I don't agree. I think Character > Story > gameplay. The Character determines what is possible during the story and both make the gameplay have importance and meaning; which of course makes it more compelling. Hello, TLOU.
More specifically: gameplay is a "tool" that can (and should) be used to tell you the story; a good game wouldn't be a game with only gameplay and no story or vice-versa, but a medium where your action (the gameplay) creates and tells you the story the creator had in mind.
Seen as this, story and gameplay aren't mutually exclusive. But, most people (and apparently project leaders in big studios too) seem to only know stroytelling from movies, and try to apply the set rules (exposition, camera angles and whatnot) that were carefully (and righfully) crafted in the cinema industry over the years. Which are, for the most part, not compliant with gameplay requirements, as they don't forsee any input from the player (or rather spectator).
The industry should move away from the cinema industry a bit, and reasses what possibility the have with gaming as a standalone medium, and not a simple extention from movies.
I'm sure a good chunk of people here have read Watchmen. Alan Moore has said in interviews that one of his goals in writing Watchmen was that he wanted to highlight the unique strengths of the comic medium to tell stories. He said that he wanted to make Watchmen untranslatable into other mediums.
Now, yes, a film adaptation did come out and try to keep as close to the book as possible but it lost a few things. In the comic for instance, there is a chapter called "Fearful Symmetry" where each page mirrors it's opposite page and it does it while giving you tiny clues to who the antagonist is throughout the story. That's an example of a story element that could not be translated into the film medium. Another good one and more obvious is there is a comic within a comic - Tales of the Black Freighter, that is spliced in throughout the series that foreshadows future events. The Director's Cut DVD attempts to do this but the effect is not the same.
So my overall point is that if video game stories should be more like Watchmen (if story is going to be a point of emphasis anyways).
Take a game like Walking Dead. The story of Telltale's Walking Dead can be told entirely in any other medium - comic, book, film without much loss of narrative. Watch a silent Let's Play on YouTube, it pretty much feels like a cartoon mini-series with occasional pauses that take you out of the story. To me, while Walking Dead has a good story, it's not an example of good video game storytelling. Neither is Uncharted, The Last of Us or Spec Ops: The Line.
Obsidian's RPGs to me are a much better example of video game story telling because the entire plot of the game is being constantly rewritten by the player through gameplay. That is an example of something unique to games that movies, books and film does not and cannot do.
Gameplay is central to the medium. If I were to say "Gameplay > Story" for movies, I would obviously (and hilariously) be wrong. If I were to say "story > sound" for music, I would clearly be wrong.
Different mediums have different strengths, and storytelling simply isn't a central part of the gaming medium. It doesn't mean it can't tell stories, just as music can, for instance. It's just not the defining characteristic of the medium.
The gameplay is way way way way worse than the story. The story never stops you from playing the game, because God Forbid you tried to explain a little and ran into a swarm of enemies without the proper preparation, which you in no way should had seen coming. It's like they took in account quick saves as an integral part of the gameplay.
Kingdoms of Amalur on the other hand, gives you extra XP for discovering new locations and finding hidden objects. Rewarding you for exploring and talking the story at your own pace.
This attitude kind of annoys me. Where do people get off saying stuff like this? One of my favourite games of all time is Persona 4 Golden. I don't give a shit about the gameplay. But I should instead be watching movies or playing visual novels? What is the 60+ hour movie equivalent of Persona 4, where I personally move the story forward at my own pace, interact with characters of my choosing, make my own choices, etc? It doesn't exist. So why would you say people like me would be better off not playing games just because I prefer story to gameplay?
Also, people can, you know, play video games, and watch movies, and play visual novels. Enjoying one form of entertainment doesn't exclude you from others.
