This Game sucks because the Story is bad.

[CleverNickname]

... what?

This is something I've noticed for a long time now, and every time I hope it's just one loopy dude spouting nonsense, but it's getting more and more prevalent.

Again and again I see games criticized and dismissed for shortcomings in the story-department. Sometimes it's the plot, sometimes the characters, sometimes the storyline, doesn't matter, it's all story and writing.
To me it often just sounds like "the gameplay was great, the levels were fun, the graphics were cool, the artstyle is phenomenal, the controls/options/interface/health system/etc worked quite well, the atmosphere was really effective - but the story is stupid and the writing is bleh, so for the love of god don't play it!"

I realize that's strongly hyperbolic, but you know how this works... overdone, but a lot of truth in it. And I don't get it. They're games. They're meant to be played. If everything you do while playing objectively works well, the game is good - no matter if the writing is Shakespeare or daytime soap opera. Maybe a stupid sequel to a well-written original deserves to be marked down - maybe. But on its own? No.

Don't get me wrong. A good story can definitely enhance the gaming experience. Bioshock is a very competent shooter (for modern standards) but people, me included, wouldn't have cared nearly as much if the story - and it's way of storytelling - had been completely unremarkable. Secret of Mana probably wouldn't still be one of my favourite games if I had never cared about the story. I think Jedi Outcast is better than Academy because JO is a story and JA is a narrative mess. But I still like JA a lot.

I like a lot of games with dumb stories or silly writing. Assassin's Creed has a great idea, but a shaky execution. I like how complicated it is and have read up on stuff because I care, but overall it's probably not all that great story-wise. I love the hell out of the games, including the first one, because the parkour, stealth, unimportant shit to do and even the combat are pure fun. They'd still be awesome games without the whole sci-fi setting - or any story at all beyond "go kill bad guys".
Or for a more drastic example, take old shooters. I faintly remember playing Blood2 a couple of times - a couple of times. I don't remember much, but I'm positive the story is completely ridiculous. Back then they had that sweet spot of having a "story" to "explain" what's going on and why your targets are evil, but not enough of a story to get in the way of exploding people with crazy guns. And it was one of the games I had the most fun with. And I was in my late teens. I read books back then. I knew stories were a thing. They just don't matter in my games.

This has a flip-side, of course, and I'm not sure which is worse. That flip-side being games that are utterly mediocre to play (or worse), that get some sort of free pass simply and only because they tell a good story, or tell it well, or has a bunch of well-written moments. That's just wrong. I mean yes, good on them that they managed to get a decent writer for their game; but then that's a wasted effort if the game kinda sucks at being a game.
Because I know the prime argument for the importance of story is that we all want games to be taken seriously, or recognized as art, or simply be something you can tell you grandma about without confusing her with your Kill/Death ratio. But shouldn't we as gamers be satisfied all-around with our games? Shouldn't we be much prouder of a well-told game that's fun to play, than of nice stories wrapped in broken mechanics? Among games, I think one that's average in both areas is much more desirable than the annoying-to-play superb drama.
I haven't played it, but I think I'm seeing this a lot with Spec Ops The Line right now. The narrative is so unique and subversive, oooh. You know why I haven't played it? Because the internet has yet to tell me if it's any fun to play (and it doesn't look like it because it seems to be yet another sluggish 3rd-person cover-shooter).
What I have played and think gets too much credit is Mass Effect. The first two, I never bothered with 3 because, while trying to replay either of the first two I realized the whole shooting/talking/shooting/maintenance thing is bland and tedious - even though 1 and 2 play differently! I need exciting fun between great cutscenes or I won't care. The Mass Effects are my best friend's favourite games (recently) and I think he has terrible taste in games if that's the case. Oddly enough, they're my favourite story among games in recent years. The ME universe is amazing. Hugging Tali in ME2 made me cry. Thinking about trudging through more chest-high walls makes me cry even more, though.

