Why Video Game Stories are "Stupid"

[Annonchinil]

I didn't like the videologs because they were directly tied to the gameplay.

 

[Woohoo]

Sounds like this would be the perfect time to point out the failure of the free market.

I'd say the sad part is that it IS working. The vast majority of gamers really aren't interested in great stories and developers are happy to avoid having to write a decent plot. This is a problem with media consumers in general. FFS, I read several reviews of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie that stated the story was "hard to follow." Not exactly the posterchild for a deep and complex plot right 'dere.

 

[Lord Chambers]

[Media consumers] aren't interested in great stories and this is a problem with media consumers in general.

I object to recent trends in certain game series like The Elder Scrolls being conflated into an entire problem with media. It's a catchy meme for aging gamers who have to cope with the type of people who forced them into playing DnD in highschool becoming dominant in a market that used to cater solely to them, but it's probably bullshit.

Everything bad is good for you does a good job of explaining the way contemporary media is generally more complex than older media. There's still plenty of room for exceptions of course.

In the case of Bioshock, I don't know how much less cognitively taxing the game is becaues it's story is conveyed in recording tapes, but I suspect that it's probably not going to drop it below the cognitive requirements of Ultima 1.

 

[nik2008ofs]

I find it interesting that Codexers are discussing this in a relatively civilized manner. Were the exact same things said by Todd Howard ( and I don't think his views in most of the subjects mentioned differ significantly ) the Codex would be aflame with nerd rage.

 

[Zomg]

I'd be pretty impressed that he'd articulated a thought with moving parts.

 

[obediah]

He should have named his presentation. "Hey Obediah, developers don't give a fuck about your $50 anymore."

 

[elander_]

I find it interesting that Codexers are discussing this in a relatively civilized manner. Were the exact same things said by Todd Howard ( and I don't think his views in most of the subjects mentioned differ significantly ) the Codex would be aflame with nerd rage.

I find that strange too. It doesn't mater if Levine likes his situation or not. I bet he will suck more cook and do exactly the same thing at the next opportunity he finds. The theories he makes up to justify his personal frustration are pathetic to say the least. Blaming the mainstream IQ for being impotent is what everyone does.

It's true that gamers would give little important to the story of what is essentially a nice FPS like Bioshock, but that doesn't mean the story has to be stupid, it means the story has to be short. Unreal is great example of a game with a great and short story. Your prison ship crashes in a alien world and then you are free and have to find a way out of the planet while helping freeing the enslaved race in that planet. Compare this to Bioshock save the little girls emo porno that Levine made up. Levine should have blamed himself but instead he chose to blame everyone else, how original.

 

[ghostdog]

if you want to get back at being a successful game developer there are certain sacrifices that you have to make... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynAzBVsWXUI

 

[Dark Matter]

He sounds pretty bitter about having to dumb his game down for 'the average halo player' to me.

Fuck you! Halo is a zillion times better than Bioshock.

In Bioshock, the game doesn't even let you die, how is that dumbing down for the average Halo player when Halo is actually a reasonably challenging shooter?

LOL fuckin halo bashing n00bs act even more retarded than all the halo fanboys they whine about.

 

[elander_]

if you want to get back at being a successful game developer there are certain sacrifices that you have to make... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynAzBVsWXUI

That is a classic!

In Bioshock, the game doesn't even let you die, how is that dumbing down for the average Halo player when Halo is actually a reasonably challenging shooter?

Halo is a very decent FPS with a competent AI.

 

[afewhours]

FFS, I read several reviews of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie that stated the story was "hard to follow." Not exactly the posterchild for a deep and complex plot right 'dere.

Well, it was a convoluted mess that jammed far too many subplots into what should have been a cheerfully facile adventure yarn. It's an apt criticism. Complex doesn't necessarily mean good or well crafted.

Unreal is great example of a game with a great and short story. Your prison ship crashes in a alien world and then you are free and have to find a way out of the planet while helping freeing the enslaved race in that planet.

Agreed. 'twas simple and effective. Half Life did something similar with its 'trying-to-survive-a-scientific-catastrophe' shtick. I was disappointed when HL2 shifted gears from simple and primal to all this tired Orwellian nonsense. Turned me right off.

