Importance of Storylines

[Covenant]

Cov, play the Mega Drive version. You lose the special PC way the universe works and get silly combat, but it is easy to get it going on modern systems. Or the Amiga version, that's how I play Starflight 2.

I never knew there alternate versions! How useful. I've actually got the floppies around here somewhere, isn't that hilarious? That and Wasteland.

[Stark]

I've never played the PC version of Starflight, I could never get the wierd shit it did with the floppies to work in Dosbox. The Amiga versions are like the PC ones, just easier to run (ironically it's easier to emulate an Amiga than DOS) and a bit prettier.

The problem with 'low story' games is that marketers worked out you could sell the story rather than the content... and it's cheaper. Make some nerd-chic story, talk about how awesome it is, throw in some cool suits and some titties, and there you go. Don't bother with that 'innovative game design' malarky - most people hate it anyway! Just licence an engine and sell the story.

[Covenant]

Well, it's cheaper, but the big blockbuster games are usually the ones that have a decent story and a decent set of action to go with it. Otherwise, adventure and interactive fiction games would not be the dead genres they are today. A game like Zork would be so amazingly cheap to make, or a simple adventure game... it's a mix of stories from your ass and some snazzy bullshit graphics, that's what REALLY sells. Halo, for example. Take a shooter, stick it inside of a ST:TNG episode, and set it on a disembodied Niven ring. Bam! Instant classic.

Storyline is cheaper than innovative gameplay, but graphics are also cheaper than quality writers and coders. So we end up with guys like me (literally) and some graphics technicians slapping together a game.

I mean, hell, look at God of War. That game had a long, detailed, expensive 'game development cycle' that included indepth concept arts and storylines and such. Why? To come up with a story about a naked dude with chains on his arms that stabs things? This required focus groups?

[Stark]

Well what I mean is 'make nerd-targetted story, slap it on generic FPS/RTS'. PC gaming is pretty much a one-note horse town these days.

[Covenant]

Well what I mean is 'make nerd-targetted story, slap it on generic FPS/RTS'. PC gaming is pretty much a one-note horse town these days.

You're mixing metaphors! Now we have horses who play notes? It's like Mr. Ed, or some sort of Horsophone.

Sadly, I'm actually pressed to think of a PC game that's not a FPS or RTS. RPG's are the only other catagory that's doing well at all on the computer, and only barely. I was just playing Oblivion, which is an RPG, and Fallout is coming out, and Mass Effect. But besides a tiny clump of RPGs, the rest of the games are FPS's and RTS's. There ARE other games, but they suck. Damn. That's a sorry state of affairs.

[Uraniun235]

I can't believe you guys are forgetting about the biggest cash-cow in PC gaming: MMORPGs. Also, like it or not, The Sims has been one of the biggest sellers in PC gaming history.

PC gaming has always been more of a niche market, so it would be crazy for companies to sink millions of dollars into developing titles that aren't based on proven formulae. All of the really novel material is going to be in the smaller developer operations, among people who charge $5 or $10 for a full version of their game and whose graphics aren't ZOMG NEXT-GEN but still get the job done well enough. (And, arguably, simpler games may at times even demand simpler graphics. I don't need multi-thousand-polygon models to enjoy Battleships Forever)

Further, PC gaming has been in competition with consoles for a long time. I'm pretty sure more people tend to view [console] as their game device than their PC. Why should a developer blow a wad of money and time and effort on crafting new and innovative games for a platform where the only controller you can count on is a mouse and keyboard, where a big chunk of the machines it'll run on will be slow and unstable for any number of reasons, where a lot of people won't want to play on because for whatever reason they don't like their computer as much as they do their [console]? Why take that route when they could develop for a console where the hardware is completely known, where everyone who buys it will be able to run it without hassle, where more people will be in the market to buy and play their game?

For a number of reasons, mainstream PC gaming has been doomed to mediocrity for years now. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it just makes more sense to throw your really creative ideas at the console world rather than at the kludgey PC world.

