Have I got a Story to tell you
By Amit Goyal| Monday, December 14, 2009
Like any living breathing thing, Gaming (and the whole entertainment industry as a matter of fact) has to constantly evolve in order to survive. Memory spans are short, and what’s new gets old really fast. In order to stay in business, console makers, publishers and developers cannot rest on the laurels of what they have achieved in the past, but constantly keep raising the bar with their subsequent efforts, and sometimes take it to a whole new level. That or they can announce the next Duke Nukem game. That should keep them floating for a decade atleast.
Over the past few years, we have seen Gaming grow by leaps and bounds. Development has grown to be a very costly affair and production values often rival and sometimes even outstrip those of movies. Over the last couple of years, we have all witnessed the Nintendo Wii phenomenon, which has brought gaming out from its niche audience to the living room of the masses and has led to murmurs of gaming overtaking movies as a form of entertainment.
And just as we have seen ground breaking innovation in consoles, we have witnessed many games in this generation that have contributed to raising the bar in many aspects of gaming. Call of Duty 4 set the standards for what is required as a bare minimum in online gaming this generation. And while not the first one to employ it, Gears of War ensured that some form cover system is now a necessity in third person shooters.
However, gaming has never really been looked upon as a medium to tell great stories. Storytelling still continues to be the forte of non-interactive mediums. The chunk of game development goes into a variety of tasks that are driven more by the gameplay for the consumer (graphics, game engine etc) which is mostly (and sadly) still treated as a process unrelated to narrative. Indeed, we come across a number of ridiculous plot elements in video game stories only to justify a set piece or a change in environment. An example of that are the many games that score well in reviews, but have the story listed among the weak points. Not that it is criminal; the USP for Gaming is and will always be its interactivity, but developers should not forget that often it’s the story/narration/characters that propel the game to greatness.
Over time we have had the opportunity to enjoy some true gems in narrative. Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series comes to mind immediately for not just its intricate story, but also the message it drives home about the implications of violence and war. Among the more recent efforts, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has often been compared as an experience akin to a summer blockbuster. And I have always appreciated Ubisoft for the effort they put into their games to deliver an intriguing story (I just can’t get over “The Truth†and its implication in Assassin’s Creed 2)