 

[aries202]

Do you ever think that maybe the cut content from Bioshock maybe just had to be cut because it deals with the creation of Rapture. The content that now goes into Bioshock 2 - the prequel.

A story in a game should, imo, be very simple to follow and should, imo, give the player a reason for what he is doing so that player always has his long term goals in sight. Example: In BG1 you're trying to find out who you are and what is happening in the Nashkell mines etc.

A simple game where the storyline is clear is by no means an easy game or 'dumbed down game'. Even Fallout has a pretty simple story: go get the waterchip and bring it back. The player now has a long-term goal. In PS: Torment the story is also rather simple: You're trying to figure ouy who you are and why you are what you are.

As I understand it, with the recent patch and with the one of the hardcore modes? you can actually disable the biochambers in Bioshock, so that you can die. The great thing about Bioshock really is it setting and its environment. Rapture looks great.

 

[psycojester]

Well, it was a convoluted mess that jammed far too many subplots into what should have been a cheerfully facile adventure yarn. It's an apt criticism. Complex doesn't necessarily mean good or well crafted.

I was just about to post that.

The problem with it is that you can tell the script writers sat down and were working hard to create what they thought would be a really clever and complex script, what they ended up with was a really huge fucking mess in which characters act against their own best interests in order to achieve a distant goal that they were working against the time. It just came across as really smug and fucking stupid, also made me wish somebody would fucking stab Legolas in the face, his character came across as such a whiny self-absorbed little shit head.

By about the halfway point i was hoping that everybody bar Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and the comic relief pirates would die and the movies could go back to being an entertaining romp about pirates. That way we could have at least had an ending that made some sense, why in the name of merciful uni-cycle riding Satan did the East India Company suddenly decide to turn around and give up on their monopolistic control of the region because of one guy dying? Did they suddenly decide to give up on the corporate structure and become a monarchy instead? Or maybe a script writer who spent all his time throwing in pointless Xanatos Roulettes throughout the story simply forgot what their motivation for being there was and had written himself into a corner with no sensible way to resolve the problem.

The resolution to Legolas' story was hilariously poorly thought out as well, Legolas becomes the immortal captain and leaves his wife behind. LOL, i'm sure it was a helluva lot of fun being a single mother raising a child in the 18th century, even better when you consider that Legloas only gets to visit once every 10 years, so he basically gets the fun of watching her grow old and die while he remains unchanged. Given that the films spent all this time building her up as being a better sailor, swords master and pirate than everybody else (Due to Grrrrl power trumping training and experience) why not bring her along on the Dutchman? Surely being together forever with his wench is better than the once every 10 years option?

Also the Climactic set piece battle was everything thats wrong with the Michael Bay school of cinema. What would have been wrong with a regular naval battle? I seriously hope the guy who though up the giant voodoo lady turning into crabs and then forming an immense whirlpool was fired.

It would have been a shitload better and probably a lot cheaper to film an immense naval battle with lots of pirates swinging from ropes and boarding ships than constructing the largest hydraulic rig ever used in cinema in order to have two ships pitch and roll as they spin around the edge of an immense whirlpool and everybody else watching on and twiddling their thumbs.

Well theres my rant done, thanks Hollywood for ruining a perfectly good franchise by obsessively upsizing it from a focused medium scale plot about pirates it into a bloated epic.

 

[DraQ]

Unreal is great example of a game with a great and short story. Your prison ship crashes in a alien world and then you are free and have to find a way out of the planet while helping freeing the enslaved race in that planet.

I'd say that Unreal succeeded by letting most of it's story elements blend into the background - the core element was basically what you described, but there was a lot of logs and messages scaterred around, along with Nali texts which created several quite distinct background subplots as well as hinted at the strange intertwinning between the fate of prisoner 849 (the PC of this game - likely not a pleasant individual who have probably commited some serious crimes) and mesianic prophecies of Nali religion. Of course, mentally deffective twitch monkeys could simply zip through the game their guns blazing without reading anything or soaking up the atmosphere - it's not their fault thet they are retarded, is it?

