Saturday, August 13, 2005
The Neverending Stories
I just finished Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty earlier this evening. Very good game but as I waited for the final fight my eyes started to roll over a bit as the build up to the fight went on and on. This was just after an intense fight with a neverending army of Metal Gear Ray and you have some adreniline built up. Then right after that you go to a very long cinema to get to a final fight that lasts no more than 10 minutes.
Now is there something wrong when the build up to the fight lasts almost 30 minutes but the fight lasts less than 10? Some would say yes, some would say no, some wouldn't know because they haven't played Metal Gear Solid 2, a game in a series which is notorious for long and numerous movies which all in all last longer in total time than the actual gameplay. Along with other games, particularily your average RPG, should we be concerned that more time is spent watching cinemas than actually playing the game?
Games have always had stories. Even in the early days there were stories. Now unlike today these stories were solely your motivation. Why am I shooting at aliens? Why am I chasing a giant ape up a construction site? Why am I in a world where walking mushrooms roam the earth and plant life gives you fire power-ups? Few games actually gave you their stories in-game, you had to read the manual to answer these questions. A few games such as Metroid, Legend of Zelda, or Final Fantasy gave you a quick interlude about the backstory. They varied in complexity ranging from relatively complex to simple (Ninjas have kidnapped the President!). As we went along game stories got more complex but like the old they never really got in the way of the gameplay. You wouldn't be expected to wait through 10 minutes of dialog before you got to play again. Sure there were a few games like this, mostly RPGs and some PC games, but for the most part gameplay was king and story was still just your motivation or justification for the game you are playing.
Then the Playstation/Saturn/N64 era. While this was a good era for alot of things, it was especially good for stories wherein the story oftentimes became the reason for the game as opposed to the setup for the gameplay. For the first time companies were trying even harder to put emphasis on their stories. Sometimes the stories were decent, many other times it showed that videogame developers had about as much ability to write good material as your average sitcom TV show. Games like Final Fantasy 7-9, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil had complex stories that had twists, turns, and bad dialog. This would have been good if the amount of gameplay hadn't taken a hit. Your average Final Fantasy has 3 times as much time spent watching the characters talk than you actually playing the game's repetitive battle system. Metal Gear Solid when I first played through took me 11 hours to beat my first time. When I played through again, this time skipping all the movies and codec, it took me 3 hours to finish. Resident Evil actually fares well in my mind while there is plenty of story (of dubious quality) the gameplay takes most of your time.
This increase of the importance of story continues to this day. Most games can barely even let you start the game without 10 minutes of movies before you ever get to control the character. Game writers have gotten better but many times stories come off as trite and sometimes just plain boring. Often to me they seem to be happy to say what could have been said in 1 minutes into 3, often times taking you out of the flow of the game which seems against the point.
This is not to say I dislike games with stories. I don't. I just feel that we are getting to the point where many in the industry want to movie makers instead of videogame makers. What I fear is this is going to lead to greater and greater emphasis on story and less and less on the gameplay and making playing a game less of a cohesive fluid activity. If the point of the gameplay is to link stories togethor instead of stories being used to link gameplay togethor some may think to just dump gameplay all togethor and make semi-interactive movies. Yes I am (hopefully) being ridiculous but as a person who feels gameplay should trump everything else in games, the signs seem to be there.
What do I think can be done to put gameplay back in its rightful place as the focus of gaming?
I think that the ratio of story to gameplay has to be put in the favor of gameplay. This means not saying in 3 minutes what could have been said in one. This also means more gameplay which leads to making better gameplay. What I've noticed about many games that have the most complex stories they often have some of the weakest gameplay. You are often limited to what you can do and what you can explore. Metal Gear Solid's creators could have something really special if they did little things to improve their already solid gameplay, particularily when it comes to sneaking which often times feels broken as there are things that happen that you have no control over. A series like Final Fantasy could benefit from more exploration in the overworld, more interactivity in the overworld, and a more interactive battle system, kind of like the one used in Tales of Symphonia where you actually fight the battles in real time as opposed to menu based and waiting for your characters to finally do the action.
