Shooter Stories-can they be better?

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Look at Modern Warfare 3, the logical holes of a disgraced party leader ordering an army he has no official control over to invade ALL of Europe at once would leave Russia quite exposed to counter attack. Never mind that the Soviet symbol they use for anything Russian (on one map it's even on streetlamps) was officially retired over 20 years ago.

Halo has been interesting, in the early 2000's we thought that crash-landing on an alien ringworld was awesome, and it was new at the time, and the story was pretty solid, when Halo 2 came along, people said that switching between the Arbiter and Master Chief made the game confusing, but I happened to like that, as it provided more depth to the motives of each character.

So armed conflict between two global superpowers is far-fetched, but space marines battling aliens on a galaxy-killing weapon is perfectly plausible?

I know what you're saying though fella, plots can be as far fetched as they like as long as they're watertight. The interesting thing is although the plots of MW3 and MW2 are ridiculously over-blown Hollywood crap, the plot of MW1 stands up as a pretty good example of how things should be done.

 

[4RM3D]

I've also mentioned this earlier in a thread I made:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.334710-Lets-talk-about-games-and-the-lack-of-good-stories

In short, I agree. But it ain't just shooters. Most games have this issue.

 

[JemothSkarii]

*points at The Darkness*
YES! LOOK AT IT!
...It made me cry...I love it

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Of course they can, just like action movies can still have good stories.

I think less is usually more in both of those cases, though. Shooters are primarily about action, so a good shooter story won't be about a lot of long-winded cutscenes or conversation trees. It's possible to convey story through action, and I think that the additional context a good story provides generally makes the action more satisfying. Of course, this requires developers to think more about their mechanics, because telling a story through action in a video game means using everything from the scenery to the difficulty curve to convey information.

 

[Fishyash]

MW3 proves you don't need a good story to make the most successful video game of all time.

It's all about action, multiplayer and good marketing.

 

[Terminate421]

Well of course the stories for Call of Duty/Battlefield/Halo are going to be generic and bland,

I really do not understand the criticism leveled at Halo's story. The original Halo had one of the best stories for any game I had seen in a long time. Humanity is in the midst of a struggle against a religiously fanatic enemy, bent on destroying them. In the midst of their war they stumble upon an ancient relic neither of them understand and in-turn unleash an ancient enemy that they can hardly hope to defeat. The relic turns out to be a force of both destruction and creation, akin to the Hindu Deity Shiva, only in a technological form. This relic turns out to be one of the only remnants of a galactic civilization that had thrived until they encountered the same enemy that the Humans and Covenant are now struggling against.

This is especially perplexing to me when people praise Half Life for its story. HL and HL2 had only the smallest scraps of story and plot elements to drive it along. An enemy with no character development uses a portal to enslave humanity and a silent protagonist saves the day. How many times has this been rehashed? But time and time again I see Halo ripped apart for what, to me, is an epic story while HL and HL2 get massive praise when all they did was take the basic story from Doom and made it about a scientist instead of a marine and aliens instead of demons.

I am now going to quote you when ever ANYONE bashes the Halo franchise. This is why the Halo games sit at the #2 part of my top ten list of games.

 

[boandpop]

I'm just going to say No One Lives Forever. That was compelling (and hilarious).

 

[Batou667]

I mean, Shooters as a genre are pretty standard at this point, you have a gun, maybe a knife, some health, and loads of ammo and things to shoot, it's all there, but I wonder why shooter stories are usually so contrived.

Because they're shooters, and whatever turns the plot takes, the solution is going to involve shooting stuff. The gameplay to some extent dictates the context. There's no way "Pride and Prejudice: The Videogame" would ever be a shooter (unless it was a parody), intelligent prose and characterisation be damned, the concepts just aren't compatible.

That's not to say that shooters should ever be excused for having BAD stories, or plotlines full of holes, or a supporting cast of hackneyed stereotypes.

Examples of Doing It Right? Max Payne series, Half Life series, most of the Halo games.

