229: Symphony of Play

[Sewblon]

No discussion of video game storytelling is complete without mention of of Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 was the most significant advancement in video game story telling this decade. By never having you leave the perspective of Gordon Freeman, and having him remain silent throughout, you really felt like you were the protagonist. It created a level of immersion that no other game has been able to accomplish, in my opinion.

Take, for instance, the first section of the game when you're on the run. By having the helicopter shoot at you every time you stepped outside, the game slowly created a Pavlovian response. Eventually, when I came to a section where you had to go out into the open briefly, I felt legitimate fear. Think about what an accomplishment that is. It's easy to create a dystopic world where you can see how scary the oppressive regime is, but to actually make you afraid of it, to make you feel like you are being hunted down and not just a hero you identify with. The ability to replace the protagonist with the player is something unique to video games, and it practically creates a whole new paradigm to what art is and how it relates to its audience.

Think about it. For all of history the way artists got their audiences to experience and understand their art was through the vessel of a relatable protagonist. And when done well, this method can make you empathize with the protagonist and feel the emotions they feel. But the emotions are always one step removed, they always go through the middleman of the protagonist, and it's diluted in the process. Now, video games can remove that middleman. The fundamental purpose of the protagonist is completely gone, unnecessary. The paradigm has shifted: instead of trying to create a relatable protagonist to garner an emotional response from the viewer, the goal is now to create a level of immersion deep enough so that the viewer can experience the emotion directly.

This is the reason why video games as an art have such a huge potential. Eventually, when developers realize the power of this, the focus of gaming advancement will be on immersion, rather than photo-realism. The way you control and view the game will become more and more immersive, and one day they will probably be something like virtual reality.

I fear that I must disagree, Gordon Freeman killed the bad guys, but in all other narrative respects, he(and by extension the player) are non-entities, the NPCs are still the ones telling the story.(not that it detracted from my enjoyment of the game at the time.) OP It was an interesting read, but I think your definition of the word "story" is too broad, I see pictures in my head and experience certain emotions when I listen to music that I like, or play it on my guitar, but that isn't the same thing as a story.

 

[mjhhiv]

I listened to A Life Well Wasted for the first time today, and while I was listening to that, this topic occurred to me (I'm not sure why A Life Well Wasted triggered it, but whatever). Totally awesome that this showed up while I was thinking about it. Anyways, I really enjoyed this article, and agree with it.

 

[Miral]

I think cutscenes that remove control from the player have their place, but for immersion, they don't really help. Games like Half-Life, Bioshock, or Dead Space do well to maintain immersion by never shifting the perspective, and it seems a silent protagonist is a common theme. I don't think that's absolutely necessary, though, as I found Prey to be quite immersive, even if it had some flaws. It was telling a simple alien-abduction story, and the player character's responses always seemed legitimate for what was happening around him.

Yes. The silent protagonist is a pet peeve of mine; I can't think of a single game where it actually added anything useful, and several where it was just ridiculous (and yes, that includes HL2 -- why the heck would Gordon Freeman, a known character with known [well-educated] background, mysteriously remain mute for the entire game? Even when being directly asked questions? Maybe the mic in his HEV suit is broken, but that doesn't explain why he's silent before he gets it).

A few games are a little more on the fence (eg. Dragon Age), by putting words into the mouth of the protagonist although leaving out the actual voice acting. This is a little better (at least they're not inexplicably mute), but it just seems lazy.

Prey is a good example of a game that took the other approach, having a fully-voiced character and thus a "real" story. (There are others, of course.) I much prefer this, when I can get it; it's even better when it does support some variability in the protagonist (eg. Mass Effect).

I fear that I must disagree, Gordon Freeman killed the bad guys, but in all other narrative respects, he(and by extension the player) are non-entities, the NPCs are still the ones telling the story.(not that it detracted from my enjoyment of the game at the time.)

Exactly.

 

[lacktheknack]

That explains the humongous appeal of music and rhythm games... we've been conditioning ourselves to them all along!

 

[copycatalyst]

Prey is a good example of a game that took the other approach, having a fully-voiced character and thus a "real" story. (There are others, of course.) I much prefer this, when I can get it; it's even better when it does support some variability in the protagonist (eg. Mass Effect).

