Week 8- Storytelling in Games

Games are essentially another media in which we can express ourselves or become immersed in a world. There are many ways that we have told storys in the past such as passing them through familys orally or through the written word, or film. Fundamentally, game storylines are generally structured much like a film or book: characters are introduced and their personality introduced to you and then an interesting situation arises that you can then feel like you are a part of or a spectator of.

I beleive that storyline helps to rescue a game once you become uninterested in its mechanics. It acts as a way of motivating you, or even inspiring you to carry on playing. In a sence, it makes the game have purpose therefore giving you an ambition to fulfil and secrets to be unlocked.

However, I don't beleive that the storyline has to be spoon fed in order for the player to become immersed in the story. Half-Life 2 is a game which I have played a couple of times, and although I am not 100% sure what is going on all the time and the political reasoning for the battle between the alien forces and the rebels, I am drawn in to the game by the fantastic use of character.

One of the writers for Half-Life 2 said in an interview that he wished to create characters that people care about. To quote an interview with Gamasutra in relation to characters "We want to convey their sense of humor, their fears and vulnerabilities, and create a sense that they have an interior life and an existence that continues when they’re offscreen."
My personal opinion is that it is the curiosity that a player experiences through storyline which magnifies the experience. As human beings, we are curious to hear new things, or have the answers to questions: what storys in games do, is ask us questions and then give us the means in which to find the answer, if we are good enough!
Ultimately I think that games can be enjoyable without storyline but that it drastically shortens the experience when a game is lacking any narrative direction. For example, having bought Brain Training for the Nintendo DS, how many of us are still playing that today? Or willing to go back to it for it's gameplay? Although a great idea and a useful tool, as a game it fails when it becomes boring and stale due to lack of direction and goals beyond having a "brain age" of 21... whatever that means! As a fan of story telling, (a human) I think that storytelling in games is just as important as storytelling in films or indeed any other media.