Your comparison fails because it compares apples with oranges. (rest is snipped)
I could do this for a few other games and books, but the bottom line is: Your thesis is misconstructed.
To clarify I never said books or movies were free of the hole in their entirety, or that all games fall in it.
I think the problem comes down to the difference between "narrative and presentation"; "Concept vs. execution" or what have you. Yes, Heavy Rain and RDR both have deep, mature overall messages and emotional narratives, with the "(statement) synopsis" running at it's heart. and the same can be said for the movies that badgersprite has listed.
However, I'm talking about frequency. I just named 60% of the biggest games of the last decade in that OP! Pull out a list of all the Greatest books of the last century.....do you get 60% of them saying virtually the same story, with different places/characters/overtones/messages? I'd be hard pressed to believe so. Maybe films, Maybe, but i still doubt that it's that high.
and btw, Gethsemani, the two Narnia quotes you've given ARE side stories from individual books. I speak of the overall narrative of the entire series as a whole. and the quote from 'Animal farm'.....yeah that was the plot of literally the first 15 pages only. It's not the overall plot..... just the intro.
The Outsider: Man persecuted for following radical ideals
Animal Farm: Mock allegory for Russian Revolution and the birth of Communism
Chronicles of Narnia: Mock allegory for...the bible
Harry Potter: Wizard kid defeats Voldemort to save....Britain......huh?[/spoiler]
Similar maybe, but not the same. Do the same with your Movies.
Outsider: Haven't read it, but from your description--defeat oppressors, save self
Animal Farm / Russian Revolution: Defeat the bourgeois, save the working class.
Chronicles of Narnia: Defeat the White Queen/Etc., Save Narnia
Harry Potter: Defeat wizard, save world
Stories are based around conflict. Without conflict, there is no tension, and tension generates motion and interest within the story. It also provides a goal, thus allowing the story to reach a climactic point.
And what is conflict? Two forces want mutually-exclusive results. In most stories, we are asked (or we choose) to side with one force or the other. That means the other is the "opposition." If the opposition gets its way, "our" side loses something important.
Conflict in stories is: "Overcome opposition, achieve desired goal."
While the opposition doesn't always have to be a living enemy, that does tend to make for more interesting games in a lot of ways. A game in which you have enemies that can move and attack has more conflict in it than the same game with only platforming puzzles to overcome. Also true of movies and books. Most stories involve an enemy to generate conflict.
But even if it's not an enemy, the story is still the same.
Now, the one element common to nearly all stories that is not necessary is, "Hero gets the love interest." (Or setting up this situation, only to specifically deny the hero the love interest, which is the flip side of the same trope.) How about that one?
I for one have invented several different plots that do not follow any of these stereotypes without stretching the interpretation of them to an unreasonable degree.
but does it really matter if the over simplified plot of alot of games are very similar? they are all different in the other features like story, gamplay, execution, endings, yada yada yada
alot of games wouldnt make sense if it wasnt based on a kill X save Y plot. The kill X part gives the player a overall goal and therefore a direction. Save Y gives the player a reason, a purpose for achieving the goal.
Outsider: Haven't read it, but from your description--defeat oppressors, save self
Animal Farm / Russian Revolution: Defeat the bourgeois, save the working class.
Chronicles of Narnia: Defeat the White Queen/Etc., Save Narnia
Harry Potter: Defeat wizard, save world
The first two are not spot-on. You didn't clarify whether you read Animal Farm or not, but it's not really about that at all.
Stories are based around conflict. Without conflict, there is no tension, and tension generates motion and interest within the story. It also provides a goal, thus allowing the story to reach a climactic point.
And what is conflict? Two forces want mutually-exclusive results. In most stories, we are asked (or we choose) to side with one force or the other. That means the other is the "opposition." If the opposition gets its way, "our" side loses something important.
Conflict in stories is: "Overcome opposition, achieve desired goal."
While the opposition doesn't always have to be a living enemy, that does tend to make for more interesting games in a lot of ways. A game in which you have enemies that can move and attack has more conflict in it than the same game with only platforming puzzles to overcome. Also true of movies and books. Most stories involve an enemy to generate conflict.
But even if it's not an enemy, the story is still the same.
Now, the one element common to nearly all stories that is not necessary is, "Hero gets the love interest." (Or setting up this situation, only to specifically deny the hero the love interest, which is the flip side of the same trope.) How about that one?
My complaint is that... why does the Overcome opposition, have to be so linear and literal in games. Why does a "boss" have to be the archetypical representation of that obstacle?
Silent Hill 2, for one (yes that sounds confusing) did right in this regard, pitting you against obstacles that were, in fact just fragments of the players insecure psyche. OR look at freakin Simcity! Your goal is to build a great city, and the obstacles are the shortage of funds(as in they are finite) and other things like crime, and transportation and shit.
It's still a goal that your fighting for and you are still fighting forces (overcoming opposition to achieve the goal). BUT its different from all the games in my OP because your not defeating some specific entity, to save some specific entity.
Is that just the way video games make us WANT to do something then? by making the goal: the retrieval of something from harm's way? Do you get what i mean?
So you figured out that most games have conflict... like most movies, TV shows, books, etc.
Everything, except for the few really artsy-indie things, has conflict. It is a tenet of story construction.
Portal: Defeat GLaDOS to save self
Bioshock: Defeat Ryan/Fontaine to save self
Fallout 3 (because I haven't played the first 2): Defeat Enclave to save Wasteland
Pretty much everything with a storyline has conflict. Hence, nearly everything can be applied to this formula.
