What is Digg?56 Comments
- Okari, on 10/10/2007, -5/+32Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called bel-air...... - badassninja, on 10/10/2007, -1/+19Anyone who thinks video games don't tell stories as never played Metal Gear Solid One.
- StingerMS, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13This is why I love video games.
- Lane, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12I love games heavy in plot. Ah Deus Ex, your title gives it away but then again most people dont know too much Latin.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11Or Tetris...
- Uranium118, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Starcraft!
- subxero37, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7MGS (the 1998 Playstation version, not the Twin Snakes remake) is still, in my opinion, the greatest game of all time. It has one of the most beautiful storylines of all time, with better-than-top-notch acting. I still love the cast of MGS (David Hayter and the likes) but I just don't think any MGS game will ever live up to the original MGS in terms of storyling, beauty, and acting. Well, and fun, of course.
- SurrealDream, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I'll be the first to admit it, I used to make jokes about it being "Day of sex" before I heard of the term "Deus Ex Machina".
- powrypop, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7yes yes this is all very interesting but it sounds like a piece from a first year college student. these articles are too poorly written to take seriously. what does he even have to say?
- CatalystGhost, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Face facts, he's your friend, you just didn't know it until now.
- dillibob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4i think bioshock and halflife have very great storylines and the weird thing is that the hero is silent in both games. both games that are regarded to have truly amazing stories have main charecters where you dont ever hear them say one word (unless yelling "ugh" when u get shot counts). i guess thats what makes videogames so great huH?
- funkytommyman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"Tell me a story... but don't tell me you're telling it" Usually, when a game lets you know that it is a game, you lose the sense of realism. However, Kranky Kong was able to remind players that the SNES games were in fact, games, without ruining the gaming experience.
- jester30188, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Desu
- ahnonamis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3My friend used to make the exact same joke. I would have sworn at the time he was the only one.
- TangentThought, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3What really sealed the deal in the game (on top of the story, and acting), was the innovation Kojima used in the games. I mean, what other game had a boss battle that reads your every move and makes you counter it by switching the controller port? It even made you part of the story, which was great.
- willk281, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Best Pipe Dream spin-off ever.
- Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It wouldn't be very cost effective to create a single player game where you had ultimate freedom with all the current graphical expectations, the task would be immense. I think when they say that no two people will play exactly the same game, they mean it in more of a Half-Life 2 way, where interactions with certain objects/characters can change somewhat depending on your actions, but the ultimate story will remain the same.
- Unsanity, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I guess he's not very far in Bioshock if he says there aren't any cutscenes. Granted it's still in first person view, but all control is taken away at one point towards the end.
- ubhe, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2tell me a story..... i haven't played many videogames with a deep intriguing story. the stories in games are simple and most of the time irrelevant. you can't compare reading a book to playing games or even watching a movie, games are simply not there yet. half the time the story involves a lone gunman taking on the rest of the world. i love playing games but the industry is stuck with same old cliche stories i don't even have to play them to know how they end. rpgs in this respect do a better job at story telling than most fps (including bioshock). maybe we can break out of the same old uninspired stories for a start.
- noumuon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"single most important book of an enlightened educational system" what about algebra books?
- Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Maybe I'm just a bibliophile, but that's also what I liked about Deus Ex and System Shock 2. In both, the world became immersive because you found so many artifacts both of the larger universe the storyline was set in and also of the tiny details. News clippings, personal notes, etc. ("Oh man, that zombie thing dropped a notepad... Wait that was Janowski! The guy that was mentioned in the other...")
- VirtualCtor, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Also, the game takes away control right at the beginning when you stab yourself with the needle, and the splicers look you over. It's even in the demo!
- Stevethegreat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Obviously you haven't played Xenogears (I've heard that Xenosaga series is also at that caliber). Movies cannot even touch the depth of such a storyline and only some books could have had such intriguing storytelling. Videogames have the potential to become the epitome of art and storytelling, it's only down to the people who will have the ability to make it possible.
- drewfer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I think one of the best stories would be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Great scenery, characters, and the perfect amount of cut-scenes. Still awesome today
- sittered, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Dammit, now I have to play Tetris. Thanks.
- Ayavaron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It also takes control away from you for no apparent reason when you first have an opportunity to save a Little Sister. Half-Life 2 would have been a better example of that kind of storytelling.
- moocow1452, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1From the comments:
Metroid Prime did this exact thing, but with even less narrative than Bioshock. In Metroid, there is almost no narrative at all- everything the player knows he or she learned through scanning various objects. Through scanning, the player reads enemy log books, native lore, computer systems, and about enemies. I found that by the end of the game I knew the entire story behind the game without ever having been explicitly told any of it. It's actually possible to go through the entire game without knowing any of the story just by choosing not to scan anything.
While the other Metroid games also kept storytelling to a minimum, Prime did it on a level that I didn't think was possible, which was one of the biggest reasons why I think the game is such an accomplishment. It's the epitome of implicit narrative. - Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'm fairly sure you can usually only get away with breaking that fourth wall that in a game that has an 'out-there' theme to it, like anthropomorphic apes attempting to reclaim their horde of stolen bananas. Realism isn't exactly the goal of those games however, so breaking that wall down can add to the enjoyment more than detract from it. It'd be much harder to break the fourth wall if you were trying to convey a modern-day war, but if it was a light hearted for-fun experience then it'd be fairly easy.
