Story in games

[Jaedar]

It's obviously what half life 1 did, and in a sense, half life 2 does it as well

No, the halflifes did cinematics you could walk around in. Not to be confused with actual interactivity.

[AEmer]

Whats your point?

[Duke Floss]

I think the evolution of the narrative in video games has been doing fine. The evolution of gameplay has helped define the narrative without it being so abstract. For me when games like Deus Ex, NOLF, SS2 and Half-Life came out it was a defining moment that showed games outside of the adventure genre could have strong compelling narratives throughout the gameplay and not just in the cutscenes. Sure there were examples throughout the nineties - but a lot of those games (System Shock, Strife, Cybermage, etc.) still feel abstract in comparison to there early millennium successors.

Jonas is right when he says games need to be everything - the best are a combination of video, audio, written and interactive entertainment.

Skyrim is a story driven game - albeit with the ability to take the story at your own pace and a minimal amount of free choice for some of the more defined narratives - and randomly encountering a bear in the middle of the mountains does not necessarily mean it is a player driven story.

That being said - I would like to see some more experimental writing in video games. When are we going to see a game that takes the cut up concepts of Brion Gysin & William S. Burroughs and applies it to the narrative. (Actually) for me there were moments in The Nameless Mod that have been some of the more interesting moments I've experienced in gaming narrative.

[Jonas]

Jonas is right when he says games need to be everything - the best are a combination of video, audio, written and interactive entertainment.

I just want to clarify that - while indeed my favourite games are a combination of video, audio, and writing, with polished and satisfying interactive game loops - that's not quite what I meant. What I mean is that the videogame medium should be broad and all-encompassing. The medium should have room for everything, from pure gameplay a'la Flow or Angry Birds or pure writing as in Interactive Fiction, to games that are one or two steps up from interactive movies, like Heavy Rain. We can't go around saying what games should or shouldn't be, the industry ought to have space for everybody to just dick around and come up with weird new things that defy definition

[EER]

Whats your point?

The half life 1 intro (can't remember 2) was unskippable and completely non-interactive (unless you count walking around in a box as interaction). As such, it does not meet your criteria:

It'd be completely skippable, but it'd be an actual interactive thing?

I liked the HL1 intro, the first minute... So under the condition that it would be completely skippable it could be interesting, although I wonder if it would not simply qualify as another level in the game?

[AEmer]

Well that's just it; being able to walk around in said box does reveal a bunch of information that you couldn't otherwise get. Firstly, there's the fact that you decide what to look at; you generally have enough time to see everything, if you want to, so its not _that_ interesting, but if you actually want to see the various parts of the facility, you do need to walk around. At the very least, it's as interactive as a very easy quicktime event, where failing it means you're deprived of information.

But it's a very boring and not very creative example of what I was talking about...and I agree, it feels too much like another level in the main game to be really distinctly an intro.

Anyway, that's not what I meant by asking him what his point was. I wanted to know if he was merely being pedantic, or if he had some purpose in saying I was wrong.

[DaveW]

Well, if you think that the cutscenes and stories are shit because the writers and facial animators are shit you should say that instead of saying they're bad means of delivering a story

And yeah, games don't need a story, but having a good one is obviously a plus.

I said most cutscenes are shit because of bad writing and animation, not that they're a fundamentally bad way to deliver a story. Some cutscenes are necessary and advance the interactive element of the game; but excessive cutscenes are a bad means of delivering a story, that's my point.

If you want to watch characters act out a scene that's written like a film (and most games rely on film writing/camera styles) - go see a film. Games are interactive entertainment. You wouldn't get much fun out of a puzzle game if as soon as you loaded it up the game took control and solved all the puzzles for you. My issue is with games trying to be half film, half game, and the game half suffering as a result.

[AEmer]

Anyway, that's not what I meant by asking him what his point was. I wanted to know if he was merely being pedantic, or if he had some purpose in saying I was wrong.