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call Prey's story more "real" than HL2, but HL2 is all told by the setting, the sights you see, and the NPCs. So while Gordon's mute behaviour requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief, the rest more than makes up for it (to me).

I fear that I must disagree, Gordon Freeman killed the bad guys, but in all other narrative respects, he(and by extension the player) are non-entities, the NPCs are still the ones telling the story.(not that it detracted from my enjoyment of the game at the time.)

Gordon is a bit more than just "the guy who kills baddies." He is seen as a catalyst, a paragon, and a leader (somehow). But I agree that he's sort of a non-character, just a window into the world of the game.

 

[edthehyena]

[quote="Miral" post="6.157444.3926863"The silent protagonist is a pet peeve of mine; I can't think of a single game where it actually added anything useful, and several where it was just ridiculous (and yes, that includes HL2 -- why the heck would Gordon Freeman, a known character with known [well-educated] background, mysteriously remain mute for the entire game? Even when being directly asked questions? Maybe the mic in his HEV suit is broken, but that doesn't explain why he's silent before he gets it).

A few games are a little more on the fence (eg. Dragon Age), by putting words into the mouth of the protagonist although leaving out the actual voice acting. This is a little better (at least they're not inexplicably mute), but it just seems lazy.

Prey is a good example of a game that took the other approach, having a fully-voiced character and thus a "real" story. (There are others, of course.) I much prefer this, when I can get it; it's even better when it does support some variability in the protagonist (eg. Mass Effect).

[\quote]

Except the silent protagonist is rarely silent. The dialog is just skipped over and implied. Like when anyone asks Link what his name is. There's a short pause, and then they say "oh? Link?" which they didn't psychicly pull from Link's silence. Link says it, but there's no need for the player to hear it.

 

[Sewblon]

Prey is a good example of a game that took the other approach, having a fully-voiced character and thus a "real" story. (There are others, of course.) I much prefer this, when I can get it; it's even better when it does support some variability in the protagonist (eg. Mass Effect).

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call Prey's story more "real" than HL2, but HL2 is all told by the setting, the sights you see, and the NPCs. So while Gordon's mute behaviour requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief, the rest more than makes up for it (to me).

I fear that I must disagree, Gordon Freeman killed the bad guys, but in all other narrative respects, he(and by extension the player) are non-entities, the NPCs are still the ones telling the story.(not that it detracted from my enjoyment of the game at the time.)

Gordon is a bit more than just "the guy who kills baddies." He is seen as a catalyst, a paragon, and a leader (somehow). But I agree that he's sort of a non-character, just a window into the world of the game.

Yeah the mythology around Dr.Freeman helped the resistance get off the ground, but what did he personally do of relevance that wasn't a variation of "kill the bad guys"?

 

[Miral]

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call Prey's story more "real" than HL2, but HL2 is all told by the setting, the sights you see, and the NPCs. So while Gordon's mute behaviour requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief, the rest more than makes up for it (to me).

Well, that's kinda what I was getting at. I fully agree that HL2's story is better than Prey's, but that's at least partly because there's more of it, and there's more going on behind the scenes. In terms of the A plot, they're both "aliens are invading, gun them down!", but the Native American spin in Prey seemed more compelling somehow (freshness, maybe?). And it was more emotionally charged, despite being able to predict the major emotional crises well in advance. But Prey didn't have much more than the A plot, and HL2 had quite a few subplots going on. And they capitalised on those well in the following episodes. (Despite how annoyingly long it's taking to get there.)

 

[Booze Zombie]

A sound suggestion... oh wait, that's a pun.

 

[Doug]

I fear that I must disagree, Gordon Freeman killed the bad guys, but in all other narrative respects, he(and by extension the player) are non-entities, the NPCs are still the ones telling the story.(not that it detracted from my enjoyment of the game at the time.)

Gordon is a bit more than just "the guy who kills baddies." He is seen as a catalyst, a paragon, and a leader (somehow). But I agree that he's sort of a non-character, just a window into the world of the game.

The somehow is quite simple...

 

[More Fun To Compute]

For many games, gameplay is quite divorced from any narrative meaning. Of course, there are notable exceptions, and these tend to prove the rule (HL2, Bioshock, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus).