 

[Dark Matter]

Halo is a very decent FPS with a competent AI.

Halo is an excellent FPS with excellent AI.

 

[psycojester]

Halo is a very decent FPS with a competent AI.

Halo is an excellent FPS with excellent AI.

Lets split the difference

Halo is a slightly patronising FPS that is vastly over hyped by console fanboys who never played anything worthwhile against which to compare it, but at least they did a pretty good job on the AI

 

[Dark Matter]

No.

I've argued my case as to why Halo is an excellent shooter numerous times (on here and other sites).

On the other, there as are the only comments I see from Halo-haters:

"halo is just a mediocre fps"
"halo pales in comparison with pc fps"
"only people who like halo are console kiddies who've never played a real fps"
"lol gaylo"

That or they discredit Halo's merits by arguing that some other game did it before, which is just plain stupid. It doesn't matter if Tribes had vehicles too, it doesn't change the fact that the use of vehicles in Halo was a very significant thing at the time.

Until someone can explain to me why Halo is such a mediocre shooter, my point stands. I think it's ridiculous how PC fanboys praise games like Unreal Tournament and Quake to such high heights and then complain about how all you do in Halo is run around shooting stuff.

 

[elander_]

Halo is a slightly patronising FPS that is vastly over hyped by console fanboys who never played anything worthwhile against which to compare it, but at least they did a pretty good job on the AI

Halo is a very good FPS even when compared to PC games. It lacks the ambiance of games like DeusEx, System Shock, Half-Life or Unreal but it's very well executed. If you compare Halo to all the FPS that have been released it easily gets to the top 10.

I'd say that Unreal succeeded by letting most of it's story elements blend into the background - the core element was basically what you described, but there was a lot of logs and messages scaterred around, along with Nali texts which created several quite distinct background subplots as well as hinted at the strange intertwinning between the fate of prisoner 849 (the PC of this game - likely not a pleasant individual who have probably commited some serious crimes) and mesianic prophecies of Nali religion. Of course, mentally deffective twitch monkeys could simply zip through the game their guns blazing without reading anything or soaking up the atmosphere - it's not their fault thet they are retarded, is it?

The right design choice for an FPS is a short story that blends with the background so that you don't have to dig for it. It's not because people are retarded, it's because if people want a story or a movie they have much better options.

 

[Gragt]

The right design choice for an FPS is a short story that blends with the background so that you don't have to dig for it. It's not because people are retarded, it's because if people want a story or a movie they have much better options.

Even better is to have a story that is so over the top and doesn't take itself seriously à la Serious Sam. The Second Encounter is actually one of the best action games ever made.

I liked Unreal, I still do, but I found the story so light it's as if it doesn't exists. You're a prisoner, the ship crashes down, you try to escape the planet. It kinda all unfolds in the first couple of levels and then takes a backseat. I do not mind at all to be put into a level and shoot stuff for no reason at all. The plot of Unreal didn't really convey any emotion. I felt more in awe by looking at scenery than reading at a log once in a while.

Worse is when a shooter really tries hard to have some kind of serious plot that actually makes no sense like Painkiller. I just like it, it's a lot of fun for me (a big notch under SS:TSE though) but I really do not care for the story there. It takes itself too seriously it's boring! They could have made something interesting there with the whole purgatory thing but it was just too much. At least you get a skippable cutscene only after each act, other than that you can just select your cards and go to the next level.

 

[Annonchinil]

Halo was fun until the second half when the game jumped onto the mediocre train. Halo 2 SP sucked from the start and never let up. I have a much more favorable opinion of games that get better as you play them (MGS:3, Panzer Dragoon), not worse (Halo, Crysis), with some exceptions (Stalker,VtM:B) Does Halo deserve the massive hype and sales? Maybe not, but such is the way the market functions.

 

[elander_]

Even better is to have a story that is so over the top and doesn't take itself seriously à la Serious Sam. The Second Encounter is actually one of the best action games ever made.

MDK is also very good and has a great sense of humor. Also check Giants Citizen Kabuto and a similar game made by the same team later on.

