Localization, Story, And Characterization
At 1UP, Nadia Oxford has written an new in-depth feature named 'Tragicomic', which deals with lots of things, but most of them orbiting around a central point: "Is it possible that we might someday get our fill of good stories through games instead of novels?"
Basically, I think this piece is about how to get stories working better in games, thus the intro: "A polished, edited novel is a story in one its purest forms. By comparison, the stories in videogames tend to be overly dramatic, full of clichés, and plagued with plot holes. The difference in quality can be pinned on several factors, including localization, cultural differences between Japan and America, and the need to balance story and gameplay.... But that doesn't mean game stories are unable to draw in players. Nor do game scripts with original ideas, characters, and careful localization go amiss."
It interviews one or two great people, too: "John Zakour is a humor and science-fiction writer brought on by Frogware to localize 80 Days, a PC adaptation of the famous Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days. "I took a lot of humor from my old novels and put it in the game," Zakour says. "Some people loved it and called it the funniest game of all time. Others hated it. It's really difficult to take dialog in translated English and make it funny while being constrained by what the characters are doing. Still, I love the challenge."" Scattered, but intriguing.
Comments
Poor game stories have long been a peeve of mine. There are some well-written games to be found, but they're easy to overlook amidst the sea of dreck.
The prospects for it improving are grim, however, and will be so long as players will put up with crappy storytelling in games, which is to say, for the foreseeable future.
Posted by: John H. | March 25, 2007 1:33 PM
I enjoy nearly all of Ms. Oliver's pieces.
Posted by: GhaleonQ | March 25, 2007 10:50 PM
Game plots are often dramatic and cliche because it's easy and fast. A good film can take an hour or more to begin understanding characters and atmosphere. It's rare for a game to dedicate even that amount of time to a storyline.
I'm not saying that games shouldn't or couldn't have plots, but more and more I'm thinking that video games aren't really the place for narrative. Even when a game has a good (enough) story, it still seems like a crutch, a way to get you to play through the rest of the game, regardless of gameplay.
Posted by: Jared | March 26, 2007 8:07 AM
I want to add this too:
Half-Life was hailed for revolutionizing video game narrative, because players didn't ever step out of Gordon Freeman's shoes to watch the story unfold. They were merely peppered with occasional bits of information to push things along, and it made for a great in-game story. When the G-Man looks you in the eye at the end of the game and tells you you're going to either work for him or get sent back to Xen to die, you're hit with emotions borne only from working hard through the game itself, only to come to this frightening resolution.
But did it really have a narrative? No -- the entire series of events can be explained in one paragraph.
Posted by: Jared | March 26, 2007 8:22 AM