Stories in games, an argument against Yahtzee

[Vern]

Hell, Doom and Blood are two of my favorite games ever, and the story in them is almost negligible. In Doom you're a space marine, some scientists did experiments with portals that went wrong and demons invaded. The only time you see a mention of the story is at the end of an episode, and that's one screen that you can skip past. In Blood, you're a guy who's come back from the dead and an evil cult wants to kill you. The rest of the time is spent setting zombies on fire, kicking decapitated heads, and firing dual tommy guns at gargoyles. Stories aren't integral to a game, good gameplay is far more important.
However the problem arises when games try to tell a good story, make it an important part of the game, and then fail to deliver an interesting narrative. Serious Sam and Painkiller might be good examples of newer games without real story but great gameplay. Yes the story is there, and yes it's rather lackluster, but it's not a focus point. The focus is on the gameplay, if you don't even pay attention to the story for a minute, the game is still fun.
I may be in the minority, but I didn't really care for Half-Life 2. I loved the first one, and still play it, and the enormous amount of mods for it, but it seems it focused too much on the story, and not enough on gameplay. It just grew repetitive, and not in a good way. The combine weren't fun to fight, the weapons weren't that enjoyable to use, and the vehicle sequences got old about 5 minutes in. Doom on the other hand just turned 16, and I still play it regularly, it still has user created content released for it daily, and the gameplay is amazingly balanced. The weapons are fun to use, each has their own use in certain situations, and all the enemies are unique.
It's all about the gameplay, a good story can make a game better, but when I play a game I'm not doing it for a story. If I need that I'll read a book or watch a movie, games are about having fun. And I honestly can't remember the last game I played that had an amazing story, even the best story in a game compares to a mediocre book or movie. They tend to just be generic pieces of crap. "Oh noes, some aliens invaded Earth and I'm the only one who can stop them, but I'm a mute with a crowbar but everyone loves me so I can stop them!" Or "Oh noes, some evil corporation/person is draining the life blood of the planet, and I'm a clone, we have to stop this!" It's not deep, it's just generic.

 

[Gutterslime]

First off, I would like to say that I agree fully with Yahtzee and that gameplay and story are about 50/50, and that I truly have a hard time making it anywhere in a game that is lacking seriously in the story department, even "great games" like Left 4 Dead or half-life 2 where the characters are all the exact same aside from the model usedand there is no real story to speak of, or even the multiplayer on Modern Warfare 2, and I mean the massively online part, not spec ops, that was entertaining, and if there is not atleast a decent story, I probably wont play very much of it, or the game will lure me in with the hopes of a good story only to give me the same shitty silent protaganist with a crowbar and the same end result of just having killed the final boss and thinking, what did I accomplish...nothing, and there have been games that were beyond any comparison and had almost no story, not any I can think of on the past couple of generations of systems, but the ending was just as gratifying and epicly wonderful as anything in the half-life series promised to be, and I know a lot of you are thinking "Wow, this guy sure is bashing half-life a lot" thats because I really hated it, portal was better, but I still thought it was okay at best for reasons I'm not going into right now, but I am getting off topic. Even the fighting games today seem to have better stories than half of the garbage that looks pretty and your objective is "Kill that bad guy because he's bad" And like I said, I'm not opposed to games with no real story, there just arent any great ones on modern systems, not major releases anyway, the only one that I can think of is Braid, I need a reason for doing something in my games rather than killing in magical armor, aside from games like world of warcraft where the story is optional and you can skip every screen of dialogue if you so choose, i believe story is as essential an element to a good game as gameplay and no that does not mean I would play a game with an amazing storyline and shit for gameplay, because I, like the rest of you, play games for the gameplay, if not, I'd just go read another book.

