Interficium
Banned
It's an easy criticism of probably one of the most subjective aspects of evaluating a video game, so it's easy to just shitpost "the story sux" with the knowledge that nobody will call you out to elaborate.
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Is it commonplace to label videogame stories as 'shitty'?
- Thread starter Thickstone
- Start date
I think it depends on how much suspension of disbelief you're willing to put up with in terms of marrying the writing to a 12-hour action game with endless arena combat with either gunmen or zombies. The writing in Naughty Dog's games has to work around the fact that the protagonists get into lethal gunfights against impossible odds and win through every single time, dozens of times in a row, putting even films like Commando to shame because that's what people bought it for. And then solve puzzles with climbing over rubble and blocks etc, again and again, because there's only so many mechanical challenges they can put in.
I like the core story of TLOU, and found the exploration scenes nicely done with great characters, on its own it's a great zombie tale. However, I found the need for it to be a third person zombie shooter because that was in vogue means that the story about human fragility and desperation and the sheer amount of killing in the actual gameplay don't work that well together.
It's something that games are really going to have to get past at some point, that telling a writer they need to stitch fifty combat encounters into a tale roughly the length of a short novel to keep the people who wanted a shooter happy isn't going to lead to a perfect marriage of story, characters, action and consequence that makes sense. It's what leads to people saying 'it was good. For a game.'
Some people play them and assume that the fifty gunfights can be abstracted into about five, that they are just padding out the run time as nobody wants to finish a £50 game in four hours. I find that I'd be increasingly happy with games finding mechanics that work well with interactive storytelling that aren't just about killing stuff and then killing more reinforcements to pad out the clock. There must be more ways to design a game encounter with win/loss conditions than 'kill everything' and stealth. Not everything needs to be a heroic quest with hundreds of baddies to be despatched either. Maybe have fewer mass-combat encounters but make each one and the lead-up to it meaningful, if the characters are normal humans rather than space marines or superheroes, leaving the arenas for those who want online play with little story. Until that point, if I want to experience a good post-apocalyptic tale, I'll be sticking with books that don't feel the need to have the player be a superman gunfighter that defeats ten men before breakfast every day in order to feel like a survivor. My favourite is Earth Abides, that tells a great tale of fledgling communities and cultural shift over generations with all of about one page of violence.
Having said all that, I think TLOU is rightly seen as a step in the right direction, and I don't blame them for any decisions they made in order for people to buy their game. People like shooting zombies, it's just that for the AAA games with the budget to marry cinematics, writing and play, they are looking at selling a combat game to people who want hours of combat, and so for now those writers really aren't dictating what most of the run time is about, even for more story-led genres like RPGs.
Agree that Alien Isolation was good though- it had some great ideas, one of my favourites this gen.
TL
R: the ridiculously one-sided marriage of combat and story in games works against even good stories by depicting the protagonists as superhumanly dangerous in combat, even when they aren't supposed to be.BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE LAZY AND WHEN THEY WRITE LONG WELL CONSTRUCTED ARGUMENTS THEY GET DISMISSED WITH "IT'S JUST YOUR OPINION" SHTICK.
Yeah that's why. We should just stopped having discussion forum altogether if opinions are not worth for being discussed. Other problem which I can't blame those people for, is that they can't well formulate on what makes those story bad and just rather resort to lazy ass one liner comment.
Yeah that's why. We should just stopped having discussion forum altogether if opinions are not worth for being discussed. Other problem which I can't blame those people for, is that they can't well formulate on what makes those story bad and just rather resort to lazy ass one liner comment.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
Here we have the video game player giving an absolutely worthless short yet detailed description of his absolutely absurd thoughts comparing the always brilliant Cormac McCarthy to the immediately disposable story of a video game.
Thankfully an intellectual and obviously superior book reader has come along to dismiss such trite opinions with a proper rebuttal.
dead souls
Member
It's commonplace because it's true.
Video game stories are almost entirely awful. Lol at people namedropping Naughty Dog in here. They're one of the worst. All their modern games scream "I wish I could be making a film, but I clearly lack the talent to do so."
