Play: "We speak to the minds behind Braid, The Witness, Transistor, Bastion, Dying Light and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger about the state of videogame storytelling."
Oh my. Great story list... Slimmed down to my top 5... Bioshock.... 'Would you kindly' lol The last of us Uncharted 2 Final fantasy 7,8,10 And as confusing as it can be at times metal gear series. Watching sniper wolf die when I was a kid really turned me into a all around gamer. Honorable mentions... Persona 4...awesomeness Wild arms Grim fandango I can literally go on when it comes to RPGs ....this guy is an idiot for that comment. Games when done correctly put in the story... Some depending on your actions, have you making story changing decisions unlike book or movies you play out the action and make the hard decisions...smh gaming can be the best way to tell a story imo.
So clearly you didn't even bother reading the article. His problem isn't that games have stories, it's that they are doing it through cutscenes instead of telling it through gameplay like it should and, thus, failing to make use of what makes video games so unique and powerful as a medium for telling stories. He's completely correct.
the last of us did that bro uncharted too what would those games be like without the back and forth banter while climbing or exploring the game. Joel and Ellie's back and forth banter made that game the most respected in gaming history....you felt like you knew them after the game was over...you cared for them. During gameplay tlou told us not only a story but the personalities of the characters in the game as a whole... you want a story told through gameplay right... So movies and books don't tell good stories? They don't have gameplay. They are just nitpicking games at this point. A story can be told in numerous ways. I admit story during gameplay is rare but it's also not needed for a story to be told. Movies do it perfectly fine and its just a giant cutscene. All in all most telltale games tell a story through gameplay....smh wow...
None. But how can a story be told without them? Smh impossible thing to do. Like asking someone to make an entire movie in one cut while jogging. Or write an entire book while bunji jumping.
Half Life 2, as well as the episodes, didn't have cutscenes if I remember correctly and they told a pretty dang good story all from first person perspective.
95% of said story telling in HL2 was you in a room you couldn't leave while listening to other NPCs laying out the story which in my book its the same darn thing as sitting through a cutscene (which I prefer when done right, see MGS or Uncharted games)
That being said,I believe we need a good balance between cutscenes and live story telling ala Half life and The last of us.
As for what this guy said, I cant believe that after games like tLoU, there's a man from this very industry that believes games suck at telling a story because cutscenes break gameplay immersion...
Well I've got a question for this dude: how is more'immersive' experiencing story telling while sitting on your a** watching 2 hrs worth of cutscene aka a MOVIE???
At least in games you get to control, experience and in cases alter the course of said story by making choices. The next level of storytelling if you like.
To wrap this up, I believe games, in capable hands, are the greatest storytelling medium that exists today.
I respect the guy for putting so much effort into making such a great game. Yet that alone does not mean his opinions deserves respect on every matter outside his own little niche! There are too many Molyneuxs, Blows and Cliffy Bees that think they are shaping the industry with their narrow minded input! Stick to what ye know best, making the games! Let the gamers make their own minds up on their quality!
Your really comparing Cliffy B, and Molyneuxs to Jonathan Blow. Thats like comparing english to calculus. Braid is the type of game that you wish other games were like but unless but you passed then you wouldn't understand. Jonathan Blow isn't like any other developer.
Planescape: Torment was written like a book, but was a game which worked really, really well. Journey was written like picture collection, was a game, and worked really, really well. GTA was written like a movie drama, was a game, and worked really, really well.
Gaming is finding it's place as a storytelling medium, there's just no golden solution for it currently. But saying games are terrible at telling stories is a bit "premature elaboration".
what BS. Shadow of the collossal has a magnificent story and not a single word is said in game. obviously western devs just know how to make explosions and advertisements instead of good stories.
Yes, this article is full of fail. Do all popular articles on N4G just automatically suck now? I think there's a severe lack of journalistic education and everyone opts for sensationalism to market their clickbait articles in order to get hits. No need for integrity, just as long as people hit the page.
There is nothing wrong with telling a story, films, stage and books do this all the time however in nearly all cases you are the passive spectator. Games on the other hand require input from the player.
There is no denying that some games that have a story behind them are very linear or are "on-rails" and cut scenes are just fillers to advance the story which is not that much more different than what film does now although unlike a film the player has to interact with the game.
There are other games that do have very good stories but it is left to the player to piece it together and sometime it may be possible to get an entirely different story depending on the choices you make in the game. IMHO it is these games which truly shine over passive story telling.
Please note I am really referring to adventure games with action and/or RPG elements although it is possible to get other types of games that have a story.
On average, games aren't the best way to tell stories however some of the best games iv played have stories far beyond any movie iv seen. Games like Final Fantasy, Halo, MGS, StarCraft etc. I think that gaming shouldn't be movies as I am no fan on sitting though cut scenes and QTE scenes but gaming Lore is why I game.
A good portion of character development took place during game play. Things that were often put into cut scenes were integrated into random talks that the characters would have while exploring the environment. All those little moments outside the big scenes were what helped sell the character, and it was no different than how a book will have little dialogues in huge parts of exposition. To me, it was probably the best presentation of a story in any game ever made because of how well integrated it was.
