Does anyone else find "plot twists" in games gimmicky?

[DarkRyter]

think what you call "plot twist" is actually plain "plot".

Exactly. All plots have a twist. For a story to be a story, some change, some development, some "twist" from an expected outcome has to occur. The bad guy getting caught and the the bad guy being a tomato are both essentially plot twists, if the expectation was that the bad guy escapes (and is also not a tomato). The difference between the capture outcome and the tomato outcome is not in terms of being a twist or not, it's a matter of intensity and intention. How unexpected is the development, and what is it meant to do to the audience.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

The problem isn't plot twists it's that video game writers are some of the worst writers in existence. Far below novels, movies and even most good TV. They are basically on par with soap opera writers. The plots tend to boil down to being very predictable in videogames even more so than in any other writing medium even when they are trying to be novel.

When a group of actually good writers does it though, it can be absolutely amazing:

Spoiler: Vampire Bloodlines

One of the few fantastically written games out there. They played perfectly upon the conventions in videogames and the belief that Jack, a character who teaches you in the tutorial, and otherwise is just a background character that occasionally gives you advice could never betray you. And that is what makes the reveal so great: that he is the absolutely most important character in the entire game, the instigator of the plot, and a character so brilliant he played everyone for chumps including you.

You spend the entire game thinking the Ankharan sarcophagus either simply holds a dead Mesopotamian king, or an extremely powerful vampire(or both.) But the plot you don't realize until the end is how Jack set everything up. And even then you likely don't understand all the parts put together unless you have played multiple times and at least once as a Malkavian.

Jack discovered the location of the sarcophagus then contacted Dr Johannsen and got him to excavate it. He used his pirate skills to either infiltrate the Elizabeth Dane on route, and slaughter every single person on the crew one by one so that they left haunting logs on the ships computer. Rigged everything up to look like the sarcophagus was opened from the inside. Hid bombs in there with a timer attached to the lid and then let the city tear itself apart.

They left little hints everywhere though. The Malkavian thin blood on the beach who can see the future warns you to only trust 'the man on the couch' who is Mercurio(the only person to lie on a couch in the entire game) and 'the lone wolf,' Beckett first appears to you as a wolf and if you are Malkavian you call him the lone wolf on at least one occasion. Basically warning you not to trust anyone else, including Jack. She also alludes subtly to the fact that he is playing everyone: "why is he smiling? is that the father behind him?" As a Malkavian you even basically say what the game ending is in conversation to Jack, something about "a pillar of fire in the night sky of LA" referring to the explosion that takes out the top of LaCroix's tower. Jack says that if he thought for a single second you had any clue what you just said, and weren't just a lunatic spouting things you didn't understand he would kill you right then and there.

Basically the plot is littered with clues that make the plot twist hold together. The misdirection that makes it so great. Because when good writers put together a plot twist it can be absolutely fantastic. Just changing something and going hahahah isn't enough. You have to make the gamer/reader/whoever realize that it was what made the most sense from the get go, but direct them to believe a different path is the correct one. So that when it is revealed, everything comes rushing back and you realize all the connections that were there but that you missed.

 

[DoPo]

think what you call "plot twist" is actually plain "plot".

Exactly. All plots have a twist. For a story to be a story, some change, some development, some "twist" from an expected outcome has to occur. The bad guy getting caught and the the bad guy being a tomato are both essentially plot twists, if the expectation was that the bad guy escapes (and is also not a tomato). The difference between the capture outcome and the tomato outcome is not in terms of being a twist or not, it's a matter of intensity and intention. How unexpected is the development, and what is it meant to do to the audience.

No, the bad guy getting caught is plot, a plot twist is something quite unexpected that turns the everything on its head. The bad guy getting caught doesn't retroactively change anything after the revelation, while if he was a tomato, then how would a tomato be antagonising the good guy? You do confuse the terms. Obstacles, what you're probably thinking of, are part of the plot - they are there for the characters to solve and try and overcome. The obstacles can be literal obstacles, like a wall they suddenly have to bypass or situations, actions, and so on. Somebody pulling a gun is not a "twist", it's just something that happens.

The movie Basic has a lot of twists - in it, essentially, two people lead an investigation as to what happened and it every new information they come across contradicts and reshuffles what they know. The plot looks like a rope tied in multiple knots thanks to that. While, say, Die Hard has problems Bruce Willis has to solve (usually by shooting them) but are not twists as you'd suggest.