Video game stories are almost entirely awful. Lol at people namedropping Naughty Dog in here. They're one of the worst. All their modern games scream "I wish I could be making a film, but I clearly lack the talent to do so."
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
.......Have you ever seen Aliens? Or watch movies at all because lol you chose the worst possible example to prove your point.Honestly, stories in video games are still better than in majority of modern Hollywood movies. And same for dialogues and writing.
Typical american movie for example:
^ William Shakespeare would be jealous
DeathbyCheerios
Member
Well I have people constantly tell me that the only good writing is in books so honestly I don't care. I don't really like to read books I prefer more interactive story telling anyways.
Most opinions about anything are just a regurgitation. We borrow a lot what others feel and say and prop them up as our own. You could spend your life wondering why/how.
So, yes, you're right. People say that a lot, and often with little thought behind it.
Popular opinion is a bitch, whatever way it swings.
I mean, people (en masse) think GoT or Breaking Bad is "good writing" so, whatever. It's 2017. Everything is terrible except what mainstream decides isn't and that stuff isn't great, it's revolutionary.
The average person doesn't justify what they say to any extent, only what they feel. Other's tell them that is OK. Thus you get "this story sucks" from a guy who literally never thought about the story for more than a second. And now we will get people saying Dur! He shouldn't have to blah blah I'm going back to my hole.
So, yes, you're right. People say that a lot, and often with little thought behind it.
Popular opinion is a bitch, whatever way it swings.
I mean, people (en masse) think GoT or Breaking Bad is "good writing" so, whatever. It's 2017. Everything is terrible except what mainstream decides isn't and that stuff isn't great, it's revolutionary.
The average person doesn't justify what they say to any extent, only what they feel. Other's tell them that is OK. Thus you get "this story sucks" from a guy who literally never thought about the story for more than a second. And now we will get people saying Dur! He shouldn't have to blah blah I'm going back to my hole.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
This means the problem is your short attention span, not the films you watch.
Manny Calavera
Member
Games aren't obviously as dependent of story like books and movies and I also don't think games require as good stories since the level of immersion is different while playing and it's one of the reasons I'm a lot forgiving when it comes to game stories compared to movies and books. But I do believe there are some games with a pretty good stories.
Here's some that came first to mind
The Last of Us
Uncharted 4
Grim Fandango
The Secret of Monkey Island and Lechuck's Revenge
Gabriel Knight trilogy
Life is Strange
The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us
The Red Dead Redemption
The Witcher 3
Alan Wake
Ocarina of Time
To the Moon
Portal 2
NieR: Automata
And I even think story in Heavy Rain has definitely some interesting elements to it.
Here's some that came first to mind
The Last of Us
Uncharted 4
Grim Fandango
The Secret of Monkey Island and Lechuck's Revenge
Gabriel Knight trilogy
Life is Strange
The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us
The Red Dead Redemption
The Witcher 3
Alan Wake
Ocarina of Time
To the Moon
Portal 2
NieR: Automata
And I even think story in Heavy Rain has definitely some interesting elements to it.
Manny Calavera
Member
You should definitely try to watch some Andrei Tarkosvky movies like Stalker, The Mirror and Andrei Rublev and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just might be your cup of tea.
Tarextherex
Banned
That's not only a videogame problem, look at any medium that has a geek following(animation, comics, sci-fi/fantasy books/movies). You got people that don't even have college education talking about stuff they don't truly understand, they don't even know what objective/subjective means. Therefore, those people end up preaching the most "serious" stories as "objective GOATs"; it's either Naughty Dog or "artsy auteur indie game" with basically nothing inbetween.
