believer258 said:
Gameplay and challenge should be placed on a pedestal. It isn't that I don't support story in games, for I do very much dearly love a good story in any medium, but it's that a game must never, ever forget that it is very much a game. If we do forget that games are games, all we'll get is something that tries to tell a story as we mash buttons every now and then a la Heavy Rain. A game must have good gameplay and challenge or it really isn't a good game. It may be a good story, which is why I still own and enjoy Mass Effect 1, but as a game it can fail.
Let's use some examples, shall we? What story does Super Mario have? Nearly none, and what little it does is rehashed in every major Mario game. The closest thing to a twist that any of them have had is the baby Bowser from Super Mario Sunshine. Yet every one of the major Mario games (64, Sunshine, Galaxy, New SMB) are critically praised across the board. Same for the Zelda games. Outside of the Nintendo realm of things, look at the original Gears of War. There is a story in that one, but it isn't exactly very strong. It isn't a shining example of what you would use to illustrate to Roger Ebert that games are a great vehicle for stories. What it is, though, is a great game. There are several problems with it, surely, but most of it is pretty genius. As for boss fights, General RAAM is a great example of a modern boss fight that is very hard.
No video game should ever place story higher than gameplay. The opposite shouldn't happen, either, but part of games being art is the game part, and we cannot forget that while in search of a greater story. We mustn't forget that the interactivity is what makes our medium special and different, and while we're quick to spout that, no one can name many games that balance the two perfectly. Mass Effect 2 did it pretty well. Call of Duty 4 also did it quite well. Metroid Prime did it damn well. But what makes our medium special should always take precedence over storytelling because without it, we're just another book or movie with fancy computer graphics and occasional button presses.
And therein lies your problem.
My problem with gameplay and challenge being on a pedestal isn't that story should be there instead, it's that they should be equally valued. Not in all cases, obviously; there's nothing wrong with a game that focuses on just being fun (as you rightfully showed with your examples), nor is there anything wrong with a game that focuses on delivering a powerful narrative over fun gameplay. But the gaming community, and a lot of the art theory surrounding video games, thinks as you do; that gameplay and challenge are "what makes our medium special," as you said. But it's not.
What makes our medium special is
interactivity (a word you used at one point, but not what you were talking about). Not challenge, nor a goal-driven nature, but interactivity on a broader scale. You brought up Heavy Rain as an example of a game that "tries to tell a story as we mash buttons now and then," but this is an inaccurate description. You are right that Heavy Rain is not a gameplay-oriented work, but that does not mean the player's role is diminished; Heavy Rain does not simply tell a story, it allows the player to be part of it. The player decides how the story turns out based on their actions; their choices, their victories, and their failures all determine the outcome. It may not be very game-like, but you simply cannot say it is not taking advantage of the medium's unique abilities. The player's part in Heavy Rain makes it something that could only be made in this medium; make it into a film and it loses the impact that interactivity provides.
What happens is that we get caught up in the "game" part. Fact is, our medium has evolved past that. Not that there is anything wrong with a game, again, but we have turned this medium into so much more than that, yet we stubbornly refuse to explore the areas of interactivity past rigid rulesets and simple win/loss outcomes. This is why moral choice systems, for instance, are still so weak; we continue to assert that each choice must have an absolute good or bad outcome so it can factor into the game-like elements rather than simply letting the player shape the story with their choices. As that Extra Credits episode said, moral choices suddenly become nothing more than gameplay problems with one "right," or most beneficial, solution.
And the fact is, interactivity even on its most basic level lends itself to the game's narrative. The player barely had any real power over the events in Phoenix Wright, for instance, but being in the shoes of the young lawyer still had an affect on the player, forming a connection to the game's protagonist because they are living vicariously through him. And even the smallest bit of interactivity can add to an experience. Referencing Modern Warfare again, I can tell you right now that if you simply watched that last scene in a movie, it would not have been as intense as you pulling the trigger on that controller. Sure, it wasn't difficult. And of course, it was a very scripted sequence. But the player's control, even over small things like that, has an effect no medium does. Similar things can be said regarding many, many moments in the Final Fantasy series. The point it, interactivity can be used very subtly, yet very effectively, and in many, many different ways; it does not need to manifest itself in the form of game-like rules and constant player control to set a work apart from other mediums.
In short, we shouldn't be putting interactivity
ahead of storytelling, we should be using it to
improve storytelling, and there are many ways to do that besides simply inserting a story into the gameplay.