Actually, let me elaborate; I figured that if he was being pedantic, it made no sense because he would be technically incorrect: There is interaction in the sequence, after a fashion. In other words, his point was probably something deeper and more meaningful than merely correcting me...though ruling out a technically incorrect technical correction wasn't something I was that confident in either.

I didn't feel like speculating, so I merely asked. What's the point of saying that the half life intro has this distinction within this discussion?

I may never know, since he hasn't answered, but there it is.

[Jaedar]

I didn't respond cause my point was quite literally stated.

[Half-life cinematics are] Not to be confused with actual interactivity.

I said most cutscenes are shit because of bad writing and animation, not that they're a fundamentally bad way to deliver a story. Some cutscenes are necessary and advance the interactive element of the game; but excessive cutscenes are a bad means of delivering a story, that's my point.

Sorry for misinterpreting you then.

There is interaction in the sequence, after a fashion.

x= hlcutscenelist.find(actual interactivity);
x=-1

It's kind of like saying the loading screens in bioshock are interactive because you can scroll between 3 different hints. Technically true, but so so very wrong.

[DDL]

YOU CAN SCROLL BETWEEN 3 DIFFERENT HINTS????

WHY WAS THIS NOT IN THE MANUAL!?!?!??1

[Jaedar]

YOU CAN SCROLL BETWEEN 3 DIFFERENT HINTS????

WHY WAS THIS NOT IN THE MANUAL!?!?!??1

Might have been bioshock 2.

Or another game entirely.

[EER]

In the Skyrim loading screen you can turn a model around and zoom. I do remember a game with three tabs during load, I'm equally hazy about which game it was.

[Jonas]

The Assassin's Creed games have the best loading screen.

[AEmer]

It's kind of like saying the loading screens in bioshock are interactive because you can scroll between 3 different hints. Technically true, but so so very wrong.

Well that really cuts to the root of what a game is.

Suppose instead of being in a tram, you were plopped into a scripted level as an invisible person, with about 3 minutes worth of time before you get booted back to the beginning. Yes, that's an idiotic premise. It'd be kindof like the movie Deja Vu.

Even supposing you cannot interact with anything, if what you see is relevant to the game you're about to play, the simple act of exploration of the environment in whichever fashion you find interesting is interaction.

How meaningful the interaction is, well, that's another matter: If it's on rails as in half life, it's not a complicated choice the player is presented with; you look out of the windows of the tram to catch as much info as you can, and there's really no way to miss anything. Similarly, if the sequence of events all takes place within a single room, there's no additional worth in gained from the interactivety; but if there's content enough, like 5 rooms, then it's exclusive choice, then it's interesting. Then it's clearly interactive, inspite of the fact that none of the usual markers of interactivity appears to be distinct from the half life example to the one I suppose could exist.

Recognizing that half life is an example of a game that does something along these lines, just poorly? That's worth pointing out, isn't it? I thought so, so that's what I did.

So I reject your notion that it is, "so very, very wrong". The distinction from your contrived example is that simply being able to choose between 15 hints doesn't make it more interesting, but a bigger tram and more interesting happenings of the same kind already there _would_ make the half life intro more interesting.

[DaveW]

With regards to the Half Life cinematics, by the way, I'd rather be stuck in a box being driven around than have absolutely no control like the intro to Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

In fact, I think the opening to HR is a great example of what I think games shouldn't do. There's no reason it couldn't have been free exploration, letting you talk to the people around and get a feeling for the world a bit more - not only because that's more interesting but it'd actually help the narrative, since you'd get a greater sense of belonging in that world before it's destroyed (in the attack section afterwards.)

There's other examples of unnecessary cinematics in HR too, like the brief 5-10 second one where he walks into the first LIMB clinic. It took me out of the game, looked awful (since I was playing at 1920X1080 and it was a highly compressed 1280X720 video), and served absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Would've been much more dramatic had I been in control.