So you figured out that most games have conflict... like most movies, TV shows, books, etc.
Everything, except for the few really artsy-indie things, has conflict. It is a tenet of story construction.
Portal: Defeat GLaDOS to save self
Bioshock: Defeat Ryan/Fontaine to save self
Fallout 3 (because I haven't played the first 2): Defeat Enclave to save Wasteland
Pretty much everything with a storyline has conflict. Hence, nearly everything can be applied to this formula.
I don't really consider "saving myself" as actually saving anyone. As in, it's more of an instinctual thing like breathing. I'm not saving myself from burning by not holding my hand in the fire; I'm just being not brain-dead.
The Fallout one is not true at all, since you can alternatively lay waste to the pentagon and kill everyone in DC just as easily. And no offense, but i don't think it's fair to comment on games you haven't played. (you got Bioshock completely wrong btw)
I am a hobby writer as well as an artist during my sparetime, but only a small percentage of my work are things that I wish to share with other people.
Sometimes this is due to the work in question being only in a kind of prototype/draft stage, and sometimes I've just drawn/painted/sculpted or written something purely for my own satisfaction with no intention of showing it to anyone else.
And the pieces I am refering to falls into these categories.
Though I wasn't really going to argue or try to convince anyone else why the article is wrong. It was merely somewhat flattering to read that someone studied this matter and came up with the idea that there are only seven "basic plots" in the world that all stories follow, and at the same time knowing that I've written stories myself that do not conform to these supposedly omnipresent basic plots.
I don't really consider "saving myself" as actually saving anyone. As in, it's more of an instinctual thing like breathing. I'm not saving myself from burning by not holding my hand in the fire; I'm just being not brain-dead.
I don't really consider "saving myself" as actually saving anyone. As in, it's more of an instinctual thing like breathing. I'm not saving myself from burning by not holding my hand in the fire; I'm just being not brain-dead.
Snip.
That's....both a superbly silly comeback ......and an awesome game idea! In one sentence. Are there any games like that? cause that could be a VERY interesting concept. Survive by protecting yourself..... from yourself. :S
So, I'm going to state something, and try to prove how important that single statement is:
Defeat [this], to save [this].
Now allow me to take a page out of Daniel Floyd's book and say: Imagine your game library for me, and remember the stories of each and every game and answer this question:
"How many games there, can be roughly summarized to conform to that Single statement?"
Need a hand?
(lets start with my personal favorites, shall we)
Mass Effect: Defeat the Reapers to save the Galaxy
CoD4 Modern Warfare: Defeat the Russians/OpFor to save the world
Dragon Age Origins: Defeat the DarkSpawn to save Ferelden
Shadow of the Colossus: (sorry, but it's true) Colossi, Girlfriend
Ico: Dark things, lady friend
Knights of the Old Republic: Sith Lord, Republic
Splinter Cell Conviction: Government people, Daughter
Halo1,2,3 : Alien Terrorists, Our Planet
Halo:Reach: Same Terrorists, Different Planet
Half Life: interdimensional Aliens, (back to) Our planet
Red Dead Redemption: Old gang members, Family
Costume Quest: Monsters, Little sibling (?)
CoD 123/Medal of Honor.etc. : Nazi's, World
CoD MW2/CoD Black Ops/Bad Company 2: Russians, America (all the EXACT same ones too)
Mario (EVERY single ONE of them): Ahhh....the quintessential
Need i go on?
Now, i realize that this is a very rough synopsis, and many of you may argue that "It's not the rough idea that matters! It's about the presentation." And this is true, Mass Effect has absolutely nothing in common with Shadow of the Colossus other than them both being third-person video games and .....well ^^That. I'm not calling these bad games or derivative of each other. They are both incredible games in their own right. All the games there are fantastic, infact.
And yes, there are a LOT of games that cannot be conformed to this rule. Portal, Bioshock, Fallout, to name just a few.
But humor me and look at your BOOK library (or imagine all the books you've read). Boil them down to their core. Here I'll do my top three:
The Outsider: Man persecuted for following radical ideals
Animal Farm: Mock allegory for Russian Revolution and the birth of Communism
Chronicles of Narnia: Mock allegory for...the bible
Harry Potter: Wizard kid defeats Voldemort to save....Britain......huh?
Similar maybe, but not the same. Do the same with your Movies.
So my question is a simple one: Why do you think this is so?
Why is video gaming as a storytelling medium stuck in this narrative hole in the ground, of 'daringly saving something from what we define as "evil"?' and how do we ameliorate ourselves from this situation?
As stated in the recent Extra Credits, the majority of gameplay is found through conflict.
Books do not necessarily have to be about conflict, because there is no gameplay.
There are very few games where the gameplay isn't found in conflict. Even Simulation games, depending on what they simulate, have conflict. Short of Puzzles, that is about it.
That's....both a superbly silly comeback ......and an awesome game idea! In one sentence. Are there any games like that? cause that could be a VERY interesting concept. Survive by protecting yourself..... from yourself. :S
Why would it be silly? Suicides happen by the truckload every year. Why would it be so unthinkable that a suicidal character could be the protagonist of a story?
Also, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men was pretty much about this in the beginning of the game. Kane knew that The7 would kill him once he completed the task for them. He only pursued the task because if he succeeded then they wouldn't kill his wife and daughter along with him.
Of course Lynch fucks it all up along the way and it turns more into a revenge/rescue story after that. But for all intents and purposes one of the protagonists knew that he was going to die. His motivation was to insure that people he cared about didn't die along with him.
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