Examples of Doing It Wrong - I hate to say it, but probably Gears series. Great games, but the plots are two-dimensional to say the least, and full of contrived elements. I'd still rather play Gears than Half Life 2, though - a good story only goes so far, they're shooters after all!

 

[Wolfram23]

Well of course the stories for Call of Duty/Battlefield/Halo are going to be generic and bland,

I really do not understand the criticism leveled at Halo's story. The original Halo had one of the best stories for any game I had seen in a long time. Humanity is in the midst of a struggle against a religiously fanatic enemy, bent on destroying them. In the midst of their war they stumble upon an ancient relic neither of them understand and in-turn unleash an ancient enemy that they can hardly hope to defeat. The relic turns out to be a force of both destruction and creation, akin to the Hindu Deity Shiva, only in a technological form. This relic turns out to be one of the only remnants of a galactic civilization that had thrived until they encountered the same enemy that the Humans and Covenant are now struggling against.

This is especially perplexing to me when people praise Half Life for its story. HL and HL2 had only the smallest scraps of story and plot elements to drive it along. An enemy with no character development uses a portal to enslave humanity and a silent protagonist saves the day. How many times has this been rehashed? But time and time again I see Halo ripped apart for what, to me, is an epic story while HL and HL2 get massive praise when all they did was take the basic story from Doom and made it about a scientist instead of a marine and aliens instead of demons.

I am now going to quote you when ever ANYONE bashes the Halo franchise. This is why the Halo games sit at the #2 part of my top ten list of games.

I don't disagree that Halo had a good story. HOWEVER, I think what made the HL 1 and 2 stories was the cast of characters. There was just a lot of interesting people along the way. While most of them weren't very well developed, they were none the less very well written characters with great voice acting. There's only so many stories that can be told, but it's the cast that really makes it interesting IMO.

(edit: quote messed up)

 

[let's rock]

The deus ex series and bioshock are two worth naming

 

[JoesshittyOs]

I actually was very impressed by Modern Warfare 3's campaign story. It was slow and generic at first, but it picked up around the half way point, and I ended up realizing I wasn't playing it to play it, but I was playing it to get to the next set piece and cut scene.

I found myself caring for most of the characters I was playing with, even the rather boring Delta team who kinda surprised me towards the end. The way it tied all the other MW campaigns in was actually really nostalgic and appreciative. They really brought in the heavy guns, and even though I didn't give two shits about the campaign before hand, it ended up really kinda striking deep and I actually felt very satisfied when it ended.

Sure they can be better. Everything can. But people have to realize that with things like Call of Duty and Half Life where you see almost everything through the eyes of the protagonist are actually very unique ways of telling stories

 

[Worgen]

Cod did allot of damage to the story, it make publishers put most of the focus on multi and kind of locked shooters in a modern desert warfare environment and there is a real limit to how much of a story you can tell in that.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

MW3 proves you don't need a good story to make the most successful video game of all time.

It's all about action, multiplayer and good marketing.

Well, as I've just said in my other post, I respectfully disagree. I think the Single Player campaign could actually stand alone this time around.

 

[Swyftstar]

I don't really want my shooters to have good stories. It would be like wanting great dialogue in porn.
As far as Bioshock goes, I don't really consider that a shooter. Bear with me now. There are games that are shooters, ie, their sole and total purpose is for you to shoot wave after wave of enemies. I don't really need War and Peace to get me through that and it would annoy me because I would be spending too much time reading/watching story and really want to get back to shooting stuff. I've stopped playing games because of this. Games like Bioshock, Halflife and such I consider action/adventure games. I don't consider the sole purpose of those games to be shooting wave after wave of enemies. I consider them more as games where shooting is one of the mechanics used in gameplay. Kind of like how you do a ton of driving, even some races, in a GTA game but I wouldn't consider it a racing game. I know it kind of sounds like double talk but you can't deny there is a real difference in feel between Bioshock's mood and termperment and CoD's.