So for all of you that took the time to read my probably idiotic rant, get yourself a cookie, you earned it, for eveyone else here are the cliff notes

Story is absolutely as big as gameplay in my book, I hated Half-Life(1&2), and it seems the only great games, aside from Braid, with no relevant story, came out atleast 10 years ago if not longer

 

[Mr.Switchblade]

Story is most definitely as, if not more important than gameplay, that is why valve are releasing videos like: meet the "insert class here". It adds narrative to the game and draws people in, its also the reason why co-op games are growing in popularity at the moment, yes people want good multi-player gameplay but they also want story eg boarderland, l4d2.

You give the example of chess and a few other board games, as well as someone else giving the example of Pong, Pac Man, Space Invaders, Centipede and donkey kong. Those all come from a time when it wasn't possible to fit anything OTHER than gameplay and a few beeps for a soundtrack onto a cart. These games live on because they were all that was around back in the day and now nostalgia has kicked in and people hark back for a "simpler" type of game.

What you are trying to say is similar to saying that cave paintings are better than Renascence art. Yes they were around first and they are famous but they are not BETTER. What comes after improves on them and adds more immersion to them. It is the same with games and mainly in the form of story and graphics.

Finally have there have been hundreds of threads dedicated to "your favourite game ever" even in the few months i've been a member here and not once have any of the games mentioned come into the lists except as the odd joke.The majority of people don't rate chess or pac-man or even ut as highly as deus ex or half-life or even halo.
Tl:dr
Point 1: Yes it is important.

Point 2: Same arguement as the point above but worded differently so; It is important yes.

Point 3: Complete opposite point to the ones above so i guess i have to agree, however the second half of the point has nothing to do with the first part it just says everyone opinion is valid and i agree with that part too.

Point 4: I give you the example of the point and click adventure. Very little gameplay, literally just point and click at everything you see, but the story in every one of the classic games is why they are played.

..........

K, so next time read, because I make the point that the BEST games incorporate both story and gameplay beautifully, my point was simply that gameplay is MORE important that story. A good example of gameplay carrying more weight is in the E-sports community. People don't see who can beat starcraft's single player the fastest, so they can enjoy the story, they compete with each other focusing on gameplay mechanics, same is true for most other high profile games. The Wii is another, with its almost non existent story for every freakin wii mote add-on crap and nintendo sells more than any other console. If you need any more proof, just look at the numbers, wii fit board sells more the MW2... Last time i checked that thing does not have a story behind it.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Not by the industry definition of the term, no -

That's where you should have stopped.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PersonalDictionary

Har har. Obviously I meant that saying 'casual games' calls up mental images of the likes of Peggle - simplistic games developed on a small budget and aimed at demographics that traditionally are not thought of as 'gamers', a description that certainly does not fit a title like Unreal Tournament, squarely aimed at the hardcore shooter fan as it is.

But then what is the difference between a casual game of poker with a bunch of your buddies and a cutthroat high stakes poker tournament? From a mechanical standpoint the casual game is hitting the same notes the professional high stakes game does - they are both still poker, but one costs a hell of a lot more to play, is probably taking place in a fancy hotel instead of somebody's garage, and the players involved take it far far more seriously.

See where I'm going with this?

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

in some way, gameplay and storytelling must be hand to hand in my opinion. Not being a halo fan, just look at this game, it has a great story, in the first trilogy gameplay is FUN, but it gets repetitive. same happens to others: Mass Effect 1&2, Dragon Age, newer games are implementing even more interactivity into the storyline.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

If electronic gaming all aimed to create 'pure' games along the vein of poker or chess, the world would be a very boring place indeed. Originally video games were crude translations of real life gaming activities, then simple novelties, some of which turned out to be compelling by virtue of their mechanics as a form of 'pure' gaming, and good for them.

Maybe stories are simple novelties and distractions as well. They don't feed us and rarely teach us anything important. We throw them away when we are bored of them. Your use of language is very prejudicial against games. Why should we have to put up with that sort of dismissive "games are pointless" attitude on our home turf. Is Chess a simple novelty? Is Tetris a simple novelty? No to both, they both have staying power.