P4G is the perfect example of why I do not like emphasis on story. RPGs are my favorite genre, so I was excited to play once I got a Vita. Nobody warned me that (aside from one quick battle) I would just be talking to characters and walking around town for the first hour of the game. I'd rather it be a 45 minute cutscene than having to walk around and press buttons to get to the point where the battles actually begin. Still haven't made it past the extended intro because there are loads of other games that actually let me play them after a brief 5-15 minute intro/tutorial.
Which is entirely reasonable, but if you're complaining that a book doesn't have a good enough soundtrack, perhaps you'd find a different form of entertainment more suitable to your tastes. And I don't mean abandoning a particular form of entertainment for good, either.
The argument for gameplay>story is that is the most important aspect for replayability. Using Uncharted 2 as an example, a game that won the GAF GOTY in 2009, you don't have many people signing its praises at this point. Many are saying that the gameplay is dated and difficult to replay, beginning to have quite a negative consensus on GAF. I'd wager something similar will happen to the Last of Us in a short time.
I think when the Neogaf game of the generation votes for last gen are tallied you'll be in for a rude awakening with this.
The people who dislike the game seemingly being more vocal than those who like it on Neogaf when it comes up these days does not represent a consensus.
I need a decent story to hold the gameplay together. If the story is subpar it will hold the entire package back from being exceptional. The games that do both above average will always seem better. Original mechanics are very difficult to come by. Great stories coupled with established gameplay are low hanging fruit, this is why we have so many gameplay clones.
gameplay is dynamic interactivity with huge impact even on small context change (and richness in possibility of interaction and context is rapidly big)
At best story will be a static multi-branch tree (or ramdom but non adhesive small things)
So yeah gameplay far superior to make a complex game with replayability .
Different mediums have different strengths, and storytelling simply isn't a central part of the gaming medium. It doesn't mean it can't tell stories, just as music can, for instance. It's just not the defining characteristic of the medium.
I was arguing this in a different thread a while ago, this I how I think it is:
Gameplay is a defining characteristic of the medium on the level of interaction. The level of interaction in movies is watching and listening(later).
The level of interaction of a book is reading. You can also listen to a book.
But the defining characteristic is only significant on a primary level it does not make it the inherently superior part of the experience.
On a secondary level the information you receive, be it through interacting with the game world or watching moving pictures or reading letters is significant.
There is no such thing as a game that does not tell some sort of story. A story or narrative is rather important for any medium.
A narrative focused game is a controlled story. The gameplay, whether it is moving snake from area to area in the jungle or socializing in persona 4, is how the player can influence that story in his or her own way.
If you look at something like metal gear solid 2 or hotline miami, which communicates vital information and theming through the design of the game, it shows that storytelling doesn't have to be restricted to a rigid story section/gameplay section style.
Those are just glimpses of the story in the game, so you know where to go. Is more like the story supporting gameplay. That doesn't make gameplay part of the story but rather the contrary.
For me it depends on the type of game the devs are trying to make. The Walking Dead, for example, is a story based game so of course they need to value that over the gameplay. But otherwise it shouldn't be a one or the other sort of deal, devs should try their best to make both elements of a game good.
One thing that's been mentioned and I don't agree at all with is the idea that a story is always better told through a movie or a book, than through a video game.
They're technically right, though, games are a terrible medium for story. Like, it's not even close. You have to have never read anything to think games can touch books to tell a story.
Now, for immersion or involvement, that's completely different. Nearly no horror movie apart from the best of the best can get anywhere near the emotions you can live playing Dead Space or Fatal Frame, and even a brilliant attorney movie won't make you as involved as the Ace Attorney series despite its numerous plot holes and flaws.
So in fact, basically everybody in this thread agrees, but from three different perspective:
- "Books or movies > games for story" people are right because games aren't good to tell stories.
- "Story > gameplay" people are right because games have a much more powerful immersion factor than books or movies and for some games that element is more important than the gameplay itself.
- "Gameplay > story" people are right because who cares about story in a shoot'em up or platformer or puzzle game etc.? Games are at their core about gameplay, even if their immersion factor can matter most for some genres or specific games (and even then, story is less important than characters or dialogue or personality or art style or anything else that creates immersion).
