Best and Worst Storytelling/Writing in Video Games

[Brad Millette]

"You look like you got some herpes there. Did you get that from kissing your wife's ass... after I put HERPY in it?"

[ryoken]

Originally Posted by Brad Millette

And there was a Final Fight 2 which completely turned everything you thought about the first one on its head! I mean it wasn't the final fight AT ALL!

But they retconned it in Final Fight 3, Brad; there's a new continuity now.

[Brad Millette]

All I know is at the end of whatever fight actually was final, Cody couldn't stop hitting people, so they put him in jail. Then in Street Fighter Alpha 3, he broke out of jail so he could hit more people.

YOU KNOW WHAT, GAMES = ART.

[ryoken]

Originally Posted by Brad Millette

All I know is at the end of whatever fight actually was final, Cody couldn't stop hitting people, so they put him in jail. Then in Street Fighter Alpha 3, he broke out of jail so he could hit more people.

YOU KNOW WHAT, GAMES = ART.

Sequential art, since he's making a comeback in Super Street Fighter 4.
Also you're missing the context and in depth backstory for Cody provided by "Final Fight Streetwise".

[Kriegaffe]

I think the story telling in games knows it's audience.

1. You are primarily there to play the game, not follow the story. In a book the story has to be interesting/captivating otherwise you'll stop reading. In a game the story can fall flat on its face and it doesn't matter cause 30 seconds later you are blasting stuff again. The an effective story only need add to the overall entertainment package.

2. The setting in most games are generally pulpy sci-fi, adventure, fantasy or horror. The style of the storry telling usually falls in step with this. For example, Uncharted 2 doesn't need to be any more poignant and emotionally moving than Temple of Doom. It just needs to entertain and hit that pulpy adventure tone.

3. While many games have negligible story (Street Fighter II, Tetris), many genre's (RPG's) are quite story heavy. The developers invest a large amount of time into the story and characters and some of these games are quite popular. If we are discussing the best of storytelling in gaming, it seems we need to take the exampels where the developers have tried hardest to make that aspect be effective.

My stance on the 'Are games art?' discussion is I don't think it really matters what the answer is. I find it interesting that developers are trying new things regarding narritive and interactivity and I hope they keep doing it. With that in mind, this thread has been pretty worthwhile in seeing which examples have worked best.

[Wayward_Woman]

Oh god, here I go. Someone slap me, impregnate me and order me back to the kitchen, because as a female, I'm better off fantasizing about creepystalkersparkle vampire.

When defending my selections, I'd say that the strength of Eternal Darkness is that it is able to distill what was so great about Lovecraft and the general idea of cosmic horror, weaving the experiences of several folks from different paths and time periods together to really get the idea of being the playthings of these cthonic creatures. The strength of video games lie in stimulating and engaging your senses in a way traditional fine art and media can't, interacting on a literal level with the medium. If the writing and the storytelling was weaker, we'd lose that sense of horror and unease that fills the game.

Ocarina of Time I think works better when paired with the story of WindWaker, despite that game being much maligned due to its appearance. Yes, there is a rather tedious aspect to some of the gameplay, but again the presentation dictating the rise and fall, if you will, of this kingdom and world isn't as cut and dried as other games. There is political intrigue, corruption, and it's all carried on in a way that evokes (I'd argue) King Arthur with the fully realized world. There is less of a focus on the 'gaminess' and more on the cinematic within the atmosphere of the world.

I'm interested that no-one has raised any objections to the Laura Bow/The longest Journey recommendations, and I believe that's because those sorts of adventure games mechanic wise are more a literal interactive novel than anything else.

And the common theme with a lot of top choices-Fallout, Bioshock, and Uncharted (Though I disagree with it as great storytelling, though good writing), seems to be the consistent and excellent atmosphere that the game world creates.

Oh, and Silent Hill 2. Anything out of that studio tends to be great in the story telling/writing department. Worst? I'll take another franchise for 400, Trebek, and say Resident Evil suffers from some of the worst writing and storytelling, Resident Evil 4 and maybe 2 not withstanding. Then again, I'm not sure how much of that is intentional.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman

Oh god, here I go. Someone slap me, impregnate me and order me back to the kitchen, because as a female, I'm better off fantasizing about creepystalkersparkle vampire.

Nah, fuck that, I like your contribution. I just watched too much Mad Men the other night.

