195: String Theory: The Illusion of Videogame Interactivity

[reverendanthony]

I wrote this article before GDC, and listening to a couple of lectures on Far Cry 2 by Jonathan Morin and Clint Hocking has made me think about the exact opposite of what this article focuses on.

Taking away interactivity can lead to incredible experiences, but if you can provide a consistent environment in which the player can create their OWN experiences, with just enough structure to provide really cool moments for the players (taking out faction leaders in FC2, for instance), then that might be even better. We're not at a place where this has been done as efficiently as something like MGS4's microwave corridor or HL2's White Forest, but, as flawed as something like FC2 is, that could be an equally beneficial area to examine further.

 

[man-man]

I remember hearing (somewhere... damned if I can find a source for it) that throughout HalfLife 2, it'll subtly tweak the amount of damage you receive to try and keep you alive for as long as is believable - you take less damage per hit when you're low on health, but not to the point where you're unable to die, or that you'd notice unless you were carefully taking notes on how much damage everything does.

Less player death means more time spent on the fun parts, more "just a little further, need to find health" tension, less repetition of parts you've already played through, I approve. If it were too blatant it'd feel like it was sucking all the challenge out of the game, but they seem to have it finely honed to the point where you always feel challenged, but don't feel that it's impossible.

 

[Dexter345]

Jon Blow would call these two instances "dishonest" to the player. I say, who cares if they're being dishonest, they found a way to deliver some of the most thrilling narrative sequences without turning out an unskippable, uninteractive cutscene. They should get props, and this should be emulated, not denounced.

 

[BrotherRool]

No-one here btw has right to talk about the Microwave scene unless they played about it before hand. That and the final fight in MGS4 are some of the most awesome gaming EXPERIENCES that I've ever played. And when you play it it's pretty obvious that's it's more movie than game. It's not a trick it's the most dramatic accumulation of an entire series ever seen. It felt awesome.

If I lost it would become annoying not awesome. In fact I'm surprised to here that you could lose. It was basicalyl a QTE as they should be done, it was rewarding and emotionally involving. Not tacked on.

This is good but it has to be done at the right time and not too often. It';s a solution to the hard vs dramatic boss problem put in an Escapist article a few weeks ago,

 

[hamster mk 4]

Fiddeling arround with the variables to get the right cinimatic outcome is something I have come to expect from story driven games. However the best video game stories I feel come out of emergent game play. They may be less complex or emotional than the one scripted in the studio, but they are infinatly more satisfying simply because they were not made in a studio.

 

[Uncompetative]

If I want a narrative I will read a novel. I don't read novels.

 

[dagens24]

This article is trying to be philosophical for the sake of being philosophical. Everything is a lie, you either have the choice to do something or not to do something. There is no certainty in anything. Reality is a lie. We have choice, but choice doesn't change anything because nothing matters in the end. Existence leads to non-existence. Everything that is here came from nothing and will become nothing. Time itself didn't exist at one point, and in the future it will cease to exist itself. Reality is illusion.

 

[BLOONINJA 503]

Get an avatah!

Nah for reals anthony. We would love you to frequent here in the escapist.

Also, cocks.

:O Like you didn't see that coming.


on topic: I think we as gamers shouldn't dwell on that, in fact most don't. We take the medium as entertainment, at least for the most part, and not as a home away from home anyway. Narrative in videogames isn't regarded as on par to books and T.V. because of the simple fact its on a game: an activity you engage in for amusement or diversion. No matter how much we want it to be, no matter how much it can be.

But I just skimmed through your article, so I probably missed the main or some points. :]

 

[Therumancer]

Well, the thing is that some of the Western games mentioned aren't really RPGs. Bioshock for example is a shooter. Fable and Mass Effect are "Action RPGs". The genere being differant and having differant expectations, which is why JRPGS which follow RPG convention are so heavily criticized, action-type games from Japan are treated with differant standards.

Typically a lot of Western RPGs will give you an event you need to achieve and let you run around the "sandbox" deciding when, and oftentimes even how you achieve that goal. Your following a plotline and act within the context of it, but aren't typically forced down the same pathway the same exact way and at the same exact time as everyonce else.

Going back to old games like "Might and Magic" you were pretty much given a general hint that there might be something cool in "The Inner Sanctum" at the center of the Astral Plane, but no real set direction on how to accomplish this though there were specific things that needed to be done (and clues on what those were). You could for example wander outside the cities from the very beginning and get pwned horribly, do the dungeons more or less in order or skip around and do them in whatever order you want, or simply go tearing accross the countryside looking for the wierd stuff scattered all around.

The original "Wasteland" also followed a convention similar to this.

More modern games like "Oblivion" and "Fallout 3" take it to a whole new level, pretty much giving you infinite freedom to just wander around the game world doing whatever you want within the context of the mechanics/storyline and even quite a bit of lattitude in how you go about completing the story directives.

JRPGs generally do not do this, most action games do however, so it's forgivable in the context of say "Bioshock" where you take the levels more or less in order, and it's kind of set what you could potentially have at any paticular step in the progression. It's very rare when an action game like "Grand Theft Auto" provides any kind of sandbox enviroment which is why that series and it's imitators have suceeded.

As far as the compromise between story and interaction, I do not feel that the two have to be kept seperate at all. Yes it can be hard to design a game that has good writing and freedom but it can be done (and has been) and simply put the benchmark for games is rising.

