To each their own, but with “Metal Gear Solid 3” (the only game in the series I’ve played) my reaction was “great gameplay interrupted by a bunch of long, mostly unnecessary cutscenes which seem to have been crafted by people who wanted to be filmmakers but couldn’t write plot or dialog for actual human beings.”
You can tell a great story without bringing the action to a screaming halt in the process. If I want to watch a couple of characters discussing philosophy for 10 minutes straight I’ll watch a movie.
At the risk of being branded the asshole troll of the discussion, I’d like to bring this point up: I understand the theory that you can somehow create a legitimate piece of art within the context of a user-controlled “game” environment. But in practice, I’ve never ever seen that to be true. I understand there’s a lot of creativity involved in making the game, but that doesn’t necessarily equal great art. In fact, to me, old fuddy-duddy that I am, the whole philosophy behind games seems a bit at odds with the whole point of art. I’m not stating this as an unequivocal fact, but I’ve just seen no evidence to the contrary, and gaming friends who have provided their evidence to the contrary just show me more of the same: extremely well-crafted, but totally escapist stuff that still boils down to “you do something fun for a while, get a bunch of points, and then go get some dinner.” Or whatever.
I understand the appeal of escaping into another world for a while, I just don’t see the argument for calling that great art… which might be different than this thread’s argument about great storytelling, but if I could even see one video game where I ended up going “holy shit, that was a GREAT STORY!” even that would take a step closer to the “great art” ideal I have yet to see materialize. For sure, the whole motif of stopping a game every so often to watch some kind of plot sequence that takes you to the next portion of the game is just clunky as shit and impossible to take seriously. That can’t be what we mean here by “great storytelling.”
So… am I wrong about this? Let the comments begin…!
I don’t care about the plot.
I don’t watch the cut scenes.
If a game doesn’t allow me to skip past the story and cut scenes aka (BF4) it is incredibly frustrating and honestly arrogant of the company
In the end the story doesn’t matter. Whatever circumstances put my character in his current predicament the end results is always the same. My character has a gun and he needs to kill things in his way. I don’t care why
I suggest reading through the massive response to Roger Ebert saying the same thing a few years ago. After being shown many examples of video games, he conceded that (a) video games can indeed be art, and (b) that he doesn’t understand video games well enough to judge their artistic merit or storytelling value. I’m guessing that’s the case here.
“What can change the nature of a [game]?”
-Paraphrased from Planescape Torment, one of the best-storied games ever made. Also in that class (IMHO) are games like Heavy Rain, some of the Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, The Witcher, and (less obviously) Alpha Centauri.
That last one almost doesn’t even need to have a plot, but the quotes from the tech tree advances and secret project videos still echo through my head and became part of me. And the makers of Planescape had such a following that almost 15 years later they could raise more than $4 million on Kickstarter for their next story-driven game.
Some are wide open worlds with non-linear reactive stories, and some have a clear path forward, but all involve well-described worlds that react to characters’ and players’ choices in sensible but unexpected ways.
Sure, if they’re great. Granted, that’s a subjective thing, but I’ll stick to commonly-agreed upon standards that have withstood the test of time for this discussion. Anna Karenina is great art. Citizen Kane, 2001, Brazil, great art. Etc. And I’m totally fine with the fact that video games are in their infancy and haven’t yet produced anything to compete on such a high level. But I’m still looking for an example of something that goes beyond “hey, that kept my attention up for XXX hours.” In other words, is there a video game that goes beyond mere entertainment, and makes you think about life in a new way? Is there a video game that expresses something unique or interesting about human existence? To relate it to Blockbusters and the boing boing crowd, I’d say, for example, that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings is both a crowd pleaser and still manages to tap into some very essential human stuff about our existence, even though a lot of it is just silly orcs and elves running around killing each other. I don’t know if it’s “great art” but it is, at least, attempting more than just run-of-the-mill filler for Hollywood, and I appreciate Jackson’s effort to make it special.