[Wayward_Woman]

Hey, it's all cool. And thank you! Always reading this site and sometimes wary about posting. The acerbic wit on display it thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

[Chris Spider]

...Question from the noob: Does Brad always derail threads like this, or did I do something wrong?

[ryoken]

Same boat as Jake here, although I'd like to point out that the creator of Resident Evil went off to make "God hand", which earns him a pardon from the crime of shitty storytelling, dammit!

[ryoken]

Originally Posted by Chris Spider

...Question from the noob: Does Brad always derail threads like this, or did I do something wrong?

I think he has some new age version of Tourette's syndrome, so we just play along.

[Kriegaffe]

Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman

And the common theme with a lot of top choices-Fallout, Bioshock, and Uncharted (Though I disagree with it as great storytelling, though good writing), seems to be the consistent and excellent atmosphere that the game world creates.

I agree. While narrative might be a weakness, world building is a strength of video games. Certainly in open world or adventure games there's a lot of scope to explore your surroundings. My main memory of Final Fantasy XII was not the actual story during the game, but the history of the cities and locations.

Atmosphere too is very effective in titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I think it's interesting because these aspects have nothiing to do with gameplay, but are some of the core reasons RPGs (world building) and horror games (atmosphere) are successful.

I also suspect that an average story with good gameplay and a lot of atmosphere in a detailed and interesting world, probably seems like a better story than it actually is.

[blunderbuss]

Originally Posted by Kriegaffe

I agree. While narrative might be a weakness, world building is a strength of video games. Certainly in open world or adventure games there's a lot of scope to explore your surroundings. My main memory of Final Fantasy XII was not the actual story during the game, but the history of the cities and locations.

I've never met a person who has owned up to thumbing through the thousands of pages of background glurge present in many RPGs. Codex entries in BioWare and Bethesda games are just experience point fodder, and such world-building would be (slightly) more convincing if you weren't met with invisible boundary boxes everywhere you turn.

[Kriegaffe]

Originally Posted by blunderbuss

I've never met a person who has owned up to thumbing through the thousands of pages of background glurge present in many RPGs. Codex entries in BioWare and Bethesda games are just experience point fodder, and such world-building would be (slightly) more convincing if you weren't met with invisible boundary boxes everywhere you turn.

I never read all of the stuff, but I certainly read some of it. I didn't use the Internet or listen to the radio much in GTA IV for example. However, I am a big fan of games with bestiaries. I love reading about how that thing I just killed was the zombie corpse from a lost platoon, captured by the witch women in the jade hills and transformed into undead headless warriors, etc. Some of it is world building, and some of it is just an excuse for the developers to have some fun and get creative.

The world will only be as big as the developer is willing to put effort into it. I think some games have carried out the illusion better than others. Personally I found, Fallout 3's repeated architecture and boundaries in the city immensely frustrating for what initially seemed to be a huge world. In comparison Uncharted 2 is quite linear, but it's locations were memorable due to the detail involved.

[Dr Syn]

gonna have to trumpet the Legacy of Kain games (minus Blood Omen 2)

Plus the voice acting to back it up spades (Michael Bell, the late Tony Jay and the ever dependable Simon Templeman)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmoz3a4kJ3Q

[Justin Clark]

Yeah, the writing and presentation carried the Legacy of Kain series way past its expiration date as a gameplay experience.

[Reasor]

I found myself wishing that the radio stations in Fallout 3 had more songs.

My boss dug the audio even more. He downloaded every GNR Radio track and made it the music you hear when you call our store's number and get put on hold. It's a wonder he didn't put "Butcher Pete" in there twice.

[Arjen Rudd]

Tragically, I realized that if someone made a Final Fight movie, I'd go see it with no hesitation. It would kind of be like Taken, I suppose.

And speaking of Bad Dudes and great storytelling, this is truly immortal.


Also. In the recent Dragon Age days, it became clear that without the story, there's virtually nothing holding your average RPG together, and it pretty much lives or dies on how good the story and the world are.

[danko]

Originally Posted by Brad Millette

Planescape is sort of like a really convoluted choose-your-own-adventure more than it is a game. I've never really understood the hype. There's so many better books you can read.

Originally Posted by Brad Millette

I'm beginning to think this thread should be called "We Don't Read Books".