I am most certainly not calling for the days of "Ninjas have kidnapped the President" but I am calling for developers to reprioritize gameplay to the top instead of often times 3rd of 4th on the list. Games are and were about gameplay first, we don't require movies to give interaction and we shouldn't have to sit through tedious amounts of movies while we wait to play our games again.
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Now is there something wrong when the build up to the fight lasts almost 30 minutes but the fight lasts less than 10? Some would say yes, some would say no, some wouldn't know because they haven't played Metal Gear Solid 2, a game in a series which is notorious for long and numerous movies which all in all last longer in total time than the actual gameplay. Along with other games, particularily your average RPG, should we be concerned that more time is spent watching cinemas than actually playing the game?
Games have always had stories. Even in the early days there were stories. Now unlike today these stories were solely your motivation. Why am I shooting at aliens? Why am I chasing a giant ape up a construction site? Why am I in a world where walking mushrooms roam the earth and plant life gives you fire power-ups? Few games actually gave you their stories in-game, you had to read the manual to answer these questions. A few games such as Metroid, Legend of Zelda, or Final Fantasy gave you a quick interlude about the backstory. They varied in complexity ranging from relatively complex to simple (Ninjas have kidnapped the President!). As we went along game stories got more complex but like the old they never really got in the way of the gameplay. You wouldn't be expected to wait through 10 minutes of dialog before you got to play again. Sure there were a few games like this, mostly RPGs and some PC games, but for the most part gameplay was king and story was still just your motivation or justification for the game you are playing.
Then the Playstation/Saturn/N64 era. While this was a good era for alot of things, it was especially good for stories wherein the story oftentimes became the reason for the game as opposed to the setup for the gameplay. For the first time companies were trying even harder to put emphasis on their stories. Sometimes the stories were decent, many other times it showed that videogame developers had about as much ability to write good material as your average sitcom TV show. Games like Final Fantasy 7-9, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil had complex stories that had twists, turns, and bad dialog. This would have been good if the amount of gameplay hadn't taken a hit. Your average Final Fantasy has 3 times as much time spent watching the characters talk than you actually playing the game's repetitive battle system. Metal Gear Solid when I first played through took me 11 hours to beat my first time. When I played through again, this time skipping all the movies and codec, it took me 3 hours to finish. Resident Evil actually fares well in my mind while there is plenty of story (of dubious quality) the gameplay takes most of your time.
This increase of the importance of story continues to this day. Most games can barely even let you start the game without 10 minutes of movies before you ever get to control the character. Game writers have gotten better but many times stories come off as trite and sometimes just plain boring. Often to me they seem to be happy to say what could have been said in 1 minutes into 3, often times taking you out of the flow of the game which seems against the point.
This is not to say I dislike games with stories. I don't. I just feel that we are getting to the point where many in the industry want to movie makers instead of videogame makers. What I fear is this is going to lead to greater and greater emphasis on story and less and less on the gameplay and making playing a game less of a cohesive fluid activity. If the point of the gameplay is to link stories togethor instead of stories being used to link gameplay togethor some may think to just dump gameplay all togethor and make semi-interactive movies. Yes I am (hopefully) being ridiculous but as a person who feels gameplay should trump everything else in games, the signs seem to be there.
What do I think can be done to put gameplay back in its rightful place as the focus of gaming?
I think that the ratio of story to gameplay has to be put in the favor of gameplay. This means not saying in 3 minutes what could have been said in one. This also means more gameplay which leads to making better gameplay. What I've noticed about many games that have the most complex stories they often have some of the weakest gameplay. You are often limited to what you can do and what you can explore. Metal Gear Solid's creators could have something really special if they did little things to improve their already solid gameplay, particularily when it comes to sneaking which often times feels broken as there are things that happen that you have no control over. A series like Final Fantasy could benefit from more exploration in the overworld, more interactivity in the overworld, and a more interactive battle system, kind of like the one used in Tales of Symphonia where you actually fight the battles in real time as opposed to menu based and waiting for your characters to finally do the action.
I am most certainly not calling for the days of "Ninjas have kidnapped the President" but I am calling for developers to reprioritize gameplay to the top instead of often times 3rd of 4th on the list. Games are and were about gameplay first, we don't require movies to give interaction and we shouldn't have to sit through tedious amounts of movies while we wait to play our games again.
