Then there are games where the player is the primary controlling factor. Games like Mass Effect or Oblivion allow you to shape your character, choose how the game is played (i.e. using stealth, magic, diplomacy), choose the order or type of goals and often choose the motivations of the character. That isn’t to say that the story will not force the player’s hand from time to time, but the player is the basis of the games experience.
What do all these types of games have in common? It’s that the story is external to the gameplay. The gameplay itself does not create the story; rather the plot is expounded through text, dialogue or cut-scenes. This is not to say that the gameplay can have no effect on the plot, as many titles will now provide the player with branching plots. Ultimately, though the game may have multiple paths or endings there are only a limited number of possibilities.
Although the player may be allowed to make decisions that seem significant, in reality these are hardly more sophisticated than a ‘Choose-your-own-adventure’ book. Therein lies the problem with games trying to be better storytellers than books or films on their own terms. The defining feature of gaming is interactivity; interactivity means control, but if this control is limited to the number of branching storylines that a developer can create then gaming will never reach its full narrative potential.
There are many reasons why developers can only create a very finite number of narrative possibilities; these include limited budgets, limited resources, limited timescales, hardware limitations and of course, limited imaginations. So with all these insurmountable limitations, how could gaming ever hope to provide stories that live up to the medium’s limitless potential?
The next type of game is one where the story is in control. These games have a clearly defined narrative structure, and the gameplay fits itself around the story. In these games you are often less able to make any tactical decisions yourself, as everything that you do usually has a meaning within the story. Examples of this are Zelda games or titles like Beyond Good and Evil. This may force the player to use certain weapons or items at certain times as the story dictates it.
Beyond Good and Evil: Delicious. With a sequel in production at the moment you’ve no excuse not to check it out if you haven’t so far.
208 days ago
The more games I play, the more I realise that I dont even want a story. I can count the number of games that have matched a movie of book for narative on one hand. The story just gets in the way of the game. I don’t need motivation to play. Its not the deep and meaningful plot that keeps my plugging away on Pacman CE or MP COD4. If a game needs to try and motivate the gamer to keep on playing, I would argue that they have the gameplay mechanics wrong.