[Darth Wong]

For a number of reasons, mainstream PC gaming has been doomed to mediocrity for years now. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it just makes more sense to throw your really creative ideas at the console world rather than at the kludgey PC world.

That's funny; I find that console games tend to be no more creative and original than your average daytime soap opera. Oooooh, pretty graphics!!

[Stark]

I've found the most strange and interesting games are either freeware of Eastern European PC games. They're not always GOOD, but it's better than Yet Another Supersoldier FPS and Save The World From Hell RPG.

[Nephtys]

Console Gaming has a cap on it's creativity from it's limited control means. Ooh look! My gamepad has four directions, two sticks and ten buttons.

That's a lot more limited in terms of potential gameplay applications than a keyboard with 101 buttons (plus combination keys) and the mouse, the fastest and easiest way to point to anything yet practical.

[Darth Wong]

I also thought it was strange that he tried to tout the superiority of the console game market and mentioned the phenomenal success of The Sims in the same post. The console version of The Sims sucks donkey balls compared to the PC version.

[Covenant]

I also thought it was strange that he tried to tout the superiority of the console game market and mentioned the phenomenal success of The Sims in the same post. The console version of The Sims sucks donkey balls compared to the PC version.

I also found it amazing that I totally forgot simulation games like the Sims, or Spore, or other such things. Those are nearly PC exclusives, and the ones that do cross over are terribly derivitive.

The PC market is much more open to freeware, shareware, little discount games, and other forms of distribution on the fly. A freeform fighting game like Polybash may not be worth paying for, or renting from Blockbuster, but it's worth a download. PC games are also packed full of editing potential, like the Battleships Forever game we have popularized right now.

It also has more niche/wierd games available to it, like EaW--which is like some sort of nightmarish RTS/Sim/4X chimera.

The PC market is suffering in terms of profitability, but not in adaptability. Despite the Wii's massive potential for cool games, we've seen very little developer ingenuity at play, which is very disappointing.

[salm]

Console Gaming has a cap on it's creativity from it's limited control means. Ooh look! My gamepad has four directions, two sticks and ten buttons.

That's a lot more limited in terms of potential gameplay applications than a keyboard with 101 buttons (plus combination keys) and the mouse, the fastest and easiest way to point to anything yet practical.

That doesn´t necessarily put a cap on creative gameplay. Take titles like Katamari Damacy. That´s pretty much the definition of creative gameplay and still you only need two sticks and a button or two to play it.
On the other hand for what kind of game would you need a hundred buttons? Parhaps for Flight Simulators and stuff like that, but that´s not what i´d really call creative gameplay.

[Ford Prefect]

I mean, hell, look at God of War. That game had a long, detailed, expensive 'game development cycle' that included indepth concept arts and storylines and such. Why? To come up with a story about a naked dude with chains on his arms that stabs things? This required focus groups?

You know, it's funny because I was going to mention God of War II as being a good example of how to tell a story in a videogame. While there's denying it was basically about Kratos ruining people's shit, I thought the emotional subtext to the whole game is conveyed quite well. Kratos is a man who lays the blame for the bad shit in his life at the feet of the gods, when it's really ll his fault - which in part he must recognise given the way he spoke to his wife when being throttled by the kraken. Considering that Kratos is such a deranged psychopath, it's a remarkably touching moment. in fact, the whole Kraken boss battle, and the fight against the Unnamed Spartan before that is designed around pitting Kratos against his failures (though not to the extent as his fight against the dopplegangers in the first game), and recognising that the man isn't quite as impressive, or so solid in conviction, as he first appears.

It might be a game about ridding ancient Greece of all its mythological creatures and beings with all sorts of cinematic camera angles; though its got some pretty interesting messages about fighting against your fate for all the wrong reasons.

[Stark]

Are you saying a game can have themes without having you crouch behind a box for a half-hour radio conversation? Hideo Kojima would say 'impossible'.

[wautd]

Games that have very repetitive play (such as shooters)

Case in point, I wouldn't have gone trough Halo if it wasn't for the story. Talk about repetitive level designs

[Covenant]

You know, it's funny because I was going to mention God of War II as being a good example of how to tell a story in a videogame. While there's denying it was basically about Kratos ruining people's shit, I thought the emotional subtext to the whole game is conveyed quite well.