Some games go for great gameplay, and some go for great story. Few manage to thrive in both areas. I love some games with great story, some with great gameplay, and some because they manage to do both impeccably.
Examples:
System Shock, as a series, is great in both areas if you are looking for a survival horror FPSRPG. Great lore with exciting and timeless gameplay.
My favorite platformer is Super Mario Bros 3's GBA remake: I've grown up playing it and the game is simply amazing and very fun to play.
Spec Ops The Line has incredibly dull gameplay, but the story more than makes up for it.
However...
I would pick a great game with a great story over one with great gameplay. That is because besides a simple method of having fun, I view games as a potential way to tell interactive stories, a purpose almost nothing in our current world can otherwise achieve. That's why visual novels are one of my favorite genres. With a good story, I form a personal bond with the game, just like I do with good books. Gameplay simply doesn't provide that same potent emotion.
Good story DOES justify poor gameplay unless the gameplay itself worsens the story, and the same works vice versa: A game with a bad story can most of the time be played over and over again because of how fun it is.
That's why my favorite game of all time is...
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward.
Not flawless, but still wonderful story with challenging, though not very good, gameplay. I love it for its story, not for its gameplay.
If you do not think that story can justify bad or lack of gameplay, that's fine. But then, you'll be missing out on wonderful stories like Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, 999, and Spec Ops: The Line.
Bringing adventure game like Ace Attorney, Walking Dead, and Zero Escape into this argument is kinda weird because for those types of game, story IS the gameplay.
I'm saying that you shouldn't be using story-based gameplay as counter-argument for or against story over gameplay.
OP's assertion can't be even applied to game media as a whole, as there are (many) games without actual story that not only work but are the very epitome of what a videogame can defined to be. As such, not only what OP says is invalid in this generic form, but is onthologically incorrect. You may say that for some games a good story may result more relevant than actual gameplay, but that's a whole other thing to say.
Agree with the OP.
I obviously prefer both at the same time. But as long as gameplay is ok, not broken,story comes first for me. Otherwise i could have never finished mass effect.
More specifically: gameplay is a "tool" that can (and should) be used to tell you the story; a good game wouldn't be a game with only gameplay and no story or vice-versa
No. Just no. There is a bazillion examples, more than half the games created from the start in fact, that don't tell a story at all, including most of the masterpieces of the medium.
I have to admit, as I get older games that are just about the gameplay seem less and less important to me, unless the mechanics go beyond 'shooting shit'. I can't play Resogun, it's mindless. Utterly mindless, and although it's mechanically very sound, I can't enjoy it because it's nothingness. And there's no reason games CAN'T be a good vessel for narrative. Narrative is interesting and important to me.
However, I don't find The Last of Us' solution to narrative inclusion particularly good. It's either cutscene or gameplay, and while gameplay acts as the movements between pivotal scenes, the two are almost separate. But, I can't deny I enjoyed the story.
Which brings me onto a game like Gone Home, where world building is a form of narrative. I find these the most interesting and important forms of narrative. And to give The Last of Us it's due, some moments of it allowed for storytelling like this, and they were perfect. This type of narrative is especially powerful in open world games, and I think this is why I gravitate towards open world games.
But when I think about my favourite games, most of them involve some sort of impact in the narrative. Not necessarily binary choices, but moments where you feel you have some impact on the normal authorial method of storytelling. And it also has gameplay that's entertaining to me.
A good story can compensate for mediocre gameplay depending on the genre. However, we don't traditionally play fighting games for their stories, not saying that they can't have good stories but, that you can't substitue story for gameplay in this genre. I mostly agree that gameplay trumps story when given the choice, depending on the genre and whether the quality decrease in gameplay is worth a better story.
Different mediums have different strengths, and storytelling simply isn't a central part of the gaming medium. It doesn't mean it can't tell stories, just as music can, for instance. It's just not the defining characteristic of the medium.
