StoryTELLING in Video Games

[VirusType2]

video game developers need to stop thinking of themselves as a dumbed down version of hollywood ..that whole "cinematic cutscenes" is terribly over used ..most look like they were shot for shot copies of film student projects ..or a carbon of Michael Bay..hardly the stuff of cinetography ..I mean can anyone compare any scene in any video game with say the cinematography in Lawrence of Arabia or Apocalypse Now or
On the Waterfront? video games are still in it's infancy, we havent reached the level where story can be compared to literature or even film

that said, I think video games should try to strike out on it's own and forge a new method story telling, they shouldnt have to emulate other types of media ..personally i'd like to be plopped down in a middle of a vast world populated with characters that I can interact with ..allow me to write my own story as I go along .. narrative delivery through cut scenes are passe and need to be slowly elimanted as a story telling device ..they almost always act as a bridge between the action and the plot but is almost always inconsequential

best post ever.

 

[Wang Tang]

Real nice Storytelling can be experienced in Freelancer and Jade Empire. Freelancer jsut sucked me in and I couldn't stop playing, and Jade Empire has got some nice twists.

Oh wait, and Monkey Island of course. But adventures sure have advantages when it comes to storytelling

 

[repiV]

Real nice Storytelling can be experienced in Freelancer and Jade Empire. Freelancer jsut sucked me in and I couldn't stop playing, and Jade Empire has got some nice twists.

Oh wait, and Monkey Island of course. But adventures sure have advantages when it comes to storytelling

I'm still in the training compound in Jade Empire, but I just can't get into it.
Does it suck you in at some point later?

 

[Wang Tang]

Once the story starts you'll be sucked in. At least I was. The training compound is a little bit boring yeah, but you get rewarded with a great game and story.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I need to pick up Jade Empire sometime.

 

[repiV]

Once the story starts you'll be sucked in. At least I was. The training compound is a little bit boring yeah, but you get rewarded with a great game and story.

You're right, I stuck with it and it's damn good. I'm not addicted to it like I was addicted to KOTOR after the first couple of hours, but hopefully that will come in time.
My major beef with the game though is the way the dialogue is presented. What's with the ridiculous pauses after every line? It's so annoying and unnatural.

 

[blck]

Ah KOTOR
I was wondering when it would pop up.
Best game bioware ever made...don't even think about picking up the sequel. I never finished it. Boring as hell. It looked and played the same but had no soul.
Sorytelling is important in games, but I think devs need to nail some other aspects about games to before the story can suck you in. First of all; the mood of the game, how does the world feel. If you haven't created a believable world (and Im not talking about graphics or realism) then you can unfold a story in it. The mood and the world will make sure players come back, because they wanne be part of this world, the wanna know what happens next.
An example that illustrates this is Prince-of-Persia/Sand of Time.
Not much story going on there (and most of it whe knew from the oldskool-version). The dialogues where also quiet cheesy, yet it succeeded in creating a believable world where you as a player wanted to go back to ( I know I did)...So no story without emersion. And emersion itself can really improve the storytelling, even if you have a real simple story like POP.

Any toughts? Flames

 

[Asknoone]

KOTOR 2 is a much better game than 1.

 

[repiV]

KOTOR 2 was boring, but worse than that it was only half-finished.
They left out an entire planet, lots of dialogue and many areas of the game, and cut out the proper ending because they had to release it in time for Christmas. Playing it through, you'd probably notice all the areas on the map that you can't actually get to, the considerable lack of depth in the characters compared to the original game and the fact that the continuity is often broken.
Extremely buggy game, too.

Shitloads of the cut content is still packaged with the game but just unused.

 

[Acepilotf14]

The Gizka project, I think it was called? I hope they finish that, it will make KOTOR2 a worthwhile game to have.
In K2, there were certain sections that shined, and, being a fan of #1, I had to buy it when it came out, of course. Basically, the best part in the entire game was the cave where

Spoiler

You get to look into the past of Revan and Malak, and make some neat moral choices. Who did not get chills when you got to fight Revan?