 

[Hennofletch]

Of course they can be better but no company will invest money in an area that has no return. Until the consumer votes with their wallet and only buys games with a compelling story, you get the same old same old.

Vote with your feet folks.

 

[Exile714]

You know what I like about CoD's stories? They let me use my imagination. For instance, people say it's a plot-hole that:

Spoiler

Makarov ordered the attacks in Europe

but I just IMAGINED that:

Spoiler

after the Russian president was captured, the Vice President (the guy on the plane who Alena doesn't like) who clearly is more hawkish and was maybe colluding with Makarov, ordered the attacks

Is it Shakespeare? No. Is it even Half-Life? Nope. But I like that the story is left relatively unfilled so, after completing the game, I can fill in the blanks myself.

But I guess videogames ruined you guys' imaginations, so you're left with a lot of blanks and that makes you upset. Well, Super Mario Bros. left me feeling that way too and I just dealt with it.

 

[repeating integers]

I don't really want my shooters to have good stories. It would be like wanting great dialogue in porn.
As far as Bioshock goes, I don't really consider that a shooter. Bear with me now. There are games that are shooters, ie, their sole and total purpose is for you to shoot wave after wave of enemies. I don't really need War and Peace to get me through that and it would annoy me because I would be spending too much time reading/watching story and really want to get back to shooting stuff. I've stopped playing games because of this. Games like Bioshock, Halflife and such I consider action/adventure games. I don't consider the sole purpose of those games to be shooting wave after wave of enemies. I consider them more as games where shooting is one of the mechanics used in gameplay. Kind of like how you do a ton of driving, even some races, in a GTA game but I wouldn't consider it a racing game. I know it kind of sounds like double talk but you can't deny there is a real difference in feel between Bioshock's mood and termperment and CoD's.

I don't agree with that - to use the tried-and-tested Musical Analogy™, this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYiahoYfPGk] and this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z98xcWa_NAw] are very different songs in terms of mood, style, and just about everything, yet they are still both part of the same genre (Progressive Rock). If you tried to classify everything into different genres based on mood and temperament, you'd end up with way too many genres.

 

[Swyftstar]

I don't really want my shooters to have good stories. It would be like wanting great dialogue in porn.
As far as Bioshock goes, I don't really consider that a shooter. Bear with me now. There are games that are shooters, ie, their sole and total purpose is for you to shoot wave after wave of enemies. I don't really need War and Peace to get me through that and it would annoy me because I would be spending too much time reading/watching story and really want to get back to shooting stuff. I've stopped playing games because of this. Games like Bioshock, Halflife and such I consider action/adventure games. I don't consider the sole purpose of those games to be shooting wave after wave of enemies. I consider them more as games where shooting is one of the mechanics used in gameplay. Kind of like how you do a ton of driving, even some races, in a GTA game but I wouldn't consider it a racing game. I know it kind of sounds like double talk but you can't deny there is a real difference in feel between Bioshock's mood and termperment and CoD's.

I don't agree with that - to use the tried-and-tested Musical Analogy?, this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYiahoYfPGk] and this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z98xcWa_NAw] are very different songs in terms of mood, style, and just about everything, yet they are still both part of the same genre (Progressive Rock). If you tried to classify everything into different genres based on mood and temperament, you'd end up with way too many genres.

I don't think there is such a thing as too many genres. There are genres and sub-genres and subs of those in music and there should be in everything else. Prog Rock, itself is a sub-genre of rock. Putting everything that has similar characteristics in one genre holds the danger of limiting things by labelling them and holding them to that label.

 

[Spoon E11]

Mass Effect, Bioshock and The half life series are shooters are they not?

 

[ResonanceGames]

Better stories would be nice, but where FPSes have really dropped the ball is in design. Campaigns like the ones in COD and Battlefield do everything they can to restrict the player so they can throw a bunch of eye candy and bombast at them. I miss games that I could actually play. We haven't really had a good, smart shooter since Crysis -- unless I'm forgetting something. I guess Bioshock 2 was pretty decent as well.