Regardless of it being central or not, that doesn't mean people do not have their preferences regarding what is most important for them in a video game. You brought up the film comparison, but wouldn't it be more apt if someone were to claim "cinematography > story" or "acting > story"? They're both parts of a larger whole, and one does not necessarily take import over the other regarding one's tastes.
I like good stories, but there's no chance I would priorize story over gameplay in games. If I wanted just something to tell me a story I dont want a bad gameplay in my way, so I prefer to read a book or watch a movie.
That said, in games I always prioritize the gameplay. The story is very welcome, but not obligatory.
Er, no, you said you specifically could not think of a game you played for its story, that wasn't an RPG or a story based game. Which in and of itself doesn't really make any sense. You can't think of a non-story based game you played for its story? No kidding... me neither...
Which is entirely reasonable, but if you're complaining that a book doesn't have a good enough soundtrack, perhaps you'd find a different form of entertainment more suitable to your tastes. And I don't mean abandoning a particular form of entertainment for good, either.
That comparison doesn't make any sense. Games and books are not the same thing. Nobody would say that a book doesn't have a good enough soundtrack.
But games can, and often are, more than just gameplay. Some people won't play a game if the visuals are shit. Some won't play a game if the gameplay is shit. Some won't play a game if the story is shit. Why? Because all these things can be a part of a game. And individual people value individual parts differently. A soundtrack however, is not a part of a book, which is why your comparison doesn't make any sense.
Whoa whoa whoa there. ME3 is the finest TPS of last Generation. An a perfect example of gameplay vs story. I like M2 story a lot, but I rarely replay the game in comparison to ME3, because the gameplay is not as good.
it really depends on the game, the genre and the player. generalizations like "story will never compensate" or "it's a video-g-a-m-e, DUH, gameplay always first" are honestly pretty dumb. same for the usual assertions "i'll read a book if i want a good story uhuh" or "who carez all the games' stories are trash".
So you think the story in those games is so much better than the gameplay you don't even need too play them? Sounds like you belong in the story >>> gameplay camp! ;D
Jokes aside, I do think the popularity of Let's Plays shows gameplay isn't always as important as people think. Games can be enjoyed for different reasons and in different ways.
Which is entirely reasonable, but if you're complaining that a book doesn't have a good enough soundtrack, perhaps you'd find a different form of entertainment more suitable to your tastes. And I don't mean abandoning a particular form of entertainment for good, either.
A book doesn't have a soundtrack, most games usually have some kind of story. Bit of a weird comparison there.
And if that soundtrack that comes with the book is fantastic I would still listen to it, the book could be complete dogshit and I would still be entertained. Unless your opinion is "I CAN ONLY ENJOY READING WORDS AND NOTHING ELSE", which would be a bit close-minded.
"Gameplay" is a vague term that could very well include "story" (which itself is vague). If one means the mechanics, then story is not of equal measure. The aesthetics of a game includes far more than story (even when the term is at its most inclusive/vague), all the parts that give a game an atmosphere.
Without managing that much, this conversation is bound to miss a lot of what makes up the experience of a game and remain totally hopeless. Just like every other "story" discussion.
Gameplay ALWAYS trumps story for me. I could care less about a story in a game. If I want a good story, I'll go watch a movie. When I play a game, I need good gameplay. It's as simple as that.
I want both. I'll play a few gameplay only games, mostly short burst stuff. But being a big fan of stories (I do like movies, TV and reading more than gaming most of the time) and still enjoying gaming and having limited time I mostly stick with games where I enjoy the gameplay and story/characters/setting/atmosphere. I play more to veg out and relax rather than for challenge or competitive need or sense of accomplishment etc. as well.
I will have to agree with OP. A great story always makes me excuse some of the flaws the gameplay might have. Although either gameplay or story being crap is something I dont touch no matter how good the other part maybe.
