Mindhive: Storytelling in Games

April 29, 2004

Storytelling in Games

_{(I've been procrastinating on post-processing photos, so meanwhile, here's another irrelevant offsite link.)}
Slashdot has a post up linking to an interview dealing with stories in video games. The basic idea of that article is spot-on: stories are more important than most game publishers think, and increasingly more players are realizing this. So... which game do they use as the ultimate benchmark for storytelling in video games ? Do they use Planescape Torment, with its highly nonlinear plot, detailed characters, and ethics simulation ? No. Then, perhaps they use Jade Cocoon whose nerve-shattering writing still makes me cry at night ? No. Ok, so must have at least used Final Fantasy X, whose twisted plot overturned several conventions of the franchise ? Nope. Well, maybe they wanted to pick a game with an unexpectedly good story, such as the sarcastic, sad and twisted Starcraft ("I love you Sarge...") ? Well, no. What do they use then ? Max Payne 2, the sequel to Max Payne, the first-person rail-game shooter with bullet time.

Now, don't get me wrong. Max Payne 2 actually has a pretty decent story (I liked the first one better, what with the Norse mythology and all, but that's me), and it was a decent game (even though the sequel didn't really bring any new gameplay to the table, so to speak). Oh, and yes, the in-game "comics noir" were cool. But come on. "A benchmark in video-game storytelling" ? What are these people thinking ?

Maybe I am misinterpreting what that means ? Maybe by "benchmark" they mean "an average measure of performance" ? Well, then yes, I suppose Max Payne qualifies (and yes, it might even be overqualified a little bit). If we take Max Payne to be 100%, then something like Painkiller might get 5%, Final Fantasy X2 might get -200% (yes, negative), and Planescape Torment would get 5000% or so. Somehow, though, I don't think that this is quite what the Jive editors thought when they wrote: "The 2003 sequel to the legendary Max Payne, this game exhibited a narrative depth that many contemporary offerings tend to lack" -- especially considering the monologue that they quote right below:

All this time we got the fable of sleeping beauty wrong. The prince doesn?t kiss her to wake her up. No one who has slept for a hundred years is likely to wake up. It was the other way around. He kisses her to wake himself up, from the nightmare that has brought him there.

In the past we had Planescape Torment and Syberia and TLJ and Jade Cocoon, and then we had Final Fantasy X (not X2). Jive could've picked any of these games as a shining beacon of storytelling, seeing as all of these are adventure games and RPGs, where storytelling is the main feature. But no. Instead, they picked Max Payne 2, a first-person shooter whose story is basically "Max gets screwed over again, film at 11". In their interview, Sam Lake says that the future for stories in gaming looks bright. Gee, somehow I am not convinced.

Posted by metabug at 2004/04/29 22:44 | TrackBack (31) | Categories: Games

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