Actually, I've decided which one's worse. That last one. Free pass for story. Because with a good game that writes like a 10-year-old writes fanfiction, I still get a good game, just with some silly whining on the internet. With the other ones all I get is more stuff that looks boring to me and makes me feel left out because the internet thinks they're great.

Because the internet is wrong.
Because it forgets gameplay is important. Hell, sometimes I think it forgets what gameplay actually is.

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

Because the internet is wrong.
Because it forgets gameplay is important. Hell, sometimes I think it forgets what gameplay actually is.

Objectivity: applies to everyone.

It all depends what you want from a game. A game can be carried on gameplay, but even mediocre gameplay can be carried on a good story. A good story is part of the experience. Think of the first mass effect: the gameplay wasn't great, but the story and characters were able to make the game enjoyable. A painting doesn't have to make you laugh to be a good painting, and the same applies here.

Yes, gameplay can be important. But other people can enjoy a strong story, and if that's what they thought they would get and are disappointed they will say so. Its not just 'whining on the internet' if you don't agree.

You like action. Alright, that's fine. But people like different things, and that doesn't mean they're wrong either.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I'm not really sure how to reply to this. Since this is all entirely your opinion, that I'm sure many don't agree with. I'm not sure if I'm being thick, but your post confuses me even.

Don't get me wrong. A good story can definitely enhance the gaming experience.I think Jedi Outcast is better than Academy because JO is a story and JA is a narrative mess. But I still like JA a lot.

So it seems like your point is that gameplay should always be held in higher regard than story. Because games are games. But you picked JO over JA (Which in many ways offers superior gameplay over JO) because JO has a better story.

Is your point that JA still remains a great game even though it's story is a mess? Well.. okay, I agree with that.

See, I (like many others, I'm sure) am able to make the distinction of:

When a game is fun to play, and has a good story. (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)
When a game is fun to play, and has a terrible story. (Gears of War)
When a game is not fun to play, and has a good story. (Final Fantasy, Earthbound.)
(If a game is not fun to play, and has a bad story. Then, well, it sucks.)

In the final example is when there's problems with your opinion. I think even fans of games like Final Fantasy and Earthbound can admit that gameplay is most definitely not their strong point. The gameplay may even be complete ass at times. But they still love the games because, regardless of their poor gameplay, still provide a great experience to them.

For me, story,characters, and atmosphere are extremely important. Not a necessity, no-no. I can play a game with a bad/poor/nonexistent story if it's fun to play. But when a game provides a great story, and great characters, and great atmosphere - It personally enhances the fuck out of a game, like Spec Ops - The Line (This game is probably going to be my personal GOTY for 2012)

Stories to me do matter, and they can matter a lot.

That being said, one of my most favorite games of all time in the history of all videogames I've ever played in my entire life - Is GOD HAND. A game with an absolutely batshit stupid storyline. STUPID.STORLINE and yet the sheer FUN this game provides transcends any form of measurement and ascends to legendarily cosmic levels of fun. It's one of my most favorite games ever, because of how FUN it is.

Still, to others, if the story sucks - then the game sucks. That's just how it is. And you can't say they're wrong.

 

[Zhukov]

If a game wants to focus on gameplay and not tell a story at all then it should do just that. If the gameplay is to my taste I will happily enjoy such a game. Fine and dandy.

However, if the game focusses on gameplay but for some reason still sees fit to include a embarrassingly shitty story, as the vast majority do, then it is a game with shit in it and I am going to enjoy it less because of that. And then I'm going to say acidic things about it on the internet.

I will cheerfully give games a pass if they manage to tell a story well, so long as the gameplay isn't actively awful. A good story is a good story, regardless of medium and I don't see why I should feel guilty or something for enjoying it even if the gameplay that accompanies it isn't quite up to par.

And no, "It's a game, games have gameplay" is not a counterargument to that.