 

[repiV]

The Gizka project, I think it was called? I hope they finish that, it will make KOTOR2 a worthwhile game to have.

Close. Team Gizka - making The Sith Lords Restoration Project.
They're taking bleeding forever, though.

In K2, there were certain sections that shined, and, being a fan of #1, I had to buy it when it came out, of course. Basically, the best part in the entire game was the cave where...

Yeah, it had a few great bits but it was so disjointed. It could have been amazing, as the setting is much darker than with the original. You've got that bit you mentioned, Onderon/Dxun is brilliant but the rest of it is just meh.
Manaan (is that the name of the water world? I forget) from the original game was fantastic. I preferred the characters from the original too, mainly because the characters from KOTOR 2 were left undeveloped. Atton could have been the best character ever, but they cut out half his dialogue. You never really get to know that much about him. In the original game, you could just sit and chat with members of your party for ages, and new dialogue options would open up throughout the game. Doesn't happen in K2. The same crticism can be levelled at Neverwinter Nights 2 actually, which is also an Obsidian game.

 

[Eejit]

In the original game, you could just sit and chat with members of your party for ages, and new dialogue options would open up throughout the game. Doesn't happen in K2. The same crticism can be levelled at Neverwinter Nights 2 actually, which is also an Obsidian game.

The NWN2 expansion is much better in that regard imo.

 

[repiV]

The NWN2 expansion is much better in that regard imo.

Ah. I haven't played it.

 

[Tagaziel]

Heh. I consider KOTOR 2 vastly superior to the first one. I never really bought Carth's emo attitude, Mission's family problems or the great romance with Bastila.

It may be that I prefer tragic stories, and the Exile being a better character than Revan.

Plus, Kreia.

In the original game, you could just sit and chat with members of your party for ages, and new dialogue options would open up throughout the game. Doesn't happen in K2. The same crticism can be levelled at Neverwinter Nights 2 actually, which is also an Obsidian game.

Apparently you haven't explored the Influence system in full.

 

[Absinthe]

KOTOR 2 had the potential to be awesome. As it stands, I find it inferior to the first game.

The darker narrative was involving, and it was refreshing to have more moral ambiguity. But its rushed release crippled it. I didn't care about the bugs. It was just such a shame to spend so much time familiarizing yourself with your compatriots only to have them dropped off the face of the universe when you hit the final world. It's like they were 75% of the way through their arcs and then abruptly taken out. It was so unsatisfying that it actually retroactively tainted what I had already played through. And I didn't feel I was interacting with the characters as much as I was in Bioware's game.

Say what you will about Revan and the first game's plot. But at least they managed to deliver them in full IMO. Everything was fleshed out and finalized, and that made it more satisfying to me. I realize Obsidian can't really be blamed considering the amount of content they were forced to cut, and that's a real tragedy.

 

[Cormeh]

KOTOR 2 had the potential to be awesome. As it stands, I find it inferior to the first game.

The darker narrative was involving, and it was refreshing to have more moral ambiguity. But its rushed release crippled it. I didn't care about the bugs. It was just such a shame to spend so much time familiarizing yourself with your compatriots only to have them dropped off the face of the universe when you hit the final world. It's like they were 75% of the way through their arcs and then abruptly taken out. It was so unsatisfying that it actually retroactively tainted what I had already played through. And I didn't feel I was interacting with the characters as much as I was in Bioware's game.

Say what you will about Revan and the first game's plot. But at least they managed to deliver them in full IMO. Everything was fleshed out and finalized, and that made it more satisfying to me. I realize Obsidian can't really be blamed considering the amount of content they were forced to cut, and that's a real tragedy.

I agree. KoTOR II was by no means bad, but the apparent rush for release cripples the games final stages and the last battle and subsequent ending(s) left a lot to be desired.