That is a very shallow way of looking at story in games because they aren't purely storytelling mediums. Story in a game complements the gameplay. Here's an example: while the Tales of Symphonia anime ova is pretty well made, you're better off watching basically any fantasy anime out there for a better experience; it adapts pretty accurately the source but doesn't really add anything to it. Therefore, when you just watch 6 episodes of anime and encounter the infamous "mid-game twist", you don't really feel anything. In the game though, when you go through about 20 hours of gameplay including a much higher amount of dialogue/skits, then you witness the twist that directly impacts your gaming experience... well that's how scenarisation elevates a game. That is why the way people look at storytelling in games is mostly shallow, they basically judge it as "how they would look adapted as a movie/book" when writing for a game is very different, you don't convey emotion the same way you would do as writing a book or directing a movie
That is a very shallow way of looking at story in games because they aren't purely storytelling mediums. Story in a game complements the gameplay. Here's an example: while the Tales of Symphonia anime ova is pretty well made, you're better off watching basically any fantasy anime out there for a better experience; it adapts pretty accurately the source but doesn't really add anything to it. Therefore, when you just watch 6 episodes of anime and encounter the infamous "mid-game twist", you don't really feel anything. In the game though, when you go through about 20 hours of gameplay including a much higher amount of dialogue/skits, then you witness the twist that directly impacts your gaming experience... well that's how scenarisation elevates a game. That is why the way people look at storytelling in games is mostly shallow, they basically judge it as "how they would look adapted as a movie/book" when writing for a game is very different, you don't convey emotion the same way you would do as writing a book or directing a movie
Psychoward
Banned
This board....
The Albatross
Member
Videogame stories are typically pretty bad. Super low budget movie grade stories, or stories that are simply non-nonsensical because of the breadth of the game.
Naughty Dog games also do not have good stories, but they do have good writing, voice acting, and character animation/detail. But there's very little story to any of the games other than "Nathan needs this thing. Someone else, an evil person, also wants this thing. Nathan has allies that follow along with him."
Videogames can tell a story in a way that few other mediums can, and so some games do that very well, even if they have otherwise bad stories. Half-Life 2 tells a great story about the world, but the main story is ho-hum; Dishonored 1 and 2 have great world-building story-telling, but again the main story is fairly parochial; The Elder Scrolls has a typically terrible fan fic main story, but the world building and lore is top notch and intermixed so well throughout the game.
Games can have really strong narrative and world-building, and it's something that games can do uniquely versus other medium like books, movie, or TV, where they really have to put something in front of the consumer to digest it.
But, the story in most games is utterly terrible. Games that do have good stories are often too large and too meandering to be a well told, concise story. For instance, GTA:SA and VC have strong central narratives, which makes sense because they're ripoffs of other stories from the same genre (crime fiction), but both are large, sprawling games, with involved side stories and meandering other narratives. Those narratives wouldn't work for any other medium but videogames, so if you slice those off, you get a nice, tight story, but most of what makes those games popular is the meandering side activities.
--
Bioshock... and Bioshock Infinite. Incredible worlds, nonsense stories.
Naughty Dog games also do not have good stories, but they do have good writing, voice acting, and character animation/detail. But there's very little story to any of the games other than "Nathan needs this thing. Someone else, an evil person, also wants this thing. Nathan has allies that follow along with him."
Videogames can tell a story in a way that few other mediums can, and so some games do that very well, even if they have otherwise bad stories. Half-Life 2 tells a great story about the world, but the main story is ho-hum; Dishonored 1 and 2 have great world-building story-telling, but again the main story is fairly parochial; The Elder Scrolls has a typically terrible fan fic main story, but the world building and lore is top notch and intermixed so well throughout the game.
Games can have really strong narrative and world-building, and it's something that games can do uniquely versus other medium like books, movie, or TV, where they really have to put something in front of the consumer to digest it.
But, the story in most games is utterly terrible. Games that do have good stories are often too large and too meandering to be a well told, concise story. For instance, GTA:SA and VC have strong central narratives, which makes sense because they're ripoffs of other stories from the same genre (crime fiction), but both are large, sprawling games, with involved side stories and meandering other narratives. Those narratives wouldn't work for any other medium but videogames, so if you slice those off, you get a nice, tight story, but most of what makes those games popular is the meandering side activities.
--
Bioshock... and Bioshock Infinite. Incredible worlds, nonsense stories.
Coinspinner
Member
A video game story has to be fit into place around the gameplay, so there's a narrow range of stories that will fit and fewer that will support and be supported by the gameplay. A lot of players won't care about the story anyway, so often it's just there to be there.