And then developers started crafting works that let the players immerse themselves in alternate realities. While you can hyper-focus on those titles to distill the underlying mechanics it might have in common with the more pure game games, and can probably rightly argue that by themselves those mechanics are not as fun as those found in simpler and purer games, you would be missing the forest for the trees!

Even the most simple games immerse players in the game mechanics. Often more so because they have been refined so that delays and distractions have been removed from the experience. I'm not missing the wood at all.

Games without a narrative framework had bloody well be a lot of fun, because fun is literally all they have going for them.

That's the point though isn't it? Games should be good, we should demand excellence from them. Unless we don't care, then, oh well, whatever, it's too much to ask for developers to make good games I suppose...

Films on the other hand do not have to be fun at all - they still have to be good of course, but the specific emotional responses a 'good' film trigger can run the gamut of emotions. Likewise, story-based games can do so much more than simply amuse the player - they let you go somewhere fantastical, have super-powers, overthrow the earth, save the galaxy, etc.

So it's easier to make films that are good that games that are good so game developers should try to make movie type games instead? The main problem with this is that it is actually quite hard to make good films and most recent games would make very poor movies as well as being poor games.

Team Fortress 2 lets you control a variety of whimsical cartoonishly rendered character classes, with deep underlying mechanics, to play a simple score-based competitive game with your fellow humans. Unless you have an exceptional imagination and construct elaborate narrative frameworks for everything you do, you will never feel like your character or experience any type of "escapism", for the same reasons picking up a hand of cards in poker does little to help me pretend I'm James Bond in Casino Royale.

So those people who think they are having a good time playing Poker or Team Fortress 2 are just deluded becuase they don't have your understanding of the importance of immersing yourself in a fictional world?

This is why I want games with a story - lasting universal appeal is all well and good but it hardly lets me battle ancient vampires in the World of Darkness, now does it?

Heh. I don't know, it depends on how many vampires you want to imagine killing I suppose.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Well, games that have no story and are just gameplay-focused tend to be pretty unmemorable. Yeah, they may be fun (if executed properly), but eventually you move on and forget about them.

Pong, Pac Man, Space Invaders, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Defender, Frogger, Galaga, Dig Dug, 1942, R-Type, and Tetris would like to disagree.

Dude, how long ago those game were made? Seriously, it's like saying telegraph is awesomer then the iPhone because it was in use for a longer time. Games evolve, standards change, and what once was a great game can't compete even with the mediocre games of today.

Except Tetris, that one does rock.

All of the games cited have been heralded as great in their own time. Most of them served as the foundation of future games. Some of them are STILL being leveraged, directly or otherwise to make modern games.

Here's my opinion on the subject. Quality stories are important in some games. In the past, I could be satisfied with a short explanation of my role in the world before being unleashed. Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem and countless others fall into this category. More explanation wasn't really necessary - there are demons invading the mortal plane; you should kill them was all I really needed to know.

But when a game suddenly tries to make a CHARACTER important, then I start wanting answers. The trouble is, with the exception of only a handful of circumstances, video game characters are archeypal and the stories we are told only have a new setting painted over a story we have already heard a thousand times.

In most games, this proves sufficient, but why on earth would I tolerate being told a story I've heard before being acted out by characters that are a name and hairdoo away from a movie or book character? The reason is simple: the gameplay. I will tolerate a fairly attrocious story (or complete lack of a story) if the basic mechanics and core gameplay ideas entertain me enough. By contrast, I almost certainly won't grind my way through a game I hate just because of the story.

Stories in games can be an important part of the game, but at this point it's a rare game that ever manages to actually leverage the interactive nature of the medium in a way that enchances the narrative. As it stands, the best praise one can legitimately give most games that have "good stories" is that they were a familar tale compellingly told. People often cite final fantasy games as having excellent stories for example in spite of the fact that the basic framework of the story has changed little in the 20 years the franchise has been around.

