Original Comment by: Olumide Edu
Ok, before I start let me state that storytelling is one of the I advocate for most in video games and I am in no way trying to speak against it with what I am about to say. That said, I have a few problems with your article.
Narrative is immensely important. I believe that every kind of art form needs some form of narrative. As a result, I believe that storytelling is very important to gaming. When a game lacks any kind of compelling narrative, I often feel hollow. As if I am wasting my time. An example of this would be late 2004 when I got myself two games for my Xbox: Ninja Gaiden and Knights of the old Republic. I started playing both games at about the same time and initially, I had alot of fun with both. However, after a while I completely forgot all about Ninja Gaiden and allowed myself to be immersed in the world of Kotor.
Two weeks later, after I had finished the game twice, I then went back to Ninja Gaiden and continued having a blast... as far as gameplay was concerned. When it came time for my story fix however, I was deeply dissapointed. It was generic, badly acted tripe. After a while, though I was still having fun (kinda), I began to wonder what the whole point was. Needless to say, I enjoyed the other game much more.
Another example, is when I played another Bioware game by the name of Jade Empire. I didn't like this game nearly so much as the other, mainly because the story just wasn't as good. The voice acting was also meh.
Yes, narrative is a huge part of whether I judge a game as good or not... alot of the time. The truth is that the are quite few games that do require any serious narrative to be compelling.
For example, I recently played the game Guitar Hero. That is one game that truly surprised me. I did not expect to have nearly as much fun as I had with that game. I am talking about mind invading overloading fun. I have no doubt in my mind that I will come back to that game 15 years later and still have a blast.
I find it unfair how you use the popular scape goat, FPS, here. The truth is that there are many games outside that genre that people still go back to play even though they lack any kind of narrative inclination whatsoever. The Pong, Tetris and Pacman games of the world. These games endure and there are many who would swear by thier greatness. Truth is there are always going to be those narrative free games that endure. I mean how many centuries has game like chess been around?
I know what I have said thus far appears to be tangential, but I am just trying to point out that not all lasting game experiences require narrative.
As far as graphics are concerned, there are many levels to this. I initially tried to categorise them but I found them all too intertwined, so I decided to just speak of them as one unified thing.
Now, I hate it when people just bash on graphics. Graphics are the favorite scapegoat because of the stereotypical way they are often presented. To most people graphics = shiny. To a certain degree that is true. I mean when people refer to graphics the first thing they think about it is pure visual stimulous (myself included). How it looks. That said I think that there is more graphics than how they look. I also think conversely that how they look IS important as well.
And what is wrong with a little visual stimulous? It may be purely visceral but it still helps the experience as a whole. It is sort of like when that writer spends a great deal of time describing a scene in great detail to provoke an emotional reaction.
I would like to point out that there is a difference between, poor visuals and out dated graphics. I recently played Chrono Trigger for the first time and while the graphics were certainly outdated (even for sprites) the game was still quite beautiful. This helped pull me into the game quite quickly along with the fabulous music. They helped set the mood and acted as a tool of narrative. They helped send a message.
If a game so technologically backwards as CT can still be so beautiful and can still tell such a great story though dialogue and visual based narrative then why do we need to improve graphics?
Visual Subtlety.
There is comment made by one of the Bioware developors that I particularly like. He basically said that in past games they would to almost hit the player over the head to call his/her attention to certain things. In Jade Empire, when a character was confused, said character would lean back, frown, scratch his head in the most ridiculous manner and do some kind of wierd swiveling manuever. In CT they would merely jump up and down. Wouldn't it be far better and much communicative (as opposed to distracting) if said character could show this with a collection of far more convincing and subtle gestures?
Showing is always better than telling from what I have learned and what I have observed personally. Even in literature, this is the case. Better to let the reader figure something out intuitively than tapping him on the shoulder and screaming "THAT DUDE IS ANGRY, DUDE!" The problem here is that video game technology is no where near sophisticated enough to tell that kind of visual narrative.
I mean you mentioned Shodow of the Collusus. That is the kind of game you cannot tell with just words. That is a visual storytelling if the there ever was such a thing. I do believe in narrative and I do believe that words/dialogue will always have a place in video games as narrative tools, however video games are a visual medium and as such should be able to take advantage of that fact as well. I don't think you should dismiss visual narrative because that would be dismissing a part of our interaction with the real world. The man who writes that insightful book probably saw (or heard etc) alot of it first.
Personally, I would rather see my character emote than have a line of dialogue scroll under the screen telling me "She's crying while also expressing a dash of rage" as I stare into her vacuous eyes.
There are other ways in which graphics are important like in enabling gameplay. Fight Night 3 is a good example of this allowing for hudless gameplay and in Splinter Cell it allowed for a whole new kind of play.
They also help immersion in games like Elder Scrolls. If you are the hero and this is your world, then damn it should feel believable. Trees should sway, animals should run around, the sun should rise and set etc. All these things, indirectly help the narrative. I can tell you that I would rather do that than imagine. If imagine was what I wanted to do I would go back to playing table top RPG's.
I am not sure if got all the points I wanted to get out but if I didn't, I will come back later and deal with them.