 

[DoPo]

Erm, it's a game, it's not meant to be played it's meant to be a collection of experienes. Sound, visuals, gameplay, story, everything. If you value gameplay so much, you wouldn't need anything else than a bunch of numbers that change according to button presses. You don't do that, so more than gameplay is important.

Besides, where did you get that from?

To me it often just sounds like "the gameplay was great, the levels were fun, the graphics were cool, the artstyle is phenomenal, the controls/options/interface/health system/etc worked quite well, the atmosphere was really effective - but the story is stupid and the writing is bleh, so for the love of god don't play it!"

Even when you admit it's false. Do you do it just to justify what you think you think? Newsflash: most games aren't the pinnacle of all non-story elements. Also, it's unlikely the gameplay elements are even unique. People aren't likely to praise everything but the story if they say "the story sucks" it's probably more of "Everything is average and the story sucks" which doesn't make me want to play the game anyway.

I think we have a prime example of a strawman here, people.

 

[Scrustle]

I think you have a point, although I see it a bit differently. Of course a game should not be held up as amazing if the story is good but the rest sucks, just as a game shouldn't be dismissed as crap if the opposite is true. But that's not a reason why we should not criticise games for having bad stories, or praising them for being good. We should just remember that one aspect of a game is not the whole package, and gameplay is just as, if not more important. But if we really want stories in games to be something to be proud of then we should pay attention to them. We should criticise them when they're bad and praise them when they're good, but with most things it's all about perspective. People often seem to have a very loose grip on proper perspective and critical thinking nowadays. People are more interested in hyperbole and fanboyism.

As a side note, to be honest I think plenty of games have had way too much praise put on them for being good stories. I'm not saying these games are bad, or even that the stories are necessarily bad, but when they're compared against stories in other mediums, they don't stand up at all. If you took away everything except the story from a game like Bioshock, all you would have is some radio voice overs and a few fleeting glimpses of characters, who usually get killed within minutes of being introduced. The pacing would be terrible outside of a video game too, as would many other games which are supposed to have good stories. If these are the best our medium can muster, then we've got a long way to go. We should still be criticizing these stories a lot. I'm not saying they need to be more like stories in other mediums, but if you take away other aspects of a game that might skew your perception of how good the story is then how good would it really be? I'm sure there are plenty of games out there with stories that are more fondly remembered because the mechanics of the game were also good, as was the graphics and atmosphere. Again, perspective.

And finally, just so you know, I hear the gameplay in Spec Ops is okay. Not bad, but nothing special. It plays like your average 3rd person shooter which doesn't have any fancy mechanics or anything like that. The aiming isn't the tightest ever, but it's still relatively good. If you take out the story and only focus on the gameplay it's good, but not great. Or at least, that's what I've heard. I haven't played the game myself.

 

[Zaik]

So you're telling people how they're supposed to enjoy something.

This seems an awful lot like "stop not liking what I like".

 

[go-10]

well I agree and disagree at the same time
I enjoyed Metroid Other M, Metroid Fusion, Murasama, Just Cause 2, Darksiders 1 and 2 simply because of gameplay. All of those games have a story but... its not that its a bad story, for ME the story is just whatever in those games

at the same time

Bioshock, Valkyria Chronicles, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Phantom Hourglass, etc. Gameplay in those games suffers a lot because of crappy controls or belonging to a saturated genre but the overall story kept ME interested enough to see them through more than once.

so my point here OP, neither one is more important than the other as we're all entitled to our own opinions and preferences

 

[Waffle_Man]

The problem with it is that context matters. If it weren't for context, would anyone care about RPGs anymore than a spread sheet? Would anyone have played any of the mario games if all of the sprites were simple one colored shapes? Would anyone play a shooter if all of the enemies were simple cubes that disappeared after clicking on them an arbitrary number of times?