Until the industry has evolved to the point where people actually know how to use their tools to tell a story that is worth hearing on it's own often enough that it's anything other than a happy accident, I will stand behind gameplay as being the more important pillar.

 

[wolfy098]

Because Yahtzee comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, then we cannot trust Yahtzee's reviews!

Just wait till I get going!

Yahtzee comes from England.
Australia is not populated by criminals
That said I don't like Australia but thats because I hate A/C's

 

[DruSM157]

Because Yahtzee comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, then we cannot trust Yahtzee's reviews!

Just wait till I get going!

Yahtzee comes from England.
Australia is not populated by criminals
That said I don't like Australia but thats because I hate A/C's

Somebody needs to watch the Princess Bride. ;D

 

[Acidwell]

Story is most definitely as, if not more important than gameplay, that is why valve are releasing videos like: meet the "insert class here". It adds narrative to the game and draws people in, its also the reason why co-op games are growing in popularity at the moment, yes people want good multi-player gameplay but they also want story eg boarderland, l4d2.

..........

K, so next time read, because I make the point that the BEST games incorporate both story and gameplay beautifully, my point was simply that gameplay is MORE important that story. A good example of gameplay carrying more weight is in the E-sports community. People don't see who can beat starcraft's single player the fastest, so they can enjoy the story, they compete with each other focusing on gameplay mechanics, same is true for most other high profile games. The Wii is another, with its almost non existent story for every freakin wii mote add-on crap and nintendo sells more than any other console. If you need any more proof, just look at the numbers, wii fit board sells more the MW2... Last time i checked that thing does not have a story behind it.

Right back at you,the bold part in case you didnt know, i was saying that STORY is more important so i was disagreeing with you.
Starcraft multiplayer is important to a minority of people who are still playing the game. I'm saying that for the majority of people the story does not take a back seat to gameplay, if i was to go back and play starcraft again it would be for the story not to get owned by some dude who has played it every day since it came out.
Nintendo have admitted along with everyone else that a lot of the games out for the wii are shit.
Also did you just give the example of a game that has been out for 3 years selling more than a game thats been out since november?
The wii fit up to october 09 has sold 22.5 million copies, mw2 sold 6 million copies in the first month of release, thats a third of all copies of the fit sold and its still got another 2 years and 10 months to go. Btw Have you ever used a wii fit: the reason the wii fit sells isnt because of gameplay either, its because most people buy it as a way to get some exercise.

 

[Sentient6]

Well, games that have no story and are just gameplay-focused tend to be pretty unmemorable. Yeah, they may be fun (if executed properly), but eventually you move on and forget about them.

Pong, Pac Man, Space Invaders, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Defender, Frogger, Galaga, Dig Dug, 1942, R-Type, and Tetris would like to disagree.

Dude, how long ago those game were made? Seriously, it's like saying telegraph is awesomer then the iPhone because it was in use for a longer time. Games evolve, standards change, and what once was a great game can't compete even with the mediocre games of today.

Except Tetris, that one does rock.

All of the games cited have been heralded as great in their own time. Most of them served as the foundation of future games. Some of them are STILL being leveraged, directly or otherwise to make modern games.

Here's my opinion on the subject. Quality stories are important in some games. In the past, I could be satisfied with a short explanation of my role in the world before being unleashed. Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem and countless others fall into this category. More explanation wasn't really necessary - there are demons invading the mortal plane; you should kill them was all I really needed to know.

But when a game suddenly tries to make a CHARACTER important, then I start wanting answers. The trouble is, with the exception of only a handful of circumstances, video game characters are archeypal and the stories we are told only have a new setting painted over a story we have already heard a thousand times.

In most games, this proves sufficient, but why on earth would I tolerate being told a story I've heard before being acted out by characters that are a name and hairdoo away from a movie or book character? The reason is simple: the gameplay. I will tolerate a fairly attrocious story (or complete lack of a story) if the basic mechanics and core gameplay ideas entertain me enough. By contrast, I almost certainly won't grind my way through a game I hate just because of the story.