TLOU offer more gameplay and more open than pretty much every single liner game on the market there is a reason why it won more GOTY awards than any game in history 20+ hours game with only 2 hours cutscenes is a movie now ?!
The problem is, for ND to achieve those performances, they needed to pre-render the cutscenes and give the animators more power than what was available on the PS3 to achieve the believability in the characters faces and body language.
Not to mention, if they didn't pre-render the cinematics, then there would have been quite a bit of loading between areas/missions since the cutscenes and little linear pathway segements were used to mask this. The entire flow and structure of the game would not be paced well at all.
Don't get me wrong, Troy Bakers performance is one of the best we've seen in gaming. But it also comes at a cost in regards to gameplay. Many times control is taken away because they NEED to load more stuff behind the scenes. Forcing me to walk down a certain path because they can't load all the assets in time before I get there.
And again, if it wasn't for the performances themselves, that story falls flat. They NEEDED to have that detail in the body and face to convey the story they were telling. Without it, the game falls apart.
So what you're saying is that games can be used to tell a story? Who cares if the cinematic were pre-rendered or not? What exactly does that change in terms of story-telling? Whether it's in-engine or pre-rendered is a moot point, because either way, the story is still being told the same way.
The game play worked. It was solid game play. The game play was plentiful. It's a TPS game with some exploration elements, and it was well balanced between all those things. Cut-scenes were well paced, and despite some insinuations to the contrary, were no where near as common as the game play sections.
More often than not, the cut scenes were short to move from one game play section to the next and set up the next part of the story, and yes, it did prevent level load, but what's wrong with that? Would you rather watch a loading screen or have some story or character development presented to you?
You pretty much said what i was going to say Well said+
Also the problem with his comment is that he think the story was only told through videos even though the meat of the story was told through the gameplay which why that game was a masterpiece
A lot of people may disagree with me, though I thought the recently remade Tomb Raider had a pretty decent story. There are better examples of course, though I thought Crystal Dynamics created a movie type of experience (which I enjoy).
I would argue the exact opposite. Japanese devs integrate story into their games in the most barebones manner, ignoring the benefits afforded by the medium. Japanese devs tell storys heavy on text and lacking in interaction and player involvement.
They could learn a lot from games like the Witcher, or Dear Esther, which allow a dynamic narrative to unfold as a result of the players variable interaction with his or her environment.
Japanese games often tell a good story in the same sense a book or manga tells a good story. They plan the narrative and its told in its simplest and most obvious form, through scripted dialogue that the player is unable to influence. It is however developers that harness the dynamic capacities of player influenced virtual environments that are the true masters of story telling in our medium.
In my opinion, of course, and naturally, there are exceptions. Persona, Danganronpa and Virtues Last reward come to mind.
I agree, Blow, which is why i typically couldn't care less about the story in any game, and end up jamming the A button through all cut scenes and dialogue. There are times when an enjoyable story brings something to an already great game, but never the other way around. A game cannot be great based on story alone, when gameplay is an afterthought. Not in my eyes, at least.
Last time I genuinely enjoyed the story in a game was Halo CE. Otherwise, a story sets the stage for me to kill people. I mostly game online and play racers/shooters anyways. I can see why JRPG junkies might rely on narrative.
Whether a story is good or not is rather independent of if VG's are terrible for telling stories.
In your case, the problem isn't the medium, but the presentation of the story, and your lack of caring about the story in the first place.
You say that story is there to set up the reason your about to kill people, which I take to mean sets up the next part of game play. And yes, often it is, and it should be there for that purpose. A good story can bring another level to that game play, and take it beyond the reason of you're just killing people because it's what you're supposed to do in a game. MP is there for the plain dumb fun, but for a campaign mode, it's nice to have another level of immersion, and a story can help people become more connected with the character motivations, thus not just be mindless button mashers playing to the end for no reason other than to complete the game.
It depends what you are playing a game for. I loved Braid but I couldn't tell you what the story was even about. I just played it for mind bending time based puzzles which it delivered on.
However Portal's appeal was similar: mindfuck puzzles but it still managed to captivate me and presented one of the best characters in the history of gaming: GlaDOS.
The difference is the game WAS the story. There is no way you could ignore GlaDOS as she was your guide through the game. She wasn't a cutscene you could skip or a page of text to ignore. At no point did I think 'oh let me just get on with this'. Neither the story nor gameplay needs to feel tacked on and often it does.
Sometimes when I am playing a story based game I feel like I am just thrown a bit of half-fun generic gameplay to keep me busy whilst the next bit of story is prepared. Sometimes I am given a page of text that is supposed to justify why I am now in a completely different place. Both are fine really but for a truly memorable experience it needs to just gel.
Couldn't disagree more.
Explain The Last of Us story then
Well that blows. Back to reading books then it is.
A lot of people may disagree with me, though I thought the recently remade Tomb Raider had a pretty decent story. There are better examples of course, though I thought Crystal Dynamics created a movie type of experience (which I enjoy).
Japanese developers are kings imo when it comes to story telling in games from role playing to visual novels games.