Think about it: Video games are, by their very definition, systems that must have rules that can be grasped by the user. This can be done with simple timing and logic puzzles, but this greatly undermines the number of possible situations that video games can represent without becoming indecipherably complicated to individuals. It also means that everything is just a puzzle without any sort of preferential choice or self expression. This changes, however, when context is placed on an action. So long as stuff is related to something in the real world (or common imagination) of the audience, a system can have all sorts of arbitrary rules that would otherwise be muddled and hard to remember.

Authored narrative in games is simply another bit of context and it can make or break the experience of a game. It gives the player a motive for doing things. If you think about how most games operate, progression is usually a succession of doing a task to unlock something that helps the player accomplish another task that helps the player acquire something else that helps them complete another task ad infinitum. I suppose some people might simply like the idea of an integer continuously increasing in value, but a number of people are going to stop and ask "what's the point."

That why games will say "because he killed your family, that's the point." Suddenly, the player doesn't have to worry about wondering why the number keeps going up. Rather, it's a matter of justice and vengeance, which the player is far more likely to have a vested interest in. Or perhaps there could be some sort of burning question that the player wants answered, but won't get the answer to unless they complete a series of tasks.

This might make it sound like a story is something that simply adds to an experience from a neutral stand point. However, a bad story is just as good at ruining context as a good story is at making it. Sooner or later, any sort of introspective player is going to ask themselves why they are doing what they are doing. It might only take a simple answer, but if it amounts to "idk, just cause?" it's going to make players uninterested.

To me it often just sounds like "the gameplay was great, the levels were fun, the graphics were cool, the artstyle is phenomenal, the controls/options/interface/health system/etc worked quite well, the atmosphere was really effective - but the story is stupid and the writing is bleh, so for the love of god don't play it!"

This has a flip-side, of course, and I'm not sure which is worse. That flip-side being games that are utterly mediocre to play (or worse), that get some sort of free pass simply and only because they tell a good story, or tell it well, or has a bunch of well-written moments. That's just wrong. I mean yes, good on them that they managed to get a decent writer for their game; but then that's a wasted effort if the game kinda sucks at being a game.

Care to share a specific example of a game being trashed critically for bad story telling but good gameplay, or praised critically for good story telling while being borderline unplayable?

I I think I'm seeing this a lot with Spec Ops The Line right now. The narrative is so unique and subversive, oooh. You know why I haven't played it? Because the internet has yet to tell me if it's any fun to play (and it doesn't look like it because it seems to be yet another sluggish 3rd-person cover-shooter).

Fun is a pointless word. I'd go into a diatribe on why, but I think this says it better than I could.

What I have played and think gets too much credit is Mass Effect. The first two, I never bothered with 3 because, while trying to replay either of the first two I realized the whole shooting/talking/shooting/maintenance thing is bland and tedious - even though 1 and 2 play differently! I need exciting fun between great cutscenes or I won't care. The Mass Effects are my best friend's favourite games (recently) and I think he has terrible taste in games if that's the case. Oddly enough, they're my favourite story among games in recent years. The ME universe is amazing. Hugging Tali in ME2 made me cry. Thinking about trudging through more chest-high walls makes me cry even more, though.

No, you realized that you think the whole shooting/talking/shooting/maintenance thing is bland and tedious. This is a completely subjective statement on par with "my favorite color is blue." This does nothing to change or challenge the way I view the world, nor does it engage me on any intellectual level.

People constantly wonder how I can find counter strike or swat 4 fun when the way that I play is one third communication, one third positioning, one sixth simple observation, and one sixth shooting. The answer is that I find communication and positioning engaging in the context of incredibly fast and decisive fire fights. It makes the build up to that event (and thus the event itself) far more enjoyable for me. Does that mean that taste of people who play call of duty where every minute needs at least three magazines fired some how worse? No, it just means that it's different.

Because the internet is wrong.

Well, you certainly told us.

 

[dimensional]

Hmmm I just want a game to entertain me if it does that then I will enjoy it whether it does this through gameplay, story, mechanics etc is irrelevant unless of course the game is designed to teach me or inform me about something then I will consider it good if it succeeds.