Btw people who say they would rather watch a movie for a good story than have it in a game are being ridiculous. Playing through a story like we do in a video game is miles different and more immersive than just watching a movie.
Bringing adventure game like Ace Attorney, Walking Dead, and Zero Escape into this argument is kinda weird because for those types of game, story IS the gameplay.
I'm saying that you shouldn't be using story-based gameplay as counter-argument to story over gameplay.
It's still gameplay, though. It's still the way a player interacts with the game, therefore it counts as gameplay and it is perfectly comparable in my opinion to any other type of gameplay. If the gameplay for, e.g. Game X is oriented for the story and it still turns out a great game, I don't see what invalidates Game X as a valid argument that story might indeed be more important than gameplay.
Also, a small correction: Zero Escape has puzzle segments that are not directly related to the story. Taken out the characters, most puzzles would still be interesting and make sense. Therefore, story IS NOT all that's about gameplay in Zero Escape VN's.
AA's trials are also debatable to be puzzle or part of the story if you ask me.
Computers back then had games with good stories, eg The Hobbit. But they required a saving system, not available in arcades or consoles.
Ironically arcades changed too, just before the arcade bubble was going to burst
Relying on technology they had to resort to presentation instead of gameplay
Hence why the newer titles fail to be considered as classics, in contrast to the ones you mention. Focus was to make the player feel immersed in the game in a cinematic way. But this made arcade games very expensive to develop for, leading to their economic collapse outside Japan.
Also at that time, both consoles and computers, but especially the latter, were possessed with the FMV craze. Back then it sounded like an amazing and immersive way to tell a story, but it proved very expensive in the long run and without achieving the results it was initially conceived for. There was an effort to make CGI graphics but they were still in their infancy.
But technology progressed. In the post-2000 video games, live actors were substituted with CGI models that were easier to manipulate and develop for, not relying on unaltered film or video material. 3D and immersive worlds are easier to develop as well. It remains to be seen where technology will lead us and whether they'll add a new way of telling a story in video games.
The games you mention are still considered as classics, while games that tried to experiment with new ways of presentation but failed, are hardly remembered.
But it is those games that are actually interesting to study.
I like how some people are pretending most films and books have good stories. Most are just as crappy as stories in most games.
Story is incredibly important to me in games. good gameplay doesn't leave the same kind of impression on me as a good story. Of course I could play games with little or no story for a really long time.
Interesting thread, though for me, even if a games story is amazing, if the gameplay is trite or almost non existent I can't keep going. Recent game that I loved the story but just couldn't actually force myself to continue was Danganrompa 2 sadly. I wanted to just watched it instead.
They're technically right, though, games are a terrible medium for story. Like, it's not even close. You have to have never read anything to think games can touch books to tell a story.
Now, for immersion or involvement, that's completely different. Nearly no horror movie apart from the best of the best can get anywhere near the emotions you can live playing Dead Space or Fatal Frame, and even a brilliant attorney movie won't make you as involved as the Ace Attorney series despite its numerous plot holes and flaws.
Yeah you perfectly got the point, maybe I used "telling a story" in an overly general way in my post, but I agree.
A book is superior for telling a story, but when I play a game I also want to interact with the story, I want to have an impact or play a role. That is, in my opinion, a superior overall experience, and a book can't give that to me.
I don't agree. Games can be an incredible medium to tell stories in an unique way in the form of emergent storytelling. The problem is that most developers don't really know how to do this yet.
Western RPG's show how amazing the gaming medium can be for gamestories. I'm not taking about the written story here, I'm ranking about the story you create for your character. For instance, in Fallout: New Vegas you choose what you do, you choose what factions you join, you choose what kind of person your PC is, you choose your companions and what happens to them. Everytime you play the game this personal story will be different. That's the true greatness of games as a storytelling medium.
Another game that's amazing with this is Crusader Kings 2. It's a strategy game that doesn't really have a story, yet players have written great 100-page stories about the game solely based on stuff that they did in the game. You can't do this with any other storytelling medium.