I read a shitload of books thanks.
I have *several* rooms FULL of them in my house and read something every single night. Actually, I should probably read less.
Anyway, I read enough to know there are a lot worse stories than the one told in Torment, which is something really unique also because of the perfect blend with the music, the fitting voices, and the overall sad, evoking atmosphere.
I strongly suggest it, even though I admit it's not the most "interactive" kind of game.

[Brad Millette]

Torment is an okay fantasy novel, but that's not really high praise.

[Alex B]

'Not the worst story ever told' has been the best anybody seems to have been able to muster in the 4 pages of this thread, though.

[Spike Marshall]

I think the key question is what are the criteria that make an actual great videogame story. Because tradtitional story values don’t really cut it. I mean we can’t expect videogames to be insightful or tell us about the human condition or psychology, so do we then have to judge videogame plots using different criteria. Even the stuff Tim Schafer does is inevitably more about great character work and fantastic set piece/level design than an actual coherent plot. It’s why I’m always wary of games that aspire to be movies, because the mediums are so different that essentially you start to sacrifice the satisfying ‘game’ elements to make way for the ‘movie’ element. Uncharted is one of the few games I know which manages this balance and I still have no idea how it does it.

[Justin Clark]

I need to give those games another playthrough to see how they stack up, but I remember the Pirate logs in the first Metroid Prime coming off pretty strong as a sort of optional storytelling.

[Spike Marshall]

Here’s an example. The overall narrative in Borderlands is pretty terrible, it’s sparse and underdeveloped and ends with a weird ‘gotcha’ moment which really makes no sense. Essentially plot is secondary to the experience of Borderlands. However the macro-Narratives found within the fetch quests, in particular Dr. Tannis’ increasingly unstable rants, are actually really well done, and go a long way to injecting some personality into the sparse gameworld.

[Brad Millette]

Oh god, seriously, it's a fun game, but don't try to use fucking BORDERLANDS as an example of good storytelling in the medium, because it is objectively garbage. There's some funny jokes in it, but again, the found object stories are just the same thing that's already been done (and better, and still not that great since it's a pretty lazy device) by many other games. Beyond that, there's practically no story to speak of whatsoever. I mean there's a thing in a tomb and a lady in a satellite and some aliens and absolutely no explanation why any of this should matter.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall

However the macro-Narratives found within the fetch quests, in particular Dr. Tannis’ increasingly unstable rants, are actually really well done, and go a long way to injecting some personality into the sparse gameworld.

Not really. It's a lot of fun shooting stuff and collecting guns, though!

[Brad Millette]

Also "macro-Narrative"? You're just making this shit up now.

[Alex B]

As somebody else has pointed out I think, all the examples of 'good storytelling' cited so far have simply been aspects of a game that serve to add a layer of atmosphere and immersion into the game world rather than advance some kind of narrative. No matter how fun it is to pick up discarded logs or messages throughout Bioshock or Metroid, they're not essential to your enjoyment of the central storyline.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Alex B

As somebody else has pointed out I think, all the examples of 'good storytelling' cited so far have simply been aspects of a game that serve to add a layer of atmosphere and immersion into the game world rather than advance some kind of narrative. No matter how fun it is to pick up discarded logs or messages throughout Bioshock or Metroid, they're not essential to your enjoyment of the central storyline.

Exactly. Even Justin calling it "optional storytelling" hits me as a little TOO generous, because honestly all this stuff is secondary to the main plot 99.8% of the time. Do we really need to know that the doctor tortured people while going apeshit and eventually becoming a Splicer in the Surgery section of Bioshock? Not really, the game shows us all of the botched surgeries and we can safely assume that there's a fucked-up doctor behind it. Etc.

[Spike Marshall]

Originally Posted by Brad Millette

Oh god, seriously, it's a fun game, but don't try to use fucking BORDERLANDS as an example of good storytelling in the medium, because it is objectively garbage. There's some funny jokes in it, but again, the found object stories are just the same thing that's already been done (and better, and still not that great since it's a pretty lazy device) by many other games. Beyond that, there's practically no story to speak of whatsoever. I mean there's a thing in a tomb and a lady in a satellite and some aliens and absolutely no explanation why any of this should matter.