Since the point of this post is to underscore what terrible storytelling exists in video games, to me it brings up the even deeper question of, forget about just hiring a good writer to give you better dialogue; what are you even aiming for in this video game world? A good time waster? Or is someone out there actually trying to communicate something important, or trying to express something unique within this video game genre? Again, maybe I’m asking for someone no one wants. I understand a lot of gamers just love getting lost in another world. If that’s the case, fine, that’s not my cup of tea but fine- I just want to clarify what our baseline is here. For me, the goal would be to transcend merely keeping you entertained for X amount of hours. Is that true for anyone else?
I’m 100% serious, that game changed the way I think about stuff more than all your Citizen Kanes and 2001s. I think it’s amazingly profound and relevant and can pretty much quote from it all day.
If you want something more mass market, Mass Effect definitely should count if you count the LotR movies. It tackles many diverse themes with a ton more nuance than Peter Jackson.
Your praise of Alpha Centauri sounds like what I’m talking about. Thanks, I’ll have to go bug my gamer friends. Is that available for Sega Genesis or N64?
I wonder if they are forgetting Sturgeon’s Law here. I don’t play a lot of games but Starcraft the story was essentially cutscenes and reasons to tie the missions together but they did a good job that kept me interested and invested in finishing the game. Total Annihilation on the other hand didn’t have much of a story other than sketchy us vs. them for the galaxy and while it was more interesting gameplay (at least till you got artillery) the story was as the kids say today, ‘evs’.
I have really enjoyed both the gameplay and story of Borderlands and Borderlands 2 and like starcraft it is mostly something to tie your missions together but for me it is done in a way that keeps me wanting to see how it ends which is a good thing.
I’m not really a gamer at all. The only time I play is to just have a virtual roam-around for a few hours, cause a little mayhem. So stories are just annoying to me. GTA fits this perfectly. Even if I’m forced to do some stupid errand at the start just to get to a stage where I can free-roam.
I disagree. Both story and agency are tools – orthogonal components – in sculpting an experience. You can have pieces and genres, that lean more heavily on one tool than another, even excludes one altogether, but it doesn’t mean that one generally opposes the other.
Story conveys a message and themes through a proxy, which are sometimes asked to judge, sometimes to empathize with. Agency allows the player to arrive a messages and themes through direct experimentation.
As a simple example, if you wanted to communicate, “life was hard for the pioneers,” you could write a textbook describing how life was hard (no story, no agency), write a novel focusing on a pioneer that you ask readers to empathize (story, no agency), or play Oregon Trail and let people suffer and die repeatedly to arrive at similar conclusions (some story, a lot of agency). Even board games lean on story elements to add resonance to their mechanical elements. Most RPGs are just meta-literature, with all the mechanics of D&D (for example) being poured into making sure your experience is some flavor of pulpy modern fantasy in the vein of Tolkien, Howard, Vance, and so on.
That’s a pretty reductive view of art. Your specific examples seem to suggest that art has to have an overt story that presents a philosophy and worldview. That definition would tend to include philosophy classes, but exclude abstract paintings, instrumental music, etc… games, even when they don’t “tell” a story, are all a metaphor for existence. Some more interesting than others, sure, but this is true of all media. An equally important, if not significantly more important qualifier for the “is it art” question would be “did it make you feel?” Most games make you feel all kinds of feels, from the obviously profound, to the seems-superficial-but-if-you-invest-yourself-in-the-metaphor-actually-kinda-deep feels. This may seem like you are having to give too much to games in order to get, but wouldn’t you say the same of a Jackson Pollock?
Well, first of all, my examples were as a response to the previous person’s comment about mainstream blockbuster type stuff. I think an artist’s job is simply to express whatever unique, vital, interesting thing they are dying to express in as intelligent, original, and honest way as they can. Which includes everything you mentioned, and certainly, most of my favorite art is far from the mainstream “tell me a story” idea. I don’t need a plot, or a thesis statement, although I do think the artist’s philosophy is almost always there, even if it’s subtle and abstract. That point of view is what makes thing so interesting to us, the viewers, since it puts us in their shoes (or behind their eyes) for a few moments.
