There's a particular story-game format out there that we're all I think familiar with - think Max Payne to Resident Evil to Lara Croft. Interactive narrative. Not branching narrative, but pure, linear story, with interactive bits stirred in with animated bits. Maybe a bit of sandbox these days if you're lucky, but usually it's start at point A, go through various traumas and challenges until you arrive at point Z, The End.
We also know, deep down, that most of these games - at least in terms of story - are complete tripe. Wooden, awful blather. Stilted, idiotic plot with flat characters and obvious mechanics.
And we love them!
Case in point: I'm playing Resident Evil 4 at the moment, a game I've looked forward to for a long, long time. I am a giant horror genre fan and this game is up there with the best of them, but Leon, our hero, is shocking. His hair is magnificent, floating gently in the breeze, the tips falling delicately across his eyes, but his dialogue and acting are pure, leaden, C-Movie.
Wince, wince, wince: getting chainsawed in the head is a relief after all that painful "dialogue".
(Nice, but dim.)
The inanimate parts of the craft - the set, the water effects, the candlelight flicker - are near perfect, and this is the Gamecube I'm on here, this is no next-generation machine yet. The environment is enthralling, but candlelight alone can't convey emotion or atmosphere on its own. The animated parts of this thing consist (so far, I'm nowhere near finished) of repeated lurching through bleached-out village buildings and roads, shooting villager-zombies and watching cut-scenes in which Leon lumbers through some hokey plot involving the President's daughter, an "insidious cult" and lots of gore. His assistant is a crosseyed and prim Miss Bun-and-Glasses who implores him (me) to hurry! and save! the President's daughter! every time I wander toward an area I'm not supposed to get to yet.
Holy cow, it's terrible. And I can't put it down.
Now, at the same time, I'm watching series one of Alias. Flip, flip, flip on the scart switcher: Alias 1 to Resident Evil 4 to Alias 1 again, when I want a break from whichever. Alias is as formulaic as they come: cool gadgetry plus heroine running a lot in small dress and hawt wig plus extended will-they-won't-they love story plus 'spy stuff' equals riveting telly. And Alias made me cry last night. You know that bit where the CIA agent is killed in action, and there's the funeral, and the dead man's adorable little boy with big eyes, and the handsome handler bloke cuddles the little boy and there's that soaring music? Pass the frackin' hanky!
Back to the chainsaw action. I'd really love to admire Leon, or at least be some character that I can be impressed with or relate to in some way. It's already an intense experience, this being in control thing, exploring something, coming up against characters, face to face, any angle I choose - except, most of the time we're face to face with some lump marching out his lines and waving a wooden arm around for emphasis. I know people are often asking, 'when are games going to make us cry?', but really. When?
Here's my point: it's easy to forget, but games are still fantastically primitive when we're talking interactive entertainment. Hamming amateurs. If this kind of story and acting were on the television, we'd be throwing tomatoes, up in arms in outrage. Yet in games, we fall about, goggle-eyed with delight.
This can only mean one thing. We're not even close to what makes great "interactive entertainment". Interactive entertainment is going to get better, and better, and better, and it's all unfolding in front of us right now. There's a semi-popular view that the magic is all about gameplay, and graphics aren't everything, but it's not all about gameplay, because it's not just a simple game anymore. It's about play, and story, and environment, and story, and immersion, and story, and yes graphics matter, they matter a lot: you know that bit in Half Life 2 when the bloke on the train at the very beginning looks you in the EYE? Did you feel that? Creeped out? That's just the beginning of it.
Next-gen is here soon, and given a few years of practice, those wily designers should have us some characters we can really get into the heads of. Some folk bemoan the idea of Hollywood mixing with the games industry, but get the guy who wrote Sopranos writing a game and we have another sea-change on our hands.
Roll on Resi 5.
You're right ! The man-years spent in developement by top-notch software teams can easily be seen in games like Metal Gear Solid (great charismatic heroes), ICO (delicate animations), Final Fantasy (impressive scenarios).
