Million Dollar Actor, Five Dollar Writer
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To bring up a classic of good game writing (which may have already been brought up, but bears repeating): Chrono Trigger. A complex plot spanning millenia, in which you must move back and forth in time to gather the power, the resources, and the people you'll need to save the world from the monster that lives in its core, and in spite of all this, the story made sense. On top of that, the dialogue was pretty good, the characters were interesting (Magus, willing to be seriously evil in order to save the world; Frog, tormented by the memory of an old life he can't get back but driven by the memory of the hero he once was; Robo, the machine who gains a soul through acts of self-sacrifice; even the silent protagonist Chrono is well fleshed out, and the rest aren't so bad either), the plot twists were always a nice surprise, and the game accounted nicely for the paradoxes that time travel necessarily creates.
I also liked Majora's Mask, but that one didn't do time travel quite as well as Chrono Trigger. Not surprising, given the constraints, but it raised the issue of paradoxes and didn't properly resolve it. Still, it was cool to discover the world you were in, the mess it was in, how it got that way, and how to stop it. The scene where you catch the falling moon was a beautiful moment of triumph, and the ending left you wondering about the nature of evil spirits and why the act the way they do.
Now, on to the subject of bad writing: I say that good writing trumps no writing, but no writing trumps bad writing. If the game doesn't need a story, don't give it one. People have mentioned DOOM and Pac-Man and BeJeweled. Certain games need no exploration of motives any more than chess does. You just charge in and start playing.
On the other hand, if it does need a story, give it a good one. If you need a story to move it along, the story ought to be one of the best parts of the game. If you must tell the player why he's doing what he's doing, you'd better make sure that the player's reaction is not laughter.
Now, on the subject of cutscenes: I'm generally against them. There are good ones, but I'm of the opinion that in games, interactivity should never stop. Why show people doing cool stuff when you could be letting them play cool stuff?
I also liked Majora's Mask, but that one didn't do time travel quite as well as Chrono Trigger. Not surprising, given the constraints, but it raised the issue of paradoxes and didn't properly resolve it. Still, it was cool to discover the world you were in, the mess it was in, how it got that way, and how to stop it. The scene where you catch the falling moon was a beautiful moment of triumph, and the ending left you wondering about the nature of evil spirits and why the act the way they do.
Now, on to the subject of bad writing: I say that good writing trumps no writing, but no writing trumps bad writing. If the game doesn't need a story, don't give it one. People have mentioned DOOM and Pac-Man and BeJeweled. Certain games need no exploration of motives any more than chess does. You just charge in and start playing.
On the other hand, if it does need a story, give it a good one. If you need a story to move it along, the story ought to be one of the best parts of the game. If you must tell the player why he's doing what he's doing, you'd better make sure that the player's reaction is not laughter.
Now, on the subject of cutscenes: I'm generally against them. There are good ones, but I'm of the opinion that in games, interactivity should never stop. Why show people doing cool stuff when you could be letting them play cool stuff?
Hehe, my mistake, then. You should check out Seirei no Moribito, Evangelion, Basilisk and, uh, I dunno Last Exile? Serial Experiments Lain is worth watching, too.Tears of Blood said:
A friend of mine was telling me about a Mage: the Ascension character I was going to play at some point. She was a Euthanatos that I was expecting to turn into a Nephandus. Anyway, he told me that playing like the outcome was already determined wasn't a good way to come at it, and once I saw that in action in WoW and War3, I have to agree. There was no struggle to resist the change, no chance at redemption. It wasn't even a smart or impressive bullrush into oblivion, just ... pretentious.Shujen said:
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@ Tears of Blood above: I have to agree about Lain. I almost fell asleep watching the pilot, and I got to the second episode before I just couldn't take it anymore. Haven't seen the others.
I think you're giving the writers something of a raw shake here. There are lot of talented writers working for major studios, but I think more often than not, they're not given any real control over the flow or structure of the game. Your 'chef/pb&J' analogy was on in a way you probably didn't intend: why hire someone who specializes in crafting a story, and then tell them to constrain themselves to...dialog trees. Or cutscenes, between hour-long sprees of carnage.
It's a bit like asking a screen-writer to write a script for a movie, bearing in mind that he'll only be able to use the lower 1/8 of the screen, and every major character has to be either a blue or red dot, and for every two minutes of film there will be a half-hour light show interlude, set to acid raver techno music.
...wait, that actually sounds kind of awesome.
But my point remains valid!
It's a bit like asking a screen-writer to write a script for a movie, bearing in mind that he'll only be able to use the lower 1/8 of the screen, and every major character has to be either a blue or red dot, and for every two minutes of film there will be a half-hour light show interlude, set to acid raver techno music.
...wait, that actually sounds kind of awesome.
But my point remains valid!
Best writing? Off the top of my head: Ninja Gaiden. While I happen to think FFIV, VI and Chrono Trigger were amazing stories that made you care about the characters (and Dissidia did such an amazing job of making all these characters really accessible, such that characters I previously disliked - Squall, Tidus, Cloud - I actually empathized with deeply), Ninja Gaiden is still so powerful. It had real world locations and factions: References to the CIA and so forth. The XBox games are great, but they really fail to replicate the majesty of those simple cutscenes. As a little kid, the only reason to play through bone-gnawingly hard levels was to uncover the next chapter. With such little time to tell the story and such primitive means, they created truly magnificent arcs. Terranigma also deserves special mention for being one of the most soul-crushingly depressing stories ever written. Mother 3 similarly kicked you in the balls and never stopped. Breath of Fire 2 had a pretty chilling twist.