I would disagree with that. You could say that gameplay always has narrative meaning but sometimes it is haphazard, not considered properly or actually works against the story the game is trying to tell. Bioshock is often named as an offender here. I would say that HL2 is fairly neutral with good and bad parts while only the Ueda games you mentioned are properly in tune (too keep up the music analogy.)

It wouldn't be a problem if they just let the game be a game, instead of trying to marry it to a "cinematic" story-telling device.

I think that works. If a piece of music sounds good then it is good and if a game plays well then it is a good game. You can put a layer of meaning on top of that though, like if you play a sad tune then sing a comedy song on top of it then the tune becomes oddly comic. Games do that a lot in my opinion but in an unthinking way by using market proven gameplay then just building whatever sort of cinematic story they want on top of it.

I think cutscenes that remove control from the player have their place, but for immersion, they don't really help.

The more I think about it, the more this cutscenes are bad because they remove control from the player idea sounds like a fallacy. To go back to the music analogy, is music bad when one of the performers stops playing an instrument for a moment and takes in what a soloist is doing? I don't think that removing cutscenes is a bad idea but think that they should not be allowed and enjoyed if they improve a game.

 

[Ollie Barder]

Glad people liked the piece but the rabbit hole does go a lot deeper than people may think. Though due to wordcount and the technical nature of both subjects, the Escapist editorial (wisely) kept my approach as more of a primer.

On the player/musician level the similarity of play is very obvious but on a compositional level both media have profoundly obvious linkages as well.

Specifically, games are "composed" in code and a variety of scripting languages. As a designer, I work in languages like Lua, XML as well as C++. Coders then build the "instruments" which I then compose to in script.

The difference between musical composition at this juncture is that musical instruments don't really change over the ages, whereas in games the "instruments" can change on an almost per game basis - as the technical advancement in the medium means you're constantly having to incorporate newer and broader functional parameters.

The way musical notation is written is also very similar to how games are scripted. In that sense, a designer is more akin to a composer in my eyes rather than a simple source of ideas. As the key is in implementation of the script not just the conceptual impetus that initially fuelled that.

I'd like to write about this in more detail one day obviously, if only to dispel the nonsensical myth on what designers do on a daily basis (personally, I think the title "designer" is a massive misnomer anyway!).

 

[Darkong]

That all made a scary amount of sense.

 

[scnj]

Definitely an interesting read, but I have to disagree. I think that video games should find their own way of telling stories without emulating movies, books, music etc.

 

[Epifols]

I don't buy it. So games have cues as to how a player plays them (some games have terrible triggers: COD4) and not everyone can just play one. Great, so what?

There is a reason being cinematic is good, and the article fails to realize this, GAMES ARE VISUAL! So why therefore, is it wrong to have emphasis on them flowing visually? The article rants on, but does not make that many concrete arguments in it.

And also, why must we even have these categorization? A game can be cinematic, fully interactive, and whatever it is the article wants them to be. If you guys haven't noticed, games incorporate more than one artistic aspect to them. There is interaction, visual art, sound, music and an array of writing in them. We can have all of these at once.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I'd like to write about this in more detail one day obviously, if only to dispel the nonsensical myth on what designers do on a daily basis (personally, I think the title "designer" is a massive misnomer anyway!).

Do you mean how a lot more creative work goes into implementation of gameplay than the initial design or that game designers spend all of their time in meetings about filling in forms properly?

There is a reason being cinematic is good, and the article fails to realize this, GAMES ARE VISUAL! So why therefore, is it wrong to have emphasis on them flowing visually? The article rants on, but does not make that many concrete arguments in it.

Disco lights and paintings are also visual so I'm not sure how cinema has any special claim over games just because video games use visual displays. In fact, for me, comparing games to disco lights broadly is probably more useful than comparing them to films in fine detail. Maybe the important thing is that humans are visual not that cinema and games are both visual.

 

[LeonLethality]

well music has always made the game and music can bring emotions video can't I mean in a sad scene I often don't cry in movies or games but if there is sad enough music to accompany it, well... it can be tear jerking. I find music much more compelling than movies and the same goes for video games

 

[Acidwell]

I don't buy it. So games have cues as to how a player plays them (some games have terrible triggers: COD4) and not everyone can just play one. Great, so what?

There is a reason being cinematic is good, and the article fails to realize this, GAMES ARE VISUAL! So why therefore, is it wrong to have emphasis on them flowing visually? The article rants on, but does not make that many concrete arguments in it.