My comment wasn't about the story (which I felt was fun and decent) but that they went to the trouble of actually doing Hollywood-style development for the story, as immortalized on their 'behind the scenes' commentary stuff. I like what the game ended up being, but I do not think they needed to spend nearly that amount of effort to come up with the overall 'storyline' that they had.

So while I think it had a decent way of telling the story, especially since it didn't slow me down, I didn't think that it needed to be such a big deal. Halo, for example, has a fancy story--but the games are retarded at trying to express that in the game. Sometimes the brainchild a game-maker has for his great, elaborate fiction is just irrelevent. Even games with an incredibly moronic story (like Street Fighter) spawn anime series, endless sequels, comic books, and life-ending Van Damme movies. One could now consider Street Fighter to have an elaborate backstory, sorta. But it is almost 100 percent irrelevent to the game. Same with Resident Evil. Do I really care about the story? Do I need to care?

Good storytelling doesn't require an elaborate story. Very simple stories are often the best ones for things that have a lot of action. Melodrama suits action very well.

[Darth Wong]

Games that have very repetitive play (such as shooters)

Case in point, I wouldn't have gone trough Halo if it wasn't for the story. Talk about repetitive level designs

The "Library" level in Halo was a crime against humanity.

[Shroom Man 777]

I happen to love Hideo Kojima for his work on Metal Gear, though I've only played MGS3. It was an awesome game. Come on!

And part of what made the Ace Combat games more awesome than any dull air combat arcade was its awesome story.

Anyway...

THE FEAR! THE FEAR! I CAN SEE IT! THE FEEEAAARRRR!!!! *explodes into a hail of arrows*

[Eleas]

A storyline doesn't have to be elaborate or huge in order to be good; all it needs is to be competently delivered while still allowing the player to be in control. Thief is an awesome example of this; the story develops in such a way that the (actually incredibly railroaded) path you take doesn't grate on you. Garret, the protagonist, has plausible motivations and it's the interplay between him and the other characters that dictates where the plot ends.

Many games would stand to gain from tightening up the storyline a bit, and less obviously railroaded parts. Deus Ex, I'm looking at you.

[Lord Revan]

Well IMHO it depends on what type of game we're talking and ofc how the plot s handled

a forced plot can pull you out of the game as easily if not even no easily then no plot.

If thing that make no sence (either in-universe or in real life) happen only because it's the plot it starts to bug me greatly.

[Paradox244]

Agreed. If it's Mario, I'd say you don't need anything more than "Bowser kidnaps princess, Mario rescues her." If you're going for something more cinimatic or in depth, like Halo, God of War, or even Zelda, storyline is much more important.

[General Zod]

Agreed. If it's Mario, I'd say you don't need anything more than "Bowser kidnaps princess, Mario rescues her." If you're going for something more cinimatic or in depth, like Halo, God of War, or even Zelda, storyline is much more important.

Super Paper Mario actually managed to do a halfway decent job at throwing a storyline into a Mario game, albeit a fairly simple one. Managed to make it stand out as a bit different anyway.

[rhoenix]

I haven't played many games where the storyline really stood out for me - the only one that comes to mind is the PS2 RPG, SMT: Nocturne. The cutscenes were of the same quality as the gameplay graphics, which meant they looked both good, and seamless in transition. Having the world end at the very beginning of the game was a nice twist, as was the weird twisted shit you discover people doing afterward.

I haven't played many apocalyptic RPG's, such as Fallout or anything, but I thought plot-wise, SMT: Nocturne stood out impressively. Too bad it's like $70 used now.

Most of the other games I've played didn't have such a stand-out storyline, or if they did, it was melodramatic and silly.

[wautd]

Games that have very repetitive play (such as shooters)

Case in point, I wouldn't have gone trough Halo if it wasn't for the story. Talk about repetitive level designs

The "Library" level in Halo was a crime against humanity.

Not to mention that most (if not all) levels were going from starting point to the end of the map and back to starting point