Psychoward
Banned
...bashing an entire movie's writing off of a single line that's well acted and realistic makes zero fucking sense. I vastly prefer Alien but what the hell?Honestly, stories in video games are still better than in majority of modern Hollywood movies. And same for dialogues and writing.
Typical american movie for example:
^ William Shakespeare would be jealous
And saying typical American movie and invoking Shakespeare lol, this is some real r/iamverysmart shit
Sinh_Magnus
Member
They are a good amount of well-written stories out there, it's just that there are so many games nowadays that it's almost impossible to play them without really sacrificing a lot of time of your life.
I'm glad to see that this view is more mainstream these days. I remember when Bioshock Infinite came out, everyone was telling me that my mind would be blown by how amazing the story was.
George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
When video games try to emulate movies by going all cinematic with their presentation and writing, it makes the bad writing all the more noticeable. Even Naughty Dog games aren't exempt from this. Just compare those games to any well-written movie and it shows.
It's why I really don't give much of a shit about video game stories anymore. I'm just here for the gameplay.
It's why I really don't give much of a shit about video game stories anymore. I'm just here for the gameplay.
shira
Member
I don't particularly like Naughty Dog either. I mean it's somewhat better than the rest, but not to my satisfaction.
autoduelist
Member
Honestly, stories in video games are still better than in majority of modern Hollywood movies. And same for dialogues and writing.
Typical american movie for example:
^ William Shakespeare would be jealous
Lol. Great scene, famous line, in a masterpiece of an action film from a franchise that gave us perhaps the strongest female lead ever [and starting in 1979!] used as an example of 'typical American movie'... this thread delivers in unexpected ways.
MegaSackman
Member
I think in this century there are more interesting stories in games than in movies and series. There's also a lot of more games too which can cloud judgement.
Psychoward
Banned
"I am a gamer" the post basically
Mr.Deadshot
Member
It's like in all media. Some of them are great, some good, some mediocre, some shitty. It really depends on the game.
Manny Calavera
Member
The things you read in this board. You've got to see it to believe it.
Of course most games have better stories than lets say for example the following modern hollywood films.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
There Will be Blood
No Country for Old Men
Memento
Mulholland Dr.
The Tree of Life
Adaptation
The Children of Men
Sideways
Added a couple of more
Manchester by the Sea
Arrival
Zodiac
Black Swan
The Master
Also you chose as an example a movie that most definitely is not modern nor badly written.
Also a slightly odd example considering how many games use Alien/Aliens as an inspiration.
James Scott
Banned
The best video game stories are character based. Like Persona games which you play to get to know the characters not because the actual plot is good (because they're not)
Most are either bad or good with less than ideal gameplay like Telltale's early stuff
Games should strive to be more like TV seasons rather than movies because the time sink usually works with more long form stories found in TV shows.
Most are either bad or good with less than ideal gameplay like Telltale's early stuff
Games should strive to be more like TV seasons rather than movies because the time sink usually works with more long form stories found in TV shows.
MegaSackman
Member
And you didn't read me saying how silly and bland The Tree of Life is.
There are a couple of classics on your list tho.
Diprosalic
Banned
lol no. not even close. games that get praised for good writing are often C-movie levels of bad.
video game stories are almost exclusively bad and i avoid them at all costs.
Compared to the best stories in other mediums the best stories in video games are indeed shitty.
Wut.
Wut.
video game writing wrestles w/ the medium and all the hands in the pot, in general it will be confused and struggle to be held together but I mean there are a lot of little great moments, intentional or unintentional.
i feel like itll really blossom once the medium grows older or settles down even a lil bit, and if the tools for creation become more accessible. love diy shit like undertale, I feel like the best writing will def come from ppl fucking around and making their own shit vs. the stuff that will pop out of big corps like naughty dog
i feel like itll really blossom once the medium grows older or settles down even a lil bit, and if the tools for creation become more accessible. love diy shit like undertale, I feel like the best writing will def come from ppl fucking around and making their own shit vs. the stuff that will pop out of big corps like naughty dog
Manny Calavera
Member
I must have missed that.
Personally for me The Tree of Life gets better the more I see it and I think the film is hugely ambitious and complex and the screenplay is filled with several references to literature and might be too much to take in on a single viewing. Of course most of the impact of the film still comes from the sheer visual beauty.
Diprosalic
Banned
MegaSackman
Member
How far behind is the story in The Swapper from Arrival?
Storytelling issues aside (the game is as indie as it can be and a puzzle game) I think The Swapper has nothing to be ashamed for, is a fantastic story (that happens to affect gameplay too).
Storytelling issues aside (the game is as indie as it can be and a puzzle game) I think The Swapper has nothing to be ashamed for, is a fantastic story (that happens to affect gameplay too).
lightchris
Member
That's a very good point. Video game stories have to be evaluated in the context of the game.
It's also the main reason I'm not in the "I don't care about story, just give me gamplay" camp. Depending on the game the story can have a huge impact on my enjoying of it. That doesn't mean the storytelling can compete directly with the best of other media, but it can still be just as good and important embedded in its own context.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
Video game stories would actually fare better if they focused on tone rather than plot.
I know a good Cormac McCarthy book to use as an example.
I know a good Cormac McCarthy book to use as an example.
Waddle Dee
Member
A lot of the best stories in games are the ones that are accidentally hysterical, like the Resident Evil games. I'll take those over "legitimately good" stories in any medium, with very few exceptions.
Starlightmuse
Member
Honestly I'll take Undertale, Nier or the witcher 3 stories over most hollywood movies' stories, so I disagree with most of the opinions in this thread.
I've seen hundreds of movies and I've read many books, still I don't think story focused videogames have nothing to be ashamed against books and movies.
I've seen hundreds of movies and I've read many books, still I don't think story focused videogames have nothing to be ashamed against books and movies.
OmegaTreeFish
Banned
A games problem with telling a story if that it has to also be a game. Pacing suffers hugely because of this. If you took a story as long as lord of the rings and made a game with the exact same story it would take 200-300 hours to complete and ruin it.
The games that work best with story are the ones that either make that its focus to the point gameplay has little to do with it (think tales from the borderlands) or more typical pc rpg games (baldurs gate, shadow run dragon fall) where text is used so it takes qualities from books and exploration of you environment that actually does something only games can do. But these also suffer from pacing.
Games that focus to much on player choice often suffer as well mainly because they often want to always have a good and bad option for everything. You then end up with a both nonsensical and boring story where you are the hero of everything and no ones dies. Elder Scrolls is terrible foe this. Witch does it a bit better with often questionable results no matter you choice but still falls into the good / bad bracket to often. A solid story is driven by the vision of the author so player choice often damages this completely. But player choice is fun so its a choice the developer has to make.
Its why most game types are better off with simpler or completely bonkers stories that just help tie the gameplay together.
Long story short - gameplay and story telling often conflict to often to meld well together. One is going to have to suffer for the other to thrive
The games that work best with story are the ones that either make that its focus to the point gameplay has little to do with it (think tales from the borderlands) or more typical pc rpg games (baldurs gate, shadow run dragon fall) where text is used so it takes qualities from books and exploration of you environment that actually does something only games can do. But these also suffer from pacing.
Games that focus to much on player choice often suffer as well mainly because they often want to always have a good and bad option for everything. You then end up with a both nonsensical and boring story where you are the hero of everything and no ones dies. Elder Scrolls is terrible foe this. Witch does it a bit better with often questionable results no matter you choice but still falls into the good / bad bracket to often. A solid story is driven by the vision of the author so player choice often damages this completely. But player choice is fun so its a choice the developer has to make.
Its why most game types are better off with simpler or completely bonkers stories that just help tie the gameplay together.
Long story short - gameplay and story telling often conflict to often to meld well together. One is going to have to suffer for the other to thrive
Flying Toaster
Member
Telling a story in a video game is a lot harder as it is an interactive story. All the elements such as sound design, set pieces, gameplay, mechanics all contribute to the overall story. I feel like cinema there are a few gems and the rest is either utter rubbish or hyper focused on one aspect to be great in a very niche area leaving the rest of the game up in the air.
That is not to say there are not some great stories but they are few and far between.
That is not to say there are not some great stories but they are few and far between.