I think in the end whether you can successfully break the fourth wall in a game has more to do with how serious your game's theme is, rather than the theme itself. - Crazychipmunk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Thats why I loved the original Tony Hawk's Underground, it beat all the other THPS games with a stick. Stories make games engrossing.
- willk281, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1In addition to the great story, stellar gameplay, and insane graphics, the fact that Bioshock actually plays out like a novel is what I like the most. Not to mention I actually get to use my brain while playing. Rarely do you play a game that you keep playing because you have no idea what happens next but you do know it will be tight. There is no boring slack-time or repetition and the tempo of the game is impeccable. Bioshock has got Game of the Year written all over it.
- staticneuron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1ubhe, to put it simply, I seriously do not think you have played enough games. If you have played enough RPG's you wouldn't make a comparison between a video game and a book and there are some action games that haved moved me more than most movies can.
- MagicCake, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You know, I'm STILL trying to find a copy of Barbie Horse Adventure. I swore to my friend a few years ago that I would one day own it, but I had no idea it would become rare (how could anyone predict that??).
- juststeve, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Dugg. But only cuz it's the title of the single most important book of an enlightened educational system et al.
Tell Me a Story By Roger Schan (follow top link from google to "tell me a story" isbn schank) - Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1That story lines, when presented in an appropriate manner, make games more interesting. Oh, and that some game called "Bioshock" or something apparently does this well. Who knew?
- Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1The only option you have is to just ignore it until the hype dies down, which usually takes a couple of weeks. Fear not, Halo 3 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 will conquer the pages soon enough.
- angusm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1There's a reason why I became addicted to "Marathon", rather than any other videogame.
- herogear, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1this is silly - games aren't games because they tell stories. They're games because you play and enjoy them. Monopoly doesn't need a narrative to be qualified as a game - or let me guess, videogames are games that have 'evolved' past such prehistoric conventions?
- Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Gah, session expired directly after posting the comment so I couldn't edit the error -_- Should be:
"It'd be much harder to break the fourth wall and maintain immersion if you were trying to convey a serious modern-day war, but if it was a light hearted for-fun experience then it'd be fairly easy." - caddyalan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I liked my Final Fantasy games for years, but my interest has dropped. I don't want to be lead through a story, especially when it isn't possible to backtrack.
- juststeve, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Knowing how to learn - how people learn - is more important.
- staticneuron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Even though it had a slow start MGS3 seemed to have a grerat storyline during the game. And Shadows of the Colossus has to take the cake in storytelling.... without saying alot.
- Armandeus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0dillibob: "the weird thing is that the hero is silent in both games."
Doesn't he speak a line or two when still on the plane at the start of the game?
Everyone keeps praising BioShock as giving the player freedom, and the hype says no two players play the same game. I'm sorry, but I don't see it. You are railroaded into a preset path just like any other first-person shooter, including Half Life 1 & 2.
I was expecting something more like the later Grand Theft Auto games or the Ultima series. At least you had free roam of the game world to some extent, and could do things other than what the main storyline dictates, even if they weren't that important. Deus Ex gave you more freedom than BioShock, and had a very similar ability upgrade system. You had some branches in the storyline too, but not really that many.
I haven't noticed any major branches in the storyline in BioShock. I'm on the last level listed on the bathysphere screen, so I'm assuming I'm near the end of the game. Maybe I'm missing something really important. - leif77, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0All i have to say is Final Fantasy 7 and any Zelda game. FFX wasnt too bad of a story either. I found the storyline in RE4 to kick a decent enough amount of ass to make me want to keep playing it just to hear it. Though i could care less now that ive played thru it four times just to get the rocket launcher. Who cares about story when you can just go around blowing ***** up? Really...
- crushfan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I like playing football.
- ineptsavant, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I was going to say the same thing when I saw your reply. To ubhe: Xenogears is EPIC i'm talking three volume greatest book of all time if ever made into one. The game isn't the best ever as far as gameplay and mechanics go, but the story has yet to be matched by any form of media I've seen. It's so complicated that the first time I played through it I was greatly impressed, and the 2nd time even more impressed because it actually all works together. No lose ends. Do yourself a favor and play it and excuse the psx graphics.
One of the few games to move me to tears.
-xenogearscultist signing off. - Rogozhin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I like to read books for plot entertainment.
Rogo - MagicCake, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0zerg rush kekekeke ^_____^
- adrenalmedulla9, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Yep, all Legend of Zelda games are amazing because of the storylines. :)
- HotGore, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Some games stories are so good I could play threw them if it was ***** gameplay. Games like Deus Ex, Nexus The Jupiter Incident are some of those games, but they had steller game play to boot.
- Zanevalon, on 10/10/2007, -3/+0I'm tired of all this iPhone..oops i mean Bioshock crap hitting the front page.
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