I liked Unreal, I still do, but I found the story so light it's as if it doesn't exists. You're a prisoner, the ship crashes down, you try to escape the planet. It kinda all unfolds in the first couple of levels and then takes a backseat.

Sounds to me like all the other games that have a story, we take a backseat and watch a cg movie. It could have been a little more elaborated but it think for an FPS it doesn't need to do more than create a good background and provide a tactical objective that blends well with the gameplay.

I do not mind at all to be put into a level and shoot stuff for no reason at all. The plot of Unreal didn't really convey any emotion. I felt more in awe by looking at scenery than reading at a log once in a while.

I find it hard to convey any emotion when i'm watching a movie and being driven by a story in an interactive environment. When i'm watching a movie or reading a book this works because it's implicit that we are just observers. So i usually disregard any games that provide narrative unless it has something to do with gameplay. Adding a few cut scenes just for the sake of conveying emotions trough a cg movie must be the most lame way to do this in a game.

In System Shock for example reading the logs is necessary to assert the current situation and solve puzzles that will give you access to the higher levels so it makes sense. Because System Shock has many ways to interact with the environemnt and solve those puzzles it's considered a mix of rpg and action game and not a pure fps.

 

[Gragt]

MDK is also very good and has a great sense of humor. Also check Giants Citizen Kabuto and a similar game made by the same team later on.

I know them and actually replayed Giants a few weeks ago. I always found it too bad that the story kind of stops when you get to the Kabuto part, for the Mec or Reaper campaign you get those hilarious cutscenes but they stop at the last part of the game. The other game you mention must be Armed & Dangerous but I didn't play it yet.

Sounds to me like all the other games that have a story, we take a backseat and watch a cg movie. It could have been a little more elaborated but it think for an FPS it doesn't need to do more than create a good background and provide a tactical objective that blends well with the gameplay.

I find it hard to convey any emotion when i'm watching a movie and being driven by a story in an interactive environment. When i'm watching a movie or reading a book this works because it's implicit that we are just observers. So i usually disregard any games that provide narrative unless it has something to do with gameplay. Adding a few cut scenes just for the sake of conveying emotions trough a cg movie must be the most lame way to do this in a game.

In System Shock for example reading the logs is necessary to assert the current situation and solve puzzles that will give you access to the higher levels so it makes sense. Because System Shock has many ways to interact with the environemnt and solve those puzzles it's considered a mix of rpg and action game and not a pure fps.

It depends for me. I mostly play FPS for the action. If they can also have a nice story, I do not mind at all. But it also needs to be delivered well. As much as I criticize Unreal for its story, it did not get in the way of the action. Painkiller is a bit worse because of those long cinematics but at least there is only a handful of them and you can skip them.

And you make some very good point about emotions in games. Most try to do it and fail terribly. And most of the time the story itself isn't very interesting to begin with. And yes, cutscenes after cutscenes can get boring fast. And I again agree with you with the System Shock formula, it was integrated into the gameplay and you could actually care and sympathise with these people and their plea rather than see or hear my character sympathize with them without me allowing him to. Then again I consider games like System Shock to be a bit more than simple FPS.

And there are some great stories for FPS games, out of my mind I remember Undying and I also have a soft spot for Aliens vs Predator 2. I found Halo decent in that regard but like most in that game it's mostly good only for the first half or so.

 

[DraQ]

MDK is also very good and has a great sense of humor.

I found it's squel too over the top, but the original MDK was indeed spot-on. Seems that surrealism beats "lol alien farts!" as the source of humour.

 

[DraQ]

As much as I criticize Unreal for its story, it did not get in the way of the action.

Well, it was made in the time when, Strifes and System Shocks aside, marine with a BFG running around killing Stroggs was considered to be elaborate story for FPS.

Then again I consider games like System Shock to be a bit more than simple FPS.

Well, they are, to be honest I prefer SS2, but only because of better (and customizable) controls and atmosphere - other than that SS1 has it beaten in pretty much all areas.

 

[Section8]

I found it's squel too over the top, but the original MDK was indeed spot-on. Seems that surrealism beats "lol alien farts!" as the source of humour.

You'd never guess who made the lacklustre sequel...