Gaming as a story telling medium?

[xS]

Simple topic. Do you think that gaming will ever be able to compete with other media in the art of story telling? Discuss.

[Tracer]

Depends, I'm not so sure it's a good medium for telling a pre-ordained story. Video games can allow you to work the story how you see fit, shame it's not often used and never to a good degree. I have been entertained by storys in games, but the best one would be the story of me (ie, a game that has a story and I choose how it unfolds, but still in an epic fashion).

[Prince Planet]

There was a decent bit on this topic in the latest XBN - Tim Schafer pointed out how storytelling (actually, the story writing) is sadly lacking in games, an aspect he hopes to dramatically improve with his upcoming Psychonauts.

Good luck to him, but games have a long way to go before they even approach literature as a story-conveying medium. That doesn't mean that we can't appreciate good writing for a videogame story. But I for one don't play games to be told a compelling story.

[Adrian]

Silent Hill and Shenmue for me tell a story in a way above and beyond what a book can ever provide.

[Prince Planet]

Originally posted by Sidez
Silent Hill and Shenmue for me tell a story in a way above and beyond what a book can ever provide.

You should consider moving beyond the pop-up variety.

[Jeremy]

The Shenmue series' story is better than most in gaming, but it's still not up there with written literature, yet.

[red_war_machine]

Originally posted by Sidez
Silent Hill and Shenmue for me tell a story in a way above and beyond what a book can ever provide.

I wouldn't go quite that far. Silent Hill's story is good, but it's not on a part with, say, China Miéville and M. John Harrison's work.

Hmm... well I like to consider myself as a writer, but writing for games is something I always wanted to do - it's a shame that it's not really a real position that I can do anything to work towards; ideally I'd write scripts and tidy up stories for games (hopefully so that companies could avoid travesties on the "Skies of Arcadia scale of shitty plot depth(tm)")

Yeah, I think it's an untapped medium really; very underrated because those who usually enjoy and write for literature won't give it a second glance. Games like Grandia II and (I'm told) Xenosaga really show that it can be done, and games can be used to put across a great plot and lovable characters. It's something I'd like to see developed more in the future, preferably with professional writers and scripters as we have professional game artists today.

It's my ambition to write a game. Not as in programme it, but as in just lay it out and 'write' it as you would a screenplay or a novel.

[Jeremy]

Red, you might want to consider getting RPG Maker/RPG Maker 2, they'd let you accomplish that goal. RPG Maker 2 would probably be easier to do it with though, since it has keyboard support.

[red_war_machine]

Originally posted by Jeremy
Red, you might want to consider getting RPG Maker/RPG Maker 2, they'd let you accomplish that goal. RPG Maker 2 would probably be easier to do it with though, since it has keyboard support.

Yeah, my plan was to give some RPG making programmes a look over when the summer comes. At the moment I really don't have time; I looked at RPGmaker 2K a while ago but found it really complicated - probably as a result of not spending enough time with it, though.

[Jeremy]

Good to hear. I hope you accomplish your goal. I tried doing a full RPG for the original RPG Maker on the PSX, and just gave up after it took eons to enter in a sentence. I'm hoping to finish up my dream RPG with RPG Maker 2.