Deathmatch!: Story vs Gameplay

First real post, better make it good then.  Fat disclaimer that I don't type a script or anything like that, I like to let it flow au naturale.


Gaming as a medium is starting to grow up.  No more Super Mario 3 underwear, we've moved onto Commander Shepard hoodies.  We're not nearly there though, although mad props to us for beating out the movie industry (wootz), the industry within itself is trying to find it's identity.  Where does it belong in the market?  Should we emulate movies to gain credibility, or should we follow a different path and take chances?  Stuff like that.  I think one of the biggest components of gaming's future is it's use of storytelling and gameplay, but what to make it's primary focus?


I grew up in the 8 bit and blast processing era.  When I was playing games, they were about saving a princess from a castle, stopping an evil madman, or beating Mike Tyson.  Story was not only hardly used, but hard to pull off given the limitations of the console.  You may think sitting around watching cutscenes now may be rough, try watching all the cutscenes in MGS4 with the volume turned down and the subtitles on o_O.  So in it's infancy, developers made games as pretty much a single tool to show off a gameplay mechanic they made.  Mario was the greatest jumping mechanic ever, Zelda was a dungeon crawling mechanic, Little Nemo was a gameplay style swap mechanic and so on.  That said, those games were and are still loved by people who play them, regardless of their almost non existent story.

Here's your damn story.

For people who are really gung ho bout story in their games, do you really need a story to play Mario?  Do you need a reason to fight through hordes of monsters?  It's about fun, and isn't that what games are about?  If you're playing a game and are complaining that the game sucks because of the story, I'm gonna go ahead and point you in the direction of what we in the land of OZ call "books".  Maybe that's more up your alley.  Come to think of it Pure Pwnage did a hilarious parody of Zero Punctuation on this I'll have to link.
I think that they hit the nail on the head when they said "we should be making the next chess".  Shouldn't we as gamers be striving to make the most fun game ever made?  Forget the reasons why, make it simple, and addictive, because that's what games are, right?

Well maybe, maybe not.  Sure the NES days were cool, but look at the stage now.  Jesus Christ we've got shooter games topping the charts for best selling MEDIA, not games, MEDIA.  My god.  The industry's got tons of resources now to make story, so why should we holdout just to make good gameplay experiences when we can have a shot at creating compelling stories?  Sometimes stories are so good or at least interesting in games that they are compelling enough to keep someone through the bad game just to see how it turns out.  Ironically I lent my copy of Assassin's Creed to a buddy who's just getting into it and he's experiencing the same thing (Big shoutout to MKUltra of World's Ugliest Dog).  He's sick of the game but in order to really get the story, he's gonna stick through it.  I think the biggest perpetrator's of that kinda crap though are RPG's.  I know everyone's played at least ONE Final Fantasy where they were wishing it would JUST FRICKIN' END.
A big part of story is getting it translated from voice actor's to the game.  Shoots can go well there at the time, but if it doesn't translate well to Marcus Fenix's almost adamantite immovable expressionless face, then it just comes out looking like a military shooter, rather than a compelling experience where John DiMaggio busted his balls to do the best VO possible.
With that said, industry's got a lot of difficulties, and while it gets criticism right now, we just need to grow more and learn more so we can make story and characters more authentic and compelling.  Instead of JUST making games, shouldn't we be trying to make compelling experiences for the player?

My conclusion:  Both are wrong, both are right.  Weird.
We're in an age where gaming is just starting to grow roots and figure out it's possibilities.  While I like games like Gears of War and Final Fantasy just as much as anything else, we should aim for more.  We're not movies, and we're not books, we're video games, and the great thing about that is, is that we don't have physical parameters for what we can or cannot be.
What's stopping us from making a story as compelling as Dexter, with interactive gameplay elements so awesome, that we've just created a new medium?  Why can't we have a movie theater with interactive elements that you can access from your seat?  Why can't we have a game where it progresses based on where you've traveled in the world?  To get to the next level, look for clues in New York.

EVOLUTION!  Gaming is the greatest industry in the world, because gaming has always been in charge of making people happy.  Imagine all of the great things we can do in the future with future tech and all that.  I mean, the creator of Doom, John Carmack is making VR a frickin' actual thing.  He wants to get it in the hands of people so bad, that he demos his version of Doom 3 with a pair of VR goggles held together with duct tape!  Our industry will never lack visionaries, and as long as we share that vision of creating more, this industry will never stop growing, and never stop getting better.

......Unless EA, Capcom, and Activision take over......oh god......

Been a pleasure ladies and gents, til next time.

NEXT TOPIC:  Games you really really need to play, Vol. 1