 

[Warbie]

Aye - KOTOR 2 was obviously rushed and lacked polish. Not a bad game, but not a match for the original.

 

[Jimmeh]

Heh. I just finished KOTOR 2 for the first time today. I did enjoy it for the most part, just it kind of all went down the shitter towards the end. The story seemed to lack any real substance, not to mention the last area you visit in the game is just plain pants. I actually thought the characters were pretty cool too (with the exception of one floating waste of space), but again lacked any real depth compared to the characters from the first game. Just a shame the developers didn't get more time to flesh the game out.

I can only hope a third game gets made, ideally based on the Mass Effect engine. :E A KOTOR game with the graphics and cinematics of ME (but with the same depth of KOTOR) would be epic.

 

[kupocake]

I have some favourite Game stories - Homeworld, Final Fantasy Tactics, Half-Life - But all game stories are pretty awful, derivative or simply under-developed, and it's pretty hard to divorce the enjoyment you get from getting to the next bit of story from the experience of interacting with the game. The Half-Life series as a case in point is probably the most notable example of Storytelling in games. Not because the story is necessarily a good one, but because Valve are at least really pushing the envelope on how to have stories told in a way that's natural in an interactive medium.

Perhaps it's truely a dead-end, but I like to think their pioneering spirit is alongside that of early cinema and the early novel: avoiding established forms and casting out on their own. Accordingly, I reckon when we're all older, Half-Life and the narrative focused games we play now will be loved by a core of pretentious ****s who consider the games part of the birth of an artform. The Battleship Potemkins or Princesse de Cl?ves of Interactivia. Basically, they'll study Computer Games in a Lunar University run entirely on Fish Fingers.

 

[Tagaziel]

Concerning KOTOR2: the blame for rushed release does not lie with Obsidian - it lies with the jackasses at LucasArts who wanted it released for Christmas.

Proof? Most of the cut content is still present within the game files. Gizka Team has very little reconstruction to do, actually.

 

[Jintor]

Be that as it may, the game was still inferior to KOTOR I. But only slightly. They were both highly enjoyable games. (And KOTOR's 'twist' was probably the only one in a video game EVER that caught me by surprise.)

 

[Tagaziel]

I found it cliche, damn cliche. How many times we have done the "amnesiac hero" routine?

KOTOR2 is inventive, as we get a hero that doesn't want to restore his memory, he wants to FORGET his past. Plus, a nice expansion and explanation of what Malak and Revan did, instead of the "two Jedi decide to destroy the Republic for kicks".

 

[Cormeh]

I found it cliche, damn cliche. How many times we have done the "amnesiac hero" routine?

KOTOR2 is inventive, as we get a hero that doesn't want to restore his memory, he wants to FORGET his past. Plus, a nice expansion and explanation of what Malak and Revan did, instead of the "two Jedi decide to destroy the Republic for kicks".

I've never played a game with that kind of twist. I never found it to be cliched at all, I actually feel that the first KoTOR has the best story twist in a game, ever.

 

[Jintor]

"Amnesiac hero" is cliche; but then so is "alien invasion", "world war II" and "mutated humans", to name a few examples from games that are widely considered to be awesome. It's how it was told that I found amazing, not the plotline. And because it was told expertly, I didn't expect the twist.

 

[mortiz-Redux]

I think alot of adventure games have great stories and characters: Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey all created compelling worlds, and as Warbie mentioned Planescape: Torment also had a great story. It depends what your focus is, most games focus on action which creates perhaps more entertaining gameplay in the short run, where as games that are played at a slower pace may not hold the attention of some but more time can be taken to flesh out the characters and the worlds. I don't think it's games in general aren't conductive to good stories, just some types of games.

 

[Tagaziel]

I've never played a game with that kind of twist. I never found it to be cliched at all, I actually feel that the first KoTOR has the best story twist in a game, ever.

You haven't played Planescape Torment.