That’s pretty much 80% of what I said. I admitted, right from the off, that Borderlands has a terrible story. I was just using the found objects as an example of ways that games tend to work with narratives in ways that aren’t easily contextualised. Personally I found the good doctors audio logs to be one of the more amusing aspects of the game, partially because of the script, partially because the voice actress was pretty great (imo), but I recognise that with stuff like that it really is a ‘your mileage may vary’ sort of thing. I think a lot of the great narratives that people talk about in games are actually well designed worlds more than anything else, and I think that’s the limit to storytelling in games in general. Whilst stories can offer propulsion to a game, what people remember more than anything else is the world building and that’s because invariably in videogames you as a player are creating the narrative yourself, through your unscripted actions. It’s why despite GTA 4 having one of the more forthright story led campaigns of recent games, the narratives I remember are all from unscripted moments in free-mode.

Also I apologise for macro-history. I’m in the midst of essay writing and these bullshit history research colloquialisms keep worming their way into my general speech.

[ryoken]

Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd

Tragically, I realized that if someone made a Final Fight movie, I'd go see it with no hesitation. It would kind of be like Taken, I suppose.

I wouldnt...after "Double Dragon", i couldn't muster any blind hope.
It took a lot for Mark Dacascos to get back in my good book after that.

EDIT: I will admit that back in the 80's (or early 90's) a "Contra" movie with Arnold and Sly would do it for me.

[DennisFT]

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[soylentgreen]

Going back a ways, the original Max Payne is still one of my favorite game narratives. Being predisposed to noir films and Norse mythology probably helps in that regard, but the clever and well-voiced delivery of an arguably kooky conspiracy story really propelled me through.

[Luca S.]

I thought Max Payne was super awesome as a 16 year old, but having replayed it last year the VO was pretty hilarious.

SNOW STABBED ME IN THE EYE LIKE A DEVIL'S PITCHFORK

[Jake]

Plus Payne's constant "I'M SHITTING BARBED WIRE EXCUSE ME AGAIN" facial expression is hilarious.

[Anderson]

I forgot how much comedy gold is in this thread.

[dontEATnachos]

The only thing that makes Max Payne's story enjoyable is the overwrought way EVERYTHING is described. I miss the guy they used in the comic panels in the original though. A scrawny looking guy who was obviously a developer or something on the game. Kind of the same way that Army of Two's story is great actually.

Having just finished Mirror's Edge, I have to say that the voice acting was fine but the cell animation cutscenes kind of sucked and the story itself was just kind of odd and didn't make a lot of sense.

[BUtterfield8]

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid is flawed, yes. Sons of Liberty is a post-modernist mess, absolutely. But Snake Eater is gaming's best take on the James Bond/superagent motif.

1. The time period and setting transforms the game. Playing through Snake Eater when it launched in November 2004 I continually reminisced about seeing First Blood for the first time as a child, and what making one's way through a cave with a torch must be like. You have "radar like" technology, admittedly, but I enjoyed the game most when I chose to play it on "its" terms and eschewed using the radar, opting for a naturalistic/visual style of play. That's immersion.

2. You must escape! In Snake Eater, once the "final boss" is destroyed, you have a 20 minute egress you have to complete. Gone was the "boss defeated, game over, revel in your accomplishment, play again" screen. Snake Eater's pacing felt perfect in all the right places, especially at the end.

3. The music/themes. There's a moment 2/5ths through Snake Eater where you're slowly moving down a canopied river, ducking into the water repeatedly to avoid overhead patrols. All the while, the game's James Bond era theme is quietly playing in the background. Similarly, after you defeat The End, you climb a vertical tunnel for 3-4 minutes while being prompted onward by the same stirring music.

I hope they release Subsistence on PSN someday. I would like to play with the improved camera angles.

[Brad Millette]

frooooooooooooooooown.

[ryoken]

MGS3 is easily the best and most centered of the series (Centered being Kojima showing some degree of restraint), but its not a masterpiece or anything.
Although I will give the "hardest boss in the game is a long ass ladder" thing a thumbs up.

[Kriegaffe]

Ok, here's one for worst storytelling, Assassin's Creed. And not for the reason's you might think.

I got the game cheap and I've been playing it today... there is no subtitle option.

It's the middle of summe rhere and the PS3 fan is constantly kicking on. Between that noise, the accents and background noise it's very difficult to follow the dialogue. Annoying! (Oh well, I here the story is mostly crap anyway)

[LeRolls]

I thoroughly enjoyed the writing for the Ghostbusters fan. Felt so right and the voice acting was great.