Some players like being in an interactive book, some players prefer to make a story - their own story - by themselves out of the environment, goals and means. In this way, all games have stories - because the player makes it.īasically all games provide varying degrees of storytelling agency, and thus give players different levels of satisfaction in that. There's your story, and it's the player who came up with it in the first place. You can play TF2 for the sole aim of shooting people and gaining achievements and relaxing from RL, or you can form a clan and give yourself a mission and grand purpose. You can play Pac-Man at face value, or you can give Pac-Man an agency and a mission.
The second way of storytelling is to put players into the setting of a game and leave it at that. This is where video games operate exactly like books, just with a bit more options for customization. Even if the branches in decision making are getting more complex in contemporary RPGs, the player's agency in the story is illusory, it still lies with the authors. The player doesn't have true power in the storytelling, he's just moving down paths pre-dictated by the game creators. The story branches depending on the decisions, but you're still being railroaded towards set checkpoints within a defined story. You can customize your character to a certain degree, but the story is fixed: you WILL reach this checkpoint where you WILL be making a certain decision. Most RPGs are like this - Mass Effect, The Witcher, Final Fantasy, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights, etc. The first way is like an interactive book where you play a protagonist moving through a set plotline. I think there are two ways of telling a story through video games.
Then of course the one story that really made me cry, wasn't a video game though. I have had times when I would be on a Silent Hill binge and would play to the point my dreams would be like being in a Silent Hill episode. I really liked the Parasite Eve stories also, I even learned a bit about mitochondria.
Then again, it may have just been the fact that I lost my healer. The one story that really touched me was that of Final Fantasy VII, in particular when Aeris dies and the constant reminder throughout the game that in a way, she was still with me. Thought these things were for kids? If that's the case why did I need a parent to buy it for me? It's like being 18 and you're old enough to die for your country but you're too young to drink a beer. They always say video games are for kids, but I remember when I first went to buy DOOM, I had to be at least 17 which at the time I wasn't, I had to get my parents to get it for me. The part with "videogames are for kids" is something I never understood ever since the rating factor came into play. You know, in a "liking movies and books is cool, but comics and videogaymez are for kids and losers" sense. To an extent, I get the complaints, but it's a freaking game, the story is there as a part of the game to help keep things going forward and to explain the mechanics, but it's not intended to result in a Nobel for Literature being awarded to the writers.Īvogadro6: It's just that liking fictional stories or characters featured in a certain medium is still stigmatized and considered socially awkward, I guess. And people who have read tons and tons of sci-fi books and stories. I know there's issues with the story, but most of the bitching about it seems to come from psuedo-intellectuals that are picking it apart just to pick it apart. And yes, that includes most of the RPGs I've played, the dialog and story just isn't that interesting.
How come streaming video games on mac sucks series#
In fact, AC was one of the few series where I didn't want to constantly skip the crap out of the dialogs. I can't agree with that at all, most games have terrible stories. I just said that the story is important for many games and many genres, not just RPGs. That writing a good story takes effort? Well. Actually, I'm not sure what is your point. Breja: Assassin's Creed has one of the worst stories in all of gaming, but that's beside the point.
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