I think that good storylines are a dieing breed but I don't think that it started after the PS1 if you look at kingdom hearts for PS2, final fantasy meets disney, seems stupid, turns out well.
Storylines? where have you gone?
- Thread starter AlisonPrime
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If by not massively original you mean completely copied and the same, then yes. Nintendo games stories are easy to follow... wait what was the story in zelda again? The princess gets kidnapped? Which of the 20 zelda games am I talking about... umm all of them? What about Mario... bowser/donkey kong do what in those games? I forgot :SGuerrillaClock said:
Wow, you either live under a rock or are complete idiot here is a list of this gen games with great story lines...
Halo 3 (the games don't do it alone read the books and you will see how deep these games really are)
Oblivion
MGS4
Call of Duty 4
Bioshock
lost odyssey
Splinter Cell: DA
Mass Effect
Metroid prime 3
LoZ: TP
And let me ask you what games on the SNES ever had a story besides lets say LoZ and dear god help me if u say that continuing series of shit Final Fantasy!
Halo 3 (the games don't do it alone read the books and you will see how deep these games really are)
Oblivion
MGS4
Call of Duty 4
Bioshock
lost odyssey
Splinter Cell: DA
Mass Effect
Metroid prime 3
LoZ: TP
And let me ask you what games on the SNES ever had a story besides lets say LoZ and dear god help me if u say that continuing series of shit Final Fantasy!
Final Fantasy. You may not like it, but a lot of people do. If they didn't, Square wouldn't exist anymore. All RPG's have a story, though. They require a story, otherwise there is no element to the game. Just you leveling up and killing monsters in dungeons.Cloned Commando said:
Really Final Fantasy had a story? I just though it was a montage oh homo erotic clips with a lil button mashing in between...
It seems to me that alot of devs have run out of original ideas. I just beat DQ Swords for the Wii and wow the story was so cliched it wasn't funny. I am unsure whether it was directed at a younger audience or they just didn't care enough to give it a decent story. What I don't understand is how this is still acceptable. There is a ton of talented writers out there why are they not being hired by the devs? Why are they not working together during the game making process?
I'd have to completely disagree with this, story lines in games are very present
The games in the above list and a few others like God of War, Gears of War, Ratchet and Clank Series, RSV2, GTA4 they all have arguably great storylines.
I think the reason you don't notice story in games is because most of them that you notice are shooters and shooters don't generaly have storylines.
The games in the above list and a few others like God of War, Gears of War, Ratchet and Clank Series, RSV2, GTA4 they all have arguably great storylines.
I think the reason you don't notice story in games is because most of them that you notice are shooters and shooters don't generaly have storylines.
ok ok maybe im just bashing FF7 2 much but the Final Fantasies have the same problem as LoZ same story (however unlike LoZ they cant seem to make the games fun for me) and the story of a FF is always...
Your a punk kid...
some bad dude (or dudes) are trying to destroy whatever world your on today
go stop them
role end credits
Your a punk kid...
some bad dude (or dudes) are trying to destroy whatever world your on today
go stop them
role end credits
Well all games have storylines, just some don't do it very well. In others it is optional. Really if you give some games a chance you can find some epic storylines out there.
I think that's why I liked Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1/PSP) so much. You're not a punk kid. You're a young man in a medieval world where your family is well-known and you're of noble blood.Cloned Commando said:
Your king falls ill and two of his close advisors want to gain power over the throne. The entire world is split in half forming one faction for one man and one faction for the other. A war breaks out. You play little in the war, but you fight in some of the skirmishes and aid the side the main character feels is the "good" side.
My guess is that it will change soon. Game developers have been trying mostly to find out how to make their engines more powerful than the last, increasing graphics and overall storage and gameplay into their games. I'm guessing that now they're going to focus on games as 'fun' again pretty soon.Rampancy said:
No they haven't, so shut-up! If valve can give an online only FPS a story, they're far from dead. I mean really, what games are you playing? Bomberman Zero? The Sims?AlisonPrime said:
There are still TONS of good Storyline games out there and still more in the works, I should know, I hunt them like a demon.
- Condemned: Criminal Origins, the videogame equivalent of a psychological thriller, very clever, ambiguous and interesting (I haven't played 2 yet, for the record.)
- Bioshock, brilliant action packed philosophical psuedo-noir until the "big twist" then it goes downhill.
- Mass Effect, truly awesome space-opera storyline. The pacing is the issue here, not the story.
- Lost Odyssey, brilliant character work even if it's a little Emo, full of some very well written Short Stories and the overall plot is okay.
- The World Ends with You, if you like your RPG's extremely Japanese, this ones a winner.
- Persona 3 (and FES), good characters, interesting backstory and the end of the world, truly excellent all wrapped up with a more traditional finale that's still a story based blast.
- Assassin's Creed, the repetitive gameplay can die in a pit, but the story really kept me going.
- Eternal Sonata, cute, gorgeous, lyrical and more than a bit sad in its execution.
- COD 4, sometimes it's not WHAT the story is telling but HOW it's doing it, in this respect COD 4 is fucking brilliant.
- Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, for those of you who like your action-adventure Rip Snorting, your characters likable and your Indiana Jones/National Treasure a little ripped off.
- Dead Rising, I'm a George Romero fan, and this game evokes his black humor, social satire and somewhat pessemistic viewpoint perfectly, plot twists are a little silly though.
- Final Fantasy XII, takes a bit of a step back from the cutscene heavy plotting of previous titles, but the world and story evoke Politics and History like never before.
- Condemned: Criminal Origins, the videogame equivalent of a psychological thriller, very clever, ambiguous and interesting (I haven't played 2 yet, for the record.)
- Bioshock, brilliant action packed philosophical psuedo-noir until the "big twist" then it goes downhill.