I think there is only a "Debate" on the subject because a lot of game develpers understand what it's going to take to produce good games, and a lot of them really wish it was otherwise because it makes their job easier when they only have to worry about one or the other.

A bit of a ramble, hopefully I'm not totally off kilter in the way I responded here. Probably quite redundant with what was already said.

>>>----Therumancer--->

 

[RedSwir1]

The illusion of choice is the main message delivered in Metal Gear Solid 2. SPOILERS Below:

Raiden thinks he's saving New York from a nuclear disaster, but his entire mission is in fact a fabrication meant to replicate the events of the first Metal Gear Solid. The colonel, whom Raiden eventually discovers isn't real, constantly refers to the mission as "the simulation."

Towards the end, Raiden is trying to find out who the Patriots are, and the ultimate answer in that game is that the Patriots were the ones in control of what you could and couldn't do the whole time, right down to the final battle with the antagonist that you don't even want to fight anymore because you don't disagree with his aims. In that sense, Hideo Kojima is The Patriots.

 

[Grand_Poohbah]

I liked the article a lot. The bit about metal gear solid made me sad that I never got to play the games. Unfortunately I don't own 1 playstation system.

 

[incoherent]

One of the big problems with game storytelling compared to movie storytelling is that in a game, you have to make sure the player actually sees the story that you've so lovingly created. If they get stuck on the boss of level 3 and quit, then you could have the most amazing story ever, and that player will never notice; all they'll know is that the game was too hard for them. (Imagine if you went to see a movie, and every 10 minutes was a pop quiz, and if you failed you got escorted out of the building.) But if you make the game too easy, then you run the risk of losing the interactivity element which makes games different and interesting.

(I say "run the risk" because this isn't necessarily the case. Killer7 is one of my favorite games from a storytelling perspective, but it's not a difficult game at all, and the gameplay isn't even particularly interesting. And yet the Big Reveal doesn't lose any of its emotional impact.)

Valve feels very strongly that everyone should be able to see the story progress (or, in this case, that everyone should see the ending), and that everyone should feel like they accomplished something, no matter their skill level, because they feel that the story is an important element of the game. (I think it's in the Episode 1 commentary where a Valve team member points out that they placed a couple of enemies in a particular location just so you'd be looking there when a scripted event played nearby.)

 

[Zergyrush]

I honestly disagree with the article. If the player doesn't want the story maybe he won't enjoy being made to watch it? And if you can't trust the player to play the way you want maybe you shouldn't make games? If you ask me the best example of a good story in a game is God Of War. The story actually appears in the game rather than just being cut scene only. The grave keeper isn't just another guy he saves you when you go to Hades. Pandora's box isn't just another plot point but an item you use to become a giant in order to defeat Ares. That kind of thing is what makes a game's story powerful and well told. When you make the player sit down in a room and won't let them get up to walk out that's not in game storytelling. That's trying to make a CG movie.

 

[Quelthazar]

Pretty much everything I would say is said here. I don't care if the game is obviously linear. As long as the gameplay is good with nice graphics and good effects that make playing it interesting. Maybe sometimes i would like to play something that is non-linear or gives the illusion that it is non-linear. But then i don't all new games to be like that and if they are trying to do games with this illusion then i don't care. As long as the illsuion isn't broken and if i happen to find out about it then ok. But the worst is that it'll be broken in public. The games fake illusion worked well enough was it discovered or not. I play games that look like you have free-will over everything and sometimes i feel it is real but there are also some games that i see that are trying to creat a illusion. So what! If that is what makes people happy then why not.

 

[MrLefty]

The Half Life trick was clever. The MGS4 one was just cheap. GTA4 pulled a similarly cheesy one in the last mission - they were aiming for cinematic, they just achieved annoyance.

When will developers learn that "PRESS X TO NOT DIE" is simply not fun?

 

[Frybird]

In the end, i like these illusions, unless they feel very fake, like in RE5 for example:

Spoiler

There is this room where there are glass cells with Lickers on either side (wich are blind but can still hear you), and you are supposed to sneak past them by moving slowly.

If you don't do that, the lickers will break out and you have to fight them.
If you DO that, you will come to a door that, for whatever reason, will be kicked in by the protagonist, and so the lickers will break out and you have to fight them.

Okay, the fight is a bit easier but you can't help but feel very cheated by that

I think the problem about interactivity is that the more freedom you have, the more you do things that break the atmosphere that the creators intended.

So, if the Developers want to tell a story with gameplay, they don't have much of a choice other than guiding you with a more or less visible hand, with the illusion of freedom.

The difference between a great storytelling and a bad one is how much the strings are visible...

 

[Fortesque]

Great article.
I loved the end of HL2: Ep2 that fight was fantastic.

Yet am i the only one who though the end of MGS4 was totally ruined by the unnecessary close up of Snakes ass when he was crawling on the ground.

 

[Kiutu]

Morrowind didnt do that to me. Could even kill the plot characters and end up in a 'doomed' world. Oblivion however tried to do that, was annoying though, damn unkillable quest characters. A fun game is a fun game though, and well, magicians are really just illusionists making things appear one way when it is a trick, but they are still entertaining, so even if there was a trap-door under the thing, it was still fun to see.

 

[Daymo]

As much as I liked the microwave scene in MGS 4, the unscripted fight with Liquid at the after was even better. Actualy dieing in the fight shocked me, I though it would have been a scripted unloseable fight as well. Developers just need to get the mix right, so there is always the thought that an event can kill you.