 

[Ratties]

A stupid plot twist is one that makes the entire games story up to that point worthless. Really evil guy causing all this chaos. Can't wait to kill him in the game because hes such a bastard. Have the final level of the game, you can't wait to fight him. It turns out that hes not actually the one in charge, its some other guy we have not even seen. Every time I see that, it just makes me cringe.

 

[DarkRyter]

a plot twist is something quite unexpected that turns the everything on its head.

I described plot twists as change or development that occurs differently from what is expected. It doesn't necessarily have to "turn everything on its head". A development can certainly lead in that direction (tomato bad guy), but whether it does or doesn't is irrelevant to whether or not it's a plot twist.

You do confuse the terms. Obstacles, what you're probably thinking of, are part of the plot - they are there for the characters to solve and try and overcome. The obstacles can be literal obstacles, like a wall they suddenly have to bypass or situations, actions, and so on. Somebody pulling a gun is not a "twist", it's just something that happens.

Change and Development =/= Conflict.

Someone pulling a gun is a twist, because it's something that happens. The tomato revelation may be much more surprising, but both situations cause a "twist" in the plot by changing what was previously established.

Man did not have gun. Man now has gun. Man was not tomato. Man IS tomato.

 

[Callate]

...Except that plot twists are hardly a "new" idea--they become more and more prominent as literature becomes more and more commercial; an ongoing trend since the publication of Defoe's Crusoe or earlier.

I didn't say that they were new, merely that they were currently in vogue- in part because of a kind of dramatic over-saturation. One could argue that Orpheus looking back on Eurydice was a plot twist if one was expecting either a conventional heroic journey or a typical tragedy.

 

[lacktheknack]

You should play Second Sight.

Like, right now.

Do it.

Seriously.

AND UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU LOOK UP PLOT DETAILS BEFORE YOU DO SO.

All I'll say is that the game is very fun, allows for pacifist runs in the "present" areas, is low on ludonarrative dissonance, and has a plot twist. And it shows you how gameplay + story is meant to work.

 

[Bloodnick]

I see plot twists not as gimmicks or as a tool, but as an important part of a story.
It's there to keep the story interesting and to keep the audience at their toes.
It doesn't always have to be a big twist that changes the fabric of the story, the characters or their motivations.
This is purely based on the basic story structures in film and television, but I think it applies just as well to video games.

But the problem, as many has already pointed out, is that a lot of twists can come through as either forced or not well developed. I think that plot twists have to be planned out well ahead, before even writing the story, so you can set up your smoke and mirrors from the word "go" and maintain the feeling of the unexpected.

So: no, plot twists are not gimmicky or just a tool; they are an integral part of the story that a lot of writers don't put enough work into.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Eh, to me, it all depends on whether or not it was done well... which, admittedly, is probably hard to do...

 

[romxxii]

Tropes Are Not Bad [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/TropesAreNotBad]. Plot twists are useful, especially in games, which normally take a helluva lot longer than most creative media to consume. Compare to a TV show, that's done in 22-44 minutes, or a film that's 90-132 minutes long, a game's standard 8-hour playthrough can seem really long. And there are times where a changeup is needed, lest the player get bored. One way is to vary game mechanics; another is to introduce changes to the narrative.

It can also be used, as in the Bioshock games or Spec Ops: The Line, to instill a sense of cognitive dissonance, and in the process hopefully teach the player a valuable life lesson.

Of course, the key to a properly-executed plot twist is to foreshadow, but not telegraph the twist too early. The audience/player must, at the time of the reveal, feel like everything suddenly made so much more sense in hindsight. Case in point: Bioshock's twist may seem out there, but if you managed to collect the right recordings and read between the lines of some main character dialogues, then you suddenly start to see that the author/designer had been trying to inform you of the twist much earlier in the game. Since entire threads have been dedicated to analyzing the Bioshock endings, I leave it to far better men than myself to explain everything in detail.

 

[Holythirteen]

Sounds like the original poster didn't like the way a particular story developed, and feels the story was let down by centering too much around its big reveal, maybe?

I agree its lame when it's done poorly, but I'm definitely in favor of any tool a writer can use to make their story more compelling.

And I thought Kotor's twist was at least as good as Deus Ex's 4 or so twists.

