Story and video games...

2008-10-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

The story in a video game is suppose to set up the premise for what you are trying to do. Depending on the game however, the story can either be the most important aspect of the game or completely irrelevant. Even when it's important, video games stories need a more emphasize on certain parts than say a movie. So here I'll explain the three hierarchies of how important stories need to be.

Where stories are not important are in platformers, social games, puzzles games, racing games, fighting games rhythm and music games, and arcade games. It should be obvious that these games revolve more around competition than any single player campaign and it while a story could be implemented to help these games, chances are they would only hurt the gameplay experience. This is why I literally laughed myself to tears when the director of God of War said Super Mario Galaxy wasn't Game of the Year material because it didn't have a good story, it's not needed and the game doesn't suffer from it (although one can argue that God of War suffers from a very shallow story, despite it being pretty epic). We can look anywhere from Mario to Little Big Planet and see that it's not the story that drives these games, but the amazing gameplay that drives them. In my personal opinion, these are some of the best games simply because more attention is put into the game mechanics than some complicated story that in the end, very few would care about. Now, there are some exceptions. Some of the old-school PS2 games like Jak and Daxter and Ractchet and Clank got it's charm from their story and of course Sonic Adventure 2 was one of those special platformers that was driven entirely by story and gameplay, making it one of the best platformer games of last generation (if not THE best). Speaking of our favorite blue hedgehog, there is no doubt that it was the very same idea to put a bigger story into the later Sonic games that led to his downfall. Shadow the Hedgehog tries to put a story on a character everyone stopped carrying about (the thing that made his great was the fact that he died!) and while it had some good gameplay aspects to it, it just failed to please anyone who expected anything close to a 3-D Sonic game. Then there is Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) a game that was so story driven that it even creeped some people out. So what happens when you take one Hedgehog who constantly takes adventures and another one who's past has been somewhat resolved? You throw in ANOTHER Hedgehog from the future! Now, I'm not blaming the story for what I saw as a rather poor technical team who were just trying to show off some flashy 360 graphics, but they seemed to put the most dedication into a rather serious storyline and were met with a cold fish slap in the face. Now fighters, they don't need a story. Most Japanese fighting games usually involve some kind of global tournament and then you just jump in. While games like Super Smash Bros Brawl and Soul Calibur put in a story, they weren't the main focus, and the experience was enriched by something to do when no one was online or available to play. Social games like MMO's and Guitar Hero of course need no story. Everything is dependent on gameplay and the developers rely on you being addicted to them.

Adventure and action games probably sum up the next in the ladder of story driven games. While adventure games like Legend of Zelda and Kingdom Hearts have rather decent stories, they don't and mind blowing stories to make them good. The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess had a pretty decent story, but it was the traditional exploring and dungeon crawling that made it good. Kingdom Hearts had a rather shallow story, but succeeded in a great combat system, stunning visuals, and some anime guys (for those fangirls out there). Action games however have a few pitfalls that developers seem to be falling into. While hacking and slashing your way through hordes of whatever is fun, sometimes the stories just get in the way or limit the amount of slashing to a minimum. Take Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. It had the makings of a great movie, which sucks for those of us that wanted more than 7 hours of fun (I've already played the game twice). Now I don't play too many action games, but whenever someone talks about God of War or No More Heroes, it's always the action, and then if it's they're kind of thing, they might mention the story.

Now, here's where games are important, maybe even more important than gameplay. Most shooters and RPGs. These should be obvious. Now, I say most shooters because there are games like Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield, and other WW2 games where mutliplayer is the most important aspect. In retrospect, those games should be called "tactical shooters" or something and placed in the first category. However, when it comes to single player shooters, story is important, why? Because there are a TON of first person shooters and almost everything has been done so you need some kind of catch. Imagine Halo without the multiplayer, you get a rather mediocre FPS game. Then there are games like Bioshock and Half-Life 2 that have great stories for it. Instristingly enough, Half-Life 2 is probably the best FPS game period because it actually achieves great and innovative gameplay, properly used environments, and a compelling story all meshed into one. Not too many FPS games can claim that. Bioshock was fine and dandy, but in the end the FPS aspect of it was old and tired, the powers got rather old and only a few proved useful, the environments were bland, and puzzles were practically answered for you. It had a good story mode though, which is the only reason I think it got the awards it did (or it was a slow year, I forget). Now more important though than the story itself for an FPS is the characters. Honestly, FPS games tend to deal with villains and allies and if the character fails to relate to them, then no amount of surprising plot twists or generic characters can save it from doom. Now, I want to bring up a notable exception to the rule. The Metroid Prime series is pretty much void of characters. The first two games had almost no characters that actually talked to you. However, the game cleverly used this to its advantage and used the absent of other characters to set up an atmosphere. The story in these games acutally unfold through the various scans throughout the game, and while MP3 actually had some characters that you instantly loved (I'm still heart broken that Rundus, Ghor, and Gandrayla died) the game succeeds by being a hybrid platformer, adventure, and FPS, effectively making up for the differences of games in there genre by having other elemetns of other genres. RPG's really need nothing else than a story. No story, no game. Game mechanics rarely changed with the exception of being turned based or real time and if an RPG is less than 60 hours, it's not worth playing. Games like Golden Sun, Fire Emblem, Tales, Final Fantasy, etc, can have nothing changed gameplay wise and be just as successful, because they are the equivalent to a book, another exciting story people want to see unfold and so good writers are in high demand for these games.

Well, that's my take on stories. For any other game designers out there, remember when to put emphasize on stories and characters and when it's okay to focus on more important things. Now, if you have a good story, go ahead and use it but just know that a 20 hour story is not needed for your platformer and a movie like story is not needed for your FPS.

Transcended Gamers

2008-10-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

o, when do you know that his whole "casual" and "hardcore" gaming thing has gone a bit too far? Probably when the casual gamers are openly mocking hard core gamers. Okay, at first it was funny, especially when casual gamers are making fun of the hypocrisy of Guitar Hero and Rock Band players saying Wii Music sucks because it's casual, but recently, I've just seen too many list that continue to spread ignorance about this whole "Casual boom" that Nintendo "supposedly" created. (No they didn't). I'm tired of everyone claiming that casual games are going to destroy hardcore gaming (c'mon, how stupid can you be).

So, I guess I want to start a new kind of gamer, one that transcends "casual" and "hardcore", hence the name "Transcended Gamer". What is a transcended gamer? A transcended gamer is a gamer who is bit deeper and more critical towards games, but ultimately judges a game based on what it is. A sports game is judged as a sports game, a shooter is judged as a shooter, etc. We basically don't use the term "casual" or "hardcore". As a transcended gamer, you realized that any game can be played hardcore-like or casual. I say this because I've seen people who play hardcore games casually and casual games very hardcore like. I have friends who will pick up GTA IV or Halo 3 every now and then, but almost religiously play Guitar Hero 2 and 3. Heck, I know some crazy people who take Wii Sports to the next level, and so why should we be bound by these stupid limits and truly miss out on some great games. At the same time, I'm tired of games of that try to look like they are triple A titles, but they suck from a game designer's point of view. So from here, games and the industry are going to be talked about from a game designer's point of view and not judged soley on it's graphics or it's violence and we don't judge games outside their parameters. We won't call Pokemon Halo 3, and we won't call Wii Music Guitar Hero IV.

The mantra of this blog: it's not what games you play, it's how you play the games.