Gameplay ruining stories

[Dog Pants]

I've been on a roll writing articles today, with one up and another in the pipe to be released at a later date. I'm onto another too but it's only an observation at the moment, a proto-article. I noticed while playing SWTOR that I was loving the stories, but that whenever I had to go outside and kill shit I lost interest. I noticed it again in Mass Effect 3 - I'm really getting into the story, but as soon as I see a bunch of waist high walls and a squad of Cerberus I sag and inwardly think "here we go again". They're just obstacles between me and my story. That isn't to say that combat is bad (although the gameplay is hardly the pinnacle of videogaming in either example), but maybe a more tabletop-like approach would be better in some cases; less combat, but what is there is more interesting and challenging. It isn't to say either that games without combat aren't games either, that I could read a book or watch a film. I enjoy the interactivity of wandering about, branching off on sub-plots, choosing my dialogue. Videogaming is unique in that you can have a profound influence on the story, but yet the focus is always on the endless shooting of things which for the most part remains pretty much identical throughout the game. The new Walking Dead game has apparently bucked this trend, and I plan on catching up with it as soon as I've shot all the men who are waiting to be shot, but one game is a bit of a poor do. Maybe it's just me getting old and dull. What do you bummers think? Anyone anything to add?

[buzzmong]

I actually concur with the sentiments.

It's why I rate Mafia 1 as an awesome game. Yes, it's buggy and the mechanics are a bit shoddy, occasionally very frustrating, but the balance between the story and various action scenes is rather spot on. It helps that the action scenes are part of the story, not just superfluous sections inbetween bits of the story.

Max Payne 1 was similar, in that there was for the most part a reason for the bits of combat (granted, normally Max barging in and disturbing them), rather than it feeling like an obstacle to get around.

I think it's also partly a case of the story being set in an environment, rather than the environment being set up for the story, which marks the difference between combats being tedious obstacles or part of the story itself.

[friznit]

Good point about the story being set in an environment. Anoher title that got the balance right was Vampire The Masquerade, although looking back probably only the first half, which is possibly why I never finished it. I believe what sets gaming experience apart from reading a book or watching a film is the ability to take a side track off the main story and explore something seeminlgy totally random. Dragon's Age Origins was quite good at this - great story, and most of the hack n slash was actually side plots. If you stuck to the main questline it was very slick and well put together, but the subplots provided some good character development that you'd otherwise miss.

Conversely, the Witcher 2 is a classic case of a great story with irritating bits of gameplay that you have to wade through to get to the next storyline. Not helped by the unapologeticly consolish controls and gameplay mechanics that prevent it flowing along.

[FatherJack]

Many of the sandbox-style games, such as Mafia, GTA, Saints Row, Red Dead Redemption and to a lesser degree Fallout would in my view score well at this.

At first it might seem that the main missions, which are usually very linear and are quite frustrating if you can't complete them are the only way the story is told.

As you get more into the game and start doing your own thing though - you begin to not just tell your own story, but discover little extra fragments of the story that the writers left lying around all over the game - in the dialogue of characters walking past, scenes you stumble over and items you find.

Then, the payoff is both with all the trinkets you've found and the practice you've had bumming around is that you can now ace the missions and get all the story and an ending.

The other things those games have in abundance, is variety. While a lot of it is shooting, there are still a lot of ways to go about things. Shooting tyres (or horses) to stop people chasing you, grabbing various things to use as makeshift weapons - all in a real-world-influenced, mostly destructible environment populated by random passers-by - quite a contrast to the shooters of old, where enemies shuffled toward you down a corridor.

[Dog Pants]

Article up on this: http://www.geekinpublic.com/?p=345

[Dog Pants]

This article drawing parallels between the decline of the Western and the decline of shooters has some points in common with the story discussion.