 

[j0frenzy]

I'd like to think storytelling has advanced somewhat in the past 2500 years, and maybe not doing something just because the ancient greeks didn't do it is nonsensical. Old =/= good etc.

Anyway, as others have said, when used right, they are absolutely brilliant. When used badly they're quite annoying, or even unintentionally hilarious (I'm looking at you, Bionic Commando reboot). The lesson here isn't to not use them, it's to learn to use them properly, which also applies to every other literary device available, funnily enough.

LOL yeah because game storytelling represents an "advancement" over the likes of Sophocles or Euripides.

I wasn't going to post anything here because anything I had to say has mostly already been said, but this statement bothers me. First of all, I didn't realize a plot had to rise to the level of fundamentally transforming art before it was justified as existing. I don't think anyone was not fine with the movie The American President existing without requiring it be some instant classic that everyone must watch. Second, motion picture was invented in the 1880s, Gone With the Wind was release in 1939. Citizen Kane was 1941. Casablanca in 1942. That was almost 60 years later. Comics existed for over 100 years before Alan Moore graced us with his gifts to nerdom. Just because gaming as a medium does not have its one killer story that everyone must play to know good art does not mean we should abandon storytelling altogether and just rely on simple tropes. Lastly, I'd point out Silent Hill 2 exists, a game whose story could not be told without the interactive element of gaming nor whose gameplay would not be as good if there wasn't a story attached. And while I don't think Silent Hill 2 is necessarily gaming's defining work of art, I think there's a lot in there that points gaming in the right direction.

 

[FalloutJack]

Do you find plot twists in books gimmicky? If you answered yes, then plot-driven media just isn't for you.

 

[EzraPound]

Do you find plot twists in books gimmicky? If you answered yes, then plot-driven media just isn't for you.

Ummm... I don't read novels with loopy plot twists because they're usually garbage.

I'd like to think storytelling has advanced somewhat in the past 2500 years, and maybe not doing something just because the ancient greeks didn't do it is nonsensical. Old =/= good etc.

Anyway, as others have said, when used right, they are absolutely brilliant. When used badly they're quite annoying, or even unintentionally hilarious (I'm looking at you, Bionic Commando reboot). The lesson here isn't to not use them, it's to learn to use them properly, which also applies to every other literary device available, funnily enough.

LOL yeah because game storytelling represents an "advancement" over the likes of Sophocles or Euripides.

I wasn't going to post anything here because anything I had to say has mostly already been said, but this statement bothers me. First of all, I didn't realize a plot had to rise to the level of fundamentally transforming art before it was justified as existing. I don't think anyone was not fine with the movie The American President existing without requiring it be some instant classic that everyone must watch. Second, motion picture was invented in the 1880s, Gone With the Wind was release in 1939. Citizen Kane was 1941. Casablanca in 1942. That was almost 60 years later. Comics existed for over 100 years before Alan Moore graced us with his gifts to nerdom. Just because gaming as a medium does not have its one killer story that everyone must play to know good art does not mean we should abandon storytelling altogether and just rely on simple tropes. Lastly, I'd point out Silent Hill 2 exists, a game whose story could not be told without the interactive element of gaming nor whose gameplay would not be as good if there wasn't a story attached. And while I don't think Silent Hill 2 is necessarily gaming's defining work of art, I think there's a lot in there that points gaming in the right direction.

1) I didn't say games had to be genius to "register as existing", I was responding critically to a comment wherein it was implied that the usage of hammy plot twists in games represents an advancement over Greek tragedy

2) I didn't say all games had to be aspire to be 'art', just that reviewers/commentators should stop hyperbolically praising terribly-written storylines

3) I think lots of games already ARE important art

4) That the storylines in games have to reflect the interactivity of the gameplay is no excuse for the general awfulness of most game writing, including the use of nonsensical "plot twists" as a lame crutch

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoomph!

Speaing as a writer, I think you're painting with a very wide brush, a generalization. Books have to be touched upon in a case-by-case manner and your final judgement may not equal everyone else's there. What you think is trash might be brilliant, and also the reverse is true. In fact, the only real generalization I should think is proper is if you're actually a little more forgiving and open-minded about it.

 

[Requia]

Plot twists are pretty much a mandatory part of complex plot. If the hero sets out to do X, accomplishes x, and then goes home there's not much room for any plot more complicated than a Mario game.