Gameplay is central to the medium. If I were to say "Gameplay > Story" for movies, I would obviously (and hilariously) be wrong. If I were to say "story > sound" for music, I would clearly be wrong.
Different mediums have different strengths, and storytelling simply isn't a central part of the gaming medium. It doesn't mean it can't tell stories, just as music can, for instance. It's just not the defining characteristic of the medium.
"Gameplay" is a vague term that could very well include "story" (which itself is vague). If one means the mechanics, then story is not of equal measure. The aesthetics of a game includes far more than story (even when the term is at its most inclusive/vague), all the parts that give a game an atmosphere.
Without managing that much, this conversation is bound to miss a lot of what makes up the experience of a game and remain totally hopeless. Just like every other "story" discussion.
This. The fact that makes some games a better place to enjoy an story is the overall experience. A mix of gameplay, visuals and sound, and narrative/story/plot. It has a bit of everything and you are also part of it somehow. It is the superior experience. It is also harder to achieve results because it needs to be good in all departments and also mix them well.
Take a game like Walking Dead. The story of Telltale's Walking Dead can be told entirely in any other medium - comic, book, film without much loss of narrative. Watch a silent Let's Play on YouTube, it pretty much feels like a cartoon mini-series with occasional pauses that take you out of the story. To me, while Walking Dead has a good story, it's not an example of good video game storytelling. Neither is Uncharted, The Last of Us or Spec Ops: The Line.
Obsidian's RPGs to me are a much better example of video game story telling because the entire plot of the game is being constantly rewritten by the player through gameplay. That is an example of something unique to games that movies, books and film does not and cannot do.
The only game I would sorta agree with you is Uncharted, but even then it does many things that really wouldn't work as well in a movie. For example the reason Nathan Drake is so loveable is because all the things he comments on and all the little "No no no no..." during gameplay.
It wouldn't be the same to just watch him go "That's cold" when jumping into water as it is when you are controlling him jumping into water.
Telltales The Walking Dead would not be the same as a tv series. The whole point of the first series is Lee and Clementines releationship, and while you might get the gist of their relationship by just watching it, its way not the same as being Lee. The choices are also something that wouldn't work in the same way in a tv series. While the choices might not mean that much in the end, the moments while you are making those choices are incredible.
The moment when having to decide what to do with Larry in the meat locker, was some of the most incredible experiences I ever had from a game.
You are wrong on The Last of Us and Spec Ops: The Line. Both of those games are games where everything in the game are designed around what it is trying to do. Whether it is how the combat works or how the characters are interacting with each other. The cutscenes in The Last of Us are the least interesting way the game furthers the story or how the characters interact.
Watch the reactions of the people in this video (WARNING, spoiler for the ending of Last of Us), when they reach the
doctors room
and think how they would have reacted if they were watching a movie instead of playing a game.
If you are interested in how Spec Ops: The Line uses the fact that it is a game to almost perfection then watch this and this video (WARNING, second video contains spoilers for Spec Ops: The Line) from Extra Credit. They say it better than I ever could.
Btw, I am not disagreeing with you on Obsidian Entertainment games.
No. Just no. There is a bazillion examples, more than half the games created from the start in fact, that don't tell a story at all, including most of the masterpieces of the medium.
I'd love to have one of those bazillions of examples.
Gameplay is basically your interaction with the game; said interaction bringing changes to the screen (e.g. the character attacks) or in yourselve (e.g. you are shocked by a sudden appearing ennemy).
Both of which, whatever way you look at it, contribute to create the story. It may be a very basic and boring story ("a spacecraft is shooting space invaders"), but it is a story nonetheless.
I think when the Neogaf game of the generation votes for last gen are tallied you'll be in for a rude awakening with this.
The people who dislike the game seemingly being more vocal than those who like it on Neogaf when it comes up these days does not represent a consensus.