Worst writing that made me visibly angry? I rarely continue to play bad games, but Secret of the Stars (Tecmo Super RPG) is a candidate: Badly translated, almost no dialogue, totally forgettable. Morrowind's dialogue is actually pretty overblown: The game itself is great fun, but most of the characters are interchangable and the world feels fairly bland. Ditto for Oblivion: I could care less about any of the motivations handed me. Halo is almost entirely uninteresting to me from a storyline perspective, but that's not the same as bad. Shaq Fu had insultingly bad premises, but it wasn't actually terribly written and had some tongue-in-cheek about it. Resident Evil games are always laughable. Mortal Kombat has its inane moments. While the first Metal Gear Solid was a great spy story, Metal Gear Solid 2 was basically the creator mocking the audience, which is arrogant and also stupid. I hate Diablo, Diablo II and World of Warcraft so much, but they are all brilliantly written. Tekken has some mind-numbingly bad storylines ("What, you mean I'm actually a memmber of the only other clan on the planet that uses lightning punches?") It's really difficult to find a game that can even be said to have a story that is actually bad.
Worst writing that made me visibly angry? I rarely continue to play bad games, but Secret of the Stars (Tecmo Super RPG) is a candidate: Badly translated, almost no dialogue, totally forgettable. Morrowind's dialogue is actually pretty overblown: The game itself is great fun, but most of the characters are interchangable and the world feels fairly bland. Ditto for Oblivion: I could care less about any of the motivations handed me. Halo is almost entirely uninteresting to me from a storyline perspective, but that's not the same as bad. Shaq Fu had insultingly bad premises, but it wasn't actually terribly written and had some tongue-in-cheek about it. Resident Evil games are always laughable. Mortal Kombat has its inane moments. While the first Metal Gear Solid was a great spy story, Metal Gear Solid 2 was basically the creator mocking the audience, which is arrogant and also stupid. I hate Diablo, Diablo II and World of Warcraft so much, but they are all brilliantly written. Tekken has some mind-numbingly bad storylines ("What, you mean I'm actually a memmber of the only other clan on the planet that uses lightning punches?") It's really difficult to find a game that can even be said to have a story that is actually bad.
Two things immediately come to mind, neither of which are all that immense. I tend to just -not- play games with terrible stories, as I always wait until they come down in price (thus by then hear which games are AWESOMES and which suck) and I almost always play a game with my primary interest being the story.
Oddly one of the things that really miffs me is not a whole game, but an instance. In WoW. A game which, though cliche, is usually decent (at least the lore and characters are). The instance in question being The Caverns of Time: The Culling of Strathholme. It's like some totally random person wrote it. Arthas' dialog is all horrible. The paths you take make so little sense, and it has so very little to do with the original in War3 which, granted, was Arthas running around knocking over buildings with his HAMMER...but still, I think they could have translated it into the MMO so much better. And at the end, Arthas stands there with 5 other heroes behind him and tells Mal'Ganis that "It's just you...and me." Right. Just you? Go for it. I'll smack him once and then wait for the lootz. Oh wait, YOU CAN'T DO IT BY YOURSELF BECAUSE YOUR A WHINY PANSY.
The other complaint is just misc games on the iphone. Particularly 'rpg' games on the iphone, which put so much effort into looks, numbers and a expansive worlds, but fall flat on their faces with these stories that came from an 8 year old. Zenonia is a prime example. There's a free version. If you ever consider making a game, use this one as an example of why, no matter how good you think your story is, you should HIRE A GOD DAMN WRITER OR EDITOR. Totally serious, some of the character names are: Vague, Lady Charity, Lord Virulent, Vicious, and...to top it all off, your character? Spikey haired kid named, 'Regret'. Uuuughhhh. And that's just names. It goes downhill from there.
Oddly one of the things that really miffs me is not a whole game, but an instance. In WoW. A game which, though cliche, is usually decent (at least the lore and characters are). The instance in question being The Caverns of Time: The Culling of Strathholme. It's like some totally random person wrote it. Arthas' dialog is all horrible. The paths you take make so little sense, and it has so very little to do with the original in War3 which, granted, was Arthas running around knocking over buildings with his HAMMER...but still, I think they could have translated it into the MMO so much better. And at the end, Arthas stands there with 5 other heroes behind him and tells Mal'Ganis that "It's just you...and me." Right. Just you? Go for it. I'll smack him once and then wait for the lootz. Oh wait, YOU CAN'T DO IT BY YOURSELF BECAUSE YOUR A WHINY PANSY.
The other complaint is just misc games on the iphone. Particularly 'rpg' games on the iphone, which put so much effort into looks, numbers and a expansive worlds, but fall flat on their faces with these stories that came from an 8 year old. Zenonia is a prime example. There's a free version. If you ever consider making a game, use this one as an example of why, no matter how good you think your story is, you should HIRE A GOD DAMN WRITER OR EDITOR. Totally serious, some of the character names are: Vague, Lady Charity, Lord Virulent, Vicious, and...to top it all off, your character? Spikey haired kid named, 'Regret'. Uuuughhhh. And that's just names. It goes downhill from there.
