised models with personalised details such as ripped jeans and other details create a sense of the model standing in front of the player is a real person or at the very least a collection of pre-recorded lines and dialogue following a predefined path throughout the game that makes the player believe that there following a real genuine person.
Looking at games where perhaps the characters and the situations they may find themselves have already been defined often in the form of books or film tie-ins, such as Reservoir Dogs that was demoed today, its even harder to not only follow the original storyline and ethos of the source material appeasing both publishers and fans alike but to create an actual game around it as well. This is one of the reasons I believe games of films are often so poor, despite the incentive to rush it out of the door publishers and the film studio’s being overly protective of there material massively hinders the creativity of the development studio.