Hollywood & co. movie industry is already providing voice talents that often set up for a thrilling experience, and the best is yet to come.
"The future's so bright I've got to wear shades".
Oh, when you meet Nessie greet him for me ;-)
Posted by: masayume | June 30, 2005 at 20:12
I do hope we get there with game stories, I think Warren Spector voiced a similar point about just how primitive they still are. The problem is telling a great story well without sacrificing player choice - the more you cater to both your dev time goes up exponentially.
Posted by: Pete | June 30, 2005 at 21:21
Do enjoy RE4, Alice; probably one of the finest games I've ever played. I waited and waited (like a good EU citizen) for the PAL version (which rewarded me by having the best box-art) and it was still better than I expected it could be. Staggeringly good; the string of bosses are some of my favourite gaming moments to date. Especially the knife fight. You'll know it when you find it.
Posted by: Tom Armitage | June 30, 2005 at 23:09
Haven't you ever played a game by Tim Schafer? Haven't you enjoyed Grim Fandango? 'cause he is one of the best authors alive today. Some games have had excellent writing for a long time already . . . and the market has shown, for much of all that time, that it's not a significant factor. If anything this is more true now. And with those complex (multi-core!) next gen consoles even more programmers will be required per game, and with all that storage and high def I imagine the art budget is going to need some growing room. So why should we expect the writing quality to go up?
Posted by: Jimmy | July 01, 2005 at 06:49
I'm not convinced that games will ever be able to pack the same emotional punch as non-interactive media and if they do it won't be because of the graphics (typically books have *terrible* graphics). And I'm not sure this really matters, no one ever criticised chess for not being emotionally engaging, and no one really expects a book to get their heart racing and body tensed like the final level of Ikaruga. Thing is I reckon it's lack of control that allows films and books to have their carefully orchestrated emotional content, if you could turn the Gamecube off and bring Buffy's mum back to life then the emotional impact of the event would, i suspect, be severly reduced (not seen alias so can't bring any examples from that). It's probably for this reason that interactive content and emotional content are generally kept separate in games which do have both (interminable cut-scenes of Final Fantasy et al.).
All this isn't to suggest games wouldn't benefit greatly from an improvement in the quality of story telling and voice acting because it is, generally speaking, shockingly bad.
PS. RE4 just gets better, even once you've finished the main game there's loads of cool stuff to do.
Posted by: tom | July 01, 2005 at 09:48
I think it will come in time. Just as we have rag doll physics and AI, etc. I think we will eventually see decent human behaviour of the type that naturalmotion.com create become standard. They tried in FFX, and halflife 2 is getting there. I just think it needs somebody like a decent director (film wise) to get involved with gaming. One of the things That struck me while watching "the incredibles" for the first time was that creeping into the island base like Mr Incredible, (or even Mrs) would make one hell of a great game/level.
I guess what I'm hoping for is cross polination between current GC movies and games. I think that comparing games to celuloid is a bad idea, since what you see on film is totally controlled and contrived. I think that conceptually we're at the level of "Tin Toy" or "Red's dream" we can do shiny real well, and emotion in short doses. It'll be a while before we crank out "toy story" The sad part of all this however is all of these were the product of one man.
We need more mavericks dammit! :)
Posted by: praxis22 | July 01, 2005 at 14:06
Grim Fandango was wonderful (& gorgeous - Art Deco meets Day of the Dead); Planescape Torment was better. The writing is exceptionally rich & deep, I grew quite fond of the characters & the end made me cry in proper heaving sobs - which is embarrassing to admit, but the game is *that* good. Even now I think.
Posted by: jen | July 01, 2005 at 19:00
Like someone already said, games have had naratives as good as movies for some time. Or at least bits and pieces. But those are adventure games mostly, not shooters or RPGs (there are exceptions).
Emotional content: Quest for Glory IV and V
Story that was made into a book: Betrayal at Krondor
Time travel that's as good as most of time travel movies: Shadow of Destiny
Posted by: Jurgis Bekepuris | July 02, 2005 at 00:16