Stories in games can be an important part of the game, but at this point it's a rare game that ever manages to actually leverage the interactive nature of the medium in a way that enchances the narrative. As it stands, the best praise one can legitimately give most games that have "good stories" is that they were a familar tale compellingly told. People often cite final fantasy games as having excellent stories for example in spite of the fact that the basic framework of the story has changed little in the 20 years the franchise has been around.

Until the industry has evolved to the point where people actually know how to use their tools to tell a story that is worth hearing on it's own often enough that it's anything other than a happy accident, I will stand behind gameplay as being the more important pillar.

So basically, you're saying that as long as the gameplay is solid, the story could stink, and the game will still be good. And I'm not saying that's not true. But the game won't be great. Not by today's standards. Yes, there were game in the past that were great despite having little or no story, and they will alwayswill be remembered as great. BUT, you can't claim that is the saem game was made today, it would receive as much attention, or praise.

 

[Mr.Switchblade]

Also;

On a additional note: please be aware I am not calling for the end of story in games, I just think gameplay is more important. Try not to be so polarized.

I find this an odd statement when you say a polarizing statement such as:

Point 2: Games do not need story

I think it would be more accurate to say "All games do not need story"[/quote]

Actually that statement is very open ended. It implies that game does not need story in order to be a game, not that games must not have story.

 

[Danpascooch]

Of course he puts his preferences in there and is totally biased.

Anyone who says Yahtzee is a fair and even game reviewer is a fucking idiot.

That said, he is very entertaining.

 

[Mr.Switchblade]

Right back at you,the bold part in case you didnt know, i was saying that STORY is more important so i was disagreeing with you.
Starcraft multiplayer is important to a minority of people who are still playing the game. I'm saying that for the majority of people the story does not take a back seat to gameplay, if i was to go back and play starcraft again it would be for the story not to get owned by some dude who has played it every day since it came out.
Nintendo have admitted along with everyone else that a lot of the games out for the wii are shit.
Also did you just give the example of a game that has been out for 3 years selling more than a game thats been out since november?
The wii fit up to october 09 has sold 22.5 million copies, mw2 sold 6 million copies in the first month of release, thats a third of all copies of the fit sold and its still got another 2 years and 10 months to go. Btw Have you ever used a wii fit: the reason the wii fit sells isnt because of gameplay either, its because most people buy it as a way to get some exercise.[/quote]

I was responding to your statement that the polls on here about greatest games listed ones that included story as their all time favs, as I do. I guess we can just throw that out of your argument then if your discounting it too. Whether or not wii games are shit doesn't matter, the point is that people go for them, as they are more attracted to gameplay than story options. In addition, multiplayer is the most played aspect of almost any game that supports it, and is not simply limited to starcraft. Rarely does multiplayer have anything to do with story. In fact, games can sell purely by advocating gameplay capacity, a story game has to do both if it wants to break even. Case and point, streetfighter, civilization, SSBB, Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, Left for Dead, the list goes on and on, and none of these games use story as their selling point. A story game can get away with a 50/50 balance, but it rarely attracts the interests of large populations of gamers. Also, MW2 has what most think as a crap story, but still sells like a effing bonanza. You may value otherwise, but based on sales and general trends in players, most tend to go for the gameplay. But like i said, everyone has their preferences.

 

[happysock]

Well, games that have no story and are just gameplay-focused tend to be pretty unmemorable. Yeah, they may be fun (if executed properly), but eventually you move on and forget about them. A good story (or rather a good story in combination with good gameplay) is what makes the game great. It makes you want to play the game that much more - and enjoy it a whole lot more. So yeah, story is not essential for a good game - but it's pretty important for a great game.