Games entertain in different way and usually gameplay and story are interwined if they are both good thats ok if one is bad but the other is entertaining enough to keep me playing I dont mind either. What makes a good game for me is just how much I enjoyed the experience at the end.

 

[WoW Killer]

Hmmm. I'm kinda with TC in that I tend to (or I guess adamantly) view gameplay as more important than story. Story is like graphics to me. Good graphics can add something to a game, but they won't make up for poor gameplay. In the reverse direction, a game with good gameplay and poor graphics with little to no story (e.g. Minecraft) is still a good game. But I appreciate that's just my opinion. Some people go mad for a good story; I don't understand it personally, but y'know, whatever floats your boat.

However, if the game focusses on gameplay but for some reason still sees fit to include a embarrassingly shitty story, as the vast majority do, then it is a game with shit in it and I am going to enjoy it less because of that.

Funny thing about that: I find games with really shitty stories tend to be more widely accepted. It's the games that try the hardest (and arguably do it the best) that get criticised the most. Obvious example is Mass Effect 3. While it does have a crap ending, the rest of the the game's story (and of the series) isn't bad. Not for a game anyway. In fact, it's one of the better attempts at storytelling out there, and yet it's the game that's been criticised the most for its story. Compare that with something like Castlevania: SOTN, whose script gets repeated endearingly with outright satire by its fans; that's a genuinely shit story from start to finish, and yet players love the game all the more for it. Do we hear mass complaints about the Deus Ex Machina ending of Double Dragon, and how that spoils the game? No, because it's shit, we know it's shit, and we love that it's shit. The fact that the Mass Effect series tried so hard to not be shit is what makes it such a prime target.

 

[THEMILKMAN]

John Blow, the creator of Braid, had a quote to the effect of:
"A good game is at least either fun or interesting, or even both."

A game has to have at least one or the other to be good. If a game has no story but fun gameplay, like Monster Hunter IMO, then it's good. If it has horrid gameplay but a great, intriguing story, like Rule of Rose IMO, then it's also good. Occasionally there may even be a game with the inverse: interesting gameplay and/or a fun story.

I do feel strongly that even though gameplay is what separates games from other forms of media, a game can still be a masterpiece with horrendous gameplay as long as the story holds your interest and keeps you engaged in it. Although the difference that has to be made up to make the game good is larger when it depends on the story rather than the gameplay.

 

[THEMILKMAN]

Yeah, no. If a story has a significant story element, it damn well better deliver or a large chunk of the game went down the shitter. If the game was never about the story (think Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament, various fighter games and so on) then the lack of a good story is fine.

In short: If there's a story and it's bad, then the game becomes bad simply because the story is not a separate thing from the game.

Good point, but you can consciously ignore a game's story if you want to, in most cases anyway, a few game's shitty stories may be so bad they even permeate the gameplay mechanics. One is not so lucky though if the gameplay is horrid.

 

[Yopaz]

Well, if the story is decent I think that serves as a method to keep me playing to the end, without it I might not bother. A story that makes me hate playing the game does something bad for the game all over. It depends on how the story is told and how much you have to go through with. Mass Effect was a game I wanted to play for the gameplay, but the story made me sick and tired of it. I started skipping large segments and realized that I had not point for anything of what I was doing so I just didn't want to play more. I haven't touched it since.

 

[Username Redacted]

Again and again I see games criticized and dismissed for shortcomings in the story-department.

I'm totally guilty of this because I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't be that expensive or difficult to hire a competent writer and incorporate their work into your game. It really shouldn't be and if you look at ___________ (pick any of a number of acclaimed low budget games) it isn't. Many developers simply chose not to and if they're not doing anything terribly original with the gameplay while at the same time insulting my intelligence with their "writing" I'm going to find a comparable game that is better written.

 

[wakeup]

story is the most important thing in games for me, and its part of the industry so yes a game should be marked down for a bad story because it has become a important part of games.