- Mass Effect, truly awesome space-opera storyline. The pacing is the issue here, not the story.
- Lost Odyssey, brilliant character work even if it's a little Emo, full of some very well written Short Stories and the overall plot is okay.
- The World Ends with You, if you like your RPG's extremely Japanese, this ones a winner.
- Persona 3 (and FES), good characters, interesting backstory and the end of the world, truly excellent all wrapped up with a more traditional finale that's still a story based blast.
- Assassin's Creed, the repetitive gameplay can die in a pit, but the story really kept me going.
- Eternal Sonata, cute, gorgeous, lyrical and more than a bit sad in its execution.
- COD 4, sometimes it's not WHAT the story is telling but HOW it's doing it, in this respect COD 4 is fucking brilliant.
- Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, for those of you who like your action-adventure Rip Snorting, your characters likable and your Indiana Jones/National Treasure a little ripped off.
- Dead Rising, I'm a George Romero fan, and this game evokes his black humor, social satire and somewhat pessemistic viewpoint perfectly, plot twists are a little silly though.
- Final Fantasy XII, takes a bit of a step back from the cutscene heavy plotting of previous titles, but the world and story evoke Politics and History like never before.
Which is precisely the point I was making. Yes, the stories are the same, however the gameplay, level design and all-round fun factor make them the most enjoyable series I've ever played. Games can be great without a great story because you are the character - half of the fun in games is making your own story.Taerdin said:
In highly story-driven games like MGS, the fact that everything important that happens is done via a cutscene disconnects you from any story, and personally I'd rather have fun exploring Zelda's superb dungeons than watch a cutscene explaining what the game wasn't clever enough to show me through gameplay.
Developers could learn from the likes of Bioshock and Eternal Darkness with this.
Hmm, games that I believe have great stories are:
Half Life 2. (Wtf! a female protagonist w/o huge boobs?)
Portal. 'nuff said.
Oblivion. The enemy level system sucked, but the story was great.
Assassins Creed. Mediocre gameplay but great story.
And although I haven't played one, the Metal Gear Solid series.
It is true that most games have cliched stories and characters (*cough* halo *cough*) but those with believable characters and engrossing stories make the game that much better.
EDIT: Added AC and MGS
Half Life 2. (Wtf! a female protagonist w/o huge boobs?)
Portal. 'nuff said.
Oblivion. The enemy level system sucked, but the story was great.
Assassins Creed. Mediocre gameplay but great story.
And although I haven't played one, the Metal Gear Solid series.
It is true that most games have cliched stories and characters (*cough* halo *cough*) but those with believable characters and engrossing stories make the game that much better.
EDIT: Added AC and MGS
The general dislike of "Storylines" doesn't fall so much to everyone being macho fuckwits who don't have any interest in narrative but more to the fact that the gaming community in North America has largely lost interest in the "cut scene storytelling" of the last 2 generations. The storytellers of this current generation of gaming have become increasingly interested in more interactive and less exositional forms of story, less "Metal Gear Solid 4" more "Call of Duty 4" for the best example.
The main problem for "Storylines" in games is the rise of Multiplayer as the primary driving force behind gaming, and that is the fault primarily of Halo, but Goldeneye certainly laid the foundation. Far too often these days we see a Multiplayer game with a crummy single player section tacked on almost as a bonus (see Battlefield Series and (sort of) Halo 3). Furthermore game developers are looking for cheaper ways to make money, and are discarding the high budget single player games with good stories for cheaper and more profitable projects like MMO's or casual titles like Rockband and Guitar Hero that have very little or nothing to do with Storyline.
One can also note the loss of "Story" in the Media as a whole, many movies are becoming more and more plotless as time goes on (sloughs of bad Rom-Coms, Spoofs and bad comedies all with derivative stories) and reality shows are causing the decline of the story. Because gaming has become more socially acceptable and more accessible the same demographic that has made Movies and TV stupider and less story focused are moving into the gaming medium, reducing the desire for story based titles considerably.
Thankfully studios like Ubisoft, 2k Boston (formerly Irrational), Bioware, Obsidian, countless Japanese developers and many other companies are still interested in producing interesting titles with good stories instead of profit generating, context light button mash fests that simply generate money.
The main problem for "Storylines" in games is the rise of Multiplayer as the primary driving force behind gaming, and that is the fault primarily of Halo, but Goldeneye certainly laid the foundation. Far too often these days we see a Multiplayer game with a crummy single player section tacked on almost as a bonus (see Battlefield Series and (sort of) Halo 3). Furthermore game developers are looking for cheaper ways to make money, and are discarding the high budget single player games with good stories for cheaper and more profitable projects like MMO's or casual titles like Rockband and Guitar Hero that have very little or nothing to do with Storyline.
One can also note the loss of "Story" in the Media as a whole, many movies are becoming more and more plotless as time goes on (sloughs of bad Rom-Coms, Spoofs and bad comedies all with derivative stories) and reality shows are causing the decline of the story. Because gaming has become more socially acceptable and more accessible the same demographic that has made Movies and TV stupider and less story focused are moving into the gaming medium, reducing the desire for story based titles considerably.
Thankfully studios like Ubisoft, 2k Boston (formerly Irrational), Bioware, Obsidian, countless Japanese developers and many other companies are still interested in producing interesting titles with good stories instead of profit generating, context light button mash fests that simply generate money.
The enemy level system did suck, but the story was not great. If you want a great story from Bethesda, then play Morrowind (also another relatively recent game with a good story line). The storyline is much more interesting and mixes with the ridiculously detailed and rich game universe far more relevantly and smoothly than the storyline in Oblivion. Oblivion just makes its story more flashy.zebubble said: