Support NeoGAF

[Markoman]

Yup, recently played Just Cause 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider and every audio-log, cut-scene, story-aspect became annoying pretty fast.

What's the point of immitating Hollywood when Hollywood has completely lost it's mojo?

 

[Wensih]

Have you played the Zero Escape series?

Yeah... they're not very good...

 

[Lime]

My biggest problem is that developers and publishers spend millions of dollars on extravagant cutscenes, amazing animation technology, voice acting and directors, soundtrack composers and all kinds of people working towards establishing a narrative, yet yet the script and the thematic premise of the game is severely disjointed and independent from the game production in itself. Writers are told to write various justifications of stabbing and shooting dudes or exploding buildings out of nowhere, and it's just an impossible task.

The audiovisual presentation in Rise of the Tomb Raider costs millions of dollars, yet the script is some of the worst trash I've ever come across in recent years.

 

[humansarehorses]

People are mixing up plenty of different things.

The story can be interesting even if the writing isn't great. This applies to most fantasy and sci-fi books I've read (like ASOIAF) and plenty of video games.

The story can be well told even if the story isn't particularly interesting. Video games can do story telling incredibly well by interweaving it with the gameplay.

The prose can be top-notch even if the story itself is ho-hum like in Junot Diaz's books.

Characters can be well developed even if the story is as plain as can be. Television and smaller budget movies have this down.

 

[Zxrophantom]

I get it when you compare them to books, in which that is where books shine. Call me a game story defender but i feel people go over the top in bashing game stories. Like other forms of visual media, story can at times take a hit in order to serve the spectacle of the visual nature of said media. Which is why movies, tv, comics, and games all can be quite all over the place when it comes to the quality of the story. There is a lot of flat stories out there and a lot of interesting one if you look. It also depends on the person as different stories appeal to different people. That even holds up for books as someone can eat up a cheesy fun B level sci-fi story while others would call it corny trash.

 

[b0bbyJ03]

The story isn't as important as the dialogue and the sense that you're watching a natural interaction (acting can play a major role in this). I think that the uncharted games are proof of this. The stories are just ok, yet its fun to watch and the characters are engaging in a way that makes you emotionally invested. Witcher 3 is another example of this. All of the quests have great dialogue and are engaging enough to make the player invested in whats happening. Just my two cents.

 

[Funyarinpa]

Try Thomas Was Alone, OP. Really liked the story of that one.

Also, there's many amazing story-based games out there. It's just that (especially for mainstream genres and big-budget games) the medium hasn't experimented enough with how it can tell a story.

 

[bobawesome]

That's because the vast majority of stories are trash and cater to a large audience. If you're looking for a good story you'll have to look deeper than AAA blockbuster titles the majority of the time. Visual novels as a whole get an immense amount of flack because, yes,an overwhelming amount of them are dating sims that have you winning over girls (and in some cases, guys). Dig a little deeper with VNDB and you'll find a lot of gems that are available on Steam.

Some of my favorites are:

Clannad
Higurashi
Umineko
eden*
planetarian

Higurashi and Umineko are quirky, but well-written suspense/mysteries with no branching paths. The stories are excellent but people tend to be turned off by the original art work. In the case of Higurashi, there's a suitable set of newer sprites included but unfortunately, the same care wasn't paid to Umineko. Instead of high-quality newer art, its newer sprites are ripped from some pachinko machine and they look AWFUL compared to the old sprites. The old sprites for Umineko may seem off-putting at first but trust me, you grow to love them if you just stick with them a while. I believe a port job for the PS3 sprites (much, much better than the pachinko ones) is in the works. Or maybe it's done. I'm not sure.

 

[shark sandwich]

I've found that, at best, a great video game story might reach the level of a crowd-pleasing Hollywood movie. Something fun and exciting that keeps you entertained and makes you feel various emotions, but doesn't go much further than that.

I'm not saying that story isn't important. The best video games tend to have strong stories that really give life to the world and make you care about the characters. They have a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. But I have yet to find the game that is worth playing JUST for the story.

There are better mediums for that: film, TV, books, etc. And those mediums all come with the added bonus that they don't have fanboys circle-jerking each other trying to prove that "games are art".

 

[Shiggy]

There are only very few game stories I enjoyed... Hotel Dusk, Last Room, Another Code R, Eternal Darkness, Broken Sword. The first Professor Layton was also ok, but its sequels just got completely absurd. Then there are some overhyped games with pretty terrible stories (such as 999). For most titles, the story is not the focus so I often don't care too much about it.

But it's not really surprising. If you want to be an acclaimed writer, you are definitely not writing stories for video games.

 

[Bloodporne]

My biggest problem is that developers and publishers spend millions of dollars on extravagant cutscenes, amazing animation technology, voice acting and directors, soundtrack composers and all kinds of people working towards establishing a narrative, yet yet the script and the thematic premise of the game is severely disjointed and independent from the game production in itself. Writers are told to write various justifications of stabbing and shooting dudes or exploding buildings out of nowhere, and it's just an impossible task.

The audiovisual presentation in Rise of the Tomb Raider costs millions of dollars, yet the script is some of the worst trash I've ever come across in recent years.

When it all boils down to it for me, I wish this attention to detail and insane budget would've gone to actually exciting, unique and truly rock-solid gameplay and that's always the case for me. I can't help but think that way when I see such insane production values blown on what's essentially fluff to the actual game at least in my eyes.

I know nothing of game development but I don't see the quality increase with budget/staff size increases to be exponential at all as a pure consumer. I understand it's a different time and fans demand different things but when I see Uncharted 4 and read how much that shit cost and how many people it took to make and compare that game's ultimate fun factor with something like Super Metroid and its apparent team size and so on, I don't get it.

In terms of the immersion factor I have to say as well that nothing leaves me as cold and un-immersed than constantly having control and actual meaningful gameplay ripped from my damn hands like the games that were just mentioned love to do. Be it endless audio tape trinkets, cut scenes, in-game dialogue that won't end and so on, nothing makes me shut off to the 'experience' as fast as that.

 

[vainglorious]

It's funny because video games as a medium often work against good story telling. Game play will always be king, and as long as that continues to be true story telling will suffer as result. I mean, when you realize that video game protagonists are generally mass murderers in the context of game play it makes you realize there's a significant dichotomy in how the medium chooses to represent story and characterization.

 

[More_Badass]

SOMA, Oxenfree, 1979, Sorcery series/80 Days

Have you played any of those?

There are better mediums for that: film, TV, books, etc. And those mediums all come with the added bonus that they don't have fanboys circle-jerking each other trying to prove that "games are art".

That's one way to look at it