I don’t quite buy the “did it make you feel?” question, though, since feelings can be manipulated and evoked rather easily. A hallmark card might do the trick and get a tear out of you, but I wouldn’t call it “art” just because it managed that. Similarly, a video game could get a big thrill out of you, but who cares? That’s like Huxley’s “The Feelies” all over again. Pushing chemical triggers in your brain is a totally different thing than art. A feeling might be the byproduct of a thought, and that’s fine, but the thought is the part that resides with the art. Even Pollock, even if you can’t consciously verbalize what the hell is going on in that painting other than “it’s really kinetic” or whatever, still, ideas are being expressed on that canvas, and that puts it in the realm of thought, not feeling.
Which is not to say the same can’t happen in the world of video games- only that I haven’t seen it, despite several examples I’ve been shown. Perhaps this “Alpha Centauri” game is an example of some true video game art- I don’t know. But it does seem like video games have an inherent challenge there, by handing control over to the viewer. I have long theorized about games or interactive films that could truly capture something vital while making them interactive, but never went down the road of attempting one. But I do see a lot of hoopla and money spent over video games, without seeing any kind of true growth in the medium, other than bigger effects, slicker music, etc. But maybe that’s just my ignorance.
This was/is a big problem in the comics business too. Underground comics had some of the best artists around, who understandably wanted to illustrate their own stories… but many of them were just plain terrible at writing them.
Hollywood is famous for hiring big name writers who can’t write along with big name actors who can’t act to create nonsensical messes from good books. It’s all about hitting the right bullet points for a semi-literate executive who controls the money.
Video games focus on art (artists) and speed (programmers), which show well in a trailer or a demo at a trade show, but there isn’t a good way to demo a story that’s spread over days of play time. Featuring known-decent writers with a full place on the team and the ability to say no to idiot producers would help, but how one becomes such a golden, employable writer is still an issue.
I don’t disagree that there are a lot of bad stories in the big AAA games, and that great stories are fairly rare. I do disagree with the idea that it is inherent to the medium. How many crap movies are churned out every summer that are equally as tone deaf and forgettable? Or what about pulpy ‘soldier of fortune’ paperbacks? Brainless sit-coms or by the books police shows?
Commercial driven media isn’t going to turn out a lot of quality, especially when they know that phoning it in can still eke out enough profit to keep it rolling.
I can see your point however, playing just one part of a series is like watching one of the Harry Potter movies or starting the star wars movies on the third one. You have no vested interest in the characters that the producer or writer spent building up until that point.
I disagree, IMHO a well-written video game should draw the player in without assuming they’ve played all previous installments. If I want to enjoy Grand Theft Auto V I shouldn’t have to head to eBay to find an old Window 97 computer or PS1 so I can start the series from the beginning.
One of my favorite video games of all time was Portal 2 even though I still haven’t played the original Portal. I think that game struck a perfect balance between engaging gameplay, atmosphere and story—in part because they didn’t spend a lot of time trying to develop Chell as a character. I didn’t need to know her background and I didn’t need a lengthy cutscene every 20 minutes with a bunch of stilted voiceover explaining what Chell was thinking, because the gameplay drew me in to the point where I was Chell. Anything I might have needed to know about my situation or the history of Aperture Labs was communicated organically during the gameplay itself rather than a series of lengthy interruptions that pulled me back out of the action.
I can see your point but, thats not what Metal Gear Solid is known for. Grand Theft Auto is not a series of games with the same characters. I happen to enjoy the metal gear games and the forth one really shines as far as action versus cut scenes. You cannot compare two different types of games as the same. Videogames fall under different genres as with any form of entertainment. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean its not a good example of games meeting movie cinematics. I guess we can both agree that its just different strokes for different folks. Cheers!