I dunno I fond left for dead 1 and 2 pretty damn memorable in my mind and they have little or no story, just like some of them most iconic and memorable games in history to name a few Pong, Pacman, space invaders...

 

[wolfy098]

Because Yahtzee comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, then we cannot trust Yahtzee's reviews!

Just wait till I get going!

Yahtzee comes from England.
Australia is not populated by criminals
That said I don't like Australia but thats because I hate A/C's

Somebody needs to watch the Princess Bride. ;D

That film is older than I am...
And the storyline it states on wikipedia makes it sound like something a drunk maniac would come up with...

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

-snip-

It's not prejudice against games, it's simply recognition that chess is chess - and few other things are. For every timeless new 'classic' game we get, how many are just copy+paste hack jobs reselling the same old games again and again? If game designers are all looking to create the next chess then I posit most of them are going to fail and produce a product with little to no merit, was my point.

You apparently missed how I concede that some do in fact transcend novelty to become timeless classics (Tetris certainly fits that description), the point was those are a minority.

Folks having fun playing games like poker or more elaborate digital mechanics-based titles are folks having fun, end of story - I was certainly not arguing otherwise. I merely note that they are having that fun because they enjoy the mechanics, and not because those games let them immerse themselves in an alternate reality.

But what if you don't find those underlying mechanics to be all that great - not that you hate them mind you, just that you don't say... find FPS gameplay for the sake of FPS gameplay alone to be all that compelling of a prospect? Then there is little in a game like UT to draw you in and keep you playing - while a title like No One Lives Forever wouldn't have that shortcoming.

Games with narratives give players like that motivation to keep playing - something the 'pure gameplay' titles achieve through your enjoyment of their mechanics and competition with other people in most cases. It's a very safe bet to conclude that the overwhelming majority of multi-player only shooters find offline modes with bots to be much less fun than playing it online with real people - there's just something lacking when your opponent is a machine.

So how to make what boils down to a game of laser tag against an unfeeling AI fun? You give the player more motivation to win than simply saying "You win!" - you give them a narrative framework wherein they have some reason other than "beat the computer at laser tag" to keep essentially doing just that.

You can finish a book or a film, but you can't finish chess - narratives are inherently transitory! You may go back and re-read/re-watch/re-play the book/film/game with a narrative because you loved it the first time through, but it will never be exactly the same experience unless you develop selective amnesia. With chess, you either are playing a game right now or you aren't, the only measure of whether you are 'done' with it is when you decide to stop.

What I'm driving at is there are two kinds of games - games you simply play [small](and may love utterly, I'm not stopping you!)[/small] and games you experience. The latter may very well be a great deal of fun, but they can overcome quirks or foibles of bad design where a purely gameplay-focused title can't, as they aren't just about being fun.

I am not suggesting that games without stories are bad, or that you are stupid if you play them, or that enjoying them is somehow less meaningful of an experience than enjoying a game with a narrative. I am stating that for me, the ability to escape into a setting conveyed by games with a narrative structure is of far greater interest than a title that is simply a great deal of fun but has absolutely no narrative or 'point' to continued play beyond continuing play. Of course they are transitory, most getting played and then abandoned for the next game down the road, but that is not a bad thing. They aren't meant to be chess, and that's why they are enjoyable in the first place.

Games haven't been sullied by the addition of stories, nor do stories exist only to cover up the inadequacies of those games - they exist because escapism is bloody enjoyable.

 

[DruSM157]

Because Yahtzee comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, then we cannot trust Yahtzee's reviews!

Just wait till I get going!

Yahtzee comes from England.
Australia is not populated by criminals
That said I don't like Australia but thats because I hate A/C's

Somebody needs to watch the Princess Bride. ;D

That film is older than I am...
And the storyline it states on wikipedia makes it sound like something a drunk maniac would come up with...

William Goldman is one of the best writers of all time. And it's worth a watch. Seriously. Growing up it was a rite of passage in my household.