And also, why must we even have these categorization? A game can be cinematic, fully interactive, and whatever it is the article wants them to be. If you guys haven't noticed, games incorporate more than one artistic aspect to them. There is interaction, visual art, sound, music and an array of writing in them. We can have all of these at once.

Well if you try to emulate cinema then you have the pacing set and you can't take into account people being stuck on a certain part and breaking the flow of the story and therefore losing people interested in the plot.

 

[Epifols]

I don't buy it. So games have cues as to how a player plays them (some games have terrible triggers: COD4) and not everyone can just play one. Great, so what?

There is a reason being cinematic is good, and the article fails to realize this, GAMES ARE VISUAL! So why therefore, is it wrong to have emphasis on them flowing visually? The article rants on, but does not make that many concrete arguments in it.

And also, why must we even have these categorization? A game can be cinematic, fully interactive, and whatever it is the article wants them to be. If you guys haven't noticed, games incorporate more than one artistic aspect to them. There is interaction, visual art, sound, music and an array of writing in them. We can have all of these at once.

Well if you try to emulate cinema then you have the pacing set and you can't take into account people being stuck on a certain part and breaking the flow of the story and therefore losing people interested in the plot.

Only if the devs forget that they are making a game and not a movie. Ultimately I think most of the things that people complain are flaws with games are just implementation, and not intrinsically there.

 

[copycatalyst]

For many games, gameplay is quite divorced from any narrative meaning. Of course, there are notable exceptions, and these tend to prove the rule (HL2, Bioshock, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus).

I would disagree with that. You could say that gameplay always has narrative meaning but sometimes it is haphazard, not considered properly or actually works against the story the game is trying to tell. Bioshock is often named as an offender here. I would say that HL2 is fairly neutral with good and bad parts while only the Ueda games you mentioned are properly in tune (too keep up the music analogy.)

I guess what I was getting at is that gameplay is -almost necessarily- repetitive (from a narrative perspective). In a first person shooter you blast away guy after guy, and this isn't (usually) that important to the story, but it's what makes the game fun. Even smacking the shadow monsters in Ico happens enough to be repetitive from a narrative stance, and the puzzles can be taken the same way. That's the kind of gameplay I was referring to. Don't get me wrong; I don't find these games particularly repetitive, just from a narrative stance.

Oh, and what do you mean Bioshock is named as an offender. Named by whom? I don't think killing splicers is out of character for a guy who finds himself forced with limited options and, shall we say, something unknown compelling him forward.

It wouldn't be a problem if they just let the game be a game, instead of trying to marry it to a "cinematic" story-telling device.

I think that works. If a piece of music sounds good then it is good and if a game plays well then it is a good game. You can put a layer of meaning on top of that though, like if you play a sad tune then sing a comedy song on top of it then the tune becomes oddly comic. Games do that a lot in my opinion but in an unthinking way by using market proven gameplay then just building whatever sort of cinematic story they want on top of it.

Well, I agree with the point of adding comedy, but sometimes this may not have been the intention. My favourite cutscene in Devil May Cry 3 (which I like for the gameplay, but shrug at the "story") features Dante running vertically down the side of a tower, slicing up flying enemies in the most stylish badass way possible, leaping off dramatically and then... getting swallowed by a previously unseen giant flying whale.

Also: 'good' plus 'extra layer of meaning' does not always equal 'better.'

I think cutscenes that remove control from the player have their place, but for immersion, they don't really help.

The more I think about it, the more this cutscenes are bad because they remove control from the player idea sounds like a fallacy. To go back to the music analogy, is music bad when one of the performers stops playing an instrument for a moment and takes in what a soloist is doing? I don't think that removing cutscenes is a bad idea but think that they should not be allowed and enjoyed if they improve a game.

Your analogy is more akin to a co-op game with a section that one man goes solo while the other watches. If you must match the music analogy, a game with cutscenes is like a man playing a player-piano who sits back every now and then to let the piano do its own thing.

And by no means do I think all cutscenes are bad. It depends on the type of game. I just think for immersion, taking the control/camera away is like nudging at the fourth wall. Games like HL2, Bioshock, and COD make use of in-game scripting and cues to the player to draw the eye so he won't miss it. So you get the coolness of an impressive visual event without the immersion breaking forced shift in perspective.