Spoiler

Where you learn about your previous incarnations and what they done to the world. Now THAT'S the best story twist.

 

[Absinthe]

The twist concerning Revan was a surprise to me. I'm not even sure how much of the "amnesiac hero" cliche applies, because it's not like you started the game in some empty room with no past recollection at all. Your identity was well concealed up until its revelation.

PS:T was very well written. But... I don't recall any moment that grabbed me by the balls with surprise like KOTOR did.

 

[Tagaziel]

For me, it was the meeting with Pharod, Anna-Of-Shadows, the Brothel for Slating Intellectual Lusts, finding segments of your past and putting them together, Ravel (I got kissed D, The Transcendent One...

Pretty much the entire game.

KOTOR's linearity and inferior gameplay mechanics killed the game for me. Even moreso after playing KOTOR2.

 

[Eejit]

Obsidian and Black Isle both rock at storytelling basically, whichever you prefer

 

[ríomhaire]

How the hell can you possibly criticise Half-Life's storytelling and praise Portal's? My favourite storytelling in a game still resides with Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun: Firestorm.

Edit: Half-Life doesn't have a fantastic story, but the storytelling is great. Halo has an average story with nothing special in the storytelling. Halo 2 has a shitty story with worse storytelling. Haven't played Halo 3.

Edit 2: I love how the OP made a thread about storyTELLING and barly makes a single mention of storytelling or methods of storytelling in his entire post, instead talking about the stories in an incredibly vague manner. He even thought this rambling deserved the little title line
StoryTELLING in Video Games
by terminatort850

 

[Asknoone]

Haven't played Halo 3.

It's worse--very poor (played the other night).

 

[ríomhaire]

I read the Fall of Reach. The story is so much better than the actual Halo games, even if the Master Chief is even more boring and deviod of personallity in the book. I hadn't previously thought it possible. When I played the games it seemed like Bungie had gone for the silent protagonist method of stroytelling and then just ****ed it up by having him talk during the cutscenes, but it turns out that he's meant to be the most un-interesting character of all time

 

[Raxxman]

Dunno he did have a good line in Halo 3.

'Figure I'd shoot my way out, you know, mix things up a bit.'

got me at least.

 

[Jintor]

Generic action hero line #2451341, by the sounds of it.

 

[VirusType2]

Generic action hero line #2451341

laughed my ass off.


Understand though, generic works sometimes. it's all in the delivery.

 

[Saturos]

HALO Trilogy
There is no denying that Halo trilogy conveys one of the best sci-fi stories ever created in any medium. Many even consider it better than Star Wars saga. Now each Halo game has such a dense story that they actually make the player feel that they have covered a lot of ground at the end of each game. Halo 1 presents a great beginning to everything and at its end; it feels like it has an end. Halo 2 has a grand story and has every bit as dense story except for its cliffhanger ending. Finally Halo 3 really winds up the story and doesn?t seem rushed and does a real good job at feeling like a final chapter unlike what The Matrix Revolutions did. The only problem with the presentation of the story in Halo games is that they assume that the player know a bit about back story. Many people couldn?t make sense of Halo 3 at times. The ending celebration cinematic could have been more epic. Overall, the story is simply epic.

Ahaaahahahaha *points at Terminator and laughs* this is rich isn't it? I LOL'ed my head off. Good one Samon. Oh well...everyone's a critic. Everyone knows nobody plays Halo for the story for crying out loud.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Terminator is officially cooler than all of you. Can't say much about comparing the HL story with Halo's though, neither are quite strong suited upon comparison; though it doesn't make them any less epic.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I played Halo for the story.
:|
The precourser consoles were neat.

 

[Saturos]

Terminator is officially cooler than all of you.

Sure he is. Not many gamers would have the balls to admit to liking Halo's story on a Half-Life fansite no less. Still, that's his opinion. Kudos for stating a non-popular opinion as always.:thumbs:

 

[Acepilotf14]

Of course, story wise, the books > the game.